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manychocolatefactories · 3 years

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CatCF Milk Chocolate: Part 1, the kids

About this version: Milk Chocolate was inspired originally by a mix of the book, the vibes of the 1971 movie and the Tim Burton movie aesthetic. A bit more goofier and whimsical than the other versions. In term of era, I thought of it as a mix of 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

In this version seven Golden Tickets are spread throughout the world, and each time one is found the same female reporter (her character is a reference to the musical) goes to interview the children. Another recurring joke is that while the hunt is going on for the Tickets, there are all sorts of ridiculous debates on television such as: do the Golden Tickets really exist, or is this just a hoax ? Do the Golden Tickets give cancer? Can animals go on a tour like humans? What happens if a Golden Ticket winner dies before the tour? Are the Golden Tickets linked to the rise of youht delinquence? Are the Golden Tickets a proof of Wonka's alleagiance to the obscure sect of the Golden Bird?

First Winner: Augustus Gloop

(Based on Augustus Gloop)

This Augustus was actually based on an idea Stained-by-the-sea allowed me to "borrow" a bit. Stained noted that Augustus always made him thought of this section from the movie "North", about Buck and the Texan parents. If you don't know what I am talking about, I'll leave links down there. And this is such a perfect matc I had to dig a bit down there.

This Augustus is basically a mix of all the archetypes associated with Texas and Nevada. But more precisely, he is basically "Buck" from North - a boy whose family (and his own mindset) embody the motto "bigger is better".

The Gloop family always thought that they should be "the biggest and the bests" and that "bigger is better". Ironically, the Gloop parents themselves are regular-sized people, but they clearly enforced this mentality on their son. Augustus is a big boy. Literally. He is tall, he is thick, he is fat, he is very, very big. He is probably one of the tallest, and definitively the largest boy on the tour (in fact, he once or twice gets stuck in the doors of Wonka factory). He eats ten meals per day, and we are not talking of regular sized meals. We are talking piles of ribs, kilos of potatoes, entire chickens... His parents also prepared for him a "big" and "best" future - paying the local sportive teams to claim he is a sports champion despite Augustus never setting a foot on a sports field, arranging his marriage with the local beauty queen of the state he lives in, already preparing the three different houses he will live with his fifteen kids... As a result, Augustus isn't just big and fat physically, he also has a massive and bloated ego. He thinks that he is the best at everything, and that he should have absolutely everything he wants.

The Gloops themselves are actually the masters of the state they live in, so to speak. They are the wealthiest and most influential industrials of the area: they built highways, casinos, hotels, private villas, they are cow-farmers, owing a lot of slaughterhouses, and also dig for oil and gold. They want their business to be the "biggest there ever was" and all they do is exaggerately big: their villas are enormous, their hotels are everywhere, their farms hosts several thousands cows, their mines are among the deepest in the world...

Trouble is that, due to their expansion and consumption of everything, they are a threat to the landscape and the environment - destroying forests to build their roads and buildings, drying out the lands to feed their farms... in fact, part of the reason why their state looks like the most desertic parts of Texas and Nevada is due to their actions.

Think... Buck from North. Think Art Land from Mar Attack. Think an evil (and obese) version of Clay Bailey from "Xiaolin Showdown". In fact, if I remember well in one episode Clay turns into a sumo for one of the Showdowns... this would probably be Augustus' appearance in this version: sumo Clay Bailey. (Edit: Yes, I checked out, it is episode 23 of the series).

Second Winner: Clarence Crump

(Based on: Clarence Crump)

Clarence didn't had any kind of personnality in the original drafts outside of a desire to prove he was right. As a result, I decided to have a lot of fun and create my own character.

The idea of vanity has already been touched several times with the other brats, but I wanted to give it its own character and kid. I also wanted to create a polar opposite of Augustus, denouncing the fact that being skinny can be just as bad as being fat when in excess. As a result, Clarence Crump is here a boy obsessed about being thin, and proud of being too skinny for his own good.

Mr. Crump is a pseudo-health guru that keeps writing phony and very dangerous diet books, the kind that will advice you to stop eating altogether to lose weight. As for Mrs. Crump, she is a beauty pageant champion (local and regional, and while she acts as if she was some national beauty champion, she always failed at nationals). From their union was born a child who inherited their vanity, pride and obsession with "health"

Black haired, very pale, very thin, very slender, to the point his bones show, Clarence delights in being skinny, and works as a teenager model promoting the "thin-fashion". He is also the embodiment of fat-shaming, never missing an occasion to insult fat people (in fact he often calls Augustus a big fat cow). He uses however the excuse of health for that (a trick his parents taught him) - promoting extreme thinness by talking about health and fat-shaming people in the name of health allows one to be much more horrible than normally accepted.

A good proof of how Clarence actually is just very vain and obsessed with being thin, and not at all defending health - Clarence condemns sports for being unhealthy, because according to him "muscles are unhealthy because they don't make you look beautiful, they make you look ugly".

He always wears short and black sleeveless tank-tops, the point being that he needs to show as much as his body to the world as possible, to be a "living example". He even wears his black short and tank-top during the tour (despite it being winte - the only thing he wears on top of his clothes to not get cold is a skunk fur coat).

Third Winner: Miranda Grope

(Based on: Miranda Grope)

This character was based on Dahl's own character of "Miranda Grope" from early drafts of the story, the horrible and atrocious girl allowed to do "whatever she wants".

In my version, the Grope parents are hippie-like people, the father having a very long beard and being covered in fleas, while the mother is covered in flowers and oss (plants that grew over her), and both always wearing rose-tinted glasses. They are the kind of parents that refuse authority and orders, seeing these (and social norms as a whole) as a "dictatorship". They prefer to trust their daughter to find her own way in the world, believing that experience is the best teacher in life. The result? They lazily raised her by telling her they would never forbid her anything and that she could do anything she wanted.

Miranda is a devilish little girl who does only what she wants, and becomes extremely violent when prevented from doing something. Or when people say something she doesn't want to hear. Or just when people she dislikes are near her. She shouts, the screams, she insult, she kicks, she hit, she throw enormous and terrifying tantrums. She has a very wide range of insults, and a truly evil mind : most of the things she wants to do are borderline crimes. It seems for her only chaos and destruction is "fun", a true little punk.

Miranda has a disastrous haircut because she cuts her hair herself, and she is always wearing the same clothes that she rarely washes): a white shirt, a blue sweater with long sleeves, and a plaid tiles skirt. An outfit that looks strikingly like a school uniform - but it is pure irony, because Miranda hates more than anything in the world school. She doesn't go to school, and the only time she went near one was to try to burn it down. (Her appearance is in fact based on Lauren Child's illustrations for Miranda, if you are wondering).

Fourth Winner: Veruca Salt

(Based on: Veruca Salt)

For this Veruca, I wanted to do something slightly different... here, Veruca doesn't want everything just because she is a spoiled rich brat. She is still one, but she is also the product of post-WW2 consumerism.

This Veruca was born surrounded by advertisements, logos, slogans and product placements. On television, in the streets, in shops, in journals, at the radio... She grew up with them and was influenced, brainwashed by them. As a result, she is obsessed with obtaining everything that was advertised, and she herelf looks like a walking billboard since she is covered in big, flashy logo and keeps reciting different brands' slogans and mottos. As soon as she sees something she saw publicity of before, she needs to obtain it at once. She is a true zombie, only hearing the call of the shopping mall and of the television advertisements.

One idea I had was that the Salt parents actually worked for (or where at the head of) a wealthy advertisement company, known to produce, design and create all kinds of famous publicities and slogans - and that they used their daughter as a guinea pig for their tests, and delighted in Veruca being so addicted to consumerism. In fact, they may have named her Veruca because at the moment of her birth they were working on advertisements for an anti-wart product, so that's all they had in mind.

Fifth winner: Herpes Trout

(Based on: Mike Teavee)

I went with this version of Mikee Teavee with the focus on "violence" already present in the original work, but also heavily used in the opera (and touched a bit in the 2005 movie).

This Herpes Trout is the embodiment of the fear of kids becoming violent upon watching television and playing video games (his only two passions in life). He has a true fascination with guns and firearms - US soldiers shooting aliens, gangs shooting each other, cowboys shooting at bandits, it's all he ever plays and watches. Herpes worships violence, and is absolutely obsessed with war (here I am thinking of all the wars present from the 60s to the 80s, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Glasgow Ice Cream Wars...). War propaganda and the fight being glorifyed heavily influenced him - as a result his biggest dream is to go at war in some foreign country to kill everyone there and come home a hero.

Herpes comes from a family of rednecks and hillbillies from the deep country. They are not poor however, they are wealthy enough to have television and several video games, but they are uneducated people full of stereotypes, discrimination and hate. They named their son Herpes because they ignored what it meant but just thought of it as an "intelligent" name. Herpes has everal brothers and sisters, and all have a disease name.

Herpes himself is a big and strong kid, who followed body-buildings process a la Charles Atlas and military training, becoming impressively muscular. However, he retained a soft, childish and chubby "baby face", which kind of ruins the effect of this massive, muscular, almost adult body. Always dressed in a military outfit, he carries everywhere with him guns and firearms, the question being: are they real? Or are they not?

Sixth Winner: Violet Glockenberry

(Based on Violet Beauregarde)

I wanted with this version to take back the idea of a competitive and "sportive" girl obsessed with contesting and winning - introduced in the Tim Burton movie.

This Violet is a tall, muscular and strong girl. She won numerous sportive competitions, but this doesn't make her just arrogant and prideful like in the Tim Burton version. In my version she is also very aggressive and violent (a bit like in the original novel). She is a nasty and rude bully easily prone to anger (in fact, if she keeps chewing gum it is mostly to calm her down sot hat she doesn't punch everyone around). Her parents originally pushed her towards competitions to manage her anger issues, but sports only gave her more strength and destructive power. In fact, they became terrified of her, while she considers them losers here to serve her - she basically thinks of herself as self-made, literaly.

Seventh Winner: Charlie Bucket

(Based on: Charlie Bucket)

For this Charlie, I wanted to go with a Charlie similar to the original illustrations of the character: blond hair, blue eyes, a white boy...

Basically, he is the original Charlie. Very sweet, very innocent, a gentle kid, the best of the group.

However I changed slightly his background. Charlie in this version is not the grandson of four grandparents, but rather the big brother of four younger siblings - and his family here struggles with trying to feed five children (and a total of seven mouths) despite having very humble and low-paid jobs. I think Charlie has taken the role of a parentive figure for the siblings, but at the same time him spending so much time with young children helped him keep in touch with his "childish" side.

#charlie and the chocolate factory #catcf #milk chocolate #retelling #charlie bucket #violet beauregarde #mike teavee #augustus gloop #veruca salt #miranda grope #clarence crump

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aethele · 3 years

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god ur post is so good.... i think the only reason ferdie can leave her in silver snow is bc ss already has so little appeal being an almost vw copy paste that itd be like “and heres THREE characters you lose!” ): sacrifices made i guess

i have a lot of Opinions on silver snow and i personally have a very strong CF / VW lean, but i definitely feel like from a “““choice based””” ( pseudo-choice based ? as it is none of your choices matter except the easily-missable CF one ) game perspective, as a professional writer currently working on a choice-based rpg, i really think you SHOULD have been punished more for abandoning your student.

just like how lorenz and ashe will ditch ya in other routes, i really think some beagles kids should have ditched you in silver snow. like, ya know, consequences. it would have been way more dramatic from a storytelling perspective, having to live with your choices and fight your former students. of course some of them have very valid reasons for leaving the empire --- petra for example --- but there should have been more.

i think ferdinand because:

he loves the empire. in VW he says there’s a hole in his heart that will never be filled after you sack the empire, and he’s super depresso in non-CF routes.

adrestia is already on rocky terms with the church, and ferdinand himself says that religion shouldn’t be forced upon people ever. so why on earth would he side with a church when he’s prime-minister-to-be of an empire that already thinks it has too much authoritative power ??? especially one set on destroying the empire ???? his home ?????

his dialogue just feels so bizarrely out of place since in every other route he is one of the most sympathetic characters to edelgard. he talks about continuing her legacy after she dies ! he tries to get her to leave in VW so they don’t have to kill her ! but in silver snow every other line from every character is about how she’s just gotta die. it just doesn’t make sense for him imo.

he hates corrupt nobles. that’s like, the crux of his entire character. he has some disagreements with edelgard, but at the end of the day they have very very very similar ideals. he clearly dislikes the current system and wants reform. ever read the last line of their paired ending ??? “Their children, born to those who had torn down the old social hierarchy, were encouraged to choose their own paths.” that’s good kush right there

it just would have made sense for edelgard. she wants to get rid of ludwig, ferdie wants to get rid of ludwig, and ferdie becomes duke aegir / head of his house after ludwig is unseated. house aegir is the most powerful of the great noble houses. given her character and her hatred of TWS, you would think she would prefer ferdinand retain his own house than hand it over to arundel ( and look what happens there ! ). plus it’s the only house / territory she outright seizes ? ferdinand himself is the one who explains that she jailed count varley and allowed his wife to take over instead. why wouldn’t she extend that to ferdinand ?

ferdinand says he left because he didn’t want to be her puppet but i find it very odd that he would just abandon his own people and territory like that. he has basically dedicated his life to them and talks nonstop about how true nobles serve their people before themselves. he also sees it as his entire life’s purpose to guide edelgard and correct her when she is on the wrong course of action. in every single route he chastises dimitri’s retainers for being poor retainers and not stepping in and correcting dimitri. but then HE abandons edelgard ??? it makes no sense. the prime minister’s entire purpose is to act as a balance against the emperor and he tells hubert that’s why he’s always challenging edelgard as her retainer. and clearly in CF he is able to mitigate a lot of internal damage to the empire bc he prevents an entire rebellion in hrym. if you don’t recruit him in other routes, dorothea calls him a dog for staying with edelgard and he replies “I will not try to explain my duty or hers. You would not understand.” he clearly sees it as his duty to stay at edelgard’s side and challenge her to make sure she makes the right choices ! AAAAAAAAAAAAAA

anyway that’s why i don’t write him in silver snow. out of the non-CF routes, i think he fits best in VW. the church stuff and lack of sympathy toward edelgard in silver snow just does not mesh with my interpretation of ferdie ( of course other ppl are welcome to their own interpretations ). thank u for reading my essay

#* ❂ ) i like ferdinand a normal amount . ― ooc.#long post /#whoops that got out of hand #ferdie to dimitri's retrainers: wait you DON'T argue with your leader at every opportunity ??? but that is your job !!!

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wordcubed-writes · 4 years

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Alternate history timeline for my AFO!Izuku fic

Fandom: My Hero Academia

Fanfic: untitled AFO!Izuku fic

Context: This is the history timeline I’m using for my villain!Inko and AFO!Izuku fics. It’s definitely not compatible with… whatever canon thinks it’s doing.

What I’m trying to do with this is make the My Hero Academia world feel bigger (there is an entire world! It’s not just Japan!) and ground its history in… I know “historical materialism” sounds really pretentious, so I’ll just go with “shit happens for a reason”. I’m also trying to answer obvious problems that are never addressed in canon, like “how come heroes get to do the things they do?” or “Why are they considered separate from the police?”

It’s so fucking long. I’m sorry. Yes this did take me a week to hammer out.

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• 1948 First confirmed Quirk. This is considered the start of the “First Generation” of quirks. Most are barely noticeable, and would only be verified after extensive demographic studies a century later. Some are very noticeable. A few dozen are immensely powerful.

• 1950 All For One born.

• 1954 All For One's younger brother born.

• 1950s The rest of the 1st wave of eventual-supervillains, including the Machine Queen, born. Many governments start projects to weaponize Quirks for both the military and as a new form of domestic control.

• 1962 US government openly starts using Quirks to speed up moon landing project, and as attempt to calm public anxieties about Quirks. (All of the Quirk-users to appear are still children.) Reaction against this leads to eventual exposure of other, more-harmful projects using Quirks.

• 1963 By this time, every Quirk-user who would eventually become a supervillain is a part of some kind of government project.

• 1966 Meta Liberation Society (MLS) founded as a response to reactionary attacks against Quirk users. (The oldest Quirk-users are about 18 years old at this point.)

• 1967 “Second generation” of Quirk users considered to start here. None of them are as powerful as the hundred or so first-gen Quirk-users who would eventually become supervillains, but their Quirks’ strength is more evenly-distributed; almost all of them have a noticeable quirk that affects their lives.

• 1968 Quirk Liberation Army (QLA) founded as more militant splinter group of MLS.

• 1970 QLA assassinates both the Soviet Union premier and the United States president. The strongest government-project Quirk-users attempt to seize power in both countries.

• 1970-1981 The Bleeding Years: civil wars become norm; most national governments fail; lots of major infrastructure is left to decay or is destroyed in violent conflicts. Around this time, All For One finds and steals an immortality Quirk.

• 1971 All For One forces a Quirk on his younger brother, ostensibly to protect him, accidentally creating One For All.

• 1981 All For One becomes dictator of Japan. Age of Supervillains begins. Various immensely powerful quirk-users have successfully carved up the world between themselves. (Technological progress is much slower than it otherwise would be, as most dictators focus on consolidating power more than anything else.)

• 1980s Due to his interest in collecting Quirks, All For One allows any Quirk-user to immigrate to Japan, and offers generous benefit programs to further encourage this. This has three major consequences:

‣ ‣ Japan becomes substantially more diverse and has a much higher population than it otherwise would, and has a far higher Quirked-to-Quirkless ratio than other countries.

‣ ‣ As Quirks become an integral part of the economy, other countries attempt to copy Japan. These pro-Quirk benefit programs would be pared back decades later, as more and more of the population is Quirked anyways, but they leave an important legacy: if you’re Quirkless, you get less.

‣ ‣ Across the world, demand for specific Quirks (both from employers and consumers) and the search for communities that can better support Quirks leads to populations rapidly urbanizing and densifying. Rural areas eventually hold most of the Quirkless, the elderly, and socially-unacceptable-Quirk populations.

• 1983 The Consortium is formed by Machine Queen to mediate between various supervillain-ruled nations in order to prevent any major wars.

• 1990s Supervillains’ children are noticeably weaker than their parents. The Consortium attempts to genetically engineer a Quirk.

• 2002 First genetically-engineered Quirk-user born. Code-named “Cesium” due to how volatile their Quirk is.

• 2010s Arranged “Quirk Marriages” become popular to compensate for weaker Quirks of second-generation supervillains, and hopefully ensure 3rd-gen supervillains will still be powerful enough to rule.

