does anyone have any recs for legacy challenges that have drama in them/let you really dive into storytelling & dynamics moreso than focusing on collections/careers/etc. ??

GGStrive Redesign Analysis: Ramlethal Valentine

Welcome to the continuation of the redesign analysis series! This time, the returning character is Ramlethal Valentine, who was first introduced in GG XRD Sign. This will be another long post, so I hope you enjoy reading! RAMLETHAL VALENTINE ------------------------------------- There’s been many positive and shocked reactions when she was revealed. “Whoa! I didn’t think she would make it!”  “Yes! She’s here! She looks cute, yet commanding at the same time.” and etc. was said(the best reaction is seeing my friend @valentinecult reaction~).  I think it was a nice surprise seeing her after most of the legacy characters were revealed. Next is examining her previous look.

Out of all the characters introduced in Xrd Sign, Ramlethal’s design perfectly fits the mixture of cool and unorthodox in Guilty Gear. First is her black and white hat in shape of a wide V or “cat ears”. It has four black buttons in pairs of 2 on the frontal sides while there’s a mint-green, four-leaf clover on the upper right side. There’s a white buckle strap around the lower sides of the hat, and the cap has a wide, circular shape instead of a narrow one. Next is her sentient cape with the inside akin to gums and the helms with razor-sharp teeth. The high shoulder pads shares the color scheme of white with black trim and yellow buttons. While the cape it mainly white, there is lime-green within the collar and the upper part with black trim. Underneath her cape is a white leather, tube strap top with a round, golden yellow buckle in the center between her boobs. Similarly designed straps are on her upper thighs, and the wrist straps close to her elbows. On her lower body is short-shorts akin to swimwear and on her feat is just foot guards colored in white with thick, black trim with a hint of green in the middle.  What I think is amazing about this design is how it perfectly conveys what she is; unique. There’s the essence of a powerful, commanding presence and intimidating(you can see it in her animations like her entrance, in Story Mode, and some of her winning poses). While there’s some sex appeal from what she’s wearing underneath her cape, the aspect of it is really about athleticism. It conveys how Ramlethal is capable of fighting hand-to-hand, even if it isn’t the main way she fights. There’s a hint of cuteness too with the four-leaf clover and focusing on Ramlethal’s facial features. Since her main colors are white, green, and black, it’s time to examine how it relates to her personality! Color Personality and Meaning of White: https://www.empower-yourself-with-color-psychology.com/personality-color-white.html You are well-balanced, sensible, discreet and wise. You tend to have a great deal of self control. You are confident, poised and self-assured when at your most positive, but can also be very choosy and fastidious when the mood strikes. You can be very critical of yourself and others (in your need for perfection) - but you try to be fair and impartial as well.  The challenge for you is to be open-minded and flexible and to communicate your needs and desires. White is totally reflective, awakening openness, growth and creativity. You can't hide behind it as it amplifies everything in its way. While there are very few negative connotations to white, particularly in western culture, too much white can be cold, isolating and empty. It implies a feeling of sterility, detachment and disinterest, providing little stimulation for the senses. White may indicate the completion of a cycle in your life - you may find you have a desire for white clothing or white in your surroundings at a time when you are moving in a new direction in your life - for example, planning an overseas trip for the first time, or moving house after a long time in one place, or in seeking a new relationship or a new career direction. Many people use white as a recall of their youth and innocence. It reminds them of a time when their lives were easier and less complicated. Too much white can cause feelings of isolation and emptiness Color Personality and Meaning of Green: https://www.empower-yourself-with-color-psychology.com/personality-color-green.html You are stable and well balanced or are striving for balance - in seeking this balance, you can at times become unsettled and anxious. Having a personality color green means you are kind, generous and compassionate - good to have around during a crisis as you remain calm and take control of the situation until it is resolved. You are intelligent and love to learn - you are quick to understand new concepts. You have high moral standards and doing the right thing is important to you. You like to be accepted, appreciated and admired for the good you do in the community as well as in your family life. You are a loyal friend and a faithful partner, gentle but not passionate.  Having a personality color green means you are strong-willed and do not like to be told what to do by others. The color green relates to balance and harmony. From a color psychology perspective, it is the great balancer of the heart and the emotions, creating equilibrium between the head and the heart. From a meaning of colors perspective, green is also the color of growth, the color of spring, of renewal and rebirth. It renews and restores depleted energy. It is the sanctuary away from the stresses of modern living, restoring us back to a sense of well being. This is why there is so much of this relaxing color on the earth, and why we need to keep it that way. Being a combination of yellow and blue, green encompasses the mental clarity and optimism of yellow with the emotional calm and insight of blue, inspiring hope and a generosity of spirit not available from other colors. This is a color that has a strong sense of right or wrong, inviting good judgment. It sees both sides of the equation, weighs them up, and then usually takes the moral stand in making appropriate decisions. On the negative side, it can be judgmental and over-cautious. This color relates to stability and endurance, giving us persistence and the strength to cope with adversity. Color Personality and Meaning of Black: https://www.empower-yourself-with-color-psychology.com/personality-color-black.html You are independent, strong-willed and determined and like to be in control of yourself and situations. With black as your personality color, you may be too serious for your own good - bring some colour into your life to lighten you up - life should be fun. You like to keep people at a distance, guarding your emotions and creating an impenetrable barrier between yourself and others. With a personality color black, you may be looking for protection from any negativity that surrounds you. You may be going through a stage of self-denial, not allowing pleasure and joy into your life. You hold things inside and are not good at sharing yourself with others, possibly out of fear. You are methodical in your work, making sure everything is completed as required, down to the last detail .It may be a color of comfort to you, allowing you to retreat and hide from the real world. You may be a teenager or young adult hiding behind black while searching for your own identity or your own true colors. You may be rebelling against society or your family. You may have lost sight of your direction in life and are going through a very negative phase. You may be suppressing your own desires and aspirations. The color black relates to the hidden, the secretive and the unknown, and as a result it creates an air of mystery. It keeps things bottled up inside, hidden from the world .In color psychology this color gives protection from external emotional stress. It creates a barrier between itself and the outside world, providing comfort while protecting its emotions and feelings, and hiding its vulnerabilities, insecurities and lack of self confidence. Black implies self-control and discipline, independence and a strong will, and giving an impression of authority and power. Teenagers often have a psychological need to wear black during the stage of transition from the innocence of childhood to the sophistication of adulthood. It signifies the ending of one part of their life and the beginning of another, allowing them to hide from the world while they discover their own unique identity. In beginning, Ramlethal is seemingly just a stoic person who’s structured to following the orders of her mother(Ariels a.k.a. Universal Will) and seeing herself as just a tool. But throughout the story of XRD Sign, there’s glimpses of her having emotions and her own thoughts, which is highlighted more due to interacting with Sin and Bedman. The colors of white, green, and black definitely shows this aspect along with how she developed. Even though she is a Valentine, I notice she doesn’t fully follow the convention of being based on Aria like Elphelt, Jack-O, and the original Valentine. Ramlethal is more based on Justice; one of the things is observing how Sol reacts to her in comparison. Ramlethal not only gained emotions, but understanding and accepting her own identity; giving her the needed confidence to follow her own path. This leads to her being redesigned for GG Strive!

The general concept of Ramlethal’s design is kept while also being new. First is examining the aspects that are the same or similar to her previous look. Her sentient cape is mostly the same, except it seems to look a bit more polished. There’s no lime-green detail on the upper part of her cape, and the yellow buttons on its high-color is gone. Black button-like detail are within the second part of the collar and around the chest area. There’s also a large, leather buckle strap wrapped around her along with little ones that are left unfasten. And lastly, the teeth at the helms of the cape, but this time it’s covered with black, metal guards with a green cross. The straps around her upper thighs has extra detail with light gray buckle within it. Her foot guards are also the same, but there’s no black trim or green color on it. Her white short-shorts is another thing kept from her previous design. The interesting part is adding the bandages to her from when she survived the explosion(Raven healed her). In Revelator, the bandages were gray, but for Strive, they’re red. Time to look at what this color means for Ramlethal~ Meaning of Red: https://www.empower-yourself-with-color-psychology.com/color-red.html Red is energizing. It excites the emotions and motivates us to take action. It signifies a pioneering spirit and leadership qualities, promoting ambition and determination. It is also strong-willed and can give confidence to those who are shy or lacking in will power. Being the color of physical movement, the color red awakens our physical life force. Next is looking at what’s different starting with her hat. The shape and style is obviously of a military general, which makes sense due to it’s stated Ramlethal is a brigadier now. Let’s take a closer look!

On lower sides of her hat and center, there’s the detail of four-leaf clovers, which I circled. There’s also something written on the silver plating part in the front, but unfortunately it’s hard to tell at the moment. And now for the rest of the hat.

Other Guilty Gear fans have already mentioned this, but the frontal part of Ramlethal’s hat the golden cross; the same one seen from Illyrian government such as the army, the 3 Kings(like Leo Whitefang), etc. The aspect of the four-leaf clover on her hat is kept, but the shade of green is different. It’s a vibrant shade of emerald, symbolizing her growth and likely feeling more inspired.  The second biggest change is she no longer has a tube-strap underneath her cape. Instead, she has a sleeveless, white vest with a layered black shirt with emerald green trim. It’s more formal, but still her own style because of how it exposes her midriff. And the last new part of her design...

Is the white fingerless glove with black trim on her right hand. It adds to Ramlethal’s toughness and accentuates the essence of the design. I really love the upgrade from the previous design, which I thought her older look was cool enough. It emphasizes the commanding presence she has, but also the essence of someone who others can depend on. It does make curious if the bandages are even the same ones from Revelator, or are they new ones put on her?  This is another design that I think is done well! Rating: S++++++++++(Join the Army!XD)

An entirely too long post on how to fix Veronica Mars

So, anyone who has followed this blog for any length of time knows: 1) What a massive Veronica Mars fan I was and 2) how distraught I’ve been over the most recent season that debuted on Hulu in July. I’ve been pretty angry about it since it dropped, but the first month after I was pretty occupied with real life stuff. Now that I’m more settled, I’ve found myself getting sadder and angrier over time with just how terrible S4 was and what an obvious fuck you to longtime fans it was. It feels dumb to be so upset over a tv show, but this show got me through a lot over the past 8 years, and I feel like it’s been taken away from me.

 It’s anyone’s guess as to whether there will be a new season. Ideally it would end here with maybe an alternate ending filmed to avoid alienating fans further. On the one hand, the botched release, overwhelmingly negative response, and silence from the creators after initial interviews don’t look good for renewal chances. On the other hand, Hulu doesn’t have a lot of streaming hits, it probably did relatively decent numbers, and there are rumors floating around that its pickup chances look good. On a personal level, I hate the idea that this is where the legacy of Veronica Mars ends, while at the same time being extremely wary of what the creators have planned. I think a big part of the disappointment with S4 was that the movie and books set up what could have been some really interesting storylines and situations, all of which RT and co. squandered for cheap drama and to apparently turn the show into an entirely new vehicle; additionally I had hope that S4 would be a chance to rectify some problems the show has long had, but again, S4 exacerbated them. At this point I don’t expect anyone higher up in the creative process or at Hulu to give a fuck about the fans or making the show better as long as they hit streaming targets, but here are some suggestions:

Fire Rob Thomas

 While he created the show, it’s become clear that not only has he lost touch with the audience and the original spirit of the character, he doesn’t seem too keen on putting much effort into writing the show (as I will discuss below). Then you have his clear misogyny: his views that women in relationships can’t be interesting, that what makes Veronica interesting as a character is her trauma and how much she can endure, and the fact that basically every female character in the history of the show has a history of sexual victimization. He thought that making the Mexican cartel hitmen “philosophical” was subverting expectations (which says a lot of what his expectations of Latinx characters are). Then this is the way he essentially exploited his long term fan base to earn a new season of the show, only to turn around and tell us that we don’t matter. From a business perspective alone keeping him doesn’t make sense; selling a streaming platform on your loyal fanbase and then proceeding to purposefully piss ~80% of them off would be pretty questionable to me as someone in charge. The sheer cruelty with which he treated not only the fans who have supported him for 15 years (I fucking used to liveblog iZombie y’all. iZombie!), as well as how he callously dismissed long time cast members in favor of celebrity guest stars should not be rewarded. He’s admitted in interviews that he would be ok with younger writers doing a reboot many years in the future; why not just let him have a producer credit and then hand the show over to someone who’s invested in making it good?

