#fascinating that this oddly specific plot point keeps happening
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where do these green men keep getting crowns
#mcyt#hc x dsmp#goodtimeswithscar#gtws#eret#dreamwastaken#georgenotfound#bdoubleo#rendog#inthelittlewood#bug report#cochineal#just a silly doodle thought that's been kicking around in my brain for a couple days#fascinating that this oddly specific plot point keeps happening
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ahh I loved 'If there was a crown' If you have time would you please consider writing a continuation? because it was amazinggg
The hero hated princes. Princes were annoying, vain, arrogant, and so very cocky, according to the hero.
The prince, on the other hand, didn’t so much mind bakers. Bakers were fun, scare-able.
At first, the prince was everso delighted when learning of the hero’s identity, his plot being decided in all of two minutes.
Then the baker-hero was there, and they were so different than the prince imagined. He always thought they would be strong, with or without the costume, but this baker was barely quelling their nerves.
And to hear them call the prince by his title gave him relief to no end. But it felt oddly wrong.
To see the fear dawn on the baker’s face - fear the prince had never seen in their fights - it was all too perfect, and all too short lived.
Next was the taunting, something the hero had always been able to participate in, and with the repartee being one sided, the prince was filled with glee.
Until he wasn’t
He was frustrated, he thought he would be happy. As a prince, he could have anything except the hero, and now that he had them, it wasn’t enough. He wanted more, still.
The prince noticed the hero’s harsh concentration whenever he neared, their head working on ways to escape.
He was a diplomat, the prince. He was taking over the kingdom, he was raised to know what people were thinking.
“Pesky little hero, it’s no use.”
“What?” The hero snapped, still mid thought.
In response, the prince smiled, and tilted his head to the side. “Would it be fair to assume you have never been in such a situation?”
“Take your best guess, my prince.” The hero’s tone was anything but formal, but that didn’t stop the delighted feeling flowing throughout the prince.
“Such malice, baker.” His words were equally as venomous. “For someone in such a bind, I would think one to be kinder.”
“I would think I still have my dignity.”
“And shaking hands.”
The hero fell silent.
Sly eyes found their way to the crown in the corner of the cell. While it was hard to break, the hero certainly did try, the crown now dirtied and somehow slightly dented.
The prince didn’t know they had that sort of strength.
“I did mainly come to drop this off.” A tray of food rattled on the lone desk. “But it seems you are in dire need of company, what, with taking out your solitude on my most prized possession.”
“You shouldn’t give nice things to pesky heroes.” The hero bit back, the chains on their wrist becoming uncomfortably heavy.
“I told you, I would make an exception for you.”
Silence reigned for a brief moment.
“I could strangle you.” The hero said, voice soft and hands trembling. “If you just got close enough, these chains are more than enough, I could-”
“Then do it.” The prince stepped closer. “I won’t try to stop you. I will even assist you.” He turned around, back towards the hero. “I’m close enough, unsuspecting, a prime opportunity if any.”
Nothing happened. The hero didn’t move, the prince didn’t move, and the world came to a standstill.
“Or,” the prince spoke, still turned around. “Is this not how you would like me? Would you prefer I go to war for you? Some neighboring territories would be rather easy to take, if only in your name.”
The hero actually stepped back. “What is this?”
“Compliance. I’m being a kindly host.”
“A host?” The hero repeated. “This is a game to you?” Their face had twisted into a snarl, but no move was made against the villain. “Tormenting one while killing others?”
The prince whipped around. “What makes you think I’m practicing villainy again?”
“There was never a choice, was there?” A stark laugh came from the hero. “That’s why you’re the only one down here, isn’t it? Everyone else thinks I’m long gone. Besides, are your plans for the kingdom finished?”
Oh, this amused the prince greatly.
“Clever and pesky.” He muttered. “An awful combination.”
Despite their nerves, the hero managed to stare the prince in the eye.
“Won’t your guard be suspicious?” The hero asked. “The king?”
Pure anger flashed on the prince’s face. “That man is of no-” he remembered himself, the anger dissolving before a neutral expression took hold. “You should eat. I’ll know if you don’t.”
“And if I don’t?”
“I hope you don’t value that bakery all too much.”
When the prince had gone, the hero let themselves come undone, trembling in a pile of fear.
No other threats were made past that one fateful day, on either end.
It became a routine, of sorts. The hero would try to find a way out, and the prince would sit back, amused.
Once, the prince stormed in, wrinkled papers clutched in hand.
“I’m working in here.” He announced, making use of the desk oh so generously supplied to the hero.
The hero had to wonder if that was the purpose of it, more for the prince than them.
“I thought you had no power.” The hero mumbled folding something from ripped book pages.
“I still have responsibilities, something I suppose doesn’t affect you anymore.”
The hero nearly crushed their paper creation. “My responsibilities were ripped away from me if you deign to remember!”
The prince waved them off, scribbling something with their other hand.
There was no way of knowing how much time had passed for the hero, it was only when the prince sighed and leaned back did they realize time had passed at all.
“What are you making?”
“A child’s toy. Most every child in the kingdom can paper-fold.” The hero snorted. “Probably not royal ones.”
The prince stood tall over the hero, eyes landing on the expert foldings. “A paper crown. How ironic when a real one stays in the corner.”
“How ironic you keep coming here.” The hero set the paper crown aside, their hands clutched together.
They were refusing to look at the prince.
“Pesky little hero, your silence is suffocating.”
“What were you working on?” The hero said, still not looking at the prince, though they could see him in their side view.
“Are you truly interested?” The prince asked. “Or is this you trying to find information to use against me?”
“What does it matter to you? Any information I get will rot away with me. It’s ‘no use’, isn’t it?”
Clever and pesky indeed.
“If you must know, you pesky thing, I’ve been trying to worm my way out of a potential marriage.”
The hero’s head snapped up, only to find the prince already looking at them, smiling widely. “There you are. A possible wedding is what it takes for you to look at me?”
“So you won’t be getting married?” They made to look down again, but the prince snaked out a hand, grabbing the hero’s chin.
“You would make a pretty royal.” He said appreciatively, turning the hero’s head with his hand. “Especially done up for a royal portrait.”
“So you’ve said.” The hero tried to yank away, but the prince held fast.
“We,” he began, “are created to be perfect. I was created to be perfect. There’s something so fascinating with everyday people still being beautiful.”
The hero’s lip curled. “My appearances are not for you to marvel at!”
“My, my.” The prince dropped his hand. “Where do these little bursts of defiance come from? It feels as if I am truly talking to Hero, and not some baker. By the by, what do you call a baker without a bakery?”
“Go to hell.”
“At some point.”
The hero suddenly regretted their words, their bakery floating to the top of their mind.
“That’s not a concentrating face.”
They hated him, for being a prince, for figuring out their identity, for having power, even if he didn’t realize it. But most of all, they hated he could hold their bakery over their head.
“And that’s resolve. What, I wonder, is going through your head?”
The hero’s eyes dropped, their hands reaching to tear more book pages, and at this, the prince sighed.
“Fine then, I’ll leave you to your folding.”
“What do you care?” The hero asked, already making a crease in the words. “Are you just having your fun before you decide to kill me?”
“No.” The prince spoke quickly. “No. I am having fun, but you will not be dying. Not here. Not by my hand.”
“Then it is just simple then.”
“What is?”
The hero looked up. “You are a cruel bastard.”
There was no response, just a long and cold stare, then once again, the hero was alone. They were alone, and now had a plan.
The prince had mentioned it earlier, but the hero didn’t believe him, they thought he was still going to kill them. However, the quick desperation of his tone made the hero rethink otherwise.
The prince didn’t want them dead, did he? What were the chances of getting out if the prince thought they were close to death?
This was a flimsy plan, especially in that there was no telling when it would happen. The hero would have to make it look like something had happened, but the prince would have to be there to witness it.
So, the hero had to listen, and carefully.
Any sign of steps, and they would move. First, to the bed, where they would grab the blankets and pull them down, trying to make it look as if they had clutched onto something before falling.
Next was the positioning. The hero wasn’t sure about this, the chains being a bit inhibiting, but hopefully, if this all went as planned, the chains would be coming off.
Finally came the hard part, acting. They had never needed to pretend to be passed out, they had never had to force themself to be calm like this. It was already difficult for them to even their breathing while in a state of nerves, but to play at vulnerability while making their lungs steady was difficult to say the least.
So, it all came down to keeping their nerve, and timing. It would work fine, they were sure of it, despite how hard their heart was hammering in their chest. This had to work fine.
Listening was difficult, singling out one specific sound among dozens of others, especially to the untrained ear. Once or twice, the hero had prepared, positioning themselves with the blankets in hand, only to realize it was an echo of a sound.
Knowing what time it was would make it easier, the prince delivering meals himself at a specific time was otherwise useless information.
They couldn’t be sure how long they listened, only that they were suddenly on the floor, the sound of regal boots getting closer.
The creaking door opened, and the hero had to stop themselves from shaking. They had to do this right, it had to work.
The prince cursed, something dropping onto the ground.
Then there was the sudden closeness, the prince mere inches from the hero’s face, who could feel their muscles tensing.
Two fingers were on the hero’s neck, who almost cried having to keep still while the prince checked their pulse.
A rattling sound, then the weight on the hero’s wrists dropped. They had to stop themselves from flinching away, from running right then and there. They had to make themselves be dead weight when strong hands lifted them.
Breathe even.
Dead weight.
Don’t let your eyelids move.
Breathe.
Breathe.
Breathe.
The steps the prince took were large, frantic. He was in a hurry to wherever he planned on taking the hero now.
And once the hero was sure, absolutely positive they were at least past the bars of the cell, at least far away from the manacles, and at least in an open space, they struck.
A fist flew to the prince’s jaw, his hold on the hero weakening. They hero leapt from his arms, rolling back onto their feet.
“And there’s that acrobatic hero I know and love.” The prince chuckled, rubbing his bruising face.
There was no time for the hero to play into what was surely his attempt at stalling. They could either incapacitate him now, or run and hope to find the quickest way out.
A prince knocked out in his own home might raise questions the hero couldn’t afford to answer.
“Don’t tell me you’re afraid to fight?” The prince baited.
It almost worked. Almost.
The hero, fists clenched, turned and ran. Maybe this wasn’t the brightest of plans, but none of the options were the best.
“I happened to have grown up in this place.” The prince said, leaning against a corridor wall the hero had just turned onto.
They immediately turned around again.
“Pesky hero.” They heard the prince tut, footsteps once again fading away.
A door, it was all they needed, a window is what they got.