• 2016 Genetic engineering of Quirks is banned in most countries after Cesium’s Quirk proves too powerful to control and too unstable to be reliable.

• 2020s The Consortium orchestrates a peaceful transition of power between the aging first-gen supervillains and their children. (Excepting All For One, who is immortal and has no living family.) The Machine Queen has developed her technomancy Quirk enough that she goes full transhuman and, like All For One, is effectively immortal.

• 2028 Cesium marries a Quirk researcher with one of the earliest-known Quirk-disabling Quirks. They live a relatively normal life.

• 2030s Cesium’s son, Platinum, proves to have a remarkably powerful and stable quirk. This is widely credited to the mixture of his parents’ Quirks, further boosting the popularity of Quirk Marriages.

• 2050s 3rd generation supervillains come to power (again, arranged by the Consortium) and are still noticeably weaker than second-gen supervillains despite quirk marriages.

• 2055 Platinum founds the Renaissance Project, a training program for the elite, intending to overcome younger supervillains’ lack of inherent power by developing the Quirks they do have as much as possible (and usher in a “Supervillain Renaissance”).

• 2070s Fourth-generation supervillains also much weaker than their parents despite quirk marriages. Skill and creativity with Quirks becomes more important for maintaining power, and Platinum solidifies his position as the headmaster who guided a generation of dictators.

‣ ‣ A new theory suggests that the vastly-above-average Quirks of the first supervillains will continue to "regress to the mean" and weaken each generation, while the overall population's average Quirk strength will continue to increase.

‣ ‣ Supervillains fear a "crossover point" where their citizens are as strong as them, and begin massive crackdowns on Quirk usage. The phrase "Quirk Singularity" is coined to describe when the average person's Quirk strength will match that of the god-like first supervillains, thought to happen sometime in the 25th century.

‣ ‣ Supervillains start recruiting some stronger Quirk-users to enforce their will, as they can no longer singlehandedly control a whole country without extensive support. These were the forerunners to the first hero organizations.

• 2078 A man called Earthmover is imprisoned for illegal quirk use after he rescues hundreds from a landslide. This sparks protests and Japan’s League of Ten—previously government enforcers—side with the protestors and rebel. Age of Supervillains ends, Golden Age of Heroes begins.

• 2080s The crackdown on Quirk usage combines with a severe economic downturn and uprisings break out across the world. Many Quirked state enforcers side with the rebels.

• 2080 By this point, the majority of the world population has a Quirk.

• 2086 Nana Shimura born.

• 2090s Various supervillain dictators fall to uprisings. The Consortium shifts from preserving the status quo to building up underground villain organizations in the face of the new "heroic" society.

• 2092 All For One abandons the Japanese government to the rebels, hoping to continue exerting control through more discrete means than as public dictator. His new underground organization starts absorbing the remnants of other deposed supervillains and becomes the League of Villains. Earthmover & other condemned “heroes” are rescued from prison.

• 2097 The Consortium negotiates with various provisional governments, working to preserve the status quo as much as possible by simply swapping out supervillain dictators with democratically-elected “unitary presidents”.

‣ ‣ This is more or less accepted with a major compromise: No major rebel-hero groups formally dissolve or surrender, they are just in détente with the state. Furthermore, “hero” becomes an official title, and heroes form a parallel pseudo-government, determined by popular vote and with effective veto power over many major state actions. This is rejected by groups like the Meta Liberation Society, who want Quirk regulations abolished, and the Quirk Liberation Army, who want a true revolution.

• 2098 Japan's first Top Ten heroes are selected. Golden Age of Heroes ends, Silver Age of Heroes begins.

• 2099 Earthmover elected first President of Japan.

• 2100s Tensions mount between surviving villain groups.

‣ ‣ The Consortium is largely obsolete without supervillain rulers to coordinate with. The villainous Renaissance Project has been replaced with various hero training schools. Both groups are weakened and rapidly fading, meanwhile, the League of Villains is larger than ever, and All For One’s influence is no longer limited to Japan. All three groups hate heroes, but the other two blame All For One for “giving” Japan to the heroes and empowering other uprisings across the world. (All For One is removed from the Consortium’s board of directors, ending its official ties to the League of Villains and further weakening it.)

‣ ‣ Platinum revamps his organization to become CORE (Counter-Revolution), with the express goal of destroying the hero system.

‣ ‣ The Consortium openly allies with the few remaining villain dictators (no longer “super” after six generations of regressing to the mean), and discretely allies with newer governments that are increasingly nervous about hardline rebels like the QLA.

• 2100 Quirk marriages made illegal in Japan. Most other countries soon follow.

• 2101 UA is founded. Platinum (re)starts genetic engineering program to create super-soldiers for a counter-revolutionary army.

• 2105 Earthmover reelected.

• 2106 Earthmover drafts almost every geokinetic Quirked in Japan to physically expand Japan’s landmass to counter rising sea levels. (Yes, global warming is still happening in this timeline.) This is very popular with the general public, though the actual results are mixed. The project is only half-finished by the time a different president is elected. Within a couple decades, the western coast expansions become a haven for the wealthy while the eastern coast expansions are unfinished and regularly-flooded slums.

• 2109 Nana Shimura becomes 7th holder of OFA. Earthmover announces his retirement before third Japanese presidential elections.

• 2110 Second President of Japan inaugurated.

• 2110s Quirkless discrimination is growing worse. Many believe Quirkless people are naturally going extinct. Employers start preferring any Quirk at all—even an unhelpful or mediocre one—as being better than no Quirk at all.

• 2111 Toshinori Yagi born, Quirkless.

• 2120s Protests by the Meta Liberation Society against the harsh and byzantine Quirk licensing system (including the special status of hero licenses) lead to major police crackdowns on unlicensed quirk usage, fueling the growth of the more radical Quirk Liberation Army. Several countries near civil war as reactionary movements, including old supervillain loyalists, CORE, and the League of Villains, clash both with each other and with groups like the QLA.

‣ ‣ Due to their status as non-state entities, most heroes don’t strictly enforce Quirk regulations, preferring to preserve their popular image as benevolent and non-political guardians, but they are, by now, very invested in the status quo, and merciless in dealing with any perceived violence by the QLA.

• 2125 Toshinori meets Nana Shimura.

• 2128 Toshinori becomes 8th holder of One For All.

• 2130 Nana confronts All For One; he kills her. Toshinori—now going by the hero name All Might—is sent to America to assist in destroying the League of Villains branch there. Second Age of Villains begins.

• 2131 Platinum destroys San Francisco Bay Area. CORE guerillas attack and kill major heroes in Europe (the region where the League of Villains is weakest), planning to crush the hero system there and rebuild a supervillain society outside of AFO’s influence. Quirk Liberation Army and League of Villains clash in Tokyo.

• 2132 All Might stops Platinum from destroying Los Angeles. This incident makes All Might globally renowned, and encourages more international cooperation between heroes.

• 2133 CORE forces start attacking heroes in Russia. An international union of heroes confronts and kills the strongest CORE Quirked in Moscow.

• 2135 At over 100 years old, Platinum is increasingly reliant on Quirk-made support tech to continue working. Though other major villains consider the CORE super-soldier project a failure, he still quietly restarts CORE’s genetic engineering program, this time to produce “perfect” successors to continue his legacy.

• 2138 International cooperation between heroes is now routine, and the League of Villains splinters into hundreds of isolated local groups as All For One fails to keep his organization whole in the face of global coordinated attacks.

• 2139 Quirk Liberation Army collapses under pressure from heroes, who consider them villains. Current Japanese President discovered to be under mind control and peacefully removed from power by vote of the Top Ten heroes. Age of Peace begins.

• 2140s Japan is the heart of the hero system. Its heroes are considered the best, and heroes are effectively Japan’s biggest export to other countries.

• 2150 Izuku Midoriya born, Quirkless.

• 2159 All Might successfully hunts down All For One, but is grievously injured while (seemingly) killing him.

• 2164 Izuku meets All Might.

• 2165 Izuku starts at UA. Technology equivalent to about 2020-level in our world, with the exception of special Quirk-made tech.

‣ ‣ Japan’s population: 250 million.

‣ ‣ World population: 12 billion.

‣ ‣ At 136 years old, Platinum is reaching the limits of what support tech can accomplish, and begins plotting to kill as many heroes as he can before he dies.

• 2166 All Might's final fight with All For One, and retirement. Age of Peace ends.

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Other Notes: This timeline isn’t just abstract worldbuilding; most stuff I wrote here is referenced by characters in-story or directly affects the circumstances characters find themselves in.

For example: the Consortium is villain!Inko’s biggest ally, and later on she moves her base of operations to Japan’s aforementioned east coast slums. The Machine Queen is AFO’s only remaining peer from his dictator days, and serves as a frenemy he can, like, actually talk to. CORE serves as a looming threat from overseas—if/when AFO falls, they will move in. Platinum’s genetically-engineered successors are intended as a villainous mirror to Endeavor’s family. I’ll go further into my villain OCs in this story in a follow-up post.

The countries that the various supervillains ruled over had very different borders than our world’s. Bigger countries tended to get split up between rival dictators, and smaller countries with no major geographical barriers between them often got subsumed and ruled as a single country. (Japan was lucky in that it was already an island nation, and stayed whole before and during All For One’s rule.)

The Public Safety Commission (and its equivalents in other countries) is the official interface between the Japanese government and the parallel pseudo-governments that heroes represent. It is both important and fiendishly complicated.

As a result of the unitary president system most countries run, most governments are hilariously corrupt and barely functional. Heroes are mostly okay with this because, hey, if it’s broke it can’t be tyranny! Neoliberalism still sucks, even in alternate universes, so welfare barely exists, and most people in need have to search for a hero-sponsored charity that caters to their specific circumstances.

There is no World Wide Web. The Consortium encouraged isolationism, trying to limit each supervillain’s ambition to their own fiefdoms. As a result, there are dozens of incompatible networks and computing architectures. (This also made censorship MUCH easier.)

Social media sites like Twitter still exist, because I want to use them as a narrative tool like other fics I’ve seen. But there are no globe-spanning networks of servers, just local subsidiaries running servers dedicated to a single country, and there is no physical infrastructure enabling them to talk to each other. This does become a plot point a couple times.

(It’s considered a big deal that UA has a special computer capable of directly communicating with overseas computers. At another point, All Might has to physically mail a recording of something to another country, because it’s literally the only way he can guarantee somebody across the planet can view the same footage.)

My “technology develops 2 to 3 times slower in this AU than it does in our timeline” rule of thumb suggests, frighteningly, that Twitter has existed for around 30 years in this timeline. (Their technological equivalent of 2007 would be about 2133, while their technological equivalent of 2019 would be in 2163 or so.)

I left out all of Inko’s villain adventures and Izuku’s upbringing, because… I haven’t settled on a timeline for them yet. Also, at a certain point, it just becomes a summary of the fic itself, which isn’t the point of posting this timeline.

#AFO!Izuku AU #MHAfic #Boku no Hero Academia #BNHA #fanfiction

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thenightling · 4 years

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Summary of The Dreaming (issues 1 through 18)

We begin with a teaser in Dark Nights: Metal (November 2017). After the dust has settled and The Library of The Dreaming has been restored Lucien notices a book missing and his lord Dream of The Endless (Daniel Hall).

The following happens in The Sandman Universe 1 and The Dreaming issues 1 through 18.

The Dreaming slowly deteriorates around their ears. The Dream entities (the subjects of The Dreaming) cannot find Dream of The Endless (The Sandman). Matthew The Raven tries to find him but Daniel cuts off their psychic connection to avoid being found by his subjects.

Dora, another entity, commonly called a Monsteress or Monstress (Someone should tell him monster is unisex) resides in The Dreaming. She has a bit of a chip on her shoulder because Morpheus (Dream of The Endless) assured her that she was safe in his domain and she didn’t need to be afraid anymore. She feels he lied to her. It wasn’t long after his assurances that he “was killed” by The kindly ones and a new aspect (incarnation) of Dream of The Endless took the throne, Daniel.

Strange beings called Blanks or (as a pseudo-racial slur) “Soggies” are coming through a crack that has formed in The Dreaming. Some dream entities, including Mervyn Pumpkinhead (the grounds keeper of The Dreaming) are suspicious of these refugees coming through. (Incoming ham-handed political message).

Lucien decides to “conserve” energy in The Dreaming by uncreating dream entities he deems useless. He uses the helm of dream (because apparently that’s how this works now...) to uncreate Mervyn’s friends and crew men right on the steps of the castle. Needless to say Merv was devastated and Lucien says “I did warn you.” before differentiating Uncreating and killing and acting as if being ucnreated is one of the finest things that could happen. (Take this as a bad sign. I sure did.)

Poor Lucien, The librarian’s mind was deteriorating, like someone with dementia.

Dora befriends one of the blanks and names him Ziggy after Ziggy Stardust (The David Bowie persona). Ziggy starts to develop his own autonomous personality and Dora realizes the blanks are made of dream-stuff and are like children just being born.

Disgruntled about the “uncreation” of his friends and feeling contempt toward The Blanks that took their job, Mervyn unleashes Judge Gallows. Judge Gallows is a nightmare that Morpheus apparently created to prey on humanity’s fear of “The Other.” Judge Gallows caused things like The Civil War and The Holocaust. (???????????? NOT OKAY!)

Judge Gallows discovers Lucien’s mental deterioration and uses it against him to take control over The Dreaming. He starts having Merv pen up The Blanks and they even attempt lynching poor Ziggy.

Dora and Lucien flee to the realm of Destruction where Dora is able to wield the sword of Destruction (Which really should NOT be there but okay...) This part is mostly filler, folks, but I’m writing it out anyway.

Abel is talked into killing Cain, inverting their usual story routine. (Someone completely ignored the rule about Cain’s mark here...). Cain doesn’t revive though.

There’s a brief run-in with Nuala the faery (as if someone forgot to put her into the story since she is in the concept art. Whoops). And it’s implied she’s hidden some important item for Daniel after misleading Titania about a dreamstone.

Nuala had been “Given” as a gift to Morpheus during the events of the original Sandman. Morpheus, distrusting of faeries, and not liking slavery, was reluctant to accept, but knew if he refused it would mean war with the faery court. He had allowed her to stay and ultimately paid her with a boon. Nuala had an unrequited crush on Morpheus.

A strange A.I called Wan comes in and usurps Judge Gallows. Bye, Judge Gallows, no one cares. However we get early hints that Wan is crazy or has an alternate personality that wants to destroy The Dreaming.

Daniel makes a brief apologetic appearance to Lucien, who appears to be dying. (This gets drawn out. He’ll be “on the brink of death” for several issues...)

Enter Rose Walker! Finally we get a little coherence in the plot. Rose hasn’t aged a day since she was saved from being The Dream Vortex by her grandmother, Unity. The Dream Vortex is a person whose mind is unusually connected to The Dreaming and whose very existence can cause their waking world to crash into The Dreaming, killing everyone on her planet. Morpheus had not wanted to have to kill her but thankfully Rose’s grandmother had found another means for her to survive, by taking the essence of what makes her The Vortex into herself.

Rose is actually the granddaughter of Desire of The Endless. Unity had been raped by Desire in a scheme to create a vortex because Desire wanted to put Morpheus in a situation where he would have to spill family blood. If an Endless kills a member of their own family The Kindly Ones may hunt them.

Ultimately this happened with Morpheus but not because of Desire impregnating Rose’s grandmother, but because Morpheus put his own son, Orpheus, out of his misery. Lyta Hall had tried to invoke the kindly ones for the death of Daniel. The kindly Ones tried to tell her that Morpheus did not kill Daniel, nor was he blood of The Endless (Yet...) but they informed her that Morpheus did kill his own son, (Orpheus) and that was reason enough for them.

Ironically this quest for revenge IS what made Lyta lose Daniel forever. It ended with Daniel becoming the new aspect of Dream.

Now in present day Rose has a daughter, Ivy. Ivy is in her mid-twenties and works as a tattoo artist. Rose had been pregnant by the time Daniel became Dream. And though it’s technically incest with his own great-niece Daniel fell in love with this daughter, Ivy. Daniel, posing as a human, had a strange, romantic relationship with Ivy.

One scene that rubbed me the wrong way in this is when some men at a bachelor party catcalled Ivy it was implied that Daniel f--king murdered them by making them drown themselves. (Morpheus hated the idea of killing and has a personal crisis every time he might have to do it. Daniel does it over catcalling...) Rose is given visions by Desire of The Endless explaining what happens at this point. Some of this isn’t explained until ten issues later but I’ll streamline this right here for you.

Many years earlier a man named Hyperion Keeter (very much modeled after Steve Jobs) was haunted by a Night Hag. It turns out this Night Hag was Dora. He defeated the creature by telling her she was not real. Dora, having an existential crisis, flees back to The Dreaming. Here Morpheus found her and helped her. To stabilize her fragile condition he hid something precious inside her. His own ruby dreamstone, made from a piece of his very soul). It would exist inside her until the day she was strong enough to believe in herself, sustain herself, and rise above self-doubt. Many creatures of dream (if not all) need to be believed in to sustain themselves or they weaken and fade.

Hyperion becomes obsessed with dreams. He believes that dreams are the source of all the world’s superstition, fear, and religion and as such the source of all human cruelty, bigotry, and irrationality- things like witch hunts, religious wars, persecution of the LGBT community over “religious reasons.” He thinks if he takes control over the world’s dreams he can save it.

Decades pass. He gets occultists and corporate followers who agree with his scheme but probably for less noble reasons (more world domination than anything else). Hyperion’s followers learn that Daniel is courting Ivy. They get a hold of a lock of Ivy’s hair and use it to control her. While under this magical enthralment Ivy is used to put a geas tattoo on Daniel’s back. The tattoo is a composite of a solomonic figure and a dreamcatcher, things Daniel believes hold power and so they do.

Daniel thinks this is a strange accident caused by the fact that Ivy had wanted to tattoo him and she had cried and cried when he refused to allow it before. (No means no, bitch. The character IVy, before being under the enthralment, threw a hissy fit because she didn’t respect his autonomy when Daniel didn’t want a tattoo. And we were supposed to sympathize with her trying to force body modification!)

Unable to explain what’s wrong, because of the geas, Daniel accepts a cup of tea from Ivy, while they sit on a beach, but Rose has a vision from Desire, warning her that the tea is magically poisoned. She tries to stop Daniel from drinking it but it’s too late. He’s badly weakened.

At first Daniel believes Ivy deliberately betrayed him and he has a major temper tantrum resulting in mortals around them mutilating themselves. (Seriously, can we have Morpheus back now?!???)