Put a woman in charge and diversify the writing staff

A big problem with a) Veronica’s characterization in S4 b) RT’s ideas about what makes female characters interesting c) the show’s long history of problematic treatment of sexual assault is that it comes from a man’s conception of the female experience. The Veronica showcased in S4 and that RT wants to write in the future is very much a male fantasy: hates marriage and children, traumatized, DTF, and is too cool for other women. RT stated in interviews that he wanted to show Veronica at a “crossroads” this season in a way he claimed had been shown for men but not women; many female viewers found this depiction to ring false (few women are spending their time fretting about how committing to marriage after five years in an established relationship will bar us from strange sex going forward). In addition to having RT at the helm, most of the show’s writing staff for the majority of its run has been white dudes, which doesn’t bode well for telling the story of a female PI in a diverse community in today’s political climate. Putting a woman in charge would hopefully help rectify these issues to make the character feel more true to life and put a damper on the misogynistic storytelling. The show has a natural candidate in RT’s second-in-command Diane Ruggiero-Wright (despite her problematic history, never forget #KeisterEggGate), who has admitted to not being able to watch the last episode. Jennifer Graham, who wrote both of the books, would also be a worthy addition to the writing staff; while the books had a mixed reception, most fans agree that she got Veronica’s character right. And with the show’s problematic historical treatment of minority characters, adding more POC writers going forward is also necessary.

Bring back Logan (alive)

You don’t have to be a LoVe shipper to recognize just how integral Logan has been since the inception of the show, not just as Veronica’s partner but as a character is his own right. Logan’s journey in many ways parallels Veronica’s, and shows a contrast in how different characters respond to similar trauma. The most critical plot line in the show’s history, the mystery of who killed Lilly Kane, simply doesn’t work without Logan’s importance to Veronica. RT and his defenders like to claim that Logan was holding her back from true growth, which is frankly bizarre as he is the only character to consistently challenge her, like when he tells her that she obviously isn’t happy this season. Additionally, Logan’s scenes this season were the lone highlight of what was otherwise a painful slog of a season. Of the people who have said they would watch a potential S5, a good portion are only interested because they believe that the ambiguity of the last 10 minutes of the season means he’s not really dead (despite what RT has said in interviews). Then there’s what Logan’s death does to Veronica’s character, effectively cutting off what would have been an interesting character arc and stagnating her forever. No matter how much they try to shove Leo the pedo creep and other milquetoast RT self-insert love interests on us, no one else can possible measure up to Logan’s level in terms of being able to match Veronica as a character, intellectually or as a result of shared history.

Plus, the fact that we haven’t had a Weevil/Logan interaction since S3 is a goddamn travesty and should be rectified immediately.

Bring back Veronica

As sad as I am about Logan’s death, for me the most upsetting aspect of S4 was the assassination of Veronica’s character. For many viewers (including myself), the character we saw Kristen Bell portray in S4 wasn’t Veronica Mars but a different character with the same name. Between her abusive behavior towards Logan, her general indifference to her father’s medical condition, her dismissal of Wallace, and her racism towards Latinx characters (using a kid’s lawyer to threaten deportation: not a good look!), she was lacking the marshmallow-y center that always balanced out the pricklier aspects of her character and made her compelling. This change in characterization was especially jarring given that she was not this way when we last saw her in the books, where she mused about having children and sent her half-brother Hunter to summer camp (side note, but does he even exist anymore?). Many of us who had grown up with Veronica were hoping to see her grow with us as a character; instead we got an extreme regression lower than we’ve ever seen her. It would be one thing if they were trying to depict a PTSD storyline, which would make sense given her background, but since her change in behavior is never addressed by the narrative, it just makes her look like a cruel asshole and makes it impossible to root for her. This is exacerbated by the fact that RT has made it clear he has no interest in portraying her inner life, as shown by his wanting to avoid showing her grief over Logan’s death because it would be a real downer compared to the entertaining but ultimately hollow banter and quips he wants to focus on. Veronica this season was also just plain dumb: you mean to tell me that the girl who nearly got killed by Aaron Echolls in her back seat wouldn’t think to check her backseat every time she gets in a car?  (And let’s not even start with RT’s bizarre assertion in an interview that she apparently votes Republican). Not helping matters was Kristen Bell’s performance, which felt very flat for me this season compared to S1-3 and the movie; I don’t know if this was due to personal limitations or a reflection of the bad writing. Writers of future installments and KB herself would be wise to revisit S1, the movie, and the books to figure out what makes sense for Veronica’s character, leading me to my next point:

Get reacquainted with canon, develop a show bible, and hire a continuity director

This show has long had a problem with dropped plots, timelines, and continuity issues. Shelly Pomroy’s party has two happened either in the summer, or the fall. Then we have the movie paradox: Veronica graduated high school in 2006, which means her 10 year reunion should have taken place in 2016. The movie was released in 2014 and the books seem to keep to 2014 dates. Then S4 states that Keith’s movie accident took place in 2013, and mysteriously ages Veronica up to 35 when she should be 32 in 2019. Logan mentions an Aunt Naomi in S4--why didn’t she take care of him after Aaron was arrested (and what happened to Trina)? How the hell is Leo working as an FBI agent when he presided over the disappearance of the Lilly/Aaron tapes? Veronica is shown to be tentatively forgiving of Weevil taking the settlement from the sheriff’s department in Mr. Kiss and Tell, but is then shown to be extremely angry towards him for it in S4. This is just a small selection of the inconsistencies within the show. Plus there is the problem of repeated plot lines: Veronica rejects Leo in favor of Logan in S1, then rejects Leo in favor of Logan in Mr. Kiss and Tell, only for her to...reject Leo in favor of Logan in S4 (and RT says he wants to leave the high school plots behind). This sloppiness doesn’t bode well for a series that is supposed to be about mysteries, which require tight plotting. It would behove TPTB going forward to once and for all determine a timeline of Veronica’s life, keep a detailed record of past plot and character points, and have at least one person on staff who thinks to remember this stuff (RT notoriously has only a “solid, not spectacular” memory of the show, no matter what Kareem Abdul-Jabbar says).

Make an effort (and do your fucking research) 

Moving on from continuity issues to more general problems with the laziness of RT’s writing. He has basically admitted that he doesn’t care much about facts or characterization when writing plots--he shoehorns details to fit the plot rather than have it evolve organically from the characters and prior canon. I know that when writing it’s often impossible to make every story detail 100% accurate, but the extent of RT’s sloppiness is alarming. This excellent Reddit thread details a lot of the problems with S4 in particular, but this has been a problem since S2. Did anyone ever understand exactly why the Fitzpatricks were invested in framing Logan for Felix’s death? In the movie, it makes no sense that if Cobb and co. wanted Carrie silenced, they would add the complication of framing Logan for her murder--given her history, it would have been a lot easier just to make it look like she had accidentally overdosed. Given his previous patterns of villain writing fans were able to guess the identity of the S4 bomber based on casting alone. The mysteries in both Mr. Kiss and Tell and S4 are both ripped from the headlines, which indicates that RT wants to turn VM into the next Law and Order. Meanwhile, he complained about how hard including Logan in the story in S4 was, while Logan arguably had the best lines and most interesting scenes this season--apparently when you put an effort into things, they work out! This laziness extends past storyline issues and into factual problems that detract from the quality of the plot. Longtime fandom pals are probably tired about hearing me go on and on about how there’s no way Aaron’s lawyers could have gotten Veronica’s medical records due to HIPAA laws. Logan’s career change from naval aviator to intelligence is highly unlikely (and unnecessary, given that they changed it only to fridge him at the end of the season). Meanwhile, I know fanfic writers who have spent hours on the phone with strangers in order to research what type of firearm would cause a specific type of bullet injury. It’s very puzzling to me that RT wants to take the show in the direction of being mystery-only when apart from that one time he is piss poor at writing mysteries and puts no effort into them. I shouldn’t have to tell television writers to, you know, do their job but this is what we’ve come to in 2019.

Know your audience

A majorly annoying thing about the promo for this season is how in every single interview Rob Thomas did he was always talking about how he wanted VM to be like other shows and movies: Fargo, True Detective, Game of Thrones, Chinatown (which is apparently the only noir movie he’s ever seen). The thing is, if I wanted to watch those shows, I would; I watched Veronica Mars specifically because I enjoyed its unique qualities, and I would say most fans agree. The general perception within the fandom is that with this season Rob Thomas seems to have been aiming to dump the old, majority female, CW fanbase in order to achieve what he perceives as a cooler prestigious male fanbase; the issue is, new people aren’t going to take up a show in its fourth season if they didn’t watch or didn’t like earlier seasons. Also, trying to write a prestigious show doesn’t make your show prestigious. Considering that based on anecdotal evidence most of the people who like S4 seem to be male, he may have succeeded in the first part of his aim. However, this majority female fanbase he was so willing to cast aside are the ones who have run fansites and rewatches during fallow times (i.e. between S3 and the movie and then between the books and S4), so drumming up interest among fans (and therefore streaming views) in the future may be a challenge. Plus, women are a better advertising demographic since they are more likely to be in charge of household purchasing decisions, so maintaining us as a fanbase makes business sense as well. He may have tricked enough people into watching S4 that S5 is given a go, but I wouldn’t be surprised if streams are weak beyond that. If the show is to succeed as a commercial endeavor, better to go with appealing to a known quantity than trying to make a generic show that very few people have expressed interest in watching.

Bring back the mystery of the week

This is a more minor thing I felt was missing from S4. I think after the criticism of S3 not having a season-long arc RT overcorrected in focusing on one mystery. However, the mystery of the week had the following benefits: 1) giving chances for the characters to interact and telling us more about them 2) helping to modulate the pace of the season-long arc. With better writing a season-long standalone mystery could maybe work, but in the case of S4 specifically the mystery was kind of dull and repetitive and could have stood to include a couple of diversions in the form of a smaller case here and there.

Re-evaluate the creators’ interpretation of the word “adult”

Much of the promo and reviews for this season noted the more “adult” content to be expected this season now that Veronica’s grown. Many fans hoped that meant seeing Veronica act like, you know, an adult with adult problems rather than a teenager less mature than the actual teenager she was. Unfortunately, the show’s interpretation of the word seems to be more in keeping with a television rating sense of the word--meaning sex, drugs, and gratuitous violence (But apparently not the word “fuck.”). Look, it was expected that as the show moved to a streaming service and given the overall dramatic scope that there would be an upgrade in some of this sort of content (and I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t looking forward to steamier LoVe moments, which were sorely overpromised), but the way it was included this season felt like RT and co. included this stuff just because they could and not to serve the storyline. For me, personally, the biggest example of this was Veronica’s drug use, which I know didn’t necessarily bother everyone. Given her history as the daughter of an alcoholic as well as someone who had been the victim of two roofie attacks, not to mention the fact that her character never seemed to be into partying, I found it very out of character (and book writer Jennifer Graham agrees). It felt like RT included this just bc they thought it would be funny to see Veronica on drugs without considering whether it made sense for her character. Also, were the beheadings strictly necessary? Plus there’s RT’s little temper tantrum over not being able to use curse words this season--they weren’t present in the original show, no one was going to miss them now, and the “cuss” thing was just annoying and reminiscent of The Good Place. 

Dealing with a parent who maybe has dementia--that’s an adult storyline. Too bad RT ended it with a dumb excuse about “mixing meds” (another factual error! Pharmacy software would have caught it!) rather than actually exploring what it would mean for Veronica to see her father in decline and take over the family business (and give Rico Colantoni the exit he appears to want). This is the kind of adult content I would hope to see in future seasons.