They didn’t hesitate, smashing their elbow against the glass, cracks beginning to form. This was done again and again, until the window had shattered completely.
The hero peered down, looking at the two story height.
Considering the prince had taken them from seemingly below ground to upper levels of the palace, the height made sense.
And the height worked. The hero had done much more from much higher places. This would be easy, it might still hurt, but it would work.
The hero stepped up, their back facing outside, a slowly setting sun bathing them in light.
“Hero.” A voice said, cold and commanding. It was a voice future kings should learn.
“Your highness.”
“You don’t know what you would happen if you made a reappearance as Hero. You don’t know what would happen if you left.” The prince took a step forward, fully aware of the hero watching him. “As it turns out, I’m not the only royal who dislikes heroes.”
“Is that all?”
The prince cautioned two more steps. “I don’t think you quite realize what I have afforded you.”
After prince’s taunts, his fun, it felt good to see his discomfort, even if vengefulness wasn’t the hero’s style.
“I’m sure I don’t.”
Three more steps. “And I don’t know what stunt you are trying to pull here, but-”
“Not a stunt.” The hero interrupted. “I’m just leaving.”
It had gone right, this plan, and it felt fantastic, they felt calm for the first time in a while. They felt a lot that they hadn’t felt in a while.
“I think we could discuss this civilly, don’t you?” One more step, and he was in arms length of the hero.
“I think you’re wrong.”
The prince lunged, but the hero was quick enough, pushing him back as momentum for the fall.
If he wasn’t aware of the hero’s skilled ability in any and all things acrobatic, he would’ve been worried for their safety, but instead, he had a million other things to worry about, namely, how to get them back without making a fuss.
The prince chanced a glance out the broken window, but the hero had already faded away, disappearing with the prince’s dignity.
The worst and most daunting of it all was that the hero had managed to snag the prince’s brooch on their way down.
#hero x villain#villain x hero#captive hero#hero#villain#heroine#heroes#villains#prince villain#sorry#so sorry#request#part two#if there was a crown#villains and heroes#heroes and villains
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Eugenesis, an Overview: Let Me Get Weirdly Serious About This Book For A Sec
HOLY SHIT WHAT A RIDE.
So, let’s recap what we’ve learned over the last 282 pages.
In 2001, James Roberts published nearly 300 pages of fictional prose, based in the established franchise of Transformers, specifically the Marvel UK comic continuity. This novel tells the story of the Transformers, in their dwindling numbers, being attacked, not by their opposing factions, but by an outside force hellbent on revenge. Those who are captured by this force- the Quintessons- are stripped of their very individuality, forced into servitude until the moment they die of exhaustion. Everyone is pushed to- and in some cases beyond- their limits, the horrors of a literal genocide beating down on them like a tidal wave. Only by casting aside their differences and banding together can they hope to survive the nightmare that is the Eugenesis Wars.
But people don’t really talk about all that, even though it’s a majority of what the book’s about. No, people only talk about what happens after the Quintessons are defeated. People only talk about the robots getting pregnant, because honestly it is the most bizarre thing.
Not because the idea itself is terribly odd- I mean, at least it’s in line with the lore the comics set up. It’s bizarre in how we get to that point. All the torture, all the suicide and death and depression and destruction of entire belief systems, leads up to these robots getting pregnant. Almost like that was the whole point. And considering that this story is presenting to us a bridge for the gap between the classic Transformers and the Beast-Era ones, it could have very well been.
I won’t say fetish, because that doesn’t feel quite right, but our dear author seems to have a sort of… obscene fascination with the concept of mechpreg. A fascination that will carry on well into his career as a professional comic scriptwriter, setting readers on edge for the duration of his run with IDW.
Comparing Eugenesis to More Than Meets The Eye and Lost Light, you get an interesting view of Roberts’ growth, as both a writer and a human being. Eugenesis is the work of what Billy Joel might call an "angry young man”, focusing on the despair of wartime and the futility of one’s struggle against the flow of time and mortality. The theme of time only being perceived as linear, and being in actuality an unending plane where all moments are equal and eternal might seem oddly specific, but it’s reflected upon by multiple characters within the story of Eugenesis. Perhaps this is why he has Brainstorm and Perceptor collectively and completely jack up time itself in the Elegant Chaos storyline.
Character moments sprinkled throughout the narrative give us a glimpse of the relationships that would be written later on- some of the most compelling scene writing happens between Quark and Rev-Tone, two original characters who have such a delightful dynamic between them, they very quickly became some of my favorites. You truly believe that they care so strongly for one another, they would do just about anything to keep the other safe. And they do, in a couple cases.
Then there’s all the death. There’s a lot of death in Eugenesis, and none of it is by way of natural causes- you’ve either got suicide, murder, or suicide-by-way-of-murder. You really see Roberts shine in these death scenes, both then and now, as he captures the utter, raw tranquility as one stares down their own demise, and on the other side of the coin, the complete annihilation of one’s very heart as someone they love is destroyed. It’s downright poetic how he handles these scenes.
Still, there is a difference in how the aftermath is handled. When someone dies in the MTMTE/LL run, there’s always meaning and purpose to it- nobody dies just to die, and those who are left behind are left at least something to comfort them.
A message of love.
The return of a friend.
A chance to keep living.
A chance to be a better person.
You don’t get that in Eugenesis. In most cases, there’s no salve for the wound, only more hurting. There’s no time to even mourn, as the fight rages on and on and on. Any happiness pulled from the narrative for the characters is laced with a bittersweet understanding that these folks probably aren’t going to make it, and they’re just as aware of that fact as the reader is.
And yet there’s something kind of beautiful about that, in a twisted sort of way.
Eugenesis is a sort of love letter to those dark thoughts hiding in our heads, those deeply scary intrusive visions of everything we care about being ripped away from us. It’s a book make up of catharsis, of hurting that begs for some sort of outlet. The characters in this story are lost, and scared, and hollowed out before the mass extinction even arrives, and are put through wringer after wringer, like some sort of distanced facsimile of self-harm.
Perhaps I’m reading a bit too into this, but with how intense things get, with self-insert characters no less, I can’t help but wonder if the James Roberts who was writing Eugenesis truly needed this outlet in more than just a creative sense.
Which isn’t to say that there aren’t issues with this novel just because it was a vessel for catharsis. Pacing can end up going so rapidly it feels as if you’re being pushed towards the edge of a cliff, then stutter to a halt to the point where continuing on feels like an absolute slog. But it always seems just as you’re about to put the thing down and give up, something completely thrilling, completely insane and powerful and profoundly attention-grabbing happens, pulling you right back in. If nothing else, this book demands one’s attention.
There are also some other, more interesting issues with Eugenesis. Issues I wasn’t really expecting to run into. To highlight one such issue, we’re going to play a game.
The game is called Guess That Character Design!
Hey Transformers fandom, got a new quandary for y’all to fight over. Forget the Frenzy/Rumble color debate, forget the Bombshell/Skywarp is Cyclonus debate, it’s time for the What The Actual Everloving Fuck Is Quark Supposed To Look Like debate! Do we follow the comic and its script, which show him as being either about on par with Rev-Tone and Mirage or taller, but fails to note any sort of color because it’s in black-and-white? Or do we follow the novel, which states he’s short exactly once, and crimson? And if he’s red, where did the blue paint chips come from in Part Five? They sure didn’t come from Rev-Tone, who I know is mostly red- not because the novel told me, but because I’ve seen art of him outside of this. Honestly, other than him having big honkin’ shoulders and a bust to match, nothing about Quark’s visual aesthetic is concrete.
Now, I could tell you all about his quirks and mannerisms, how he holds himself, how he talks, how he interacts with others, all sorts of stuff. Nothing wrong with the writing there, characterization’s great! I just couldn’t tell you for the life of me how his body is supposed to look. Rev-Tone’s in the same boat, except it’d be even worse without the helpful input of some friends. Did you know he has a visor? Because I sure as shit didn’t until someone showed me. It’s never mentioned in the book. You can barely see it in the prequel comic art if you’re looking for it, and the script is less than helpful to me because I’m not Matt friggin’ Dallas, nor have I had the pleasure of reading Transtrip. All the information presented in the novel about his looks involves his mouth.
Hell, some of the writing in Eugenesis seems to imply that he actually just has normal eyeballs.
What I’m getting at here is that Roberts leans a bit too much on the reader knowing exactly as much as he does about the characters, the plot points, the lore. And he knows A LOT about Transformers.
This book essentially requires the reader to have the wiki open with multiple tabs at all times. Roberts put his heart and soul into the prose, but the world-building had his nerdy little brains smeared all over it, because there are some obscure references in here, not to mention the sci-fi jargon. You basically NEED an internet connection to get through this- I’ve never read a novel that pretty much forbid an acoustic reading, but here it is, in all its glory.
Eugenesis is a dark, morbid, conflicted story with the oddest little bright spots in it. Within five pages, you’ll go from some of the most horridly bleak death scenes to someone accidentally burning a hole in their hand like a cartoon character. But never once, in nearly 300 pages, does it ever stop trying. It may not succeed in what it’s attempting 100% of the time, but goddamn does it go as hard as it can. This isn’t something that was done for money, or fame, or anything like that. Eugenesis is a passion project in the purest sense, and you can really feel it in the way it’s been crafted. For all the frustration it put me through, never once did I think “man, this guy just doesn’t care.” The ambition Roberts shows in the prose, in the world-building, in all the funny little moments that show just so much personality within the story, truly were harbingers for what was to come just a decade later.
Ambitious. Bleak. Brutal. Weird. Ultimately unforgettable. That’s James Roberts’ Eugenesis.
But let’s get to the heart of the matter, shall we? The one question that truly matters for any novel: is it worth reading?
Well, that depends.
If you had a hard time with the darker parts of MTMTE/LL, I really couldn’t recommend that you read Eugenesis. You will have an awful time, because most of it is Grindcore x100 levels of depressing and brutal. There were a couple points where I had to take a break because things got so intense- and I’m not exactly squeamish. Maybe stick to a breakdown- like this one!- or try a group read-along. Friends make everything better, after all.
If you like Roberts work and want to see where he came from, like I did, I highly recommend you find a copy- digital of course, there are only a few hundred physical copies in existence. I recommend you find the 2nd edition, which includes Telefunken and fixes some of the more glaring continuity mistakes and typos.
It’s a good read. Just... it’s a lot at times.
Like, a lot.
Up next-
Oh, what? You didn’t think that was it, did you? This url is way too sweet to just be done with so soon.
Next, I’ll be taking a gander at Children of a Lesser Matrix, which is something that was never finished by Roberts, but is still floating around the internet because hey! It’s the internet.
