Was I the only one whoooo didn’t love acoss spiter verbse

To Be of Service- Google x GN!Reader

This started as a thought exercise about how advanced androids could help in home medical care and turned into this.

Content warnings: References to PTSD, mild depiction of panic attacks and nightmares

Word count: 1400+

Google IRL. 

The revolutionary product, designed to make your life so much easier. With dozens of customizable programming options, they could do most anything you needed. They were even used in applications previously reserved for service animals. Guiding the visually impaired, monitoring vitals to predict a seizure, performing household tasks that proved difficult for a person. They really were amazing things, feats of modern programming.

And now you had one. At the recommendation of your care team, you finally got your own Google IRL. The doctors made the suggestion because an android would be more beneficial to aid your recovery than a service dog.

Please read instructions completely before operating your Google IRL device.

The booklet went over all the basics of owning and operating your Google android, including basic setup, commands, limitations, maintenance, and troubleshooting. With a hesitant breath, you started the android up. His eyes opened and looked around the room quickly before settling on your face.

"Good afternoon, I am your Google IRL android. For your convenience I have been preloaded with several protocols and programs to assist with daily life. Would you like me to go over them now?"

"Please do," you responded quietly.

"I have been preloaded with protocols for several household tasks, such as cleaning, food preparation, and household maintenance. I have standard functionality to perform first aid and reach out to emergency services if needed. My primary objective is to assist with daily activities and answer questions as quickly and efficiently as possible. Does this explanation suffice?"

"Yes, Google. Let's begin with the initial setup."

It took a while to get all the basic setup out of the way and let Google connect to the servers to update. You made sure the list of protocols the doctors had listed for you were installed and functional. It was strange at first, having a robot that seemed so human milling about in your home, but after a few days you found a sort of balance. You hadn't done much beyond the included tests with the additional protocols, hoping that when they were needed he would be able to do them properly.

For the first few weeks he was mostly making use of his basic protocols, doing tasks around the house and keeping track of appointments. He would go out with you on errands, which made the whole thing so much easier. When you had trouble speaking, he was your voice. When you didn't have the energy to take care of yourself, he was there. It was the simple act of him existing with you, the promise of him being there in a bad situation that made the initial awkwardness worth it. He was usually quiet, but had seemed to develop a personality as time went on. You had asked him once if he wanted you to call him something other than Google, but he had nonchalantly told you that you could call him whatever you pleased, and he would register it to his memory. You decided to think on it another time.

~

Oh no, not this nightmare again. You were haunted with the memories of the past, the things you had been through. You knew you were dreaming. You always did now, when you had this nightmare. Please wake up already. It was no use. The dream continued on, showing you the painful reminders of your past. No, stop. No more. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up!

You shot upright in bed, chest heaving. It felt tight and heavy and full of ice. You looked around the room, trying to ground yourself.

"Y/N." You yelped in surprise and fear. "Your vitals suddenly spiked. Are you alright? Would you like me to perform a medical scan?"

"N-no Google. Please just come here, and can you turn on the light?"

"Of course," the soft light flicked on and you watched Google approach the bedside. "Shall I begin the panic attack protocol?"

"Please, Google."

With a nod, he sat beside you, gently taking your hand. "Please follow along with me as I guide you through a breathing exercise. This will help regulate your heart rate and lower your adrenaline and cortisol levels."

He led you through breathing exercises and grounding techniques, until the trembling of your body calmed and your heart rate returned to normal. In this moment you were very grateful to have been recommended Google instead of a service dog. "Your vitals are regulating to satisfactory levels. Would you like me to get you a glass of water and something to eat?"

"Yes, please. Thank you, Google. I don't know what I would have done without you."

"Of course, Y/N. I am here to assist you. I'll return shortly with water, and something light to eat." 

He returned minutes later with a glass of water and a granola bar and watched you intently until both the water and the granola bar were gone. He silently took the wrapper and the glass from you, and you vaguely heard his footsteps as he padded around the kitchen before returning to your side again. He looked at you so gently, if it wasn't for the faint glow in his eyes, he'd look completely human.

"Google? Can you lay with me?" You felt embarrassed just asking. Logically as his owner, of course he'd agree, but it still felt awkward to ask.

"Certainly," he carefully laid down on the bed. "What would you like me to do now?"

"H-hold me. Please…" you whispered, almost hoping he didn't hear. He shifted closer, wrapping his arms around you gently.

"Is this adequate?" He asked, equally quiet. You nodded, leaning into his embrace and laying your head on his shoulder. For a few minutes you just curled against him, trying to relax enough to sleep again. "You are crying. Am I hurting you?"

"No! No, I just… I'm overwhelmed. I don't like walking up from nightmares and feeling like I'm back there again."

"I understand now. Crying is an excellent way to regulate yourself when feeling overwhelmed. I recommend you allow yourself the opportunity to release your emotions. I assure you that whatever you dreamt about that scared you so much, I will protect you. You are safe in my care."

You buried your face in his chest, squeaking out a small "thank you" before your body shook from the sobs racking themselves through your body. His hand gently stroked your hair, and that gentle affection was so much more comforting than you could put into words. You hiccuped as more tears fell from your eyes. "I-I'm sorry," you sobbed. "I'm sorry you have to put up with me clinging to you like this."

"Don't apologize. There is nothing I'd rather be doing than comforting you at this moment. Please let this work its way through you. I'm not going anywhere and I've got you. You're safe."

He held you until you shed your last tear. You fell asleep, cradled against him and woke still in his arms. You slowly looked towards his face, expecting him to be staring at the ceiling. His eyes were closed. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think he really was just another human like you. He really was an amazing feat of science. “Y/N, I see you’re awake.” he turned his face towards you, “Are you feeling adequately rested?”

“Given the circumstances, I’m feeling well enough.” You sat up slowly, checking the time. 9:27 AM.

“I felt it appropriate to disable your alarm as your sleep was severely impacted last night and you do not have anything on your schedule until 1 PM. Shall I prepare you breakfast?” You nodded wordlessly, slipping out of bed and heading to the bathroom for a quick shower.

Entering the kitchen carding your hands through your still damp hair, you saw Google at the stove. You sat down, watching him cook with carefully calculated motions. He set the plate on the table in front of you and immediately began cleaning up. The comfortable silence settled into the room as you finished your meal.

“Would you like me to accompany you to your appointment this afternoon?” You nodded, feeling silently grateful to have such a wonderful android in your life.

Personal top movies of the decade. There were a lot of great ones and I didn't watch them. Instead we have:

3. Pacific Rim. For a majority of people this isn't really anything to write home about in terms of anything other than production design and world building. I love this movie. I've seen this movie the most in theaters more than I have any other movie. As a life long tokusatsu/kaiju movie fan, seeing something like this one the big screen was a dream come true. It's far from perfect. The lead actor is...something. I feel that it's enjoyable and I notice something new every time I watch it because, really, the art direction in this is maybe too good for this movie.

2. Shin Godzilla. The best Godzilla movie to come out since 2001. It took my breath away when I saw it in theaters just because of how horrific they made Godzilla once again. If you're not a fan of the two newer American iterations because they may be too bombastic, this is the perfect foil. It's like an episode of West Wing, but the problem is Godzilla. I at least find it very interesting to see the concept of a giant monster taken this seriously and the tactics they they deploy to deal with the situation.

1. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Once upon a time I wanted to be an animator and make a Spider-Man movie. That shit didn't and isn't happening anymore, but I doesn't need to because this movie exists. It's really everything I want in both an animated movie and a Spider-Man movie and it's not a horrible mess. The animation is stylish as hell and doesn't rely of realism to be impressive. There's a lot of Spider-Man characters and fan service and it's all handled beautifully. The script is tight as hell, the pacing is great. It's an absolute total package.

The other, arguably better, great movies of the decade:

Rubber: A spoof, meta "horror" movie about a killer tire. I love humor and the way weird structure of the story. There's an audience watching things unfold, but only some people in the story know it's a movie. Real weird. Into it.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: One of the best live action adaptations of a comic. Really dig the neon, video game style and the editing.

13 Assassins: 13 samurai are hired to take out a warlord. This movie is wild. It's 2 hours long and just builds and builds up to the 40 minute long, non stop action climax. I haven't seen anything like it and haven't seen anything like it since really. An impressively patient movie.

The Raid: Cops go into a building of criminals and they all fight. Some of the best fight choreography in cinema. It's a rush.

The Muppets: I like Muppets and it was good to see them all again. I thought this movie was very funny and sweet.

It's Such a Beautiful Day: An interesting animated film about a man's bizarre life and his place in the universe told in little vignettes. I'm big on the visuals and the dark humor.

Why Don't You Play in Hell?: Yakuza's decide to make a movie. Weird, violent hilarity ensues. Probably my favorite movie about making a movie. There's four story lines presented and they all come together with the joy of violence and film making. It comes off as so sincere, pure, inspiring, and heartfelt but is juxtaposed with wild violence. Like it.

The Grand Budapest Hotel: Might be my favorite Wes Anderson movie? I personally think it's his funniest. I like the art direction and the visual comedy of the movie. Really great stuff.

The Lego Movie: This could've been so bad but it wasn't and was way better than it needed to be. Really surprised by how funny it is and the animation in this is really crazy. I thought for like the first 15 minutes it was stop motion.

Colossal: Anne Hathaway controls a giant monster across the planet. I didn't expect to enjoy this movie as much as I did. Jason Sudeikis is really fantastic in this movie.

Guardians of the Galaxy 2: The best Marvel movie. It's impressive for a movie like this to have this many major characters and for all of them to have some sort of pay off. I'd say the most emotionally charged of the Marvel movies as well. It's really something special and I wonder if Guardians 3, or any other Marvel movie, will come close to this.

Logan Lucky: Ocean's Eleven but in the south. A really funny and clever heist movie. The acting and characters are great and what make it. I wouldn't mind seeing a sequel to this.

The Shape of Water: What a strange little love story with fish people. Really liked the look of the world and the fish guy. Michael Shannon is a great villain. Del Toro has a lot of great human villains.

Hereditary: A family comes to terms with a death in the family. The scariest and most emotionally brutal movie I've seen in a theater. Don't know if I'll ever watch it again but I really liked it. I know some people didn't think, horror wise, that it was anything special but subjectively hit every one of my branches on my subjective horror tree. Tony Collette should be recognized more for this.

Annihilation: A group of scientist travel into a weird space bubble in Florida. Stalker with monsters really. This movie really should've had more eyes on it. The pacing is great. The acting is pretty great. There's very weird, suspenseful moments. Four scientist female protagonists. Great effects and story. It's the dream of combining the spectacle of blockbusters with the character and emotion of more grounded movies. A beautiful middle ground.

Mission Impossible Fallout: Ethan Hunt does more impossible missions but all his shit doesn't work. One of the most impressive spectacle movies I've ever seen. The whole helicopter bit is a stand out for me.