Adult is not a synonym for “unrelentingly bleak” either. The original show, while dark, always had an element of hope that was completely removed from S4 (no matter what KB might claim). And would it have killed the writers to show Veronica wearing disguises and going undercover like she used to? There was nothing fun about this season (and no, I don’t count the multiple partying scenes as fun, more like sad).

Kill your darlings

It’s cliche, but it’s true. Another issue the show has long had is the writers keeping around characters or inserting jokes and references for their own personal amusement rather than for the story. The most notable example of this is the continued presence of Dick, a highly problematic character considering he pushed Beaver into the room with Veronica the night of Shelly Pomroy’s party, among a whole host of other racist, sexist, and generally obnoxious actions over the years. But because Ryan Hansen is so widely beloved among the cast and crew, so he stays. Then there’s the matter of the infamous Keister egg in 3x08, which the writers and KB have all expressed love for, despite the fact that said Keister egg is an example of sexual assault--which, even if the victim is a douchey fraternity president, is never funny. 

Also the constant Big Lebowski references are tiring. Watch a new movie.

Improve Neptune’s gender ratio

Veronica Mars, despite having a female lead, has always been a male-dominated show; other than Veronica herself, the only consistent female character over the original show was Mac (and she didn’t even come back this season). This is unacceptable in 2019, for any show. The books introduced promising female characters in the form of Marcia Langdon and Petra Landros, but Marcia’s character was was watered down for S4 and Petra was nowhere to be found. Additionally, Veronica and Mac have always been written as “cool girls” who looked down on other women for their femininity, which isn’t a great message. Almost every other female character, even the innocuous Parker, is portrayed as somehow bad or incompetent. I would love nothing more than a season centered on the women of Neptune and their interactions with each other. While we’re at it, stop giving every woman on this show a background of sexual victimization.

Treat VM as an ensemble show, not a Kristen Bell vanity project 

A major complaint from Burnt Marshmallows and S4 defenders alike was how little time was given over to the original core cast this season. While Veronica may be the protagonist, a large part of how the show became so beloved was her relationships with the other characters. Yet RT has decided that going forward VM will be a KB solo project, with her traveling town to town quipping and sleeping with strangers. This seems strange, given Kristen’s recent interviews talking about how difficult it is to shoot VM and how she never wants to be first on a call sheet ever again, not to mention how she asked for less screen time all the way back in S2, which resulted in the Weevil-Logan storyline, which was way more interesting than Veronica’s storylines during the first half of that season. (The traveling detective thing also seems weird considering that KB is pretty insistent on shooting in LA to be near her family.) Additionally, if this is truly the last season of VM with all the original characters, then no one got a proper sendoff. 

I’m not sure how willing much of the cast will be to return for future iterations, given how uncomfortable many of them seemed during promo as well RT and KB’s treatment of them (insensitive at best, deliberately mean at worst) this season (shout out to Tina Majorino for recognizing what a shit show this was going to be), but bringing back all the original characters into the fold and giving them significant storylines would go a long way to mending fences with fans, improving the show from a character arc perspective, and would also give KB the break she apparently wants. 

Recourt the fanbase

What has VM always been renowned for above all else? It’s incredibly loyal fandom which not only got it renewed twice during its original run but also put up their own money to get the movie made--I know many people who donated when they really couldn’t afford to. RT basically owes the last 6 years of his career to VM fans--the success of the Kickstarter arguably got him the iZombie show running gig, and the fourth season likely wouldn’t have even happened if not for it. Thus, the blatant cruelty and disregard with which RT and KB have treated fans during the promotion of S4 has been incredibly insulting and hurtful; I still can’t fathom what in the world possessed RT to think that throwing away this 15-year relationship was a good idea. It’s not a good sign when the 2 fansites most active during the post-movie period (VMHQ and VM Confessions) cease operations in the wake of S4, and when at least 3 out of 8 board members of the oldest running fan group, Neptune Rising (who were dormant during the post-movie period but played a critical role during earlier fan campaigns and in the S4 promo) resign. A fandom this loyal that was betrayed will not stand idly by if the S5 RT wants to make goes ahead; given the number of tweets the official Hulu VM account has had to delete in the wake of S4 due to the overwhelmingly negative response as well as the controversy over editing out Logan from S4 promos, I imagine that S5 will be a PR nightmare. Even if future seasons are amazing the trust can probably never be fully repaired, but it would be helpful for RT (or fingers crossed, a new show runner) and KB (as star and EP) to go overboard in reaching out to fans and at least admitting they made a misstep with the entirety of S4. Back in the day, the old Mars Investigation fansite was invited to set to conduct interviews; maybe do that again. Also someone should get KB some sort of VM fandom-fluent media trainer because I don’t think she has conducted a single interview during her entire stint on the show that didn’t anger fans (it might help if she actually bothered to watch the show).

Map out an endgame

Look, this can’t go on forever. As long as RT keeps leaving every installment open ended with the hopes of maybe getting renewed again five years down the line, the story is going to keep running into the issues the movie and S4 faced with having to shoehorn the characters into nonsensical plot lines to reconcile those endings and deal with actor availability issues. Either plot another 2-3 seasons to wrap the show up with a satisfying conclusion, or map out a greater timeline of Veronica’s life with spots where a mini series or movie here and there could fit in.

Fallen Star AU: Stella

This is a character profile for Mario and Peach’s daughter Stella, the main character of the Fallen Star AU.

I’ve posted a picture of her before, but I’ve decided I like my original concept sketch of her a little better.

General History: Stella was born in Sarasaland less than a year following the collapse of the Mushroom Kingdom. As Peach’s only daughter, and thus the rightful heir to the Mushroom throne, Stella was raised in absolute secrecy in Sarasaland, lest Bowser’s forces should discover her existence. Peach knew that the child of Mario and herself would give hope to the Toad population now living in oppression under Bowser’s rule. However, this reasoning has led Luigi to accuse Peach of using Stella.

Let it be said that Peach never pressured Stella to follow in Mario’s footsteps. Stella chose that path on her own. At a young age, she chafed at her confined existence and longed to liberate the conquered kingdom and take her rightful place as princess. 

As a teenager, she became aware of the toll such a quest would take on Luigi, who had always worried over her and might never recover if she died the same way her father did. But, at 18, her hand was forced, and she officially made her existence known to Bowser and his forces. She understands she’s risking more than her own life by fighting, but she believes the war with Bowser is bigger than herself and Luigi. 

Personality: Stella has always been a tomboy and being confined in her childhood has given her an intense wanderlust. Despite the tragic circumstances of her birth, she is a very idealistic individual, believing in a clear distinction between right and wrong and the sacred duty to fight for justice. These ideals will be challenged as she fights new foes, learns more of her family’s legacy, and sees that things are not as black and white as she believed. 

Stella exudes confidence in everything she does and has inherited her father’s impulsiveness. She’s also inherited his appetite. She can finish a slice of her mother’s cake with shocking speed. She tries to emulate Mario in many ways. She spent years training to gain his skills in acrobatics, and deliberately chooses to dress like him to order to evoke his image.

However, there’s a little bit more to her emulation of Mario than simple hero worship. Ever since she was very small, she’s been aware of a gap in her family’s life, the gap left by her missing father who would never come home. Stella remembers an occasion in her childhood where she walked in on Peach, hoping to give her a bouquet of flowering weeds she’d picked outside. Peach didn’t see her come in, and Stella saw the tears rolling silently down her cheek. Her mother, she’d come to understand, had lost everything, her home, her country, her people, and her knight. Stella’s attempt to follow in Mario’s footsteps is, in some way, an attempt to fill the gap. 

Abilities: Stella boasts the usual Mario Bros. agility and strength. She also possesses traces of her mother’s Wish Power. She can slow her descent from a long fall, and she inherited the ability to seal the Dark Star, which comes in very handy at a critical moment. 

Relationships:

Peach: Stella has spent most of her life in the company of her mother. Peach opted to use a frank and non-judgmental approach when raising her daughter. Whenever Stella had a question or was uncertain about something, Peach answered her as though she were an adult. When Stella expressed a desire to journey to the Mushroom Kingdom, Peach chose not to try and dissuade Stella and instead told her very clearly of the risks. As she grew up, Stella grew to admire Peach’s fortitude, managing to raise her lovingly even though her entire life had been destroyed and she is now living in exile. A huge motivator for Stella’s need to defeat Bowser once and for all is her desire to finally bring her mother home. 

Luigi: Luigi came to visit Stella often, and Stella found herself both flattered and intimidated by Luigi’s almost reverential love for her. Luigi taught her Italian and begrudgingly trained her how to fight the plumber way, though he would prefer for her to never use the skills he taught her. Luigi no longer fears for his own safety the way he did when he was younger but is instead plagued with fears of losing Stella. It was the guilt of worrying him that kept Stella in Sarasaland until she was eighteen. Mario died before she was born, and Toadsworth passed away when Stella was too young to really remember him, so Luigi has been her main father figure throughout her life. She’s called him “Zio” since she was little and continues to do so as a adult.

Mario: Stella’s entire life has been defined by her secondhand knowledge of Mario. She grew up hearing stories of his exploits and her family’s tender memories of him, and she quickly grew to idolize him. However, she has often longed for him to have a real, physical presence in her life. What would it be like to have a father say goodnight to you every night? And, wouldn’t her mother and uncle be so much happier if her father were still around? Stella, in many ways, sees Mario as the ideal of what a person should be, and she’s tried in every way she can think of to live up to his legacy. It’s put her under a lot of stress.

Daisy: Daisy is Stella’s Cool Aunt. Stella has known sorrow before she really knew her own name, and Daisy is a much-needed source of levity in her life. Daisy has matured since her younger days. Since the fall of the Mushroom Kingdom, she’s taken a more active role in the politics of Sarasaland, and so Stella sees her less often than Luigi. But, whenever she comes by, she’s always ready with a joke, a laugh, and presents for Stella and Peach. As a parent, Daisy has taken a more hands-off, let-them-learn-by-doing approach, which her own kids and Stella have benefitted from and which is the source of many headaches for Luigi. 

Cousins: Stella has three cousins: Tony, the eldest, Marigold, the middle one, and Viola, the baby of the family. Of the three, Stella is closest to Tony. Growing up as sheltered as she was, Tony was the only child her age available to play with. Even in their teens, Stella still considers Tony to be her best friend. Lanky and accident prone, Tony is more cautious than Stella but usually ends up going along with whatever she’s doing anyway. Stella influences him to journey into the Mushroom Kingdom to fight alongside her. Tony and Stella’s closeness is all the more impressive considering that Tony has often been envious of Stella. As a child, it often seemed to Tony that Luigi cared more for Stella than him. Stella and Luigi were united over their grief for Mario, and Tony felt his own exclusion from that connection. Tony covers up these negative feelings with a jokester personality. Whenever he’s feeling nervous about a leap into danger, he’s always ready with a self-deprecating joke. 

Bowser: Stella was warned her whole life that Bowser would try to kill her if he ever learned of her existence. When they finally encountered each other, Bowser did not disappoint. He’d spent eighteen years looking for Peach after she escaped the Kingdom, and when he learned Mario had had a daughter with her, he saw red. Whereas he’d never meant to actually kill Mario and felt something resembling remorse afterwards, he wanted Stella on a platter from day one. In his warped mind, Stella is the last thing tying Peach to Mario, and if he kills her, Peach will have no choice but to accept him. That Peach would never forgive him for killing Stella seems to never occur to him. Stella, however, is mostly unfazed by Bowser’s white hot rage. She’s always thought of him as a monster, a two-dimensional tyrant, and there was something morbidly satisfying in his immediate hatred of her. Neither she nor Bowser really see each other as thinking beings, just living symbols of what they oppose. 

