#This movie has had an impact on my life over a decade later.
Text
Introducing your station master & Magma event host!
Since there's already a lot of passengers visiting this station and I haven't spared much time to get to know my fellow submas fans over Tumbrl yet, an introduction would be in place!
I'm Jun, nice to meet you! *offers a hand for for a shake* I am a devoted submas artist & a monthly Magma event host! I go by ChooChooBoss everywhere (Twitter/Bsky/Twitch/Ko-Fi)!
This will be a long post! I will write a short intro as well which you can just skim through but here is a more in depth view how I got into submas, my other interests and life in general, in case you'd wish to know more about your conductor on this silly train!
How did I get into submas in the first place?
PLA. I met this certain mysterious & cool fellow time traveler and got curious! After the cave scene I went to read his Wiki, found out about Emmet, and... yeah. The emotional impact blasted me right out of a miserable cycle I was going through back then and set my soul on fire!! A month later I set up my first art account on Twitter, and the rest is history. They've become my greatest source of strength and inspiration and I enjoy drawing them every single day!
I love both twins very much! I tend to vibe with Ingo a little more than Emmet, but I draw Emmet more. People say I remind of butler Ingo the most, hehe. I certainly don't mind because I'm a big fan of butlermas!! In fact I got into submas & started playing Pokémon Masters EX in April 2022, a week before butler Ingo banner rolled in, so they truly got a special place in my heart ahah! (pssst draw more butlermas for me pls pls pls-)
However I don't draw warden Ingo as much as I would like to. I still get pretty emotional over his fate ahah, I can't draw him without a single tear! This sweet & kind man leading a good life and being an inspiration to others has been torn from literally everything he had for seemingly no reason apart from his name, clothes and the muscle memory and even those are barely intact. It seems like a miracle he's still standing and breathing after put through everything judging by the wear and tear on his uniform and body. Despite all that he carries a positive attitude, assists everyone in need, and does his best to help people and pokémon understand each other, unconditionally... Oh, my face is wet again...
My other interests besides submas?
Monster Hunter! Zelda! Genshin Impact! Super Mario! Trine! Crash Team Racing! And many many more! My favourite genres are platformers, kart racers, and action games, with a side of rhythm games. I'm a big fan of co-op games! I also watch my sis play JRPGs!
Monster Hunter is the dearest to me out of all. I've been hunting for well over a decade starting from MHFU. The games have charmed me with their incredibly satisfying combat system, world building, creature design, great attention to detail, character customisation and the games being nearly fully co-op!!
Other things I do:
Pokémon is practically the only turn-based game I enjoy, mainly because of the characters and collection aspect. However!! I adore Pokémon Colosseum (the first pkmn game I ever played!) and it's double battle focus, so The Indigo Disc has been a delight after the long starvation for double battles, coming up with different combinations makes the battles much more fun to me!!... I sound like Emmet here do I ahahah! We also share the fact we are both left-handed!
Shuffle dancing, daily pull-ups, and expanding my ever growing VGM collection! I also enjoy traveling and taking photos to keep as a diary! I've played piano in a music school for 9 years, and I can also play kalimba. I've done casual boxing, gymnastics, horse riding and medieval swordfighting. I used to read comics/manga and watch movies and anime but nowadays I barely do that, I just rather use that time for drawing instead of just sitting and watching, unless I have company!
I share the apartment with my anxious brother and our two sweet female cats, Laku (11, stubborn and cuddly) and Kalevi (21, demanding and full of love) in a city center. My parents are both entrepreneurs and run a farm in the countryside & I have 4 siblings with me as the middle kid!
Where can you meet me?
I am a game artist by profession, with 4 yrs of studies and roughly 7 years of EXP in the field doing game art, UI design, character/prop design, in mobile games as well as PC titles, 2D and 3D. At the moment I am looking for work; I keep up the motivation and learn new skills by running my art accounts while looking for new opportunities.
I hail from the land of darkness, snow, salmiakki, metalheads and renownly reserved people, Finland! (UTC+2)
Despite having my roots here I am pretty much the opposite of a typical Finn in almost every sense ahah! I'm a small guy who's not afraid talking to strangers and laughs a lot. And I dislike coffee for the contrary, it's very popular amongst finns.
With the inspiration from submas I've finally stepped into the world of cosplay so you can usually meet this small and excitable Ingo in the biggest local conventions, Desucon and Tracon! Come say hi!
About my social battery:
I'm both social and socially anxious ahah! I love making new friends and talking to all sorts of people and writing comments, and gathering together with my mutuals to do cool stuff together! However my social battery is very small... I often struggle with my AD(H)D and anxiety issues, so my replies can be extremely slow. I'm easily overwhelmed when life gets busy and I deal with it by withdrawing to minimise the the stimuli and then sorting my stuff out one by one. This is a frustrating shortcoming, but I'm working hard to find a balance I can maintain without getting exhausted. Please be patient with me! If you don't hear from me in a while, please don't take it personally! In fact, it makes me really happy if you contact me, for any purpose!
Which pronouns do I go with?
I go by they/them! I am also aroace, so if I appear to show any sort of romantic interest, it's definitely not that. I love meeting new people and am quite interested in people in general so I'm excited to get to know you better, but the thing is... I have been confusing people on several occassions for saying things that could be taken as flirting. I am terribly sorry for that, that's just the way I show how I care!
I don't really identify myself by any specific gender either, but rather by my roles or interests (Magma host, submas fan, game artist etc.). Submas encouraged me to enjoy dressing formally even if I'm just sitting at home, because I love formal clothing in general and wearing them makes me feel confident and stand taller! I usually wear collar shirts and black or white slacks.
More about my AD(H)D:
I don't have an official diagnosis but deal with the same problems as AD(H)D people do; poor work memory, dissociation, hyperfocus (drawing and people), sleep deprivation, impulsiveness (juggling too many things and going with the wind), getting sensory/information overloads, and feeling like I don't fit in. I figured it out after I finished school & lost my job for that I am unable to handle big tasks without anyone giving me directions. It has taken a while but I've figured out things that help me manage my daily life as well as have a medication that mainly boosts my capability to get things started which is another great struggle ahah.
How do I manage to keep myself on track?
I use a Pomodoro timer to keep up a good flow and remember to take breaks! This is what I use the most:
I should set it up on my tablet as well. I think it's really cool to see how many hours I have actually put into drawing! Last year I clocked in well over 3k hours, ahaha!
How to catch me?
Right now I have great difficulty managing replies, but usually you can reach me by DMs! I check Discord and Twitter the most often! However I must ask you to respect my current DNI status. It means I am really overwhelmed so I wish nobody comes asking for my attention until it has been lifted, unless it's really necessary. I really love talking to you all but I also have to accept and deal with my own limits strictly like this or it won't work out.
What am I working on at the moment?
Besides the holiday set I have several short comics under works as well as one big comic (100+ pages!). That one is my personal greatest goal! I started working on it in June 2022 and I have currently 40+ pages sketched and 60+ thumbnailed.
I was afraid of starting any comic projects before submas, but the sheer excitement over them carried me over that personal wall ahah!
The story's beginning and end are looking good and somewhat functional but there's still a lot to work to do and holes to fill in the middle before I dare to start fleshing out the pages. I have little experience in writing or comic making so I hope you forgive if some things don't make sense or the dialogue is a little on the nose so to say ahah!
The story will be packed with action with the overall tone being on the darker side, but it sure won't be lacking in humor! The project's main goal is to make it a celebration of all things submas & to prove to myself I can handle a big scale project despite my shortcomings!
This train has reached the terminal!
Thank you for riding my silly submas train!! I adore reading all your tags and comments! They brighten up my day & fuel my passion even more!! I hope to bring many more fun things for you to look forward to!! See you again soon!
ALL ABOARD!!
51 notes
·
View notes
Note
If its not too personal could you talk about what was the inspiration for Michaelis? He's got a lot of depth to him, especially for what could have been a one off character in the background after Fete. Also the way he mourns but carries on really resonates with me in Jes.
Oh sure! I mean, on the one hand it is quite personal but it's a kind of personal I really enjoy sharing. :D Michaelis began life as the Standard Hallmark Parent -- you see them a lot in the movies, the parent who is
1. Kinda grouchy
2. Usually pushing their kid slightly too hard in slightly the wrong direction (with the best of intentions)
3. Often a widow/er
4. Practically a cameo designed to stress out the lead, but easily attractive enough that they could be romantic lead themselves in the sequel.
There are actually several Hallmark films where the over-sixty characters are either the supporting romance in a one-off film or the main romance of a sequel film. (The Wedding Veil films, which despite their flaws are actually very enjoyable, have a Michaelis-like character for the mother of the male lead in the first movie, and she then becomes the major supporting romantic lead in the fourth movie.)
By the time I got to Michaelis talking to Eddie at the end of the script for Fete, I'd grown to really like him. When I adapted the script to a novel, I liked him even more. I thought that I could do a sequel with him getting jolted out of himself a bit -- and I was encouraged by how many people liked him in the initial read through. The main inspirations for the actual plot of Infinite Jes were, one, Gregory jokingly suggesting he do a podcast, and two, Michaelis's defensive dismissal of Gregory's question about what he's done for companionship since Miranda passed.
Over the course of writing Infinite Jes, he came to be a collection of themes I've explored or wanted to explore, sometimes themes I knew I wasn't skilled enough to handle yet. The core of him is based on a professor I worked with as a student; the confidence that occasionally tips into arrogance, the keen intellect that likes to take things apart, the ability to look at some toxic family traits and decide "RIP but I'm different" and be a present, nurturing masculine figure, all come from that professor, who had a huge impact on me.