They Shall Not Grow Old: The day in the life of a World War One soldier. An incredible documentary and a revolutionary step forward for film restoration. It's mind blowing to see the work that went into making look as good as it does. Highly recommend if you're into that sort of thing.

Booksmart: One of, if not, the best teen comedy I've seen. Great characters and humor. It's good to hear teenagers sound like teenagers.

Movies I should've watched and didn't:

Blade Runner 2049: I'll get around to it. Leave me alone. I'm lazy.

Sorry that this got long and congratulations if you made it this far. Also watch Tampopo. It came out in 1988 but I watched it in this decade and it's one of my favorite movies of all time now. Same for Zazie dans le Metro. Both terribly charming films. Can't remember if I first watched The Abominable Dr. Phibes this decade or not but I like that a whole bunch too. Watched Buckaroo Banzai in 2007 but it's still my all time favorite. Will always recommend that. Keep watching movies.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake: Thoughts and Ramblings

Surprised to dust this off but I want to collect my thoughts quickly now that credits are rolling on Remake:

In general, I enjoyed it quite a lot. As one of many players with a unique relationship to the original (I first “played” it watching a childhood friend over the course of several sleepovers before playing on my own and occasionally returning to it) I was skeptical. I’ve express some of that skepticism at Kotaku , a website I write at. Remakes and remasters sometimes fall short or deviate in strange ways. Remake forges its own path and I’m grateful for it.

SPOILERS AHEAD KIDDOS

So! Here’s some scattered thoughts. Maybe they end up on Kotaku, maybe not. And while I’m loathe to immediately rush to create content on a Sunday night, this game has my mind spinning. Here we go.

The characterizations in this game are very strong, perhaps stronger than the original’s Midgar section. Some of that is owed to a very bad localization in ‘97 (you can get insight into that from my former colleague Tim Rogers’ series here) but Remake takes a lot of effort to allow the cast to breathe. That can come from the ways in which Cloud alters his way of taking with Tifa, and it can come in the moment where Barrett is more explicitly an ideologue. It’s quite good even if the script has a flaw that we’ll talk about in a second. 

That flaw is, frankly, that if you’ve not played the original then Remake is going to end up impenetrable in the final hours. This is particularly true once characters like Zack are brought into the fold and the visuals begin to mirror the original. (See: the hard cuts before Sephiroth and Clouds final duel mirroring the Omnislash moment from ‘97.) I don’t think that diminishes the character work here but I think that the more interesting meta-narrative stuff *so* damn crucial to this game that I can’t imagine what a newcomer will think. 

Connected to this, I’ve seen folks disappointed that this is not a perfect remake but in this instance, I think that sentiment is misplaced. Valid, but shortsighted? You can’t make Final Fantasy VII today. Not in the way it existed in ‘97. Which isn’t to say the visuals or script but the context cannot be reproduced. New hardware, FMVs taking a forefront, an advertising campaign that positioned the game in competition with movies, and a cultural splash that the series hasn’t ever quite replicated. Because the weight of expectation hovers over Remake—folks have been obsessed with a new version since the PS3 tech demo stirred imagination at E3 2020—the game *needs* to be about that. To be a game about this moment, the moment gamers have waited decades for, Remake needs to be about itself in a very explicit way.

I can’t not see the Whispers and Arbiters of Fate as anything other than stand-ins for gamers, fans, and the culture as a whole. That’s an obvious reading but an undeniable one. The core question of Remake doesn’t really have much to do with the fictional stakes. It’s this: who owns Final Fantasy VII, and who owns the Remake? Is it the story tellers or the players? I have a cheat answer: it belongs to the characters. In unbinding themselves from player expectation, they claim ownership over the narrative now. 

Aeris just flat out knows she’s in a sequel/alt-timeline thing. Her final line is about missing the surety of something as presumably ever present at the metal sky of Midgar’s plates. 

I like the combat here more than FFXV, which isn’t saying a lot but worth saying. There’s more participation from the player. That’s it. I don’t think *more* active choice inherently makes a combat system better but it is the key reason this works better than XV.

Character swapping breaks things somewhat since enemy aggro is (save for using the provoke materia) focused on the player. Wish the combat design took this into consideration a bit more. It’s the one glaring flaw in the system.

Tifa is the most fun to play as in this game. It’s not even a contest. Starshower is overpowered as hell and Chi Trap rules. Love using her to increase the potency of the stagger meter when the time comes.

Fights do get occasionally Too Busy. Airbuster is a big culprit here. Too many phases for what was essentially a jobber of a boss in the original game.

Train Graveyard section is an atrocious pace killer as well. Again: “too many notes.”

I never found the Nail Bat and that was a bit of a bummer.

I tweeted out a quote from Barrett this weekend and it made the rounds. In general, for this game, Barrett works best in this revolutionary mode even if certain scenes (Shinra middle manager for instance) deploy visual language that’s dated. Of any character, he has the highest highs and lowest lows. Not surprising.

re: that tweet some folks kinda lost their shit about it(?) but I think the quote still holds. Remake does a good job of showing *individuals* within Shinra but Barrett does rightly note they are complicit to an extent in Shinra’s crimes. You can disagree with what Barrett does about it but that’s 100% true. Sorry, not sorry. (The discourse today was just a hassle frankly. Multiple things can be true at once, but I don’t think Twitter is a place where that’s ever acknowledged.) Whatever eventual regrets he might feel about methodology in ‘97′s script, he’s not wrong on this individual point. I’m interested to see where he goes as a character when it comes to all this.

Kinda related to the above, Remake arguably does a better job than ‘97 showing the alternative to Shinra. It’s the communal nature of the individual sectors. It’s the Neighborhood Watch and local leaders in Sector 7, the trio in Wall Market. Remake rejects Shinra’s autocracy and favors the various slums communes. This is made ever more clear by how little of Reeve we see in this script. Who are the leaders shaping life into a passable experience in Midgar? It’s not the Urban Planning guy with the cat robot. 

Also: hey, is that Cait Sith in the plate drop cutscene? Yep! Hope you played the original or there’s just this sad cat that shows up for 4 four seconds.

Is he a Chad? Well, he’s Chad-ley...

Not sure what to think of the Wutai stuff being more explicit but it feels right for 2020 for a variety of reasons. I’ve never been too interested in FF7′s realpolitik tho. It’s not really much of an expansion so much as a background element but one that’s deployed a bit lazily. 

Roche owns in a way I was not expecting. He’s a balls to the wall anime motherfucker and I kinda love him? I’m really, really surprised that (as far as I could tell) he didn’t even come back for the final bike sequence tho.

I don’t really have the energy to litigate or talk about Wall Market much. I think it’s better than the original but pandering in the sense that it’s a very safe and commodified version of queerness. I appreciate that Nomura and folks looked at the original and were like “well, we can’t do *that*” but it doesn’t quite land for me.

That said: “yes, I know, nailed it,” is a fantastic line with a fantastic read from Cloud’s English VA.

Hell House announcers rule. Hell House fight? Kinda terrible actually.

Nice shout out to Kunsel in Shinra Tower. Crisis Core is a messy game but I like Tabata’s work a lot. Even the messy stuff, which is most of it. That game’s story is bonkers but I like Zack and I actually like the idea of the Digital Mind Wave as a mechanic. If nothing else, Squeenix lost a pretty exciting designer when he left.

Less nice? This game’s tendency to pad out dungeons. The whole approach to the Sector 5 reactor comes to mind. Train fight then tunnels then sun lamps then reactor. It’s a lot. Also: all of the extra Hojo stuff. I know we’re padding out like 5 hours but some of the sections could have been abbreviated. Probably would have made the game better.

Even less nice? Zack’s English voice actor. Maybe the only voice actor I didn’t like. Really miss Rick Gomez on this one. 

 Conversely, Red XIII? They nailed it. 11/10. Nanaki, I love you so much.

 Counterstance is an amazing move and I can’t want to carry that over into Hard Mode. 

The Jenova fight fuckin’ ripped. I was a bit huffy when I learned through leaks that there was a Jenova fight (since the first fight in the original is on the boat to Costa Del Sol) but this was a great set piece. One of the moments where everything worked.

Also good: Rufus fight. Bad: losing Rufus’ speech to the party.

Not a ton more thoughts right now? Sephiroth fight was good although for all his presence in the story I think we suffer without the full Nibelheim flashback to round things out. In all really liked it. Want to play again pretty much immediately. Will write something more cogent for the site I guess? Got a few ideas. But yeah! entered as skeptic and left mostly a believer on this one. 

Becoming Animal: My Feral Individualism

When first considering what it is to be an anarchist, or if not to be an anarchist then to be someone embracing anarchy – which some people might call being an anarchist – my awareness is immediately drawn to my body and the space that my body occupies.

This usually begins by thinking about my feet. I find these attached to my legs. My legs are attached to my groin. After this, I find my torso, with these arms and hands attached. I cannot find my head visually until I use a mirror, and even then, I am seeing a reflected image – though of course, I can feel my head with my hands.

I have a sensually immediatist experience of being this body. My power is located in the flesh that I am, the flesh that is located here. I can use these hands to form a fist and punch anyone I wish to. My mouth can sing songs of wild beauty, or voice poetry as perception attack. These feet can stamp on badger traps – the only beautiful cages are destroyed cages.

Sartre said, “(m)an is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does”. This body that I am condemned to be – the flesh that is my immediate power – I feel as my freedom. My sensation of freedom starts somewhere within my lungs and muscles, along my skin, and throughout my brain and nervous system – though I cannot trace exactly where it starts or ends. I have felt a great sense of freedom when walking across the fields and scattered patches of woodland, across the hills on Briton where I live. With this, I have felt tremendous sorrow for how violated the world (I am immersed within and am an Extension of) is by Leviathan, as I have stared out across valleys and out into the distance. One of the most intense feelings of freedom I have ever experienced has been to remove all my clothing when accompanied only by trees, squirrels, and birds, and to dance with them, as fellow beings who are primordially free but violated by Leviathan. Kafka said “(y)ou are free, and that is why you are lost” – I agree somewhat, but I am only lost because civilisation dis-places me, as it violates the world I am.

This body, that I am condemned to, is caught though, in a perpetual paradox, which seems equally inescapable. In one desperate sense, I am alone in my unique body, singular and fundamentally me. In another sense, I am immersed within and an Extension of a multiplicity, which is the world I experience, first as the immediate body I sensually am, and second through language and the world of reified forms.

The image of this paradox is simple. I am stood naked under tree cover, unique, singular, an individual. I take a breath and the world enters into my body. I look at the sunlight as it shimmers through the leaves above me, and the world enters my Being through my visual field. The smell of the stream passes my nostrils, and as I breathe out, I become the world.

Caught in this schismatic abyss, I find myself compelled towards a practice of individualism. Why individualism, rather than collectivism? My body is often found within the machinery of Leviathan which is that collective known as society. The ultra-left collectivists and supporters of communisation would whisper in my ear that I am duty bound to the means-of-production of Leviathan and would seek to draw me into their economic-politics. But I’d say that projects, such as Tiqqun and others, which seek to synthesis communisation theory with anarchist praxis, are little more than bad faith preachers, as they locate freedom exclusively within the domain of society and deny the immediate power and freedom of their flesh.

