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ineffably-human · 8 months

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We're going to scream about Nandermo all week, but right now I need to talk about Baron Afanas. Because the Baron's arc, so to speak, always felt like a big part of the series DNA for me - and oh fuck did this episode deliver on why.

I think we can agree: in the show, vampire society is fucked up, right?

Vampires on their own have plenty to deal with that can make them crazy. They have to live by killing. They lose everyone from their old lives. They have to find new reasons to keep going on, forever, so shit can get decadent really fast.

But holy shit, what that's turned into in vampire society? Where you actively put cruelty over mercy, and violence over solving your problems? Death cults and scam artists roam free, but if someone has depression the best thing to do is ignore them. Someone can get their mind wiped or be locked up for centuries, and that's just what you do to your species.

So: the Baron's arrival is the first conflict of the whole show. The joke is about an ancient powerful creature of pants-shitting terror, vs three lesser vampires who just want to live their lives and not get murdered for being too lazy to conquer humanity. There's a lot of talk about how to please him: do you keep to the old ways, or pick up some new traditions? Decorate with flayed skin, or with glitter? And the Baron says: who cares, you're all soft and useless. All that matters is getting more control over this world, until people are cattle and we have no reason to hide anymore.

But later he confesses: that shit stopped mattering ages ago. He's not even real nobility, he's literally impotent, and he talks about doing horrible things because he doesn't know what else to say. He's angry and half-crazy from boredom. And admitting that, owning those feelings, means suddenly he has three new friends and a whole new world of things to enjoy.

There's the Baron the rest of the vampire world knows, but for one night we see the ancient, unknowable terror was just a guy. Maybe he's always been just some guy.

That fun puts him in a vulnerable position, and he's killed by the most unwitting vampire slayer in fiction. But Baron Afanas is changed. He sucks dirt for a year and still comes out of it with a new lightness and joy to him. He saves the Sire, another ancient terrifying monster everyone was eager to kill or send away. They adopt the hellhound. They get cozy and give advice. They make popsicle stick houses and go on walks. They live.

And that seemed like the end of the story until last night - when the Baron suddenly felt like the butt of a joke everyone knew but him. Spurred on by someone else who feels lonely and ignored, the Baron felt vulnerable. And he snapped back to how he lived for centuries.

'What the hell are you all doing, enjoying yourselves? We're supposed to be unhappy. We're supposed to live centuries of unhappiness, bringing pain to everyone in our path, and we're definitely not supposed to cheer up our friend who's sad.'

Nobody liked the Baron before Guillermo killed him, not even other powerful vampires we meet; they saw the Baron as a crazy far beyond their own crazy. But this is also how vampire society values you. It's how they measure Nandor's worth when they think he's dead, too: how old and powerful you are, how much you've been able to conquer and kill.

Vampire pods are both cliquish and aren't expected to last in the first place. If someone dies, you literally paint them out of your lives and forget. Everything we see discourages feelings, sincerity, or even basic companionship. The only way to earn respect is to be cruel. The more cruel you are, the more powerful you are. The more powerful you are, the more feared you are - the lonelier you are, the crazier you are. It's practically designed to create the Baron, or worse.

But new vampires don't behave that way. And the vampires we follow in the show don't behave that way - because they have each other, because they've been encouraged to have each other, often by Guillermo. (Holy shit, Nadja saying maybe she'd be fine dying, and Nandor immediately asking if she's okay? Nothing changes in this house, except everything does. They're not going to almost lose one of their own ever again.)

The vampires in the heart of vampire culture never seem happy to be like this. It doesn't have to be like this.

The Baron doesn't become a tyrannical monster for long. Because he never actually was one - and because he spends two evenings and a fireball to the face, watching Nandor and Nadja fight for Guillermo. Watching them plead and cling and defy, seeing Guillermo's earnest feelings in spite of his bloodline and the mistakes he's made. Seeing Nandor's perfect trust, and then his grief, the way he insists that Guillermo was never 'just' anything. The Baron can't find real fulfillment in hurting someone (because that ship sailed ages ago). He can't deride them for caring, because he's cared for a long time now.

And when the Baron admits that's who he is, when he says it out loud, he only gains more in his life. He finds new depth in the happiness he'd felt for a while now, because he's admitted and allowed himself to be happy. And now he has the children he's always wanted. Living together, the Baron and the Sire are still ancient and powerful - and they're also family, finding real joy together in a world that was ready to dispose of them.

"I suppose with the right company, it can be beautiful, this eternal existence."

There's an inherent selfishness to being a vampire, taking from someone else in order to live. But there doesn't have to be inherent cruelty, or lack of love.

They're all ready to admit they care. The Staten vampires have all cared for Guillermo or each other in their own ways this season. And Guillermo doesn't lack for flaws, but loving his monster family has never been one of them. (When he and Nandor work their shit out, they're gonna be insufferable.)

Now they just have to let the Guide in. Because she's absolutely starved for love, and vampires get pretty fucked up when they're on their own.

#fandom: wwdits #what we do in the shadows #wwdits #i am a meta gremlin #baron afanas #tl;dr i am a sucker for choosing love #especially when the world around you says it's stupid or you're not allowed #but love was always in you so it happens anyway

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megaawkwardhuman · 10 months

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throughout my days posting to tumblr I try my best to not be an angy little dumbass cuz nobody like hearing people bitch

BUT OH MY GOD THIS ARTICLE

really REALLY important thing to note: I've said it before on here that guillermo is a character that I love dearly. for a fictional character he's really important to me. I wish I was joking when I say he's help me process shit in the past and made me feel overall better about myself in a weird way? I see a lot of myself in that queer little man

BTW I'M AWARE THIS PROBABLY ISN'T HEALTHY AND WEIRD BUT IT'S TRUE (plz don't judge me)

so I'm a bit biased here

this isn't an anti keeping guillermo human post, this is all word vomit, I have nothing personally against whoever wrote this, and nobody should attack this person (if they are a person? this sounds like it was written by an ai)

oh yeah and there's the real chance this was written by an ai and I'm getting mad at a glorified calculator but oh my god I just need to scream rn let me have this

ok with all of that out of the way HI HI HEY HEY HELLOOOOOOOOOO WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK DID I JUST READ!!?!??!

the fact they get wrong, the bad takes, the headache this is giving me WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!?!?!?!?!? IEUWHJUOFEBK2HODPPIHDWIWINDWIINDWPQ

I could break down EVERY LITTLE THING wrong with this but I don't have the time, energy, or brain cells to annotate and dunk on everything this article gets wrong (plus if this is written by an ai like I suspect there's no real point) BUT WHAT I DO HAVE TIME FOR IS JUMPING HEAD FIRST INTO MY MAIN FUCKING ISSUE

now look look LOOK I get people wanting to keep guillermo human I REALLY DO if you think that way that's fine

hell if done right I AM DOWN FOR IT

BUT FUCKING EXCUSE ME!?!!?!

UH NO THE FUCK IT WOULDN'T????

starting with this: UGH BRUH TF?

BESTIE HUH?!?!?!?

yeah it would be interesting but even if they for whatever reason made him a normal plain basic ass vampire THAT COULD STILL BE INTERESTING

seeing a character go from wanting to be a vampire to killing them when need be to now BEING a vampire is interesting, seeing how his dynamics get fucked with be interesting, seeing him learn how to fully be a vampire (something we only really got a glimpse of back in season 1) would be interesting, HAVING HIM FACE CONSEQUENCES FOR BEING A SLAYER TURNED VAMPIRE OR HAVING TO FACE HIM KILLING VAMPIRES IN THE PAST WOULD BE INTERESTING!!!!!!

but but BUUUUUT HERE'S THE THING

EVEN IF HE CAN TURN INTO A VAMPIRE HE'S MORE LIKELY THAN NOT GONNA BE MORE THAN JUST A VAMPIRE

we don't know what the slayer blood will do to the turning process SO EVEN IF IT TAKES LONGER THEN EXPECTED IT WILL BE INTERESTING TO SEE WHAT KIND OF MESSED UP VAMPIRE HE'LL BE IF HE CAN BECOME ONE

like the slayer blood leaves SO SOOOOOOO much room for opportunity if they're concerned with him "being boring" (I feel like being boring would be impossible with the whole slayer thing and the fact that something is always going wrong with him) as just another main vampire

NOW LET'S GET INTO WHY NO: HAVING GUILLERMO BECOME A VAMPIRE WOULDN'T BE FUCKING UP ALL OF THAT PROGRESS HE MADE!

ah yes the block of text that got me to read this

BECOMING A VAMPIRE WOULDN'T CHANGE OR BETRAY ANY OF THAT!

HE'LL STILL GROW JUST NOT AS A HUMAN, HE'S STILL A WARRIOR, ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT FREDDIE? THAT SHIT IS DONE AND OVER WITH, AND BECOMING A VAMPIRE WOULDN'T MAKE HIM UN COME OUT TO HIS FAMILY OR SOMETHING?????

sure most of that wouldn't have happened if he went on the trip back in season 3 BUT THAT'S LONG DONE AND OVER WITH MY GUY WE'RE ENTERING SEASON 5 NOW

next point: him becoming a vampire also wouldn't be him "giving up" IF ANYTHING WITH THE WAY IT WAS FRAMED IT WOULD BE A STEP FORWARD FOR HIM SINCE IT'S HIM DIRECTLY TAKING HIS LIFE INTO HIS OWN HANDS AND NOT WAITING FOR OTHER PEOPLE TO TAKE THE INITIATIVE

he saw a problem in the house and he saw nobody was going to do anything about it so instead of doing what he would have done a season ago and waiting he took matters into his own hands

AND IF HE ENDS UP WALKING AWAY FROM THIS SEASON A VAMPIRE OF ANY FLAVOR HE'S PROBABLY STILL GOING TO MAKE PROGRESS

as a vampire no matter how messy the process is HIS CONFIDENCE WILL BE AT LEAST A LITTLE BOOSTED DUE TO THE FACT HE'S ON A MORE LEVEL PLAYING FIELD MINIMUM

IT MIGHT TAKE A BIT OF TIME BUT OVER ALL HIM BECOMING A VAMPIRE WON'T BE A STEP IN THE WRONG DIRECTION

(KEEPING HIM HUMAN WOULDN'T BE A STEP IN THE WRONG DIRECTION EITHER BTW I CAN SEE WHY THEY WOULD GO THAT ROUTE)

and finally a point I can kinda see: him being accepted as only just a human WOULD be nice

he's worked hard to get respect and he's slowly getting it as he moves from familiar to bodyguard to at this point being just guillermo

BUT HERE'S THE THING: THEY DO TO SOME DEGREE RESPECT HIM ALREADY

the baby colin stuff gave him the respect of laszlo, nadja respects him enough to trust him with the money of the nightclub (yeah it was all cuz of a deal he made with her but if he saw him as fully lesser she would have put up more of a fight ageenst testing a human with the club's money) and the time they spent in england while it didn't make them exstreamly close did to some degree made them closer, nandor at this point mostly if not fully respects him, and colin... well we don't know how he'll treat him but if anything carried over from the baby colin shit he should at least give a crumb of a shit about him!

and yeah I do like seeing guillermo navigate around being a human amount vampires

BUUUUUUT it's kinda getting old in my opinion?

like I do like seeing it don't get me wrong but idk I want it shaken up a bit?

and yeah the whole turning gone wrong will do that but after that what then?

this article is trying to say hey let guillermo become a full on slayer cuz that's his true potential

and yeah I love seeing him be a little murder boy that's also not who he is at his core?

even when he's killing vampires left and right it's never out of a hatred for vampires it's so that he can protect others

if anything a human guillermo's full potential wouldn't be just killing cuz his blood says so it would be to protect

now if guillermo became a vampire that would obviously shake shit up a bit

and while I'm down plain jane by the end he's a normal vampire guillermo I've always been team fucked up dhampire guillermo

cuz let's face it guillermo fitting neatly (or mostly neatly) into a vampire human binary is really fucking boring (OR AT LEAST IN MY OPINION)

having him take a long time or need an unusual means to turn him which leads to him not fitting into the label of human or vampire would to me be an amazing way to go about this

in fact the thing I hate the most about this article is the fact that him ending up with a dhampire isn't spoken as a possibility AT ALL (unless I missed it but I fucking refuse to read that dumpster fire again)

having him be a dhampire would address many of the issues this person has with guillermo becoming a vampire

it would make him stand out, it would test him, it would lead to growth, and it wouldn't be boring and leave him with more to do as he figures out his new unique identity with the others

in conclusion: I spent WAY WAAAAY too much time on this

I'm going to slam my face into some grass now

#edit: ever since I've written this my opinion on this article has change and I honestly don't know why I pissed me off so much #buuut to me it's kinda funny to keep this up soooo enjoy this shit show if you wanna XD #my head hurts why tf did I write this?#also due to how much I wrote I only kinda re read what I wrote #so this is PURE word garbage #what we do in the shadows #wwdits #guillermo de la cruz #if AND ONLY IF this was written by an ai can I meet this ai in a denny's parking lot I wanna fist fight it #if this was written by a human hi hey sorry article person plz don't hurt me :)

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persnickety-peahen · 2 years

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finally got caught up on What We Do in the Shadows last night with the hubby and . . . hoo boy that last episode was a doozy and i have a lot of thoughts so this will be a long post (mostly about Freddie himself)

Baby Colin hit puberty overnight and is now Angsty Teen Colin? Nadja’s nightclub might be going under because she has no main attraction anymore? the drama! but then they’re like, look at Guillermo being all happy and cute with his boyf--nope nevermind everything sucks for everyone now because Nandor is relentlessly selfish and awful. like, the guy really just cannot stop? and now Guillermo has to watch his first serious boyfriend cheat on him . . . with a clone of himself . . . who used to be a whole ass different and unique and wonderful person unto herself. a person who, had circumstances been different, maybe could have been a good friend of Guillermo’s as the only other human in the house and also the only other person to really understand the bullshit Nandor puts him through. a person who, although it may have been due to a wish in whole or in part, appreciated Guillermo and openly thanked him for all of his help and wished him well. a person who has slowly had her own individuality, autonomy, and self stripped away from her, piece by piece, wish by wish, by Nandor’s confused attempt at making her “perfect” when what he really wanted was something else all along.

like, fuck, dude. that’s some heavy shit.

i’ve seen a lot of posts already talking about the absolute horror story that is this entire season, but especially this last episode, from Marwa’s perspective. that’s a really important thing to talk about, and i’m glad other people are on it. i have nothing to add on that front, except that i too cannot wait for her inevitable comeback and hope she gets to kick Nandor in the balls at the very least.

something i haven’t seen people really talking about though, is how this episode is also a fucking horror story from Freddie’s perspective.

just imagine, for a minute. you go on a trip to hang out with your long-distance boyfriend and experience all the exciting new things in New York Citay. you have a lovely time; after meeting the dementia patient your boyfriend caretakes for, you go out and get pretzels and dance together and watch a broadway show and get cheesecake and laugh together and get cute touristy pictures and all that jazz. then you go to drop him back off at his place and—

you see yourself, cuddled up with the dementia patient in front of a fire, draped in furs. the other you is clearly nude, and the dementia patient is only wearing a pair of boots. they clearly just had sex. is that even a thing you and your boyfriend have done yet? and what the fuck is that other you? is it a long lost twin? just a doppelganger? some weird fucking real doll bullshit? but no, you’re screaming, and the other you is also screaming in the exact same way and probably also running through the exact same list of possible explanations for what’s happening and didn’t Guillermo say he thought he saw Nandor, the dementia patient, a few times today? was the other you going out with Nandor, following you and Guillermo, doing all the exact same things you were doing? what does this mean what’s happening what—and then all of a sudden everything is fine. Nandor told you and the other you to be cool with each other, so you’re cool with each other. he told you and the other you to like each other, so you like each other. you play charades, and you barely have to motion before the other you knows exactly what it is you’re thinking of. no one has ever understood you so completely. not even your boyfriend, Guillermo.

you have to go back home eventually though, and when you arrive, it’s not the same. you miss the other you. you miss that total understanding. so when you facetime your boyfriend but the other you appears in the background, of course you take some time to talk to him. and when he shows up in England all of a sudden, of course you welcome him into your home—he’s you, so it’s his home too, isn’t it? he’s you, so it’s his bed too, isn’t it? he’s you, so of course he understands you, and that’s what everyone wants in a partner, isn’t it? you forget about Guillermo. why would you remember him when you have the perfect partner right there next to you? /end imagination time

that’s fucking horrifying, isn’t it? poor dude doesn’t even know that the supernatural is real, and he ends the episode in a hypnosis-induced affair with himself. the fact that he and Freddified Marwa end up together is directly related to the hypnosis, is has to be. which means anything that goes on between them is coercion. which means Nandor is effectively SA-ing both of them. not that i think the show will address that angle, of course, because even though it’s a dark/horror comedy, that still feels a little too heavy for them to come out and say so on air—but i do think it’s important for us as the viewers to talk about it. and maybe to ask the showrunners and cast and crew about it too, because whether the SA reading was intended or not, it’s definitely there

and why? why did all of this happen? whether intentionally or subconsciously, the end result of this whole shitshow is that Nandor and Guillermo are both single now. and single people are free to date each other, right? who cares if it took VIOLATING THE BODILY AUTONOMY OF TWO OTHER PEOPLE AND DESTROYING SOMEONE’S ENTIRE SELF to get them there? Nandor certainly doesn’t!

i’m still holding out hope though that Guillermo does care and will tear Nandor a new one for it, and not just for ruining his happiness. i hope Guillermo beats his ass and either knocks some sense into him so he can use his last two wishes responsibly, or he steals the lamp and uses some wishes himself to set things right. . . . or Marwa steals the lamp and uses her wishes to set things right and fuck with Nandor. whatever happens, i just don’t want to see Nandor abuse his wishes and the power they give him over other people anymore. i’m kinda over it. please let him learn his lesson and learn it hard because i cannot watch him relentlessly steamroll other people anymore, especially with the expectation that i laugh at the ridiculousness of it because this is ultimately supposed to be a funny show

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fill-me-with-your-memes-daddy · 3 years

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Watching the Rise of the Titans movie and I'll be documenting all of my thoughts/reactions here. [Spoiler Warning]

So instead of reblogging every new update, I'm just going to have this post up on my phone as I watch and type my reactions in a bullet list format.