But I have also been fascinated for decades now by a certain kind of character in fiction, someone who has had a devastating loss and keeps going, even if they aren't driven by something like revenge. Profound grief is difficult and fascinating for me, and I finally felt capable of exploring that fully, perhaps because the pressure on romance novels is a bit lower at times.
And honestly, a lot of him is me, processing the fact that I am aging in fandom. I'm older (44) than the oldest person I knew in fandom (38) when I joined it at the age of 14. I have, for lack of a better word, a position in fandom, a status, that affords me certain perks and requires of me certain obligations. Not to call myself elected king of fandom ("I didn't vote for him!") but the duty I feel to fandom, both as a culture that raised me and a found family, is very similar.
Most of my characters contain some of me, but Michaelis and Jerry contain far more of me than most, perhaps because I'm in a place to do some reflection. Michaelis -- intelligent, experienced, hopefully a mentor, but also lonely and detached at times -- is who I'm coming to grips with being; Jerry, the charming fuckup with power but no real clue how to use it, who is doing his best to grow up a little later than a lot of his peers and figure out how disability fits into his identity, is who I still see myself as.
So yeah -- I find Michaelis incredibly fun and compelling to write for, and I think that's because I had hit a skill level in my work where I could combine a lot of tropes and themes into one character and use him to explore why I enjoy them so much. But he definitely began life as the Hallmark Widowed Dad. :D Well, there are worse origin stories.
99 notes
·
View notes
Text
Is It Really That Bad?
Disney and Dreamworks have been locked in combat since day one, and honestly, can you blame them? The Katzenberg/Eisner feud is pretty legendary, with both men taking potshots at each other in films, and the drama behind stuff like A Bug’s Life and Antz has been done to death. The thing is, in the early years of Dreamworks, it was pretty clear that no matter how hard they tried, Disney was the one who was taking the Ws when it came to the cinemas. Stuff like Sinbad and The Road to El Dorado were flopping pretty hard, and while The Prince of Egypt was a success, the failure of the former two ended Dreamoworks’s hopes of ever competing with Disney in the 2D animated market. What’s a studio to do in a situation like that? Well, someBODY ONCE TOLD ME...
Shrek didn’t just solidify Dreamworks as a contender, that movie changed the course of animation in the 2000s all on its own. With its snarky humor, pop culture references, awesome pop soundtrack as opposed to musical numbers, and celebrity cast, Shrek codified many trends for animation going forward—for better and for worse. But whatever impact the film had pales in comparison to one simple, unignorable fact: This movie came out on top over Disney. It won the first ever Academy Award for Best Animated Picture, and considering how long Disney was in that game that must have really fucking stung. While Disney spent the early 2000s floundering and releasing flops that would only become cult classics later, Dreamworks was riding that green wave Shrek produced all the way to the bank. What’s a studio to do in a situation like that? Well, someBODY ONCE…
Oh no.
Chicken Little was Disney’s blatant attempt at making their own Shrek (with blackjack! And hookers!), but to say that things didn’t pan out well for Disney there is a vast understatement. Michael Eisner made sure to meddle as much as possible, turning a more straightforward adaptation of the fairy tale into a snarky, self-deprecating comedy about baseball and aliens, which certainly is a choice. This choice had some dire consequences; while not a bomb by any means, the film ruined the already-struggling career of The Emperor’s New Groove director Mark Dindal, producer Randy Fullmer left Disney with Dindal and went into making guitars, and ultimately Eisner himself became a victim of the film as well, with it being the final blow to his tenure at Disney after a decade of failed investments. Eisner ended up passing the torch to Bob Iger, who turned out to be a better leader than Eisner who never did or said anything quite as stupid!
Audience reaction to the movie has always been pretty mixed, to say the least. Reviewers on YouTube such as Schafrillas, Doug Walker, and Mr. Enter have used the film as their punching bag at various points, with the latter in particular helping shape the image of Buck Cluck as Disney’s most vile father figure. Audiences these days aren’t particularly receptive to it either, with most people considering it Disney’s absolute worst film, though there are nostalgic viewers with a soft spot for it. I first watched the film myself a few years back, and I was thoroughly disgusted and unimpressed by what I saw; for the longest time, I had it higher than Doogal on my list of the worst films ever. Fucking Doogal! Can a film really be that bad?!
Well, I decided to give it a second chance and find out if maybe my perception was just colored by all the negative reviews. Is Chicken Little really that bad, or is this just a so-so Shrek ripoff that people overreacted to?
THE GOOD
Most of the characters in this movie are actually decent, even if they’re a little cringe. Chicken Little himself is a likable dork, which only makes all the suffering and setbacks he goes through that much harder to watch; I think they made him too likable, y’know? His friend group is pretty solid as well, with Abby being an okay love interest, Runt being a nice guy (or maybe I should say Nice Guy considering what he does with a bimbofied Foxy Loxy at the end), and Fish Out of Water being a cute “lol so random XD” character. They aren’t the best thing ever, but they’re all pretty decent. I can see why Zach Braff likes voicing the title character so much, and it is cool he got to be in the best Kingdom Hearts game, so that’s something!
Though of, course none of them hold a candle to the absolute Chad that is Morkubine Porcupine, a character so fucking cool that he refuses to give this movie the dignity of more than three single words out of his mouth. If he had more dialogue, the whole movie might collapse under the sheer power of his voice. He’s like Black Bolt, except a porcupine, and in a marginally better piece of Disney media.
There’s a great sequence at the end of the movie that has a Pee-wee’s Big Adventure-esque film within the film about Chicken Little’s exploits… except he’s a ridiculously buff rooster voiced by Adam West in a film that looks like an insane version of Star Fox from the brief clips we see of it. Runt is in there as a hardcore, ugly warthog and Abby is an overly-sexualized space bimbo, but I’m not even particularly bothered by the fact they gave the girl chicken breasts because Adam West’s chicken breasts are so much more massive.
The entire scene, as brief as it is, is delightful thanks to West being West, and it honestly makes you wish that the whole movie was just a ridiculous space battle adventure… And everyone’s wish was granted when they released a pretty good video game based on this silly concept!
Of course, as is typical of any Disney movie, the best part is without a doubt the villain: Buck Cluck, Chicken Little’s own father.
In his youth, he was a strapping sports star, and because of this he feels a deep sense of shame at his son’s wild antics and is completely unable to relate to him. He constantly puts him down in front of others to try and salvage his own reputation, throwing him under the bus at every opportunity and refusing to support him. And even after Chicken Little pushes himself to the limit and becomes a baseball star all so he can earn even the slightest smidgen of his father’s respect, Buck is quick to cast him aside once more all so that he can try and keep the dignity among the townsfolk he mooched off of his son’s victory. Buck Cluck is the proto-Mother Gothel, a distant and absent parent for the ages, and one of the most despicable foes the studio has ever produced. Hell, I might even go as far as to say he’s one of the greatest villains of all ti-
Wait, hold on. I’m being informed that Buck… isn’t intentionally a villain? He’s supposed to be… sympathetic…?
THE BAD
I’VE COME TO MAKE AN ANNOUNCEMENT! BUCK “THE CUCK” CLUCK’S A BITCH-ASS MOTHERFUCKER!
Ok, ok, let’s be serious for a second. I’m gonna get a bit controversial here, but Buck Cluck isn’t nearly as evil as people make him out to be.
Let me explain: While the film’s narrative completely and utterly fails to make his redemption feel earned at all, it’s not like he was ever really intentionally or even physically abusive like Frollo, Gothel, or Lady Tremaine were. Buck Cluck has a very real problem a parent can have, in that he has a hard time relating to his son while being a single parent that is likely still dealing with the loss of his wife. The issue is the movie doesn’t bother trying to flesh him or his feelings out and tries its damndest to make him look like a good guy all while he emotionally neglects his child.
All this being said, his vocal performance from The Princess Diaries director Garry Marshall is actually pretty great, he gets a few good jokes here and there, and it’s actually really endearingly goofy when he overcompensates with loving his son in the third act. While I’m never going to stop treating the character like he’s Chicken Hitler, I want it to be clear that my jabs at him are very much in the same vein as someone like Huey Emmerich. The difference, of course, is that Huey is an intentional case of making a character you love to hate, while Buck is accidental. And that’s why this segment is here, in “The Bad” part of the review: The movie failed this man so bad that he is put alongside characters like Shou Tucker, Ragyo Kiryuin, and Fire Lord Ozai in animated parent rankings. How do you fuck up that badly? Mainly by deleting the scenes where he actually gets development or characterization beyond being a lousy parent, that’s how!
These writing issues don’t just affect Buck, though; literally the entire movie is as messy as that Kentucky fried bastard’s characterization. The main issue is with the story itself. Now, when you have a movie called Chicken Little, you kind of expect an adaptation of the fable of the same name. And since this is Disney, you wouldn’t be stupid to assume that’s what they’d do, considering adapting fables, myths, and fairy tales is basically their bread and butter. But that is decidedly not what they did here; instead, they decided to make Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius by way of Shrek, because movies like that were popular at the time, and what we’re left with is a film populated by mean-spirited jerkasses who do nothing but dump on our likable main character as he takes part in a story to win the love of his dad via baseball that suddenly, out of completely nowhere, turns into an alien invasion movie about halfway through. Absolutely none of these elements work well together, and the film comes off felling like it was stitched together from unrelated scripts and turned into an unholy Frankenstein of bad ideas.