To me society is little more than a cage seeking to cage itself within itself, building walls to keep the world out, chaining itself to these walls, masking its face to hide its ugliness, while seeking to totalise its presence. The form this cage takes is technology. Clothing, ploughs, skyscrapers, roads, televisions, computer screens and so on – all machinic totalitarian repression, as an attempt to deny the freedom of the world. To society, the beasts of the world, the rivers, the forests and even the light of the sun, must be made tame, chained to it, and (basically) collectivised.

This is all to mask a psychic-lack civilisation both preaches and attempts to hide as it tries to mask the strange schism with modes of desiring-production. We are told daily that we are cut off from God but must build icons to God to hide this. We are told that we are cut off from utopia but must seek to build utopia to hide this. We are told that the idea of what we lack is what we desire, so we must build and produce and progress, in the great meliorist sublimation of desire.

My experience of this phenomenon is that repression and sublimation of the flesh is the mode of production of the desiring-machines of Leviathan/civilisation/society. Normalisation, conformity and other forms of collectivisation are the basis of this production narrative.

Normalisation through desiring machines becomes the violation of the world, that I find my flesh in a paradoxical (non-)holism with. The wild world of tribes, beasts and forests becomes the weird, as the farm, city, politics, markets and all other aspects of the machine of Leviathan become the norm. Normalising The Earth, As The Violation Of Anarchy would seem an apt title for a history of civilisation as ecological and psychic repression.

The collective requires normalisation and for the communised machine to work, self-repression is necessary. This seems abundantly obvious to me. Freaks, homosexuals, Jews, gipsies, the mad and others who are different, all must be normalised – whether that be through brute oppression or through recuperation. Both of brute oppression and recuperation imprison the different. Spaces, social, ecological and psychic, are required to go through the totalitarian hegemonic process of forced-sameness – an obvious inevitable failure, as everything is difference and different.

Even the most autonomous of Marxist projects require normalisation for communisation to be possible. All civilisations necessitate the mechanical reproduction of the same. The collective is sameness and sameness is capital.

Buildings as far the eye can see, all built with uniformed sameness. Vast monocultures of crops infest lands, where forests of diverse communities once stood. Nations under one flag and one ideology colonise and territorialise, to bring the world under the icon of their theocracy. Markets filled with slaves who are the same as those coins, which are all apparently identical. In the unity of the collective, normalisation is the process of becoming-the-same.

There is an unspoken authoritarian structural racism and speciesism within the majority of projects that look to promote autonomous-collectivist projects. Anglo-Americanised-European leftist moral and structural control has to be contained at all points, as they must control the narrative. All land projects must be part of the same narrative of the autonomous-revolutionary. Any groups or individuals who attempt anything else must be deemed illegitimate and cast aside. I have found this in revolutionary projects such as It’s Going Down and other similar spaces.

Even non-agrarian horticulturalist and permaculture projects rely on collectivist normalisation and anthropocentric control. The appearance of polycultural diversity is kept under the hegemonic presence of repression and sublimation.

One machine. One God. One revolution. One people. One species (really). All living the same way to live.

In a world where there is good and evil, right and wrong, there can only be one right answer. As such all answers must be the same. We must all know the same answer because it is the right answer. If it is not the case that all voice the same answer then good people must correct the wrong to erase evil from the world. Even in liberal spaces that like to hold the appearance of plurality, this is only done within the goodly totalitarianism of the democratic-society – the nicest oppression is the good oppression.

The dogma of society is fundamentally that the normal answer is the good and right answer. As such, we all should be normal if we wish to be good. This keeps everything the same – or at least within the image of sameness – and keeps the machine running smoothly.

I find this continually within all politics. To the Nazi/fascist the desiring-machine of normalisation is enforced under the images of unity through flags and races. To the Communist, the desiring-machine of normalisation is enforced under the image of the proletariat worker under the image of unity in class. To the liberal, the desiring-machine of normalisation is enforced under the image of unity in rights and under the law.

All normal. All the same. Unity in identity. Identity in unity.

(While I have, for most of my life, been far closer to the identity I have attached to who I am as someone from a Jewish family, I was raised in a state of being caught between united identities – one half of my family being Catholic (but with whom I have very little connection to). When I learnt during my childhood of the ugliness of historical events, like the Holocaust, born out of nationalist identity politics, I grew to despise collectivist rhetoric more and more.

For the sake of authenticity, and I say this from a position of anti-speciesism and rejection of species-being, it would be untrue of me to deny the connection between my disgust at the sight of Jewish people caged by the Nazis and my revulsion towards all other cages, such as farms, badger traps and zoos.)

Being good and right necessitates being perfect. If we are made in God’s perfect image, as machine-made reproductions, then logically the collective and those who embrace its image are perfect. Perfection is the standard.

All the houses have to be perfect in their sameness. Everyone must have perfect manners. We must all dress perfectly. It goes on and on. Perfect normal lives in a machine that runs perfectly, so long as everyone is normal.

As cyborg culture infests our psychic space more and more, perfection becomes more and more of a cage. If it isn’t perfection as a beautiful, successful, popular person, then it is perfection as a fucked up and depressed screwup, with 2 kids, who is trying their hardest and who is oh so brave on Instagram. All must be perfect. Perfect is God’s image and we must be normal, as to be perfect is to be normal. It is normal to be perfect – or at least to be bound by the image of perfection.

Whether it’s through religious, political, monarchical, celebrity or wherever else within this culture you find icons to be worshipped; everywhere I look people continually seem to be bound to images of perfection. This is no less the case within radical groups and projects – probably more, if honest. Between the clashes of varying factions and projects, you find perfectionistic ideologues striving towards ideological perfection.

Really, why wouldn’t they? They know the way everything ought to be. Everything ought to be perfect. Everything ought to be the same, as perfect.

This is typified by the organisationalist narrative, where all members of a group have to sing from the same perfect hymn book in cult-like unity. (I’m thinking here in particular of Marxists and Jensenites, whose plans for the world necessitate communisation and the normalisation of all life.) The organisation of radical praxis is where radicals start attempting to control the world – normalise it to their standard of perfection – and the point where personality cults and hierarchies form.

The phenomenon of normalisation, organisation, perfection, sameness, unity and the repression and sublimation that goes hand in hand with all this psychic-tyranny and ecological violation, are revolting to me. I am immediately filled with a desire to rebel when I encounter them. I experience them as attempts to cage and clothe the freedom of my flesh.

This is why I take an individualist approach to my activities. But my individualism is not reductive.

As I am caught in that strange schism, where I cannot locate entirely at one point I stop and the world begins with each passing breath, I have come to a position some might wish to frame as “spiritual” – though I’d describe it more as mystical, as I feel more drawn towards fleshy physicalist ontological pictures, which are somewhat paradoxical and that language never seems an adequate tool for articulating. This mystical experience is that which I mentioned earlier – of being a lonely singular individual within a plurality of beings and processes while being equally inescapably immersed within, connected to and an Extension of a monist Being and process. This mystical experience of life as an individual is why I find my individualism most when I abandon the collective, which seeks to renounce Life, in favour of desiring-production, and embrace Life, as the world I am immersed within. It is a horrifying, awe-inspiring and beautiful experience that is undeniably absurd, but I’d be lying if I claimed anything different.

In both of my two published books, I have sought to articulate some of this, as well as in other publishing projects. Whenever I do though I instantly find that this medium of written word fails. I am convinced that this is something that cannot be taught or shown but has to be lived. As such, when I write I am ultimately wishing to encourage whoever is reading to live.

The question I arrive at now though is – what does it mean to live at the end of History? What is life on a seemingly dying planet, which might succeed in destroying the cancerous body that occupies it, or might die of civilisation (taking the cancer with it)? How can I talk about individualism in a space where individualism largely means collectivism, by the standards of society, and where collectivism means mass-suicide?

When confronted by these questions, I am instantly reminded of how tiny I am. When I look up at the stars at night, I am confronted by so much wonder and mystery and beauty, and find myself as a bizarre mammal, at the edge of the anthropocene. Cultivating any answer is largely an utterly absurd endeavour. But as all point of reason for any living being to continue living appears absurd, when all Life ultimately leads to death, decay and rebirth as some other singular individual being within this colossal monist process, which hasn’t stopped anyone else, I figure fuck it – I’ll keep on going.

Where to begin though? My instinct, when starting to think about my individualism, is, to begin with the flesh that I individually am; my arms, legs, back, chest, genitals, head, mind, and all that encompasses my body. This is the place where I initially locate my freedom, from where my power emerges.

I describe it as my body, though it is not really 'my body', as a body that I am in possession of outside of me the owner. This would be the way that anarcho-capitalists and libertarians would frame their relationship to the bodies they are – as self-owned vessels for use within the market. From this enframing, their concept of the self and individuality is reductively tied to that organ of the Leviathan that Diogenes would masturbate in. It is not necessary to comment on that area of thought here – I only mention it to state that this is not what I will be in any way aligning myself with before I go on.

From my feet, the body I am takes exquisite joy in feeling the ground underneath me. I have stood barefoot and felt the eros of gravity as my body has found itself firmly supported by the earth. This singular sensation of primordial love, where the earth is both pulling me towards it and supporting me so that I may stand with firm footing, is one where my individuality within the world is affirmed as pure presence. I know that I am stood here; this is where I stand, and the earth which I love, and which loves me, can support the weight of me. From this, I can grow and be strong, and fierce, and powerful, and feral.

As I walk through woodlands, across lands claimed by agriculture, over the roads which scar the surface of the land I find myself upon, by the edges of cliffs that signify to me the edge of my world, and through concrete expanses where the practice of wage slavery is most prevalent; my legs with my feet are the centre of my power and freedom, while walking, running and jumping. My legs have run across rocks by the coast, and have been used to climb trees. The legs and feet below my torso have, on occasion, found that they are stamping down upon badger traps, so as to destroy the revolting cages. The power I find in these aspects of my being enables me to be move, to dance, to smash, and so much more.

Then there is the core of this body that is the flesh I individually am – my torso, shoulders, arms and hands. From this core my will/Life/power manifests. If anyone were to try to attack me, here is where they would likely strike. From here, my arms can muster the power to strike back. I can take rocks in my hands, and from the power that flows through this body, propel them at any enemy I choose. My torso, arms and hands are the centre of my power when I pick up a guitar and attempt to emulate great flamenco and blues musicians. My hands are the centre of my power when I write my experience of the world for those who find that they are reading words I have written. This space is the location of so much of my creativity and destructiveness.

My head, my eyes, ears, mouth, nose, the brain that amplifies the mindedness of my body, my hair and teeth; from this space I take the world I am immersed in into the singular individual I am. I think. I breathe. I sing. I have screamed to trees whose tops could not hear me, hoping they would scream back and I would hear.