Rose slapped sense into Daniel (he deserved it) and Daniel goes to figure out what’s going on. At Fawny Rig (the mansion where Morpheus had been held prisoner a century earlier) Daniel lets out his rage on the occultists there and finds out how they controlled Ivy. The house is now owned by Hyperion’s company. Daniel goes to make amends with Ivy but it’s too late. Ivy has ODed on prescription drugs. She’s alive but brain dead. Daniel declares that she’s only asleep and flees with her.

Daniel gives Hyperion a dream warning him of what would really happen if he’s successful in the destruction of myth, fantasy, and wonder. Horrified by what he sees, Hyperion tries to undo what he has done but his own followers turn on him. He’s physically fragile (dying of cancer), and eventually is put on a life support system. Most of the world already thought he was dead anyway.

Rose tells the story to semi-unconscious Lucien. Lucien ends up back in The Dreaming where he finds his library has been replaced with a digitized archive (easier to destroy). Wan (the A.I.) thinks this digital library with no books is more convenient with Lucien’s fading memory and Wan actually believes they are doing good. Wan doesn’t know that part of them is like a virus slowly eating away at The Dreaming.

Abel knows the truth. Abel captures Matthew and removes his own eyes, inserting them into Matthew’s eye sockets. (Yup, human-like eyes hanging out of a bird. This lasted three issues too long...) Abel can grow back his eyes. He does this so Matthew can see the truth and to sever his connection with Wan (who is now ruler of The Dreaming). Because psychic links now work by optic nerves, I suppose. I know it’s “dream logic” but no, not really. The blind can’t have a psychic connection?!? “My Lord, why can’t I feel you?” the last words of the griffon when he was killed by The Kindly Ones. He wasn’t feeling him with his eyes!

Lucien comes to Abel, begging for death. Mervyn and the other dream entities show pity on Lucien and bury him, in the hope that he’ll be reabsorbed by The Dreaming. Lucien has tea with Death.

Dora eventually tracks down the source of what’s destroying The Dreaming right into Hyperion’s bedroom. Here she finds Cain “living” inside a computer security system. Hyperion’s men had found Cain’s essence and uploaded him into this machine, somehow. Cain informs Dora of the part of the story she didn’t know. And he tricks her into shutting down Hyperion’s life support system. Poor Hyperion had wanted to set things right, knowing what he did was wrong.

While Hyperion is in his death dream, Abel and Matthew are able to escape into The waking World.

Rose Walker was on a bus carrying her mother’s corpse back home. Her literally brain-dead daughter had been abducted by Daniel and her own mother just passed away from cancer, so Rose is numb and confused while the world is going to Hell because humans are losing their minds without their dreams.

Rose has another vision of Desire. There have been some subtle hints that this might not be Desire at all. For starters we never see the whole face. The eyes are always hidden. Second, this Desire always comes to her in dreams. And there are not-so-subtle nods to The Sandman: Overture where Desire had disguised themself as Dream in cat form and Morpheus had mistaken this cat as another aspect of Dream of The Endless. If Desire can be mistaken as Dream, Dream can be mistaken as Desire. There’s a rising chance this “Desire” is actually Morpheus. They can’t be Daniel. One of the visions came while Daniel was about to drink poisoned tea.

“Desire” coaxes Rose to take the initiative and use her own Desire-based powers. She steals the greyhound bus she was riding to get to Hyperion’s manor.

Abel and Matthew had gotten through to The Waking World by Hyperion’s death dream but some newly reprogrammed blanks, serving Wan, follow them. Dora recognizes one of these blanks as Ziggy, her friend. He still has the lightning bolt mark on his face. They are there to unmake dream entities and Ziggy almost successfully destroys Dora before coming to his senses and remembering who she is to him.

Abel’s eyes in Matthew’s head don’t work anymore in the waking world “because Dream Logic.” So Abel gives Matthew back his raven eyes. (Thank God!)

Abel confronts Cain and reminds him of how they need each other. Being the keeper of secrets Abel successfully hacks into the computer system holding Cain and allows him to escape and kill Abel (who always gets better), thus setting their story right. They both go home.

Almost destroyed, Dora lays dying. Rose comes in and tells Dora she must believe in herself and allows Dora to feed on her fear. It’s surprisingly sensual and intimate.

During the feeding it’s revealed that Morpheus hid his ruby dreamstone in Dora. Dora is fully healed and comes to her senses holding the ruby dreamstone. Poor Rose is The Dream Vortex again.

Dora opens the way back to The Dreaming. She’s followed by Matthew and the blanks, including Ziggy. Here a small army of dream entities have gathered with Lucien as righteous preacher who has had an encounter with Death and spoke with “HIM” and he knows what they must do now. He seems a bit crazed and the figures behind him look an awful lot like the versions of dream from The Sandman Overture.

And that’s where we currently are. No, I did not explain any events from The House of Whispers, Lucifer, Books of magic, or John Constantine: Hellblazer. That would have made this much longer. And that’s where we are now. I think I remembered everything.

@vagaryhexxx This is for you.

#The Dreaming #Neil Gaiman's The Sandman Universe

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underthewingsofthblackeagle · 5 years

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>>Faking a marriage before God?<< - Not “Just a lesson from the Courtroom” but an answer from the life experience of a Christian minister

“Stühle” by Hans

Consolation and Hope for the hurting hearts. Everything under the line.

As I have taken up to comment on several things concerning OL in the past under the title “Just some lessons from the courtroom”, I have decided to comment on a post I read around the “happenings” and rumors of the last weekend - this time from the viewpoint of my other profession.

As many of my followers know, I worked for several decades at one of the biggest district courts of my country (mainly as a Senior Administrator for International Legal Assistance in Criminal Law). But I am also an ordained minister and certified counselor of the Christian faith for (this year exactly) 30 years. And since 1991 I always worked both jobs - one as my 7 am to 3:30 pm job, the other one in the evenings and on weekends.

In the said post, a person asked:

“But would they really fake a marriage before God?”*

The moment I read the said question, I could feel the horror behind it. I sensed sorrow and hurt.

Before I comment on that question, let me explain the following: When I came to the OL fandom on Tumblr, I was surprised by a large number of people who - after I got to know them - revealed themselves as people of deep faith and spirituality to me. I met people from all religious backgrounds, different denominations, etc. And let me make this very clear: I respect all of you, every single one. Even if we don’t share the same convictions, the same kind of faith. I respect you all - and I also respect every person who calls himself/herself an atheist. Because faith, in my conviction, is a very personal decision and only a personal decision. Having said that, I like to comment on the last weekend and the said question. For an introvert like me, it is not an easy thing to post such personal things here. Please don’t think I want to preach at you. All I want is to give you the consolation that was given to me:

1. A hard truth

First I have to state a very hard truth. 30 years of ministry have taught me, that everything holy to God and men, can and will be faked. Let me give you some examples:

I saw a man faking the Christian confession and baptism - before God! - because he wanted to marry a lady of deep faith.

I saw a man faking the Christian walk of faith, showing a very pious lifestyle - before God! and the whole parish - while he was beating his wife at home regularly.**

I saw several men and women faking a marriage before God, speaking their vows but never taking them seriously.

I saw a man faking the Christian walk of faith - before God! -, calling himself and his church “the only elect of God” while offending and humiliating foreigners and people of a different faith.

These are only four of my many personal observations. We could go on and mention all those men (and some women too!) who called themselves “servants of God” while they were sexually abusing innocent children. We could mention the superiors of these people, who tried to hide these criminal acts before state authorities - a behavior that enabled the predators to molest and destroy even more innocent lives. We could mention the leaders of a distinct megachurch who were not willing to open their multi-million-dollar-building to help the victims of a hurricane. We could mention a high-ranking representative of “the only church of God”, flying to India first class for visiting the poor while building himself a villa for 35 million Euros in Germany (paid by the financial support of the common church member). We could mention all of those Christians, who believe they need killing machines (aka automatic weapons) because the Almighty God, they confess their faith in, obviously isn’t mighty enough to save His followers. These (and other people) have no problem to fake sacred things before God because - honestly - they only believe in two idols: themselves and the money they can get.

All of this contradicts the Christian faith, the gospel, the teaching of Christ. All this is fake before God. All this is shameful and hurting for those, who believe and honestly and humbly walk by their faith. But there is

2. No Need for Despair, but consolation for the hurting heart We have to face the truth. If we don’t do it and if we shamefully try to hide it, we are in danger of becoming “Fakers of the Faith” ourselves. That is absolutely no alternative! Remember that Christ taught us, that the truth has the power to set us free (John 8:32). Seeing, experiencing, that people fake all kinds of holy things before God, has hurt and saddened me deeply, but I am not in despair. I didn't lose my faith, no, contrary, my faith in God became even stronger. Why? The answer lies in the teaching of Christ, especially in the parable, which is called “The Parable of the Tares” (Matthew 13, 24 ff.) In this prophetic parable, Christ makes it clear to His disciples, that in later times there will be two kinds of people in the realm of faith: Those, who are like genuine wheat and those who are pseudo-wheat. I know, many bible translations use the word “tares” or “weed”. But if you do an in-depth study of the background of this parable, you will find that the difference is not between “wheat” and “weed”/”tares”, but between “wheat” and “pseudo-wheat”. The word, used in the original Greek of the New Testament, is “ζιζάνιον” (zizanion). It is the Greek name for a plant also known under the Latin name “Lolium temulentum”, “poison darnel” in English or “Taummelloch” in German. This plant looks like true wheat, but it can’t bear the real fruit. It is nothing but a fake! When you eat from this plant, it unfolds a poisonous effect. This can lead to dizziness, blindness and in the worst case even to death. That is exactly the spiritual effect fake-believers can have: their fake-Christianity will confuse you, tries to blind you for the truth and tries to kill your faith. 3. But how should we react to fake-faith and pseudo-believers?

From the said parable we learn first and foremost: Never concentrate on fake-faith or pseudo-believers! Concentrate on the truth and on the all-knowing God, who loved us so much that He warned us before it happened. God is not surprised and you shouldn't be either. Therein lies my greatest consolation. The God who knew all of this before (including the last weekend fake) is still able to change everything. Don’t react with hate, hateful speech or with a judgemental spirit! Be aware, that by giving room to these kinds of feelings, you betray your own values and the truth you stand for. Jesus, knowing that these questions would arise, answered them in the parable: “So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, “Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.“ (Matthew 13, 28 ff.) It is not mine nor your duty, to judge who is true/honest and who just fake’s it. Neither you nor I know the hearts like God does. Therefore God is the only One who can justly judge everyone and trust me, He will do it. But there are also several things for you and me to do:

Don’t let the pseudo-wheat blind your eyes for the truth or for the power of God. Don’t let all of this discourage you. God in His love warned us before it happened. He is not surprised. He is still the same God, mighty to help. He can’t be shaken and He still owns tomorrow. Nothing is hopeless, nothing is lost until the last day of this dispensation of grace has ended.

Live the truth humbly, walk in the truth daily.

Care for the fakers. They are in a dangerous place. Why? In 30 years of service, I have witnessed it again and again: Living a lie always leads to more lies and that leads away from true joy, true peace, and true happiness. One lie calls for another lie and in the end, all these lies lead to despair. Therefore, care for the fakers from depths of your heart! These people need you and your prayers! Pray for them and don’t stop doing so. Pray that the truth will reach and fill their heart again. Pray that they don’t miss the mercy and grace of God, that will lead them back not only to the path of righteousness, but to true life, true joy, and true peace.

Take the words of this promise to heart: “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.“ (Galatians 6:9)

3. A last word about the last weekend

I don’t believe, that means I’m not convinced, that a real wedding has taken place last weekend. I will expound the reasons for my conviction in another post. This will take some time. Right now, I am busy because I stepped in for a friend who had to have emergency surgery and is still in rehab. But I will try to post my thoughts on that around Sunday/Monday. I know this is a long post and I thank everyone who read it. Feel free to comment on this post, tell me what you think, send me your criticism, questions, etc. I might not be able to answer immediately, but I will do so asap.

As always - from Prussia with much love, DoP Notes: * I’m sorry, but because my week was very busy I forgot to reblog or screencap the post. I remember the ask was in a reblog. If anyone of my readers has screen caped it or a link, please let me know.

** When I got notice of this, I informed the authorities and they put a stop on it.

#Outlander #Outlander Fandom #OL #Faking a wedding before God?

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videogamesincolor · 6 years

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Detroit: Become Human (2018) -Exploitative Sci-Fi for Gamers

The Following article contains major spoilers for Detroit: Become Human

Folk can’t quite believe DBH’s player base loves Markus by an 80% plus margin. It’s like Grey’s Anatomy doesn’t exist or something.

On some level, Quantic Dream’s video games following Beyond: Two Souls are going to be a mechanical refinement of their gameplay, and not much else. If the Ellen Page driven game demonstrated anything, it was that the studio’s creative head has an innate inability to learn from his mistakes and he’s got a fetish for particular narrative cues, and all of them revolve around violence, racism and shock value.

Detroit: Become Human shares a lot in common with Max Landis and David Ayer’s 2017 direct-to-Netflix film Bright. Both are allegorical tales that utilize the iconism, present and historical, of the Black community and their key movements as a backdrop for the oppressed fantasy caricatures of their tale. With Bright, Orcs were the Allegorical Black community of the here and now.

With Become Human, Androids are representative of the Black community at various points in our people’s history. All of it is supported by the locale of Detroit, Michigan, a state with connections to the Underground Railroad (the game hits you with this trivia bit right off), Martin Luther King Jr., and anti-black violence that embroiled much of the United States when my parents were children.

Bright attempted (and failed) to re imagine some weird not-so-post-racial world where Tolkien-inspired aesthetics and archetypes were our history and influenced our present, with little changed about our factual history. Mankind is united in mutual hate of Orcs, and the motto “Black Lives Matter” continues to be a punchline to those unaffected by police brutality in a world where fairies are the equivalent of pests.

Become Human is yet another in the long line of over bright and sterile science fiction games that want to be Blade Runner, but doesn’t have the wherewithal to pull it off. And this is mostly because it’s too busy trying to shout “message!” For lack of a better word, Become Human gags itself with its own allusions despite some particularly interesting mechanics and sequences that exist within the ham-fisted racism narrative.

What is Become Human about?

The primary narrative of Detroit: Become Human is driven by the story of “Markus” (Jesse Williams), a specialized android, that, like most, runs the risk of triggering a dormant "virus” that simulates sentience in androids. He was gifted to old artist by the android creator (a man named Kamski). The beginning of his narrative sees him care for Carl (Lance Hendrickson), the old man in question.

He gets kicked around by anti-robot protesters, and has to ride the back of the bus with other androids. After telegraphed prompts that tell you his mistreatment at the hands of Carl’s son, Leo, is not far, the virus triggers itself, Markus begins to act of his own accord. The end result, where he may or may or not kill Leo, or simply gets blamed for the death of Carl when he dies of a heart attack, leads to his being shot by the police.

After he’s practically destroyed, he reactivates and he pulls himself out of the mud Shawshank Redemption-style and finds an abandoned ship full of busted androids that were looking for a leader. Markus, not interested in hiding the shadows, more or less appoints himself in that position because he’s the only one with some kind of proactive goal: To end enslavement of androids everywhere.

The secondary narrative focuses on a service android named “Kara” (Valorie Curry), who was busted up by her owner - a man named Todd Williams (IIRC) - during an abusive fit against his daughter, Alice. After she’s repaired, Kara returns to his home and resumes caring for him and Alice and accidentally discovers that Alice is not a human child, but an android (apparently Todd’s wife left him for an accountant and took her daughter with her). She ignores it, and, under duress, gains sentence when she believes Todd is going to kill Alice while high on Red Ice (a hyped up version of Crack).

She runs away with Alice in the hopes of reaching the Underground Android Railroad to escape to Canada where there are no robot laws, and encounters a fairly large (Black) Android named Luther, who decides he’ll do anything to protect them from harm.

The third narrative is that of “Connor” (Bryan Dechart), an android type, designed specifically for police investigations. Connor is sent to work with a grouchy old detective named Hank Anderson (Clancy Brown), who hates androids (because reasons) and doesn’t want to be bothered Connor’s overly stiff behavior and awkward attempts to get to know him.

Connor and Hank effectively run behind the likes of Markus and Kara, their narratives intersecting every now and again (until the end of the game), trying to figure out why Androids keep going homicidal and killing human beings.

While Markus’ plot drives the surface narrative, not unlike Bioshock Infinite, behind the scenes, the plot of Become Human involves a faceless corporation named CyberLife. From how I understood it, CyberLife, with the sole living monopoly on android creation, is looking to create an artificial conflict between humans and androids by using a virus that simulates sentience in machines that causes them to rebel against their owners.

When enough chaos is created, CyberLife would keep up the facade of an issue and supplant their man-made rebellion against humans using android (Connor) with no real “free will” of its own. It’s about as sci-fi as you can get and probably should’ve been the focus of the narrative from the jump.

Characters in Become Human;

I can’t wait to see white-face Android cosplay at this year’s conventions :D

Out the three playable characters that the player can control, the androids Kara and Connor have narratives that are focused more on the “personal” than the Frankenstein politics of the game that Markus represents. Performance wise, of the three characters, Valorie Curry and Jesse Williams give an ideal “robotic” performance that feels natural to their characters respective roles.

Of the characters within Markus’ narrative, Josh and Simon are probably easiest to become endeared to. They have opposing opinions on how to handle their rebellion, but they’re not rivals. They have the strongest rapport with Markus, but the game barely gives either any screentime so they’re effectively minor characters that get wasted for some arbitrary “Josh and Simon will remember that” nonsense.

She’s like that guy from Two Souls who wouldn’t take “no” for an answer

Carl is an obnoxious “nice old man” type that’s supposed to represent the best of humanity, but given the context of the world, he’s willfully ignorant to the climate that game itself ignores, and his interactions with Markus are uncomfortable to watch. The narrative pushes the android North (Minka Kelly) at the forefront of the Markus’ narrative (at the expense of his relationships with Josh and Simon), and she is the least interesting character out of the bunch that gets face time with Markus. She simply exists to say “Hey, Markus, choose violence” and instantly be promoted to lover. Simon and Joshua are right there, my mans.

Markus himself is a frustrating character for me, because (aside from my scruples with his actor) he is so representative of a white writer’s ideal Black character. It’s hard to even root for the character beyond the general principal. His arc stokes a kind of anger in me like nothing else. And the other part of me simply cannot wrap her head around Jesse Williams (a former public school teacher, with more than a little knowledge on racism) just signing off on this nonsense that effectively makes the character what he is. But, this wouldn’t be the first time a Black actor made questionable career choices.