Nari's human disguise is so cute. As someone who does have a cottagecore aesthetic, I want to cosplay her so bad

Are Skrael and/or Belroc non-binary coded? Regardless, I'm also obsessed and I want to fuck Skrael and be Belroc.

STEVE CARING ABOUT JIM BEING HURT YESSSS!!! My god his redemption has probably been one of the greatest there is because he doesn't just suddenly go from being a bully to a completely good person. You can see the gradual shift in learning better throughout the shows which is awesome.

IN NEW YOOOOOOORRRRRRRK!!!!!! CONCRETE JUNGLE WHERE DREAMS ARE MADE OFFFFFFFFFFFFF!!!!!

The mugshot montage reminded me of season 1 of trollhunters when toby and Jim were arrested at the museum.

STRICKLER PUT A RING ON IT??? HE'S THE ONLY DILF IVE EVER ACTUALLY AGREED WAS HOT WYM I CAN'T HAVE HIM??? well I'm still really happy about his arc over the series probably one of my favorite character growths.

Eli my guy got his growth spurt!!! As an 18 year old who is still 5'0", I'm happy but envious for him

So I went into this movie without watching any trailers or promo, but I doubt anything could have prepared me for the existence of mpreg. In fact, I wasn't going to document my reactions until I saw that.

NAMURA!!!!!!!!! MY BELOVED!!!!!! I CAN STILL THIRST FOR YOU WITHOUT GUILT

The coach teacher just called the kids zoomers so I have to dock one point from my final rating just because of that. Unforgivable

Those husky animation models suck lmao

Oh fuck the titans got power ranger zords!!

God why did they include the mpreg??? This movie would have been perfect without it.... After that plot point being revisited only one time I'm already beyond done with it

Like it's bringing me back to the v*ltron days where they're was a suspiciously high amount of klance omegaverse and mpreg fics and art created and it physically hurts because Steve and Keith's voice actor is the same person meaning this is especially cursed to me since I was unfortunately in the v*ltron fandom and remember all of that

But like on another note, how old are these characters again??? I haven't checked any wikis because of spoilers but is Steve an adult??? I know aja might be technically a lot older than 18 because alien but is whatever age she is equivalent to an adult as far as emotionally and physically in Akaridion development??? IS THIS A TEEN (M)PREGNANCY IN A KIDS SHOW????

Like bruh I saw a singular post on here before going into the movie that was like "rott spoilers without context" and there was a pregnant belly but I was absolutely not expecting the actual context of it. I'll find the post after I finish and edit this post to tag the creator right here: @makoden

This entire post is just gonna be me ranting about mpreg huh

Anyway I love the whole roundtable allusion to the legends of king arthur (not the toa version but the one he's based off)

THERE'S 3 TO 5 BABIES????? I need to take a break bruh this is just too much

Alright I've taken a 30 minute break got some food and did some things i love (decompressed by tactile stimming with some owl plushies and watched some videos on my favorite owl, Garu. He lives in Japan with his owner and is a domesticated eagle owl who basically just acts like a sky cat. If anyone else needs some eye bleach, here is their YouTube channel)

Blinky and ARRRGHHH!!! saying their "if one of us doesn't make it" talk my god one of them is going to die I can see it and I will be utterly crushed. Jim can't lose another father figure and Toby can't lose his wingman again I will riot if this happens

On a similar but unrelated to the movie note, can we just talk about how toa started with Jim having 0 dads and (if strickler and blinky live to the end) will end with 2 dads? Like I just really feel happy for him that he has two dads who actually figured out how to put the past behind them to not have any infighting between them so that both of them are healthy father figures. Jim has already been through literal hell and back losing his actual humanity in the process so if he loses one of them, I'm going to be really pissed because at this point, this is just Jim torture porn. Y'all know how as SpongeBob SquarePants went on, the show just became Squidward torture porn? It's starting to feel that way for toa and I really hope they cut the shit by the ending

Jlaire is such a good ship but like I feel like it's too perfect they never disagree with each other

YESSSSSSS Someone finally doesn't treat toby like a fat waste of space who messes stuff up!!! I think out of all the characters that would have been most deserving of a rewrite, it's Toby. Sometimes I just feel he's only comic relief and any heartfelt moments he's had in the series was also born of stupidity (ie his flour baby project being unharmed was seen by him as divine intervention from his parents but was actually just Eli and Steve behind the scenes).

Ohhhhh yesssssss Archie's father!!! I was hoping I'd see him again because we got so little of him last

Ooooooooooh Asian trollmarket!!!!!

Oh never mind slavery trollmarket

Bruh titanic camelot

I feel like we're not seeing enough of the villains because I completely forgot about the power ranger zord things

NAMORA NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MY LAST CRUSHHHH

STRICKLER NO NOT YOU TOO PLEASE

WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THE ONLY TWO CHARACTERS I SIMP FOR ON THIS SHOW DIED WITHIN FIVE MINUTES OF EACH OTHER

THAT WHOLE ASS RANT I WROTE IS COMING TRUE FUCK THIS MOVIE THIS SERIES IS JUST JIM TORTURE PORN

WAIT JIM'S SPERM DONOR INFO?

Oh thank God I don't want to know anything about that person

For the record, I call that man Jim's sperm donor because he has no business being called a father to him. All he did was donate some swimmers to the creation of him and give him abandonment issues

Oh another blind troll elder???? This fucker is just if vendel was a bad guy

Bruh I was grieving

PACIFIC RIM WITH GUN ROBOT VEX AND THE BELROCZORD? I've never seen that movie but I know the reference

Bruh Blinky doesn't read horoscopes? Does he realize conspiracy theories are just the manly version of horoscopes?

NO DON'T KILL VEX STOP KO-ING FOUND FAMILY MEMBERS

Oh thank God he's okay

NO NOT ARCHIE AND CHARLEMAGNE OH MY GOD

oh never mind they're just gonna coup de tat I believe in them :))

But I want to see him again

But I'm glad to see vex

Yay they're in arcadia!

But yeah I wondered why the trolls and Merlin didn't keep the whole "daylight doesn't hurt trolls" feature from the eternal night but now Guillermo del Toro I see you were playing the long con in that just to kill my girl Namora :(((

Oooooh I love the animation of the Narizord over Chihuahua!! It looks very good and realistic (if only they could have put some of that into those huskies from before smh)

Bruh the character designs of the arcane order are so good I want to be them

Nari making sure the Skraelzord doesn't crush the bus

DAMN DOUBLE HOMICIDE

Bruh I'm just glad we finally have an answer on why arcadia had everything going on as opposed to literally anywhere else!! I always found that as a weird coincidence for plot convince.

BRUH WERE BACK TO THE MPREG IM SO JEALOUS I FORGOT ABOUT THAT EVEN THOUGH IT WAS BECAUSE I WAS GRIEVING THE LOSS OF MY LOVELIES.

Oh that's real convenient that the ninth configuration meant all of them. Way to not decide which character gets more attention. Though it probably was a smart way to not have any infighting in the fandom between each character's stan group.

Bruh I just realized where is Barbera did they just ditch her on the Camelot ship???

And where are the other trolls that migrated at the end of trollhunters s3? They said something about new jersey but obviously Jim and the other main characters got on Camelot instead.... This feels like a plot hole

And we never learned the process of how changelings are made and bonded to humans and stuff. We just know it's super painful but I'm curious ffs!!!!

THE DONT THINK BECOME HERO SPEECH ALL SAID TOGETHER!!!

BRUH THEY REALLY HAD TO SHOW HIM GIVING BIRTH??????? WAS THAT AN ABSOLUTE MUST??????

Plus the main audience for this series is little children (the rating for the movie is literally TV-Y7) so even though my adult ass is not in the target audience, I STILL DONT UNDERSTAND WHY WOULD MPREG AND ANAL BIRTH WOULD BE AN IMPORTANT THING TO 7 YEAR OLDS???? THIS IS A LITERAL FETISH HIDDEN IN KIDS CONTENT ITS ELSAGATE ALL OVER AGAIN Y'ALL 😭😭😭😭😭

Though it's probably hypocritical of me to think fetishes don't belong in kids tv when I've openly admitted to thirsting for strickler and namora

HUZZAH

NEW AMULET WAZ GOOD????

STAB THAT BITCH JIM

WAIT NO I SAID STAB NOT GET STABBED

Alright good job just missed the directions at first but you fixed it

SEVEN KIDS?????????

T O B Y ????????????

W A I T NO

N O

IS HE ACTUALLY

OH MY GOD THERE'S HOPE

NO THERE ISN'T

F U C K THIS SHIT THEY REALLY JUST HAD HIM TO BE BULLIED THEN KILLED

Y'ALL IM ACTUALLY CRYING THIS NEVER HAPPENS

I NEVER ACTUALLY GET SO EMOTIONAL OVER MEDIA THAT I CRY IT ONLY HAPPENED ONCE AT THE END OF VOLTRON BUT AHHHHHHHH

W A I T

HE'S GONNA BE BROUGHT BACK?????

HOLD UP THEY'RE JUST GONNA BRING ALL THOSE DEAD PEOPLE BACK??????

WAIT IS HE

BLINKY CALLED HIM A SON

HOLD ON IS THIS GOING TO BE A CLIFFHANGER???????????

BRUH THEY REALLY JUST CAN'T END THE SERIES WITHOUT CLIFFHANGERS like there's always an open ending

TROLLHUNTER TOBY????? You know what forget the whole rants I had on how toby was written they just redeemed it all

And that's all! I'd rate it a 6.5/10 because it's definitely the weakest of all the sequels but still had amazing animation and some good plot points. It's just really hard to look over the bad stuff enough to rate it any higher.

#tales of arcadia #rise of the titans #trollhunters #rott #rise of the titans spoilers #rott spoilers #toa #3 below #athena's own original post!#jim lake jr #claire nuñez #toby domzalski

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gotmilk5101520 · 3 years

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Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia Watch Episode 7 To Catch a Changeling

How to catch a changeling for idiots.

“All right”

“Do your worst”

The Sword of Daylight. A weapon to kill trolls and cutting watermelon.

“What is this mockery?” Me seeing stupid shit.

“You want to take it for a spin?”

*Cries in Troll*

Yeah, no one will notice.

“Ridiculous garment” Agree.

“Sorry. Draal was training Jim”

“Draal?” “Training?”

“Yeah, he sorta made a home in my basement to look out for the place”

“Of course. When a troll is defeated in combat, it’s completely natural for them to take refuge in the victor’s domicile” So, this happened before?

And it’s gone.

“It was, eh... It was out of focus, and i did forget to turn on the flash” Once again, i went back.

And the flash was on.

Have some Jim is done with this bushigal face.

“I’ve not left the Heartstone in a century” This is what it’s like to be force to go somewhere, cause they say it’ll be worth it. But it’s really not. Wow Vendel is becoming the most relatable character in this series.

“I hate conspiracies”

“That is why i am dedicated to rooting them out” If Trump hired Blinky to root out all the conspiracies of him Blinky will end up making them worse for Trump. #LetTrumphireBlinky

“If it’s everyone, it must be a conspiracy!” I would say Donald Trump, but that would be insult to Blinky.

“Later”

“Oh, no. Claire”

“Claire? A changeling?” Changeling Claire au.

“No. When i thought i was gonna die, i wrote Claire a letter, too, and told her everything”

“Everything?’

“Everything” And what is this “Everything” you speak of? What did you write?

“There you are!” Mission: Avoid Claire. Mission Fail.

“You didn’t run into Miss. Janeth yet, did you?”

“Is she mad i couldn’t make rehearsal yesterday?

“Something kinda came up”

“Heh heh” Good of the episode to put flashbacks in for me, so i don’t have to do it myself. Also Jim implies that last episode happened yesterday (Out of universe, yeah it did) But i thought about it and today would be Monday, and yesterday was Sunday. Jim and Draal’s fight happened on a school day meaning that it was Friday. Jim and Toby getting arrested and Jim making the letters were on a Thursday, and Jim and Toby finding out about Nomura was a Wednesday. And then the school trip to the museum was a Tuesday.

“Steve filled in. That’s what understudies are for, right?”

“Uh, you haven’t heard?

“Steve isn’t the understudy anymore. You are”

“She’s tired of you never showing up”

“So she made Steve Romeo. And trust me, Steve isn’t happy about it either”

“As i was saying, every algebraic equation requires balance”

“Not unlike, say, actors in an ensemble!”

“For instance”

“Every piece of this equation plays an important role”

“That is, unless variable X”

“is a zero”

“X has no role”

“X doesn’t show up”

“X lets the equation down”

“Then, the entire play-”

“I mean, equation- falls part!”

“It becomes impossible!”

“Mr. Lake”

“How would you solve this mathematical problem”

Yeah i’m at a lost.

“Promoting Steve to Romeo wasn’t your idea. Plus, he’s been trying to leave” “Tell me about it. After class he told me off. Steve told me off. Steve. Of all people”

“And, honestly, i’d rather be on stage with you”

I’ve seen that face before. Marinette made that face, too, when Adrien touched her shoulder at the end of The Evillustrator.

New meme template.

“So, we find another changeling”

“Stop saying that so loudly”

“Do you mind?”

“Whatever” Like i said, his name is Changeling.

“Ailment or curse?”

“Oi, numbskull! I;m supposed to answer it!”

“But i already did answer it” Wait are Rot and Gut like one troll sharing a body or no?

“You’re gonna need a gaggletack”

“Unfortunately, you see, we’re a bit short on those. Very hard to get”

“But i got a bag of them right here”

“What in the world? If you’ll excuse us for one moment”

“Ey, what are you doing? I’m trying to drive up the price over here”

“I thought we were trying to help these nice lads” Rot doesn’t understand Capitalism. Good boy.