Bowser Jr.: In the years following Mario’s death, Bowser Jr. has grown up to heavily resemble his adult father. Whereas age, stress, and, yes, grief, has caused Bowser to begin to decline, Bowser Jr. is in the peak of his adulthood. It’s often Junior, not Bowser himself, that Stella faces in combat, and at first, it seemed as though their relationship would be a copy of the enmity between Mario and Bowser during Mario’s lifetime. Bowser Jr. was pressured by his father early on to “torch that girl” that had stolen his mother from him, and Stella made her own disdain for Bowser Jr. clear from their first meeting when she told him, “You are standing in between me and my throne.” Despite their rivalry and volatile beginning, Stella and Junior eventually formed a mutual respect for each other. Junior came to feel disillusioned with his father’s drive for conquest, but he didn’t see an alternative to his current strength and war-centered way of living. Stella, an emphatic person herself, began to see and understand the burden Junior bore as the only son of the Koopa King, forced to comply with the wishes of his father and his people against his own better instincts. This understanding eventually bloomed into a sort of mutual attraction, and a lot of their fights became romantically charged. It progressed to the point where Junior at one point proposed to Stella, reasoning that a union between them would end the conflict. But, Stella turned him down. She’d already fought against him for so long under the narrative that he was an illegitimate prince with no claim to the Mushroom throne. If she married him now, thus acknowledging him as the heir, she would be betraying her people. She couldn’t accept a kingship that had been based on so much sacrifice. None of the reasons for her refusal had to do with Junior himself but what their union would mean for her people. They couldn’t be together. 

The Havoc Star: The weapon that allowed Bowser to conquer the Mushroom Kingdom, the thing that had killed Mario. For the longest time, the Havoc Star was a source of awe-inspiring horror for Stella. If Mario represented an idealized good, then the Havoc Star was pure, voidal evil. Bowser’s hated of Stella occasionally drove him to try to use the Havoc Star on her, and while these attempts were unsuccessful, Stella always escaped just by the skin of her teeth, and the destruction was always terrible. Other stars speak soothingly with wisdom or kindness, but Stella never heard anything from the Havoc Star but nerve-scraping screaming that filled the entire cavity of her skull. Stella’s top priority in the early days of her conflict with Bowser was to find a way to destroy the Havoc Star. If she could do that, then Bowser’s main ace in the hole would be gone, and taking back her kingdom would be easy. 

Dean said that he wanted to leave the franchise open for future spin offs with with different characters without any of the old ones. Do you think that would work, there’s still some unanswered questions like what some franchises do when they end a main story like Star Wars.

I think DreamWorks Dragons has had a productive run as a franchise and I would be content leaving it as it is. We have had: 3 feature length films; 10 comic books; 118 television show episodes across ROB, DOB, and RTTE; 4 movie shorts; books; special features; more video games than I care to count right now; live shows like How to Train Your Dragon Spectacular; and several memorable commercials like the Dragon Viking Games. And! There’s Rescue Riders coming out, too, for what it’s worth!

With all that material, DreamWorks has thoroughly covered Hiccup’s life between the ages of 14 and 21, and showed us what Berk’s experienced for 7 years. Even with different characters being depicted, this particular time period is more… challenging… to generate fresh material for, because it’s been so solidly covered.

That said, it’s not impossible to continue growing the HTTYD legacy and create new materials for DreamWorks Dragons. And I think that, yes, with the right creative minds, there could still be productive and interesting spinoffs. The question is: would DreamWorks take those options? Would DreamWorks see those options, and would DreamWorks think they could earn enough money with those options? Things they could technically cover which haven’t been thoroughly explored:

Other characters who ride dragons who lived on Berk during Hiccup’s years of influence

The Vikings of other tribes and how they handle dragons

Stoick’s lifetime! And the lifetime of other Berkians before Hiccup’s time

Valka’s twenty years of exile living as a vigilante

More on Heather and Dagur

Hiccup’s earlier childhood years before he became a dragon trainer

Eret’s earlier years - well, frankly, lots of Eret’s lifetime

Dragons and how they interact with other people groups in other parts of the world across history

Other civilizations where the dragons don’t disappear and continue to live with them

A more modern era of people rediscovering the dragons that disappeared

An incomplete list, but you get the idea.

Now, some of these would be considered much more financially viable than others, and more original than others, and more likely to attract audiences than others. #1 is the least interesting and creative to me, but honestly is the one with the highest likelihood of being green lit. It’s conceptually “safe”: you still give viewers the Berk they love, during a time period they love, but you’ve just got a different cast to engage with. #8 would be the biggest whiplash and ergo hardest to pull off, despite there being (what I feel to be) fascinating potential. There’s no way #8 would ever happen. #4 could be cool, but there’s not that much material I think you could put into it before it runs its course. Yada yada yada, there’s pros and cons with each.

Personally, I think the option which would be most enjoyable and successful narratively is #3. Let’s go back in time to Stoick, or Stoick’s father (no voice actor problems with that one), and experience Berk in its days of war against dragons. There is LOTS that could be said and explored during this time. It gives us new characters, but a familiar location. It gives us new stories to explore, but from a background we understand. It gives us freedom to explore, because it hasn’t been delved in depth by other parts of the franchise. But would DreamWorks actually pick a spinoff like this? Eeeeeeeyyyyyyeah idk.

In my (admittedly incomplete) list, you might notice something: with the exceptions of #9 and #10, I’m looking at the past or present times of HTTYD, and I think the best stories could be told in the past. The Hidden World is a conclusive ending, and trying to do some retcons (which #9 would entail) or time skips (which #10 would entail) have a flurry of problems associated with them. It could be done, it could be interesting, but you’re playing with fire. THW is meant to be THE ENDING because the dragons leave. If you want to keep integrity to what this franchise is and what you have given us, you should respect that ending, and create any potential spin-offs… before the big ending. 

And since Hiccup’s time has been so thoroughly done, you either have to fill in gaps with present characters (hmmm is that enough material?) or switch characters in Berk (hmmm is that original enough?) or locations away from Berk (hmmmm is that close enough to the brand DreamWorks wants?) to stay in present-days. That’s tricky. Which leaves us with the past, or a few niches here and there in the present that could be expanded upon. If you want to EXPAND GREATLY, you’re best going with the past.

So there are options. I could think of lots of stories I could write within this world, either from Hiccup’s time or before or after. But I don’t know if DreamWorks would capitalize on them well, or if it would be better to leave things be. I’m open to the concept of spinoffs. If they have a good premise, by all means, go for it! The fun of franchises is their ability to be expanded. But you have to know where to expand, and which areas have room for expansion, to keep going successfully. THW put big blockades up for what can and cannot be done. THW makes it harder to build the franchise. And DreamWorks would have to be smart to go with other materials away from those blocks THW made.

As far as unanswered questions… I don’t think there are too many of great significance to focus on for franchise expansions, so I suppose I’d put those on the backburner when thinking of ways the franchise would be best explored further.

The Bawa pull in Sri Lanka: Bawa 100

While our sandy beaches, cool climes, and unmistakable Sri Lankan smiles are magnets that draw many travellers this way, the island offers other unique experiences that leave indelible prints in the hearts of visitors. One such experience could be tied to the country’s rich architectural culture.

"“Bawa was a man motivated by beauty.”"  -- Christopher Beaver

In his late thirties, Deshamanya Geoffrey Manning Bawa (23 July 1919 – 27 May 2003) made an important life decision to leave his career in law and fuel a burgeoning love affair with architecture; little did he know that this pivotal move would not only go on to revolutionise architecture in Sri Lanka and South-East Asia but also leave a legacy of tropical modernism -- a design movement which embodies sensitivity for local context, combining it with the form-making principles of modernism -- that would be remembered and celebrated long after his time.

One such celebration comes in the form of the Bawa 100, initiated and carried out by the Lunuganga Trust, a private trust set up in 1994 with the purpose of looking after the two properties that belonged to Bawa -- in Colombo and Bentota -- now ceded to the Trust. The year 2019 marked the centenary of Geoffrey Bawa’s birth, and the series of events organised by the Trust from July 2019 to July 2020 is geared towards commemorating this eminent architect’s heritage and work.

Bawa, a man motivated by beauty

Bawa’s father, Justice B.W. Bawa was a successful lawyer and was of Muslim and European parentage. His mother, Bertha Marianne Schrader, was of German, Scottish and Sinhalese descent. His one older brother, Bevis Bawa, became a renowned landscape artist. Educated at Royal College, Colombo, Bawa moved on to study English and Law at St. Catharine’s College, Cambridge and Middle Temple, London, respectively; he became a Barrister in 1944. He returned to the country after World War II and worked for a law firm in Colombo.

The death of his mother saw Bawa leave his profession as a lawyer and travel for two years, across the United States and Europe. By 1948, after plans to buy a villa and settle down in Italy didn’t really pan out, he returned to Sri Lanka and in 1949, bought an abandoned rubber estate (now the Lunuganga Estate), on the south-west coast of the country, hoping to create an Italian garden from a tropical wilderness. The Lunuganga Estate, known as the country house of Geoffrey Bawa, is the product of a labour of love that lasted forty years.

The 15 acres of property located on the banks of the Dedduwa Lake in Bentota posed a challenge for Bawa who soon realised his lack of technical knowledge to bring his ideas to fruition. He returned to England to study architecture and after qualifying as an architect, came back to the country and joined the architectural practice of Edwards, Reid and Beggs.  

The Lunuganga Estate had Bawa’s attention and love until his death in May 2003 and is now managed by the Lunuganga Trust. The gardens are considered a seminal expression of his practice, a place where much of Bawa’s architectural thinking was explored and expressed.

Known for its wide, open spaces, ventilation and focus on local resources, tropical modernism is a concept that Bawa became one of the first to explore. He effectively applied it with cultural connotations of the respective locations he was designing in.

London-based architect Christopher Beaver in an interview with 1883 Magazine in 2013, commenting on Bawa’s almost theatrical views when it came to honouring tropical modernism in his creations, shared, “Bawa was a man motivated by beauty.”

“I said to Geoffrey, ‘If you had been living and working as an architect in the West, what sort of architecture would you have produced?’ and he replied, ‘I probably wouldn’t have been an architect,’ and I think that really crystallises his commitment to originalism, which is certainly what he brought very vividly to architecture in Sri Lanka at that time,” continued Beaver, who helped Bawa to organise his first exhibition in the UK.

What to expect from Bawa 100

"When we are moved by art we are grateful that the artist lived, grateful that he laboured in the service of his gifts. If a work of art is the emanation of its maker’s gift and if it is received by its audience as a gift, then is it, too, a gift?"  -- Lewis Hyde, scholar, essayist, translator, cultural critic, and writer.

The Gift

Congregating six artists and makers from Sri Lanka and abroad -- all of whom have had a long interest in the work of Bawa -- in Lunuganga, The Gift, set to open on January 5 and remain open until July 2020, is essentially a response to the gardens in installation form. Kengo Kuma, Lee Mingwei, Dominic Sansoni, Dayanita Singh, Sarah Sze, and Chandragupta Thenuwara will create installations of site-specific works at Lunuganga which will explore themes of nurture, shelter, labour, journey, generosity, perception and reflection, offering to attendees each artist’s response to the work of Bawa and his garden. The garden will be explored as a site of hospitality and a place of encounter. 

“This is the first time such site-specific installations are being exhibited for such a long period of time in Sri Lanka,” shared Curator of Geoffrey Bawa Art & Archival Collections, The Lunuganga Trust Shayari de Silva. She added that each of these artists has a different relationship to Bawa.

“Dominic Sansoni has taken photographs of Lunuganga since the 80’s. Thenuwara’s involvement began with the Theertha Collective, which is one of Sri Lanka foremost art collectives; the Collective organised its first installation exhibition in Lunuganga in the 1990’s. At first glance, you’d think Kengo Kuma and Bawa are very different in their creations but their process actually has many similarities. And Kuma has said that he draws inspiration from Bawa for his own work.”

De Silva went on to explain that Dayanita Singh is really bowled over by Bawa’s work. “In July 2019, she even launched a book drawing from photographic works she had made while in Kandalama.”

Sarah Sze’s multidisciplinary work, according to de Silva, explores the concepts of space and time, which are important themes in Lunuganga. “Lee Mingwei’s work has a previous connection to Sri Lanka (Bodhi Tree Project); his work is about hospitality and experiences of encounter which are, again, important themes at Lunuganga.”

De Silva expressed gratitude towards the six contributors saying, “The six artists and makers are all well-established with amazing careers. And they’ve understood the limitations of such a large scale project here in Sri Lanka, with our resources etc. and have been very flexible and supportive. They’ve also been very generous with their time and work and that has been their gift towards this; there has been a lot of goodwill from all those involved.”