Not helping helping the disjointed story are the desperate attempts to seem cool. I like Morkubine Porcupine, he’s one of the better gags in the film, but he is so plainly a desperate attempt at creating an ensemble darkhorse that it hurts (the fact it actually worked in spite of this is nothing short of miraculous). The humor is very much aping Shrek, with lots of snarky humor and mean-spirited characters which ends up not working because it’s too cruel, and even ignoring that the pop culture references (a staple of Dreamworks at the time) just all come out of nowhere. Why is the fish reenacting King Kong? Why are these animals watching Raiders of the Lost Ark, and why is Indy still a human? Why did Disney think referencing the lemming suicide myth was a good idea when they literally perpetuated that myth by driving lemmings off a cliff for a movie?
Then there’s the animation. It is so blatantly obvious that this is Disney’s first time making a fully computer animated movie without Pixar’s help. A lot of characters look really unpolished, and even worse is that a lot of the characters are extremely overanimated. If you wanna see what I mean, watch Abby at the end of the dodgeball scene when she’s talking to Chicken Little. She just never fucking stops moving! Once you notice it, it becomes really distracting.
But by far the worst thing this movie does is the constant needle drops. This movie would make The Super Mario Bros. Movie blush with its overuse of licensed music, and it sure feels like Suicide Squad took notes from this because they cram so many tracks in here it’s not even funny. Sometimes they even just have thew characters sing them because… who fucking knows. Barenaked Ladies gets a pretty fat W with their song “One Little Slip” playing over our introduction to Chicken Little, but after that we either get the most obvious songs possible for any given seen (“It’s the End of the World as We Know It” plays over the alien invasion at the end, because of course it does) to “what the actual fuck is this doing here in the movie” (“Wannabe” by the Spice Girls is sung by Runt and Abby during a karaoke session, proving that canceling the Spice World review was not enough to save me from this band).
youtube
IS IT REALLY THAT BAD?
Alright guys, here comes my hottest take ever: Chicken Little… isn’t that bad.
Now, don’t get me wrong! This movie is still not really good at all. It’s disjointed, mean-spirited, confused, and stuffed to the brim with the tropes and trappings of every bad animated movie of the 2000s. But all of that is also what helps make this so genuinely fascinating! When Dreamworks did stuff like this, it was whatever, that studio is a rising contender in the animation game… but this is Disney! This is THE animation studio, the biggest around, and they’re making every single mistake possible because they want to try and beat Dreamworks at their own game, and they are failing at it! It’s honestly so funny that they tried to make their own version of Shrek without any sort of understanding of what made Shrek work.
But even beyond that, even though this movie is bad, it’s not really worse than Shark Tale is, and that is a premier so bad it’s good film. Really, this movie is the opposite of that film in many ways. Where that film had a world that was too overly nice and propped up the shittiest main character animated at the time, this movie has an insanely cruel world where the sweet, charming, heavily traumatized child is incessantly beaten down and belittled to the point you half expect him to try and dive headfirst into a deep fryer; where that film had a single generic plot that was at least remarkably consistent, this film has two separate plots that don’t go together at all and just end up making both halves of the film feel stupid and pointless; and where in that film Oscar is desperately seeking love from his peers due to his sheer selfishness, Chicken Little just wants the love and respect of his father. Pile on that the mountain of similarities, from the overuse of lame pop culture references for the sake of pop culture references gags to the bland love interests, and you have the Awesomely Bad Animation Double Feature of your dreams.
So yeah, I think the rating it has is about what it deserves. This is easily one of Disney’s weakest entries for sure, but it’s not without its moments and it has some amusing jokes, charming characters, and Adam West as a buff space chicken. If you go in with lowered expectations, you might be amused, but honestly I get why this film is so absolutely despised. It really isn’t great at all, and is firmly in the “so bad it’s good” category. You can’t really expect much more from a movie that presents a character whose biggest crime was just being an asshole getting their personality overwritten with a girly-girl one that the comic relief fat guy insists is perfect as a hilarious joke and then leads into a dance party ending where the whole cast sings Elton John.
...Or you could expect more if it weren’t for that son of a bitch Buck Cluck. Fuck that guy.
#Is it really that bad#Chicken Little#Disney#review#movie review#Zach Braff#animation#animated movie#Disney animation
45 notes
·
View notes
Text
It's not just that the book was better; there are movies and series that have successfully brought the book to life. Personally, I'm not a fan of the 'the book is better than the movie/series' argument because it's fundamentally flawed. The book will ALWAYS be better. It has the advantage of being the source material and allows for an in-depth exploration of characters, places, and situations, unlike a movie/series, which is restricted by screen time and budget. While this limitation poses challenges, it doesn't render the task impossible.
Adapting a complex book is no easy feat. While it may not be possible to capture all the intricate prose and rich details on screen, there are ways to work around it. Creating a coherent timeline, incorporating relevant flashbacks, building tension, mystery, and emotional impact are all possible. However, when you end up changing nearly everything from the original, the result is a feeble attempt at adaptation.
In my opinion and that of many others, "The Book Thief" was a satisfactory adaptation. Did they have to make significant cuts? Yes. However, they managed to preserve the essence of the story, its impactful characters, and crucial events. Some may disagree and consider the adaptation unsatisfactory, and that's understandable. Yet, I have yet to come across a single good review of the adaptation of "All the Light We Cannot See.
The book is undeniably brilliant, and there's no argument there, but this adaptation was more of a complete overhaul, incorporating some elements from the book. They completely mishandled the timeline, flashbacks and character backgrounds.
For instance, in the series, they introduce Uncle Etienne as a functional, Hugh Laurie-like character. However, just two (?) episodes later, they quickly unveil his traumatic experiences during World War 1 in a fleeting moment (I dont even remember if they mention the devastating loss of his brother). The fast-paced narrative hardly allows for the emotional impact that the book meticulously builds over time.
Contrastingly, in the book, we encounter Uncle Etienne as a deeply troubled and eccentric man who chooses to seclude himself from society for decades due to the severe post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from his experiences in World War I. At first, readers might dislike his grumpy demeanor and distant relationship with Marie Laure, who relies on him as her sole family, especially given the uncertainty surrounding her father's fate. However, as the book unfolds, the profound reasons behind Uncle Etienne's behavior are unveiled, prompting a heart-rending realization that induces regret for any initial negative sentiment.
His reluctance to engage with the events of World War II is completely understandable, given that he is still grappling with the haunting memories of the previous war. His eventual decision to confront the Nazis (whom he despises) and assist the resistance by broadcasting crucial information represents a significant turning point in his character development in the book, and ONLY happens because Marie Laure gives him the courage to do so.
While it's understandable that the show couldn't depict this in detail, they could have easily tried. This aspect of the story could have been effectively conveyed and would have undoubtedly evoked strong emotional reactions. It had the potential to move viewers to tears. However, the series lacked the necessary emotional depth and character growth, ultimately robbing Uncle Etienne of the depth and richness of his life story.
Furthermore, the way the book leaves subtle clues for us to piece together the revelation that Uncle Etienne and his brother were the ones narrating the science broadcasts that Werner and Jutta grew up listening to is truly exquisite. This element could have been gradually unveiled to the audience, allowing us to savor the process of connecting the dots. However, I don’t even remember how this goes on the series as this was more a tale of Werner and his adventures in Saint Malo than anything else.
If you're watching the show and finding it difficult to understand why there are so many criticisms, it might be because they boldly labeled it as an adaptation, even though it hardly resembles one. It doesn't feel like an adaptation at all.
To you, Uncle Etienne might come across as a super cool character, whereas to us, he was portrayed as an utterly melancholic, and reclusive individual. He lived as if he were already dead.
If you're enjoying the show without having read the book, that's perfectly fine. How would you even notice the differences if you had no prior exposure to the story and characters? It's virtually impossible. However, once you do, you'll comprehend why it took Doerr ten years to write and why it was awarded the Pulitzer.
7 notes
·
View notes
Text
TV Show Proposals
Just in case a TV show executive is scrolling through Tumblr searching for their next big hit, here are some proposals from a humble yet rabid media consumer.
More Than Meets the Eye
What do you know about Transformers? That this 1980s cartoon TV series started off as a ploy to sell toys, but impacted their audience so much children were walking out of movie theatres crying when Hasbro literally executed their first line of products in order to introduce the second?
The beginning of Transformers were conceived in the same faith multiple other 1980s cartoon were made – as product advertisement to sell children toys. My Little Pony, Carebears, He-Man, G.I. Joe – they appealed to the violent and action-oriented or cutesy and fashion-oriented subnature of young children, so they could in turn badger their parent to splurge money on figures of their favourite character and any future accessories at the local toy mart.
The fan reception to the Transformers film (1986) allowed studio executives to realise Transformers had something more to it than advertising potential. And fastforward thirty years later when Micheal Bay took the reins to produce the multimillion live-action series, firmly cemented Transformers in its place in American pop-culture.
Although Transformers was always political – the entire Autobot vs Deception concept was based off the Cold War tension at the time of writing the original series – over the years this mostly negligible baseline has been heightened, especially in IDW comic's publishing. From apartheid society, right to self-autonomy, and state-mandated divide of class based on function, certain part of Transformers lore has become 'realistic' enough to be uncomfortable. Even when the characters are giant mecha-alien robots, there is an undeniable human element beneath all the armour.
I am not proposing a TV show of all of IDW's comics, just the More Than Meets the Eye and Lost Light series.