If anyone has any other somewhat obscure writings from JRo, feel free to send them my way. Especially if you have any of the TMUK zines from back in the day. I wish to consume all the works.
#transformers#jro#eugenesis#recap#maccadam#Hannzreads#incoming analysis#overthinking about robots#text post#long post
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it’s still tuesday here for THREE MORE HOURS i didn’t heckin miss it i made it
Like Whispering
[ao3]
[Fandom: The Penumbra Podcast
Relationship: Lord Arum/Sir Damien/Rilla
Characters: Rilla, Lord Arum, Sir Damien
Additional Tags: Fluff without Plot, Literal Sleeping Together, Sleepy Cuddles, (basically just a deep dive into monster anatomy), (and Rilla's incessant hunger to understand things), (i'll be real with you this one is weird), (but i like the ending and i need something to post for the IMPORTANT DAY), Lizard Kissin' Tuesday, (i hope y'all care to hang with me while i unpack a buncha headcanons about Arum's body!!!!)
Summary: Rilla examines the fascinating landscape of her monstrous lover while he sleeps.
Notes: I don't even know anymore fam I hope SOMEONE besides me enjoys this at least. There is at least one Lizard Kiss this time, thank the Saints. Rated T for implications of sex in the past. Title take from the song 3 Rounds and a Sound by Blind Pilot. ]
Rilla will never stop being fascinated by Arum.
He sleeps beside her, between she and Damien, and even that is a thousand page treatise on the concept of trust that she wants to memorize front to back. When he sleeps alone he curls into a ball, tail wrapped around himself like a cat, but in the bed they share he is more apt to sprawl, hand and hand and hand and hand reaching out until they can find a soft source of warmth, until he can pull his lovers close against him and curl around them instead.
It’s easier to really learn him, in sleep. He tends to get irritable with her if she stares at him too long in the daylight. Which is fair, Rilla reasons. Analyzing the bone structure of your monster is a process that requires more direct observation than anyone would reasonably call polite… but Rilla can’t help herself.
Arum’s body is like a puzzle in some ways. Like four or five puzzles piled up together, actually. She’s been taking notes about the subject in longhand, in code, because she doesn’t think he’d appreciate her trying to categorize him so thoroughly- but it isn’t even about the science, anymore. The inhumanity of him, the irrationality; it draws her in. Curiosity has always been Rilla’s weakness, and Lord Arum is a curious creature indeed.
She wants to know him. Every part of him.
She can’t decide, yet, how to organize her observations; mostly she tries to take him part by part, layer by riveting layer.
She has pages dedicated to his eyes. The first thing she learned about him, really, was that he could see better in the dark than a human, and his eyes only got more interesting from there. Diamond-shaped pupils blow out wide in the dark or with arousal, or narrow into thin, dangerous slits when he’s focused. Irises, bright violet. Bright like actual violets, saturated and bold with narrow flecks of a darker shade arranged around the pupil in a subtle starburst. She and Damien must be the only creatures alive who have gotten close enough to see those flecks of plum among the violet, the only people he would trust enough to let that close. He lets them close enough to see, and then he allows his eyes to close regardless, a set of nictitating membranes sliding horizontally over the purple before his proper eyelids close as well.
Another fascinating layer, those membranes. They’re translucent but fogged gray, waterproof, protective; she’s noticed them slipping closed without the outer lids when he’s startled, or when he happens to go out in the rain [a note on his clothing in the rain: it is waterproof as well, though whether that is through magic or the skill of monsters’ weave is impossible to determine, and when she asks for clarification Arum dismisses the question in so particular a way that she is unsure which possibility is more likely]. It’s a useful trait, one that Rilla appreciates because it’s another layer of protection for those unique, beautiful eyes.
She can’t take more notes on his eyes in sleep, though. Instead, she ghosts her hands over his scales, over the subtle patterned expanse of his back as he snores gently into Damien’s hair.
The long, elegant curve of his spine is crested with a subtle ridge of raised scales, like spines or horns, nearly an inch long at the base of his skull and down between his shoulders, and barely higher than the bumps of the rest of his scales lower down [the first time Rilla runs her fingertips along the ridge Arum snaps his teeth in the air, hissing through them in surprise and delight, and Rilla smiles, then repeats the gesture]. Aside from some mild sensitivity, they seem primarily cosmetic, and Rilla can’t place what specific creature the trait is stolen from.
The entire expanse of his scales gleams magnificently, even in the low light of the nighttime Keep. He’s mottled in vibrant dark green and in black, with speckles of gold dotting down his front. The scales themselves are small and near as thick as light armor on his back, on the outsides of his arms, along the top of his tail, and in bigger, softer, smoother plates down his neck, his stomach, underneath his arms, between his legs. He is textured, cool, everywhere she can lay her hands [she has made a point to lay her hands nearly everywhere, by now].
The second pair of arms is completely unnatural relative to any nonmagical reptilian, and they should be completely incongruous with the rest of his frame, but his body fits together with infuriating ease. Arum’s torso is slightly longer than it would otherwise be to make room for the second set of pectorals that the extra arms necessitate [when he stretches in the morning his musculature ripples beneath his scales like the billow of steam, and Rilla could easily spend the rest of her life cataloging every configuration of angles at which his arms could be arranged atop the pillows of their shared bed], and his musculature there is lean but shockingly strong.
The pads of his fingers are textured with hair-thin ridges that help him stick to walls and ceilings when he scurries along at his shocking speed, similar to those of a gecko [Her list of creatures that Arum has traits in common with is absurdly long, and longer when she includes her speculations on his internal anatomy], and the same is true of his toes. His claws on all four limbs are dangerously sharp [more recently, he files down the claws on his lower pair of hands enough to dull them, complaining bitterly about the fragility of humans in general, but the first time he can reach out for the two of them, touch them without fear of causing harm, his expression falls to something raw and earnest and tender] [the claws on his upper hands remain sharp, and there is a certain thrill that comes with their careful touch as well].
His legs are powerful, long, a zig-zag of artful curves. He walks on his toes when he’s upright, his heels in the air and adding to his already impressive height, but he can turn his ankles oddly when he drops to all six limbs, slithering viper-quick whether he is crossing the floor or climbing a tree or wall or ceiling.
Arum’s tail is primarily meant for balance, and it’s not quite so deft as to be entirely prehensile, but he has enough control that he can grip a small object with it or curl it around something solid to stabilize himself [he is equally likely to curl it around either of his humans to pull them closer unexpectedly, to add an extra layer to an embrace].
[Rilla has an entirely separate mental space for notes on Arum’s sexual anatomy; that research is currently ongoing]
Arum’s teeth are [she mentally places a line between her more clinical observations and those that belong in the previous category] gorgeous, knife-sharp, terrifying, with long vicious incisors and jagged molars. Insectivore teeth, meant for piercing and crushing exoskeletons, and they flash bright behind his thin lips when when he snarls or speaks or laughs.
There is a crescent of little divots above those lips, the labial pits he uses to sense heat; a snake trait among the more dominant lizard features. In the scatter of her notes she has them sorted into the category of particularly anomalous with his extra arms and his frill.
His frill: infuriatingly out of place [speaking only for the purposes of classification: in the social sense, Rilla is only ever grateful for the fragile, expressive webbing that flares around Arum’s head in surprise and embarrassment and indignation, because it’s one of the easiest ways to tell what he’s feeling, besides his tone of voice]. It bears only passing similarity to the same feature on nonmagical frilled lizards; it drapes along the sides of his head when at rest instead of folding at his neck, it’s smaller relative to the size of his head, and the folds revealed when it flares are colored in bright patches of bluish-green and gold-
“Amaryllis.”
For half a moment she thinks that he’s murmuring in his sleep, which would be an interesting first, but then one of his eyes slits open and fixes her with a violet glare.
“I could feel you staring even in the depths of sleep, Amaryllis,” he mutters, voice thick and growling. “What, precisely, is causing you to think so furiously at this time of night?”
His irises are wide black diamonds in the mellow dark, his long tongue flicks absently to scent the air, his chest rumbles with each breath he takes, and every piecemeal part of him fits together in an impossible harmony, every edge that by rights should be jagged instead slides smooth. Rilla knows she’ll never unravel the entire tapestry of Arum, and that knowledge fills her with the thrill of challenge, with breathless awe, with overflowing love.
“You,” she says after a pause, hoping the enormity of her feelings doesn’t bleed too much into her voice. When he goes startle-still, she leans down to press a kiss to his cheek, where she knows he can feel the tickle of her warm-blooded heat. She doesn’t pull away then, sighing against the texture of his scales and pressing her hand to feel the slow drum of his heart in his chest. “Just thinking how damn stunning you looked all wrapped up with Damien.”
Rilla isn’t Damien, and she can’t make the tangle of science and wonder and connection in her mind sing as prose, or verse. Her coded pages read exactly like her field notes: pointed, unadorned, though admittedly a bit more biased. Arum knows her, though. He knows the deeper context around her flippancy, the way she uses informality as a source of comfort.
He breathes a laugh and it tickles Rilla’s ear, and he nuzzles his face against her own. “I would love to pay your flattery back in kind, Amaryllis, but if we wake the little knight now he’ll be utterly useless in the morning,” he grumbles, letting his eyes slip closed again as he pulls her closer.
“Sweet of you to worry about tiring him out,” she replies in a teasing whisper. He growls at the implication that his worry is unselfish, and Rilla’s mind flies off again. The entirety of Arum’s vocal system is a wild mystery, how he can duplicate human language with such an incompatible tongue and lips, and that isn’t even getting into the mystery of how he makes those rattling noises, those growls, those purrs. As far as Rilla is aware, purring is not a typical trait in a lizard, so she can’t even begin to speculate what animal instrument is hiding in the hollow of his throat.
“You are thinking again,” he hisses through a sigh, smiling with his eyes closed and letting his claws drift gently up and down her bicep. “I can hear your mind churning when you go still like that.”
“Sorry,” she says wryly, pressing another kiss to his neck.
“No apologies, my Amaryllis, but you need your rest as well as he does.”
Arum tends to save his pet names for Damien (Rilla suspects this is because they have a much more profound effect on the knight than they would on herself), but it does send a giddy little thrill through her when he slips enough to call her his. “I know, I know,” she says. “I’ll get to hibernating or whatever.”
He chuckles low again, his fingers tracing soft soothing circles on her arm, on her back, his breath lifting his chest beneath her palm, and the combined rhythms are nearly hypnotic. “Would it-” he pauses, and she can feel the hesitation drift through him and then dissolve like parchment in water. It’s easier for him to let himself be soft like this, in warmth, tangled up together in the dark. He hums above her and asks, “Would it help if I sang for you?”