Getting them involved in the project was a long process, according to de Silva, and this was also made possible by the relationship some of them have with the Trust.

Bawa is said to have always invited artists, Laki Senananyake, Lidia Duchini, Fiona Hall, Jimmy Ong, and Michael Ondaatje namely, to make work on-site or be inspired by it. Even today, the gardens remain a source of abundance for those interested in drawing from the place. This was the thinking behind naming the exhibition ‘The Gift’.

Programme Manager for Bawa 100 celebrations, Shanika Perera, commenting on The Gift, shared that there will be three events showcasing the installation series, the first launch on 5 January, the second one on 22 March and the closing reception on 19 July.

The Bawa 100 programme started earlier last year, July 2019 to be precise, and Perera shared that the reception from attendees thus far has been good. “Geoffrey Bawa has an existing following but we were also able to tap into the student populace this time with attendees from universities and design faculties. In addition to this, some of the exhibits that featured Bawa’s collaborators brought in the general public as well.”

Although the last few events weren’t free of charge, the organisers are hoping to change that with the events to come. “The mandate of the Lunuganga Trust is education and because of that, we’ve always allowed students to come in free. With The Gift, we’re working on having an open day at Lunuganga each month. It usually costs Rs. 1500/= to enter the gardens but on the open days, the entrance will be free,” said Perera. 

Elaborating further, de Silva said, “With our events, we mainly target three groups - the local artists and architecture community, the student, academic and scholarly community, and the general public. So, even with The Gift, we’ve tried to make it as accessible as we can, which is why it’s free of charge. We also make sure we print all our brochures and catalogues in all three languages.”

First launch - 5 January 2020, 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. Lunuganga Garden, Dedduwa, Bentota

Registration required - email [email protected]

Oral Histories Project

Scheduled to take place in April 2020, the Oral Histories Project will be curated by the Lunuganga Trust Curator Shayari de Silva. De Silva has worked previously at the Yale University Art Gallery and the Yale Centre for British Arts. 

Initiated in 2018, the Geoffrey Bawa Oral History Programme, is part of the Trust’s efforts to expand the repository of primary source material available on Geoffrey Bawa and his practice.

What is to unfold in April is essentially a deeper study and understanding of Bawa’s work through a series of informal conversations with the architect’s former friends, colleagues, and collaborators. Bawa’s architectural practice, his methods, his personality, and the many key collaborators who enabled and enriched his work will be reflected on by analysing recorded audio and video formats of these conversations, which will be made available on the Trust’s website in January 2020. The oral historians will include Amila de Mel, Anura Ratnavibushana, Channa Daswatte, David Robson, Deepal Wickremasinghe, Dilshan Ferdinando, Ismeth Raheem, Laki Senanayake, Michael Snelling, Philip Fowler, Pierre Pringiers, Saskia Pintelon, Suhanya Raffel, and Sunethra Bandaranaike.

“Bawa himself was a really shy man who was reticent to make public statements so there’s not a lot of correspondence available by him,” shared de Silva, adding that this has been a challenge for scholars. “I joined the Trust in 2018 and I felt like so much of the information available about him was actually in the minds of the people who knew him - either by working with him, being his friends or his clients. So much of that generation who knew him are rapidly leaving us, as did Roland Silva who passed away very recently.”

Through Oral Histories, de Silva explained, what they’re trying to do is bring a very subjective, multi-faceted narrative of who Bawa was and also of his work, based on the many sides to him different people knew. “More and more Trusts and similar institutions are doing this now actually, creating primary source material. History is never one voice so recording subjective statements from different people who actually knew him is important.”

It is Essential to be There

Happening between 25 June – 31 July 2020, It is Essential to be There is an exhibition that will be an examination of the drawings in the Bawa Archive, a collection of primarily pen and ink drawings that are mostly unconventional and redrawn repeatedly. The hope is that such inspection would bring attendees closer to understanding the practice itself and the many unique features that characterised it. A catalogue publication including essays by Sean Anderson, Shirley Surya, Amitav Ghosh, and Shayari de Silva will also be a part of this exhibition.

17th Annual Geoffrey Bawa Memorial Lecture

“The memorial lecture is something that happens annually,” elaborated Perera. Bangladeshi architect Marina Tabassum will deliver this year’s one which is to be held on 16 July 2020 at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute. Tabassum is the Academic Director of the Bengal Institute for Architecture, Landscapes, and Settlements.

Date - 16 July 2020

Venue - Sri Lanka Foundation Institute

5th Triennial Geoffrey Bawa Awards

Conceptualised in 2007, the aim of the Geoffrey Bawa Awards is to recognise outstanding contributions to contemporary architecture in Sri Lanka. The Awards scheme is modelled on the awards scheme of the prestigious Aga Khan Trust for Culture in Geneva, widely acknowledged as having had a significant impact on the architecture of developing countries. Bawa was the recipient of the Aga Khan’s Special Award for a Lifetime’s Achievement in Architecture in 2001.

This year’s awards will be held on 23 July 2020 coinciding with Bawa’s 101st birth anniversary, and the winner, announced at this gala ceremony, will be awarded a sum of one million rupees. Glenn D. Lowry will deliver the lecture at the ceremony.

Date - 23 July 2020

“In addition to these events, there is also the launch of the Bentota Beach Hotel, reconstructed by Channa Daswatta,” shared Perera adding that the Bawa 100 programme is also looking to launch a collection of stamps featuring the well-known properties the architect has designed. The stamps were designed by Communications and Design Manager for the Bawa 100 celebrations Thilini Perera. Perera is an independent multidisciplinary designer, who has contributed in a creative capacity to advertising, publishing, and design education industries in Sri Lanka and Vietnam over the past ten years.

Italian architect Renzo Piano observed, “One of the great beauties of architecture is that each time, it is like life starting all over again.” Come and experience the Bawa 100 and relive a life worth reliving. 

Image Sources: bawa100.com, www.archdaily.com/770481/spotlight-geoffrey-bawa/, www.facebook.com/events/559368474845749/

Cover image: Geoffrey Bawa’s home in Colombo with a painted door by Donald Friend © Sebastian Posingis

3, 9, 15, 22, 24 :))))

3. Do you have any favorite simblrs?

I do! I won’t be naming any urls not to leave anyone out, but I primarily enjoy blogs that have something in common with mine (legacies, challenges, storytelling). Mostly I try to limit my following list to ts3 blogs, but I follow some amazing people who post other games. Also, I’m the worst at catching up because I’m always busy, tired and anxious, but I promise I still love you all very much.

9. What is your least favorite thing about the Sims?

Definitely loading times! Especially in ts3. I’m sure it’s the fault of my laptop because it’s not exactly the most powerful gaming one, but my game runs super slowly (20-40 minutes to load the saves, and I don’t even have a lot of cc. CAS and rendering takes forever too). I’ve tried literally every single advice on reducing loading times (at this point there’s really nothing more I can do), but they are still ridiculous and my laptop makes loud noises while the game is running, which makes me worry. It kinda kills the mood and makes everything much slower than it could be. However, I’m hoping to get a better laptop soon so I can progress faster with my legacies.

15. What is your favorite Sim World?

Strangetown forever! I have a lot of them in ts3, and can’t even choose the favourite – I enjoy the concept of ts3 worlds in general, they are so open and diverse. I’d say Oasis Landing simply because I’m such a huge time travel enthusiast. Bridgeport means a lot to me too because of Futuristic Lover. Then Twinbrook, Sunset Valley... no, I can’t do it.

22. What kind of computer do you play Sims on?

I have a HP Pavilion laptop. I bought it three years ago, and it was already used for three years before me, so, like I said above, not the best option for ts3. It’s good for non-gaming stuff, though.

24. How many hours of Sims do you think you have played?

Lmao I dread to think! I bet it’s a good year of my life in total, or even more (sad, right). I used to play almost every day when I was younger and had more time. Now I play rarely, I can go weeks without the game (and it’s not helping that I have four legacies and plenty of ideas). My queue runs on the backlog I have from months ago and from my occasional simming sessions which are always productive.

Thank you for asking, dude! By the way, if you haven’t checked out @trinitymarconeptune‘s blog yet, I highly recommend so. She’s my long-time friend who posts super cool alien stories!

Storytelling Problems in “The Last Jedi”

(Spoilers… seriously, a lot of spoilers. Don’t read this if you haven’t seen Star Wars: The Last Jedi because there’s going to be a lot of spoilers for that movie in this post. spoilers. spoilers. spoilers. spoilers. spoilers. spoilers. spoilers. spoilers. spoilers. spoilers. spoilers. spoilers. spoilers. spoilers. spoilers. spoilers. spoilers. spoilers. spoilers. spoilers. spoilers. spoilers. spoilers. SPOILERS. SPOIL-nerf-herding-LERS. Spoilers.)

            Star Wars: The Last Jedi has received conflicted reviews from the critics who seem to love it and the moviegoers who have been left feeling confused and a little disappointed. This is different from The Force Awakens, which received generally good reviews, but was criticized for following the same essential plot as A New Hope, where a young orphan, stranded on a desert planet receives a call to action, requiring them to leave home, challenge the Empire and blow up a death star. The first film in the Disney series set the audience up to believe that we were watching something that was more similar to a reboot, than a continuation of the existing story. The Last Jedi takes advantage of this by using the plot of The Empire Strikes Back to subvert these expectations. When you expect Luke to train Rey as Yoda trained him, he refuses. When you expect Snoke to be a complex and mysterious character, he dies without a hint as to where he came from, and when you expect Rey to be the daughter of some important legacy character, she turns out to have no relevant family ties. A lot of this can be summed up by the sentiment expressed in Kylo Ren’s line that was revealed in the trailer. “Let the past die. Kill it if you have to.” Director Rian Johnson seems to be saying the we, as an audience, need to let go of the idea that these movies and the characters that live within them are going to be the same as the old ones if we ever want to move on and allow a new generation to come forward. So why are so many people not liking the new Star Wars? Well, there are a few major structural problems I’d like to point out.

 1.     Poe and Finn don’t need to be in the movie.

These two characters, while occasionally entertaining, are completely unnecessary to the primary plot of The Last Jedi. It becomes an issue for any story when there are too many subplots. It makes the film feel muddled. In episodes 4, 5 and 6, the camera followed Luke on his mission to become a Jedi and overthrow the empire. Occasionally Luke leaves the main group and the films begin to cut back and fourth between him and everyone else, but most of the original franchise followed the protagonist. Episode 8 splits its time between Rey on the island with Luke, Kylo’s slipping influence under Snoke, Poe’s struggle to help the resistance escape, and Finn’s attempt to shut down a tracking device by infiltrating a casino. The problem is that Finn and Poe’s subplots are completely unnecessary. If you cut straight to the First Order tracking the rebellion and eventually landing on Planet Salty, you’d still have essentially the same movie. Perhaps even with more time to develop Rey as a character. There’s simply too much going on at once and a lot of it is unnecessary.

 2.     There’s a fine line between subverting expectation and trolling.

Reversing every major plot point from Empire made a bold statement about taking the series in a new direction, but it’s important not to try so hard to be unexpected that you forget to tell a good story. Kylo killing Snoke in a surprise attack before his back-story and motivations could be revealed certainly caught a lot of people off guard, but it also kind of felt like a giant middle finger to every fan who spent hours theorizing about who he might be or where he might have come from. Wouldn’t Johnson have been able to make the same point about not needing to rely on the old series by simply creating a new origin for the Supreme Leader rather than throwing him away entirely? This isn’t the only time this happens either. Turning Luke’s trial in the cave from a jarring scene about self-reflection and the origin of evil, to Rey’s scene where the only deeper meaning she finds is that there is no deeper meaning can be disorienting. These scenes made the movie feel jagged and disconnected, like it was trying so hard not to say the same thing as Empire, that it didn’t say anything at all.