I acknowledge, foremost, that there are already serious issues with only animating this singular storyline alone. IDW, after all, has a near two-decade long history, and animating a stand-alone chapter that happens in the middle of the series is not going to help any new fans or consumers. Additionally, many beloved Transformers legacy characters are not going to appear in the narrative at all, bringing up the question of More Than Meets the Eye's marketability. Inspiring-Prime Rodimus will be leading a 200-bot ship of famously C and D-list characters (many who has since reached fandom fame for the roles they played in MTMTE and Lost Light); and when Bumblebee, Starscream, and Shockwave does come into play, finally, their position in the plot will be extraordinarily confusing unless the reader already knows the comics backstory.
Either way, I think that if some studio executive want to take a risk, they should do so anyway. More Than Meets the Eye was the first Transformers comic I actually read, when I knew absolutely nothing about the IDW lore and was only basing all my knowledge on the Bayverse films, and even though I didn't know who most of the characters are, it took barely five issues to get attached. I found myself intrigued by the witty writing, clever characters, gorgeous art, and the ever-desirable camaraderie that formed between this unlikely found-family group of bots.
More Than Meets The Eye was honestly magical to read, I genuinely believe my life and life philosophy had become better after consuming those 54 issues.
Other issues in producing a More Than Meets the Eye TV show relates to the lack of human characters, as human characters has become a prime template for the human audience to project themselves upon, and More Than Meets the Eye is also notoriously un-child-friendly. From characters such as Overlord to Tarn, or Megatron himself. Torture, murder, concentration camps, cannibalism – the comics illustrate the worst of what a galaxy-wide war between a hard-scrabbling general and a genocidal warlord could produce, and it does not shy away from the details.
More Than Meets the Eye is also a story of redemption. Multiple characters throughout the series – literal war criminals, self-deprecating, suicidal, cruel in the way that those who have given up are cruel – learn to give a damn, to realise how to live for a better tomorrow.
And the two defining titans of the entire franchise meet some of the best writing that has ever been given to them. They don't appear until the second half of the story or they don't appear much at all, but don't let their scarcity convince you of the quality of their characterisation. The writers of More Than Meets The Eye love every character, those who were destined to fade into obscurity and those who were never meant to be in the limelight, and it shows. IDW's Megatron isn't a true villain in the way that Optimus Prime couldn't live up to his untouchable hero image, but this does not mean that Megatron hasn't willingly and gleefully committed evil and Optimus hasn't done the best and the most righteous a leader in his position in the middle of a robot holocaust could've.
Making a More Than Meets The Eye TV show is risky. One hundred percent. It's in the middle of a series that a reader need background knowledge for, it has no human characters, its robot characters aren't exactly winning any popularity contests, and it cannot be marketed towards a general audience.
But More Than Meets the Eye has won two Comics Alliance award for good reason, and it has certainly convinced this Transformers-curious reader with no prior knowledge to become a lifelong fan of the entire franchise.
And I am not the one who sees the potential in a TV series. To any executive who has somehow read till the end of this post, check out these fantastic animations by passionate fans and artists:
魏威安's animated summary of the entire IDW comic history, just to give you an idea of the scope you're dealing with here.
youtube
Spooky Unicornus's heartwarming Christmas-themed short, with some fantastic lighting and movement.
youtube
The Alexicon's mock trailer.
youtube
This disconcerting comics-accurate short by OMUSUNDA featuring some brilliant voice-acting by a Scottish Skids –
youtube
– and a compilation of Ultra Magnus featuring his Animated voice from the same artist.
youtube
The Arcane-fication of Overwatch
I am not a gamer. I don't own any console systems, my iMac is pretty but cannot run computer games, and my favourite game is actually this mobile app called Bullet Echo, which I will proudly announce I am quite good at. Shout out to my main hero, Mirage.
But I have watched literally every single one of Overwatch's animated cinematic shots. And I am fascinated. The storytelling, the animation, the characters and their designs. I love all their accents, the little nods to their culture, and overall, the camaraderie between Overwatch members, although their interactions are brief.
I'm getting the slowly coagulating imagery of a truly fascination techno-dystopian world, a classic tale of a future gone wrong and heroes that rose up to the challenge.
I have heard and read some criticism about Overwatch's lore, that it's simplistic and is weak, lacking in any kind of depth. If this is true, I will claim ignorance to the fact that I have not played a single game. As an animation-enthuasist, I have simply watched the cinematic shorts over and over again, and is enchanted by the short bursts of story I've seen there.
I've never played League of Legends either, and I can bet most of those who watched Arcane never did as well. But Arcane was enjoyable for both hardcore gamers and first-time fans anyway. It had something for the general unfamiliar audience while throwing out some service to those that followed the franchise for a long time. And the trick to maintaining this balance is simple: good writing, writers that care.
So – Arcane-ficiation of Overwatch. Am I going to play Overwatch one day? Unlikely. But would I sit down and watch a TV series about it? Definitely. Comments on Overwatch's cinematic shorts always snarkly points out that the movies are better than the game and the producers should realise where to throw in their funds. I won't cast my own judgement upon these opinions as I, once again, have not played a single game. But I hope some Blizzard executives are warming up to the idea. After all, video game-based TV series has been gaining traction over the past few years. Just look at Arcane, or The Witcher, or The Last of Us. Dungeons and Dragons even managed a big feature blockbuster, with a pretty star-studded cast.
A brief list of my favourite Overwatch shorts, judged by not ranked on story, animation, and voice-acting.
youtube
youtube
youtube
youtube
Percy Jackson
An animated Percy Jackson series.
I know there's a live-action series of Percy Jackson coming out next year, and so far, it seems pretty hopeful. The actors are age accurate, the set design looks amazing, and Rick Riordian himself approves of the series.
Thing is, I grew up reading Percy Jackson and was violently passionate about the series once, back when the live-action movies were the ire of the fandom and the fanart, especially those of Viria's, were so popular they were considered canon. Canon enough that the official Percy Jackson wiki page actually eventually hired Viria to make their official character art.
There was even this petition to make an animated series with Viria's art that I remember signing a couple years ago.
Nowadays, artists likes velinxi has also become fandom staples in defining the stylised appearances of the characters, especially regarding the likeness of the Big Three.
This is one TV show that I'm not too invested about – as animated series with Overwatch and More Than Meets the Eye could be considered inevitable to the franchise at this point while Percy Jackson is significantly more popular and enjoy more medias, blockbusters alongside comics books, a musical, and the upcoming DisneyPlus+ TV series.
Just saying, fans manifested Viris's art being canon enough that the prophecy has been fulfilled. And if 50 000 fans signed a petition to make Viria's art an animated TV show – who knows?
Hamiltion
This is the long shot, I know. Hamilton is probably the most successful musical of this generation, and for good reason. I personally has never seen so much passion, clever lyricism, historical significance, and art stuffed within two hours.
My knowledge of musicals is that usually maybe about 40-70% of the show is sung while the rest is acted. Not for Hamilton, the actors truly push their physicality and vocal cords to the limit by turning it up to 200 percent for the entire performance. Renée Elise Goldsberry sang and rapped and delivered a masterful rendition of emotion during Satisfied (one of my favourite songs, ever) alone. No other musical has come close to Hamilton's set design and sophisication in my humble opinion, and I bet it will be a very long time before another musical that is released will come close.
Here, I am not only proposing the possibility of a TV show, but also a movie. There are many loose-ends in Hamilton that Lin-Manuel Miranda mentioned could not be covered in the play due to time constraints, such as the question as to what happened to Peggy.
A TV show could give the producers plenty of time to expand on fan-favourite moments, such as the Winter Ball or the battlefield scenes along with typing up loose ends. More time could also introduce more songs, and embellish the visual design further with on-site landscape, although the question of whether or not this will elevate the musical's appeal is debatable as Hamilton's single room, rotating dais set has become synonymous with the show and an archetypal of ingenious on-stage set design. Again, like with Percy Jackson, not too fussed about the possibility of Hamilton making it onto the big screen. But just throwing the idea there.
13 notes
·
View notes
Text
'The day Christopher Nolan called Cillian Murphy about his new film, " Oppenheimer," Murphy hung up the phone in disbelief.
The Irish actor, though a regular presence in Nolan films going back almost two decades, had always been a supporting player. This time Nolan wanted him to lead.
"He's so understated and self-deprecating and, in his very English manner, just said, 'Listen, I've written this script, it's about Oppenheimer. I'd like you to be my Oppenheimer,'" Murphy, 46, told The Associated Press recently. "It was a great day."
For Murphy, it is never not exciting to get a call from Nolan. It's just hard to predict if he's going to. He knows there are some movies he's right for and some movies he isn't.
"I have always said publicly and privately, to Chris, that if I'm available and you want me to be in a movie, I'm there. I don't really care about the size of the part," he said. "But deep down, secretly, I was desperate to play a lead for him."
Murphy first met Nolan in 2003. He was brought in to screen test for Batman —not just the movie, the character. Murphy knew he wasn't right for the Dark Knight, but he wanted to meet the man who'd directed "Insomnia" and "Memento." They hit it off and Murphy got to tap into a sinister intensity to play the corrupt psychiatrist Dr. Crane/Scarecrow, who would go on to appear in all three films. Nolan would also call on Murphy to be the conflicted heir to a business empire in "Inception" and a traumatized soldier in "Dunkirk."
"We have this long-standing understanding and trust and shorthand and respect," Murphy said. "It felt like the right time to take on a bigger responsibility. And it just so happened that it was a (expletive) huge one."