With Kara, what keeps her narrative engaging are her interactions with Luther, Alice, and her denial that Alice isn’t a machine, but a human girl. But, Kara’s disadvantage is that she is a female character created by David Cage, so he spells out to the audience what he thinks she is: A motherbot to a childbot, that’s her entire role.

Why can’t we be friends?

Her desire, her want to save Alice from Todd isn’t Kara being concerned about someone who’d be under her care, someone who has to rely on her for help given her age. Instead it’s treated like the path to motherhood as opposed to a friendship. It’s like watching a version of Ripley and Newt’s relationship in Aliens where the reason for Ripley and Newt eventually regarding themselves as mother and daughter (their shared loss) doesn’t exist. Even the guy who assaults Kara and (potentially) wipes her memory assigns motherhood to her concern for Alice and it’s like, “well, that’s a bit fucking presumptuous of you, mate”.It’s really gross.

And in that sense, Alice isn’t a character; she’s a narrative tool to further exemplify Cage’s odd fixation this particular aspect of femininity. The performance of the actors sells the relationship quite well, about as well as Ellen Page sells the suicidal agony of her character Jodie Holmes in Two Souls, but the sudden promotion to “mother and child” is unearned and artificial.

The attention to detail that goes into Connor’s narrative, the choice of whether or not the player will allow the virus to trigger sentience, or go full on Robocop and fulfill the desire of CyberLife to the letter, is not the kind of detail you see in Kara and Markus’ tale. His narrative is primarily driven by the pseudo-paternal relationship he ends up forming with Clancy Brown’s Hank Anderson, who mourns the death of his son (insert “Jason!” joke here), but for reasons completely unrelated to his hatred of androids (he admits that much in the climax).

Every time the game puts Hank in danger, you’re given the choice of perusing the mission or risking a 40-80% chance of survival doesn’t mean the game will fuck you over and kill the Kurgan. I’m gonna assume everyone dove over their coffee tables to save Mr. Krabs and hung the mission.

Clancy has really round eyes, and I’m just noticing that for the 1st time

The he arc is as engaging as it is because of Clancy Brown’s performance. Dechart tries, he’s got a great rapport with Brown (unquestionably), but his limits are obvious. He often sounds like he’s putting on an act, something you shouldn’t be thinking of during an actor’s performance, and that can be distracting (I’m sure the direction doesn’t help either). I wouldn’t be surprised if that some point Quantic Dream was debating over whether or not this would be a game focused solely on Kara or Connor. Markus feels like something that was jammed into the game at the last minute to satisfy Cage’s celebrity itch and ideas of being progressive. That’s something I’ve always thought since they debuted the character back in E3 2017 (IIRC).

Out of all the human characters in the game, Clancy Brown’s Hank Anderson is the only one that feels like a person and not a plot device. Sure, he’s wrapped in all the trappings of a generic loner cop who hates partners (insert Buddy Cop Reference Here), but Clancy Brown manages to make an otherwise dull character work. On the flip-side, the generic asshole cop is such a walking stereotype there’s nothing genuine about his interactions with anyone.

He’s just there to reinforce the fantasy prejudices of the game and harp on and on about “them robots are gonna take our jobs”. Like, he didn’t need to exist because he does not contribute to the plot. The all too comical way he says “Fuck” (like he’s sneezing or some shit) – in a poor attempt to emulate the frustrations we often see in procedural dramas or action films when a standoff occurs – only further highlights how much of a caricature he is. This nigga can’t “bad cop” to save his life.

There aren’t a lot of characters to write home about in Become Human, or if there is I keep forgetting all about them and I can’t be arsed to recall them. Most of them are inconsequential and disappear after a single level appearance. If I’m being honest, I don’t hate the characters in Become Human (not most of them), so much as I loathe what some represent.

The Mechanics of Become Human;

Next Level Detective Vision(TM)

Become Human’s strength lies in being what I think is a fairly solid attempt at broadening the multiple choice system Adventure Games are otherwise derided for by individuals with a limited idea on what constitutes as a video game. It’s clear that Quantic Dream has taken cues from the likes of Dontnod Entertainment and Supermassive Games’ Life Is Strange and Until Dawn. Both are studios (with writers) managed to create a pair of fairly compelling adventure games, with wildly different takes on the multiple-choice system that’ll probably be remembered better in the positive than most, Quantic Dream included.

There are a number of outcomes that can happen within the game, depending on your actions. Some things change completely, other times it feels like a lot of its surface detail meant to wow you the first time. There’s usually only one conclusion to a level. For instance, even if Connor investigates the ruined house that Alice and Kara are hiding in, the end state is always going to be Kara and Alice escaping, no question about it. Markus always ends up getting shot and torn apart. Whether or not you decide to attack Leo doesn’t change his end state.

From my understanding there are multiple endings a player can get based on what the game decides are “morally wrong” decisions. Connor killing Androids for example, may always lead him down to a path of deactivation if you choose to fulfill your mission to the letter. Some, if not most of the central player characters and their cast can die. Hell, Markus can apparently just peace out of being the leader of the farcical android rebellion and North will take over in his place (that cracks me up). And one the more extreme options is to nuke Detroit to run the humans out of town. Whether or not it’ll make sense is another matter entirely.

Depending on the length of the levels, there are a number of things you can investigate and locate with the help of detective vision. Most of it really doesn’t inform the world in any meaningful way, a lot of it is collectibles for the sake of collectibles that never carry any consequence into the game (and the one item that does, is hidden and used as a moralizing plot twist that reeks of Cage brownnosing). The rest actually effects what you can say to characters.

The more details you find and learn about, the longer your multiple choice dialog lists becomes for certain characters. The problem, like with most multiple choice prompts, is that single words defining the response often lead to “oh, wait, shit, I didn’t mean that!” Because Cage clearly had different ideas about what “determined” and “uncertain” meant.

Jesse Williams??? In my junkyard???

If you’ve played a Quantic Dream game, then you know the deal mechanically. Motion Controls and Quick Time Events that more or less act like a fast forward button on a cinematic. Things you’d otherwise be able to do with basic button inputs, or a push of the analog stick, without any sort’ve guide, are rigged to Quick Time Events and motion controls. Want Marcus to stand up? Well you gotta wiggle that control and press and hold down numerous buttons before the cinematic decides to allow him to stand up.

It’s basically Telltale mechanics, which isn’t bad per say, but I like being able to stand up without playing Twister. The most freedom you get as a player is being allowed to walk around – to some degree – at your leisure (unless you’re being time attacked) and just take in the environment and click on stuff. In some instances, if you take too long, the game jumps to the next cinematic and that’s that.

Respectively, Connor and Markus are the only two out of the three androids that can create or recreate scenarios of through the study of their environment or certain objects. Markus can deduce whether or not he can make certain jumps or defenses against attacks. Connor can more or less do the same, but his mechanic is structured around picking up objects in crime scene and recreating a simulation of how events may have happened.

Kara lets her Otaku flag fly

Compare all of that to Kara, who can just change the color of her hair from blonde, black, brown and white. Her whole character seems built around her pixie hair cut and to that degree, the banality of her attractiveness (and remembering the creepy as fuck tech demo this game spawned from reinforces that). Yet, Connor and Markus can be both “attractive” and “functional”.

Philip Sheppard, Nima Fakhrara, and John Paesano compose what I think might be the best score from a Quantic Dream game I’ve heard after Beyond: Two Souls (which had Lorne Balfe and Hans Zimmer as its composers). It clearly apes the Vangelis aesthetic in a lot of places (namely Connor’s segments), but each character has a unique theme that either gets integrated into myriad of moods the music can adopt, or plays straight in a lot of sequences. It works pretty well as background noise, separate from the game.

All this scene needed was a saxophone

Another strong element in Become Human, outside of its narrative tree design, is the game’s environmental design. Become Human takes what are apparent cues from Dontnod Entertainment’s Remember Me, which imagined a futuristic Neo-Paris with a far more grounded approach than something like the direct-to-Netflix film Mute or even Blade Runner 2049, which is all lights, holograms, smog, and high-rise buildings. Become Human is chuck-full of nighttime shots, and rainy environments. There are still remnants of the old Detroit, but its slowly being dominated by the future that shouldn’t be able to sustain itself with a 40% unemployment rate, but go off Quantic Dream.

If you’re the type who’s easily wooed by high definition graphics (which isn’t something to write home about anymore. It’s done capped itself), especially with all the hub-bub going around about 4K RESOLUTION AND 4K SCREENS, then Become Human won’t have to do much to impress, just hit you with a lens flare.

With regard to cinematography and choreography, when Become Human is good, it’s good. Two of the strongest sequences in the game are the dead end story thread where Connor and Hank go checking into a bird infested apartment occupied by a runaway android, and the entire attack on the Jericho. Connor’s pursuit sequence is, for the most part, is pretty well directed, and it’s what I look forward play in a game like this. But, its also where the QTEs hindrance comes into play far more often. It’s not the kind of scene that needed anything except the prompts telling which way was safer and which way was quicker.

The Jericho siege is a fast paced implementation of the character perspective switch (that began slowly in earlier parts of the level) that works to keep varying levels of stress pressed upon the player. You’re encouraged to hide as Kara (she ain’t shit in a fight) and the game tries its damnedest to kill Luther (<_<), Markus has to save everyone he can (top priorities: Josh and Simon) and suddenly gains the ability to Keanu Reeves just about everyone in his path; Connor, from I can recollect, is more background support for Markus and gets shot if you try to save North (<_<). It’s cinematic when it counts and interactive where it matters.

Those are the two stand out sequences. The rest of the action in the game is more reflective of the awkward “which Connor is the real Connor?” fight scene which is just clumsily shot and broken to hell with QTEs (to say nothing of how botched the “tell me something only the REAL Connor would know” scene was).

Questionable Worldbuilding

Kamski, David Cage’s self insert.

There’s a certain level of suspension of disbelief required when it comes to science fiction. Unless you’re an author like Michael Crichton (who lived and died by the amount of [academic] research he put into his stories, or borrowed from his own experiences) science fiction – moreso than fantasy –, especially dystopic science fiction, is always gonna be amalgamation of fact and some nonsense an author threw at the wall.

But the mark of a good writer is usually the one who has you thinking about the ideas presented in the narrative, not what you as an audience member would’ve done to fix the narrative’s persisting problems. In this case, Michael Crichton is the former. David Cage is the latter.

The world in Become Human doesn’t feel lived in. There’s no real explanation as to how the world in the game got to where it is, and its obsession with “World War 3″ is a lazy dab into politics. There are places and circumstances that fit each situation in the narrative, but on a whole, it doesn’t feel like a place that could actually exist like Middle Earth, or even the Earth of Harry Potter, which blends the “wizarding world” and the “muggle world” together quite well without creating a grievous dissonance in the narrative. It’s a collection of sets characters are strolling through.

Cage lifts strife and topical issues from the past and present to build his world, but utterly fails to understand the context and environmental circumstances that informs what are issues steeped in anti-blackness and white supremacy. He’s not unlike Zack Snyder, who is so preoccupied with how “cool” a scene in his movie looks, there’s never anything of substance in the final product. The depth of his understanding of racism, mass deportation, and antisemitism is that it’s “bad” and not much else.

For instance, there’s little explanation as to why Canada has no Robot Laws (not one I found), or why ‘sentient’ Androids would even assume why they’d be safe there and not sent right back to the United States. Another head scratcher is a law only recently required androids wear signifies that they were machines, when uncanny valley still seems to be a hugely noticeable problem (at least when the plot requires it).

There’s the usual Cage mumbo-jumbo of a messiah figure come to rescue his characters from strife (RA-9, the androids call ‘em), but given that the game constantly implies that “Deviancy” was not a widespread or common thing until recently, the attempt at creating a “folk hero” character for the Androids make little sense given the story fails to properly set up its protagonists conflict. Its ever only brought up in a explanation manner and dropped shortly thereafter. it’s untrimmed fat for the investigative bits of Connor’s gameplay passed off in a move to make the world seem more lived in than it is.

You can’t afford a job, you can definitely afford to oppress a android

The big talking point that many believe punches holes in the narrative is how the implementation of Androids have impacted humans socially and financially. Become Human presents itself as a pseudo-futuristic world (set in Detroit, Michigan) of 2038 (twenty years from now) where Androids cost the equivalent of what some folk I know think an Apple or Google Android cellphone might twenty years from now (it’s like $8k or something?). Even if you’re hard up for cash or living hand-to-mouth with a drug habit, you can afford an android somehow.

Androids are allowed to participate in sports despite the general danger to human life that poses, but no one really comments on that (you only know about it because of a collectible) in the game. Not a single person of color took issue with the fact that a rich white man created androids that looked like people in their community, and effectively built them for nothing except labor, sex bot fun times, and absolute servitude.

Androids have also become so prevalent as the labor or work force, that 40% or more of the American population (I guess??? It’s unclear) is out of work. And In which case, old man Carl, sitting financially secure up in his mansion with an android, is the personification of a rich man out of touch, but having the gall to look down on the protesting poor (which is not how the narrative frames in the least).

Reasonably, this should mean the economy is in a bad way on some level. Yet, the states is somehow stable enough to maintain pristine streets, glossy stores and a thriving economy, despite most people being too broke, poor, or out of work to actually support it.

Capitalism has gouged a hole so badly into United States, it shouldn’t be able support itself the way the game presents, and this is based on just how utterly messed up the general landscape of unemployment in the Great Depression was at a mere 25% (15 million unemployed) as most people keep bringing up. And that was following a market crash that’s often used as barometer against the 2008 market crash. Our current unemployment rate is apparently 3.8% and the US has more problems than it can manage.

You’d think the world would actually look like something out of Days of Future Past or Judge Dredd, or maybe even mimic what was documented during the actual Depression (a little less extreme than the above). But, no, not really. Folk aren’t rioting in the streets, being suppressed by the police, aren’t demanding something be done a corporation that put them in a bind, or trying to overthrow the government for fucking them over the financial hole with machines. (Or at the very least leading the rich to the guillotines.)

No, most (even people who aren’t financially well off) still live relatively comfortable lives, maybe a few of them are homeless because of the android situation, but for the most part nothing seems to have really changed. And thinking about that just rather leads you down a rabbit hole of, “okay, well, how different is the economy from our reality that this can happen and the world is functioning as it were the 21st Century present?”

The future ain’t no promised land...

The game also wants to make a big to do about there being a white female president (more brownnosing from Cage), but the most you ever learn about this character is in a collectible and she simply exists to appear at the end of the game’s “good” or “bad” endings then disappears. And for the most part, considering he’s not exactly preoccupied with how politics plays into capitalism, what is so progressive about a white female president who isn’t all that bothered by the fact androids have put most of the people who probably voted for her out of work, and doesn’t lift a finger until androids start going homicidal? She not getting reelected.

The “humans are racist against androids” spiel falls further apart you realize that Cage wants to draw a parallel to a couple people with signs and the homeless, to the literal white supremacists of [middle] America that voted Donald Trump into office on the promise that he would deport and exile immigrants that “took American jobs” from the hard working racists of the United States. He wants people to believe that, when he’s created a circumstance where people would be rightfully pissed that they’ve been replaced by machines (who aren’t immigrants, let alone prisoners in Nazi Germany) and have no financial means. But, emotions, y’all, machines are people too.

Mankind in Become Human is united by their mutual racism against robots. So much so, that the habit of referring to machines with gendered pronouns or pet names is a thing of the past. Male or female coded androids are just “it”, not “they”, “she” or “he”. Racism is apparently a thing of the past. Sure, Rose (Harriet Tubman reborn) makes a reference to historical racism, and Markus bleats, “human have been killing each other over skin color and god for eons” (as though this is supposed to distance the android narrative from the allegory Cage wrapped his game around), but for all intents and purposes, you never see this this exemplified in the game that isn’t an [un]conscious display of Cage’s racism.

Like most allegorical worlds, Cage’s world is so preoccupied with creating this victim paradigm with robots, that it appears post racial to the point where the only problem that exists is basically “goddamn, I really hate those robots taking our jobs”.

For Tracy, Blue Hair Tracy is the Warmest Android

Hell, Homophobia’s not even a problem, because two female robots with the same face can basically declare their love and the only thing unusual about it is “Robots in love? I can’t comprehend that!” So, the one thing that needs to be Kumbya’ed into the past is anti-android sentiment and thanks to the multiple choice system in the game, you can either eradicate android resistance, or create a world they might sorta kinda be free (or at least the lead characters can).

For all the bluster about humans not seeing robots as individuals, they protest against and treat the androids like they’re individuals, as opposed to protesting against them as symptom created by a company that exacerbates their problem.

Appropriating Specific Pains For Entertainment

A Black Cop faces Androids mimicking Hands up, Don’t Shoot

The internet was a big part of why so many Black voices have been heard in the wake of what has always been a commonplace thing – the violent and needless deaths of people within the Black community, man, woman, child and infant. The period between reports on the exoneration of the police officer who murdered six year old Aiyana Stanley-Jones in 2010, and the murder of Trayvon Martin in 2012 seems long enough that, if you simply weren’t paying attention, you’d never consider it an epidemic like we do now.

But the deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice in 2014 and Sandra Bland and Freddie Gray in 2015 all seemed to bring an end to that. The less than graceful handling of the issues by the white media made it impossible to ignore how the damaging effects of the frequency of Black death were, created Post Traumatic Stress in the Black Community.

David Cage, in perhaps one the more naked displays of ignorance, decides it’s a good idea to use the imagery of the Black Power fist to represent oppressed machines wearing human faces. He decides the plight of the androids, who protest in the same fashion Black Americans did in Ferguson, Missouri, New York City, and Baltimore City, their hands up and marching through the streets, is a comparable to demanding the end of state sanctioned police brutality. He decides, the comparison of machines who suddenly gain sentience for little to no reason other than their creators manufacturing a fake rebellion for shits and giggles, to Black lives demanding that people stop killing them, are comparable situations.

She can’t quite believe the tagline she comes with

Throwing them in the back of the bus, slapping them with iconism that draws allusion to the Jewish Holocaust (which gets worse with a bad ending and references of Androids herded into camps for destruction), parking them in place like bikes, and putting them on display in stores (like slaves being auctioned off) is sensationalism mean to pull at the heartstrings – and it’ll definitely get you feeling some kind of way, that’s for sure.

I think the one thing that truly made me ill was reading subtitled off-screen dialog near the end of the game say, “Androids were being hanged all along Woodward Avenue.” It repeated in my head like an ugly mantra and I kept having to pause so as not to throw fit. The levels of irresponsibility that you have to cradle yourself in to think it’s remotely okay to invoke mass lynching imagery...