I could deconstruct this body further into various organs and would probably start to sound like I was quoting sections of Fight Club (again) – “I am Julian’s lungs. Without me Julian would not be able to breathe” or “I am Julian’s ability to care about economics. I exist only in as much as Julian is revolted by what economics is used for”. But as far as this simple schizoanalytic complexification goes, this is as far as I’m willing to describe here.

But as much as I describe it, the description is not the body. This is my body. I am my body. I am here, and you are entirely there. So how the fuck am I going to give you any meaningful sense of the individuality that is here, when you are there?!

I have caught glimpses of great individualists through the histories that surround them. Renegades, artists, rebels, writers, poets, philosophers, pirates, mystics and others whom society might call mad. While my awareness of their individuality might be through the collectivist usurpation of their creativities and destructivities, I find myself aesthetically and instinctively drawn towards the idea of these individuals. The madness they signify resonates and harmonises where my desire feels drawn to. Thoreau, Wilde, Jeffers, Novatore, Armand, Camus, Masson, Bey, Stirner and others whom I find beauty in are heroes whom I have no real connection to. All I have of their power and presence is faint images upon the backdrop of History – the ugliest narrative I am yet to come across.

I could tell you of my artistic attacks and of lone-wolf hunt sabotaging. I could tell you about the every-day acts of psychological warfare I regularly conduct around domesticated humans. I could tell you about my writings and publishing projects. I could tell you about my music and the inability to go for sustained periods without singing. I could tell you about my day job, and of driving along the roads I hate that scar the land I love and that I feel loves me.

As the collective dominates the space that surrounds me, I find the anarchic freedom of my individuality in moments where time ceases to hold any relevance or meaning. This is when every-Thing slips away, and I am immersed within the primordial now. But I would be lying if I said that I do not ever find myself caught in the cage that is the Reality of Leviathan – when I find myself trapped in time and History/progress/civilisation. Like the land I love, am an Extension of, and are immersed in, I am violated by Leviathan, and this is why I find myself engaged in mad and absurd rebellion.

Every time I breathe, I take in polluted air. The food manufactured by the industries of this culture has to be treated through all different types of alchemy to be desirable. The anthrophonic sounds of the urban-space machine are all but intolerable. The agriculture and industry that violates the earth. The monetary system that seeks to chain me to the collective and its markets. The disgust and revulsion this inspires in me is a sensation that worlds will never reflect. I feel a desire to break the chains of normalisation, to not be manufactured into some object that is the same as others within its category.

If my body is the first place I find my individuality manifesting from; my revulsion for society – the herd, as Nietzsche (rightly) described – is the second place I find this sensation. My hatred for society sits beside my love for the earth, wild-Being, the land, all ecological processes and other terms that basically mean the flesh of the world.

I am saddened that nationalists, patriots and others who idolise Leviathan, and so hate that which is wild, have made it such a taboo to discuss the notion of loving the land you live upon within radical discourse. The wounds that fascism and Nazism have inflicted, as those realities sought to violate the earth with their progression, are ones that are not yet really healed. Regardless though, while I have been accused of being a reactionary eco-fascist by collectivists who cannot see past their prejudices, I feel a great love for the land underneath my feet and I apologise to no one for this.

With my love for the land, rather than agriculture, or even well-intentioned horticulture and permaculture, I desire the emergence of feralculture, that opens spaces for wild-Being. This earth that I am is screaming for it. The trees, birds, hurricanes, and countless others, whose individuality defies communisation, are screaming for the destruction of Leviathan.

As I come back to my love of the land, I find my mind turning towards the untamed, the wild and the inhuman. This is a space of dark mystical experience, where Stirner’s notion of unman and Nietzsche’s ubermensch feel equally relevant. The abhuman is an immediately accessible means of rebelling against the repression of normalisation and sublimation. The sensation of being an anarchist, an individualist, a rebel, feral, from this, is a weird space of becoming-animal, where freedom and individuality are untamed spaces. Like the Lycan, who is part man and part wolf, in this way, I am best suited neither to the forest nor the city but find myself drawn to, and caught between, both of them.

This is where my individualist anarchy finds itself in the now that I am here. It might be mad, absurd, or paradoxical, but this is where I am and the Where I am. I have likely, again, failed at my attempt to articulate a sensation whose immediacy to my being is ineffable. Perhaps if I had written this as a poem, or had attempted to paint it, or compose a musical arrangement, maybe then I would have succeeded – I doubt it. If you haven’t experienced this – though you obviously could only experience something similar at best (not experience being the same) – I doubt any of this will resonate with you. If you have found this utter nonsense, please just disregard me as one of those mad individuals whom you pay little notice to.

@spoonoftar  @thehtg-therealone

Someone made a thread about 1 on 1 fights recently. So I decided to post this.

Understand something though: This is purely about story. A lot of people tend to jump to conclusions and will have knee jerk reactions without even reading but I want to make it clear this is just about what would make for good storytelling. This is me explaining why I believe this particular rivalry has a lot of story potential.

I'm aware that no one is going to enjoy this but I do this because a lot people are under the impression that RWBY needs less 1 on 1 fights and that couldn't further from the truth. One thing that most people don't seem to understand is why this form of storytelling is so effective. Over-the-top spectacle can be visually appealing but unfortunately by itself thats all it will ever amount to. A battle that is all flash and no substance. One such example is Raven vs Cinder. While the fight makes for decent eye candy it is by far lacking in terms of story. There is a reason why fights like Gaara vs Rock Lee, Ichigo vs Byakuya, Deku vs Todaroki, Gon vs Pitou, Luffy vs Rob Lucci etc have and will be engraved in the minds of viewers for years to come. It is because people are attracted to great drama. Not simply the flashy abilities. While that can get people interested in a series it's appeal is only surface level. Thats not whats going to stay with people. What makes a fight great is the character drama between the two individuals. It's the story told through that conflict.

I get that RWBY is a show that tries to push Teamwork & Unity as a theme....but so does literally every other shounen battle series. Yet they all still have very memorable and compelling 1 on 1 fights. You don't have to have one or the other. Both are necessary. Wanting to emphasize Teamwork is great but the fact is that in Battle focused stories 1 on 1 fights is actually what builds character. Something that many would argue is utterly lacking in RWBY.

Which is why I argue that there is far more story to pull out of the Jaune vs Cinder conflict than there is the Ruby vs Cinder conflict. And that this is the better narrative to spin based on what we already have.

Keep in mind I'm not saying that Jaune & Cinder are the only characters you can(and should) do this with.

Ruby & Salem

Weiss & Watts

Yang & Hazel

Blake & Tyrian

Are all Hero/Villain relationships that you can build great character drama with by setting up a proper clash of ideologies. I'm only using Jaune vs Cinder as one example because pretty much everyone hates Jaune and would be glad to see either him or Cinder killed off never to be seen again and I feel that is an utter waste of story potential.

But first I'd like to explain why Ruby & Cinder fails as an effective Hero & Opponent dynamic as RT is currently trying to present it as.

Why Ruby vs Cinder Fails

“If your characters don’t have a response—in speech, in thought, or in action—to the events happening to them, they haven’t been touched by those events, and the reader will likewise remain untouched and uninvolved.” —Beth Hill

It's very clear that Cinder & Ruby are being set up as rivals. Silver & Gold. Naive cute youth, vs Cunning mature beauty etc. Not to mention Cinder's very typical "Villain obsessed with the Hero" shtick. Though I'd like to argue(and I'm sure I'm not the first) that their conflict doesn't really work. The narrative tries to set up some sort of a beef between them, but ultimately it just falls flat. We know that Cinder really really hates Ruby.....But why? Because she scarred her face? This comes off as really shallow and isn't something that the audience can really invest in. Now you could argue that this is done in an attempt to make Cinder seem vain or petty, but without any backstory the audience isn't able to be invested in her reasons. Because again, it's superficial. On the flip side, what is Ruby's reason for despising Cinder? Because she's evil? Because she hurt her friend? Again, these are incredibly superficial reasons. It comes off as "I'm good and you're evil therefore I hate you". It can be seen as nothing more than a good guy who hates a bad guy for being bad, and a bad guy who hates a good guy for being good. Not to mention, Ruby hating Cinder for killing Pyrrha is hardly believable in the first place due to the fact that she has hardly spent any time with Pyrrha whatsoever. Without any deep seated emotion behind them or layers to this conflict it will always come off as empty. A vapid and contrived good guy vs bad guy beef loosely concocted to make Cinder hate our main Hero and nothing more.

However the conflict between Juane and Cinder has again far more story potential. From an emotional standpoint it just works. Jaune had strong feelings for Pyrrha be they romantic or otherwise and thus unlike Ruby it gives him ample reason to truly despise Cinder. This alone is already enough reason to be emotionally invested in the conflict as we have watched Jaune and Pyrrha grow closer over the course of Season 1 only to have her be brutally murdered by Cinder. Jaune's feelings of weakness, self-doubt, guilt, and anger are all heavy emotions brought about by Cinder's actions and we perfectly understand why he feels the way he feels. His animosity towards Cinder is only stoked knowing she feels no remorse over her actions and in fact practically forgot about it. As such we genuinely want to see Jaune get revenge for Pyrrha and make up for his failure at the end of Volume 3. So already when looking at just Jaune's side of things we find that his motivations for hating Cinder make perfect sense due to the emotional weight behind them. But what could make Cinder care enough about Jaune to hate him like she does Ruby?

Values in Conflict

"Great drama is not the product of two individuals butting heads; it is the product of the values and ideas of the individuals going into battle. It's conflict between characters and their values. A good opponent has a set of beliefs that come under assault as well. The beliefs of the hero have no meaning, and do not get expressed in the story, unless they come into conflict with the beliefs of at least one other character, preferably the opponent. The actions of the hero and the opponent are based on a set of beliefs, or values. These values represent each character's view of what makes life good. In the best stories, the values of the opponent come into conflict with the values of the hero. Through that conflict, the audience sees which way of life is superior. Much of the power of the story rests on the quality of this opposition."