Soon after the phone call, Nolan flew to Dublin to meet Murphy to hand him a physical copy of the script, which he devoured right there in Nolan's hotel room in September 2020. It was, he said, the best he'd ever read.
Then the scale of it started to sink in.
This would be a film about the charismatic and controversial theoretical physicist who helped create the atomic bomb. Oppenheimer and his peers at Los Alamos would test it on July 16, 1945, not knowing what was going to happen. Then several weeks later the United States would drop those bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing tens of thousands of people and leaving many with lifelong injuries.
As Nolan said last week in Las Vegas, "Like it or not J. Robert Oppenheimer is the most important person who ever lived."
"Oppenheimer," which opens in theaters on July 21, features a starry cast including Emily Blunt as Oppenheimer's wife Kitty, Matt Damon as Leslie Groves Jr., Robert Downey Jr. as Lewis Strauss, Gary Oldman as Harry S. Truman, and many more rounding out the pivotal players in and around this tense moment in history.
"You realize this is a huge responsibility. He was complicated and contradictory and so iconic," Murphy said. "But you know you're with one of the great directors of all time. I felt confident going into it with Chris. He's had a profound impact on my life, creatively and professionally. He's offered me very interesting roles over and I've found all of them really challenging. And I just love being on his sets."
Murphy continued: "Any actor would want to be on a Chris Nolan set, just to see how it works and to witness his command of the language of film and the mechanics of film and how he's able to use that broad canvas within the mainstream studio system to make these very challenging human stories."
Over the years, Murphy has come to appreciate that with Nolan there's always something deeper to discover than what's literally on the page. "Dunkirk," he recalled, was only 70 pages and there wasn't much to his character, not even a name.
"He said, 'Look, let's figure it out together and you and me can find an emotional journey for the character. And we did it. We did it out in the water on that boat. That comes from trust and respect," Murphy said. "I'm really proud of that performance."
As with all Nolan endeavors, secrecy around "Oppenheimer" is vitally important. Murphy loves the "old-fashioned approach" that builds interest and anticipation.
The difference with "Oppenheimer" and other Nolan originals, though, is that this is rooted in historical fact. You can read the book it's based on, Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin's Pulitzer Prize-winning "American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer." You can watch the 1981 documentary "The Day After Trinity" on The Criterion Channel.
And you can try to parse Nolan's words for clues. He's talked about recreating the Trinity Test, the fascinating paradoxes, the twists, turns, and ethical dilemmas, and that the story is cinematic and both dream and nightmare. But ultimately, it's something that just needs to be seen.
"The question will be how Chris presents it," Murphy said. "I think people will be very surprised and wowed by what he does. Anything I say will just seem a bit lame as compared to seeing this in an IMAX theater."
The time for discussions will be after the movie comes out.
"There's an awful lot to talk about when we can talk freely," Murphy said with a smile.
He did offer up that they worked hard to get Oppenheimer's look right, from the silhouette to the pipe to the porkpie hat. The man, he said, "seemed aware of his own potential mythology." But, again, those conversations will have to wait.
"I'm really proud of the movie and I'm really proud of what Chris has achieved. This was, for sure, a special one, certainly because of the history with me and Chris. We were not walking around the set high fiving, but it did feel special." Murphy said. "It's an event every time he releases a film, and rightly so. Whether I'm in them or not, I always go to see his movies."'
#Oppenheimer#Cillian Murphy#Christopher Nolan#Batman#The Dark Knight#Memento#Dr. Crane#Scarecrow#Insomnia#Inception#Dunkirk#Emily Blunt#Kitty#Matt Damon#Leslie Groves#Robert Downey Jr.#Lewis Strauss#Gary Oldman#Harry S. Truman#Kai Bird#Martin J. Sherwin#American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
8 notes
·
View notes
Text
Over the last decade Atlanta’s reputation as a hub for fandom and geek culture has grown. Much of this growth is driven by the success of major conventions like DragonCon and MomoCon as well as the presence of major Hollywood film and television production teams around the city. Co-founders Tolden Williams, aka Troop Brand and his wife, Stephanie Lindo Williams, still felt like there was something missing, especially when it came to nightlife. So as the peak of the pandemic faded, they created Trap Sushi, an incredibly popular bimonthly celebration of anime, music, Japanese culture, food, and, of course, Atlanta itself.
“We used to always hang out up and down Edgewood Avenue in Atlanta, and visit the performance venues, clubs, and bars, but when Covid hit, all the places that we really enjoyed in Atlanta shut down,” said Stephanie, reflecting on the loss of major entertainment businesses and spaced during the pandemic. “We would just watch them topple one by one. So when everything started opening up, we knew there was a void now. So we were like, ‘Let’s throw something ourselves.’”
Stephanie and Tolden were particularly interested in establishing a space for fellow anime fans looking for fun activities to do year round.
Stephanie shared, “For anime, you do have MomoCon, Anime Weekend Atlanta, and other cons, but those are only once a year, unless you travel across the country to other conventions. We wanted something recurring here in Atlanta.”
Both Stephanie and Tolden had their own unique story of how they got into fandom, and how it’s impacted their lives. For Stephanie she grew up in Atlanta with friends who were already into anime and Japanese culture.
Thinking back on her youth, Stephanie said, “My best friends growing up are Vietnamese, and they were really into anime and manga. So that’s how I was exposed growing up, and I was watching a bunch of girly high school anime and reading Chobits and stuff like that. I’ve just kept at it over the years.”
Tolden’s environment in Mississippi was quite different from Stephanies coming from a smaller town.
Thinking back to his youth, Tolden said “My first introduction to anime was watching cartoons on Saturday morning. I later found out many were anime. I then went to a thrift shop with my mom, and something drew me to this VHS tape in the store. It turned out to be Akira, which is one of the first Japanese movies to break out in America.”
When asked if Tolden felt alone in his love of anime in his hometown, he replied “I definitely did until I came across other fans. It’s funny how your love for things will introduce you to others and create bonds. I found two other people who were into anime like I was, and they are still my closest friends to this day.”
This sense of community found through fandom, and especially anime conventions, was a key driver for Stephanie and Tolden in creating Trap Sushi.
Tolden recalled, “Stephanie took me to my first anime con Anime Weekend Atlanta. I’d never gone to an anime convention in my life, but I’ve been an avid reader of manga and watcher of anime for years. So at my first convention I’m mind blown. This is everything I love all in one place? How long has this been going on? It was very surprising. Then I’m like wait, this is only once a year? No this is not [often] enough.”
Now Trap Sushi welcomes hundreds of fellow anime fans to celebrate their love of all things anime and Japanese culture. In the process of hosting Trap Sushi events, Stephanie and Tolden recognized they were serving a major sub-community in fandom as well.
Stephanie noted “Trap Sushi is open to everybody. It’s all inclusive. But we have noticed that the community it really speaks to a lot is the black anime and cosplay community. That’s a whole sub-community to itself that kind of gets overlooked sometimes, and I know that group found a lot of solace in having a place where they can let go and be like ‘ok, here at Trap Sushi we can really get loose and be free.’”
Read full story https://cosplayinamerica.com/trap-sushi-atlanta-ga/.
Trap Sushi's next event is this Thursday 3/23/23 in Atlanta https://shor.by/doEW
Writer : Michael "Zippy" Miller for Cosplay in America
Photo: @jsncamera for Trap Sushi
Read full story https://cosplayinamerica.com/trap-sushi-atlanta-ga/.
Trap Sushi's next event is this Thursday 3/23/23 in Atlanta https://shor.by/doEW
Writer : Michael "Zippy" Miller for Cosplay in America
Photo: @jsncamera for Trap Sushi
15 notes
·
View notes
Text
Chak De and SRK
(A couple of months ago, for the 15th anniversary of Chak De, I wrote this article for a publication. It was commissioned, edited and published, but it was taken down the same day. The editor told me it was “technical glitch” but now, it’s been 2.5 months and the glitch hasn’t been sorted. In the meantime, I’ve heard of other writers’ work being taken down from that site if it spoke about minority oppression.).
When I first watched Chak De! India 15 years ago, one of the things that instinctively bothered me, though I was too young to articulate it then, was that when Kabir Khan and his mother leave their home, amidst the accusation of being a ‘gaddar’, no neighbour or friend is standing up for them. Is there no one in their mohalla who they were friends with, I wondered? Wouldn’t someone miss them? And wouldn’t they silently, if not publicly, ask the others to be more kind?
Fifteen years later, I know the answer. They wouldn’t. We wouldn’t.
As I sit down to write this, the news coming in from everywhere is proof that nothing much has changed in the last 15 years. Things only seem to have become worse. I read on Twitter that the Indian Women’s hockey team has lost the Commonwealth Games Semi-Finals to Australia 3-0 in a penalty shootout. Fifteen years on, Indian women’s hockey is notoriously neglected. Gender discrimination is rampant. And, of course, Muslims are still perceived as enemies of the state.
No one knows this better than Shah Rukh Khan.
Chak De! India was a story of the quintessential underdog triumph. It wasn’t just the triumph of a women’s team over the dismal conditions and mentality of families, media, and fans. It was as much (if not more) the triumph of their Muslim coach in his attempt to prove his patriotism.
Chak De has achieved cult status in the country. There are still memes referencing 70 minutes of crucial and intense time. The title song became a national sports anthem, and the dialogues are a part of everyday life. The brawl scene in Mcdonald's became an example of implicit brand placements, mentioned in B-schools and quizzes. “Ja Dikha de apne launde ko” was a mantra of female solidarity. There’s a lot to celebrate about Chak De and the impact it has had on our pop culture over the decade and a half. A sports film par excellence, it doesn’t lose its thrill even with multiple rewatchings. And, of course, Shah Rukh is gorgeous.