Dehumanization of enslaved Africans, whom white people regard as sub-human is not remotely comparable to androids meant to stage a manufactured rebellion by a faceless corporation headed by a deviant Black woman playing Hal-9000.

It’s a bad look and doubly insulting to just co-op the history of the Underground Railroad, which is another anvil on the audience’s head just in case the last couple weren’t quite enough for you to get the message.

And the way Markus and eventually every robot “frees” itself from “slavery” merely makes them look robots under the control of a hive-mind. They fall in line without question. They’re not acting as individuals, who’d have wildly different reactions and desires to any given situation. They literally act like the robots in I, Robot under the control of overlord A.I. that decided humans couldn’t be trusted not to kill themselves.

Anti-Blackness, Sexism, and David Cage

Yeah, I got nothing...

David Cage and his long romantic affair with anti-Blackness and sexism is one that is otherwise well documented, but largely ignored by the gaming community who still think addressing racism perpetuates racism and saying “SJW” indentures them with any remote credibility. To say nothing of the white liberals who’ve showered the game with praise because they’re convinced this is a profound take on the oppression narrative..

It’s unquestionable that David Cage is fixated on inserting violence done marginalized groups in his stories. He is incapable of handling the issue with maturity. And the news that his company reflects those same toxic ideas has spread long and loud enough that trying to pretend either is not a problem in this day and age in the name of “not ruining fandom’s fun” is stiflingly ignorant.

Sex workers/sex bots (all androids now) are brutally murdered and raped for not much else beyond the furthered narrative of characters like Markus and Connor. North only admits to being sexually assaulted so Cage can set up her as a lover for Markus, regardless of the player’s potential disinterest in romancing or interacting with the character. North doesn’t exist for much else besides being a prop for Markus and Cage exemplifying M/F relationships are compulsory in his universe.

Lesbians are used merely as a barometer for Connor’s morality, and are so ham-fistedly stuffed into the game (with awkward zoom-ins on their clasped hands, not once, but twice), that you can hear Cage patting himself on the back for even daring to think about two women in love on such a shallow level. They have no character or personality beyond that.

Child abuse and the abuse featured in the game feels jammed into a narrative that also wants you to sympathize with Alice’s father (Todd) because he immediately apologizes for being shitty. It’s also another excuse for David Cage to write a male character calling a female character a “bitch”, which is a reoccurring theme in all his games. Kara is constantly threatened harm by men and put situations where she barely escapes danger (or doesn’t) in ways that Markus and Connor aren’t. This is all meant to endear the audience to her relationship with Alice and her tenacity.

Kara and Alice ain’t even safe from the noble hobo androids

If you decide to go toe-to-toe with Todd to save Alice as Kara, Kara doesn’t get to throw Todd through a wall or even get the better of him with super android strength. She gets strangled, punched, and tossed about as though she weren’t an android but a normal human being. It’s like realizing that Jodie Holmes (Beyond Two Souls) isn’t Carrie, but is completely dependent on a ghost to protect her from sexual assault or danger in general. It’s the anti-thesis of the scene in Ex Machina where Ava (an android with a lightweight frame design) gets the advantage over Nathan. Kara and Alice barely escape with their lives.

It just comes off like cheap exploitation for the sake of making your female character suffer and it’s such a cartoon-ish portrayal of assault and child abuse. The scene wherein Kara is tied up and potentially stripped of her memory is mirrors the scene wherein the reporter in Heavy Rain is tied up and attacked by a serial killer who wants who to saw her in half and assault her.

Things get progressively worse when you start to consider how Black characters outside of Jesse Williams are utilized. The majority of Black characters represented in the game are supporting or minor characters. They run the gambit of David Cage’s greatest hits: “Scary Black Man”, the “Black Gentle Giant”, and the “Black Sidekick” who aids and furthers the narrative of his white or acceptably Black friends. Become Human also expands to respectability politics, colorism, and violence taken to new heights.

Stop_racism.png? I don’t think that’s in my programming, Carl...

Like I mentioned before, Jesse William’s Markus drives the entire narrative of Become Human. Outside of the inciting incident (the rogue android threatening to kill the child that looks a lot like Alice), nothing officially progresses until Markus becomes sentient. He is the hero of the story. As the only android taking proactive steps to rebel against the farcical android racism and slavery, the narrative dictates which decisions Markus makes are inherently “positive” and “negative”. It’s within Markus’ narrative that David Cage demonstrates that he’s just like every other white person when they observe Black communities dealing with police brutality and dehumanization.

While Become Human uses Minka Kelly’s North to badger Markus to rebel against humans with violence, even when you reject her ideas, the narrative doesn’t approach her point of view with anything other condemnation. Retaliation is never treated like it’s just as valid as pacifism (to say nothing of how they actually portray that retaliation as just mindless violence, which misunderstands the context how a city ends up catching fire).

If you agree with her and decide to avenge fallen androids, and protect the ones that are alive from immediate danger using retaliation tactics (or violence), the narrative condemns you for doing so. Markus’ punishment for not “turning the cheek” is typically death at the hands of Connor, a white character whose narrative seems to have more end-state possibilities than probably even Kara. Become Human prioritizes “peaceful protests”, but in a manner that feels lined with disingenuous intent. Quite literally not acting against your aggressors in any way is the right (and only) way to do things.

We’ve reached maximum levels of representation in media, fam

To compound the utter rot of the allegory, Jesse Williams’ Markus removes his skin (in his words “one planet, two races” lmao) and regardless of the tone you choose (”peaceful” or “determined” for example), the player is prompted with a number dialog options that include “end slavery”, “equal rights”, and a whole bunch of other things are an explicit tie in to Black History. And, unfortunately for Markus, these kinds of prompts, which includes protesting Androids singing to win the favor of humanity, continue to pop up in his dialog tree like pesky blackheads.

The constant reminders that “violence is not the answer” invokes non-Black voices saying “if you weren’t violent, you wouldn’t have been attacked by the police”. The narrative’s attitude is verbatim the kind of inanity I see posited online by spectators with no grasp on situations where Black Americans experienced violence. It even comes up in discussions about Black rebellions during the enslavement era. That’s Become Human’s narrative in a nutshell.

Jesse Williams’ position as the figurehead character in the narrative juxtaposed darker skinned characters, which all play support roles, is a continuation of the media’s reinforcement of the kind of Black character or person that is acceptable for mainstream media. He’s Black enough that he can represent Cage’s borked narrative, but “ambiguously brown” enough that he won’t raise heckles.

Weird how this game don’t let you romance folk you WANT to be around...

Most of the Black characters in the game are androids, most of them have dark skin, and most them amount to background dressing. They’re about on the same level as Kadeem Hardison’s character in Beyond: Two Souls. They act and sound like everyday people, but they’re still representatives of Cage’s awful narrative. For instance, there’s a linebacker of a Black android named Luther and he is the embodiment of the kind of Black man David Cage is clearly terrified of.

Originally, he was an introduction to Cage’s game during E3 2016-2017 even as some Negro spiritual singer. In the game, he’s nothing much other than a supporting character in Kara’s narrative that can die or be blocked from the continuation of the narrative pretty easily (unlike Hank, who is rather glued to your behind up until a certain point).

Instead of being some cartoonish violent thug (see: Heavy Rain), his whole directive in the narrative is to protect Kara and Alice, and not much else. He has no arc of his own and is practically itching to die for them. Characters shrink away from him in fear whenever they see him because of his size, and the entire level wherein Alice and Kara are threatened by the mad creator, uses Luther like a sentinel with the intent to harm the white characters.

Cage’s visual use of the “[Gentle] Black Giant” as a means of highlighting Kara and Alice’s literal white fragility is as bad embodies literally everything I hate about how white people regard and treat Black masculinity in their media.

I appreciate these character models. Rescue them from Cage’s asset files

There are three Black women in the game with speaking lines. Two androids, one human woman. All of them are helpers for white characters or Markus, regardless of their moral alignment. The overarching villain of the game is unquestionably is Black android named Amanda (at least I think she’s an android). She’s a facsimile of the teacher who taught Kamski, creator of the androids, what he knows. She more or less plays the “guide” to Connor (in the sense that her advice is identified in the wrong) and pretends that she wants to see an end to the rebelling androids before CyberLife loses any more credibility with the public (who are scratching their heads over machines declaring “I am alive”).

The human is a Harriet Tubman analog (Rose), who embodies the downtrodden Black mother raising the difficult Black son (Adam) whose father is absent (he died). Adam doesn’t want any part of saving androids, Rose seems to think she’s beholden to help them. From a visual stand point, Rose is probably the best looking fat character model I’ve ever seen in a game. Within the narrative, she exists for little else than to fortify the “Android Slavery = Black American Enslavement” allegory hill that Cage wants to die on. She tries to help Kara, Alice, and Luther to get across the border to Canada not once, but twice.

The last is a damaged android named Lucy. She exists solely so she can tell Markus “your choices have consequences” in a scene makes her look physic when she holds his hand. It was just like the ostentatious declaration from the menu-screen girl (Chloe), “Remember, this isn’t just a story. This is our future”. And even you know androids share information through physical contact, it’s clear that Cage modeled her as the wise mystical Black woman because reasons. And the role repeats itself when she confronts Connor about being “lost” and then dies in Markus arms saying “save our people Markus”.

This scene was hard to watch, honestly...

Whenever Cage wants to demonstrate the “inhumane treatment” of androids, by in large Black androids are the biggest examples. Luther has his memory wiped by the mad creator who Frankenstiens androids together and is effectively a mindless slave until he sees Alice. One android (pictured above) is tortured (cigarette burns put out on his arm and the like) to the point of a going rogue and ends up murdering his owner.

To add insult to injury, the player (as Connor) is given no choice but to increase the Black android’s stress level to get him to confess (like how policemen pressure Black prisoners into acting against their self-preservation). This later drives the android to shoot himself (and maybe Connor if you tell him to stop trying to commit suicide) in the head. When Connor attempts to grill three identical Black androids for information about Markus’ whereabouts, he goes full cop on them and tortures them. He ends up getting his guts ripped out immediately afterward (but if you succeed in fixing him, he gets to shoot the android dead with extreme prejudice.)

Lucy, the android that helps Markus, was tortured and disfigured: Her head torn open, wires hanging out, and false skin unstable. Markus himself is actively punished by the narrative for being anything other than “peaceful” and “non-violent”, to say nothing of the physical violence that’s visited upon him from the jump (being kicked around and being shot, then torn apart).

David Cage’s exhibitionism with his Black characters works well enough that it gets a rise out of you, but it’s the same old exploitation of Black pain for entertainment purposes. It more or less demonstrates why white authors writing allegorical tales of fantasic racism, usually end up perpetuating it. Markus is David Cage’s cipher for tackling a story about racism, acting out racism, all without actually dealing with racism in a legitimate manner. (I’m of the opinion that, if you’re white, you don’t have the ability to anyway.)

I can’t imagine what this game would’ve been like without the mess, lmao

Markus bears the burden of pretty much everything that’s wrong with this damn game with regard to how it uses allegory to build its fantasy oppression. As the catalyst, he’s not only the respectable Black character (fair-skinned, “non-violent”, “well spoken”), he’s also represents the whole of the slavery allegory through his relationship with Carl. Carl’s character so obviously represents “the good slave master” (masquerading as the “father figure”) that not only educates Markus on self-realization, but demonstrates to Markus that “not all humans” (read: white people) “are bad”.

I’d argue that if you exercised the racism allegory and Markus from the game, you might actually have, not a good game, but a game about two white androids on two ends of Cage’s undercooked attempt to wax poetic about sentient robots. But, the other Black characters like Luther, Josh, and Lucy exist, and also shoulder the burden of the writer’s ignorance, so there would be no point.

Bad Allegory is Bad Allegory;

It’s a pretty looking game, with some nice moments. Not much else...

Anti-Black racism is not something (most) non-Black audiences can reasonably identify as negative for the community it happens to. When it occurs, spectators view it through the media as something that was brought on by the victim – and otherwise rightfully earned. Speaking of your experiences with anti-Blackness makes them feel doubly comfortable to say “well, I’ve never seen that happen” and insinuate that you’re lying about your traumas or microaggressions experienced.

Through the lens of speculative fiction (chiefly science fiction), the utilization of anti-Blackness as a foundation for any imaginary oppression conjured by the author, once completely removed from the Black experience, becomes a digestible and even sympathetic narrative. A commodification if you will.

There’s no talk of “both sides are wrong” and “well, they brought it on themselves”. Fictionalized marginalization often creates a white creator’s ideal victim, one their hearts can bleed for and live vicariously through, because the victims aren’t just Black, they’re also white.

Allegorical racism often ends up creating equations that consciously or unconsciously say that Black people are violent or dangerous in some way, and the fear of Black people is justified. It perpetuates the myth of the Black superhuman. The biggest example of this? Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s X-Men unthinkingly equates discrimination of superhumans with incredibly deadly powers to the discrimination of Black people. That narrative allows a certain justification to hating mutants because some have abilities that can outright kill people who enter their breathing space, something Black folks, who are discriminated against without quarter or reason, can’t do.

Quantic Dream’s Detroit: Become Human shares all the same problems of every other speculative fiction narrative that uses allegorical racism as a backdrop. While something like Netflix‘s Bright lambasted by common sense, the gaming landscape has yet to develop strong enough set of tools that prevents games like this and Bioshock Infinite from being hailed as “daring masterpieces” for failing to properly handle the subject of race-by-another-name.

To further illustrate the brokenness of his tone deaf narrative, David Cage wants to be able to say “his game isn’t about racism” (or sexism) at the same time he admits to saying the current racial tensions in America definitely influenced him during the development of Become Human. You can’t have it both ways, nigga, pick a lane.

Detroit: Become Human is the neighbor of Bioshock Infinite. But where the latter is naked about its prejudices, Become Human takes the Crash approach (and we know how most people reacted to Crash before the honeymoon period ended). Racism is rarely handled in video games. So, the bar is so low, that merely daring to use the imagery of violence toward Black bodies, but not in any way that doesn’t make a caricature of the history, stirs something in the unaffected. I expect, like Infinite, half of a decade will need to pass before the feedback-loop from dualshock ends and think critical essays start popping up (I won’t hold my breath tho). There are people calling a duck a duck, but they’re largely ignored.

I could literally recommend anything else that handles the issue of sentient machines better than Become Human without the hamfisted racism allegory. The Terminator 2, Ghost in the Shell, The Big O, Outlaw Star, Alex Garland’s Ex-Machina, or even Alex Proyas’ loose adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot.

If you wanted to see how androids and the advancement of technology play into the role of capitalism damaging the quality of life, Dontnod Entertainment’s Remember Me handles the subject better than Quantic Dream does by miles. Frictional Game’s survival-horror game Soma deals with the cloning of a human mind and how that mind handles being “just a copy” inserted into a machine or a machine like body.

Jesse Williams living the dream as Markus Luther King Android Jr.

Become Human’s story of “oppressed androids” doesn’t work from the offset. There’s little demonstration of androids demanding their freedom and equal rights up until Markus decides, “um, yeah, we should do that, guys” and androids go homicidal on their owners around the same time. Everything is second hand accounts. There are no human antagonists that inform this fantasy racism that aren’t the equivalent of cartoonish high school bullies shoving people in lockers, or just poor representation of the counterargument from the get go. Android rebellion is practically framed like everyday appliances on the glitch to the disbelief of their owners, who end up traumatized or murdered.

Cage compounds that issue even further by writing that a virus (stemming from a copy error) gives them sentience, but that simply makes them look like machines that are malfunctioning because they need a better anti-virus program. I keep seeing people use this comparison, but an android passing on a virus that “wakes” them up, is not remotely comparable to a Black mind being stuck in the Sunken Place until someone (or they) pulls them out as depicted in Jordan Peele’s Get Out.

When talking to actual people, it’s obvious that they don't like being discriminated against. That’s not remotely the same case with Androids infected with a dormant malicious error and deciding they’re not free. It implies the enslaved were fine with slavery until they just wake up one day thought otherwise.

Also, you don’t get to frame your characters as victims when they’re literally spouting rhetoric like, “Androids are superior to humans in every way, yet we’re slaves?”

I wanted to like Detroit: Become Human like I wanted to like Beyond: Two Souls. There’s a lot to like about the concept (minus the allegory) that the game is built on, if not purely for how the primary cast interacts with their own group (sometimes).

But, for lack of a better word, the game is insensitive with its comfortable comparison of non-human characters to people of color (chiefly Black people) and marginalized identities, who still suffer from everything the game fails to tackle respectfully. Half of science fiction is built on the bones of wrong-headed allegory and misrepresentation of social issues, so its celebration isn’t surprising, just frustrating.

Detroit: Become Human is a constant reminder that David Cage thrives off the pain of the marginalized and can’t be arsed to do any introspection about that. It feels like I just got thrust back into 2013 all over again.

Allegorical racism needs to die.

#videogamesincolor #detroit become human #quantic dream #david cage #anti black racism

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ghoulsly · 5 years

Note

1 - 45; Rowan :3c

you absolute monster. Rowan 1. Does your character have siblings or family members in their age group? Which one are they closest with?-he has 12 sister, but only knows about 9 of them. When he was still with his family he was closest to his sisters Aeras and Ibela, his twin sisters that were born a few days after him.

2.What is/was your character’s relationship with their mother like?-He grew up with 3 mothers and he loved and respected all of them.

3.What is/was your character’s relationship with their father like?-He grew up both respecting, loving and fearing his father. Thinking that his dad could never understand him but not realizing they were more alike than anything.

4.Has your character ever witnessed something that fundamentally changed them? If so, does anyone else know?-He met this couple when he was still a teen and they inspired him so wholly to become a bard and worship Shelyn.

5.On an average day, what can be found in your character’s pockets?-fun facts, he doesn’t have pockets.

6.Does your character have recurring themes in their dreams?-he doesn’t often remember his dreams but a few good ones have the ocean and his boyfriend in them

7.Does your character have recurring themes in their nightmares?-anything about his family and all his regrets.

8.Has your character ever fired a gun? If so, what was their first target?-nop.

9.Is your character’s current socioeconomic status different than it was when they were growing up?-yeah! His family is like impossibly wealthy? So growing up he wanted for nothing. Nowadays he’s just scraping by off the money he makes performing and odd jobs from the pathfinder society with Noah. But that’s fine. He actually likes to earn his keep.

10.Does your character feel more comfortable with more clothing, or with less clothing?-the less clothing the better. Boi loves to feel that sweet sun on his skin.