Rilla will never stop being fascinated by Arum, and she’ll never stop being surprised by him either.
She nods against his shoulder, because she thinks her voice will either crack with laughter or too much feeling if she tries to talk, and Arum presses his mouth in an almost-kiss against her hair before he starts to sing. He sings close and quiet against her skin, his voice rough and low and inhuman, and Rilla smiles against his scales as it works in concert with the movement of his hands. It's soothing, stable, perfect.
There is comfort in a curiosity that cannot be answered, Rilla thinks as she drifts. Stability in a mystery that can unfold and unfold and never reveal a conclusion. Rilla has always preferred answers to questions, but Arum-
Arum is a question she intends to ponder for the rest of her life.
#elle's fanfic#the penumbra podcast#second citadel#rad bouquet#amaryllis of exile#lord arum#sir damien#lizard kissin' tuesday
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Was Captain America: Super Soldier Almost Part of the MCU Canon?
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If you’re anything like me, you probably haven’t thought about 2011’s Captain America: Super Soldier in years (if you remember the game at all). While a decent enough action game in its own right, Super Soldier is perhaps best remembered as a remnant of a very brief time when MCU films were adapted into video games that were often released the same week as the movies.
However, I recently heard an interesting rumor that I haven’t been able to shake. That rumor suggests that Super Soldier isn’t just based on an MCU film but at one point was meant to actually be part of the MCU canon. The only reason it apparently wasn’t added to the canon is simply that plans changed somewhere along the way.
It’s the kind of rumor that is easy to dismiss as wishful thinking crafted by internet trolls. Yet, much like we saw when we broke down the rumors that Link and Zelda are brother and sister, there are certain truths to this rumor which don’t necessarily confirm or deny it but instead reveal fascinating possibilities regarding what the MCU could have been if a few things had gone just a little differently.
Captain America: Super Soldier is Set in the MCU Universe but It’s Not Entirely Clear How it Fits
The first question that needs to be answered about Captain America: Super Soldier has to be “Is it actually based on Captain America: The First Avenger?”
It’s a surprisingly complicated question. At first glance, Super Soldier seems to be a fairly standard video game tie-in. Many of First Avenger’s main actors reprise their roles in the game, and Super Soldier was even released the same week as Captain America’s MCU debut. That all suggests that the world of the game is roughly meant to be the same as the one seen in the film.
However, the wording of this section of Super Soldier’s official announcement creates some confusion regarding the exact relationship between the game and the movie:
“[Christos] Gage wrote his original story for Captain America: Super Soldier so that the setting exists within the same world as the upcoming movie of the same name, but he infused the game with immersive twists designed to enhance gameplay with all-new cinematic action sequences.”
That statement certainly seems to be trying to carefully avoid the implication that Super Soldier is a direct adaptation of the film, which is an oddly prudent move given that the events of the game’s story happen during a time period that the movie doesn’t specifically cover. It’s certainly not hard to walk away from it with the impression that the intention was for Super Soldier to tell a First Avenger story that happened but just wasn’t shown in the movie.
One other interpretation of that statement to keep in mind is that Sega was trying to suggest that they were essentially creating a “What If?” scenario or some other kind of situation wherein they could justify having so many connections to the movie without strictly being based on it. The biggest problem with that idea, though, is the implication that the game is somehow arguing that there’s an MCU multiverse where the characters from that universe exist as we know them in the films but are going on entirely different adventures. That’s obviously hard to believe given the nature of the MCU’s structure as we know it today.
Mostly, though, that statement is just the first piece in what proves to be a larger puzzle.
Super Soldier Oddly Helps Set-Up Major Winter Soldier Plot Points
The most interesting quality of Super Soldier is how it almost accidentally sets up plot points that would appear in Winter Soldier and future MCU movies. There are few examples of that concept more intriguing than the game’s portrayal of Arnim Zola.
There’s a fascinating moment in Super Soldier when we see that Captain America has been captured by HYDRA. While he’s being restrained, Zola informs him that he has taken samples of Captain America’s blood in the hopes of recreating the super serum that gave Steve Rogers the abilities he needed to become the legendary hero.
While Zola is stopped before he can deliver the completed version of that serum to Red Skull, we later learn that he had intended to use it on one of Captain America’s friends, James Montgomery Falsworth, in an effort to turn one of Captain America’s closest accomplices against him and give HYDRA a living weapon as strong as Rogers.
Strangely, that’s basically what happens with Bucky. In fact, the idea that Zola previously captured Captain America and used his blood to create a super-soldier serum goes a long way to explaining how and why Bucky turned out the way he did in the films. Zola was able to take what he learned from those experiments and simply fashion a new serum that was used to help create the Winter Soldier.
Another interesting “coincidence” involving Zola occurs later in the game when we learn that Zola has transferred his mind to a machine in order to battle Captain America. While that’s clearly a way for Captain America to have a more traditional video game boss fight against Zola, the entire process is oddly similar to how Zola eventually transfers his consciousness to a series of computer servers (as seen in Winter Soldier).
It should be noted that both of those stories were previously seen in Marvel comics and certainly aren’t the sole property of Super Soldier‘s writers and creative team. Still, it’s fascinating to consider how well those concepts gel with future MCU events.
Equally noteworthy (if certainly not as impactful) are the similarities between the HYDRA helicopter Captain America must battle at the end of Super Soldier and the design of the devices we see in the climactic aerial battle of Winter Soldier. In fact, the two designs are so similar that this is one area where you’ve really got to wonder if Sega was working with rough design sketches provided by Marvel or if Marvel Studios was perhaps intrigued by the way that Sega animated and designed those vehicles and decided to borrow them for future films.
It should also certainly be pointed out that one of Super Soldier’s core plot points involved an attempt to awaken an ancient force known as the Sleeper. Well, in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., we see an army of robot soldiers known as “Sleeper Mechs.” It’s hardly a 1:1 reference, but it’s another of the fascinating ways that later MCU works at least utilized basic terms and concepts that we previously saw in Super Soldier. It’s not even that hard to imagine a world in which the names of those soldiers have canonically intended a direct callback to HYDRA’s failed plot in the game.
While those similarities are undeniably fascinating, the most interesting thing about Super Soldier may just be the way it differs from what comes next.
The Mysteries of Baron Zemo, Wolfgang Von Strucker, and Madame Hydra’s Super Soldier Roles
Much of Super Soldier takes place in Castle Zemo: the home of Baron Heinrich Zemo. Comic book fans will no doubt recognize that character, but the name “Zemo” may only ring a bell with MCU fans who recall Zemo’s appearance in Captain America: Civil War and his involvement in The Falcon and The Winter Soldier.
Well, Super Soldier follows the Zemo characters of the comics a little more closely by portraying Henrich Zemo as a Nazi/Red Skull/H.Y.D.R.A. sympathizer who is eventually betrayed by forces who largely wish to use him for his resources as well as access to the Sleeper. In many Marvel Comics stories, Helmut Zemo is portrayed as the son of Henrich whose hatred towards Captain America is based on a desire to get revenge for his father. Obviously, the MCU version of Helmut Zemo could not possibly be the son of a man who died around the time of World War 2.
Interestingly, though, the Civil War writers mentioned that they were, at one point, at least intrigued by the possibility of portraying the MCU’s Helmut as Henrich’s son. Ultimately, though, they felt it was too much of a stretch to suggest that Helmut would be so motivated for revenge over something that would have happened over 70 years ago in the MCU timeline.
Still, you could interpret that statement to mean that there may have been a point when the MCU producers and creative team members were at least considering the possibility of portraying Helmut Zemo closer to the version of the character commonly seen in the comics and that Super Soldier could have been an early attempt to get the Zemo name out there.
There’s also the strange case of Wolfgang von Strucker. Strucker isn’t introduced in the MCU until Winter Soldier’s mid-credits sequence, but he ends up becoming a fairly important piece of the MCU in Age of Ultron (despite his relative lack of screentime). His eventual role in the MCU makes it that much more interesting that the first piece of any MCU adjacent media to introduce the character was Super Soldier.
While the version of Von Strucker we see in Super Soldier is certainly different than his eventual MCU counterpart (he sports the iconic Satan Claw from the comics, for instance, and he’s…you know..alive during WWII), it’s fascinating to see Von Strucker oppose Captain America years before the two would share the screen in Age of Ultron.
Then you have Madame Hydra. While not a part of the MCU films, she was a character in the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. series who was, again, first utilized in this Captain America game that at least suggests it was supposed to be related to the universe of the pivotal MCU film Captain America: First Avenger.
While all of these characters were of course previously featured in the comics, Marvel obviously could have turned to any number of characters from the Captain America comics over the years when expanding the roster of their future films. Instead, they turned to a few characters who were all previously prominently featured in this Captain America game that isn’t technically canonical but certainly starts to feel as if it easily could have been part of the MCU if just a couple of things went differently or a couple of lines of dialog were added to the films and shows that described those characters as “ancestors.”
How did all of these coicidences happen? The answer may lie in the other Sega MCU games.
Read more
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Does a Chris Evans Captain America Return Undermine the Avengers: Endgame Finale?
By Mike Cecchini
Sega’s Thor and Iron Man Games Featured Other Fascinating MCU Connections
The massive Marvel Cinematic Universe began with 2008’s comparatively humble Iron Man movie. It was, at the time, little more than another blockbuster superhero movie. Given the standards of that time, it’s only natural the film was adapted into a video game pretty much right away.
“Standard” is a fairly good way to describe Sega’s first Iron Man adaptation. Nearly everything about it is forgettable, including its story which largely follows the plot of the film. The game was touted as the start of Marvel and Sega’s relationship, and it certainly feels like something closer to a trial run.
It wasn’t until the release of Iron Man 2 that things started to get more interesting. That game featured an original story inspired by the events of the film but clearly separate from them. Once again, though, the most important thing about that story is how it (perhaps inadvertently) featured plot points and characters that would be seen in future MCU films.
Ghost is featured in Iron Man 2 years before the character appeared in Ant-Man and the Wasp. A.I.M. is mentioned before the organization’s appearance in Iron Man 3. Ultimo is even featured in the game in a way that recalls certain plot points later seen in Age of Ultron.
All those characters and plot points are different in the game than how they appeared in future MCU films, but it remains fascinating that the sequel’s original story utilized concepts that Marvel would later revisit. The same is true of Sega’s 2011 Thor game which takes place before the first Thor film but features characters such as Surtur and Hela who wouldn’t appear in the MCU until Thor: Ragnarok.