“Gaggletack?”

“Rare artifact”

“Exceedingly rare. An object of great mystery”

“It’s a horseshoe”

“Made of pure iron”

“Why would you put such a precious thing on a horse’s foot?” Great, what other things are “Rare artifacts” to trolls?

“Beware. Changelings are swapped with their human counterparts at birth. So, it is likely these troll-pretenders have dwelt amongst you for decades”

“They could be anyone”

“Used car salesmen”

“Tax collectors”

“Television executives”

“Donald Trump”

“Yes, especially Donald Trump”

Nope.

“Shall i hear more, or shall i speak-”

“Steve!”

“Hey! Who did that? And can i leave the play now?” “No”

Another new meme template.

Nope, nope, and nope.

“You, uh, try this out on Mr. Strickler?”

“Come on. You really think he is one?”

Yes.

So close.

“Here you go, Mr. Strickler. Here’s your horseshoe back”

“Thank you, Miss. Nunez, but that belongs to Mr. Lake”

“Oh. Well that would explain the flying horseshoes” Wait “Flying horseshoes”? You mean Claire noticed the horseshoe that hit Steve earlier?

“So not going to ask” Jim should look on the bright side of this. Claire touched the gaggletack, that means she’s not a changeling, and that the real reason she invited him to her house was not to secretly kill him. Oh wait. That’s not till later.

“Claire” “Still here” When people forget you’re here too. Trust me, i know that feeling.

“You’re still coming home with me, right?”

“Oh, right!”

“Claire and i are gonna go too her house... for math stuff”

Toby is surprised by how that escalated quickly. And it’s not even the second half of season 1 yet.

Series creator, director of The Shape of Water, and the man that said “Monster Fucker Rights” Guillermo Del Toro. Voicing a dentist.

“For the glory of Merlin”

“Daylight is mine to make babies ogle”

“He really likes you” Jim would be a great dad. Wink wink Claire. Wink wink.

“Wonder what he’s thinking about right now” “No idea what’s going through my brothers mind right now” “I’m going to get kidnapped next episode and you will never see me again for a long time. Goo goo”

‘Wow, this novocaine you numbed my mouth with is really strong”

“I can’t even feel my hands”

“That’s because i didn’t inject you with novocaine, dear”

“I hit you up with a potent paralyzer”

“Why would you do that?”

“Well, it’s not everyday someone comes in with a gaggletack” The moment i saw this.

“Why don’t i take that, sweetie? It’s not very hygienic” I knew she was a changeling.

“See, the equation only contains powers of X that are non-negative integers”

“Does that makes sense”

“Is it supposed to?”

“Nah. That’s why it’s called algebra” Algebra never makes sense. It makes Kingdom Hearts make sense. #ReplacealgebrawithKingdomHearts

“I realized you’ve got a lot more going on than people think”

“I do”

“I do?” You may now kiss the bride. Okay guys, Jim and Claire are married.

“You can’t just write a letter like this and not expect a conversation. If you had written something like “I’ve most likely been slaughtered by a troll” I would’ve said: Understandable, have a nice day” “Wait, really?” “No! You are lucky, you’re cute and everything” “I... Uh... It’s... Wait what?” “Nothing”

“You have to battle monsters?”

“Saving the world in which we know? What monsters are you battling? Are they fuckable?” “Well- Wait what?” “Uh... What monsters are you battling?”

Have some Claire being done with her (Not yet, almost, but not really, not for another season) boyfriend’s bushigal.

“I mean, we all have stuff we’ve got to go through”

“But are you in some kind of trouble?”

“I... Yeah! Metaphoric”

“I was...”

“In an exploring stage”

“Not successful” Let it be known that Claire thinks Jim has depression, if not suicidal tendencies. And i did not get this from the wiki or TvTropes.

“There’s some sentimental stuff at the end which i thought was... kinda sweet” Umm. Can we read the full letter? I want to know what he said.

“Really?”

“If you ever need someone to talk to about “the monsters” you can talk to me”

“It can be our secret” Yeah. There are going to be a lot of secrets you two will be sharing. Also, you two could’ve kissed here as well. But whatever you tried i guess.

“Halt, changeling!”

“Or else my giant friend will tear you limb from limb!”

“Maybe later” These things always happens.

“Oh, it burns!”

“Oh, it’s just a painting” Paintings don’t kill trolls confirm.

Huh. After an entire episode of using it on everyone, and making me think it didn’t work, it actually does work.

“What’s that?” “Laughing gas”

*Laughs in Troll*

“Laughs in Troll*

“Hello? Wait how did you get my number?”

“Hey! What’s up, Nunez?”

“Hey Colby”

“Someone named Woby?” Claire can’t remember Toby’s name.

“Fighting monsters again?”

“Who are you, Jim Lake” Claire is getting sus.

Imagine walking into this.

“Perish, you worm!” “Wait, before you kill me, i have something to ask. You know Nomura, right?” “Yes” “Well she has a history with a troll named Draal. Do you know what their history is?” “No, this is the first time i’m hearing about it” “Oh, okay. Thank you. You can die now” “You’re welcome. Wait what?”

“Do you have some magic artifact that can clean this mess?”

“Yes. I believe it’s called a Tobias” Translation: “Clean it yourself”

“It appears Nomura has gotten her way”

“Another changeling has been chosen”

“And look who it is” “Enrich? Enquran? Enquin?” “Oh, for the love of. It says Enrique!” “Oh. Who’s that?” “Claire Nunez’s little brother!” “Which one is Claire again?” “The one you haven’t met!” “Well no wonder i don’t know who that is. I never met them”

Anyone is a changeling. Maybe i’m a changeling.

So who’s the worst babysitter? Jim or Marinette?

#trollhunters #milk watches trollhunters #tales of arcadia

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thetygre · 6 years

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30 Day Monster Challenge 2 - Day #5: Favorite Fish-Man

1.) Abe Sapien (BPRD)

Good old Abraham Sapien. Been with us since the fist arc of Hellboy. Abe’s come a long way since then; met his mom, found his wife, subsequently lost her, reunited with his old steampunk buddies, got elected as antichrist after Hellboy and Liz, went into a coma, mutated a couple of feet taller, and so and so on. Into Abe is thrown a lot of bigger themes that inform us of the Mignolaverse’s overall composure. On the aesthetic side, Abe always brings the ocean, fish, and water with him. Lovecraft’s fear of the ocean, Verne’s fascination, and Melville’s awe of it are all wrapped up in Abe Sapien. In his past life, he even came from a whaling family, and he was part of a secret society of ocean-worshiping spiritualists. That’s the other aesthetic cue in Abe; Victoriana. Even when in body armor and running across the flooded remains of the Gulf Coast, Abe never loses a certain gentility. But as a character theme, more than anything, I think Abe represents tragedy. He’s lost more than anyone; Even Liz can still say she has her humanity. Abe can’t even remember his past life, and now he’s becoming a little more monstrous every day.

But through all that, Abe is still maybe the most relatable member of the BPRD for me. (Well, the superpowered ones anyway.) Abe isn’t really sure of who he is or his place in the world, and he’s still looking for those connections that root a person. At the same time, Abe sticks to the middle of the road, acting as the voice of reason even in unreasonable circumstances. He’s capable of emotional outbursts and faults, but for the most part, Abe succeeds at being a good person. Abe might be the strangest core member of the BPRD, but that he’s never inhuman. We don’t need to be super heroes; just basically good people are enough to keep the world running.

2.) Davy Jones (Pirates of the Caribbean)

Man, I just love how cool this guy is. Sea monster octopus pirate; that’s a character description that makes my inner ten year old want to jump and down. Davy Jones’ whole character design is just so nifty; tentacle beard, organic peg-leg, crab-claw hook hand, a sweet pipe and a giant hat. Hat’s also important for the other reason I love Jones; plays into so many mythical archetypes. Costumers for PotC explicitly stated they picked Jones’ hat because it looked like horns, and they really wanted Jones to fit his role as essentially the pirate devil. As the PotC spans out, Jones is revealed to have been even more legendary characters; he’s the Old Man of the Sea that Odysseus had to wrestle to go to Hades, and Charon guiding souls over to the underworld. I’ll be honest, Davy Jones’ pathos with the lost love never really struck a chord with me. Bill Nighy’s performance of it was great, though, so props are definitely in order for that. And last, but certainly not least, I can’t not love a man who keeps a kraken as a pet.

3.) Deep Ones (H.P. Lovecraft)

The classic. The first. Your one and only. It’s beginning to look a lot like fish-men. The blue-collar workers of the Cthulhu Mythos. H.P. Lovecraft’s fear of the ocean and corrupted bloodlines all wrapped into one beautiful, horrible fish creature. Nothing quite beats Lovecraft’s originals; he goes out of his way to describe them as alien, foul, and horrible. They’re another one of those monsters you can practically smell through the pages. I think it’s safe to say that half the other fish-men on this list wouldn’t exist without the Deep Ones. People are still scared of the ocean and the alien things living in it, and the Deep Ones give that fear a face. All the while they call to some primal part of us, an archaic memory that remembers when our species used to be fish, and they tell us to come home. Just as angels call us to come to God, the Deep Ones call us back to the sea. (Also; fat and hunchbacked Deep Ones only. I’m sorry; I wish I didn’t have to make that call. If it was up to me, all Deep Ones would be valid. But these are the times we live in, and sacrifices have to be made, preferably to Father Dagon.)

4.) The Creature from the Black Lagoon (Universal Monsters)

Deep Ones lite. There’s actually a lot I like about the Creature on its own merits. It’s such a natural creature, as far as monsters go. It lives in harmony with its ecosystem, and its design really conveys that its simply a fish that has evolved into a humanoid shape. You can say the same thing about humans, though, and that ultimately is where we connect with the Creature. He’s also kind of charming in his own way; wide eyes, smiling face, no big pointy teeth. He’s practically a goldfish compared to the Deep Ones. And of course those underwater ballet sequences are still just absolutely beautiful. I think more than the Deep Ones, the Creature can probably be compared to King Kong; a primal, more innocent creature so strange that humanity wouldn’t leave it alone. Mankind’s desire to know more about the mysterious ultimately destroyed that mystery, conveying the paradox of how destructive discovery can be.

5.) The Asset (Shape of Water)

We’ve come full circle now, I suppose. Centuries ago, sailors dreamed up half women/half fish creatures to ease their loneliness, and now we’ve made a half man/half fish to do the same for women. The Asset is pretty explicitly a makeover of the Creature from the Black Lagoon, even coming from a distant part of South America. There’s also clearly some Abe Sapien in there, which is only to be expected coming from Guillermo del Toro. This might sound weird, but I think the details I appreciate most are the spines and the fangs. I know this whole movie was supposed to be about how the monster was less dangerous than the Creature, but the spines and fangs just make it feel like a more believable creature.

6.) The Creature (Monster Squad)

But before the asset, there was another Creature from the Black Lagoon reboot in The Monster Squad. This movie is just the gift that keeps on giving. I’d say that the Creature here is the strongest individual design out of the whole batch. He didn’t really do much in this movie, but he made one heck of an impression. Designed by none other than the late, great Stan Winston, this version of the Creature looks like its ready to kick ass and take names. I distinctly get the impression of a piranha from it, and you can just imagine a mob of these guys rising up out of the Amazon and pulling down a river boat.

7.) Sahuagin (Dungeons and Dragons)

There are a lot of different fish people to choose from in D&D. Kuo Toa, Skum, Locathah, mermaids, Atlanteans, and the list grow longer every year. But my personal favorite are the Sahuagin; brutal, murderous raiders living in a strict tribal hierarchy, worshiping a giant shark, and prone to mutations. While most fish men draw from Lovecraft, I got the distinct impression that the Sahuagin were more pulpy, a bit more Edgar Rice Burroughs. Even their other name, the Sea Devils, sounds like something Conan or Tarzan would fight in a comic book. Their designs are just so cool; fin ears, bullet heads, shark teeth, long tails. Before ‘scary’, these were sea monsters made to look intimidating. They are the most organized antagonistic force under the waves, threatening everything from merfolk to sailors. Their goal? Nothing short of supreme domination of the sea.

8.) Shark Giant (Bloodborne)

Another Deep One descendent, and this one hits like a truck. There’s a lot to be said for the shark giant on its own merits. It’s lack of eyes make you think that it senses by scent, and remind you of how a shark can sense a drop of blood in water a hundred miles away. There are, of course, the teeth, and how they seem to take up more space than there is for the mouth. The barnacles on its back are both a crest and a fin. Its paleness makes it seem to glow in the dark, like its bioluminescent. It really reinforces the feeling in the Fishing Hamlet that you’re underwater, like the boundaries between land, sea, and sky have been blurred. More than any other monster in the Fishing Hamlet, the shark giant is what reminds me of Lovecraft’s Dagon; a huge, deformed figure skulking over the mud of a submarine nightmare-scape.

9.) The Children of the Thing That Drifted Ashore (Junji Ito)

The Thing That Drifted Ashore isn’t even really my favorite Junji Ito sea monster story; that would probably be Gyo. But the things that come crawling out of it are some of the first fish people I find genuinely disgusting, evoking that same feeling Lovecraft wanted from his Deep Ones. The Thing had apparently swallowed dozens of people that fell into the sea over the years, keeping them in its stomach. But rather than being digested, the people changed. It’s subtle, but you can still see it; webbed fingers, widened eyes, transparent skin. Inside the Thing, the people were witnesses to the abyss of the deep sea and driven mad by it. I’m reminded of an old version of the story of Jonah I was read as a child, where Jonah looked through the great fish’s eyes and saw the fires of Sheol and the Leviathan at the bottom of the ocean. The people swallowed are reborn, now children of the Thing, belonging only to the deep sea.

10.) Otto Aquarius (The Venture Bros)

I just love this cute little guy. He’s only a minor character on the Venture Brothers, but he still made an impression on me. A half Atlantean that became a Mormon missionary, he’s just so earnest and eager. He’s an obvious play on superheroes like Namor and Aquaman, but they can’t hold a candle to this sweetheart. He’s clean, he’s polite, he’s socially conservative, he’s useless in combat; Otto’s just endearing. Dump the Asset and get with the real catch, folks.

#30 Day Monster Challenge 2 #30 Day Monster Challenge #BPRD #the creature from the black lagoon #the shape of water #h.p. lovecraft #bloodborne #dungeons and dragons #pirates of the caribbean

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thesportssoundoff · 5 years

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I was a guest on @cerealsensei and @theanticool‘s podcast when this story broke a few weeks ago so I’m tapped out on it overall but I do have some thoughts I guess:

1- The Consumer ALWAYS wins

It may pain you (and me) to say that but it's true. If flyweight could move numbers, we'd still have the division in the UFC. Consumers, the folks who don't read stuff like this or spend hours watching podcasts about MMA but put money in the sport, never seemed to gravitate to 125 lbs. Now we can debate the hows or the whys (and I have in the past on here) but that's irrelevant now. The division didn't draw and couldn't draw. The UFC once felt safe enough to make their SECOND every FX show be built primarily around the start of the flyweight division. They once liked Mighty Mouse enough that he was their Go To draw for Fox. Others have pointed out that we're in the era where content trumps names---and the UFC thought SO little of what flyweight did bring that even in an era where nothing matters, Flyweight had to go. Think about that. Flyweight was in my opinion a bit too soon for its time (the UFC rolled it out RIGHT as they were still integrating 135 lbs and 145 lbs) and their fanbase which was still getting used to this sudden influx of smaller guys had a tough time grasping that. This, in turn, was made worse by....

2- Mighty Mouse didn't kill the division....alone.