 3.     It’s afraid to be earnest.

Themes of cynicism are unfortunately becoming more and more common in the film industry. There is a line near the end of Avengers: Age of Ultron where Hawkeye says, “The city is flying, we’re fighting an army of robots and I have a bow and arrow. None of this makes sense.” This is a self-aware nod to the ridiculousness of situations that super hero movies frequently create. Deadpool is basically a two hour-long iteration of this line. The characters who do this are essentially saying, “you can’t make fun of me if I make fun of myself first.” This works in Deadpool because the purpose of the film is to be self-aware and mock the tropes built up by the super hero film industry. It is a meta-comedy. Avengers and Star Wars are not. When Han Solo asks Finn if there’s a trash compacter on the station, he laughs and says there is. This scene is intended to be a nod to episode 4, but Finn shouldn’t know that. He wasn’t there when Luke, Leia and Han were trapped in a trash compactor. When Luke flings away his old lightsaber, we laugh, but only because that isn’t what a Jedi is supposed to do with a cherished heirloom. The characters frequently seem like they’re too cool to actually care about what’s going on, but if the characters don’t care, why should the audience?

 4.     The film’s message is shallow.

While Star Trek was always known for its explorations of politics and culture, Star Wars spent more of its time ruminating on religion and philosophy. These concepts were the heart of the original films. Star Wars was never so much about the physical battles as it was about the battle of ideas. The Last Jedi seems to be throwing these ideas away, ‘killing the past.’ Yoda burns the tree. Kylo cuts Snoke in half. Rey’s lightsaber breaks. When Luke faces Kylo, the sith sneers and asks if Luke is going to try and save him. Luke refuses, deciding that instead of trying to turn his nephew back to the path of light, the way he did with Vader, a good butt whoopin’ is the more appropriate response. This might kindle some shallow sense of ironic comedy in the moment, but it ultimately leaves the film feeling hollow.

 The Last Jedi isn’t without its saving graces. I was drawn in by Rey and Kylo’s mysterious connection, and I cheered as hard as anyone when they fought off the imperial guard back to back. I wouldn’t even go so far as to call it a bad film. It took what Abrams had built and tried to learn from it instead of taking the easy road and re-shooting Empire. Johnson took a risk and tried to make something new, but at least for me, it simply failed to be a Star Wars movie. It didn’t have any of the qualities that made the original franchise memorable. At the end of the day, episodes 4-7 spent a lot of time asking questions, and episode 8 spent three hours asking “who cares?”

FIFA 20, Volta, And The Law Of Diminishing Returns

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FIFA 20, Volta, And The Law Of Diminishing Returns

I recently got to play FIFA 20 at a preview event in Berlin and, as you might expect, the new game is like the current version, FIFA 19, but a bit different. The passing is a little better, the shooting is a little better, the UI has been tidied up in some areas–you know, the usual fare.

Out of curiosity on my return from Berlin, I booted up an old PS4 copy of FIFA 15, a game released when Ultimate Team was still a relatively new concept, Career Mode was still good, and Steven Gerrard was still the beating heart of Liverpool’s midfield. The five-year-old game holds up remarkably well and feels surprisingly similar to the upcoming FIFA 20. Sure, the newer games are slicker experiences, but FIFA 20 isn’t as far ahead as you might expect, given the five-game gap.

That’s not a dig at modern FIFA–I have thoroughly enjoyed 19 and it is comfortably my most-played game of the past 10 months. Rather it’s both a compliment to FIFA 15 and a comment on the diminishing returns developers face when making annual games. Despite five years of tweaks, gameplay improvements, a whole new development engine, and new modes like The Journey, we’re not that much further ahead.

This year’s big new mode is the FIFA Street-like Volta, which, on first impression, seems like a deep and engaging addition to the series’ portfolio. Once you’ve built your custom player-character, you’re presented with a world map showing a number of locations you can visit. These places are the battlegrounds that host various types of street football, and they include London, Tokyo, and Rio de Janeiro, among a bunch of others. You can then travel to these locales to partake in Story matches and city-specific events–some of which can be played against friends’ teams even when they’re offline. Your team in these modes is made of fake characters created specifically for the mode–though the story mode contains some real-life street footballers as ‘boss fights.’ There’s also a Volta Kick-Off submode that allows you to play small-sided matches–3v3 up to 5v5–with players from licensed professional teams like Man Utd or Real Madrid.

Elsewhere, Volta borrows heavily from Ultimate Team: players are represented by cards, whose chemistry is affected by the position you place them in and the formation you decide to play. Your team’s chemistry will also change depending on the type of court they prefer compared to the one they’re playing on–the presence or lack of solid walls on the outer edge, for example, makes quite a large difference to how a game plays out and to the tactics you can exploit. The mode also contains weekly challenges and deep customization options, the latter of which are represented in Overwatch-style fashion by different colors and labels denoting, for example, Epic, Legendary, or Common rarity items. EA says these items are purchasable using in-game currency only, with no microtransactions present at launch.

Aside from these customization options, such as hats, jerseys, and boots, the long-term appeal of Volta appears to be driven by multiplayer matches against your friends and their teams, as well as striving to accumulate the best players. (When you beat another team, you can pick a player to steal to join your own squad, though that player will also remain as part of their existing squad.)

Volta matches themselves feel very reminiscent of the 2012 FIFA Street reboot–while there is a greater focus on skills and showing off than is found in regular soccer, it’s not as over-the-top as the previous Street games were. There are no gamebreakers or classes, and the control scheme carries over from regular FIFA, a move EA says is designed to help players transition between the two otherwise diametrically opposed ways of playing. In that respect, it seems a successful move–and bouncing balls off walls and nutmegging opposition players before getting on your hands and knees to head a ball over the line is thrilling–but it did feel a little like I was straining against the control scheme in order to achieve such feats. It’s as if the framing was just a little too much like standard FIFA to enable the great moments to flow. Hopefully EA can tighten this up in the remaining weeks before launch.

I found the integration of Volta’s multiplayer and single-player submodes and its AI-driven community squads a little confusing, so I’m eager to get my hands on the mode again when the final game launches at the end of September. My initial instincts say Volta will be a fun option that I’ll dip in and out of throughout the year when I grow tired of Ultimate Team or Career Mode, rather than a main draw like either of those two. However, at least Volta’s appeal appears to be longer-lasting than that of The Journey, which, while I enjoyed, held little to no long-term value.

Volta is a refreshing new way to play FIFA, then, but what happens on the pitch still doesn’t feel significantly different to what came before. This is a problem many games faced toward the end of the last console generation. The reality is that when hardware stays the same, developers can only achieve so much–especially when they face the continual deadlines of annual releases and increasing pressure to update existing games as live services. This issue is not unique to FIFA, and PES has suffered from a similar deceleration in gameplay improvements. The games are still getting better and steps forward are still being made–they’re just smaller with each passing year.

This is reflected in the way the series are developed and marketed these days. EA and Konami focus less on gameplay enhancements and their somewhat ridiculous buzzword labels–Elite Technique, Pro Instincts, Hyper Shooting, Super Space Auto Tackling 2.0, that kind of thing–and more on entire new modes or aesthetic changes. Konami has gone all-out on its license acquisitions this year, for example, while EA points to FUT and Volta before it gets to what’s changed on the pitch. This isn’t necessarily a problem, since we’re still getting cool new features to make it worth forking out every year, but maybe, for the time being, we need to adjust our expectations of what developers can achieve in yearly development cycles.

With the next generation of consoles on the horizon, I’m sure a revolution is coming for football games. Until then, we’ll have to make do with an entirely new mode that, while not groundbreaking, is an enjoyable alternative to the modes we’ve come to know and love (and, occasionally, hate). I suppose Volta could be summed up as being like standard FIFA 20–but a bit different. How very modern.

FIFA 20 launches for PS4, Xbox One, and PC–with legacy editions coming to Switch and older platforms–on September 27.

Source : Gamesport

Dirty Computer: Janelle Monaes Electrifying Coming Out Party

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Dirty Computer: Janelle Monaes Electrifying Coming Out Party

Janelle Mones new album Dirty Computer features the acclaimed singer-songwriter at her most revealing and freewheeling.

The 32-year-old star is one of the most respected in music, and shes won raves and challenged listeners with an ambitious blend of funk, pop, rock, soul, and hip-hop that has often made her hard to define. But being pinned down has never been Mones styleand on Dirty Computer she lets her freak flag fly.

Mone has admitted that her early android persona and conceptual The Metropolis and ArchAndroid projects were sometimes driven by the need to protect herself from judgment. As Mone has evolved as an artist, shes come into her own creatively and as a womanand now seems fully in command of her art and emboldened by living in her truth. Like virtually every full-length release in her genre-bending discography, Mones Dirty Computer is a conceptual affair: In the accompanying short film, shes Jane 57821, a nonconformist in the near future who needs to be cleaned by the powers-that-be. Shes a rebel in love with her community and in love with Zen (Tessa Thompson)and shes fighting to be herself.

Arriving a whopping five years after 2013s The Electric Lady, the new album finds Mone simultaneously at her most musically accessible and her most forthcoming lyrically. It feels like shes the most free on record that shes ever been. Not that Mone has ever seemed constrained, exactlybut her work has always seemed to put the concept ahead of emotional nakedness. On Dirty Computer, the concept is driven by her introspection, not the other way around. This is the strongest set of pop songs that Mone has released, as she dances between sunshine synth-pop, dance-driven funk jams, and lush soul. Working alongside longtime collaborators like Deep Cotton and Roman GianArthur, Mone isnt in altogether unfamiliar territory musically, but she is breaking bold new ground in terms of themes, and shes putting them across in more engaging ways than she has before.

It sounds like an anthem for youthful brazenness and epic summer nights; it also sounds like a spiritual manifesto.

The album opens with the Brian Wilson-assisted title track, with Wilsons trademark only-but-him harmonies providing a warm bed on which Mones warm lead vocal coos, I love you in space and time, with sparsely skittering production. With its twinkling chords and cascading drums, Crazy Classic Life channels 80s synth sounds a la Depeche Mode as Mone outlines her version of freedom: I am not Americas nightmareI am the American cool. She wants a crazy classic life, and shes perfectly OK with however it ends as long as shes done it all. It sounds like an anthem for youthful brazenness and epic summer nights; it also sounds like a spiritual manifesto. The synth vibes remain on Take A Byte, and its a pure party: The thumping groove and handclaps are dance-floor-perfect, as Mone sings, Dress me upI like it better when we both pretend, in one of the most effectively sensual and slinky moments on Dirty Computer.

Princes influence looms large on Dirty Computer, an album that owes a lot to his most personally affirming dance anthems like Uptown and Erotic City. The guitar-driven Screwed even opens with a rhythm-guitar lick thats a clear nod to his 1986 classic Kiss, but presented in a completely different musical context. Sex, bodywere gonna crash your party, sounds like the best kind of warning, as Mone provides yet another song that sounds like it was made for the best weekend youve ever had.

This is a fucking fun album.

Django Jane debuted online back in February, with Mone trying on trap and showing that her creativity sits comfortably at virtually any stylistic table. Sassy, classyKool-Aid with the kale, Janelle raps confidentlyand with more panache than most others who regularly trade in the format. Remember when they said I looked to mannish? she pointedly recalls, reminding everyone that during her ArchAndroid days she wasnt always the beloved pop culture icon she is today. She deftly addresses gender, race, and her own still-growing legacy as an artistperfectly seguing into Pynk, the other previously released single that had fans salivating in early April.

The double entendre of the title/hookand the cheekily clever music videois sort of a second affirmation of Django Jane. The color pink serves as a metaphor for both the universality of human existence and the specificity of womanhood. When the surging guitar and Some like that! hook kick in, its clear that Mone knew she had another anthem here.

Prince collaborated with Mone directly and Make Me Feel is an appropriate tribute, homage, and confirmation that no mainstream artist embodies His Royal Badness most provocative, singularly focused creativity as much as Janelle Mone. That groove burns itself into your brain within seconds, when that all-too-distinctive rhythm guitar begins punching holes in the pace, as Janelle ad-libs a joyful screechit sounds like an old friend making a welcome appearance at this Mone-led party. Prince lives. Pharrell shows up for I Got the Juice, as Mone flaunts and taunts a bitover African rhythms and a percolating beat.