All of these appearances could be dismissed rightfully so) as coincidences. Yet, when you add all of them together, you start to wonder what the long-term plans for these games were and whether or not there were ever any intentions of eventually making either them, or any future titles that may have been planned at that time, part of the MCU.
There’s very little official information to suggest that was ever the case, but the ways that Sega and Marvel changed how they talked about these games over time is certainly noteworthy. While the first Iron Man game was described as little more than an adaption of the movie it was based on, Sega started to create a little distance for themselves by using phrases like “same universe” in the PR statements that often announced these games.
The more you look at the history of these adaptations, the more you get the feeling that the relationship between Sega and Marvel also started to change and that the plans for these games changed along with it.
Was Captain America: Super Soldier Ever Supposed to Be Part of the MCU Canon?
While it’s easy to buy into the idea that there was once a time when Super Soldier was developed with the MCU canon in mind, the fact of the matter is that there is no evidence to support the idea that any video games based on the MCU films were ever supposed to be part of the MCU canon or were intended to directly set-up future films.
The genesis of that rumor seems to be both the early relationship between Sega and Marvel Studios as well as the fact that there are so many elements of Super Soldier that do lead into Captain America: Winter Soldier in their own strange way. In fact, it’s been said that an early draft of Winter Soldier featured more WW2 flashbacks. That has only given rise to the theory that there was a point where Winter Soldier would have tied into the events of WW2 a little more closely and that Super Soldier could have represented an early draft of those events.
What you have to keep in mind, though, is that the MCU was in a relative state of chaos at that time. Netflix was a few years away from debuting Marvel-based shows with a loose MCU relationship, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. would generate significant confusion regardings its MCU relationship, and as we’ve discussed, these games confusingly existed within the universe of the Marvel films yet feature significant differences that put them in conflict with the stories and characters of those films.
Those games were seemingly little more than a symptom of a time when Disney and Marvel Studios either didn’t have as much control over the narrative of the MCU or were otherwise less interested in exercising that control and dictate everything the MCU touched. Of course, Disney and Marvel Studios would eventually “trim the fat” in terms of both their direct involvement in video game development and their willingness to spread the MCU beyond the big screen in a way that opened any room for ambiguity regarding the status of the canon.
If anything, the idea that Super Soldier was once meant to be canonical and help set-up both Winter Soldier and future MCU projects is a wish from those who always felt that the lack of notable MCU video games denied us the chance to live out some of the best theatrical experiences of the last 15 years. There’s always been a feeling that so much more could have been done with MCU games.
At the same time, Marvel executives had previously stated that they at least once considered certain comic issues to be canonical within the MCU. More importantly, Marvel Studios’ Creative Director of Research & Development, Will Corona Pilgrim, tweeted in 2012 that Marel Studios’ views towards those early games were best described as “Film Agnostic.”
@wyokid in a sense, yes. @cbake76 and the fellas over in Marvel Games like to use a term coined by TQ Jefferson as 'Film Agnostic'
— Will Corona Pilgrim (@willgrem) February 6, 2012
That statement suggests that Marvel may have, at one point, been working much more closely with the designers of those early MCU-based games and were perhaps even sharing resources and preferred source material. It also makes it much more likely that Marvel Studios members could have been inspired by certain ideas they saw in those games. After all, the Marvel Studios team didn’t necessarily acknowledge the existence of these games in a canonical sense, but they stopped short of outright denying their existence either. Still, the idea that they ever intended for any versions of these games to represent definitive MCU plans remains a very loose rumor, at best.
If nothing else, Super Soldier stands as an interesting look at an alternate timeline. No, I don’t mean the one where Winter Soldier’s story is based on the timeline where Super Soldier is part of the MCU canon. I’m talking about the one where Marvel continued to allow game developers to explore the MCU universe a little more freely. It may have been chaotic, but it certainly could have been fun.
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The Killing of a Sacred Deer and the Horror of Justice
I find so many horror films these days draw their inspiration from Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 masterpiece The Shining, mostly in aesthetics and specific shots. While it is completely understandable to want to emulate and reference a classic of the genre, I feel there isn’t much of a point to doing so besides wanting some credit from horror-buffs for acknowledging that that movie is good. Director Yorgos Lanthimos, now known for his critically-acclaimed comedy The Lobster, has come the closest in The Killing of a Sacred Deer to the incredible tone, mood and pacing of The Shining while also managing to say so much itself about the human body, forgiveness, and truly having empathy for another human being.
Steven Murphy (Colin Farrel) is a heart surgeon and family man who takes it upon himself to mentor a young man named Martin (Barry Keoghan) since the tragic death of his father. He introduces Martin to his family, his wife Anna (Nicole Kidman), his daughter Kim (Raffey Cassidy), and his son Bob (Sunny Suljic), who all seem to take a liking to him despite his awkward and frank manner. Soon, Steven starts to become worried as Martin behaves oddly around him and his family, and as a strange disease inexplicably strikes his children. Steven learns what he must do in order to save his family, but it may be a price too high to pay.
The progression of the plot and how everything plays out is masterful. While not a long movie (it clocks in and just a minute over two hours), the inevitable ending seems to creep towards us at an unbearable pace until we can barely stand it anymore. The movie begins fairly lightly, and seems like it will be another surrealist comedy much in the vein of The Lobster, but after a certain conversation almost all comedy is appropriately sucked out of the movie except for a few key scenes. By the time the climax does roll around, I was barely able to look at the screen. It reminded me so much of how The Shining builds towards its climax, starting somewhat innocuously before getting much more serious, and ending with Jack chasing Danny as Wendy experiences her horrifying visions. Of course, it does start out with a feeling unease that lingers throughout the film by showing us a real heart surgery being filmed and with its emotionally bereft dialogue, but the comedy lulls us into a false sense of security until its haunting score takes the film in a completely different direction. Lanthimos is also smart enough to leak out plot details and characters backgrounds rather slowly, always leaving a bit of mystery for us to wonder about, even at the very end of the movie. Characters lie about their past and very important plot details are never fully explained, which may infuriate some viewers but left me not knowing just enough to remain curious about the story.
Just as he did in The Lobster, Colin Farrel delivers Lanthimos’s purposefully-stilted dialogue as it was no doubt intended to be, which means it is strange, often emotionless, and awkward in the best way. In the scenes in which he must show some emotions, he is so vibrant that the scenes become unforgettable. He has one of the most expressive faces in film, and his huge beard proves to be no obstacle in letting him show this asset off in this movie. Every character speaks (or sings, in the case of Raffey Cassidy) in this way, and there isn’t an actor that doesn’t make it fascinating. Kidman plays her character fiercely, and takes on an interesting angle once she learns what is happening to her family. Her marriage to Steven isn’t exactly normal, but she never seems too distressed about what her husband asks her to do. When she is tasked with helping to save her children, she gains a motherly fury and dedication that Kidman really sells. But the best performance (and maybe my pick for best supporting actor this year so far) is Keoghan as Martin. He had already impressed me in Dunkirk as George, the poor boy who bumps his noggin, but his performance in The Killing of a Sacred Deer is next level great. Lanthimos uses his rather unusual looks and delivery to great effect. Even in the most dense of scenes, Keoghan can make you laugh with just how weird he is. In one of the hardest scenes to watch in the movie due to its graphic nature, he has an extremely odd line (”It’s a metaphor. What I just did is a metaphor.”) that broke the tension so hard that my entire screening laughed for an extended period afterwards. Talking any more about his character may be too much of a spoiler, but just know that this performance has many surprises and I don’t think could have been played by any other actor.
If there is one criticism of this movie that severely holds this movie back, it is how its female characters, of which there are only three, are all treated in terms of what they must do sexually. Each of the movies female characters all offer themselves completely to a male character (three times, for one character), and while Steven is portrayed as having some extremely peculiar sexual hang-ups, he is never made to perform some of the things Nicole Kidman is, for instance. The actresses are not totally humiliated, and the actresses (besides one) are given other things to define their characters, at least. It also helps that they all play these parts especially well, but I just wish that it at least balance the scale by adding some female gaze to the film or changing at least two of the sexual encounters in the movie to be less one-sided.
The film is good enough that it may overcome that criticism, especially in how it handles its visual metaphors. Very early on, the motif of watches and hearts (both “tickers”, of course) are established right away, and reoccur visually across the movie at its most vital points. In a very Cronenberg-esque way, the human body ends up providing a lot of the horror of the film as Steven’s children are stricken by their strange disease. Most of the movie has an oppressive empty feeling, which is beautifully highlighted by cinematographer Thimios Bakatakis and his choice to have so much negative space dominate just about every frame. That emptiness can maybe the absence of emotion in the characters (and the film in general), but I maybe see it as the absence of justice, something the film is really concerned with. It asks the question of what it means to truly empathize with somebody who is wounded, either physically or emotionally. How do we really know what a person is going through unless we go through it ourselves? If you have wronged someone, what length are you willing to go to in order to demonstrate that you are sorry for what happened? Lanthimos shows us the hypocrisy and futility in telling a person “I’m sorry, I know what you’re going through.”
The Killing of a Sacred Deer is a dour and pessimistic movie, but Lanthimos’s surreal style makes its fascinating to watch. The humor of the first half is never forgotten, even when it becomes more of a tense, disturbing horror movie and the shift between the two is absolutely seamless. Even with the issues I have with the treatment of the female characters does not overshadow the sheer genius of a lot of the film. I sincerely hope horror is a genre that Lanthimos keeps tapping into in the future.
#the killing of a sacred deer#yorgos lanthimos#colin farrel#nicole kidman#barry koeghan#horror#film#surrealism#the lobster#film essay#body horror#groundhog day
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Supernatural: Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets (12x10)
A gift of an episode. Honestly. Such a gift. I don't have anything else to say in this intro... let's just get started.
Cons:
I will say, though, this episode did nothing to assuage my fears about the disjointed nature of this season. The going concerns at the beginning of the season were: Mary Winchester is back from the dead, and the British Men of Letters are simultaneously crazy and pretty boring from the viewer's perspective. Now, what with Billie being killed, the new thing we have to worry about is the "cosmic consequences" that will come from cheating their way out of a deal with Death. Not only does this sound like the typical big-scale-end-of-the-world stuff that Supernatural should be steering clear of right now, it also splits our focus. I'm not saying I loved the British MOL plot thread, but the longer they go without making some real progress on that, the more pointless it seems.