Demetrious Johnson may be the best pound for pound fighter to ever do this wacky sport. That never mattered. It never WILL matter. Greatness is subjective and greatness doesn't always correlate to a financial payoff in the long run. Demetrious Johnson was probably the worst of the four choices the UFC could've gotten out of their opening tournament with Joe Benavidez, Ian McCall, Demetrious and Yasuhiro Urishitani. He was already slightly unpoular for wins over Kid Yamamoto and Miguel Torres and his run through the tournament saw him beat Ian McCall twice, once in controversial fashion, and then beat Mighty Mouse in a fight that Toronto soundly booed. When he became champ, it went from "The fans will eventually like him" to "the fans will get used to him as champion" to "Well he saves shows" to finally "WeIp we're stuck with him so shut up about it!" Demetrious is in many ways a victim of what he is; an average dude who happens to be really undersized and really amazing at fighting. I always found Demetrious to be poignant talking about fighting but he never struck me (or I guess anybody else) as the sort of personality who can carry a weight class. I remember one instance where he said Dave Sholler told him he should open up more and act like how he does when the cameras aren't on him and his first "joke" to Ariel Helwani was about how the only people who fight after hours in Vegas are him and people who beat their wives. It was cringy which I guess is sort of Johnson's overall problem with fans. He was cringy to some, obnoxious to others, nerdy to most and sort of unwanted to the party by all. It was a bad marriage and no attempts could save it. They went to Washington to try and spotlight him and it fell on its face. That's painful.

Now we can address the help he had in killing this thing. The UFC didn't promote it well and then got frustrated/complacent with Demetrious Johnson. It might not have saved anything but maybe a bit more effort would've helped on the back end. They could've tried and gone down swinging but they didn't. They accepted their fate pretty quickly with this division and decided to just ride the wave until it crashed. We as fans are responsible for not vehemently pushing him the way we rally around other guys. Demetrious Johnson is our Guillermo Rigondeaux which is unfortunate because while I see a ceiling for Mighty Mouse that limits him, he shouldn't be on the same level as the dude who made "HBO executives throw up in their mouths." Demetrious' finishing rate is among the best in the UFC, especially recently, but we sort of neglected that. We also never appreciated how busy he would be while other fighters and champions disappeared for months on end. There's a value to that. Also let's not act like a lot of us didn't groan for hours on end whenever Demetrious was announced as a headliner. We were unfair to him. The MMA media which took time out to remind the world of how small or skinny or how unpopular he was didn't help either. They helped wheel the narrative along. If the head of the division is so X, Y and Z then who is he beating? They must suck too, right? And then there are dudes like John Lineker, Ian McCall, Brandon Moreno, Luis Smolka, Brad Pickett and countless others who would get a little buzz and then either get hurt, lose right after or just disappear entirely.

3- Remember the humans here.

I hate to be all "Think of the children!" but a large number of pro fighters just lost their jobs. That's a part of the fight game of course but most of them are losing these jobs due to how tall they are (or aren't). Men with families/bills/homes so on so forth are now out of work and that's awful. These are real life humans having to lose their opportunity to make money to support themselves. There's no easy fair and simple way to write that off as a minor casualty of MMA's realignment. Take it one step further, the UFC is essentially telling smaller dudes that they don't want them anymore. Fighters in turn can look around the market and see that the other top two orgs may not be interested either. Bellator has shown zero propensity to find a way to get a 125 lb male weight class going (and I'd imagine Coker sat in those meetings and heard what was said/saw numbers) and the PFL I don't believe has a long term focus there either. Not every fighter dreams of having to fight overseas to make ends meet---so there's a good chance this move will cost MMA talent over the long haul. A lot or a little will be the question I guess but neither one is a very glamorous concept. Less fighters in the sport is a bad thing.

4- The allure of the TV fighter is gone

Even if Demetrious Johnson's numbers had shrunk to an insane degree on Fox, he was still a reliable and proven attraction. Even if audiences sampled him and decided "No thanks!", they were still getting a number out of him. In the content driven era of the ESPN deal, Mighty Mouse being able to fight a few times on ESPN Would be a pretty value draw or so you'd think. Unfortunately I think we can safely say that the draw and appeal of the free TV fighter is dead. That's a bad deal for guys who can't move numbers on PPV but can draw audiences to TV (Frankie Edgar, Donald Cerrone come to mind). Demetrious Johnson wasn't needed in an era where over 40 shows a year are going to happen. The flyweight division, home to anywhere from 30 to 50 fighters, wasn't needed in a year where the UFC will need over 20 fights to fill in the spaces they occupied. Everything is expendable currently or perhaps that's always been the case all along. This also begs the question as to whether or not ESPN had a hand in flyweights going away. Fox wanted flyweights (or encouraged it at least) and they're gone as we enter into 2019. Is this an ESPN mandate?

5- The Flyweight Division will exist in MMA so let's see who supports it.

It's fair to say that the end of the flyweight division in the UFC sucks. I would say it. It's unfair to act as if it's going away forever. In the United States, this is a dead deal. Flyweights aren't going to get picked up for a flyweight division if the leading organization in the world tried and failed. Most MMA organizations attempt to bastardize UFC ideas that work, not latch onto the failures. That said, the regional scene will be flush with flyweight fights so go out and support those orgs. Be one of those guys who hypes up Tachi Palace or a Titan FC or an LFA. If you've got a subscription service to a Fight Pass or DAZN or ONE and a flyweight fight is on, go and check it out. Don't get mad because the UFC did what you all wanted them to do and now you gotta find something new to be pissed about. If the flyweights mean that much to you then make sure to go out of your way to see them. MMA on a grander scale has never been more accesable if you want it to be.

#MMA #UFC #125 lbs #flyweight

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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 6 years

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The Shape of Water review

Last year saw the release of an utter travesty of filmmaking: Beauty and the Beast. It is easily one of the worst films I have ever seen in my life; it lacked everything that made the original Disney film great. The side characters were all dull, Gaston was a fucking bore, the Beast was a bland CGI furry, and Emma Watson as Belle gave the most lifeless, miserable, atrocious performance of her entire career. And it sucks, because we DESERVE a good Beauty and the Beast film, we deserve a love story where the monster is more human than the human suitor, with sympathetic characters and an interesting antagonist… and visionary genius and absolute madman Guillermo del Toro gave us just that, with the Shape of Water, a film that is easily one of the greatest love stories ever told.

This film has been memed to Hell and back, what with the basic premise – a woman bones a fishman – being particularly amusing to the internet for obvious reasons. But to the shock of absolutely no one, the film is so much deeper than the sex – in fact, you don’t even get to see the sex, and I’ll get into why later in the review. For now, let’s start with a plot summary:

It’s the early 60s, and the Cold War is at its peak. Elisa Esposito is a mute janitor working at a government lab with her black BFF Zelda. One day, she discovers a creature being held at the government lab that the superiors are calling “The Asset.” An amphibious fishman from the Amazon, she finds herself intrigued by this being and soon finds herself befriending it. Not long after, the government plans to vivisect the creature, but Elisa ain’t having any of that shit, and so with her old man artist friend Giles plots to get the Asset free. But all this is easier said than done… can they free the Asset, or is the man running the show, Richard Strickland, going to catch on?

I’m gonna be doing a lot of comparing and contrasting to Beauty and the Beast, because these films do follow the same sort of basic structure and have a lot of the same archetypical characters and themes, such as “the real monsters are prejudiced humans” and “strong female who feels alienated from her society.” The latter is particularly relevant here, and not just for Elisa; del Toro has stated that the movie is meant to reflect on how he feels as an immigrant in America, and the feelings of isolation and being an outsider are major parts for every single one of the film’s sympathetic characters. Elisa is a mute, as is the Asset (though the Asset is also, you know, an Amazonian fishman); Zelda is a black woman in the early 60s; Giles is an elderly gay man; and Dimitri is a communist scientist undercover at the government facility. Unlike in Beauty and the Beast, which has such a dull and unappealing supporting cast (save for Lefou), this movie’s supporting cast all have deep stories to them that are intricately woven into their characterization and reflect some of the core themes of the film. It really is impressive when a character who is a proud communist is sympathetic, likable, and heroic; Dimitri is to this movie what Stronheim is to Battle Tendency, to put it in the most bizarre way possible. Every single actor does a fantastic job, and it’s pretty easy to believe any of these characters could be a person’s favorite of the film.

But what is a Beauty and the Beast story without a Gaston? I hated the Gaston in the Disney remake, as he was a bland, unappealing, and uncharismatic waste of a good actor. None of that is a problem here; Michael Shannon (who you may know best as General Zod from Man of Steel) is playing Strickland, and it is just as fantastic a performance as the rest of the cast. He’s arrogant, pompous, and honestly kind of disgusting – even before his fingers start rotting he pisses all over the bathroom floor because he doesn’t hold his dick when he pees, and then he doesn’t wash his hands, oh and he’s also racist, prejudiced, and harasses Elisa – but he’s also the poster child for idyllic 60s life. He has a home with a wife, two kids, he buys himself a fancy new car… unlike our heroes, Strickland’s life is picture perfect, like the families in old timey ads. This is a stark contrast to the less perfect lives our heroes lead, but it is an important part of the film, as it showcases that true humanity doesn’t simply come from fitting the mold of the what people think humanity is, it is who we are when no one is looking, who we are when we are in a bad spot and help others, who we are when we are truly selfless. Strickland is not selfless; in fact, he is an utter bastard. And yet for all the world he seems nothing but your normal perfect white 60s husband, while the heroes are a ragtag assembly of the sort of people who would be most shunned in that time period.

Of course, one of the most essential parts of this sort of story is the leads themselves; Beauty and the Beast had a lifeless CGI doll that drifted into the uncanny valley every other shot as the leading man, and Emma Watson giving one of the blandest, most lifeless performances this side of Jennifer Lawrence in an X-Men movie as our leading lady. Needless to say, they fucking blew. But here, HERE we have Elisa and the Asset, two very unconventional leads. You’d think a character being mute would be a huge hindrance, but as movies like The Little Mermaid show, you can be strong and interesting even without a voice, and Elisa is definitely both of those things. She is so expressive even when not using her sign language, you can always get a really good feel for what’s on her mind at any time, and actress Sally Hawkins just really nails it, especially in a ll her interactions with the Asset. And the Asset himself, played by Doug Jones, is perhaps the greatest leading man in romantic history. Leave it to a master like Doug Jones to truly sell you that this massive walking fish creature is the perfect romantic lead. Frankly, I’m a bit miffed he didn’t get an Oscar nomination for this performance, because despite not speaking and despite being an amphibious beast, he really delivers a compelling performance, above and beyond what you’d expect. And as you would expect of any del Toro monster, the Asset is gorgeously designed and really appealing to look at despite being a big fish creature. And guess what? Unlike the Beast, the Asset utilizes a lot of practical effects and isn’t just a nonstop CGI dummy the whole film!

It’s interesting to note that the actual romance and the infamous fishman sex do not occur earlier in the film; it happens more towards the midway/final third of the film. But this is a good thing, because it does give us proper buildup and leads to the attraction feeling natural rather than forced and rushed. You see the two build a connection with each other, these two outsiders no one else truly understands connecting with each other because, in their eyes, the other is not the flawed, broken being that others see them as. To each other, they are perfect. And this leads me into talking about the sex scene, and why we don’t see it: we don’t see it, because doing so would turn something beautiful into nothing but cheap titillation. Let me explain further: the only sex we see in the film is the awkward, bland, missionary position sex between Strickland and his shiny, idyllic housewife. During sex he shoves his bleeding fingers in his wife’s mouth as she moans in pleasure so he can shut her up and imagine Elisa. The sex is awkward, uncomfortable, and almost disturbing to watch. There’s no passion, no love, there’s nothing there. It’s basically a million other sex scenes in a million other movies. The love between Elisa and the Asset, on the other hand, is beautiful, passionate, intimate… we shouldn’t be allowed to see it. We shouldn’t reduce the love of these two, this beautiful romance, down to some sleazy masturbatory visual extravaganza. What they had together is something truly special, and I believe it was truly the right thing to leave their lovemaking to the imagination; it is not our place to intrude on and gawk at true love being consummated.

This is the Beauty and the Beast movie we all deserve. It’s The Creature from the Black Lagoon movie we deserve. This is easily del Toro’s best and strongest film, better than Hellboy II, better than Pan’s Labyrinth, better than Pacific Rim… and make no mistake, saying that is REALLY SAYING SOMETHING, as all those films are absolutely fantastic. I absolutely loved this movie, it really was everything I could have possibly hoped it would be and more, and there is absolutely no way I could live with myself if I didn’t recommend this wholeheartedly to everyone. Honestly, even if it’s not my favorite film of 2017, I would have put this as the #1 best movie of last year regardless, because from an objective standpoint, it IS the best movie of 2017. If you’re looking for a weirder sort of romance film, if you’re looking for a movie where the monster finds love, if you’re looking for a 2017 Beauty and the Beast movie that doesn’t absolutely suck ass, this right here is the movie for you.

#Review #movie review #the shape of water #guillermo del toro #the asset #doug jones #Sally hawkins #sci-fi #romance #beauty and the beast

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wits-writing · 6 years

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Pacific Rim Uprising (movie review)

Thanks to a weak marketing campaign eventually leading to a middling box office take, the first Pacific Rim was essentially a cult classic before it premiered. Its status is earned due to the well-drawn (if archetypal) characters, lived-in production design and an all-timer action sequence in the Battle of Hong Kong. All of that filtered through Guillermo Del Toro’s sense of direction that left room for quiet moments that breath life into the characters and emphasize themes of cooperation and overcoming trauma, literalized through the Drift. Beneath all the giant robots versus kaiju spectacle was a beating heart that was able to strike a chord with enough people as they saw Raleigh Beckett, Stacker Pentecost, and Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi, one of the few returning actors in the sequel) among others made it the kind of movie that can still be discussed five years later.

But I’ll be surprised if people are still discussing Pacific Rim Uprising five days from now.

Directed by Steven S. DeKnight, Uprising tells the story of Jake Pentecost (John Boyega), son of Stacker Pentecost, ten years after the supposed end of the Kaiju War from the first movie. A wash out from the PPDC training program, he’s drafted back in to train the next generation of pilots by his adopted sister, Mako. With the fear of a kaiju resurgence always present in everyone’s mind, the Jaeger program is threatened with potential replacement by a new legion of Jaeger-drones developed by the private sector with the help of former PPDC scientist and kaiju-expert Newt Geiszler (Charlie Day). When a mysterious black Jaeger, called Obsidian Fury, makes key strikes against the PPDC, it reveals a mystery that could lead to the return of humanity’s enemies from beneath the Pacific.

And it has all the dramatic weight of a helium balloon.

[Full Review Under the Cut]

A lot can and has been said about the characters in the original Pacific Rim being overly-broad, but there was a dimensionality to them in how their backstories were spelled out through the visual storytelling and the chances they were given to interact that the connections they made with each other felt genuine. There is absolutely none of that this time around as the characters are too busy explaining the plot to each other for there to be a single moment of genuine characterization. The one character that best exemplifies this is Nate Lambert (Scott Eastwood), who has some past animosity with Jake and they’re apparently romantic rivals for the affections of a female Ranger who barely gets any screen time, but there’s nothing to him or that rivalry. This is an across the board issue in Uprising. For a story where a major part of the sci-fi conceit is the characters needing to connect with each other’s minds and embrace their feelings, there’s no meat on the bones of any of the character dynamics.

The worst offender being the relationship between the adopted siblings, Jake and Mako. Almost as soon as the movie does what could be described as the bare minimum in establishing their relationship as siblings, Mako is unceremoniously killed off and Jake gets thirty seconds of screentime at most to mourn. Boyega and Kikuchi are good performers both doing well with what little they’ve been given, but it doesn’t fix how little there is to begin with. This issue is compounded by the dozen fresh-faced cadets in the Jaeger program, since it’d be generous to call any of them one-dimensional and I’m not in a generous mood for this movie. The one potentially interesting new character among those cadets is Amara Namani (Caelee Spaeny), a street punk girl with a gift for engineering who built a miniature Jaeger, Scrapper, out of decommissioned parts from the mechs. She gets to have just enough scenes of developing a friendship/mentorship with Jake that it makes you wonder why they bothered with Eastwood’s character at all instead of making this the focus.