-John Truby, The Anatomy of Story

Parallels: First when looking at their characters they're both very similar in some respects. Especially in terms of their goals. In Volume 3 Episode 7 opens with Cinder stating that she wants to be Strong, Feared, and Powerful. From this it can be inferred that there was indeed a time where she was not those things. Why else would she desire them? It was because she did not have them. Therefore, once upon a time Cinder was weak, pathetic, and powerless. Her semblance also hints at this as it really seems rather pathetic compared to most. It's barely anything that could provide an advantage in combat. I wouldn't be surprised if her power was once considered worthless or even outright unfit for combat. Basically from this we can conclude she was an individual who was in a situation where she constantly felt weak and helpless and because of that weakness she desired power so strongly that she would do anything for it. Even her name which has been implied to be fake and something she invented on her own hints at the idea that she hated the person she was and wanted to become someone else entirely. Now, similarly Jaune has also always been considered a weakling. A joke. A goofball nobody, that no one ever takes seriously. As we know from Volume 1 this is something Jaune is fully aware of and he despises it. He hates being pathetic. Weak. Thus, he desires to be a Hero. Someone he can respect. So much so that he'd forge his transcripts and infiltrate the most prestigious Huntsmen School in the world. He'd go to such drastic measures as to commit a crime of this caliber if it meant taking a step towards his dream. As such if we were to give them a conflict: Cinder's reason for hating Jaune could be that he is a reminder of what she used to be. A living breathing remnant of that pathetic weakling she once was. Thus looking at him disgusts her as he symbolizes her past self, the identity she tried to forget that keeps coming back to haunt her. So having Jaune serve as a reminder of her own weakness will be the start of her wanting to see him dead just as much as, if not more than Ruby.

But how will their conflict be structured? Since RWBY is an anime, or more specifically an honorary shounen considering it's place in Jump. Lets use a bit of shounen storytelling. Shounen's most prominent writing technique is one where the fights act as Character Arcs in and of themselves. Now, matching one's internal struggle with the external one is nothing new or revolutionary but shounen battle manga have unquestionably mastered the technique. Every fight tells a story and can even sometimes be considered the "Hero's Journey" in miniature. Often acting as clashes of not just personality, but ideologies, and are used to explore the themes of the narrative. The main thing I'm pointing out with this analysis is how fights can and should be written. Fights can be far more than a mere spectacle of flashy movements and abilities. With this in mind lets just imagine that each of their fights/clashes/encounters spurs on development in the two culminating in a final fight towards the end of the series, that concludes the story arcs of both characters.

~Themes~

Ambition: Both characters clearly posses great aspirations and ambition. Now I know Ambition is a word people like to tie to Villains. Deeming them selfish because of it, whereas the Heroes are portrayed as "selfless" doing things for the sake of others rather than themselves. However theres nothing wrong with having an Ambition. It's not an evil thing in it itself. Nor is it synonymous with greed. It's perfectly normal to have goals and to work hard towards achieving them. Thats all Ambition is. However the difference is in how you go about achieving those goals. Sometimes the hero and the villain are basically the same except for the fact that each took a single step in a different direction. Thus, one layer of this potential conflict between Jaune and Cinder can be about Ambition and how each character represents the flip side of what it means to pursue a goal. Now their goal in itself is somewhat similar. They both seek power and strength but for different reasons. While for both of them it is on some level a quest for self-worth, Cinder desires power largely for the sake of having it. So that she can inspire fear. Jaune desires strength so that he can protect those close to him and to have the ability to help those who need it. Where Cinder is ruthless. Jaune is Kind and Compassionate. Where Cinder uses the people around her like tools for her success. With Jaune we see that his support system on the ladder to success is built on friendship and mutual respect. Cinder tears down those around her using them as stepping stones to achieve her goals whereas Jaune holds up those around him and they eagerly do so for him in turn. Cinder may have worked hard but she gains strength by stealing from others whereas Jaune simply works hard and his power is one that literally allows him to give power to others instead of taking it. And Lastly, where Cinder's actions are clearly rooted in some deep seated hatred. Jaune is motivated by love. Or at least the memory of the woman who once loved him.

Destiny: Another layer to the fight could involve Cinder's belief in Destiny. Putting that empty one-liner of hers to good use we can pit Cinder's Destiny against Jaune's Hard Work in a clash of ideals. When creating a clash of ideals it's important to look for the positive and negative versions of the same value. A thematic clash of a Self-Made form of Destiny vs Predetermined Fate form of Destiny. Jaune's position in this thematic conflict being that the person you turn yourself into is entirely up to your own actions. Not Fate. This was also Pyrrhas version of Destiny. Jaune is essentially carrying on Pyrrha's will by representing her ideals in his final rematch with Cinder. It's the idea that regardless or who they are or where they came from it is their actions that brought them here. This should involve Jaune showcasing the techniques he's trained his ass off for pitted against the powers Cinder has ruthlessly stolen while under the belief that this is her Destiny. One that Fate owes her. During their final fight thanks to his training with Ozpin, Jaune has reached his true potential and with a combination of his newfound strength, some strategy & tactics forces her to concede that the previously untalented nobody is now not only the "stronger" fighter but also the stronger person. With Cinder ultimately coming to the conclusion that she could have been anyone she wanted to but has willingly turned herself into nothing more than a monster. A beast to be put down. And she had no one to blame but herself. Hers was a path of self-destruction where Jaune's path was one of self-overcoming. Having triumphed over his own weaknesses and short-comings whereas Cinder merely succumbed to them. Jaune's victory shouldn't simply be in defeating her or watching her die. He should utterly destroy everything that she believes in. Proving that everything she did to achieve her goals was worthless. That everything she did uptil now meant absolutely nothing.

Ozpin & Salem: Whats more, another layer to this fight could be to depict the difference in ideals between Ozpin and Salem. I've always been curious as to who would train Jaune. After all he is the weakest but the one with the most potential and storywise it just makes sense to bring him up to the level of everyone else so that he's not a hindrance on the battlefield. But in regards to training I've always had in mind that either Ozpin or his own Father would be the one to assist him. While I may prefer the latter, despite my preferences I will admit that Ozpin makes the most sense. It's far more appropriate that both Ozpin and Jaune; the two people who experienced the biggest failings during the Fall of Beacon come together to correct the mistakes they made. Both of their failures being tied directly to Cinder it makes sense that their combined effort should be eventually what put her down. With Ozpin seeing Jaune's immense desire to overcome Cinder he finally decides to train him personally to aid in his success as well as make up for his own mistakes. Seen from this perspective it's hard to imagine how Ruby even has a stake in this conflict at all. Cinder's defeat should mean something for characters involved and seeing Cinder defeated should mean the most to the man who failed to protect his school and the boy who failed to protect his partner. That way the victory is actually emotionally impactful because of how personal the victory is to those who had a hand in it. You can also think of this as being similar to Deku & All Might's situation. Remember Ozma is basically the Original Hero. So we have a young boy whose always wanted to be a Great Hero being trained by the former Greatest Hero there ever was. Thus, adding a new twist to the fight so that now it's a battle between the boy trained by Ozpin and the girl trained by Salem. Both Salem and Ozpin have raised up two youths who represent their ideals and the winning side will essentially be the ones to inherit the world. Not only would this conflict be about leaving the world to the next generation but also through these two individuals be a battle that asks the question of what ideology will decide the future. In addition to this, Jaune and Cinder could be used to mirror the conflict between Ozpin and Salem. Acting as a microcosm of their grander conflict. We have this generation's new Hero a White Knight attempting to save a beautiful Princess(Cinderella) from destroying herself on the path of Evil. Just as Ozpin tried to do years ago with Salem but failed. Here we can have Jaune succeed where his Master had failed.

Summary

So heres a quick and shortened Summary of how their conflict can play out: Jaune, no longer grieving over Pyrrha is now using her death as inspiration to become the Hero he dreamed about. He will no longer be treating his life as if it had no value. Pyrrha did not sacrifice hers so that he could die pointlessly. That would make her a fool who died for nothing. If he died then Pyrrha will have wasted her time on him. Death is not an apology. He makes an oath that he is going to live. That he would repay her sacrifice with success. With victory. By becoming the greatest Huntsmen he could possibly be. And save as many lives as possible in the process. He would do it too. Remember an Arc never goes back on their word. But the first step to that, would be defeating her killer. He would seek to surpass and overcome Cinder. Rectifying his first and greatest failure. He attacks her everytime he sees her. He loses every time but each fight he comes back just a little better than before. He won't stop coming back either. No matter how many times she seemingly gets rid of him Jaune Arc always comes back. Whenever he is not on screen he is busy training. With a new move or a new trick here or there and gradually he begins to become a real nuisance to Cinder. Now, remember from Her perspective Jaune represents her past self. Or rather a better version of her that was weak and powerless yet still striving to be strong and through effort is slowly beginning to achieve it. Though not through the methods she currently uses. This is important because Jaune's consistent interactions with Cinder will start to affect her development. Causing her to reflect on her actions and question if the path she's on is the right one(note: we did see a brief glimpse of this when Cinder was watching Tyrian attack that Ursa like a madman). After all if the man she once deemed a weak failure can continue to grow like this what had been stopping her from simply doing the same? He had not sacrificed his limbs and turned himself into a monster. Did she really need to be ruthless? or even join up with Salem to achieve her goals? Thoughts like this combined with Cinder having flashbacks to her past whenever she sees Jaune suddenly makes him someone she must kill at all costs due to him drudging up old memories, making her question everything she's done up until this point. Then it becomes about proving herself correct. About putting the past behind her. That, if she didn't kill this fool and prove that his way was wrong then she'll have lost any justification for her existence and acquisition of power. She had to join up with Salem. It was the only way to become powerful, strong and respected. She had no other choice. But in addition to these thoughts there was also a new emotion bubbling to the surface whenever she interacted with Jaune. Respect. Admiration. For the person who was just like her. Showing stout determination in the face of those who deemed him weak. Driven to prove them wrong. Absolutely dedicated towards achieving his ambition. These such traits would lead to her sparing his life on occasion and additionally, she finds herself slowly yet surely looking forward to their encounters. She remembers his name now. How could she forget? Jaune Arc? The name practically rolled off the tongue. Now whenever he appears before her stronger than he was before she can't help but grin. Eager to attack him. See how far he's come. At this point she's nearly forgotten her hatred towards Ruby. She was enjoying watching Jaune improve himself simultaneously proving wrong all those who doubted him. Even her.

Similarly, we see that Jaune slowly starts to understand Cinder over the course of their encounters, whereas in their first official meeting he couldn't comprehend her actions at all. He starts to relate to her intense drive to be something greater. Bits of information lead to him coming to the conclusion that at one point she was someone like him, weak and helpless. However she'd actually achieved her goal. Coming from absolutely nothing to someone so powerful. Which gave him hope of him doing the same. But her path has made it clear she didn't have any of the heartfelt support that he did. Her having only the monstrous Salem to turn to. Jaune against his better judgment begins to feel sorry for the one known as Cinder Fall. Yet the same time he'd also begrudgingly come to respect her and all that she'd overcome. But he was confused. Why did she desire further power? Did she not see how strong she already was? Then it dawns on him. She had already overcome so much yet she hasn't overcome herself. She was still so lost in her own anger that it has blinded her to the realization that she had already achieved her goal. So Seeing her as the monster he could have become, Jaune makes the decision to let go of his hate for Cinder. Lest it turn him into a monster as well. Thus no longer feeling hatred for the woman he so consistently opposes he begins seeking answers. To understand her. To learn why she is the way she is. After, learning of her past her understands what he must do. Spending all his time with Ruby had taught him that being a Hero was about more that just rushing in and slaying some monster, it was also about lending a hand to those in need. Even if they didn't deserve it(Edit: While I think it'd be interesting if Jaune comes to this realization because of Ruby, we do in fact already see this in Jaune's character when saves Cardin despite all the horrible things he'd done to him).