This episode featured flashbacks to the early twentieth century. These scenes did their job in terms of giving us exposition, but if you're going to flash back, show Cas in a female vessel, and get everybody dressed up in period clothing, it would be nice if the flashbacks added something really special. There was really no point to showing all of this stuff instead of just having our guest characters give an expository monologue. I wanted to explore all the possibilities. These angels have never been to earth before, so what does that mean for them? Do any of these characters have moral misgivings about killing the Nephilim? I guess what I'm saying is, the flashbacks were not utilized very well. There seemed to be no point to going through all that effort.
Pros:
But I'm nitpicking. I'll give a very concise plot summary: a woman named Lily is out for revenge against the angels who killed her daughter, a Nephilim. Cas teams up with angels he used to work with. We then learn that Lily's daughter was actually human, and that Ishim, one of Cas' old colleagues, knew this and killed her anyway. Lily teams up with the guys to kill Ishim, and leaves uncertain if her need for revenge is full quashed.
First off, I really loved the woman playing Lily Sunder. She was a total bad-ass, and managed to make that eye patch look properly threatening. Her dilemma was really rich, too. See, she's been keeping herself alive and healthy for over 100 years using Enochian magic, the magic of angels. However, every time she does this, it means she gives up part of her soul. Eventually, she'll feel nothing. Everything she's doing, she does to get revenge for losing her daughter. But in order to keep doing it, she's losing the very identity that makes her grieve her daughter in the first place. This is a fascinating dynamic. I really hope we see Lily again. She was far too cool of a character to waste on a one-off.
Learning more about angels is always interesting to me. The angel through-plot on this show has had a lot of missteps, but whenever the focus is put on them and it does work, it really works. This was such an example. There's a clear divide between our angel characters, here: Cas, who "fell in love with humanity," is perceived as weak by Ishim, who rejects humans as being no better than apes. Of course, Ishim is the one who became obsessed with Lily, and killed her child because of it.
The mythology of Nephilim, while discussed before, is still quite interesting to me. Obviously this helps remind us what a Nephilim is, for the very practical reason that there's a woman out there right now carrying around Lucifer's child. But it also cuts to the core of a very real moral dilemma. Cas believed - and in fact still seems to believe - that killing Nephilim is not wrong, because they are too powerful to be contained. He's not ashamed of playing his part in killing Lily's daughter, even if he knows it's tragic. When Cas finds out that this little girl, May, was human, he is deeply apologetic, but he still says that he "didn't know he was killing an innocent." Despite Lily's grief and drive for revenge, Cas still stands by the fact that killing Nephilim is right. It's an interesting direction to go. Sam and Dean can't quite get on board with that line of thinking. Somewhere out there is a mother and her unborn child. How can that be pure evil?
The best thing about this episode was the interplay between Sam, Dean, and Cas. There's so much to talk about here, I'm worried I'm going to miss some of this deliciousness in writing it all down.
It's an all too common problem in this show to introduce a big plot element (i.e. Billie being killed and the threat of "cosmic consequences") and then just let it lie fallow for too long. Reminders of the A-plot are shoved awkwardly in at the beginning of C-plot episodes in shoddy exposition. Instead, this episode does something really brilliant. Cas killing Billie is a bit plot point in this episode. Dean is furious at Cas for making such a risky decision, and Cas is angry at Dean for being mad at him for saving his life. Sam is trying to play peacekeeper.
What's so brilliant is that this resentment carries over into the actual plot of the episode, as we have a conflict of philosophies going on between Cas and Ishim. When Ishim taunts Cas for being friends with the Winchesters, he can point to the specific fact that Sam and Dean question his decisions, and belittle him by not believing he knows what's best. This is a simplistic way of looking at it, but Ishim is not entirely wrong. For all that Cas is an ancient and powerful being, the Winchester still tend to treat him as an incompetent but well-meaning ally some of the time. It all comes to a head when Dean and Sam sit down with Cas at the end of the episode and reassure him that they think he's strong. Dean isn't angry about Billie - he's worried. And Cas stays firm, too. He's not sorry for what he did.
In fact, just a general shout-out to Cas for this episode. He was definitely the MVP. The biggest laugh in the whole hour is when Dean, Sam, and Cas are all in the impala, heading to find out what happened to Cas' angel friend who called for help. Sam tries to break the awkward silence, while Dean and Cas just sit in stony silence. Dean makes a comment about Benjamin, Cas' friend, seeming like a level-headed guy who wouldn't make off-the-cuff risky decisions, and Cas responds that what he likes about Benjamin is that while he's sarcastic, he's also appreciative. Dean says "what's that supposed to mean?!" and Sam has to jump in to prevent escalation.
It was oddly refreshing to see these two angry with each other, because it felt like the way a family would really behave. Cas is staying in the bunker, by the way... we definitely got confirmation about that, and it's oh so glorious. Nobody is shunning anybody, nobody is betraying anybody... we've just got two family members in the middle of a nasty argument. The best thing is, as the story of the week unfolds, we don't lose this tension between Dean and Cas, but we also see that they're a good team. They check in on each other, they defend each other, even in the midst of their own arguments. That felt like something a family would do.
I liked seeing Cas interact with other angels, because it immediately made Sam and Dean the outsiders, which is all too rare. Cas basically orders Sam and Dean to play by his rules, and while they don't exactly adhere to that order, they seem to understand they're operating on Cas' turf, here.
I'm sure everybody's talking about the Destiel angle with this one, and while I didn't see it here as much as I have in other spots... yeah. It's still totally a thing. Especially when Ishim talks about cutting out Cas' weakness, and immediately goes to hurt Dean. And then Dean, who could have banished Ishim using an angel sigil, doesn't go through with it when Ishim threatens that a severely weakened Cas might be killed if he's banished right now. Quite a bit of casual touching in this episode as well, which I always appreciate.
I think my favorite subtle little moment was between Sam and Lily. Dean, albeit a bit unwillingly, has left Sam alone with Lily, to find Cas and Ishim and get to the bottom of Lily's story. Lily tells Sam that Ishim will kill Dean once he knows Dean suspects him of killing a human child. She tells Sam that she's willing to wait for that to happen, because she knows Sam will help her get her revenge once his brother is dead. Just the look in Sam's eyes is enough to impart so much: deep fear about losing his brother, and a bone-deep certainty that Lily is telling the truth. If anybody touches Dean, Sam will rip them apart. It pays off when Sam and Lily show up to help Dean and Cas take down Ishim. Dean says "I thought you were supposed to keep her out of this," and Sam just responds "Changed my mind."
I guess I'll stop there. I was thoroughly impressed. This episode managed to stand on its own, and also teach us a lot about these characters. The A-plot of this season of Supernatural has been something of an incoherent mess, but on an individual episode level? I'm pretty happy!
9.5/10
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Bookshelf Briefs 7/10/19
Haikyu!!, Vol. 33 | By Haruichi Furudate | Viz Media – The game ended! It was an incredible finish too, and once again I praise the author for having a good feel for keeping the pace exciting and yet also making the action clear. Hate to spoil it, but our heroes win the match, though we end up following the losing team right after the game, showing how this defeat is going to make them get stronger. I really liked the twin (you know, one of them) telling Hinata he was going to set for him one day—it’s a reminder that they could take this past high school. But the break is brief, as by the end of the volume we’re in another battle against Nekoma, and I get the feeling that this one will also take several volumes. Still, I’m up for it. This remains a terrific sports manga. – Sean Gaffney
Himouto! Umaru-chan, Vol. 6 | By Sankakuhead | Seven Seas – OK, it turns out Ebina’s “confession” was that she’s been searching for her brother, who left home to become a chef. I wasn’t too happy with the suggestion that she’s got a crush on Taihei as he reminds her of her brother, but other than that this was pretty sweet. We’re also given yet another cliffhanger ending, as it turns out that while Umaru is best in the class for the normal kids, there’s an accelerated program with someone who’s shorter, cuter, blonder and smarter than Umaru. I sense a new rivalry coming. Which is somewhat inevitable given Umaru has converted everyone around her into friends already. This is still a bit slight, but it’s cute and fun. – Sean Gaffney
Kaguya-sama: Love Is War, Vol. 9 | By Aka Akasaka | Viz Media – This volume is filled with plot, and it’s all about Ishigami. At last we get his backstory and find out what happened to make him into the beaten-down misanthrope he was introduced as. As you might imagine, it involved scapegoating and punishing the wrong person, completely breaking his spirit. Fortunately, there’s an athletic festival going on, and when one member of his team hurts their ankle, he has to fill in. Does he win? That’s less important than that he tries hard, gets his team to root for him, and—and this was fantastic—sees their faces, which till now have been “faceless” people around him. If there’s one drawback, it’s that the balloon chapter made a poor closer. But overall, a fantastic volume. – Sean Gaffney
Kakuriyo: Bed & Breakfast for Spirits, Vol. 4 | By Waco Ioka and Midori Yuma | Viz Media – It was never going to be as simple as opening a nice restaurant. Aoi’s new place is beset by sabotage and trickery, from signs pointing in the wrong direction to assassins trying to kill her to literal BANANA PEELS on the steps. We also see Aoi learning about food, in the best foodie manga tradition, and also learning more about her grandfather and his relationships with the other spirits, and just how long-lived they are. There’s a bit of romantic tease when they tour the local izakayas, but for the most part Kakuriyo is content to be a slow-burner that is interested in Aoi and food, not necessarily in that order. That’s fine with me. – Sean Gaffney
Monster and the Beast, Vol. 1 | By Renji | Yen Press – Cavo is a hideous monster with a pure heart, so when he witnesses what appears to be a sexual assault in the forest in which he lives, he intervenes. Liam, the apparent victim, proves to be charming and sexually voracious (he’s the beast of the title) and immediately propositions Cavo. After discovering that Liam is unreliable, Cavo guides him to a nearby village and falls in love with him on the way. So far, so sweet. What I thought was interesting, though, is that once they reach the village, Cavo must remain in hiding while Liam goes out every night and beds various people. We learn that he’s well aware that Cavo loves him, and is content enough to remain together, but also has no desire to change. That’s not the outcome I expected, so I’m interested to see where this goes. – Michelle Smith
My Hero Academia: School Briefs, Vol. 2 | By Kohei Horikoshi and Anri Yoshi | VIZ Media – This is soooooo much better than the first volume of the School Briefs light novels. Set just before and during the training camp arc, the stories depict the kids during their free time as they try to distract a motion-sick Aoyama on the bus, throw a slumber party, have an arm-wrestling tournament, etc. There’s lots of intermingling between classes 1-A and 1-B, which I appreciate very much, especially the slumber party at which the girls would rather contemplate which of the boys’ quirks they’d like to try than which boy they’d like to date. Mineta continues to be even more awful than he is in the source material, this time in a premeditated and predatory way that’s genuinely alarming. Aizawa lectures him off-camera at least, but he really ought to’ve been expelled. In any case, I’m sufficiently swayed enough to come back for volume three! – Michelle Smith
The Right Way to Make Jump! | By Takeshi Sakurai | VIZ Media (digital only) – Four years after Takeshi Sakurai gave up on manga and became an onigiri maker instead, he gets a call from his former editor suggesting they collaborate on a nonfiction series about how Jump! is made. This one-volume manga is the fascinating result. Sakurai and his editor interview people at the printers and paper manufacturer as well as cover and logo designers and various editors. There are pictures of the editorial offices in Japan as well as VIZ headquarters in San Francisco, and a brief visit to Kohei Horikoshi’s studio. It’s all super interesting—I particularly loved learning about all the neat machines that were invented specifically to handle producing Jump!—while being fun and amusing, as well. I’d recommend it to any manga fan, but especially to Jump! fans. – Michelle Smith