There was a point early in Uprising where the quick-paced editing and the camera moving around with little apparent purpose behind any of it where I thought, “Oh no, the entire movie’s going to be like this.” When it was exactly that, I wasn’t surprised or angry as much as numb to everything going on. This movie refuses to slow down at all, even when it’s trying to be emotional in a clumsy retread of one of the previous movie’s best moment. The editing compounds every strike against this movie it would’ve had anyway, like middling jokes that land with a thud not having a beat to breath. It gets worse when the action scenes kick in as the weight and power the Jaegers and Kaiju had in the previous movie are replaced with weightless struggles. I have no problem with the more toyetic designs of the Jaegers this time around or their more anime-esque actions in themselves, since that’s true to the mech and kaiju genre roots, but the lack of any meaningful dramatic buildup to the action makes it a bunch of sound and fury, but without the fury. Like someone turned the volume up to eleven on the most repetitive drum solo ever.

Pacific Rim Uprising isn’t completely without merit. Some bits of world-building could’ve been fun if the movie took its time to give them focus, including Scrapper, Jaeger-Kaiju hybrids and new weapon systems for the Jaegers that add visual variety to the otherwise bland action. However, without a vision of its own to give this life beyond a bland attempt at spectacle at the expense of where the first movie excelled, there’s nothing to stay in the brain long after watching it. I find Uprising hard to recommend unless you’re desperate for some giant robot versus monster action and have already watched the original movie more times than you can count along with all the anime and tokusatsu that inspired it.

#Pacific Rim Uprising #Pacific Rim #John Boyega #Steven S DeKnight #Movie Review #Wit's Writing #Mecha #Kaiju #Jaegers #science fiction #Sci Fi Films

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brentwatchesmovies · 6 years

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Top 10 Movies of 2017

Another year is behind us, so that means it’s time for everyone’s ‘my favorite ________ of 2017’ lists. This year, I’m folding to peer pressure and changing the ‘top 8’ favorite movies to ‘top 10’ because honestly, there were too many awesome movies and I originally only did it because that’s how Tarantino narrowed his picks and I wanted to seem cool or something. (On a quick related note, I can’t believe this is my 8th year of doing one of these dumb things. Crazy.) On a personal level, 2017 has been a wild year for me. I got married to my best friend, started a much better and satisfying job, and found out we’re going to be parents this year. It’s going to be an incredibly busy and life-changing 2018, and I can’t wait for it.

In terms of the past year in cinema, it’s been amazing as well. I wanted to see as many movies as I could before finalizing my favorites, and was pretty successful, with a few exceptions. I wasn’t able to see Phantom Thread, The Post, The Florida Project, The Emoji Movie or Coco, to name a few (not seeing the new PTA and Spielberg movies before writing this KILLS me). A lot of the choices on my list might be predictable, especially if you follow me on Twitter, or read movie sites/blogs. Twitter has kind of taken over my actually writing posts for this blog anymore, and maybe one day I’ll get better at coming back here and putting thoughts down (probably not though). Like I’ve said in previous years, these really don’t have a ranking, unless I specify it’s my ‘favorite’ over the others. This is a 100% subjective list, based on an incomplete sampling. The movies listed below either moved me in a huge way, were a complete blast, and/or stayed with me long after I saw them. That’s enough preamble though, let’s get to my favorites of 2017!

In my eyes, this whole reboot-prequel-whatever trilogy is a cinematic miracle. This series, on it’s surface is a very campy, B-movie concept. What Rupert Wyatt and now Matt Reeves have done here is a staggering directorial achievement. This entry further fleshes out the already relatable and complex characters, and continues to add emotional depth that the originals could never even touch. In my eyes, this is what makes this the best movie trilogy since The Lord of the Rings. War Apes (what I find to be the best shorthand for this entry) is the ‘Return of the King’ equivalent of this trilogy. It takes Caesar’s story in darker, more unexpected places, and in a perfect world, would net Andy Serkis an Oscar nomination for best actor. If you’ve slept on this series because it seemed silly, or not really your jam, definitely take the time to catch up with it, it’s most definitely worth it.

This was one of the last movies I saw before making this post, and having just seen it a few days ago, it’s the movie I’ve been thinking about most. In a year that I think a lot of people would call ‘complete awful garbage’, (or something similar), Guillermo Del Toro’s love story of the ‘others’ in society; the forgotten and the disenfranchised, hits home. I’m still working through my thoughts on all of it, but it’s up there with my favorites of his filmography. I don’t think GDT has ever made a movie so unapologetically ‘him’. A sequence near the end of the movie is one of my favorite things I’ve seen all year, and I thought to myself during it that nobody other than this one enigmatic, creative and strange man could make something so unique and beautiful. This one definitely isn’t for everyone, but if you like GDT’s movies, I have a feeling you’ll be on board with this one as well.

From this point forward, if Taylor Sheridan has a new movie coming out, I’ll be there to see it. The previous writer of such films as Sicario and Hell or High Water makes his directorial debut with Wind River. It follows a standard neo-western trend of his previous films, but this time moving the story to snowy Wyoming. Setting the location on an American Indian reservation allows Sheridan to bring up timely themes as well, such as the incredibly high rate at which Native American women disappear on reservations, and how few are ever actually found. It’s an incredibly moving and intense story that plays out after the initial murder/mystery is established, going to some of the most intense places thematically that I’ve seen in a movie this year. The cast all around is stellar, and Jeremy Renner specifically has never been better than he is in this movie. If you’re a fan of neo-westerns or Sheridan’s other movies, Wind River is absolutely worth checking out.

I had been anticipating this movie since I heard about it, having been a huge fan of ‘The Indoor Kids’ podcast, hosted by Emily Gordon and her husband Kumail Nanjiani. It’s a video game podcast that they ended a few years back, but every now and then, they would hint at how they met. This movie is how their eventual marriage came to be, and it’s a beautiful love story, which just so happens to fit the mold of one of the best romantic comedies ever made. Not only is it a great comedy, but also dramatically complex due to Emily’s time spent in a coma at the beginning of their relationship and Kumail’s meeting of her two parents. Everyone in this movie gives it their all, with Ray Romano and Holly Hunter standing out as Emily’s parents. The movie also tackles what it’s like to be the child of an immigrant in America, and that perspective was fresh and eye-opening for a big Hollywood movie. This is definitely one to watch with the family.

*potential spoilers for mother!*

If you read my post I wrote about ‘Noah’, you’ll probably understand why I love this movie so much. This is the second film by Darren Aranofsky that explores the morality of not only God, but of the entire bible this time around. Something about that intent clicks with me. Maybe it’s being raised in church until my late teens or the religious cynic inside me, but I love when he tackles these issues. The fact that this religious interpretation is only one of many possible ways to read this movie is what makes it fascinating. Is it about climate change and how we’re destroying the earth? Is it a dramatization of the Bible and God’s relationship with humanity? Or is it about the relationship between artists, the things they create, and the audience? On top of these questions, Mother! Is beautifully shot, acted and constructed. I was pretty much in shock for the entire last third of the movie and that’s more than I can say for almost any movie I’ve seen this year.

Y’all probably knew this was coming, right? I’m so in the bag for Star Wars movies that any objectivity is completely out the window at this point. I also understand that many people REALLY do not like this movie, and I’ve been grappling with that and processing it since I saw the movie a couple weeks ago. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to see the movie a second time, so this is based entirely off my first time seeing The Last Jedi. This movie was everything I wanted and more. It absolutely has faults worth talking about, but to me, the highs of TLJ far outweigh the lows. There were moments in this movie that I yelled in joy, smiled ear to ear and also cried on numerous occasions. For the first time since watching the original trilogy as a kid, I felt like I was watching a true Star Wars movie, with the original series characters, and the great new ones established in VII as well. The prequels have their moments, and Rogue One and Force Awakens were fun diversions in fan fiction, but to me, this movie felt true to what I love about Star Wars. I can’t wait to watch it again.

Sometimes I just think to myself, “it’s really damn cool that I’m around at the same time as Christopher Nolan.” The guy will go down as an all-time great director, and I love that with Dunkirk he proved that he doesn’t need a high concept idea and a ton of exposition to sell it. All you need to tell a gripping story is a camera and a story with baked-in drama, like the evacuation of Dunkirk. The movie is almost a silent film with how little dialogue there is, relying solely on Hoyte van Hoytema’s beautiful cinematography and Nolan’s adherence to old-school film techniques, with as little CG as possible. Dunkirk makes for the most intense theater going experience I’ve probably had all year, and I fear that seeing it at home can never reach the levels of seeing it on the big screen. Regardless, Dunkirk is possibly Nolan’s best film yet, an exciting evolution of his directorial skill, and one of the best war films of all time.

In my opinion, there was no greater surprise at the theater this year than Jordan Peele’s ‘Get Out’. A social horror film in the vein of such classics as ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ and ‘The Step-ford Wives’, and on the same level of quality as well. I’d also have to say that Get Out epitomizes the state of our country the best of any other movie I’ve seen this year, perfectly nailing racial tensions much more nuanced than your typical racist-redneck-murder-family horror movies ever could. I rewatched the movie again over Christmas (this and the Witch make great Christmas movies btw) and it reaffirmed how tightly written, acted and directed it truly is. Every setup has a fulfilling payoff, every character a great/exciting/terrifying moment, and it has one of the most subversive, ingenious endings I’ve seen of this, or any year. Get out is a certified horror classic, and easily one of the best movies of the year.

Coming-of-age stories are very often ‘my jam’, as I’m sure you could surmise from any number of posts on here from the past. What I loved so much about Luca Guadagnino’s ‘Call me by Your Name’ is the sincerity and honesty in every one of the characters in the movie. The two leads (played by Timothée Chalamet and Armie Hammer) wear their hearts on their sleeves, and soon find themselves in a summer love affair. What this movie captures so well is that feeling of young ‘love’, or at least infatuation with amazingly believable ease. It also features a moment between Timothée Chalamet’s character and his father (played by the always great Michael Stuhlbarg) that crushed me. It hit me right in the nexus of all my dad baggage, past and present, and turned me into a weeping mess. I aspire to be the kind of loving, understanding and wise father that Timothée Chalamet’s character is blessed with in this movie.

Alright guys, time for my favorite movie of the year, and it’s easily Denis Villeneuve’s science fiction masterpiece: Blade Runner 2049. No movie transported me completely like this film did. The entire run time of the movie was almost like an out of body experience. It was surely aided by seeing it on the massive downtown IMAX screen, but when myself and a couple friends walked out of this movie, we were practically in shock. I’m sure I sound hyperbolic right now, but in my eyes this movie is a top-to-bottom cinematic masterpiece. It expands and even improves on themes and ideas that the first film only flirted with. It deepens the philosophy of the world in interesting ways, and does all this with a far more emotional core than the first ever had as well. I’d be remiss not talking about how beautiful this movie is as well. If Roger Deakins doesn’t win his first Cinematography Oscar for this film, somebody should get 25 to life. The second this movie ended, I knew it was my movie of the year, regardless of what else I saw in 2017. It’s a sequel for the ages, and a science fiction film that people decades from now will look back on with intrigue and wonder.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Thor Ragnarok

Brigsby Bear

Brawl in Cell Block 99

Okja

Baby Driver

Your Name

Logan

John Wick: Chapter 2

Spider-Man: Homecoming

I, Tonya

That’s going to do it for my top films of 2017, thanks so much for reading! If you have thoughts or opinions on my list, hit me up on Twitter or Facebook and let’s talk about them (unless it’s a bad Last Jedi take, those won’t do). It was incredibly hard to cut out some of the honorable mentions but overall I’m extremely happy with my list and all of the movies I was lucky enough to see this year (and lucky enough to have an awesome wife who understands and accepts my movie-going addiction!) Share this post with your friends if you’d like, and I hope you have a great 2018!

#movies #movie review #movie reviews #2017movies #film #blade runner 2049 #the shape of water #guillermo del toro #ryan gosling #the last jedi #reylo #star wars #get out #jordan peele #the big sick #kumail nanjiani #baby driver #thor ragnarok #margot robbie

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citizenscreen · 6 years

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Contributor Susu is back with an ode to her heritage.

My Hispanic Heritage in Film: The Old, The New, and The Internal Spark

I sit here with you, finally, after weeks of pondering the threads that might tie my next movie list together. Last month was National Hispanic Heritage month and as a daughter of Spanish-speaking parents, I humbly and proudly begin there, on that corner of a gorgeous and intricate tapestry of humanity and culture.

I am woven into the tapestry with thread the color of Cuba, which is where my parents and a long line of ancestors were born. Things B.C. (before Cuba) are still a mystery. My DNA shows no sign of indigenous blood, which means that the threads extend across the Atlantic to Europe and Africa. But that’s another story. For now, and for about 200 years, with the exception of my maternal grandfather, my family tree and its history is firmly rooted in the westernmost province of Pinar del Río, Cuba.

As simple as that should be, as singular a representation of culture it might offer, it is not. I discover that, as I try to choose the handful of movies to share with you here, there are in fact several Cubas that express themselves to me in life and in film.

The first is the mythological Cuba, the one that lives behind the mist of nostalgia that envelopes the pre-Castro-Revolution generation, the Caribbean Camelot set in lush mountainsides, swaying to the sound of town sociedades, and thriving with the hope of a sunlit main street. It is, in my mom’s words, the image of un pueblo alegre.

The second is the new Cuba, the one I visited for the first time 15 years ago, which is decidedly “other.” It’s an “other” so drastic that my mom, having been gone for 40 years, didn’t recognize it as she moved through its haunted streets again. While described by many as being “frozen in time,” the phrase is inaccurate. What’s frozen is still. Preserved. And that’s not the truth of Cuba. What might be the country’s motto is injected into every conversation: No es fácil. It’s not easy. The island is structurally compromised by lack of resources and culturally limited by the lack of ideological flexibility, yes. But make no mistake, it not frozen. It is living, breathing, moving forward.

In writing this post and examining my movie list, I discover a third, more personal place. An internal spark. My guess is that it lives and breathes in all sons and daughters of immigrants. I don’t think of it, any more than I think of blinking or scratching an itch. But it’s there, at work all the time, activated when I switch from English to Spanish in conversation, or when I hear Salsa and absolutely…must…dance.

All three places, the old, the new, and the internal spark, are my heritage. Here are a few of the movies that shed some light on them:

The Lost City (2005), directed by Andy Garcia, written by Guillermo Cabrera Infante: “Everything I love is in this movie, including my kids.” These are Andy Garcia’s words while promoting the film in interviews. My words would be “epic poem.” The story is set on the island itself in the year leading up to Castro’s revolution in 1959, and is centered on the conflicting ideologies of three brothers. Among the elements I love most are the cast of mostly Cuban actors, and a soundtrack of original, classical music that reduces me to tears.

Before Night Falls (2000), directed by Julian Schnabel, written by Julian Schnabel, Cunningham O’Keefe, and Lazaro Gomez Carriles. Based on Reinaldo Arenas’ memoir of the same name (Antes Que Anochesca), the story visits Arenas’ struggles from destitute childhood to homosexual manhood in an unforgiving culture of fear and repression. To know that Arenas began writing this book after he was diagnosed with HIV, knowing that his life would end and how he would end it is its own tragedy and triumph. Javier Bardem as Arenas is flawless. Keep your eyes open for Johnny Depp and Sean Penn, who looks so much like one of my uncles I had to do a double-take.

Strawberry and Chocolate (Fresa y Chocolate) (1993), directed by Tomas Gutierrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabio, written by Tomas Gutierrez Alea and Senel Paz. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve popped this movie into my DVD player. It stars a delicious Jorge Perugorría as gay man and intellectual, and Vladimir Cruz as fiercely heterosexual male and devoted son of the communist revolution. I love every single thing about this movie, beginning with the fact that it was actually filmed in Cuba. I don’t know how the cast was able to film this story. The themes and conversation between these characters is strictly forbidden by the state, prompting the authorities to ban the movie on TV for 20 years after it was released in theaters. It is the only Cuban film ever to have been nominated for an Oscar and oh yeah, it was produced by Robert Redford.