(Note: This fight can occur just before the final battle. You can have Jaune & Oscar show up fresh out the metaphporic hyperbolic time chamber (or whatever kind of literary device you wanna use) in time to help Team RWBY deal with Salem. However Jaune doesn't have to literally surpass Cinder for this to work. You can have him surpass her metaphorically. In fact it might be more thematically potent to have Jaune still be weaker than her in terms of overall power but still manage to win. Showing that for all her great power she's still worthless without the strength of character that Jaune has and thats what makes her weak.)

Long story short, their fight concludes with Jaune completely besting Cinder. Jaune's final blow kills the parasite Grimm within her. Cinder dies, but only for a moment before Jaune's powers restores her again, but in that brief moment she remembers Ruby and how pointless her hatred towards her was. How petty she was back then. This brief moment of repentance causes the maiden powers to be sent to Ruby. With this victory, Jaune crushes her ideals and sets her back to Zero. Destroying her Grimm parts and using his semblance to completely restore her human limbs and heal her scars. She is completely human once more. Giving her a chance to start over.

The point being: these two characters, whether it's their personalities, characterization or themes simply make for the better conflict. It works because Jaune's existence attacks her beliefs about herself and her motivations for being on the path she's on. Cinder's existence provides Jaune with motivation while attacking his weaknesses as a character and pushing him to be better. Thats what a proper Hero/Opponent dynamic should look like. Yes, I understand that some people prefer Team fights because they find it interesting to have other characters cover their weaknesses in battle and while that may be "useful" it's not as compelling storytelling as having characters overcome their weaknesses. Having someone to protect you is fine but if relied on it can reduce the characters to feeling stagnant. You cannot grow if you're always being protected. A 1 on 1 forces a character to face their weaknesses and find a way around it or overcome it. This is what builds character and leads to character growth. Hence why 1 v 1s are significant in stories like this. It allows the characters to stand on their own two feet when they have to. More importantly, this specific encounter can actually tell a proper story. One of two people with opposing world views, and personalities that come into conflict who are ultimately challenged and changed by said conflict. Jaune helps to rid Cinder of her hatred and desire for destruction, even giving her the option to choose her own path from here on out, while Cinder inadvertently helps Jaune to become the Hero he initially set out to be. Theres arguably room to take this a step further by going in a romantic direction, what with Jaune being a "White Knight" and a wannabe Prince Charming and Cinder being "Cinderella" and a wannabe Princess but ultimately the point is the fight itself gets a story across.

Final thoughts

-Some would argue that they just want to see her get unceremoniously killed off, and while that might be emotionally satisfying in the moment but Jaune saving/not killing her is the better conclusion because it better expresses an answer to a thematic argument. It's essentially one big middle finger to her entire way of life. Crushing everything she believes in the process.

-I know some people might take issue with Jaune being able to restore limbs but this is purely theoretically and I only included it because of the symbolic meaning it provides of the "monster" of Cinder's rage being destroyed and her humanity shining through. However, it should be noted that Semblances grow over time. They evolve. If we look at it in rpg terms Jaune's Semblance is basically at level 1. So for all we know it might not be outside the realm of possibility if it grows even further.

-Others might take issue Jaune beating her at all because she's a maiden but it's entirely appropriate imo. You don't really need to be as powerful as someone else to actually beat them in a fight. "Power levels" don't always decide the outcome of fights.

-If this is to work then theres one thing he should be doing and it's constantly training. That kind of all day, every day, work all day/sleep all night, Roronoa Zoro/Rock Lee style training routine. Only to emphasize the theme of his Hard Work vs Cinder taking the Easy Route of just stealing power instead of becoming strong through her own merit. Basically, Jaune takes the hard road to growth while Cinder cuts corners.

-One more thing that I neglected to mention earlier that leans into the idea of Jaune & Cinder being used to represent the greater conflict between Ozpin & Salem(and I mean strictly thematically not romantically) is that one of Jaune's themes is that he represents The Sun. Jaune's first name meaning yellow in French and the etymology of the name "Arc" not only has "Holy" connotations but is also a reference to the Sun. Jaune Arc essentially means Yellow Sun. The reason this is significant is because the Sun in ancient times was worshiped as the "Life Giver". Which is literally Jaune's Semblance. So Jaune is the Yellow Sun that Gives Life and Cinder is the burning flame that reduces all things to Ash. One representing Life and the other representing Death and Destruction. Much like the God of Light & Darkness but more importantly like Ozpin & Salem as it makes for a great way to symbolize the Cycle of Life, Death & Rebirth. With this in mind if my scenario plays out, the scene where Jaune saves Cinder can be read as: "a wild flame reduces all life around it to Cinders but through the light of the Sun that life is reborn from the ashes anew". If such a thing happened I'd be curious about whether or not this could lead to Cinder gaining a new Semblance, one representing her growth as a character. Something Phoenix related? I dunno, thats just a random thought.

2018 is over and I feel compelled to write a retrospective of sorts, but since I don’t feel like talking about myself I’m gonna talk about Every Anime (Series) I Watched in 2018. Each one comes with a numerical rating out of 10 and a short blurb of what I thought about it.

Recovery of an MMO Junkie - 9/10 - Incredibly sweet and heartfelt, with mature adult characters who act as such. Drama and comedy both are mined from real issues rather than petty miscommunication, and is all the more compelling for it.

Land of the Lustrous - 10/10 - A delightfully unique setting with an enrapturing story and fantastically constructed characters. The moments of levity and sweetness only serve to make the deeply engrained sadness and loneliness more poignant. The CGI animation is shockingly gorgeous, and a triumph of the medium.

Kino’s Journey: The Beautiful World (2018) - 5/10 - Certainly entertaining in spots, but ultimately rings rather hollow. Not really an improvement on the original in any respect.

Princess Principal - 8/10 - An absolutely gorgeous setting brimming with atmosphere and style, and a fun ensemble cast. The series-wide arc is a little hard to follow or understand, but each individual episodic plot is really enjoyable and engaging.

The Vision of Escaflowne - 8/10 - A well-built fantasy that’s occasionally ridiculous but never not fun. The new dub is really slick and helps the series go down nice and smooth.

A Place Further Than the Universe - 10/10 - Extraordinarily sweet, earnest and heartfelt. Deftly written, smartly directed, and masterfully executed. I cried really hard, a lot. 

Tsuredure Children - 8/10 - Cute, ridiculous, and eminently relatable. If you’ve ever had a crush, you’re bound to identify with at least one character in this series.

From the New World - 5/10 - Had a glimmer of potential, but mostly ended up fake deep, poorly paced, and fucking ugly to look at. The more I thought about this series the less I realized I enjoyed it.

The Ancient Magus’ Bride - 5/10 - An extraordinarily promising start that’s disappointingly squandered by wildly inconsistent tone, static plots, nonsensical character arcs, excessive cliffhangers, and hollow stakes.

Princess Tutu - 10/10 - An expertly built deconstruction of fairy tales as well as a sweeping, gorgeous love note to ballet, classical music, and romantic storybook heroism. Wonderfully intricate plotting and stunning character work, a true gem.

Kaiba - 8/10 - Brilliantly unique and emotionally engrossing, if not a bit obscure and hard to follow at times. You never have, and probably never will again, see an anime quite like this.

Girls’ Last Tour - 7/10 - Deeply atmospheric and sometimes quite poignant, but also dreadfully, awfully, agonizingly slow.

Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto - 9/10 - A smooth and even mix between laughable absurdity and actual real emotional stakes. Somehow, I feel like I learned something about myself.

Megalobox - 8/10 - Briskly paced and action-packed, but by far the biggest draw is a classic 90s aesthetic reminiscent of pre-digital legends like Cowboy Bebop. This series lives and breathes style.

Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Die Neue These - 6/10 - Would have the potential to be interesting if it wasn’t so hollow and boring. I wanted to get more engaged in the politics of this complicated war, but the plot is held at arms length and the characters are more like walking philosophy textbooks than actual people. That said, the ship designs are pretty cool.

Hinamatsuri - 10/10 - Sweet, pure-hearted, and gut-bustingly funny. Any moment I wasn’t laughing until my sides hurt, I was near to tearing up from actually caring about these characters so much. Each episode was a joy and I loved every second of it.

Golden Kamuy (S1) - 7/10 - Absurd, charming, and goofy, with a surprising amount of gore. Seems to care more about food than plot, but I’m kind of into it.

Revolutionary Girl Utena - 9/10 - Brilliantly dense, symbolic, and metaphorical. Sometimes hard to understand, sometimes hard to watch, but always excellent.

Dragon Pilot: Hisone & Masotan - 7/10 - Gorgeously animated and undeniably charming, but still a little awkward, garbled, and uncomfortable at times. The most earnest vore anime I’ve ever watched.

Steins;Gate 0 - 4/10 - A total, utter, crushing disappointment. Follows up a spectacular prequel with a nonsensical, contrived plot, inaccurate characters, and piss-poor visuals. This series is only carried by its relationship to the original. I will never trust again.

Princess Jellyfish - 7/10 - Charming, varied characters populating an unfulfilling narrative.

The Big O - 6/10 - Plenty of goofy, stylish fun, but slowly devolves into an inscrutable, incomprehensible mess. R. Dorothy Wayneright is the best part of this series by far. Roger Smith is a louse.

Aggretsuko - 7/10 - Fun and relatable, if a bit simple. 

TOP 3

3. Hinamatsuri - This series came totally out of left field for me. I usually don’t emotionally respond to comedies very well but this one somehow hit all the right buttons. None of the humor was mean-spirited or put anyone down, the situations were absurd but didn’t cripple me with secondhand embarrassment, and on top of it all I really started to care about the cast. I wish I could get surprised like this more often.

2. Land of the Lustrous - As you can tell if you’ve been following me at all recently, this series has been absolutely consuming me from the moment I watched it. The plot is gripping and excellently paced, and I don’t know if I’ve ever been invested in another main character quite as much as Phos. It’s plenty easy to get wrapped up in thinking about the plot and the character arcs and the meta, but then when I go back and watch the series again I’m shocked by how good it is on a technical level, too. The CG animation is beyond gorgeous and the technical grace of each scene, the pacing, the colors, the music, the character animation, the voice acting, are all stellar. If this anime had more of an ending it would absolutely be my number 1 pick, but for now I just have to read the manga (AS SHOULD YOU, YOU COWARDS. IT’S EVERY BIT AS GOOD AS THE ANIME).