Snow White with the Red Hair, Vol. 2 | By Sorata Akiduki | Viz Media – Shirayuki passes her exam, which means she’s now working for the Prince. And you know what that means—it’s time to solve crises by working yourself until you nearly die without bothering to tell anyone, in the best shoujo heroine tradition. Fortunately, she has other people around her. Unfortunately, she also has the First Prince, who has returned to the kingdom and apparently is intent on making his brother miserable, and also making Shirayuki do pointless tasks. I’m sure eventually she’ll win him over, but that point is not yet. There’s also a lengthy short story at the end, set in modern times and about a trio who become a duo after tragedy strikes. It was decent, but I wish these were full of Shirayuki. – Sean Gaffney
Snow White with the Red Hair, Vol. 2 | By Sorata Akiduki | VIZ Media – Shirayuki begins work as a court herbalist apprentice, and her very knowledgeable boss also happens to be twelve years old. She wins him over with her powers of empathy, and I appreciate that she manages to be both nice and very clever, as she’s able to figure exactly what’s been making the soldiers ill at a fort under Zen’s command. The back cover calls this a love story, and I’m sure we’ll get there eventually, but I really appreciate that what we’ve got so far is a mutual inspiration story. Both Shirayuki and Zen are compelled to help people and end up spurring each other on. “I need to be the sort of man she’ll never turn her back on,” Zen resolves. And then his crappy older brother comes home and begins to interfere. This is a fun series so far! – Michelle Smith
Versailles of the Dead, Vol. 2 | By Kumiko Suekane | Seven Seas – Two volumes into Versailles of the Dead I’m not sure that I actually understand what’s going on, but I still feel oddly compelled to read more. In part this is due to the fact that Suekane really knows how to create an atmosphere. While dark and unsettling, Versailles of the Dead can also be surprisingly sensual, Suekane’s artwork capturing both the horrific and the beautiful—at times simultaneously—to great effect. The decadence of the 18th-century French court and the gruesome death and undeath both inside and outside of it are all strikingly illustrated. The second volume develops existing plotlines (while ignoring others) and introduces new elements to an already full story. Versailles of the Dead has so much going on that it hasn’t quite managed to pull everything together into a cohesive whole yet, but it might be starting in that direction and I can’t seem to look away. – Ash Brown
By: Ash Brown
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Fundamentals of Comics
In these 8 blogs I will introduce 8 different topics linking them to books to help build the fundamentals of comics. The topics include introduction to comics, essence of art in comics, social issues in comics, reality in comics, creativity of comics, narratives point of view, superheroes in comics, and closure with comics. Introduction to comics can be tough. Choosing the first right comic book for to read can be overwhelming because it determines first impressions. Comic books at first impressions can all look pretty similar, words with pictures, colorful, superheroes, and etc. which makes its hard to choose the first comic book for you. To narrow down to a comic book that’s a good first comic to read and a great introduction to comics is Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics. The book is fun and easy to read and incredibly helpful in showing the reader how comics work. McCloud talks about how much difference can be made by things like the shape and spacing of a panel in comics and the impact it has due to it. The readers are trying to define comics, and McCloud is helping them with process through Understanding Comics. For example McCloud explores the vocabulary in comics, the concept of closure as it applies to comics, time frames, line, color, drawing, expressions, and storytelling. McCloud does a great job explaining the process to understanding comics, he explains the space between the panels is called the gutter and goes in depth about how when a reader looks at one panel, they can automatically add the previous image to the next panel and complete the action or idea in their heads, which is what he calls closure. To understand comics, it is necessary for the reader to feel closure with the text. McCloud does a great job with Understanding Comics, and it is a perfect read for someone new to comics.
The essence of art in comics is very important because without the artwork a comic book isn’t a comic book. The art is what makes it stand out from regular books and makes it fall under the genre of comics. A comic book that satisfies the essence of art is Nicole Claveloux’s The Green Hand and Other Stories. In this book we see the Claveloux emphasizing the drawings, it really brings out the essence of art in comics. The drawings are out of this world, creative, imaginative, and enjoyable. Claveloux uses big bright colors and bubbly shapes that make the art stand out. The bright colors make the art vivid and the bubbly shapes help the visual narration compliment the textual narrations. Claveloux uses her drawings to bring the pages together, which helps shows her testing herself to see how many different ways there are to draw and color. She uses radiant shapes and hand separated tones which makes the art look dizzying. In The Green Hand and Other stories, Claveloux uses hallucinatory color to captivate the readers, she also uses the classic black and white to emphasize depth. Claveloux uses her art to bring the readers into a land that is strangely familiar but oddly not recognizable. Her artwork seems to tell a story of its own. The essence of art in comics help define how drawings are just as important as the text because in works like The Green Hand and Other Stories, the story seems to be complimenting the art. Overall, Nicole Claveloux’s The Green Hand and Other Stories, is one of the most beautiful comics drawn, the drawings are intoxicating, because it is in a way freshness, and out of this world. The art is simply fascinating, it is as if someone dreamt on paper, which makes it a perfect to see the essence of art in comics.
Real life problems portrayed in comics is often a common thing. Many comics use their comic books to address an issue going on, and bring awareness to that situation. One comic book that is well for a great start for a social awareness topic, is the comic book by Gene Yang’s American Born Chinese. One of the realest comic book that focuses on growing up as an Asian in the United States. In American Born Chinese, Yang tackles many stereotypes that many Asian children might’ve faced and stereotypes most of us have heard somewhere out in public. For examples kids in school express disgust at the main characters dumpling lunch, and assumes that he eats dogs. The teachers of the school butcher his name, and automatically tell everyone he’s from China because as the stereotype goes, if you are Asian you are most likely Chinese. Due to these circumstances the main character has no friends, this is something that some recently migrated children, and teens might feel in school. Yang brings out a minority group in the spotlight and introduces the difficulties a minority might come across trying to fit into a majority. Yang brought a real life problem and portrayed it in comics, he took a different way to bring attention to the problem. Stereotypes, discrimination, and racism has been a problem since long before, but to see its effect on the victim is done beautifully in American Born Chinese. Throughout the story we see key ideas such as self-hate, change, and moving towards self-discovery. The reality of these issues are severe and can sometimes be neglected, comics is a good way to inform someone of what’s going on through a different perspective, and lens. American Born Chinese by Gene Yang is a great comic that brings a real life problem in to life in comics.
There are many reality events represented in comics. An unfortunate event that occurs in the real world is also a topic that is presented in comics. One book that focuses on a tragic event is Love is Love by Marc Andreyko. Andreyko discusses the unfortunate event of the Orlando nightclub shooting. The book was made to honor the victims of this tragic event. Comic books aren’t only meant for enjoyment, they can also touch your heart, grasp the readers emotionally, and get you to release your feelings. In Love is Love, Andreyko is using the comic to mourn the victims, support the survivors, and celebrate the unity of LGBTQ community. Andreyko tries to bring everyone together through love, the comic book spreads love and examines love in today’s world. The comic book will empower you to bring positivity into the world, to be strong, and hope for a better tomorrow. Andreyko passionately provides a meaningful response through the comic book to a senseless act and in some ways, this is the aim of all art. Art can be an escape, a way to cope, and a way to try and make sense of a world that can be seen beautiful or seen meaninglessly cruel and unfair. Love is Love is a simple that brings a tragic event into spotlight. It’s a great read for someone who wanted to connect emotionally with this tragic event that took place. It’s a great book for a visual learner as well because the book succeeds by using an incredibly meaningful format. The entries in the book are very short, it can be compared to be a emotional and meaningful scrapbook. There’s rarely enough narrative on the page to make it feel like a full story, but it is enough to satisfy the message and point being made.
Comics would be incomplete without creativity. Creativity of comics depend on the person making a comic. Every person beholds creativity, everyone has their own perspectives, thoughts, and ways of expressing themselves. Every comic book has its own creative edge and way of finding closure with the readers. One specific book that’s good to read for creative aspect and closure with the text is Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me by Ellen Forney. The book is a great graphic memoir that is funny, personal, and visually dynamic. Forney’s graphic memoir provides a glimpse into the effects of a mood disorder on the artist’s work. Forney believes in creativity and that everyone has it. There’s a problem that she faces in the book and she recognizes that she was unbalanced, but regardless she views that as the source of her creativity. Sane or insane, everyone has a way of being creative. Every idea is brilliant. Every person met is a chance for a memorable encounter or opportunity for a magical adventure. Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me will encourage the readers to be creative, to go out, do something fun, be wild, let loose, and be happy both for the moment itself but more importantly for a chance to tell someone about them later. To be creative, you have to start with yourself, you have to be accepting, and be proud of who you are. It’s what you contribute to the world, and it doesn’t matter how you contribute it. Creativity is a process, it takes time, it can be linked to your personal life, such as circumstances you’ve been through, past experiences, and turning points in your life, which can help spark creativity. Forney talks about how transformative work can be a way of therapy and it can help motivate creativity.
Narrative points of view in comics is very important. It gives the main characters a voice, unlike novels, comic books also give the drawing of the character, which give the visual representation of the character to the reader for them to picture the character in the plot of the story. A graphic novel that illustrates the narrative points of view and lives of two young women from different cultural, family, and financial backgrounds who go through two different abortions, medical and surgical is Not Funny Ha-Ha by Leah Hayes. The narrative points of views helps the readers follow the two young woman through the process of choosing a clinic, reaching out to friends, partners, family, and eventually the procedures itself. Hayes simply shows us what happens when a woman goes through the situation. Despite the fact that so many women and girls have abortions every day, everywhere, all around us, Hayes uses the narrative points of view of the two character to show it can be a lonely experience. The narrative points of view help keep the graphic novel non-judgmental, comforting, and even gives the readers a humorous look at what a woman can go through during an abortion. Abortion can seem very fast procedure, it can be very quick, and girls can bounce back into their daily lives. But the event of having an abortion can really affect someone in numerous ways, mentally, emotionally, and physically. Sometimes a week later, sometimes ten years later, which will bring sadness to a person, and this is where Hayes uses her narrative points of view of the two women to show their perspectives. The two different women have two different ways of going through and coping with the procedure, and that is what we get to see in Not Funny Ha-Ha because of the narrative perspectives.