Guantanamera (1995), directed by Tomas Gutiérrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabio, written by Eliseo Alberto, Tomas Gutierrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabio. Peruggoría stars in this film as well, but this time as a truck-driving macho man with a sexual partner at every stop along his route. The story, though, is not just about him, but about Cuba itself. If you want a story of how things “go” in modern-day life and the spirit in which the people on the island approach their struggles, this would be the one to watch. This is another one I’ve countless times for its authenticity, absurdity, and laugh-out-loudness.

Chef (2014), directed and written by Jon Favreau. I admit it. More often than not, I watch a movie from the comfort of my couch. Which means I fall asleep. My commitment to the movies and creativity forces me to watch a film again and again until dammit, I get through the thing. This, however, was not the case with “Chef.” It is a joy, a gem, and a riot. To add to Jon Favreau’s signature style and conversational wit, we have John Leguizamo as his character’s partner, a Cuban sandwich truck as the “dream,” and a few moments of perfection from another favorite, Bobby Cannavale, who delivers the word “lechón” like a philharmonic delivers Mozart. Cannavale is half-Cuban, which explains his perfect pitch.

The Motorcycle Diaries (2004), directed by Walter Salles, written by Enesto “Che” Guevara, Alberto Granado and Jose Rivera. As most know, Ernesto Guevara is a complex figure, received by some as hero and by others as cold-blooded assassin. In silent deference to my tribe I rejected this particular film for a long time, believing it would depict a romanticized version of a man I didn’t want to know or forgive. In the end, my curiosity and desire to understand took over and years after it was released, I watched it. You don’t need a critique from me to know it’s a wonderful film. I am glad that I watched it and would like to believe that as a young man, Guevara’s intentions were true, and that he was, like many in power, tragically derailed by his ego. Gael García Bernal (as Che) and Rodrigo de la Serna (as Alberto Granado) are magical together.

Spanglish (2004), directed and written by James L. Brooks. To start, I am not an Adam Sandler fan but was happily surprised by his role as quietly desperate father, husband and chef. I choose this movie for this list, though, because of Paz Vega and Shelbie Bruce, who play immigrant mother and American daughter in ways too familiar and plentiful to enumerate. Translating conversations between my mom and non-Spanish-speaking folks is the story of my life, and this movie handles that reality with humor, grace and dignity. Plus, Cloris Leachman. I could not love a woman more.

Dance With Me (1998), directed by Randa Haines, written by Daryl Matthews. This one’s a feel-gooder, a love story with the requisite gorgeous people who don’t get along at first but find each other later. There’s nothing really different about this film’s themes and conflicts, nor is the acting a thing of Oscar-worthy proportions. But there is a scene…in a club…with Albita, a famous Cuban songwriter/singer, performing…where the Salsa just…takes OVER. I‘ve watched that scene a thousand times. It is pure joy. I saw this film in the theater with my mom. In the middle of that same club scene, just as I wondered whether my dad – a fantastic dancer in his youth – had danced like that, my mom pulled me close and said, “Así era en Cuba.” “That’s how it was in Cuba.”

The Mambo Kings (1992), directed by Arne Glimcher, written by Oscar Hijuelos and Cynthia Cidre. The book “The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love” by Oscar Hijuelos was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. And so, imagine my surprise when the movie version was a travesty. I don’t know what would have saved it or made it right, but I believe it begins with casting someone other than Armand Assante, whose rendition of Cuban Male is a constant sucking in of the cheeks and strutting like a peacock. Everything about him was wrong, from his accent to his sense of rhythm, and the movie suffers dearly for it. And yet, here it is on my list because Antonio Banderas does do justice to his role, because my beloved Celia Cruz appears in several scenes, and because of a perfect moment in a club scene in which a man, an amazing dancer, jumps out of his chair and begins a conga line. It is everything.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), directed and written by Woody Allen. I don’t have one heck of a lot of patience for Woody Allen’s characters. There, I’ve said it. And so again, I didn’t run to the theater to watch this when it first came out, even though I would watch Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz read the newspaper. But one day I watched. And holy cow, when Bardem’s character proposes a trip to Oviedo, I nearly broke a kneecap as I hurled myself closer to the screen. You see, Oviedo, a town in northwest Spain, is where my maternal grandfather is from. I know close to nothing about him. He died when my mom and her siblings were too young to remember him. Oviedo is the one item on my bucket list, my mystery, and a branch in my tree that I hope to learn more about one day.

This post is dedicated to my father, Oscar, who passed away 37 years ago, and who is fully responsible for the part of me that absolutely…must…dance.

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Susu is getting her movie fix here and I couldn’t be happier about it, but she writes regularly at Sin Zapato, a barefoot blog wherein she shares insights on being. Take a look at it here or via the link on this blog’s home page.

My Hispanic Heritage in Film: The Old, The New, and The Internal Spark Contributor Susu is back with an ode to her heritage. My Hispanic Heritage in Film: The Old, The New, and The Internal Spark…

#Cuba in Film #Hispanic Heritage Films

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cloakedsparrow · 7 years

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From the moment “Pacific Rim” was announced, the idea always boiled down to one thing: giant robots fighting giant monsters. The robots got a lot of attention, but there was no denying the appeal of the huge creatures known as”kaiju.” They were more than just big beasts for the robots to pound on, because there was a lot going on with the monsters behind-the-scenes, and the film crew spent a lot of time and effort to make them.

Some things about the kaiju you might not have noticed if you only saw the movie once. Even if you’ve seen the movie 100 times, there are still some interesting facts behind the scenes you wouldn’t get. With development ongoing in the sequel, “Pacific Rim: Uprising,” CBR is here to count down 15 things you didn’t know about the kaiju.

15. WHAT ARE KAIJU

If we’re gonna talk about kaiju, then we should start with the word itself. Even though “Pacific Rim” made it more popular in the West, the movie didn’t invent the word, because “kaiju” is actually a Japanese word that’s roughly translated as “strange beast.” Americans just think of kaiju as “giant monsters,” but it really means the giant monster genre of Japanese TV shows and movies.

The first and most famous kaiju that most movie fans think of is the titular creature from the 1954 movie “Godzilla,” about a giant fire-breathing dinosaur-like creature brought back to life by nuclear testing. There are lots of other Japanese monsters like Mothra that can be considered kaiju, and there’s even a giant Frankenstein’s monster in 1965’s “Frankenstein Conquers the World.” The Japanese made the kaiju an analogy of the rampant destruction of the nuclear bomb, but in “Pacific Rim,” kaiju were inter-dimensional monsters that come out of a breach at the bottom of the ocean.

14. KAIJU IN SUITS

The kaiju of “Pacific Rim” are awesome, but still feel familiar, because they’re inspired by the Japanese monster movies of the ’50s and ’60s, which have a special place in the heart of the director Guillermo del Toro. Many of the movie’s fans share the same love of watching giant monsters smash their way through cardboard cities, and “Pacific Rim” pays homage to those old films, including the designs.

Most of the kaiju from the old movies had to be made with stuntmen wearing rubber outfits. Unlike those old movies, the giant monsters in “Pacific Rim” are all computer-generated, so they could look like anything, but del Toro went in the opposite direction. He told his designers to make all the kaiju look like something a human being could fit into. In other words, they look like men in suits. However, del Toro ordered the team not to rip off their designs from existing kaiju, but rather come up with new ideas.

13. KAIJU IDOL

The kaiju in “Pacific Rim” are a collection of weird and stylish creatures that make the movie fun to watch. One reason why the kaiju are so great is that only the best of the best made an appearance. That was what del Toro wanted, because he didn’t just hire a bunch of designers, have them hand in kaiju designs, and take what he got to put them on screen. Nope, del Toro did what he called an “American Idol”-type competition to vote on designs, and get the best of the best.

Del Toro had the production team design 40 different kaiju silhouettes and then had everyone vote on which ones they liked best. Then they eliminated the lowest-ranking kaiju and voted on the winners. They kept doing that until only nine were left, the cream of the crop, and those became the kaiju which would appear in the movie. They basically held a tournament and the winners made the team.

12. KAIJU ARE ANIMALS

Just like the kaiju in “Pacific Rim” could have been any shape but stayed in the form of men in suits, they also could have been unearthly creatures that have never been seen on Earth before. After all, it’s CGI. There could have been giant worms or glowing balls of light. Del Toro gave the designers another order, which was to make the kaiju based on real animals, and they knocked it out of the park.

The kaiju all have animal qualities that make them seem familiar. For instance, the brawling creature Leatherback walks on huge oversized arms like a gorilla. The creature Onibaba that terrorized the young Mako Mori in a flashback has multiple legs and claws like a crab. That’s a callback to the original Japanese kaiju, who usually had qualities of different animals like the giant moth Mothra and the giant praying mantis Kamacuras in 1967’s “Son of Godzilla.”

11. BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS

The movie described the kaiju blood (called “kaiju blue”) as being toxic. There’s more to that side of them, because the creatures are toxic in every way. Everything about the kaiju is poisonous, including their blood and excrement. Whenever a kaiju is hurt, its blood spreads everywhere, covering the city in noxious glowing ooze. When the kaiju dies, its body decomposes, and the kaiju blue turns into a poisonous mist that spreads through the air. If anyone breathes in the mist, they go into shock and can die.

The toxic nature of the kaiju isn’t an accident. The aliens that created them, called the Precursors, wanted the kaiju to be as damaging to humans as possible. The kaiju are basically biological weapons made to destroy as much of the Earth as they can. Just walking on the ground, a kaiju is causing disaster. When they die, the monsters ruin the ground around them, making any attempt to stop them a pyrrhic victory.

10. NOT SO DUMB

Watching “Pacific Rim,” it would easy to call the kaiju “big, dumb monsters,” but that would be a huge mistake. The kaiju are definitely big and they are monsters, but they aren’t dumb. In fact, the kaiju are smart enough to make anyone who fights them regret thinking they could just shoot at them until they die. In fights with the kaiju, Earth and the jaegers have seen the giant monsters pull off some major moves.

For one thing, the kaiju can communicate with each other telepathically, which allows them to coordinate their attacks. It works sort of like the drift in the jaegers, where they can work together, and we saw in the Triple Event that the kaiju weren’t just standing around. They were pulling off sneak attacks and targeting critical parts of the jaegers. The kaiju also have two brains; one to handle cognitive and motor functions in the front and a second brain in the back of the body. That also gives them a boost of intelligence.

9. THE SERIZAWA SCALE

Given their destructive power and toxic nature, a kaiju attack is more like a natural disaster than an animal attack. That’s probably why the kaiju are sorted into categories, just like hurricanes and earthquakes. In “Pacific Rim,” kaiju are classified by the Serizawa Scale, which fans believe is named after Dr. Daisuke Serizawa, the scientist in 1954’s “Godzilla” who came up with the “Oxygen Destroyer” that killed Godzilla.

The Serizawa Scale has five categories. The water displacement (or size), the toxicity level of their blood, and the amount of radiation the kaiju give off decides which category the kaiju fall into. Category I kaiju like Onibaba are no cake walk, but they’re the easiest to fight and least destructive. Category V kaiju Slattern was the most dangerous monster the jaegers had ever faced. The scale is helpful in knowing what the robots are up against, but the bottom line is that all kaiju are bad.

8. MADE TO ORDER

The kaiju are different from any other lifeform on Earth, and not just because they’re giant monsters from another dimension. Well, that’s certainly part of it, but the kaiju are also created differently than any other creature because kaiju aren’t born, they’re made. As Newton discovered in “Pacific Rim,” the kaiju are grown as cloned body parts from a single genetic line instead of whole animals. The body parts are then sewn together by the Precursors to become whatever they need at the time.

That makes the kaiju incredibly versatile, malleable, and quick to produce. If the Precursors need a kaiju with two clawed arms, four legs and two heads, they can do it. If they need a kaji with one arm that sprays acid, they can make that too. Almost any creature they can imagine becomes real. The Precursors are like the Burger King of monster makers, because they always have it their way.

7. BEST OF THE BEST

Now let’s talk about some things you definitely wouldn’t know just from watching the movie. The prequel comic and novelization of “Pacific Rim” provided details that filled in more of the background of the kaiju. For instance, the life of a kaiju in its native dimension (called the Anteverse) isn’t all roses and sunshine. In fact, it’s downright hostile. The Precursors don’t just build kaiju and send them to Earth. The kaiju have to go through their own trials first.

In the Anteverse, kaiju are pitted against each other in combat to find out which are the strongest. The ones that lose the battles are killed. The ones that survive are forced into combat again until only the strongest and most deadly come out on top. It’s a Darwinian tournament that means only the best of the best are sent to Earth. We should be thankful getting the cream of the crop if they weren’t there to kill us all.

6. KAIJU CULTURE

In our world, kaiju are really popular among fans of Japanese monster movies, which makes sense because giant monsters are cool. In the world of “Pacific Rim,” the love of kaiju is cranked up to 11. As we saw in the opening montage of the movie, the kaiju made a huge impact on the environment, but also pop culture. Kaiju have influenced everything from entertainment to fashion in the near future, which only makes sense. Seeing giant crabs and lizards on TV is bound to inspire someone.

In “Pacific Rim,” children play with action figures of kaiju and jaegers. People idolize the kaiju and tattoo them onto their bodies, like Newton. There are fashion designers who make outfits and makeup inspired by the kaiju. There are kaiju on TV shows and in movies, and the kaiju are even worshipped in temples made from their corpses like we saw outside Hannibal Chau’s shop.

5. HOW KAIJU ARE NAMED

The kaiju have some awesome names like Leatherback, Knifehead and Slattern. It seems like every kaiju gets a cool name right out of the gate, and that’s not an accident. In the world of “Pacific Rim,” people don’t sit around during an attack going, “What do you think that one should be? It’s got a cool horn on its head. What about Hornasaurus?” No, the government has a database that generates and assigns names to kaiju the moment they’re identified. It’s not an original idea. Tropical storms are given names based on databases generated by international agencies. Government projects get randomly assigned names as well.

Of course, in reality, the kaiju are given names by the movie’s designers. It’s not much of a coincidence that Knifehead has a head shaped like a knife. The movie gives all the kaiju titles based on their appearance or traits, plus whether the name is cool or not, which is why all the names are great and add to the monster’s mystique.

4. GREAT MOMENTS

When Guillermo del Toro agreed to direct “Pacific Rim,” he worked with the screenwriter Travis Beacham to create some new story elements. Several of the coolest moments in the movie came from del Toro, who had some pretty specific ideas of what he wanted to see. You can thank del Toro for the “live birth” kaiju scene and the flashback of Mako Mori to her childhood attack.

When we mention the live birth scene, we’re talking about the part where a dead kaiju turned out to be pregnant and its baby burst from the body on a rampage. Del Toro has said the moment came from his desire to see a kaiju born on screen. The scene where Mori flashed back to her traumatic childhood watching the kaiju chasing her through the city was del Toro’s idea of seeing a kaiju attack from a child’s perspective. Both scenes were great moments in a great movie.

3. KAIJU EVOLUTION

One of the biggest mistakes Earth made in fighting the kaiju was not realizing they were facing a coordinated threat. It was a mistake that cost them dearly. From the beginning, the defense forces (and the audience) assumed that the kaiju were just random creatures wandering through the breach into the normal universe. Each attack was treated separately from the others, so the military assumed they could eventually get the upper hand. Unfortunately, they underestimated the kaiju. Or, more importantly, they underestimated the forces behind the kaiju.

As Newton discovered, the kaiju were being sent to destroy Earth’s population. Each kaiju was designed and built to overcome the weapons that had beaten the last ones. That’s why the kaiju were able to smash through the Wall being built along the Pacific coast: that particular kaiju was specifically made to smash it. That’s also why the jaegers faced kaiju equipped with acid and even an electromagnetic pulse, meaning both were designed with the purpose of destroying the robots. If left unchecked, there would have been no stopping the kaiju.