It also marks one of the first times he truly embraced his Muslim identity on screen. (Sure, he played a Muslim in Hey Ram, but that never captured people’s imagination the way Chak De did). In Chak de, the Muslim identity is a crucial part of the plot, and it is emphasized with the references to his name, his betrayal, and his religious/inspirational chants. SRK goes on to play the Muslim protagonist in multiple films after this — My Name is Khan, Dear Zindagi, Raees, and the upcoming Pathan.
In 2017, journalist Rana Ayub said about SRK in an article on NDTV, “In a country where it is rare to find a Muslim or a Christian character as the lead in films, with minorities usually reduced to caricatures and stereotypes, the fact that the biggest star plays a Muslim in three simultaneous films (Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, Dear Zindagi, Raees) is a strong message to a country, a rebellion that needs to be noticed and lauded.”
This week, we have another movie releasing by two superstars: one a Muslim man, one married to a Muslim man, with children named after rulers who happen to be Muslim- Taimur and Jehangir. Calls to boycott the movie grow louder, the posters and WhatsApp messages about the same more and more disgusting. Aamir Khan has declared that he loves India. Of course, we need to wear our patriotism on our sleeves. Whether it is with a birth certificate or with the shouting of slogans, with the display of the National Flag or standing up in the movie hall when the anthem is played, we are all being asked to prove our patriotism again and again and again. No one more than Muslims in India.
If you are a privileged Muslim actor in India, you can continue making movies worth 100 crores that will face threats of boycott, and maybe your family members will end up in jail for months on flimsy charges. For a regular ordinary Muslim person, you might get lynched if you are suspected of eating a certain kind of meat.
In the final scenes of Chak De! India, the team overcomes all kinds of external and internal challenges to defeat the favourites, Australia, and win the tournament. Yet, it is not just the journey of the women who have faced gender stereotypes, family pressure, anger issues, and race and language discrimination. It is as much a journey of their Muslim coach, who will finally make it back ‘home’ where he was labeled a traitor and forced to leave. It is a grim picture that Chak De presents. That nothing will ever be enough to get the kind of acceptance and belonging all citizens of this country should feel. Maybe if you do something as grand as winning a world cup, you might be spared for a few days.
Maybe.
28 notes
·
View notes
Note
And oh gosh, now I am overthinking my overly blasé comment at the end of what I just sent. I am absolutely not wanting to come across as dismissive of what the fandom has done to your favorite character and the actual pain you might have gone through, and I apologize if it came across that way.
I just wanted you to know that I wish and mean you well!
First off, thank you for your concern. I'm not being sarcastic. We'd all be a little better off if we took a moment to reflect on not only what we're saying but how we say it. I appreciate it. And while my words below might seem to run counter to this, it's okay if you don't share my attitude toward the fandom.
But, to be clear, I haven't devoted a significant amount of my online presence to this particular situation only because it causes me pain. I didn't join a fandom until I was middle-aged, and if my participation mostly served to make me miserable, I would simply stop participating. After all, I have enjoyed media for decades before that, sometimes quite intensely, without it. I feel my motivation goes deeper than that. I am motivated by justice. I am motivated by teenagers. I am motivated by Ronald Reagan, and I am not joking.
I know it might sound a little over the top, but as a product of my life's experiences, I see this fandom's behavior and I know that it is wrong. The usual counter to a statement like that is that while it might be wrong, it's trivial. Even if people are disappointed by the rampant racism and misogyny, it's about a fictional character on a television show. How much hurt could it cause?
I remember growing up as a teenager in the 80s, and while I've talked about this before, this is from where my conviction arises. We lived in the suburbs where there were limited cultural options. We moved around a lot due to my father's occupation, so I never developed a large friend group. My father practiced an authoritarian parenting style, limiting my options. So when I became aware of my own sexuality, the only resources I had for what this might mean was on television. Gay characters on television in the 80s fell into three major categories: clowns, predatory criminals, and victims. That's what I saw. Without peers, without parental support, that's how I came to view myself. It was damaging, and I had to struggle with internalized homophobia for a long time. I sometimes daydream about what I could have accomplished with my life if I had been born twenty years later.
I experienced first-hand how cultural depictions can shape identity, so I am indeed sensitive to the fact that they still do. When I watch as the Teen Wolf fandom -- and it's not the only fandom that does this -- goes to extreme lengths to establish value in white male characters and only white male characters regardless of these characters' narrative purpose or even their behavior, I am fully confident that this is not just. It's not about something as personal as liking or disliking something. We are indeed individuals with our own wills, but those wills can only act in the environment in which we find ourselves. Parts of the Teen Wolf fandom work hard to create a toxic, racist environment. They should stop.
We see the impact it has beyond influencing the narrative or fandom interactions. It's been known that Dylan O'Brien wasn't going to be in the Teen Wolf movie for nearly a year before it came out, and he's still the primary media focus. The response to movie has been primarily driven by this. How is this remotely a good thing? Imagine the decision making in the editor's room about how to cover this story: "We know this show isn't about this white man, we know this white man isn't in the movie, but we're going to focus on it anyway." The sad part, the source of injustice, is that this isn't an innovation. Hollywood has always been this way.
And that's when we get to Ronald Reagan. I spent a lot of time during the 80s and the 90s thinking about him in terms of the AIDS crisis. (And if you think that crisis didn't scare the crap out of a young gay man, let me disabuse you of that notion.) Unlike some people today, I don't think he personally hated gay people. I don't think he turned to Nancy and said "Let those Sodomites die." He had to have known gay people; he had to have worked with gay people. He spent three decades in Hollywood before entering politics. But here's the thing -- the way Hollywood dealt with gay people during those three decades was to pretend they didn't exist. This isn't my opinion -- read any history of that time period in Hollywood. Sexual minorities were part of the day-to-day business, but to function the powers that be simply edited them out of their perception of reality. So I believe that at least part of what motivated Reagan's response to AIDS was habit. He was so used to not mentioning what was behind the curtain that he simply didn't perceive any value in talking about it openly. People like him created an alternate reality where what actually happened didn't matter as much as what they wanted to have happened.
See the connection? It doesn't matter how many actors of color Hollywood employs or how many stories about characters of color they tell if at the end of the day the production and the audience still act as if white characters are the only thing worthy of time and attention. Fandom has become a significant part of media. It's undeniable. So anodyne bullshit like "Don't like; don't read" or "Fiction =/= Reality" isn't just distasteful to me, it's the root of the problem. This false consciousness -- this daydream that fandom can create enormous amount of content vindictively transforming a story about a Latino character into a story about white male characters and it's not about race at all -- is just another manifestation of an ongoing social injustice.
I'm not, and I never will, ask people to see this situation exactly as I do. But I won't stop talking about it. Not yet. I think it's too important.
12 notes
·
View notes
Text
Imagine you’re 7 years old and your mom shows you a clip from a movie coming out soon because it has creatures in it that look like dragons and the people are tall and blue and beautiful and you LOVE blue and they’re RIDING the dragon-birds and you really like fantasy stuff so you become obsessed with the clip and have her search for it almost every day and replay it and then she goes and sees the movie and you kinda forget about it for a couple weeks and then you, your dad, your mom and stepmom all got the movies and your stepmom and mom go see the cool movie with the dragony things and when you ask your mom later why you had to watch the princess and the frog with your dad instead she says she doesn’t think you’ll like the dragony blue alien movie and you can watch it in a couple years
and then a couple years later you do get to watch it and it’s the most beautiful amazing spectacular thing you’ve ever seen and you fall in love with EVERY aspect of the world and story and the gut twisting message of humans being the great evil because even at 8 you know as a whole the human race SUCKS and the music is brain chemistry resetting and the narration is crisp and on point! and your little mind in enraptured with the main character because he’s handsome and amazing and his LOVE INTEREST is unstoppable and SHE’S incredible and ferociously protective of HIM and you’ve never seen a woman go feral for the man she loves and save him so entirely and nearly every second makes you want to cry from emotions too big for your body, from rage at humans for killing your planet and the one on the screen and you wish for nothing more than to have seen it in theaters in 3d cause you’ve never seen 3d and if the movie is this shutteringly impactful on a tv than surely 3d must be like being there with the beautiful blue cat people and you hold some resentment towards your mother for not letting you see it when it came out because now you’ll never see it in 3d (whatever that looks like) then slowly it fades to the calm back of your mind and becomes your favorite movie that you never tell anyone about because you’ll get made fun of and the idea of people being mean to you about it is soul crushing and makes you want to cry because it’s like they’re picking away at your very being and over the next decade you see hushed cringy whispers of a second one being made but think nothing of it because eh fandom gotta do fandom stuff and there’s no official word of anyone and every now and then you read fanfictions for the only movie ship that has ever had a grip on you for longer than the run time of the movie and they’re wonderful and romantic and in some they have a baby and it’s so perfect and everything you know and hope must have happened to them in their little world of fantasy but a voice quiet and sure keeps murmuring “it’s not real, you’ll never know what actually happened to them and that fic with the sweet little son will never be canon” and you know that but still read some more and then you forget about it even more and it slides further into the darkness of memory and mind
and THEN, one day in 2021 after having the worst year of your life as of yet you see news that they ARE making another movie and you don’t let yourself believe it until you do your own research and digging and oh. my. god. it’s REAL! it’s happening they’re really really REALLY making another one and from that second on you LIVE for the next bit of content flickering out as you wait for the most anticipated thing you’ve ever had to look forward to and no one’s understanding how you try to explain how this means to you and you can’t comprehend there ACTUALLY being more content and story for these characters that you love so much and then oh my god! it’s revealed they have children! they have FOUR children, babies all their own just. like. you. read. about and dreamed could happen and every little piece of content that comes out you devour and you start to develop an idea of what might be happening and then the first movie from 13! years ago is being released again all remastered and magnificent and you HAVE to see it! this is literally never going to happen again and so you and your mom both buy tickets and see it and it’s perfect and wonderful and now all you want is the second movie but it’s months till that happens and my god your favorite characters are now both parents and you can already see they love their children more than air and you can’t wait to see them as a family because there is no trope you love more than parent/child and close family and they’re going to be the best parents and the human threat is back and worse and they’re colonizing these amazing people JUST LIKE THEY DO ON EARTH and the stakes are SO MUCH higher now because the children and you just KNOW the bad guy is gonna be after your ship’s babies and that amazing woman from before is a MAMA now and if she was that protective over her husband you can’t for the life of you imagine how horrifying and magnificent
she will be for her children and you get more clips and trailers and you get so many people excited for it and you share every piece of new media with them and you get more family pics from the movie and they’re all so beautiful and precious and you’re so happy, blissfully happy, and you still can’t conceptualize that this is real and it’s actually happening, it all feels like a spectacular fever dream and they actually have children and a life and you’ll get to see it and learn more about the incredible planet they live on and you’ll get to learn about their children and who they are and what they like and how they all work as a family because they’re so close and amazing and they make you so happy
and then the 2nd movie kills off that first born son that you hoped and dreamed they’d have and that you read fanfictions about what he might be like and his mother screams and his baby siblings hold and touch him and sob as his parents, that couple you fell in love with so much and want to be happy more than any other, lowers him to his rest and his mother sings the most heart wrenching and indescribably ethereal song in the world for him and their life and now every NEW fanfiction or piece of media you consume without that son in it feels empty but also more full than any before it because the story is ABSOLUTELY NOT OVER.