1. Princess Tutu - I, like many people, I think, reacted with derision at the title of this series, but by the time I was done I was completely blown away, and every time I thought about it more I was even more shocked. Every inch of this series shows some of the smartest construction I’ve ever seen in fiction, every layer is filled with stylistic flourish, brilliant writing, and metatextual commentary. You can dig as deep as you want and Princess Tutu will always have something to offer you. It’s been less than a year, I’ve already watched it twice, and I’m still discovering new things about it. A story this brilliant would be a once in a lifetime experience on its own, but Tutu is fulfilling on the surface level, too. Even if you’re not diving deep into what the series means you can still be just as enraptured by the characters. Fakir probably has the best redemption arc this side of Prince Zuko, and I could sing the praises of every other major cast member. And the music, the music! I was doomed from the start the moment I heard both The Nutcracker and Pictures at an Exhibition in the score. Princess Tutu takes some of the greatest masterpieces of western art music and builds off them, creating a sense of atmosphere as deep and vast and dramatic as the finest opera or ballet could ever be. Princess Tutu is one of the greatest works of fiction I’ve ever consumed, and absolutely the best I’ve watched this year.

BOTTOM THREE

3. From the New World - Immediately after I stopped watching this series I actually sort of thought I’d liked it, and I think the reason for this is because From the New World tries its very best to engage in ideas a bit deeper and more ambiguous than a lot of other anime do. But the more I thought about it, the more I disliked this series. Everything about the plot was confusing and off-putting, I didn’t find the characters particularly charming, and perhaps most of all, this series is butt-ugly. It might have a high score of MAL. but my advice is to give this series a hard pass.

2. The Ancient Magus’ Bride - I wanted to like this series so fucking bad. I fell in love with the prequel OVA and waited anxiously for each new installment to come out. I even bought tickets to my local Artsy Fartsy Theater to see the first three episodes when the screened there. And I liked them! Finally, an anime engaged in Celtic and English mythology, some of my favorites, and a protagonist with a truly gripping internal struggle. I was certain from the very first moment that this series would sit in my Top 10 list, and that Chise would be one of my favorite protagonists ever. And then it... didn’t happen. As the episodes unfolded I was treated to a series that had no idea how to establish or maintain stakes, how to relate its two main characters to each other, or how to use the wealth of mythology it was referencing and drawing from. How am I supposed to care when Chise gets stabbed in the chest every 2 episodes and then just kind of shrugs it off for the sake of drama? How am I supposed to be interested in the mythology when it’s all just watered-down fantasy archetypes with giant boobs? Don’t even get me started on the main villain. I feel very betrayed by this series and honestly I’m still bitter.

1. Steins;Gate 0 - This series is as much a lesson in betrayal as Ancient Magus’ Bride, but I think this one stings worse because it’s preceded by Steins;Gate, and anime I love dearly. I sincerely believe that the original Steins;Gate is one of the best anime ever produced, and this sequel struggles to live up to even a single aspect of it. As it began I was hopeful- I liked the darker tone, I liked the idea of a story within a failed timeline. But as I kept watching, I realized something awful: I was bored. All of the charm and intrigue was gone. The characters were all acting different, all looked different (why are all the girls wearing skintight winter coats? Why have their chests all inflated three sizes??), and there was no impetus for the plot. Steins;Gate was driven by simple goals; in the first half, it was to build a time-leap machine. In the second half, it was to save Mayuri. In Steins;Gate 0 the impetus is to... watch Okabe be sad. Hope he gets less sad. There’s nothing to keep the plot moving, and this listlessness was so overwhelming that the random bits of unforeshadowed action and unprecedented (for this franchise) violence felt cheap and confusing after the doldrums we just sat through. By the time the plot finally, finally, picks up towards the final quarter of the series, the damage is done. I don’t care anymore, I can’t figure out what’s going on, and I’m just so done with a franchise I used to love. One day I’ll go back and rewatch the original Steins;Gate and remind myself why I cared so much, but for now I’m nursing wounds. If you say the name “Kagari” in my presence, I’ll probably blitz the fuck out.

Here’s to a good 2019!

hi!! im aware that you guys are on hiatus but i just polished up his fantroll and would like ot get him reviewed!^^ happy to wait for when Life Stuff stops happening constistantly

Thanks for understanding. Hope you didn’t wait too long, and I hope you’re satisfied with this review because honestly??? I don’t have a lot to fix. This is a really good dog troll!

FIRST: Alternia or Beforus or some type of AU?

AU Alternia with a different empress. Adult trolls have still been banished, but for different reasoning. Canon trolls don’t exist.

Theme: Kyonni was originally based on Canes Venatici, but his theme got scrambled up into the generic hunting/guard dog. Some of the original ideas are kept.

Name: Kyonni Iosito [Kyonni comes from one of the Greek variations for dog, κύων/kon. Iosito is a scrambled up part of a Greek variation for bark, istoús.]

Age: Roughly 6 sweeps old.

Strife Specibus: gunpowderkind [it might seem strange reading at first, but since riflekind is kind of overused and a better suited for his dancestor, I kind of just pictured Kyonni throwing gunpowder at opponent’s eyes to blind them and give him enough time to summon a weapon. He carries it in pouches, tied to his waist with an old rope.]

Sdjgfljlajg that’s hilarious. Consider maybe he carries a small keg of gunpowder around a collar around his neck like a St. Bernard with whiskey?

Fetch Modus: scent modus [it works quite similarly to how policemen train dogs to find drugs; basically, three options are given inside safes/boxes. the item Kyonni wishes to retrieve has a certain smell. he has to locate the item by sniffing the boxes. if he chooses the right one, yay! you’ve got your item. if he fails to choose the correct one, he often gets something ridiculous and irrelevant to what he needed, e.g. an empty pillowcase when he needed a gun.]

Blood color: Sage

I think it works especially since we’ve seen with the new troll call that olivebloods are more likely to be animal-like.

Symbol and meaning: Hobo symbol for “barking dog here.“

Trolltag: californiumCadre [CC]

Hmmm you haven’t given your reasoning for this trolltag and I can’t really see one intuitively? If you want the same assignation maybe cuddlyCanid?

Quirk: Replaces v/V and w/W with vV/Vv and capitalizes X to replicate symbol. Sometimes “barks” when angry [e.g. GET IT DONE!! BARK]

Ex; the quick brovVn foX jumps ovVer the lazy red dog.

Lusus: A two-headed barkbeast with jagged teeth Kyonni coined Orthrus [i’m aware that the whole duolusus thing is overused, but i’ve got reason! Orthrus was a guard dog in Greek mythology who was killed by Heracles. his role is fitting for Kyonni’s theme, and his caliginous crush has ties to Heracles, so i thought it could work].

Personality: Kyonni’s simply a troublemaker who’s fiercely loyal. He usually steps asides from large jobs if someone else wishes to have it, preferring to put his friends’ wants in front of his own. In the case that he is appointed leader, he takes it eagerly, and seriously [because he has such a lack of experience in the area, Kyonni does it only to find himself stressed and often snapping]. He jokes around a lot, doing stuff like pulling pranks on disrespectful high-bloods, usually resulting in him hastily fixing the situation. Kyonni’s impulsive and passionate, seeing his hassling as the baby steps to Alternia’s turn against blood. After basing his entire life on serving and appreciating his friends more than himself, Kyonni has come out as insecure. It doesn’t affect his impulse for change or strong beliefs, but when overthinking things, a common thought is that he isn’t the right leader that the history books portray.

Hemoloyalty: Pretends to respect it for his moirail’s sake, but honestly, Kyonni hates the hemospectrum. He has a lot of books that tell of revolutions against blood casting and wishes to start a new one. Aware that his friends would never agree, though, he sticks to pranking high-bloods. His loyalty is much more important that his opinions.

Important Relationships: Kyonni has a purple-blooded moirail named Gnavis Raedon, a more responsible delinquent who steers Kyonni from high-bloods and death threats. Since Gnavis saved Kyonni’s butt so many times, the lower-blooded troll claims that he should do something in return. Gnavis has never asked for anything, though, so the two just mess around and pap each other most of the time.; Kyonni also has a strong caliginous crush on a rust-blood named Achemon Tarius. [i might submit these guys too if I ever sprite them..;]

Interests: Chasing/hunting down animals and trespassing trolls; forgery; history of troll revolution; dog treats and biscuits; people watching; practice shooting; meowbeast videos people post on GrubTube.

Title: Knight of Space [I’m uncertain about this classpect—i took a classpect test for this one and although I think it fits, but not sure;;]

Given his loyalty to his friends and his almost dual personality (wanting to be a revolutionary leader but not to rock the boat with his friends), I feel like Bard of Heart might work for him?

Local classpect expert jumping in here- it might be a little obvious, but loyalty and bonds and stuff like that are really associated with the Blood aspect. I think Page of Blood might be a really good situation for Kyonni! It represents a great deal of potential. He’d start out kind of bogged down by his bonds and relations, obsessed with loyalty. He does want to break out, but doing so is really, really, really hard. But once he’s able to kind of get through, he’d be able to passively exploit those bonds to really amazing ends. Utilizing his relationships and the links he’s formed with others and his loyalty itself as a weapon to Lead! Lead a massive formation of people who trust him. His inverse, Thief of Breath, means he’d be able to steal the direction and explorative energy away from others and redistributed it as he pleased, too! Freedom is his for the taking. -CD

Land: ???

Land of Tulips and Bridges (LOTAB). Given such a strong theme around loyalty and friendship, I chose Tulips because blue tulips represent loyalty, and bridges to represent repaired relationships. This can be used in a very literal sense of repairing broken bridges for the consorts to reach one another and for Kyonni to reach his denizen, but it’s also kind of important for him to realize that friendships in which he just goes along with whatever the other person says are fundamentally less whole than ones in which he takes the time to be vulnerable.

Dream Planet: Derse

Ancestor: The Rifleman; A former protector of the Monarchy [AU empress—just a bitch for blood], who generally scouted the area with two barkbeasts and a rifle. He was killed later on when found taking a part in the [Ancestor-Who-Has-Yet-To-Be–Named]’s rebellion against blood caste separation and laws.

Dancestor: Skylos Iosito [Skylos comes from a Greek variation of dog; σκύλος/skýlos.]

Beforan self: The Gunsmith; A passive rebelling troll who sold weapons to lowbloods in the rebellion. Escaped killing narrowly.

Appearance Notes; in case this boi gets any physical aspects modified; i wasnt going so much “feral guard dog!” w Kyonni as im planning to for Skylos. Kyonni’s more “doggo who eats spiders” with growling on the side. just (please) keep his curly hair, freckles, and apparent innocence. danke!

I wouldn’t change a THING about this good good boi he’s GREAT. You sent in your sprite a little later so I added that to this post but for real his visual design is perfect.