2. NO NUKES

The world of “Pacific Rim” was more carefully designed than viewers gave it credit for. One of the biggest complaints came from people who would say, “Why didn’t they just use nukes or missiles to stop the kaiju? Ha, plot hole!” Well, they actually did think of that and it was explained in the 2013 graphic novel prequel, “Pacific Rim: Tales of Year Zero” (written by Travis Beacham, drawn by Sean Chen, Yvel Guichet, Pericles Junior, Chris Batista and Geoff Shaw).

When the first kaiju attacked, the military launched all the missiles they had against it and couldn’t stop it. In the process, the kaiju’s toxic blood got all over the place. The only thing that stopped the kaiju were nuclear weapons, which destroyed the city. When the next kaiju attacked, nukes were used again and again. After a while, the governments realized they couldn’t nuke the kaiju every time, because it would devastate the planet. Blunt force trauma was the best way to stop the kaiju without spilling too much blood. We’re talking trauma in the form of giant fists belonging to giant robots.

1. THEY’RE FULL OF AMMONIA

As we said earlier, the kaiju are really toxic, and part of the reason is that (as Hannibal Chau said) their bodies are literally full of ammonia. That’s not just something that makes them dangerous, but it comes from a branch of science called xenobiology that imagines what other life could be like. Some scientists believe that alien life could exist whose body chemistry is based on ammonia instead of water.

The idea is that ammonia is just as common as water in the universe, shares a lot of the properties of water and is a solvent that can support needed chemical reactions. No one has found a creature with an ammonia-based chemistry yet, and scientists debate whether it’s even technically possible. In “Pacific Rim,” it’s not only possible, it’s a fact. It helps the kaiju goal that having thousands of tons of ammonia crashing its way through New York City is a disaster for everything it comes in contact with.

#Pacific Rim #article #images #Kaiju #fun facts #concept art #stills

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thesnhuup · 6 years

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Pop Picks – May 24, 2018

May 24, 2018

What I’m listening to:

I’ve always liked Alycia Keys and admired her social activism, but I am hooked on her last album Here. This feels like an album finally commensurate with her anger, activism, hope, and grit. More R&B and Hip Hop than is typical for her, I think this album moves into an echelon inhabited by a Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On or Beyonce’s Formation. Social activism and outrage rarely make great novels, but they often fuel great popular music. Here is a terrific example.

What I’m reading:

Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad may be close to a flawless novel. Winner of the 2017 Pulitzer, it chronicles the lives of two runaway slaves, Cora and Caeser, as they try to escape the hell of plantation life in Georgia. It is an often searing novel and Cora is one of the great heroes of American literature. I would make this mandatory reading in every high school in America, especially in light of the absurd revisionist narratives of “happy and well cared for” slaves. This is a genuinely great novel, one of the best I’ve read, the magical realism and conflating of time periods lifts it to another realm of social commentary, relevance, and a blazing indictment of America’s Original Sin, for which we remain unabsolved.

What I’m watching:

I thought I knew about The Pentagon Papers, but The Post, a real-life political thriller from Steven Spielberg taught me a lot, features some of our greatest actors, and is so timely given the assault on our democratic institutions and with a presidency out of control. It is a reminder that a free and fearless press is a powerful part of our democracy, always among the first targets of despots everywhere. The story revolves around the legendary Post owner and D.C. doyenne, Katharine Graham. I had the opportunity to see her son, Don Graham, right after he saw the film, and he raved about Meryl Streep’s portrayal of his mother. Liked it a lot more than I expected.

Archive

What I’m listening to:

I mentioned John Prine in a recent post and then on the heels of that mention, he has released a new album, The Tree of Forgiveness, his first new album in ten years. Prine is beloved by other singer songwriters and often praised by the inscrutable God that is Bob Dylan. Indeed, Prine was frequently said to be the “next Bob Dylan” in the early part of his career, though he instead carved out his own respectable career and voice, if never with the dizzying success of Dylan. The new album reflects a man in his 70s, a cancer survivor, who reflects on life and its end, but with the good humor and empathy that are hallmarks of Prine’s music. “When I Get To Heaven” is a rollicking, fun vision of what comes next and a pure delight. A charming, warm, and often terrific album.

What I’m reading:

I recently read Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko, on many people’s Top Ten lists for last year and for good reason. It is sprawling, multi-generational, and based in the world of Japanese occupied Korea and then in the Korean immigrant’s world of Oaska, so our key characters become “tweeners,” accepted in neither world. It’s often unspeakably sad, and yet there is resiliency and love. There is also intimacy, despite the time and geographic span of the novel. It’s breathtakingly good and like all good novels, transporting.

What I’m watching:

I adore Guillermo del Toro’s 2006 film, Pan’s Labyrinth, and while I’m not sure his Shape of Water is better, it is a worthy follow up to the earlier masterpiece (and more of a commercial success). Lots of critics dislike the film, but I’m okay with a simple retelling of a Beauty and the Beast love story, as predictable as it might be. The acting is terrific, it is visually stunning, and there are layers of pain as well as social and political commentary (the setting is the US during the Cold War) and, no real spoiler here, the real monsters are humans, the military officer who sees over the captured aquatic creature. It is hauntingly beautiful and its depiction of hatred to those who are different or “other” is painfully resonant with the time in which we live. Put this on your “must see” list.

March 18, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Sitting on a plane for hours (and many more to go; geez, Australia is far away) is a great opportunity to listen to new music and to revisit old favorites. This time, it is Lucy Dacus and her album Historians, the new sophomore release from a 22-year old indie artist that writes with relatable, real-life lyrics. Just on a second listen and while she insists this isn’t a break up record (as we know, 50% of all great songs are break up songs), it is full of loss and pain. Worth the listen so far. For the way back machine, it’s John Prine and In Spite of Ourselves (that title track is one of the great love songs of all time), a collection of duets with some of his “favorite girl singers” as he once described them. I have a crush on Iris Dement (for a really righteously angry song try her Wasteland of the Free), but there is also EmmyLou Harris, the incomparable Dolores Keane, and Lucinda Williams. Very different albums, both wonderful.

What I’m reading:

Jane Mayer’s New Yorker piece on Christopher Steele presents little that is new, but she pulls it together in a terrific and coherent whole that is illuminating and troubling at the same time. Not only for what is happening, but for the complicity of the far right in trying to discredit that which should be setting off alarm bells everywhere. Bob Mueller may be the most important defender of the democracy at this time. A must read.

What I’m watching:

Homeland is killing it this season and is prescient, hauntingly so. Russian election interference, a Bannon-style hate radio demagogue, alienated and gun toting militia types, and a president out of control. It’s fabulous, even if it feels awfully close to the evening news.

March 8, 2018

What I’m listening to:

We have a family challenge to compile our Top 100 songs. It is painful. Only 100? No more than three songs by one artist? Wait, why is M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” on my list? Should it just be The Clash from whom she samples? Can I admit to guilty pleasure songs? Hey, it’s my list and I can put anything I want on it. So I’m listening to the list while I work and the song playing right now is Tom Petty’s “The Wild One, Forever,” a B-side single that was never a hit and that remains my favorite Petty song. Also, “Evangeline” by Los Lobos. It evokes a night many years ago, with friends at Pearl Street in Northampton, MA, when everyone danced well past 1AM in a hot, sweaty, packed club and the band was a revelation. Maybe the best music night of our lives and a reminder that one’s 100 Favorite Songs list is as much about what you were doing and where you were in your life when those songs were playing as it is about the music. It’s not a list. It’s a soundtrack for this journey.

What I’m reading:

Patricia Lockwood’s Priestdaddy was in the NY Times top ten books of 2017 list and it is easy to see why. Lockwood brings remarkable and often surprising imagery, metaphor, and language to her prose memoir and it actually threw me off at first. It then all became clear when someone told me she is a poet. The book is laugh aloud funny, which masks (or makes safer anyway) some pretty dark territory. Anyone who grew up Catholic, whether lapsed or not, will resonate with her story. She can’t resist a bawdy anecdote and her family provides some of the most memorable characters possible, especially her father, her sister, and her mother, who I came to adore. Best thing I’ve read in ages.

What I’m watching:

The Florida Project, a profoundly good movie on so many levels. Start with the central character, six-year old (at the time of the filming) Brooklynn Prince, who owns – I mean really owns – the screen. This is pure acting genius and at that age? Astounding. Almost as astounding is Bria Vinaite, who plays her mother. She was discovered on Instagram and had never acted before this role, which she did with just three weeks of acting lessons. She is utterly convincing and the tension between the child’s absolute wonder and joy in the world with her mother’s struggle to provide, to be a mother, is heartwarming and heartbreaking all at once. Willem Dafoe rightly received an Oscar nomination for his supporting role. This is a terrific movie.

February 12, 2018

What I’m listening to:

So, I have a lot of friends of age (I know you’re thinking 40s, but I just turned 60) who are frozen in whatever era of music they enjoyed in college or maybe even in their thirties. There are lots of times when I reach back into the catalog, since music is one of those really powerful and transporting senses that can take you through time (smell is the other one, though often underappreciated for that power). Hell, I just bought a turntable and now spending time in vintage vinyl shops. But I’m trying to take a lesson from Pat, who revels in new music and can as easily talk about North African rap music and the latest National album as Meet the Beatles, her first ever album. So, I’ve been listening to Kendrick Lamar’s Grammy winning Damn. While it may not be the first thing I’ll reach for on a winter night in Maine, by the fire, I was taken with it. It’s layered, political, and weirdly sensitive and misogynist at the same time, and it feels fresh and authentic and smart at the same time, with music that often pulled me from what I was doing. In short, everything music should do. I’m not a bit cooler for listening to Damn, but when I followed it with Steely Dan, I felt like I was listening to Lawrence Welk. A good sign, I think.

What I’m reading:

I am reading Walter Isaacson’s new biography of Leonardo da Vinci. I’m not usually a reader of biographies, but I’ve always been taken with Leonardo. Isaacson does not disappoint (does he ever?), and his subject is at once more human and accessible and more awe-inspiring in Isaacson’s capable hands. Gay, left-handed, vegetarian, incapable of finishing things, a wonderful conversationalist, kind, and perhaps the most relentlessly curious human being who has ever lived. Like his biographies of Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein, Isaacson’s project here is to show that genius lives at the intersection of science and art, of rationality and creativity. Highly recommend it.

What I’m watching:

We watched the This Is Us post-Super Bowl episode, the one where Jack finally buys the farm. I really want to hate this show. It is melodramatic and manipulative, with characters that mostly never change or grow, and it hooks me every damn time we watch it. The episode last Sunday was a tear jerker, a double whammy intended to render into a blubbering, tissue-crumbling pathetic mess anyone who has lost a parent or who is a parent. Sterling K. Brown, Ron Cephas Jones, the surprising Mandy Moore, and Milo Ventimiglia are hard not to love and last season’s episode that had only Brown and Cephas going to Memphis was the show at its best (they are by far the two best actors). Last week was the show at its best worst. In other words, I want to hate it, but I love it. If you haven’t seen it, don’t binge watch it. You’ll need therapy and insulin.

January 15, 2018

What I’m listening to:

Drive-By Truckers. Chris Stapleton has me on an unusual (for me) country theme and I discovered these guys to my great delight. They’ve been around, with some 11 albums, but the newest one is fascinating. It’s a deep dive into Southern alienation and the white working-class world often associated with our current president. I admire the willingness to lay bare, in kick ass rock songs, the complexities and pain at work among people we too quickly place into overly simple categories. These guys are brave, bold, and thoughtful as hell, while producing songs I didn’t expect to like, but that I keep playing. And they are coming to NH.

What I’m reading:

A textual analog to Drive-By Truckers by Chris Stapleton in many ways is Tony Horowitz’s 1998 Pulitzer Prize winning Confederates in the Attic. Ostensibly about the Civil War and the South’s ongoing attachment to it, it is prescient and speaks eloquently to the times in which we live (where every southern state but Virginia voted for President Trump). Often hilarious, it too surfaces complexities and nuance that escape a more recent, and widely acclaimed, book like Hillbilly Elegy. As a Civil War fan, it was also astonishing in many instances, especially when it blows apart long-held “truths” about the war, such as the degree to which Sherman burned down the south (he did not). Like D-B Truckers, Horowitz loves the South and the people he encounters, even as he grapples with its myths of victimhood and exceptionalism (and racism, which may be no more than the racism in the north, but of a different kind). Everyone should read this book and I’m embarrassed I’m so late to it.

What I’m watching:

David Letterman has a new Netflix show called “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction” and we watched the first episode, in which Letterman interviewed Barack Obama. It was extraordinary (if you don’t have Netflix, get it just to watch this show); not only because we were reminded of Obama’s smarts, grace, and humanity (and humor), but because we saw a side of Letterman we didn’t know existed. His personal reflections on Selma were raw and powerful, almost painful. He will do five more episodes with “extraordinary individuals” and if they are anything like the first, this might be the very best work of his career and one of the best things on television.

December 22, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished Sunjeev Sahota’s Year of the Runaways, a painful inside look at the plight of illegal Indian immigrant workers in Britain. It was shortlisted for 2015 Man Booker Prize and its transporting, often to a dark and painful universe, and it is impossible not to think about the American version of this story and the terrible way we treat the undocumented in our own country, especially now.

What I’m watching:

Season II of The Crown is even better than Season I. Elizabeth’s character is becoming more three-dimensional, the modern world is catching up with tradition-bound Britain, and Cold War politics offer more context and tension than we saw in Season I. Claire Foy, in her last season, is just terrific – one arched eye brow can send a message.

What I’m listening to:

A lot of Christmas music, but needing a break from the schmaltz, I’ve discovered Over the Rhine and their Christmas album, Snow Angels. God, these guys are good.

November 14, 2017

What I’m watching:

Guiltily, I watch the Patriots play every weekend, often building my schedule and plans around seeing the game. Why the guilt? I don’t know how morally defensible is football anymore, as we now know the severe damage it does to the players. We can’t pretend it’s all okay anymore. Is this our version of late decadent Rome, watching mostly young Black men take a terrible toll on each other for our mere entertainment?

What I’m reading:

Recently finished J.G. Ballard’s 2000 novel Super-Cannes, a powerful depiction of a corporate-tech ex-pat community taken over by a kind of psychopathology, in which all social norms and responsibilities are surrendered to residents of the new world community. Kept thinking about Silicon Valley when reading it. Pretty dark, dystopian view of the modern world and centered around a mass killing, troublingly prescient.

What I’m listening to:

Was never really a Lorde fan, only knowing her catchy (and smarter than you might first guess) pop hit “Royals” from her debut album. But her new album, Melodrama, is terrific and it doesn’t feel quite right to call this “pop.” There is something way more substantial going on with Lorde and I can see why many critics put this album at the top of their Best in 2017 list. Count me in as a huge fan.

November 3, 2017

What I’m reading: Just finished Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere, her breathtakingly good second novel. How is someone so young so wise? Her writing is near perfection and I read the book in two days, setting my alarm for 4:30AM so I could finish it before work.

What I’m watching: We just binge watched season two of Stranger Things and it was worth it just to watch Millie Bobbie Brown, the transcendent young actor who plays Eleven. The series is a delightful mash up of every great eighties horror genre you can imagine and while pretty dark, an absolute joy to watch.

What I’m listening to: I’m not a lover of country music (to say the least), but I love Chris Stapleton. His “The Last Thing I Needed, First Thing This Morning” is heartbreakingly good and reminds me of the old school country that played in my house as a kid. He has a new album and I can’t wait, but his From A Room: Volume 1 is on repeat for now.

September 26, 2017

What I’m reading:

Just finished George Saunder’s Lincoln in the Bardo. It took me a while to accept its cadence and sheer weirdness, but loved it in the end. A painful meditation on loss and grief, and a genuinely beautiful exploration of the intersection of life and death, the difficulty of letting go of what was, good and bad, and what never came to be.