I Like That is the most atmospheric moment on Dirty Computer, a gorgeous melody carried on a wave of synth strings, as Mone sings, A little crazy, little sexy, little cool / Little rough around the edges but I keep it smooth / Im always left of center and thats right where I belong / Im the random minor note you hear in major songs. She drops a brief rhyme about a childhood crush who rated me a 6 after she cut her perm, but makes it clear that she always knew I was the shit. And she goes for 90s neo-soul vibes on Dont Judge Me, a song that addresses personal insecurity and the fear that comes from wanting to open and be your real self around the person who makes you feel the most loved but also the most scared: Even though you tell me you love meIm afraid that you just love my disguise.

That element of fear is revisited on So Afraid, a somber, guitar-driven tune that somewhat recalls the 60s vibes of the title track. Theres so much to be gained by running toward love, but Janelle Mone expresses the doubt and apprehension of emotional connections beautifully here. And she parodies the jingoism and paranoia that defines so much of the good ol US of A on the rollicking album closer Americana. Once again playfully tapping into her Prince-ish tendencies, Mone offers a nod to the foot-stomping raucousness of Lets Go Crazy, while taking aim at everything from traditional gender roles to xenophobia to generic Americana. Its an upbeat end to an album full of joy and freedom, and it offers its best line: I wonder if you were blind, would it help you make a better decision.

Janelle Mone has been one of the most era-defining artists of the past 10 years, and shes done it without the kind of all-world hit singles that seem to define pop culture status. Shes managed to carve a niche in contemporary music that is uniquely her own, and here shes created the kind of album that gives voice to the creative, proudly outside-the-box individuals that have fueled so much of the cultural and social change of the times. The android Cindi Mayweather gave Mone a persona on which to explore her boldest ideas, but in putting who she is front-and-center, Mone has delivered her most relatable work to date. And it couldnt come at a better time. Black women have been leading a cultural charge, and Mone sits alongside so many of the boldest women of her generation. With Dirty Computer, shes given us a stellar pro-woman, pro-LGBTQ, party like its 1999, middle-finger-to-the-status-quo dance record.

There has beenand will continue to bea lot written about Mones coming out in the latest issue of Rolling Stone and how this album is reflective of her desire to be her. She said in the interview: Being a queer black woman in America someone who has been in relationships with both men and womenI consider myself to be a free-ass motherfucker. Mone has long been an inspiration to anyone who dared to be themselves, and her latest art documents an important moment in her journey as a creator and as an individual. Its exciting to witness her come into her own.

And it sounds like shes having a blast.

Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com

CEO Interview: Barry Sternlicht Is His Own Biggest Critic

Barry Sternlicht, the real estate investor who founded Starwood Hotels & Resorts, continues to expand his 1 Hotels eco-luxury hotel brand. 1 Hotels/Starwood Capital Group

Skift Take: Being a perfectionist isn't always a bad thing, especially if Sternlicht's hotel history is any proof of that.

— Deanna Ting

Barry Sternlicht has a lot to be happy about these days.

Just minutes after we spoke to the former founder and CEO of Starwood Hotels, who is now the founder, chairman, and CEO of Starwood Capital Group, Sternlicht officially opened his latest hotel, proclaiming it to be the “most exciting, greatest hotel I’ve ever done.”

And with panoramic views of Manhattan and an enviable location in the heart of New York City’s Brooklyn Bridge Park, it’s hard to disagree with him.

But as you’ll see in our following interview with Sternlicht, as happy as he is with his newest hotel, 1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge, he isn’t completely satisfied just yet.

For the billionaire real estate investor, everything is always a work in progress. There’s always room for improvement. There’s always room for more innovation.

Skift spoke to Sternlicht about what it’s like to build a new hotel brand from the ground up today, how the industry has changed, and what hospitality needs to do today to avoid becoming just a commodity.

Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Skift: Well, it’s been about two years since you opened the first 1 Hotels property in South Beach, Miami. In that time, do you think things have changed a little bit with the brand? I know you mentioned that, when you first opened it, that 1 Hotels was more of a cause than a brand.

Sternlicht: Oh, it’s still a cause. I think we’re getting better at it. We keep learning from our mistakes.

This hotel, I think, is the greenest of the hotels because we got to build it from scratch. We reclaim water, for example. We do a lot of things that you can do with a new building to start out. Wanting to build a green building, with all of this glass, and having these systems that are state-of-the-art … I feel that, from that perspective, I think this is our laboratory as a showroom.

It’s just lots of little things that we didn’t quite get right [before]. It’s really a challenge to keep your designers focused on sustainable, renewable materials, and resources and they drift, you know, because they just wanted [something like this], and I tell them, “No, no, no, don’t drift.”

And even here, I think there are some things that are a little too perfect. It’s a little too complicated, and nature is not perfect. I mean, in a way it’s perfect, but it’s also raw, and so I still want to do things that are … well, you’ll see the next hotel.

Skift: You mentioned mistakes, or things you wanted to do differently. Were those primarily just having to do with design or the overall guest experience?

Sternlicht: Both. Like in Florida, we used too much stainless steel, and I didn’t catch it. I didn’t see it before I saw it when it was installed, and that’s a material I don’t really want to see in our hotels.

On technology, we tried to actually leapfrog a lot of existing technology and develop our own customer relationship management software and we call it the “Field Guide.” And it was too complicated for the guests, and it was probably a bridge too far for a startup. I thought it was, but we were pregnant, so we tried it, and the guests liked the concept, but we got with frustrated with it. So, the single control, which looked like an iPhone, handled everything in the room, including the order menus, and it was supposed to be backed by a database, which would let us customize experiences to you. The database never showed up, and so we couldn’t personalize the guest experience the way I would have hoped.

So here [at the Brooklyn Bridge hotel] we’re using a different technology, and I tried it last night and it seems to be working well. But you know, you can do the design, you can do the attitude, but in today’s world, we really need to learn to anticipate our guests’ needs. Technology will let you do that, but you have to have a system.

Some of the systems in these arcane, heritage, legacy systems, some of them in the hotel industry — I ran Starwood Hotels, as you know — they’re not really flexible. You have to do what they say as opposed to what we’d want to know about you. And you would like me to know about you; it’s not supposed to be like Big Brother.

It’s supposed to be you love tomato juice, and you love it every time so when you come, you order it, and I want to get it in your room and I want to [know to] ask, “You want tomato juice in your room?” It’s the software that drives the hardware of the box and it helps our staff really make you feel like you’re our only guest and, at the end of the day, if we’re going to achieve the rates we want to achieve, and the occupancy is in the performance and the brand, we have to get both sides right.

I think we’re making up for our service flaws with tons of enthusiasm. And they’re super dedicated staff and it’s interesting because, if you read our reviews on TripAdvisor, people love our design but they love our people, and that’s really exciting for me.

Skift: 1 Hotels was really marketed as an eco-luxury brand, and I remember when hotels were really jumping on the eco bandwagon …

Sternlicht: I was one of them.

A living room suite at the new 1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge. Source: 1 Hotels

Skift: But now it’s been at least almost a decade now since that’s happened. Do you think a lot of consumers just expect things to be eco-friendly or is it still a challenge for them to find those types of experiences?

Sternlicht: Unfortunately, I’d say that, in general, I don’t think it’s a [desire] for the mass travelers; it’s still not a selection criteria, and [that’s also] because I think a lot of hotels went “green” for cost. We decided we weren’t going to wash your towels, and we said we were, you know, “We’re doing it for eco.” We were saving money.

I was one of those companies. I ran Starwood, so, I think the customer got that. It was like what we call “painted green,” as opposed to “be green.”

So here we are [with 1 Hotels], from the ground up, and we’re going to start [being green from the start]. All of our hotels will be LEED certified. The first two were both massive renovations to existing assets, so a lot of compromises had to be made.

I was very surprised when Miami got a Silver rating from LEED because it was such a difficult box. It had an old system, and it was hideously expensive to replace some of it, so we spent a ton of money, but we didn’t replace everything, so I was really pleased.

Here, I think we’ll set a new standard, but a lot of this stuff, isn’t just the materials. A lot of this furniture was made locally, and the locavore [movement is reflected here]. The food will be grown locally, and the stones are sourced locally. Like this beautiful white stone [Sternlicht pointed to a large bar area on the second floor of the hotel, with ridged white marble], you might think is from Italy, but it’s from here. I think we’re getting better, and we’re doing a better job, and now I have to run it really well.

I also think our customer self-selects. Just like people wanted to be at W because they wanted to be cool, now I think as we grow, people say they stay at the 1, and it says something about you. Not everyone will care, but we’re just trying to make it incremental. Europeans care a lot more than we do, and we’re going to get there, we’re going to care. Despite the current administration, we’re going to care.

Skift: You have such a history of developing such iconic hotel properties. Do you think of 1 Hotels as almost like the W, but more grown up?

Sternlicht: Yes, exactly.

Skift: This hotel is fairly symbolic of the way that people’s expectations of hotels have changed, and also cements Brooklyn as a new center in New York City. Do you feel that way too?

Sternlicht: Yeah, I mean think USA Today said Brooklyn was the hottest neighborhood in the country, and that was probably nine or 10 months ago now.

Yes, I thought this was a really cool spot to launch your best product you’ve ever done. What I love about it is how original it is. You haven’t seen it before, so people will come here and their jaw should be on the ground.

The W is for me in my 30s, and this is for me later in my life, right? My children all were involved in environmental studies in school, and when I was coming up with what was I going to do, that influenced me.

That’s why I came up with the word ‘One,’ you know, “one world, we’re responsible for each other,” and said “the world didn’t need another brand, it just needed a better one.” I never get to use that line, which I made up.

It gives us a center of gravity, it gives us a cause, it gives us a rallying cry. Yes, so this is my upscale W. It’s still chic and cool, but it’s sophisticated, and it’s just more expensive. I don’t think we sacrificed much of anything here. So, this is like the Four Seasons of eco.

The lobby of the 1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge. Source: 1 Hotels

Skift: Is there anything in particular about this flagship property that you’re most excited about or most proud of?

Sternlicht: Well, I have to be excited about a location right on the water. You know, this is a ridiculous panoramic view. Somebody was telling me this morning, “How many places can you wake up and see the entire length of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Statue of Liberty?” And in between is this magnificent skyline of Manhattan, and the river itself, and all along a six-mile park. So, you can come here and feel like you’re in the country, practically, and you’re five minutes from Manhattan.

And then I think the building itself — we have a beautiful ballroom and a great pre-meeting space. We’re going to have a gorgeous spa, a beautiful urban spa, which you don’t typically see. We have a gym, we’ll have the screening room, we’ll have this amazing restaurant, three-meal-a-day. And then the café, and an outdoor café, and we’ll have bikes lined up. I mean, this is going to be pretty much everything you could want in a hotel, will be here. There will be something for everybody.

I was giggling this morning — you might have seen the yoga class in the conference room. I can’t imagine that we can’t provide something that you’d want here. So, I think we’re blessed, advantaged, and it’s not an accident that we have all this meeting space, and I think we’re going to be really popular,

We did an event for J.P. Morgan, actually we did the Robin Hood Investors Conference here, and I was one of the four organizers of the conference. They already booked a million dollars of business here. They loved it. They booked it, [and they told me] this is getting away, without getting away. Right? It’s perfect.

Skift: Did your early days in the hotel industry help you to prepare to develop this type of brand or to develop a property like this? How did all of those elements come together here?

Sternlicht: You have cumulative experiences. But the core of comfort, which is what I think some people miss in hotels, I took that into Starwood Hotels, and I just carried it into here.

I think we’re not trying to, as I said when we started, people shouldn’t have to wear burlap and eat carrots, in a green hotel. They should be able to take some of what we do home with them. Our research shows that our guests are doing that. A majority of them say they’ve changed something that they do at home. That’s fantastic. So, that was like, a dream, I’m surprised it’s actually happened but, I think we just make people a little more conscious.