11.In what situation was your character the most afraid they’ve ever been?-When he was 15. Packing a few essentials in the dead of night hoping not to be caught as he ran away from home.

12.In what situation was your character the most calm they’ve ever been?-Nights spent on the ship with Jasper and the crew, playing soft lilting tunes. Or when he’s with Noah, doing practically anything, like walking around day shopping or just sharing their time together in comfortable silence.

13.Is your character bothered by the sight of blood? If so, in what way?-Nah. It’s kinda just a hazard of his lifestyle really.

14.Does your character remember names or faces easier?-faces for sure.

15.Is your character preoccupied with money or material possession? Why or why not?-Uhh, money only in the sense that he’s constantly earning it for his own basic needs and also to keep debt collectors off Jasper’s ass

16.Which does your character idealize most: happiness or success?-happiness

17.What was your character’s favorite toy as a child?-he had this one stuffed animal that was a beat to hell, red dragon. He loved that thing and carried it around with him for yeaaaaars. He hasn’t thought about it and wouldn’t know it but the thing is still in his old bedroom, exactly where he’d left it.

18.Is your character more likely to admire wisdom, or ambition in others?-ambition!

19.What is your character’s biggest relationship flaw? Has this flaw destroyed relationships for them before?-He runs from his problems(emotional ones specifically). And oh boi has it.

20.In what ways does your character compare themselves to others? Do they do this for the sake of self-validation, or self-criticism?-Mmm,, he would compare the similarities and differences in himself to others around him and reflect on them. I think it’s a bit of both validation and criticism though.

21.If something tragic or negative happens to your character, do they believe they may have caused or deserved it, or are they quick to blame others?-He very much blames himself for most if not all of his misfortunes.

22.What does your character like in other people?-individuality, passion, loyalty and a nice ass doesn’t hurt from time to time. ;)

23.What does your character dislike in other people?-in this house everyone drinks respecting women juice or they get a face full of Rowan’s fist.

24.How quick is your character to trust someone else?-It’s not hard to get on this guys good side. Especially if you’re a lady, he would die for you.

25.How quick is your character to suspect someone else? Does this change if they are close with that person?-That’s fairly situation and depends on the person in question but typically he’s not really the accusatory type.

26.How does your character behave around children?-He loves kids. Loves to entertain them with fun songs and play games with them.

27.How does your character normally deal with confrontation?-if it’s a brawl he already taking his shirt off ready to fuckin goooooooo. But like emotional confrontation he’s already packing his bag and out the door.

28.How quick or slow is your character to resort to physical violence in a confrontation?-He definitely tries to charm his way through most situations if he can get away with it but if it has to come down to a fight so be it.

29.What did your character dream of being or doing as a child? Did that dream come true?-He used to watch the sailors coming into port nearly every day, having wild fantasies of being a pirate on the open seas. That dream sort of came true, he’s no pirate but is in fact a sailor for a legitimate shipping company and he loves it.

30.What does your character find repulsive or disgusting?-mushrooms. Affronts against romance and disrespect to women.

31.Describe a scenario in which your character feels most comfortable.-Either sailing or sitting in a tavern playing tune to earn some extra coin.

32.Describe a scenario in which your character feels most uncomfortable.-almost any situation having to do with his boyfriend’s mom. Or times he’s managed to offend or make someone cry.

33.In the face of criticism, is your character defensive, self-deprecating, or willing to improve?-regular ol’ criticism he’s fine with and willing to improve upon himself. (Other than his inability to face his emotional baggage head on. We’re still working on that)

34.Is your character more likely to keep trying a solution/method that didn’t work the first time, or immediately move on to a different solution/method?-He might try a solution or method once or twice before moving on to something different.

35.How does your character behave around people they like?-very buddy buddy, casual and laidback.

36.How does your character behave around people they dislike?-A little tense, maybe a lil’ clipped in tone with them. If he really hates them he’s like .5 seconds from throwing hands if they start some shit.

37.Is your character more concerned with defending their honor, or protecting their status?-Honor

38.Is your character more likely to remove a problem/threat, or remove themselves from a problem/threat?-depends on the the type of problem/threat. But I’ll go with remove himself for now.

39.Has your character ever been bitten by an animal? How were they affected (or unaffected)?-prolly at some point, but nothing that would have affected him.

40.How does your character treat people in service jobs?-As nice and charming as he treats anybody else.

41.Does your character feel that they deserve to have what they want, whether it be material or abstract, or do they feel they must earn it first?-He’s definitely an earn what you want kind of dude.

42.Has your character ever had a parental figure who was not related to them?-YEs! His pseudo adopted dad, Jasper, whom is the captain of his ship!

43.Has your character ever had a dependent figure who was not related to them?-lol… that would also be Jasper. Rowan kind of earns all this extra coin so he can work off Jaspers debts for him. He just wants his old man to keep his shins in tact.

44.How easy or difficult is it for your character to say “I love you?” Can they say it without meaning it?-“I love you” is a very serious term for him. His whole religion is about love of all kinds. So if he tells someone he loves them he means it and would never use it to manipulate someone.

45.What does your character believe will happen to them after they die? Does this belief scare them?-He’s not exactly sure and in some ways the idea does scare him.

#my ocs #Rowan

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das-roog · 7 years

Text

Mutants in the MCU

Before I get into this, I’d like to point out that this article is pure speculation. I highly doubt any of this is going to happen and it isn’t really based on any solid facts. Also, please be aware that there are going to be spoilers for various Marvel comics/movies so if you don’t want any spoilers, turn away; go back to your home and keep living your life the way you want. Otherwise, now that that’s out of the way, on to the show. Or the…the article, or…you get what I mean.

I recently came across this article while perusing Facebook. For those unable/unwilling to follow the link, here’s a tl;dr: It’s long been thought that Marvel has been phasing mutants (X-Men and such) from their universe for some time now. The big theory here is that Marvel is doing it mostly as a big middle finger to Fox, who has the rights to the X-Men movies and is loathe to share. This makes sense. Despite their pseudo-agreement about Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, Marvel would have to pry the X-Men movie rights from Fox’s cold, dead hands. So, you know, cooperation seemed out of the question. Thus, Marvel would phase the X-Men out to take away any potential storylines or potential revenue from Fox as far as the mutants are concerned. However, the article claimed that at the very least, Marvel doesn’t seem to have it out for the children of the atom as much as we thought, considering the slew of new X-titles coming out. And yeah, as a huge X-Men fan that’s exciting. But the reason I’m writing this article isn’t to talk about that. What I want to talk about is a point made by the writer of the article I linked to earlier: that a reversal on a possible phasing out of the X-Men (and mutants in general) could mean the X-Men coming to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (or the MCU) in general.

This is a wonderful prospect that fills my heart with joy while triumphant music swells in the background. The thought of someone doing the X-Men right–whether it be MCU proper or Netflix or some combination of both–is enough to make my fanboy heart flutter. I mean, yeah Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine is the shit and the recent movies with McAvoy are pretty cool but I mean, just imagine if the House of Ideas could make their own movies or series, the way they want to. Shut up and take my money. And so on, so forth. However, as the initial wave of ecstasy starts to fade, reality sets in. X-Men coming to the MCU is unlikely. Let’s talk about why.

Why It Probably Won’t Happen

The biggest reason: Fox. LOVES. MONEY.

According to the numbers I’ve found, and after I did a little bit of math, the X-Men movies have made a worldwide box office of $4,384,477,711 against a budget of $1,271,000,000. That’s a profit of more than $3 billion dollars ($3,113,477,711 to be exact). That’s not counting box office from Wolverine’s solo films OR Deadpool. That’s a lot of money, guys. Fox intends to keep making that money as long as they humanly can. They’d puppet Patrick Stewart’s body using an elaborate system of pulleys, strings and a ventriloquist if it meant more money.

Superhero movies are big money right now. Keeping X-Men is the move that makes the most business sense. They tried to cash in with Fantastic Four in 2015 to dismal results and they STILL want to keep trying to beat every last penny from that dead horse’s not-so-fantastic corpse. So yeah, them giving up a franchise that IS actually making them money is a long shot at best.

Likewise, Marvel has no real reason to pursue the rights at this point. I mean yeah, the current arrangement isn’t a great deal for them but they don’t need the X-Men to succeed. They have the Avengers, the Guardians of the Galaxy, their critically-acclaimed Netflix series, freaking Spider-Man. They’re not hurting.

As sad as it is to say, I don’t think this status quo will be changing for quite some time.

Well, That Was Depressing…

Yeah, it was. But you know, that’s reality, I guess. But who said we have to accept reality? It’s way more fun to speculate about what it would be like if the X-Men and other mutants did show up in the MCU?

So, put on your bright yellow spandex, hop in the Blackbird and let’s talk about the challenges of fitting the X-Men into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

So What are the Problems?

The X-Men have always been a weird franchise. They’re the children of the atom, the next stage of human evolution. They fight to defend a world that hates and fears them. Their whole deal hinges on the idea that people are super OK with–even enthusiastic about!–giant robots being sent to kill them. It’s a racism allegory, or a homosexuality allegory: mutants are the minority that is viciously persecuted by the old, white politicians in charge of the status quo.

Aaaand in the same world, the Avengers are on the news every other night, the Fantastic Four are bonafide celebrities and superpowered indidivuals are not only common, but popular and accepted. Sure, Spider-Man has bad press but he seems to be the exception. So, in this world, why are the X-Men so hated? It doesn’t make a lot of logical sense to me and it never really has.

Introducing them into the MCU at large would require some finagling to get around this fact. The comics can ignore it because the comic status-quo is akin to the Gospel to hardcore fans. Things are the way they are because that’s how it’s always been; we just accept it. But putting it into the movies? They need to at least address the problem or at least put a lampshade on it.

Also worth considering, where have the X-Men been all this time? Where have Professor X and Magneto been? What about Wolverine? Why hasn’t Tony made a smart-alec comment about the Sentinels? Why didn’t Nick Fury contact the X-Men or any of the other mutants about the Avengers project?

Also, in the comics, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch are Magneto’s kids. In the MCU, they got their powers from crazy HYDRA experiments. Sooo….yeah, that’s a little awkward. They even bring up Quicksilver being Magneto’s son in the newer X-Men films.

So Where Were They?

Getting around the “where were they?” question is relatively simple: mutants have existed for decades at least, considering that Xavier and Magneto are at least middle-aged, but nobody knows about them.

It might seem weird at first, but it makes sense in the broader scope of the MCU. After all, everybody seemed kind of surprised about the Inhumans in Agents of Shield, so nobody knowing about the existence of another naturally-powered species existing seems plausible. Hell, maybe SHIELD did find out by Xavier wiped their memories? Who knows?

A World That Hates and Fears Them

Either way, in our movie, the existence of mutants would be relatively recent; in essence, the world would find out about mutants at the worst possible time.

Think about it. The world in the MCU is undergoing some extreme changes. The world’s nearly ended twice. The Avengers did a lot of damage while they’re out saving the world and the Sokovia Accords aren’t making things any less tense. There are vigilantes running around Hell’s Kitchen, a spider-kid swinging around Midtown, and SHIELD is struggling to keep the Inhumans under wraps. Superpowered people are coming out of the woodwork left and right, explosions and city block-destroying super-fights are happening commonly, the entire US Government was recently overthrown by secret HYDRA agents and nobody quite knows how to process it.

Take this scene from Netflix’s “Jessica Jones” (spoilers for episode 4, “aka 99 Friends”):

youtube

For those unable to watch the video, the takeaway here is that Audrey and her husband have lured Jessica to this abandoned apartment to kill her because they are terrified of the changes wrought by the emerging superhuman culture. Or as she puts it, “gifted”.

“Gifted. Stupid word. It’s like calling someone ‘special’; they’re not special, they’re retarded. You’re not gifted, you’re a freak….you ‘saved the city’.That’s what the newspapers said. You were ‘heroes’….but I was there. I saw what really happened. I saw my mother crushed to death under a building that you people destroyed…I was trying to pull my mother out of the rubble…while all around me you people were raining down hell.”

Jessica points out that she had nothing to do with the Incident (referring to the events from the first Avengers movie) but that doesn’t matter to Audrey. She just wants to kill Jessica because she’s “gifted”, an act she calls a “preventative measure”.

I’m willing to bet that Audrey isn’t the only person who feels that way. I also bet she isn’t the only person who’d try something like that. Hell, there are some who’d take it even further. The world is scary, uncertain and changing. People are afraid and they just want some security.

Now imagine if people found out that there were thousands of “gifted” people and not all of them wore American Flags on their chests or worked with SHIELD. Some of them look just like me and you. There’s no way to tell who they are or if they’re dangerous. They could be anybody and they could do anything.

That’s the atmosphere of our X-Men movie. Fear and propaganda that paint mutants as inhuman monsters who want to eat your babies. The powder keg that the Avengers lit has finally exploded.

Xavier and Magneto

The Xavier Institute is not a school. It’s a safe house; a sanctuary for young mutants with nowhere else to go. The mansion is a safe haven protected by both Charles’ telepathy and Forge’s technological marvels.

Sure, Xavier teaches them to control their power but his primary focus is on helping them accept themselves and embrace their gift. He’s a hippy, the eternal optimist, espousing philosophy and understanding like a Buddhist monk. He believes that with some understanding, humans and mutants can live together in peace. He does not believe in violence. Love is stronger than hate. He is crippled, a solemn reminder of his previous failure with Magneto.

Speaking of which, Magneto is angry and bitter and so are the young radicals who follow him. They’re ready to fight and to show mankind that they’re not going to take it anymore. Mutants are the next step in evolution and they’re not waiting around for nature to finish making its selection on its own.

Magneto is a shadowy figure who has the utmost loyalty from his followers. They’re almost a cult in their fanatic devotion to him and Magneto is almost a Messianic figure. He knows that war is inevitable and he’s willing to do whatever it takes to be on the winning side of it.

A note here is that neither Xavier nor Magneto were alive during World War II. Even if they were each 60 years old, that’d mean they were born in the 1950′s. Lucky for us, humanity has a long tradition of inhuman cruelty, so any time period works for Magneto to experience those horrors. I vote we make them a little younger (both around their mid-40s).

Xavier’s background doesn’t have to change much but Magneto’s will, since being in his 40′s means he isn’t a Holocaust survivor. I’d suggest perhaps having him grow up in South Africa during Apartheid, but there are other options. Regardless, he doesn’t have to be from Nazi Germany. I’ve never heard him voiced with a German accent so why not go with it?

I’d also have another reason Magneto is pissed is because his son, Quicksilver, died in Age of Ultron. But wait, what? Yeah, you read that right. Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch are still his children. They didn’t know that they were mutants and the HYDRA experiments simply activated an X-Gene that was already present. I mean, you don’t have to include it but that would give Magneto yet another reason to hate and resent SHIELD.

The Brotherhood of Mutants

Magneto’s mutant supremacy cult is made up of angry, young mutant radicals with a fanatic devotion to Magneto. His movement is relatively young but its numbers are already impressive. Most prominent (ie, actual characters) are: Mystique, Toad, the Blob, Mastermind, Avalanche, Domino and Rogue. As a group of mostly punks and anarchists, they are vicious, ruthless and destructive.

The X-Men

Beside Professor X himself, the first team of X-Men are the main focus of this story. Xavier is the leader of the team and Forge is his tech guy; Forge made the mansion’s security system, he made the Danger Room, the Blackbird, the X-Men’s uniform (which hides their mutant gene in public) and he helped Charles make Cerebro (which functions like JARVIS in addition to boosting Xavier’s psychic powers to locate mutants). Alternatively, Beast could replace Forge.

On the team proper are: Marvel Girl, Cyclops, Iceman, Colossus, Nightcrawler and Storm. Why them? Well, because they’re the coolest. They’d have a sweet dynamic and they all have interesting powers, aesthetics and personalities.

The Story

Our story is in the chaotic first days of mutants being known to society. Magneto and his Brotherhood have committed a few acts of terror and public outcry to do something about the “Mutant Menace” is at an all-time high.

Our protagonist is Jean Grey, a young woman from New York with the power of telekinesis and limited telepathy. She’s a little socially awkward and is borderline unable to control her ability. In fact, she thinks she’s got mental problems. The Inciting Incident has Jean’s telekinesis bringing attention to her status as a mutant, introducing Jean and the audience to the world’s hatred and fear of mutants firsthand. Luckily, she’s saved by the timely intervention of Cyclops.

While I could write a beat-by-beat outline of the entire movie (which I will absolutely do in another post), I’ll stick to an outline here.

The main story revolves around the X-Men working to stop the Brotherhood’s assassination of controversial politician Senator Robert Kelly. There’s at least one fight with the Brotherhood early on when the X-Men go to recruit Nightcrawler. The X-Men aren’t soldiers and they don’t want to fight their fellow mutants; Xavier’s way is one of peace. But in the end, they need to protect innocent lives and Magneto will not bow and will not move from his path. Thus, Xavier reluctantly realizes that if Magneto is choosing to be an unstoppable force, he and his students must be an immovable object.

The final battle of the movie is a big, drawn out, all-out fight between the X-Men and the Brotherhood in New York (probably) or Washington DC. During the fight, Rogue nearly drains Jean to death. However, Jean’s telepathy is stronger than Rogue anticipated, and it is also revealed that Jean has something else inside of her: the Phoenix. Rogue is overwhelmed and loses her memory from this incident, which will lead to her switching sides in the next film. Or at the very least, a short scene after the main fight where Rogue wakes up without her memories and Xavier essentially takes her in.

While the X-Men are victorious, the people still see the Brotherhood as proof that mutants are dangerous and something needs to be done. The Sentinel Project is approved but the movie ends with Xavier and Jean having a hopeful conversation. Maybe humanity doesn’t accept them yet but love is stronger than hate. Tomorrow is another day, after all.

The post-credit scene would be Magneto talking to an off-camera figure.

“It seems Charles Xavier and his camp are more of a threat than I originally thought. I need someone qualified to��dispose of the problem before he can convert any other young mutants to his naive, integrationist agenda. Can I…rely on your skills and discretion in this operation?”

The figure replies, “I’m the best there is at what I do.”

The camera reveals the Wolverine and he is rough; wicked, almost feral looking. He smirks, the claws revealed from one hand. “Just point me in the right direction, bub.”

Bam.

The X-Men Will Return…

Where do we go from there?

Obviously, we need a TV series to go with this right? New Mutants on Netflix. While the main X-Men are becoming public figures, this series would focus on a new group of mutants who come to live with the Professor, though they aren’t involved in the main team’s work. Xavier would be in the show, which would involve a plot surrounding Mr. Sinister in its first season.