What I’m watching:

HBO’s The Deuce. Times Square and the beginning of the porn industry in the 1970s, the setting made me wonder if this was really something I’d want to see. But David Simon is the writer and I’d read a menu if he wrote it. It does not disappoint so far and there is nothing prurient about it.

What I’m listening to:

The National’s new album Sleep Well Beast. I love this band. The opening piano notes of the first song, “Nobody Else Will Be There,” seize me & I’m reminded that no one else in music today matches their arrangement & musicianship. I’m adding “Born to Beg,” “Slow Show,” “I Need My Girl,” and “Runaway” to my list of favorite love songs.

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jamesellistheartof · 6 years

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CHAPTER FIVE HEROES 6/ 4/ 16 Sun’s shining through the French doors. I’m sitting here, writing, listening to a late 1960’s Neil Young live show and thinking about all the different artists and writers who’ve inspired me down through the years. I suppose you could call them my heroes. We all have them, those people who inspire us to reach further than our lives, whether they’re famous or not. People we respect and admire, either in how they approach life or how they approach their art. Sometimes its both. When it comes to how I approach my writing I always find myself drawn to the kind of artist who doesn’t like repeating themselves, those pioneers who follow the muse instead of the money. I respond to artists who try something different each time, who aren’t afraid to take risks, who don’t worry about failing or falling. Once you’ve accidentally stumbled upon a successful formula it follows that you stick to it, but those giants I admire don’t do that. They’re not content to do that, because once they’ve figured out to do something, and do it well, they don’t do it again, because the challenge is gone. I believe, like them, that your best work comes from challenging yourself. It’s certainly not commercially sound, because it can be difficult to pin you down creatively, but when it comes to doing work of substance, work that lasts, I think it’s the only way to go. I guess they’re my heroes because they’re like minded. They see things the way I see them and they’re not afraid to go to the places I like to go. They’re always searching for a new challenge, a different way of doing things. They follow their own course in life and they take their own counsel in the decisions they make. It’s a good way to live your life, creatively or otherwise. I admire them for that, for their willingness to stand out from the crowd, to go off along their own path. I’ve always looked up to people like that, creative or not, since I was very young. They never try to fit in, they never want to fit in, they never try to part of a particular crowd or tow the line. I get that. I admire that. Life’s too short. First up among these heroes of mine is Neil Young, the Mighty Canadian. An artist who’s always followed his muse and not given a fuck what other people think. He’s absolutely refused to be pigeon holed in over fifty years of making music. That’s some feat and to be applauded. He’s made many albums I’ve loved and deeply admired, but he’s also made a few I still can’t bring myself to like or listen to all that much, but I still respect him for making them. Not everything you do creatively is gonna pay off, but you’ve still got to try. I believe it’s always better to take a risk, follow your instincts because more often or not you’ll be surprised at what comes sailing from those particular seas. Oddly enough, another Neil also sits at the top of my heroes list and for pretty much the same reasons. Neil Gaiman. I came to his work pretty late, about five years ago now. If you know anything about Neil’s work it’s that each new project is usually vastly different from the last, whether in tone or style or language. He tries something different each time, simply because it’s what he likes to do and it challenges him. And also, because he’s witnessed first hand what creative stagnation can do to a writer from his early years as a jobbing journalist. I feel like I owe Neil a hell of a lot. I’d always felt kind of constrained in my writing until I realised what he’d been doing throughout his career. I didn’t want to just write prose. I wanted to try my hand at everything. Comics, children’s books, picture books, theatre plays, film scripts, the whole spectrum. But I thought writers didn’t do that. I was already doing it, had been for a while, but I thought you had to pick one eventually and then go public with that. Be known for just one thing. I didn’t know there was another way. Then I discovered Neil. Now I write whatever feels right to me, whatever I want to write and now I don’t worry when I do, and in a huge way that’s because of Neil. I’ve never met him, but I owe him a hell of a lot. He showed me the way. If it wasn’t for ‘The Sandman’ then ‘Modern Days’ certainly wouldn’t exist. Bob Dylan is pretty high on my list too. Another pioneer, another game changer. He changed the whole way albums were done up to that point with ‘The Free Wheelin’ Bob Dylan’ and then he did it again with music itself when he made ‘Like A Rolling Stone.’ To a lot of people he ‘just went electric’ but for me and a lot of others it’s more pure than that, more fundamental. He was searching for something and he went looking for it, no matter where it took him or the reaction it got. That kind of thinking is always very appealing to me. He trusted his instinct. He went with his gut. That’s what was important to him. Changing music in the process was just an expected bonus. I learned from him that writing lyrics isn’t just about your feelings, about love and relationships. It’s about writing what you want to write about and not conforming to the conventional rules about the way things are usually done. Dylan didn’t care about that, nor do I. Bruce Springsteen falls upon similar ground for me. I admire the work ethic behind his music as much as I admire the man. He never gives up. He fights against his own struggles and adversity as much as he speaks for us facing them in our own lives and he meets mortality head on. There’s an honesty and sincerity to both his words and music that goes beyond something you can just pin down. You just know what he means and you know that he means it. It’s not bullshit. You know he means everything he sings and for me good art, good music, something that lasts, always has that sense of really meaning it. If something doesn’t achieve want he wants from it, if it doesn’t work thematically for him within what he’s aiming for then it usually doesn’t get released. It fascinates me how many classic songs never made it onto his albums for those reasons. He’s absolutely tireless in his devotion to perfectly getting that thing he hears in his head. He seems to approach songs like scenes or chapters of a book and if said scene or said chapter doesn’t work in the context of the whole it gets cut. It’s a way I like to work and I’ve gained a lot of inspiration from his approach. David Bowie looms pretty large on my list too. Bowie always seemed to me to be larger than life, but at the same time when you read or saw interviews with him he seemed so very down to earth as well. That contradiction always fascinated me. It still does. Who was he really? Like the other artists I’ve mentioned here he absolutely refused to be put in a neat little box or categorised in any way. He refused to stand still and always kept moving forward. He kept experimenting, kept pushing the boundaries of what he could do, right up until his last days. When I heard of his passing I was surprised by how personally I took it. It was like someone close to me had died. I guess I just thought he’d always be around. He was always part of my life and with ‘The Next Day’ and ‘Blackstar’ it felt like he was just getting started again. Maybe we just assume our heroes will live forever. I guess in a way they do. Another inspiration is a pretty recent one. I’ve been aware of Frank Turner for a number of years, heard the odd song, seen the odd video, even had his second album ‘Love, Ire & Song’ in my collection, but it wasn't until early 2016 that I properly investigated his back catalogue and his career so far, and when I did I found a fellow writer I really got. I admire his approach to his craft, his dedication, his vision, even his self doubt, and I especially like how he interacts with his fans. I feel a kinship, I see myself in him, his constant drive, born of his anxiety, born of that fear of not knowing whether he’ll get to do everything he wants to do before he dies. I guess I just get where he’s coming from. He’s in it for life. It is his life. For him it’s as real as anything else. He doesn’t compromise on what he sees in his head. He follows his own path. He’s candid, speaks his mind and tells us just how it is. All traits I admire. Patti Smith and Stephen King are also right up there in the higher echelons of those who inspire me. Not just because of the work they do but because of how they go about it. They truly understand the calling of what it is we do, they follow their own path despite the doubters and are uniquely gifted in their understanding of how we as humans tick. Patti’s ‘The M Train’ and King’s ‘On Writing’ were as pivotal to me writing this book as Neil Young’s ‘Waging Heavy Peace’ ‘Frank Turner’s ‘The Road Beneath My Feet’ and Springsteen’s ‘Born To Run.’ Pretty high on my list too is Guillermo Del Torro, who with ‘Cronos‘ ‘The Devil‘s Backbone‘ ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ and the ‘Hell Boy’ films has brought me some of favourite images ever put on screen. Not only that, but I admire him as a writer, as a creator of truly colourful characters and rich fantasy worlds and it saddens me that no one in Hollywood still hasn’t had the balls or vision to finance ‘Hellboy III.’ When I began writing ‘The Fairytale Thief’ I certainly had many of the images Del Torro has created over the years swimming through my mind. ‘The Secret Of The Woods’ owes him a pretty big debt as well. Also of special mention is Florence Welch, a brilliant enigma of an artist, and PJ Harvey, who never fails to both innovate and surprise. All of these, in one way of another, have had a fairly large and profound influence on me and my writing. Not just in their art, but how they approach that art, whatever it may be. How they’ve somehow kept true to their original aspirations and remained faithful to those intentions no matter what’s been thrown at them along the way. They inspire me for the simple fact that they stick to their guns, they stay true to what they believe in, which in this life can be trickier than it sounds. They remind me to keep at it, keep chipping away, keep true to myself and never give into those who will tell me to give it up. We all need heroes in our life. They are mine.

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crazymamaof8wildthings-blog · 7 years

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God’s Timing Is Amazing...Once Again

Ok... so this post is a little delayed. I apologize. Things seem like they have been on the “spin cycle” since we got the news. So... here goes... another moment where I get to proclaim God’s amazing timing and His greater plans! But first lets look back to just a little over a year ago.

“Got here early... As usual so now we wait with our stomachs churning!!! Time for some prayers before we have this possibly life change meeting “

This is a post from my Facebook page from April 28th, 2016. This was the day we met our Super 7 for the very first time! We were sitting in the car, in the parking lot of the children’s home where they were living at the time, waiting for all of the case managers to show up. We had gotten there about 15 minutes early (as we usually are at least that early to everything). I was given an idea by another adoptive family to make videos to the kids whenever something special was happening. That way we can look back on them when the kids ask us ‘what were you doing while you were waiting for us?’. So we had just finished another video as we sat in the car waiting. Our stomachs were tossing and turning and I asked Josh to lead us in prayer a couple of times. My heart really started to race when our kids pulled up in the parking lot in the children’s home van, being brought home from school. Josh and I were straining our necks to look around the cars to try and see our kids. When we did catch a glimpse of them (it wasn’t difficult to pick out the Mexicans from the crowd) we got all giddy inside. They were so much more beautiful in person than the two pictures we had seen of them. They rushed off into their house to put their book bags away, do their homework and get changed. That’s around the time our case-managers arrived. Once we saw them pull up, we knew it was all about to go down! We got out of the car and heard one of our caseworkers say “Are you ready? Are you nervous?”. Josh and I just laughed at first. There weren’t words in our spinning heads to answer that question adequately. We started walking towards the ‘barn’, so to speak. It was a beautiful big building that was styled like a barn and painted bright red. There were a lot of gorgeous flowers up the walkway that were in full bloom. This first time walking up to the door seemed like it took at least 10 minutes, when in reality it was maybe 10 steps. Once we were inside, we explored the building a little. Inside this massive barn was a full basketball court gymnasium. They had a fooseball table, an air hockey table, a lot of toys, and even a playground like the ones inside of McDonalds. It was a cool space. The kids were still finishing up homework so the big room was empty except for me, josh and the case-managers. We sat down at one of the tables and waited some more. It wasn’t much longer when we heard the side door open and the little feet running in. We stood up and walked toward the noise, and when we turned the corner we were met with hugs and squeals. Well from Katerin, and James at least. Guillermo and Jason were still a little stand offish as we expected. Kristie was still working on her homework in the house and Elizabet was working herself up to coming inside. Maria, being the only one in middle school at the time, hadn’t made it home from school yet. Around 15 minutes later six of our seven were in the gymnasium with us, running, climbing the playground and pulling us in a million directions to play with them. Elizabet was warming up to us and asking us questions about our life and our family. About 10 minutes later, Maria had made it home, changed, and joined us in the barn. She was being very quiet and keeping a watchful eye on us. I decided to sit down with her and talk to her, knowing that she was “mama bear” and i was going to have to get the approval from her to take care of ‘her children’. After that she opened up some more. The visit went on for another hour and a half and then we were told we needed to head out because Jason and Guillermo had baseball games to head to. We ended up being invited to their games and had our first taste of being those cheerleader parents from the bleachers!! It was amazing! We headed home after they both won their games and we spent the whole 50 minute drive going on and on about the kids. They were so adorable! They were crazy, loud and some of them were oh so snuggly! This day will forever be engrained in our brains!!!! I didn’t know the human body was capable of so many emotions at one time!

Every first meeting is different for every family. Ours, i don't think, was very typical. It isn’t very normal for kids who have been in care for so long to run up and hug you and start calling you mom and dad immediately. It has its moments of awkward, weird questions were asked, and there were even some embarrassing moments. Like climbing up a playground and sliding down a slide that wasn’t built for anyone over 3ft!

Ok now lets get back to present day! April 28, 2017.

By this time our attorney had filed the petition about 4 days before and we were on pins and needles waiting for that email from him with our court date to finalize! Now let me make this very clear so my husband doesn’t point it out later on... i was NOT patient about this at all. In fact i was so impatient that i was emailing the attorney wayyyy to much and in doing so i think i ticked him off. I was just so beyond ready to be done with DFCS and this process! I want to put this time of waiting, heartache, uncertainty and political nonsense behind us. I can’t wait till I can go to the school and be able to say “Hey i need Kristie Clark out of class please” instead of saying the first name and then trying to think through which one of the five different last name goes with that child. I can’t wait till i can legally sign their documents with ‘Clark’ so i don’t have to be reminded everytime i fill something out (which is almost everyday with 6 kids in school) that they are not “officially” mine. Normalcy... so to speak. I can’t wait for normalcy. My kids always laugh when i say that because our “normal” is far from most peoples. So any who.... i wasn’t waiting well. Our attorney had told us that we should hear something by Friday the 28th. Well... here we were... the infamous day of information! I was checking my email constantly and i think i bugged Josh quiet a bit to text our attorney in case he wasn’t going to email us. I had just gotten off the phone with him, asking him for probably the third time that day to “email or text Birney please!!!”. Then i heard it! The ‘ding’ of an email coming to my phone. I look down at the screen and the preview banner reads ‘Birney Bull: Court Date’! AHHHHHH here it is!!! I open the email to see a simple written statement. ‘Court will be on May the 9th at 9am. At the Effingham Superior Courthouse.’! My furious thumbs got to work! I started texting, emailing, and calling everyone i could to let them know! Our families had been waiting to hear from us for days about a court date so they could move their schedules around to be there. Our friends and church family were waiting to be able to celebrate with us and finally see pictures of the kids online! So after all texts and emails were sent to the appropriate people, i posted a BIG BLUE post on Facebook about it! My notifications started blowing up! People i didn’t even know were commenting about how excited for us they were and how they were praying. It had more ‘likes’ than any other post i’ve shared before. It was encouraging to know we were being surrounded and supported by so many people! It truly was surreal to finally plan our “forever day” that we had been waiting for!

Here come the goosebumps... It wasn’t until my husband commented on that Facebook post that i made this connection. We had been questioning God as to why he hasn’t give us a court date when we knew that this is what he had intended for us. Turns out He wanted to make sure we were well aware that He was in control of the whole situation and he was going to make a declaration with His timing. Some of you may have already noticed it, but the day we got our court date from our attorney was exactly 1 year to the day (almost to the hour) of when we met our children for the very first time! And with that, we had no doubt in our mind (once again) that this is God’s will for us and He has paved this road for us already... He is just giving us step by step directions so we can truly enjoy and make known the amazingness and love God has for his children who seek His will!

We were so excited to tell the kids but we wanted to make it special. We also wanted those who have been there through the process and had been praying for our family to experience the joy of seeing the kids reactions. So I told everyone we were going to go Live on Facebook at 8pm that evening to tell the kids. It was sooo hard to keep it from the kids through picking them up from school, having dinner, going to soccer games and then being at home waiting for them to all get situated for a “family meeting”. And then i went Live... If you’d like to see the video i have posted the link below! You should be able to open it and see this special moment.

*****Video*****

We are now counting down the hours and days until we go to court and finally move on to our forever! I can’t thank all of the people that have made this possible, enough! Thank you Thank you Thank you! Our family is only possible because of a mighty God and His faithful people pouring out love and support to our family.

#ClarkClan Adoption CourtDate

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