#avatar#avatar: the way of water#and THIS is why ive been crying over this movie for basically 3 weeks straight
9 notes
·
View notes
Text
Self Assessment
1. Critically read and respond to materials from a variety of perspectives and genres.
Sample from WP 2 Essay:
Psychological horror is one of “The Thing’s” most significant elements of the horror genre. The Thing is about a group of scientists based in a research station in Antarctica. They take in a stray dog, which turns out to be a shapeshifting creature they later find out has already taken over and destroyed another outpost. They soon discover that one of the crewmates has been replicated by this creature, and they’re then forced to kill him. Mistrust and paranoia begin to sweep across the camp as everyone begins to suspect each other as unmistakable signs of sabotage occur. As the audience, you get to experience all the same emotions as the characters on screen because you too are unsure of who you can trust. Fights break out, crewmates go mad, and innocent people are murdered. These are the elements that make the psychological horror in this movie effective.
I believe this sample from WP 2 adequately represents this skill. I portrayed that I was able to read and respond to materials from a certain genre and dissect elements that made up the genre.
2. Write and revise persuasive, unified, and well-organized arguments.
Sample from the Final Essay:
Watching Television Violence has negative effects on young children because it influences aggressive behaviors through observational learning, it desensitizes children to violence, and has lasting effects even in adulthood. However this issue can be resolved if parents would pay closer attention to what their children are watching, and regulate what they watch.
I believe my final essay underscores my ability to revise and create a persuasive well organized argument. Though not an argumentative essay, I am pushing that there is a problem here, and in this essay I organize my points, bring up counter arguments, and come up with solutions. I believe this essay demonstrates my achievement here.
3. Reflect on individual writing, practices, and processes.
Sample from the Protests Essay:
She told the story of an innocent 13-year old freckled girl who has lost her life to a drunk driver. She ended her speech by saying “That little girl was my daughter.” According to the 2011 article “Drunk Driving, Distracted Driving, Moralism, and Public Health,” Barron H. Lerner details Candice’s audience as having an extremely emotional reaction saying, “The audience gasped,” and “The press jumped up and ran out the door to call the photographers. Pandemonium broke out.” Candice’s story had an emotional impact on the people at the traffic safety conference regarding an issue that had been undermined for decades.
I believe this sample represents my achievement of this goal because I was able to adequately reflect and write about the technique of pathos used in a speech, and I was able to describe the process of the rhetorical devices used in the Mothers against drunk driving protests.
4. Conduct research and evaluate multimedia sources for credibility.
Sample from the Podcast: In his article “Spider-Man's Life Has Been Ruined by One Tragic Rule Since 1963” Austin Mace says “The financial struggles Peter has faced as Spider-Man have had lasting implications on his life.” and that “his financial woes have often been a point of contention between Peter and his romantic partners.'' It's very rare in other superhero comics that we see our heroes struggle with everyday problems, while in contrast peter parker is essentially beaten down by such real world problems and still continues to fight crimes.
I believe this sample demonstrates my ability to evaluate a credible source, and properly cite it and use it to further my points.
.
5. Purposefully integrate credible research material from a variety of sources into writing using appropriate documentation.
Sample from the Final Essay:
According to a 15 year long study reported on by The Washington Times “Children who frequently watch violent TV shows were more likely to engage in highly aggressive behavior as adults” regardless of Gender (Wetzstein). This correlation shows that there is a real problem here, and the longitudinal nature of the study makes it more evident. These behaviors can be very dangerous, and could subsequently result in the people around them being harmed.
I believe this sample shows I can properly integrate a source from a credible research material. From a variety of sources, from a news report for example, to further my points in writing.
0 notes
Text
Getting myself back
Throughout the last three and a half ish decades I’ve gone through my share of different seasons. If you know me well you’ll know my childhood wasn’t the easiest for me for years emotionally and mentally. College, marriage plus kids and more than a few moves here and there.
I often emphasize that a particular season where we had moved away from everyone and everything we knew was hard. It was hard on every level but it’s not to say it didn’t grow us either. But in that time was the first time I questioned if I really liked things because I actually liked them or wanted to obtain an image.
Moving back I did get back into certain things like baking but even that has gone in ebbs and flow with life. While I get people change in life and grow out of things it’s more than that.
Losing my grandma last summer (2022) was one of the hardest things. Talk about losing a piece of yourself when the person who had the biggest impact leaves. The first holidays without her was hard and I didn’t function well in wanting to do much. It was also a time that I was in physical pain from my hips being out of place.
Grief is sometimes like a fog and you don’t realize it’s there maybe right away. But over a year later I’ve fought hard to get pieces of myself back. Getting back into running has been one, focusing on friendships and family and faith. While with kids it often seems like we’re running around with our heads cut off. We also have dived into helping with Girl Scouts, youth group and other community activities.
This year heading into towards Thanksgiving I feel like I’ve gotten a piece of myself back as I want to watch and enjoy Hallmark movies. As the colder weather teases us I’m excited for cooler dare I say snowy days because I love baking on cold days. (Help warm up the house and make it smell good).
I’ve tried new things and maybe have tweaked them to fit life better now. But for the first time in a long time I’m excited to enjoy things I use to without sadness. I know everyone grieves differently and there’s no right or wrong way. There are days where it does hurt more than others but I feel like it’s not taking away who I am anymore.
0 notes
Text
Preserving the flow: A water conservation crusade
Definitions:
Story: Is a description of imaginary people and events, which is written or told in order to entertain.
Tales: Is a story, especially one that's full of creative embellishments.
Science fiction: Is a form of fiction that deals principally with the impact of actual or imagined science upon society or individuals.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Story:
"Hey, sis, what's the deal with this mysterious agenda you've been hiding lately?", I said.
"None of your business, Catherine. I am only stressed because I have zero dollars in my account", my sister said.
"Alright, you don't have to be so mysterious", I said.
It was 2080. I was eating a bar of chocolate when my distant sister, told me like a robot: "Catherine, I received an anonymous message! All the water on Earth has vanished!"
Our relationship had been strained for years; meanwhile, my sister, bearing jealousy over our mother's preference for me, had always wanted to make my life miserable. Nevertheless, her discovery of a peculiar ring that allowed time travel pushed her towards malevolence. She didn't limit her actions to me; instead, she sought to harm the entire world. In a rage, she adventured into the past and contaminated the world's primary water source, setting off a chain reaction that would disrupt the global balance for decades.
Upon learning of her malevolence, I confronted her. Subsequently, "You'll now feel what I've endured for years," she mocked, referring to her belief that everything she touched turned to destruction. Later, I reached the time machine and ventured into the past, leaving her behind in the future.
I discovered her younger self in fraganti, just before she doomed us all. I stopped her and made her see the consequences of her actions. In addition, I pointed out that her plan had dire consequences, which would ultimately harm us all in the future. Eventually she changed her attitude and I was able to repair our relationship. The best part was that my sister became my friend.
“After all, the bond I shared with my sister had begun with resentment and jealousy, but, in contrast, it evolved into a profound friendship. Consequently, I had saved the world from impending disaster, and therefore, our future was lighter than ever. Thus, the power of change and redemption had triumphed over destruction and hatred”, I thought.
"In the end, it's not about what we've done, but how we can mend and build a better future", I told my sister.
"You're right, let's make amends and ensure the world thrives", my sister said.