Superheroes have always been linked to comic books, and comic books have had a great impact on superheroes. Many movies and television series make adaptions of comic books. Comic books are the origin of many superheroes. Growing up, children from everywhere have wanted to be a superhero, have superpowers, and save the world. Superhero comic books give children and everyone else the access to bring their imagination to life. Superhero comics have a buffet of different heroes, and heroines. Yet it doesn’t stop there, different heroes and heroines have many different powers. But there’s more, for any person to be a hero you need to have a good villain, and comic books also give a variety of villains. Comic books are great for fans of superheroes, and what better to way to start a superhero comic than Action Comics #1 by DC Comics. It features the first appearance of Superman, a hero everyone is familiar with, and this where a start of something revolutionary started. Readers were introduced to a character that was beyond this world. A character that can jump over buildings, lift enormous weights, runs faster than a train, someone who has impenetrable skin, with super hearing, and someone who can shoot laser out of his eyes. Superman was a creative idea, and was made a god amongst humans. Superman is also known as man of steel. Superman is a powerful figure, although not being real, he is still looked up to till today by many fans. The character of Superman has definitely inspired many creations of new superheroes, in a way Superman was the base model that made the way for future creations of heroes and anti-heroes. Reading Action Comics, will set up the reader to read future superhero comics from any universe and understand how the superhero stories are linked together with each other.
Fundamentals of comics in short are all these subjects combined together. The different features and genres all combined make a great comic book. Lastly the one thing that holds all these subjects together, is closure with the comics. Without closure with the comic book, you can’t really let loose and enjoy the work. In order to understand and interact with the book you need to have closure. To narrow down to a comic book that’s a great comic in whole, which cannot be read without closure is One Hundred Demons by Lynda Barry. There are no restrictions when it comes down to Lynda Barry’s One Hundred Demons. The book contains themes of childhood, some joyous, and others more serious. The book is made in a way that people of all ages will be able to relate to. In order to do so, the reader must find closure with the comic, recognize the plot, understand the personality of characters, and apply it to themselves. The layout of the book is simple, making One Hundred Demons an ideal starting point to people who are new to the comic’s genre. In this book, you will be introduced to a waterfall of colors, childlike art, themes, and messages we might have come across through our lives. Lynda Barry uses a straightforward writing style that provides a strong, distinct narration that guides readers to connect textual and visual narrations through One Hundred Demons. Overall, Lynda Barry’s One Hundred Demons is a perfect start to the comic’s genre, whether or not you are looking for some philosophical reading or just for fun reading. One Hundred Demons is fascinating, definitely worth reading. One Hundred Demons by Lynda Barry is definitely the perfect start on a positive note to start understanding comics and find closure with a comic book.
- Zeshan Khandaker
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Genre : Action, romance, violence, Bottle Royal
Episodes: 11
Studio: Nexus
Mobile games are turning into a real bane. You think it’s all lighthearted casual fun, free to play easy to install and them before you know it they hit you with the small print. You’re just minding your own business and somehow you now owe 60$ in microtransactions for some game that isn’t even that fun or you know, or maybe you only had two hours sleep because you spent hours mindlessly tapping on a screen and letting your brain melt slowly, or somebody is trying to murder you. Any one of these things can just put a damper on your day. For Kaname it’s mostly the latter that has him down, especially since a couple of his good friends are dead now and he accidentally got roped into this whole thing without even knowing the rules. So how do you quit a real life free for all PvP? Not easily…
That’s kind of a weird title for my post… In case some of you don’t know King’s Game is an anime with an extremely similar premise which I watched a while ago and reviewed here: King’s Game – A Modern Transcendentalist Rallying Cry. I stand by that title! Grated the plot of both Darwin’s Game and King’s Game is sort of basic horror fodder right now so it’s not weird to find two similar animes but the second I started watching Darwin’s Game I was struck by just how many elements were pretty much identical. Even the title is almost the same. And since I didn’t enjoy King’s Game much, I was just about to drop Darwin’s Game when something made me stick around…
what could that thing be?
Now visually speaking Darwin’s Game is what I would qualify as competent. It’s not bad. The ladies are very pretty and have very pretty eyes. The boys are much less interesting in design and for me, less attractive, but they get the point across. The backgrounds are similarly forgettable but functional and a lot of attention is given to floor plans and layouts to really coordinate the virtual space with the action which I thought was a very nice touch.
I don’t have much to say about sound design and apart from a few classic tropes the non verbal storytelling was rather minimal. It’s an o.k. looking show which most people are not likely to remember for its production unless you happen to particularly like a specific character design or something.
Oddly though, this may have played in Darwin’s Game’s favour. This is a convoluted sentence but I really wanted to keep it…
You know what else I kept? Dozens of eye close ups!
Like I said, I almost dropped this show at the first episode, which is a double episode by the way so that 11 episode count is really 12 like most other shows. First the production is not bad in any way but for me didn’t have any particular element that would keep me watching. And the set up is so full of worn out horror tropes that I felt like I had seen this show before.
The basic premise is that there’s a mysterious mobile game that sort of appears on your phone and if you happen to open the app you automatically become a player in Darwin’s Game. It’s a sort of Battle Royal in which players kill each other for fabulous prizes and indecent sums of money. There is a lot of techno-magic going on that ensures non players are never in the way and players can have supernatural abilities called sigils. When every man nice guy (standard protagonist) Kaname finds the app on his own phone he suddenly gets sucked into a never ending fight for survival and manages to collect both allies and foes along the way.
Now King’s Game does differ in the fact that the mobile app gives you random and increasingly gruesome tasks to accomplish in order to survive (or else you are supernaturally killed) instead of sucking you into battles to the death, but the tone and effects are very similar. The character archetypes are pretty much the same as well and the early story was progressing along the same narrative beats and plot points.You have to understand, I really didn’t like King’s Game much and found it a chore to finish so these commonalities were giving me very serious pause.
I have a bad feeling about this
However, after seeing that Darwin’s Game had a much better rating than King’s Game I decided to stick around only out of curiosity. I find that sometimes two very similar shows can have very different ratings and it’s always fascinating to me. However, after episode 2, it became very apparent that these were wildly different shows and one was clearly better.
I know merely comparing two shows is not much of a review but I really did enjoy the exercise of figuring out why one worked for me while the other didn’t and I think sharing that with you will help you get an idea of what type of show Darwin’s Game is.
First thing that I think really helped Darwin’s Game is the shift from Horror to Action. Now Darwin’s Game is a very violent anime and occasionally quite gruesome about it. A lot of the deaths are bloody, onscreen and the victims are often very young or more or less innocent. It has just as much gore and suspense as any horror series I have seen but that’s not what the plot chooses to emphasize. Instead of slow moody scenes meant to built up tension we have quick moving action that rarely broods on the tragedy and dread of the situation.
no hard feelings
This in turn changes the character archetypes and the way the story treats them. People in Darwin’s Game get over things pretty easily and quickly. They have to, they don’t have time to be all gloomy. Which means the overall tone is a lot more happy go lucky in spite of everything that is going on. The story also becomes much more plot driven with the appeal being trying to figure out who is behind the game and why it exists rather than character driven with the audience breathlessly hoping our heroes will survive.
This means a bit less development for the cast in favour of more daredevil plans and twists along the way. And I think that this is what works best in this type of story. It also means the characters don,t have to be as helpless or sympathetic since their deaths aren’t the focus of the narrative. They can survive, and kick some behind along the way. They can also be kind of ruthless in their own right with a lot of the essentially innocent character deaths being of their doing. Hey, it’s a kill or be killed world out there. For me this meant that despite having less time devoted to character backstory, motivation or development, they seemed more complex and well rounded (if rather unhinged).
Finally, the fact that the story relies on a lot of well established tropes and fairly basic production also served in efficiently getting me quickly hooked into the action. We all know the basic concept of a Battle Royal, all these people suddenly rapped into this kill to survive situation. It’s a familiar premise that doesn’t really need much explanation or justification at this point. And motivation becomes inherent as well. All these characters are acting this way because they don’t want to die. Great, I get it, I relate, I also would probably not want to die!
getting pixelated seems bad
Smartly Darwin’s Game doesn’t waste any time reexplaining concepts that are by now well known by most of the audience and instead just concentrates and the few tidbits of information that are unique to the show giving the series a more individual feel than it would have otherwise and makes the characters fun and fun to watch instead of bothering with explaining their thought process. The visuals and sound design are the type of stuff anime fans have seen so often that they don’t interfere in any way. There is no overload and no distractions. You get thrown right into the story and then it just never stops for the entire run. And that more or less nonstop action is done very well.
Every time an episode ended I really wanted to know what happens next. Darwin’s Game didn’t affect me in any deep way or stir up my emotions or anything, personally I liked all the characters but didn’t really care anyone specifically. My favourite is chosen mostly on character design. But I was really entertained for the entire run. I should say I finished the series in 3 days and even without being able to directly compare I’m rather confident that Darwin’s Game is the type of show that is really at it’s best when taken in in consecutive more or less uninterrupted viewings. The momentum is really what it has going for it and I have a feeling that if you break it, the series becomes considerably less interesting.
So what I’m saying in short if that Darwin’s Game wasn’t the same as King’s Game…
Favourite character: Rein – obviously
What this anime taught me: nothing – I already knew butterflies are evil
If you don’t drink, how will your friends know you love them at 2 a.m.?
Suggested drink: Game Set Match
Every time we see a butterfly – shiver
Every time anyone says “sigil” – take a sip
Every time the game sends a push notification – go to the settings
Every time Kaname dodes – take a sip
Every time Shuka is merciless – think about your priorities
Every time Kaname is considered outstanding – be confused
Every time Kaname hears his inner voice – take a sip
Every time Sui and Sota switch – take a sip
Every time someone makes a noble sacrifice – get a snack
Every time Rein figures it out – cheer
Every time we see Wang – take a sip
Like I said the lady character designs are very cute, let me show you what I mean:
Darwin’s Game is not the same as King’s Game Genre : Action, romance, violence, Bottle Royal Episodes: 11 Studio: Nexus Mobile games are turning into a real bane.
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