The Netflix series could also possibly be the Jamie Madrox-era of X-Factor, where he and his associates essentially have a private-detective agency. Jamie is a former student of Xavier’s from years ago in our tale and essentially opens the business with a few friends to “make a living” but that might be a bit too much like Jessica Jones (who is also a private detective).

The second movie would focus on the Sentinel Project and the rumors of the Mutant Registration Act. Evidently, the Sentinels will only be hunting down unregistered mutants. This is a divisive point among the X-Men themselves.

To help foster a better public image for mutants, Xavier has the X-Men intervene in natural disasters and other such incidents; they mostly stay out of politics and other superhero situations because Xavier doesn’t want the X-Men associated with any political movement or faction (thus explaining why the Avengers, SHIELD, etc. aren’t really involved in these movies). Rogue is the newest member of the team, struggling with the fact that she’s lost all of her memories and old personality. She remembers bits and pieces, but struggles telling them apart from the memories of the people she absorbed.

Jean is still our protagonist who has a will they/won’t they with Scott but that’s challenged when Wolverine rolls in. Logan is kind of our second protagonist. He’s there undercover to kill the Professor. Yes, that’s an Ultimate X-Men storyline but it works here. Wolverine pretends to be the good guy until a combination of Xavier’s unyielding philosophy and Jean’s innate goodness actually make him defect to their side by the end. We can also introduce Kitty in movie #2 or #3.

Jean and Logan have a bickering relationship. They can’t stand each other. Of course, this means they’re attracted to each other. Emotionally, Scott represents safety; he’s a good guy. Logan is wild, dangerous; he’s a being of pure id. The love triangle is not the main thing but it’s definitely a solid Plot C that helps further the development of all three characters.

As the movies go on, we introduce Emma Frost and the Hellfire Club and go into the Dark Phoenix saga, the Messiah Complex, X-23, the Morlocks, and maybe even Apocalypse. The latter could be done like a monster movie and even necessitate the assistance of the Avengers and/or Dr. Strange! I mean, the dude’s called Apocalypse. SHIELD Might want to intervene with that one. I know we had an Apocalypse movie already, but if we can reboot Spider-Man eight thousand times, we can do another Apocalypse movie, especially if it’s done right and has other Marvel characters in it.

Eventually, when the Avengers line-up inevitably changes, we can always bring Wolverine in, just like they did in the comics. How awesome would it be to see Wolverine and Spider-Man both on the Avengers, alongside Captain America and Iron Man?

In Conclusion

X-Men is at its best when it’s an allegory for racial or societal tensions in the modern day. Emphasizing the atmosphere of fear, blind hatred and propaganda against “an enemy that could be anybody” is perfect for this day and age. Build that on the foundation of the Sokovia Accords and the tension that’s been building up throughout the Avengers movies and the Netflix series and bringing X-Men into the MCU would not only be easy, it’d make narrative sense.

I hope you enjoyed this (admittedly long) breakdown of Mutants in the MCU. Thanks for taking the time to read this and let me know what you think or what you’d do. Do you agree? Do you think I’m an idiot? Let me know!

Thanks again for dropping by!

In my next post, I’ll go into more detail with the MCU X-Men movie and we’ll even hash out a cast! See you next time!

#x-men #marvel #mcu #marvel cinematic universe

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oselatra · 6 years

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Year one

The Observer is a bit late with this, but we felt we needed to say something about passing a year in Trump's America.

The Observer is a bit late with this, but we felt we needed to say something about passing a year in Trump's America. We won't hit a complete orbit around the sun with Trump in charge until the deep freeze of January, of course. But this anniversary is, in some ways, even more important: a full year since many of us woke up to the idea that we would have to get off our asses and on our feet if we wanted to have a country worth saving in four years, or eight or however long it takes to push the hateful darkness emboldened that night back to the dustbin of history.

So many have responded to the call, getting labeled snowflakes and crybabies and sore losers but marching, painting signs, protesting, making umpteen-jillion phone calls to their congressmen to warn them of the perilous drop should they follow The Great Orange Lemming over the cliff. Speaking of, we've noticed that the catcalls about snowflakes have slowed. The Observer suspects it's because people who voted for the golem that is currently rampaging through the countryside, destroying windmills and tossing children down wells, are themselves waking up to the fact that they done fornicated with the canine, even as half the country warned them not to stick the shiny copper penny of their vote in the electrical outlet marked "Trump." But, as ol' Sam Clemens once remarked: It's easier to fool somebody than it is to convince them they've been fooled. Might we add, Mr. Twain: Convincing somebody they've been snookered is a damn sight easier than getting them to admit it.

There have been wins, of course. There's Virginia, where voters just this month crushed the hateful pseudo-Trump running for governor while wiping out a Republican supermajority in their statehouse. In a victory as sweet as a lute, one of those elected there is a transgender woman who unseated a bigot who once bragged he was the state's chief homophobe. Then there was the defeat, for now, of the Affordable Care Act repeal, a battle won by millions of regular folks making phone calls to Congress and the courage of a bare handful of Republican senators. Then, of course, there is the ongoing investigation by former FBI director Robert Mueller, who is doing his duty for God and country by putting on a miner's helmet and crawling up the b-hole of the rotting whale carcass that is The Trump Empire. One can only imagine the gilded bricks being shat by Donnie T and his pirate crew right now, even as he distracts and obfuscates, puts on his Twitter Tough Guy act and pretends not to worry while imagining himself in a jumpsuit. It is truly a joy seeing him made afraid for a change.

There have been myriad bad moments in the past year, of course: the tiki-torch rallies of proud white supremacists; Heather Heyer mowed down in the streets in Charlottesville by a Nazi; the bowls of warm, taxpayer-funded cream set before the jowls of the fattest of fat cats; the systematic dismantling of the regulations and agencies that protect our health and the environment; the wounds inflicted on our international standing and national morale by the childish, divisive, daily assaults from a narcissist who has proven he doesn't have the temperament to manage a Burger King restaurant, much less the most powerful country on the planet. The reality of Trump's America is better in some ways than what we feared, but worse in other ways too numerous to mention. But this is our reality now. There is no reverse on this train. So keep on. Keep sticking up for what's right. Know that The Observer is proud of you. Someday, when all this is over, you can tell the children what grandma did in The Resistance. Shorter term: After Virginia, Yours Truly has a feeling that a year from now, the good people of this country are going to clip some political wings. And in 2020, we're going to see about sending Agent Orange packing, to skulk away the rest of his days in his golden phallus over Fifth Avenue. How sweet it will be.

Three years to go, friends. They will, no doubt, be years to remember, one way or the other. Stay frosty.

Year one

#Year one

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unforgivablekrp-blog · 7 years

Photo

THE SHRIEKING HARPY HAS THE SCOOP ON the infamous park raeyoon !

— DID YOU KNOW?

Here’s what our columnist found out about this 27 year old...

blood status: pureblood lineage: werewolf occupation: office worker for accidents and catastrophes residence: mudang-ri wand: dragon heartstring & dogwood faction: order of the phoenix (was a death eater, still has the mark) alignment: blood traitor organization: editor for the augury silhak speciality: active magic sejong major: business and commerce

— EXCLUSIVE INFORMATION!

Inside resources have said Raeyoon...

smells jasmine, petrichor and citrus upon taking amortentia sees a full moon when facing a boggart conjures a raven when performing expecto patronus.

— HISTORY EXPOSED!

prologue –

the house raeyoon grew up in was lonely, his parents perpetually busy, with dark sentiments cluttering the corners of his upbringing. both of them were death eaters, ardent supporters of the cause that had migrated to korea. the park family could trace their name back generation after generation, with strong influence in the economic sector of wizarding seoul. raeyoon was a necessity, they needed a child to continue their legacy, to bring up in their cause. well connected and powerful as they may have been, they decidedly lacked in empathy. not that raeyoon ever really wanted for much, but the absence was felt briefly before it was normalized. this was the stage that his life played out over, hands twisting at ropes to send the curtains cascading down when his parents wanted to hide secrets from view. death eaters and ploys to push themselves further into the government, to bind their cause to the cult of the moon’s. this was also the stage where, eventually, raeyoon was forced to take his final bow to humanity.

part one –

from the day he could manage cognitive processing, raeyoon’s parents took it upon themselves to preach their ideology. it was like this that he grew up with thoughts of purity, and how it was apparently inseparable from magic. how those who came from muggle homes were tearing apart their world brick by brick until nothing but the muggles’ own polluted mess lay in their wake. wizarding seoul, apparently, was no place for those connected to muggles. it was a large story to feed to a boy so young, but he grew up on such convoluted stories like fairy tales, and it turned him into a believer of this discriminatory form of magic. for his compliance, he was given toys and trinkets, and eventually a sibling. at the time, it had felt exciting ( though he learned later that the sibling had been a backup plan. probably for the best, considering they needed one by the time raeyoon was ripping his pre-constructed worldview apart at the seams ).

part two –

raeyoon found friends in the children of other death eaters, and they banded into a clique that roamed the halls of silhak causing more trouble than they probably should have. an elitist mind paired poorly with compassion, and it led to less than cordial interactions with those around him. he was crass, and egotistical, a bullet headed straight for the intended target his parents had aimed him at, looking to find a home in the midst of death eaters. before he started his secondary schooling at sejong, he was officially inducted. the dark mark branded to the inside of his arm, an indicator of his loyalty, a beacon to the calling of their cause. raeyoon continued toward his intended goal in a rigidly cruel line. until he went astray. funny how that has a tendency of happening. it started in sejong, along with his interest in writing. he couldn’t actively take journalism as his major, his parents would have prohibited it. but he took a few classes on the side ( after all, he had the money to spare ).

it was within these classes that raeyoon started picking up friends that he shouldn’t have. or, that his parents would have deemed to be below him. but they shared the same interest, and they could fall into long-winded conversations about writing, current issues, and the political scene. word by word and raeyoon’s blinders eventually got lifted, to the point that he could see things in a more multifaceted view. it wasn’t instantaneous, and his beliefs that had been molded by the death eaters didn’t shatter, but it was the start. writing assignments that forced him to expand his views helped. and then there was hyewon, too. raeyoon met her at an art exhibit, the love of his ( or so he says ) life. she didn’t fix him, with his piles of problems and the pessimistic lens he viewed the world through. they weren’t perfect, with hours of arguments and plates broken against walls. but god, he loved her. she helped him though, in bits and pieces. through fights and screamed out sentiments, helped him to figure out that perhaps he didn’t agree fully with the death eaters after all. perhaps that wasn’t supposed to be his place in life. perhaps it wasn’t supposed to be hers either, when her life was stolen from her in a hate crime from what had been branded as rogue death eaters, but raeyoon’s always been entirely sure his family was connected to the attack. the engagement ring he’d been planning to give her feels like nothing more than lead in his pocket.

part three –

depression and alcohol make for a dangerous cocktail. the type that loosens inhibitions in a way that erases the fear of death. the attack on his girlfriend lead raeyoon to reckless behavior spurred on by anger, by the perceived injustice of it all. so he started making things difficult for his parents in turn, and eventually leaked a document that showed a trail of embezzlement from one of the government sectors to a private death eater fund. But then, the death eaters on the inside managed to quash it before it picked up steam. but his parents knew it was him. raeyoon was twenty-five years old and close to breaking when they devised their retaliation, to grind down the remainder of his spirit. they wouldn’t call it a retaliation though, they never would. it was always veiled. helping him to see his own shortcomings, maybe. or teaching him that filial commitment is above all others.

there are all kinds of people in the death eaters. unsavory, selfish, vindictive. it wasn’t all that surprising that they eventually found someone to aid them in re-teaching raeyoon the values of the park family. his lesson was received in the form of a bite from a werewolf, a pseudo-punishment that made him one step down from pure blooded in the eyes of the truly devout ( even if his blood wasn’t technically marred ). something that they believed could destroy him socially, professionally if they let the word out. something that was paired with gaslighting as they helped him work through two full moon cycles in a locked room that left him bloody and questioning his own sanity. eventually, raeyoon learned to play his part, but it was just that, all an act fit for the violent stage they’d constructed for him.

epilogue –

whether he left on his own or they wanted him out of the house, raeyoon still doesn’t know. but he left. he took with him a paltry stipend from a trust fund he knew he was never going to see in full, more for appearances than anything. he also took veiled threats, pointed pressure to ensure he knew he needed to continue to turn up to death eater functions, meetings. to continually be a part of them. he also took a promise he all but knew to be false, that if he kept from backsliding again, that maybe they could return to before ( though what before refers to is completely lost on him ). he knows that the estate is going to his younger sibling, but he’s long since stopped caring. he hasn’t broken his forced promise, he still is a part of the death eaters. but he’s been busy trading information on the side. what was supposed to break raeyoon infuriated him, and it drove him to creating the augury, an outlet to start a revolution. the dream is painted over in pessimism and doubt, but he continues on anyway. joined the order and keeps an inside eye on the death eaters. his life is chaotic, and miserable. he’s plagued by regrets and memories that take the form of ghosts. but what else is there to take from a man who’s been robbed of everything? so he writes, in hopes that one day the kingdom will come toppling down.

appendix –

1A drinks taken to try and fix a broken man: wolfsbane potion

1B drinks taken to try and kill a broken man: firewhiskey

#un:app #un:pure #un:order #un:kim jonghyun

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ratherhavetheblues · 7 years

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ABBAS KIAROSTAMI’S TEN “Alright…”

Ten (2002) begins with a mother and her pre-adolescent son moving along the streets of Tehran in her car. Although a vicious, lacerating dispute takes place, which has an effect similar to stunning seasickness, we should, for the sake of the lucidity to be found in that stifling cabin cruiser (always seen from the inside) and the subsequent episodes of patrolling those roads, stand back, for a bit, from the opening emotional blood-letting and let ourselves be delighted by Corky, the LA cabby, and her fare, Victoria, the Hollywood talent scout, in the first episode of Jim Jarmusch’s Night on Earth (1991). The foul-mouth boy is a sort of talent scout, scouting the prospect of inducing his open-road mother to play the part of a stay-at-home-mom in a story made to garner acclaim from those demanding dutiful piety. The philosophical driver, like Corky, runs over the crock that rigid matrimony (like rigid fame) constitutes; and she lives to drive another day, and many other days.

Whereas Victoria sees Corky’s point and wishes her well on her rocky road, Amin, the Tehran passenger—like the Idi Amin—discloses a vein of resentment toward interpersonal complication which, though aberrant, is also intrinsic. As such, Ten comprises a multi-faceted dialogue on the subject which could be termed, “How far do you want to investigate the phenomenon of love?” The first episode, labelled “10,” as affixed to the driver’s other drives which the film provides over a quite short period counting down to “1,” could be seen as a vividly dramatic study of the fallout of a divorce. (We learn, from the two major battles along that kinetic way, that the divorce occurred seven years ago, she has remarried, but her first husband—whom we see on several occasions, but always in a white jeep [evoking a UN bureaucratic Peace-Keeper, devoutly rule-driven, obsessed with an antiquated utopian end of strife]—an avid porn connoisseur, is less than able to contribute to putting together a serious support for his son; but that he has, in occasional contacts, become a factor nevertheless in inculcating Amin to a dogmatic primitiveness [linked to unpaid “activist” causes] which the driver had overcome. During the verbal brawl, she insists. “You’re like your father. He shut me away, destroyed me. He wanted me only for himself.” [At which point the clever primitive gives her a dagger-like sideways glance and commands, “Not so loud! Not so loud or I won’t listen to you…”] The skirmish turns to her demand, “I’ll say what I have to say” and his “I don’t want to listen” and cupping his ears.) However, as we look closely at the negotiations in the sanctuary of her smoothly-running vehicle, we realize that though Amin, true to his name, is a vicious, implacable thug, his mother (never named and thereby approximating an anonymity at the heart of her actions) is caught up in making an effort, an effort which has been repeated many times, to enlighten her son about the paradox of caring for a flesh-and-blood loved-one while belonging to something more. Episode 10, therefore, shows her (penultimate) folly in supposing a creature of Amin’s age and pathology would ever attain to anything resembling effective reflection.