Later, we enjoyed a delicious pizza together, and as we put on some relaxing music from the piano, we decided to clean up our past mistakes and start living again, but this time working together to heal and forgive all corners of the planet for what happened.
How did I generate this image?
The image was really simple to generate, since in google there are several pages to create images in AI, in this case, I used Pica AI, it was given the message, or rather, the whole story, for the AI to decide which was the best scene that represented the written story, that way I chose this one, since it fits more to what I ask.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Links
Canva: https://www.canva.com/design/DAFxz_GNzOg/tN6AlRltRdw18Feuy3az-Q/edit?utm_content=DAFxz_GNzOg&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=sharebutton
Video: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ob4_ZyhB7c2KpLNQB46sLYmCeUBJdpWj/view?usp=share_link
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
References:
Sterling, B. (2023, October 18). Science fiction | Definition, Characteristics, Books, Movies, Authors, Examples, & Facts. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/art/science-fiction#:~:text=science%20fiction%2C%20abbreviation%20SF%20or,the%20American%20publisher%20Hugo%20Gernsback.
Story definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary. (2023). In Collins Dictionaries. https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/story#:~:text=A%20story%20is%20a%20description,told%20in%20order%20to%20entertain.
Tale - Definition, Meaning & Synonyms. (n.d.). In Vocabulary.com. https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/tale#:~:text=A%20tale%20is%20a%20story,that's%20full%20of%20creative%20embellishments.
1 note
·
View note
Text
crowd vs. critic single take // ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST (1975)
Note: This is a modified version of a review originally written for ZekeFilm. Photo credits: IMDb.com.
Randall P. McMurphy’s (Jack Nicholson) latest run-in with the law has sent him to a mental hospital. At first, he breathes life into a sterile world built on schedules, routine, and negative reinforcement. For the first time in who knows how long, his fellow patients are living a little, but any hope the colorful Randall brings to this white and khaki world is challenged by the orderly (literally and figuratively) Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher). She sucks up the breeze Randall blew into the first half of the film and turns Cuckoo’s Nest into a tragedy born of her rigidity.
CROWD // If you want to have fun at the movies, skip the 1970s!
Yes, I’m well aware my take is in the minority for film fans. I’ll never deny the artistry and impact of movies like The Godfather, The Last Picture Show, M*A*S*H, Saturday Night Fever, and Taxi Driver, but I also can’t deny many of the decade’s essentials leave me feeling miserable thanks to dark themes, serious subject matter, and long runtimes. And thanks to this Best Picture Project, I get to add One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest to that list!
While the first half of the film finds comedy in its quirky characters and the most dysfunctional boat heist of all time, it’s not long before McMurphy and his friends’ story turns bleak. We’ve made progress in how we talk about and treat people with mental health issues since Ken Kesey’s novel was published in 1962, but Cuckoo’s Nest is haunting because it speaks to more than its literal setting. Though most of us will never live through situations so extreme, we’ve all had to shed bits or our identities to conform for our own protection in one way or another. I put on 2002’s Best Picture nominee The Pianist while I wrote some of this, and I found the Holocaust drama put me in a mood similar to when I was watching the 1975 Best Picture winner. Both stories are built on authoritarian power structures surgically extracting undesirable people from a larger society, and the only hope for survival within them is falling in line and no longer thinking for yourself. Ratched stamps out individuality and punishes dissent with physical torture so upsetting I don’t even like looking at the pictures of her.
POPCORN POTENTIAL: 5/10
CRITIC // Even if Cuckoo’s Nest kept me up past my bedtime because it wouldn’t stop rattling around in my mind (if you’ll pardon the crude expression), I won’t attempt to discredit its Oscars legacy. The directing and screenplay are taut as the hospital cornered bed sheets, Nicholson is at the top of his game (winning his first Oscar), and Fletcher’s icy performance is subtler and more believable than I expected. Bonus: The supporting performances from Danny DeVito and Christopher Lloyd have only aged well as they’ve become more beloved performers since this release. Cuckoo’s Nest is also a member of the exclusive Big Five Winners club (Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Screenplay) with It Happened One Night and The Silence of the Lambs. Arguably more significant, it beat out a Best Picture nominee considerably more fun (and more important to the history of modern movies): Jaws. (The other contenders were Barry Lyndon, Dog Day Afternoon, and Nashville. What a year for you ‘70s cinema enthusiasts!) Though Jaws may be more top-of-mind half a century later, it didn’t need the Oscar win to cement its legacy—Cuckoo’s Nest is a powerful essential of the decade, and its Best Picture win ensures it won’t be forgotten to time.
ARTISTIC TASTE: 10/10
#One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest#Jack Nicholson#Crowd#Critic#5/10#10/10#Best Picture#Best Picture Project#Academy Awards#Oscars#Louise Fletcher#The Pianist#The Godfather#The Last Picture Show#M*A*S*H#Saturday Night Fever#Taxi Driver#Barry Lyndon#Dog Day Afternoon#Nashville#Ken Kesey#It Happened One Night#The Silence of the Lambs#Single Take
0 notes
Note
i feel like its the aroace in me, but why do they even need love interests at all? girl if im watching a marvel movie i wanna see people beat the shit out of each other not make out 😭😭
i don’t think romances in action films are inherently unnecessary, they can provide a lot of humanization and relatability to larger than life figures in a lot of cases. while i don’t care for banner and romanoff on the other end of the spectrum is tony and pepper potts. tony theoretically has everything he could ever want after becoming iron man but he still struggles with his relationship with pepper and finding balance between being a hero and being a good partner. then when you get to endgame watching him choose between the happy life he STRUGGLED to create with her and their daughter vs bringing everyone they’ve lost back is heartbreaking and the fact that you’ve watched their relationship develop across 6 ? films spanning a decade by that point makes it feel crazy. natasha dies in that same movie and i can’t even remember banner’s reaction but i DO remember clint barton’s <- pointing this out bc as i said i think romance can make a protagonist more human but the friendship between romanoff and barton easily filled that space way better than the romance (granted, by this point bruce banner was barely anything more than a punchline for the mcu so maybe if they kept the characterization from the first avengers movie it would’ve been better but it’s not so we move). another example from recent memory is peggy carter and steven rogers, they spend most of captain america the first avenger kind of dancing around having feelings for each other but at the very end where they’re talking over the radio as steve is crashing the jet, it broke my heart when he mentioned he still never learned to dance and peggy says she’ll teach him as long as he’s still there. and then when he wakes up 70 years later and they tell him how long he’s been asleep he says he’ll be okay but that. he had a date. 💔. i don’t even LIKE peggy but god that line 😭😭😭 anyway a lot of romances in action are fridged women to fuel male pain or make no effing sense but the ones that are impactful and hold their own weight are awesome yayyyy
0 notes
Photo
Stranger Things 4 has me thinking about the enduring power of music, which in turn got me thinking about meaningful albums in my life.
When I was around 5 or so I got a little portable boombox for Christmas one year to go along with the Get In Shape Girls toy set thing. Shortly after this I convinced my mom to get me my first non Disney sing along cassette tape, and that tape was Cyndi Lauper’s She’s So Unusual.
My favorite song was, unsurprisingly, Girls Just Want to Have Fun. And a whole lot of the innuendos and references of the songs on the album went right over little me’s head. But I loved the beats and dancing to it and it stayed in play for quite a while before eventually falling to the back of a drawer.
Fast forward a decade and a bit and you find teen me sitting in a movie theater falling in love with To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar. I had just started realizing I might not be straight (forgive a kid for growing up primarily in the rural South in the 80s and 90s being a tad slow on the uptake). More importantly, I was starting to realize that being queer didn’t make me some freak of nature that didn’t deserve to exist. That there were other people like me who lived happy and fulfilling lives. The movie ends with a scene that includes both Cyndi Lauper and an updated version of Girls Just Want to Have Fun.
This reminded me that I had that cassette somewhere and prompted me to revisit the album, which suddenly made a lot more sense and was meaningful in very different ways than it had been originally. I suddenly had more appreciation for She Bop, for instance, but my new favorite song was probably Money Changes Everything. I actually listened to that tape enough after finding it again that I wore it out.
I still love Cyndi Lauper (and not just the She’s So Unusual album). I even got to see her live in my early 20s. And Girls Just Want to Have Fun always brings back fond memories, not just of little me or teen me, but also of me singing it with friends at Karaoke in my 20s, me dancing to it at Pride in my 30s, and even just me bopping around my house in my 40s. I have a feeling it will always make me smile. I still jam out to She Bop from time to time and giggle over my teen self’s realization that it was about masturbation. And I still sing along to Money Changes Everything and feel the melancholy vibes of it in my soul. And some of Cyndi’s other songs still echo through my soul as well. Time After Time and True Colors can still make me cry. The Goonies R Good Enough never fails to make me smile (or to make me think of one of my favorite childhood films).
It’s just fascinating to me that all these years later, I can still remember getting that album and wanting to be like the cool woman on the cover with wild hair and style. There are lots of other artists and albums that have made a lasting impact on me, but that was the first. May I never stop wanting to have fun.
What are albums, artists, or songs that shaped you? What might be on your “save me from Vecna” playlist/mixtape?
#long post is long#music#cyndi lauper#music that shaped us#what might save me from vecna#she's so unusual#girls still want to have fun
0 notes
Last Seen Blogs
mali-borsebijoux
MALÌ Borse&Bijoux
yaldabaothappreciationhours
Yaldabaoth Appreciation Hours
vacationrentalsflorida
Vacation Rentals Florida
jameskrossbones-blog-blog
KROSSBONES
annalissenyc
Untitled