You know, there’s no plastic. I hated all the waste of a hotel, the little plastic bottles you throw away, all the glass we consume, and all the aluminum … And again, I think this is really pretty, but it’s a little complicated, so it’s okay because we’ve built a beautiful flagship for Brooklyn. But what we’re doing in Sunnyvale and Cabo and China will be totally different.

Skift: The hotel industry has changed quite a lot in the past 20 years. And it’s also become, in some ways, a lot more crowded. There are so many different brands out there, a brand for every lifestyle, which I know pioneered at Starwood. But would you agree with the statement that it’s more challenging to develop new brands or concepts in this current climate?

Sternlicht: I think commodity brands — you know, this idea that you need two brands that, I guess, are only differentiated on price — that is a very crowded market. And the brands have exploded. Some of the brands were here but in the old days there were things called radius restrictions. So, if you built your Hilton Garden Inn or your Courtyard by Marriott, you could prevent another one from being built within 10 miles of you. The brands gained the power back and eliminated those, so now, in Manhattan you’ll find 15 Courtyards and 22 Hilton Garden Inns. It’s almost a pure commodity, and it has loyalty through the programs but not to the hotels.

And so I think Airbnb is the real issue for those guys, because it’s not really saying anything about them. That’s why they say Millennials don’t buy things, they buy experiences. This brand is an experience. You can’t do the things you can do in this hotel in an Airbnb. You can’t go to the spa, you can’t go to the gym, you can’t have a big meeting, you can’t go to the movie theater, you can’t have a cocktail or hang out with fun, interesting, dynamic, creative people. We’re like the upscale Soho House, in the hotel space.

The business has gotten very competitive and very challenging, but what’s interesting is that our first three hotels, including the Baccarat, are all beating their competitive sets in revenue, even though there’s not a giant company behind them. We don’t have global sales offices. We have amazing word of mouth, great TripAdvisor reviews.

I think the first two [hotels], people really love. I mean, [the] New York [1 Hotels property] is so cute. People go over and over and people stay 10 times, and they just go back. The comments are incredible about the hotel, and we were handicapped because the rooms are small, and here our rooms are bigger. And there’s some really cool things in this hotel, the view, the windows, unbelievable. So, it was fun.

Skift: You mentioned Airbnb. I don’t know if you saw the news that broke this morning but Airbnb officially acquired Luxury Retreats, which is based out of Montreal and specializes in really high-end villa rentals, or private homes, so it definitely signals their move into the luxury space.

Sternlicht: They dominate the home rentals. And that’s not really our customer. So, I think for vacations and retreats, they are the go-to guy. And that’s going to be super valuable for them. I still think the business traveler doesn’t want to deal with that. And it’s all about length of stay.

The average hotel stay is 1.3 nights, which is a pain in the neck to go check into somebody’s home. But for longer stays, extended stays, I do think that they’ve reorganized an industry. Most people don’t understand that most of the inventory was already available for rent, it’s just been organized in a new distribution channel.

Skift: A few weeks ago I got to interview Ian Schrager, whom I know you know very well, and he told me that he felt like hospitality today was too much of a “me too” industry. I wanted to ask you if you agree with that statement, and if you do, what are the ways that you think the industry can be more innovative and not so much like a commodity?

Sternlicht: The industry, and this was true when I ran Starwood, it’s got a blessing and a curse. What they do at a hotel in Tokyo doesn’t impact you in your hotel in New York City. So that’s the curse. You’re not as forced to innovate. It’s not innovate or die. It’s not that way. In a way, it should be that way. The industry should always be challenging itself.

But Ian’s right, and I think that’s, again, about differentiating your product, making it not a commodity, making people think it’s a three-dimensional brand, it’s not just in and out, it’s not just my frequent night stay and I want to go home. It’s really an experience. And whether you like the way our candles smell or our shampoo smells, we really have focused on all the little details to de-commoditize the stay. And it’s interesting that people really support it. People really are interested.

And not everyone’s interested, not everybody’s interested in W, and not everyone’s interested in green, and then some people don’t want paper. Why do people spend $1,000 a night when they could stay at a hotel for $169 a night? Because they can, and they like it, and it’s comfortable, and they are rewarding themselves for whatever success they had in their lives, however they got it.

I think that Ian is right. But if that’s what everybody does, then that’s what the customer expects. So for us to step out of the that into something different, which is what we’re trying to do, and I think what Ian’s trying to do, is how we compete against bigger things, and bigger companies with bigger reach, more global customers.

We have to get companies like J.P. Morgan, which I’m sure has to deal with every hotel company on earth. So they’re leaving those frequent-stay programs to come here, because they just think it’s a better product for their employees, and it says something about J.P. Morgan. They like what we’re doing, and so they want to wow their employees and clients, and that’s what we’re here for.

Skift: Can you tell me a little bit more about your expansion plans for 1 Hotels, or what you have planned after this?

Sternlicht: Yeah, we have three [hotels] we’ve announced: Mexico, Cabo San Lucas in the harbor; Sunnyvale, which is in Northern California; and Sanya, China, which is on the beach, in what is the resort area of China. And then we have about a half a dozen that we’re working on behind that we haven’t announced. We’re trying to get a hotel in major gateway cities, and then also over in Europe. We need to be in London, Rome —that’s going to be super fun — Milan, [it’ll be] killer.

Dirty Computer: Janelle Monaes Electrifying Coming Out Party

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Dirty Computer: Janelle Monaes Electrifying Coming Out Party

Janelle Mones new album Dirty Computer features the acclaimed singer-songwriter at her most revealing and freewheeling.

The 32-year-old star is one of the most respected in music, and shes won raves and challenged listeners with an ambitious blend of funk, pop, rock, soul, and hip-hop that has often made her hard to define. But being pinned down has never been Mones styleand on Dirty Computer she lets her freak flag fly.

Mone has admitted that her early android persona and conceptual The Metropolis and ArchAndroid projects were sometimes driven by the need to protect herself from judgment. As Mone has evolved as an artist, shes come into her own creatively and as a womanand now seems fully in command of her art and emboldened by living in her truth. Like virtually every full-length release in her genre-bending discography, Mones Dirty Computer is a conceptual affair: In the accompanying short film, shes Jane 57821, a nonconformist in the near future who needs to be cleaned by the powers-that-be. Shes a rebel in love with her community and in love with Zen (Tessa Thompson)and shes fighting to be herself.

Arriving a whopping five years after 2013s The Electric Lady, the new album finds Mone simultaneously at her most musically accessible and her most forthcoming lyrically. It feels like shes the most free on record that shes ever been. Not that Mone has ever seemed constrained, exactlybut her work has always seemed to put the concept ahead of emotional nakedness. On Dirty Computer, the concept is driven by her introspection, not the other way around. This is the strongest set of pop songs that Mone has released, as she dances between sunshine synth-pop, dance-driven funk jams, and lush soul. Working alongside longtime collaborators like Deep Cotton and Roman GianArthur, Mone isnt in altogether unfamiliar territory musically, but she is breaking bold new ground in terms of themes, and shes putting them across in more engaging ways than she has before.

It sounds like an anthem for youthful brazenness and epic summer nights; it also sounds like a spiritual manifesto.

The album opens with the Brian Wilson-assisted title track, with Wilsons trademark only-but-him harmonies providing a warm bed on which Mones warm lead vocal coos, I love you in space and time, with sparsely skittering production. With its twinkling chords and cascading drums, Crazy Classic Life channels 80s synth sounds a la Depeche Mode as Mone outlines her version of freedom: I am not Americas nightmareI am the American cool. She wants a crazy classic life, and shes perfectly OK with however it ends as long as shes done it all. It sounds like an anthem for youthful brazenness and epic summer nights; it also sounds like a spiritual manifesto. The synth vibes remain on Take A Byte, and its a pure party: The thumping groove and handclaps are dance-floor-perfect, as Mone sings, Dress me upI like it better when we both pretend, in one of the most effectively sensual and slinky moments on Dirty Computer.

Princes influence looms large on Dirty Computer, an album that owes a lot to his most personally affirming dance anthems like Uptown and Erotic City. The guitar-driven Screwed even opens with a rhythm-guitar lick thats a clear nod to his 1986 classic Kiss, but presented in a completely different musical context. Sex, bodywere gonna crash your party, sounds like the best kind of warning, as Mone provides yet another song that sounds like it was made for the best weekend youve ever had.

This is a fucking fun album.

Django Jane debuted online back in February, with Mone trying on trap and showing that her creativity sits comfortably at virtually any stylistic table. Sassy, classyKool-Aid with the kale, Janelle raps confidentlyand with more panache than most others who regularly trade in the format. Remember when they said I looked to mannish? she pointedly recalls, reminding everyone that during her ArchAndroid days she wasnt always the beloved pop culture icon she is today. She deftly addresses gender, race, and her own still-growing legacy as an artistperfectly seguing into Pynk, the other previously released single that had fans salivating in early April.

The double entendre of the title/hookand the cheekily clever music videois sort of a second affirmation of Django Jane. The color pink serves as a metaphor for both the universality of human existence and the specificity of womanhood. When the surging guitar and Some like that! hook kick in, its clear that Mone knew she had another anthem here.

Prince collaborated with Mone directly and Make Me Feel is an appropriate tribute, homage, and confirmation that no mainstream artist embodies His Royal Badness most provocative, singularly focused creativity as much as Janelle Mone. That groove burns itself into your brain within seconds, when that all-too-distinctive rhythm guitar begins punching holes in the pace, as Janelle ad-libs a joyful screechit sounds like an old friend making a welcome appearance at this Mone-led party. Prince lives. Pharrell shows up for I Got the Juice, as Mone flaunts and taunts a bitover African rhythms and a percolating beat.

I Like That is the most atmospheric moment on Dirty Computer, a gorgeous melody carried on a wave of synth strings, as Mone sings, A little crazy, little sexy, little cool / Little rough around the edges but I keep it smooth / Im always left of center and thats right where I belong / Im the random minor note you hear in major songs. She drops a brief rhyme about a childhood crush who rated me a 6 after she cut her perm, but makes it clear that she always knew I was the shit. And she goes for 90s neo-soul vibes on Dont Judge Me, a song that addresses personal insecurity and the fear that comes from wanting to open and be your real self around the person who makes you feel the most loved but also the most scared: Even though you tell me you love meIm afraid that you just love my disguise.

That element of fear is revisited on So Afraid, a somber, guitar-driven tune that somewhat recalls the 60s vibes of the title track. Theres so much to be gained by running toward love, but Janelle Mone expresses the doubt and apprehension of emotional connections beautifully here. And she parodies the jingoism and paranoia that defines so much of the good ol US of A on the rollicking album closer Americana. Once again playfully tapping into her Prince-ish tendencies, Mone offers a nod to the foot-stomping raucousness of Lets Go Crazy, while taking aim at everything from traditional gender roles to xenophobia to generic Americana. Its an upbeat end to an album full of joy and freedom, and it offers its best line: I wonder if you were blind, would it help you make a better decision.

Janelle Mone has been one of the most era-defining artists of the past 10 years, and shes done it without the kind of all-world hit singles that seem to define pop culture status. Shes managed to carve a niche in contemporary music that is uniquely her own, and here shes created the kind of album that gives voice to the creative, proudly outside-the-box individuals that have fueled so much of the cultural and social change of the times. The android Cindi Mayweather gave Mone a persona on which to explore her boldest ideas, but in putting who she is front-and-center, Mone has delivered her most relatable work to date. And it couldnt come at a better time. Black women have been leading a cultural charge, and Mone sits alongside so many of the boldest women of her generation. With Dirty Computer, shes given us a stellar pro-woman, pro-LGBTQ, party like its 1999, middle-finger-to-the-status-quo dance record.

There has beenand will continue to bea lot written about Mones coming out in the latest issue of Rolling Stone and how this album is reflective of her desire to be her. She said in the interview: Being a queer black woman in America someone who has been in relationships with both men and womenI consider myself to be a free-ass motherfucker. Mone has long been an inspiration to anyone who dared to be themselves, and her latest art documents an important moment in her journey as a creator and as an individual. Its exciting to witness her come into her own.

And it sounds like shes having a blast.

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