The driver, as we first encounter her new bid for mutual understanding in a deadened history, repeats the parable of a friend’s parents dragging themselves into hate and enfeeblement when a divorce would have given them a new lease on life. “I’m talking to you, let me finish. When I talk, you raise your voice…”/ ‘So what?” (Amin’s brush-offs are supplemented by arrogant, menacing and insulting visages and bodily attitudes, including an often seen rippling touch to his mouth as he heckles a deadly enemy.) “It’s impolite. Let me finish and you’ll understand” [the cosmic, not domestic situation]. You listen to everyone but you refuse to listen to your own mother.”/ “Because you’re going to lecture me again. You always have to talk…” As we shall soon discover from the following encounters, the lady does bring to us an absorbing skill in silence and reticence. Accordingly, her next step in that trap she hasn’t fully figured out is to promise only two more sentences (“and I’ll shut up… never speak again…”). “I feel fulfilled now, like a flowing river. I was a stagnant pond. My brain was devastated.” The hardened midget (with a trace of a black moustache) shoots out, “That makes three sentences, and they’re all rubbish! I’ll never listen to you again!” The pact of silence now in shreds, there obtains a rapid-fire exchange, going nowhere. Picking up her dynamic priority as challenging Neanderthal stasis and old-time-family style, he sneers, “You only thought of yourself.” She fires back, “If you love yourself, you love someone else…” / “Enough! You talk too much!” the anointed thought-controller megaphones. She accurately posits, “You want me for yourself.” He declares, “I don’t want you to be mine! You screwed up… You stupid cow!” Once again, concluding much more than a family conflict, she drops him off at the swimming pool by saying, “A man who doesn’t love himself loves no one.” (Before that, she has broadcast to us, not him, “No one belongs to anyone. Not even you… You’re my child but you’re not mine. You belong to this world. We try to live here.” He cannily reconfigures the big picture to retail a comfortable little picture. “I have to grow up to attain an age that will allow me to belong to myself… You left. You crossed to the other side…”)

As he leaves the ride, with the expected, “You stupid idiot… I’ve never seen anyone so stupid…” his domain—he on camera the whole passage—we see her for the first time emerging from the fringes, a figure of physical attractiveness, gentleness, deftness and confidence. Those gifts are on fascinating display for the remainder of the film. Although the outset might suggest she’s just a parent ferrying her child, we come to realize that the car and its motions are her real home, only incidentally playing host to a relative in the process of being a stupid idiot she used to know. With Amin snarling about the stepfather who does a lot more than the imam he calls dad, she quietly maintains, “But in any case he’s my friend and a good [though sometime] companion.” Make no mistake, though her sensibility is tolerant, generous, witty and incisive, she is an ultimate loner. Cutting from the one you’d hope would drown, she’s calmly in cruising mode (Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin [2013] probably owing something to it). But once again a relative, her sister, is on camera first. This latter passenger, though not flashing murderous glances, is disconcertingly anxious and depressed—pulling at her cheeks, fidgeting with a paper fan and casting crisis-level eyes to the streets as if she were riding in a tumbril. She’s in grey and black all round, making a sharp contrast to her driver-sister’s decorative scarlet robe and creamy-toned scarf, not to mention (as in the previous episode) chic Ray-Bans. The protagonist enters the car with a large bag of fruit, not exactly a bacchanal but putting us on notice that, as with Kiarostami, the Ayatollahs could be largely ignored and circumvented. The gloomy one pronounces, “6000 Tomas wasted…” But after a spate with Amin, the protagonist has come to a party mode no one’s going to spoil. Rather than trying to lighten up her sister, she, in the first of many gracious inventions in face of bad behavior, appeals to her theological, breaking-bread leanings. “It’s for the guests” [soon we learn that the home-alone friend is having a 39th birthday party]. The ascetic arm of the family sniffs, “I give classes every day. I have a job…” [in connection to which her young child has to be brought to the workplace]. (During a later incident with Amin, we hear that the protagonist needs a lot of time for her photography and painting. Kiarostami was a photographer and painter of some renown and cash-flow. The upshot of our free-spirit’s convening such difficult transactions is an assurance that when she gets down to her métiers sparks will fly.) The protagonist’s job being something seen by the stodgy wing of her family as a pseudo-occupation, the contrarian ne plus ultra proceeds to offer up a sensibility, while cruising those streets night and day, to bring up to speed the superior products of her investigative craft. Now, if not a laughing matter, at least a broadly smiling matter, she quips, “He won’t accuse you of abandoning him at playschool.” On a roll and rolling her funereal sister for what might pop out, she moots, “Today, children accuse parents of all kinds of things…” The leaden one states the obvious, “They’re wrong to. I mean parents can’t kill themselves…” The driver hits two notes at once by calling out, “Ah, is this a dead end?” The practical one informs, “A day-nursery isn’t always a good thing…But for age 3, especially for an only child, it’s ideal…” More tiny news for the bemused: “You know what’s wrong with Amin, sis? Amin convinces himself he’s unhappy…” She, having already seen the end-game, despite the need to marvel that sanity is beyond most earthlings, hears from the worrier, “Leave him be, let him go to his father’s to get to know him better. Don’t fool yourself…” Cueing up, where this countdown will lead, the driver seems to be at a (temporary?) loss with the devastation which her career entails. “I don’t know…” Then the perceived expert ushers the crisis along. “You grow fond of what you love.”/ “That’s right. I can’t deny it” [and she can’t deny that this is a tough terrain to cover]. Therefore, we’ve had a taste of something better than birthday cake, namely, a sort of Socratic dialogue; but unlike Socrates/ Plato the stakes are truly problematic, giving rise to endless inquiries and adjustments. The driver’s statement, “I’m waiting for him to realize that,” is sheer dark comedy. On the heels of that impasse, we receive the more farcical exit as she turns back to the traffic in the street and the traffic in the universe. “Look at that guy! What an idiot!”

Down to story 8, she initially appears to us at ease in being silent and mobile and going along the prayer zone in a gown with a darker, black and gold design. (In the previous episodes she was wearing shades; in the rendezvous with Amin, a dark-red gown; in the soon-to-come being rid of him, a much brighter red gown and jade rings.) She stops to give a ride to an elderly woman, bent over and laboring, but with a resolve in her bearing which galvanizes our protagonist. “I’ll be like her one day,’ she says to herself with a cheery tone. She asks the lady, “Is this a dead-end?” And she’s shown in a roundabout way the path to the mausoleum/ prayer-room leaving open how beyond a dead-end this is. On first being seated, the passenger intones, “May God protect you,” the first of a stream of pious declarations. The driver affords this licence a patient and encouraging cordiality, seeking to find there a magical boost. “May He save us from all our worries…” follows quickly. Our guide for the duration is taken up with driving, not heart-to-heart troubles. “I’m lost. I don’t know this way…” Keeping a light tone, the ancient rattles off, “Well don’t go down here, it leads nowhere!” Now on the straight and narrow, the passenger delineates details of her, if not exuberant, prolific strivings. “I go in the morning, mid-day and sunset… I pray for the boys and girls… I pray for old ladies and men…” We know by now that Amin’s mother has large misgivings about such heavy zeal; and this episode wonderfully sets in relief the taste for gentle irony with which she hits the road. “You only go there to pray?”/ “I pray there and elsewhere.”/ “Are your wishes granted?”/ “God alone grants wishes. My prayers don’t need that [that is to say, the bid for union suffices beyond being rescued from death]. My husband is dead. My 12-year-old son, too… That’s why I pray [offsetting the calculus of loss]. I also sold my home to go to a pilgrimage in Syria…”

From a secular perspective, inattentive to the zealot’s heretical grace, she’s lost; and our protagonist is in the forefront of secularity. Nevertheless, our poised talent scout accentuates the possibility of calculative cowardice being shattered by the sheer visceral flare-ups of the ancient’s recognition that an elusive balance is worth going for broke. “I’ve known great misfortune. But I gave everything I owned.” The eccentric mom praises the stranger’s “pretty rosary” and endures the loopiness of the banal brio she’s hearing. She can’t, however, be indifferent to features of the saga like a daughter’s stomach tumor and being afraid of the upcoming operation. She can see the desperate egotism in factors like, “I swear on the Imam Reza, I gave away the mattresses…” and yet the very hopelessness of this distemper (like the poison of her own son) touches her as endlessly significant. She enthuses with her guest, “Very good! The fewer ties you have the better you live.” The simple soul offers to car-sit while the sort of soulmate goes to pray. “No thank you. I have a lot to do…” is the way their paths diverge forever.

Step 7, on the way to a blast-off of sorts, finds her at the wheel, beaming with the irony that, while cruising late at night on a hooker trail, she was mistaken for a John and invaded by a cynical entity; but, once again, a slice of something she wants to grasp. The poor vision of the “night worker” (in the parlance of The Wind Will Carry Us) traces straight to Corky’s Paris colleague in part 3 of Night on Earth, who, after losing his temper and throwing out a couple of delusional drunks in the night, gets hailed by a blind and Amin-like vicious, arrogant fare. “Stop here, I’m getting out,” the embarrassed pro demands. The driver, not surprisingly, answers, “I’m interested in talking with you…” In a sleepy voice, the reluctant conversationalist replies, once again (bringing to mind the blinded French stone wall), “Stop here, I’m getting out!” But when our protagonist takes special interest in being mistaken for a man, the night person gives out some inkling that she’s not totally benighted. She gleefully shrieks with the pitfall, again demands the ride end and the near-cabby promises, “A bit further on” [hoping that the cradle-dynamics of the drive and the volcano of that scream will produce some seismic information]. “I saw you come out of that Mercedes…” she hopefully cues some pop. First, the passenger draws the wall, “I’m going nowhere…Let me off!” But our guide is an ardent provocateur and hits pay dirt of sorts with, “Why do you do this?” After Amin-like bluster— “Give me a break… You want to lecture me?”—the wild card can’t resist declaiming, “An honest job, a decent job!” More squeals ensue. Then she feels a little needle: “It’s interesting… a girl like you [with aspirations I want to hear about]. Pretend that you’re a man…” She quickly insists, “I’m not working in that field yet!” Having seen a glimpse of her bourgeois self-justification, the protagonist persists, “No, really… What’s the reason you do this?” This elicits the hooker’s being hooked on two incompatible motives—the volatility of which perhaps leading somewhere for her own, far more comprehensive, study; and even more to the point, her ongoing bounce against the carnality of everyone she meets (a hooker’s body-contact being a dash of physicality with much on the ball). “Sex, Love, Sex” the captive blurts out. “That’s all life is?” the traveller, setting the horizon to be engaged, moots. “It’s a trade, it’s my job. And I like it [moreover]. What’s this ‘interesting?’” She goes on, from that confrontational stance, to assure the driver, “I’m not going to cry… It’s life or it’s destiny” [brutal zoology or subversive mysticism]. The driver assures her she’s not going to lecture. “I’m interested in your experience, what you feel, your sensations…” “What sensations?” she replies with some anger. “Don’t you think about sin and guilt” is the night-shift’s way of discerning how wild is the wild one (who, by then, has taken off her shoes to ease the pain of walking in shoes not made for walking). Though the passenger insists, “That was a stupid thing to say… Why don’t you try it yourself?” she shifts, by way of finding out that the near-cabby is married, into a screed about all men being traitors. “He says, ‘I love you,’ doesn’t he?” Her clients often say that when their wife calls, duped that he’s at the other office. This is where the flight hits real turbulence, the driver not apt to be greatly preoccupied with the low-key ways of her “friend and good companion.” The shoeless and rather clueless street walker even dovetails with Amin and that totally blind angry rider in Night on Earth: “You’re an idiot and I’m smart.” She purports to have no affection for any of her clients, nor anyone else. There is one more step to take and the protagonist takes it when inferring that her rough trade in the days before wholesaling touched her indelibly. “To wake up thinking about him! We were engaged. I was a fool.” The night may not have yielded any new talent; it did spotlight her close to frightening disinterestedness.

Corky was induced, by the talent-scout, to admit she’d love to have children, that she has an ardent dream centered upon domesticity. But her certainty about the perfidy of the male talent pool left us seeing her as a free spirit somewhat by default. The protagonist of our tale here clearly puts freedom first and evinces a highly eccentric but potentially fertile way of extending her powers, including interpersonal powers. The remainder of the snippet given to us largely pertains to ditching the monster from her craft. Accordingly, it sustains the sense of coping more effectively (which is far from coping more easily) in face of the impasses every ride must endure. Therefore, to deploy the motif of the protagonist’s vibrancy in a sharp light we’ll dip into the number four junket, where, in an atmosphere of very spare light, a woman relentlessly laments a man’s leaving her, with the kind of addictive melancholy seen in the last (Helsinki) phase of Night on Earth, where a taxi driver vies with his customers to be the saddest person on earth. Just as the error of the hooker’s drawing a blank with a badly recognized woman, the welcome of a dead loss might seem one of those bad days; but our guide of things mysterious proves to be a versatile and agile discoverer of what she needs to press forward the big picture. Knowing from the top there’ll be no sparkle in this outing, the driver runs past the veil of tears that structure of equiprimordial connection and aloneness. “You’re weak, very weak,” is her bid to snap her into some semblance of adult responsiveness. (She bemusingly adopts Amin’s phrases, “Give it a rest, so we can eat in peace” [giving us to understand that the passenger is not a one-off but a long-term piece of work].) The protagonist in a tight spot realizes she has misplayed this engagement and strikes a far more primordial, disinterested note. “We women are unhappy. We don’t love ourselves… You can’t sum it up in just one person. Life is so vast. Why depend on just one person?” “Why not?” the weak one blubbers—Jarmusch’s “jerking off” very much in play, with its hopeless cases and vast wastelands. Even here there is a moment of dark mirth: “Why not [the dead weight argues] be different?” [as if hopeless losers are few and far between]. The talent scout’s parting declaration, “You can’t live without losing. We come into the world for that” [dodging black holes like her], is entirely addressed to herself and her being on the spot to deal mercilessly with the poisonous while being warmly on the trail for hearts with some gold.

Another friend turns up, by day, this time—in hurdles 6 and 2—and our protagonist, unlike her keeping her distance from the theology of the old lady, dresses to seem ready to coincide with the pious passenger from her own generation. Perhaps struck briefly again by the pathos of that elder’s personal best, she opens the conversation with, “You come to the mausoleum, too?” After rather self-consciously tossing back-and-forth the vagaries of religious garb, the ascetic (in vast contrast to the divorcer of Amin with her chic upbeat and intrinsic warmth), strained, though gentle friend, of quite recent vintage, asserts that her pattern is once or twice a week. “I’m used to it…” Holding to irony as if a vitamin pill, the driver, only apparently onside, avers. “It hasn’t become a habit with me…” Then, being very devious by necessity, there is, “I never imagined I’d come to a mausoleum to pray.” The questioner discovers that though the promising friend (more promising than now) at first did not subscribe she does now, “to a certain extent… Actually, it soothes me.” At this, the driver gives her a wan smile and quips, “Anyhow, I haven’t found peace of mind, yet [neither, of course, in immortality, nor in a largesse in becoming extinct]. One day, maybe, who knows?” Showing very well that words can produce more assurance of being on the same page than they really mean, the religionist maintains, “I’ve been coming here for ages and I still haven’t had anything.” “Perhaps it’s a big wish… Too big…” is the secular learner’s way of getting on an open road where they can get down to business. This cut-off, however, immediately ends in a ditch. “It’s not a very big wish…” This is so because for the seeming or hope-to-be adventurer, all she was serious about was her on-again/ off-again marriage engagement. “I come here to pray to make it come true… I think he’s full of contradictions.” In one of those deft touches of street navigation landing in the face of a lousy navigator in a much wider sense, the driver shouts out, “How can I get by if you just stand there?” After a pause where the passengers of a wayward vehicle make rude gestures, she adds (to the jerks outside and the jerk inside), “And you think it’s funny? What an idiot!” Right about here, our guide has to be digging down to put natural motion into the “just stand there.” She takes up with her friend, notwithstanding, the “contradictions,” (and potential syntheses) of the case. The eligible one moots the factor of “fate” in all this. Taking another run at the stand-still, the driver takes liberties with the facts in claiming that she tells her son about fate, “come what may…” (yet she’s a paragon of radical resolve, too vigorous for her surround). “He says he doesn’t understand fate [a phenomenon with a purchase on freedom]. He just can’t accept it” [he truly doesn’t accept freedom per se]. “What’s his problem?” the dutiful domestic asks, no doubt providing a stiff shot of dark mirth. She improvises on that theme of absurdity. “He has no particular problem. Or maybe he does….” In this vein of tough roiling, she sketches out the bare bones of the count-down. “I divorced. One day he no longer wanted to live with me. And he left. He tells me I’m a bad mother. Mainly he couldn’t stand the atmosphere at home anymore” [the essences of “atmosphere” being a remarkable imbroglio for a film to tackle]. She covers this nightmare with the albatross of piety to see if richly-held disaster can disperse a bottleneck. “The first time I came to the mausoleum that feeling all but faded away. For now, all I do is pray.” Like her plodding sister, the new (and equally disappointing) half-wit, leaves her with what she considers to be deeply valuable reorientation. “I used to say, ‘You pray to force God to give you things.’” “That’s interesting,” the very alone convenor of talent offers. “Don’t mention it,” the problem solver replies as she leaves the car. There is a quick cut to the next bid. What would have been her response to this dullness? In the subsequent plunge down to stage 2, the patient sentimentalist must now trouble shoot the situation of having been unequivocally abandoned for another woman. “He said it wouldn’t work.” She has shaved her hair in a gesture of being done with the mad passion and creativity which she couldn’t embrace; but also, now looking more unusual, reaching for a strangeness which could be right for her, if she were not so constitutionally drab. “I told him, “You’ll regret it some day…” [sounding quite Helsinki]. “Am I hideous?” she asks. “No, it suits you,” the driver insists (regarding her nun-like presence), being both loving and cruel. “I think I’ll soon get over it,” the teary survivor declares; and with that the research and the friendship is pretty much toast. She puts out there, for old-times sake, “That’s hard, isn’t it?” / “Yes, it’s hard… The hardest part for me is admitting that it’s hard [that putting together an enriching life is not the way she had been induced to suppose]. I’m ashamed of saying that it’s hard [her dependencies now in painful doubt]. Because I thought everything I liked would happen…” “I understand,” the road warrior assures. She smiles warmly and reports, more to herself, “You lose at times, unfortunately…”

With a world heavily laced with the likes of Amin and his inspirations, dead-ends (farcical, appalling and hostile), “losses,” are the name of the game. The latter stages (5 and 1) where she finalizes the raging malignancy is more a tip-off of small mercies in a big picture than a family’s big deal in a little picture. So, when she greets Amin en route to “grandmother’s” day-care, she savors the irony of her ever being “weak” like the clinging vine of stage #4. “I don’t get a kiss?”/ “I don’t want to…” (She had played the same hand pretending to want to keep him for the evening, being denied by the UN dad and then, after realizing he could put his porn-dish and whatever else into play, being caught up with and told, “You can have him.”) This allows her to toy with what was once trouble. “Are you pleased to be staying with me tonight?” The reflexive “No” would roll off like rain on a duck. He commands, “When you come to pick me up from grandma’s don’t forget the tape of Hercules…” More cheeky marauding on his part follows, and her body language is a picture of aplomb. He brags about his new course of computing in school (for the new Hercules) and she, claiming to know a short-cut, annoys him in face of some of the improv she excels in. In retaliation, he mentions the sacred father’s “Satellite’ and the “very sexy scenes” in fact far more a laughing matter than a crying matter. She stops at the counsellor’s office and comes back with the predictable all-clear that the boy will be better off in the land of Hercules. She recites, “He’s a man. He has to grow up with a man” [a dutifully religious maniac as dictated by the regime]. “Man,” to Amin, being kicking ass, he rolls out a self-serving spiel of: pushing her to show fifth-gear macho; then he moots that the woman his father might eventually marry will be “better than you… She won’t be out all the time…” [“I get the message,” she pleasantly toys]; and brings up an old grievance, that she, the servant, was late for a pick-up. She pretends to be flustered and defensive. “I needed water for the battery” [the right fluidity]. His rant about, “She’ll do the dishes, cook good meals” [her response, “It’s good that life can be summed up [computed] in the stomach”], carries the phraseology of the dogmatist dad about to be history— “The problem is taking on responsibility at home.” She would love to be able to say, “I have more important things to do. A maid can do the housework;” and she does say that. Her “short cut,” instinctive ways getting on his nerves again, culminates with answering his tantrum and recriminations with a simple, “I was busy…” He snarls on reaching the drop-off, “Get lost! You’re lying!” And she calmly replies, “I’m a selfish person…” The very brief 1-spot, the last of the communiques to the man in white, the last of the demands, comprises, “Take me to grandma’s” and her kiss-off, a poised, “Alright,” poised for lots more trouble and windfalls. But now freed of some baggage she didn’t need at all.

#abbas kiarostami

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