“The MCA Blows It” in Visual Art Source

by Robin Dluzen

Diane Christensen and Jeanne Dunning with Steve Dawson, “Birth Death Breath,”2016, inflatable opera. Installation view, Elmhurst Art Museum, Elmhurst, Illinois "The Long Dream"  Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Illinois, continuing through May 2, 2021

Wrapping the corner walls of the entrance to “The Long Dream” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago are the names of the more than 70 local artists exhibiting work in the exhibition. Some of these names belong to my friends and colleagues, and there are others I don’t personally know but greatly admire. Rather than feeling vicariously buoyed by reading these names, and appreciating the institutional recognition of a segment of Chicago’s arts community, I instinctively flinched. It should be noted that I did not come to the MCA on this day in possession of the optimistic curiosity with which I typically approach an exhibition. The MCA and “The Long Dream” are at the center of a labor crisis, as extensively reported by Kerry Cardoza in The Chicago Reader (March 3, 2021). With my facemask and timed-entry ticket, I came to find out what happens to a show, stockpiled with excellent and timely work, when site-specific ethical turmoil takes over as context. My flinch at the threshold of the exhibition was the result of knowing that the artists whose names are on the wall must feel involuntarily complicit in the controversy. The curatorial statement of “The Long Dream” explains that the show, which borrows its title from the Richard Wright novel, highlights artists whose work “offers us ways to imagine a more equitable and interconnected world” — an institutional attempt to acknowledge the revolutionary zeitgeist. That would be all well and good were it not for the fact that MCA staff (organized under the moniker MCAccountable) has been calling on the museum to address its own racism, ableism and poor labor practices, especially in the midst of operating during COVID, only to face layoffs twice — the latest round in January, coinciding with a sickly hypocritical article by MCA Director Madeleine Grynsztein in Art in America (January 22, 2021) bragging about diversity practices at the MCA and how “[w]hen most institutions were furloughing their front-facing employees, we went in the opposite direction.” Cardoza pointed out, however, that “[t]he day prior, the MCA laid off 41 employees.” MCAccountable’s open letters from July 16 and August 21, and one from the artists in “The Long Dream” presented to the Director on March 11 outline the museum’s offenses, and the demands made by the artists and staff. 

Some of the artists slated to exhibit in “The Long Dream” — Maria Gaspar, Aram Han Sifuentes, Folayemi Wilson and the For the People Artists Collective — withdrew in protest before the show even opened. Initially, I worried for the artists in “The Long Dream”: that the show’s context had been proven a sham, and subsequently, that powerful work about racial justice, disability activism and LGBTQ+ equity would be grievously undermined. Indeed, the pretense that the museum was in solidarity with these causes was shattered, and an atmosphere of irony, sadness and outrage over the current situation envelops the show. But the convictions within the works reverberate. 

Artworks that hinge upon elements of vulnerability thrive in the exhibition’s shifted context. “Birth, Death, Breath,” an installation by Diane Christiansen and Jeanne Dunning with Steve Dawson, features a collection of seasonal, inflatable lawn ornaments: snowmen, ducks dressed in hunting gear, and parts of various animals frankenstein-ed together. All rise and fall as their air supply fluctuates in cadence with original songs. The artists take advantage of how these colorful, smiling forms bob, almost lifelike when filled with air; and the ominous way that they collapse when their supply is cut. Lyrics like “I will not survive / Where am I going / Where will I be” underscore threads of fear and uncertainty — feelings that have become all too familiar, especially during the pandemic when crucial lifelines and livelihoods suddenly became tenuous. While Christiansen and Dunning keep us at a conceptual arms length as we watch a narrative play out, Derrick Woods-Morrow closes the distance between the audience and the work. In “How much does this moment weigh for you?”, the mangled mass of a compressed police car is suspended from a steel frame by chains. The rusted heap no longer bears any resemblance to a Crown Victoria, but the police spotlight, aimed head-height, is unmistakable. In the darkened room, the sudden, blinding light stuns and disarms. Stepping away from the spotlight, it’s easier to focus on the disembodied voices in the room: two men tentatively discussing race, queerness, law enforcement and their shared memories of childhood. Woods-Morrow doesn’t simply tell a story here, he puts us right in the middle of it, both physically and emotionally. The sensation of being in someone else’s shoes takes us one step beyond mere awareness, and closer to understanding. 

Amanda Williams, “What black is this you say?—‘You thought getting Obama elected meant you could take a break from blackness’—black (study for 08.09.20),” 2020, watercolor on paper, 7 x 10”

But the piece in “The Long Dream” that resonates the most, in light of the collapse of the exhibition’s original intention, is Amanda Williams’ “What black is this you say?” series of watercolors on paper. Her series began in response to “Blackout Tuesday,” the social media event of June 2, 2020, in which Instagram feeds were flooded with blank, black squares by individuals, institutions and corporations alike, in what everyone thought was solidarity with Black Lives Matter. Quickly, it was realized that these posts stifled the crucial communication that was taking place online with the #blm hashtag, and people everywhere seethed at the superficiality of the gesture. Williams, known for her mastery of color in form and concept, began her own Instagram project that day, coupling abstractions of varying tones and palettes of black with captions that added humanity and individuality to a trend that was otherwise populated with flatness and sameness. The artist translated her posts into the small, intimate paintings seen here. And, with the addition of handwritten inscriptions, such as “I cain’t go swimming today, I just got my hair done black”; “Obama break from blackness black,” they capture the best aspect of social media — the window into someone else’s everyday — while infusing it with the slow-paced contemplation of abstract painting.

A portion of what Williams so adeptly addresses in this work is in close parallel to what is playing out at the MCA and beyond: jumping on the chance to show public solidarity in theory, while continuing to actively harm individuals and disregard their experiences. There have been other major exhibitions in recent years in which artists have withdrawn work in protest of morality issues at the institution. The 2019 Whitney Biennial is one example. But the hypocrisy of “The Long Dream” is particularly explicit. The museum fails on the precise grounds by which the exhibition was conceived. In bringing together 70 artists with the most concrete of convictions, how could this NOT have happened? In hindsight, it seems inevitable that the museum would try, and fail. I checked my Twitter feed on my walk back to the El on the Friday afternoon of my MCA visit. The algorithm brought me Kerry Cardoza’s Tweet from several hours prior: a link to the open letter from the artists, with the announcement that 57 of them would be withdrawing their work from the exhibition. This story is not yet complete. But hopefully what started as an exhibition will be remembered as a sea change, with artists and workers serving as the catalyst.

8 Content Marketing Tactics That Boost Landing Page Conversions

Stop sending traffic to pages that can’t close the deal, learn how to boost landing page conversions with these content marketing tactics.

What’s a good, converting landing page? It’s the one that doesn’t make a user think too much when looking for a desired item. It delivers the message clearly to the right people in the right place.

To create such a landing page, you need to invest in a little research and content first. In this post, we’ve gathered 8 tactics for creating a landing page that attracts customers and makes them come back for more. Enjoy!

1. Know your target audience

Writing without your target audience in mind is like shooting without a target. You can be a great copywriter and put all your heart and skills into writing, but you’ll fail to deliver your message to your reader.

A good content writer doesn’t start work without basic information about the target audience, like:

Demographics (age, location, gender, occupation, income, marital status, etc)

Their online habits

Hobbies and interests

Pain points

The same product can have different target audiences, so all your content must focus around them. For example, Bumble and bumble shampoo is targeted at busy millennial women looking for professional haircare for an affordable price. The company uses informal style, bold call-to-actions (CTAs), and quality images from social media to showcase their vibrant community and products.

2. Write straightforward headlines

A headline is an element of a landing page that draws attention and impacts a customer’s decision whether to stay on a page or not. While the rest of a landing page discloses the offer and slightly leads a customer to making a decision to buy, to fill in a subscription form, etc, a headline determines whether they’ll be interested in your offer.

CoSchedule is an ultimate marketing suite. The company placed a bold headline and a screenshot of their tool above the fold. Such a move allows customers to make a first impression of the tool and get the key idea of what the tool does: helps teams organize marketing work for remote teams.

3. Use educational content

Landings shouldn’t be all about sales pitches. A  “tell, don’t sell” approach pays its way, especially if you’re promoting educational services, working in a non-government sphere, or raising awareness.

Educating your customers on an existing problem helps you evoke a fear of missing out (FOMO), so they get motivated to solve the issue as quickly as possible. You can also bond with your customers around an issue and share your values with them in such a way.

One of the content marketing examples for educational content is Colgate. The company educates their customers about oral care and oral health in the first place, creating an image of a company with a scientific and caring approach.

4. Place catchy CTAs with visual elements

Sometimes, you have to lead a customer to a desired action. With the help of CTAs, you can give them a hint of what you’d like them to do: to make a purchase, to subscribe to a service, to leave an email, etc.

Call-to-action buttons must be vivid and bold enough, so users can easily spot them and not scroll them away. However, CTA buttons aren’t a place for your creative experiments. They must comply with the general rules of conversion rate optimization and be recognizable.

A time-proven format for CTA is a button with text. Sounds boring? You can experiment with colors, fonts, shapes, placement of a button, and their visual look.

Tarte Cosmetics doesn’t leave a chance for their customers to miss a CTA with this luring animated offer at the very beginning of the home page.

5. Add lead forms to the main screen

If you’re collecting user emails or signups, it makes sense to put your efforts into creating lead generating forms. A rule of thumb for successful lead forms:

Keep them short and don’t make a user fill in an excessive amount of information

Use compelling call-to-action buttons

Motivate users to sign up for an offer like a free ebook or a discount

Use gamification techniques like quizzes and trivia

Backlinko, a #1 SEO training resource presents a subscription form on the main screen, inviting users to subscribe to the exclusive newsletter right off the bat.

Being paired with a bold and straightforward headline and clean design, the lead capture form motivates users to join the platform quickly without getting into much detail.

6. Publish customer success stories

Customer stories are a must on a converting landing page. Besides their main purpose – building trust among your target audience and creating social proof, they also help you:

Convert leads into loyal customers

Create a sense of empathy towards your customers

Bond with your customers around your values

To make your customer stories trustworthy, it’s important to use photos, names of your customers and their job titles. Ideally, you add a link to their social media accounts, so anyone can double check their identity and make sure their story isn’t fake.

Make sure your customer stories are storytelling, not just a list of facts and appraisals.

Patagonia, an activewear company, created “The stories we wear” project to breathe life in generic customer testimonials. They share the moments of lives of their customers while wearing Patagonia activewear. It helps them build a community and share their mission and values through the love for adventures and active lifestyle.

7. Take a benefits-driven approach

Theodore Levitt, an American economist, said: “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill, they want to buy a quarter-inch hole.”

This means that you should focus on the benefits of your product and services rather than on their technical characteristics, even if they’re impressive and revolutionary. As a rule, users don’t get much from long and detailed technical specifications. What they really want is to get to the point and see what’s in it for them.

Apple is a great example of a technological company that keeps copy on their landing pages short and concise. Apple doesn’t burden a customer with too much technological detail. Instead, they add a description that goes straight in the heart of a user. For savvy users, Apple adds an additional page with technical specifications, so anyone can easily compare the devices if needed.

8. Add demo videos

What can tell a story better than copy and images? Videos, of course!

With videos, you can tell a story, stir the right emotions, and efficiently showcase your products and services.

The general rules of efficient demo videos are simple:

Speak with a wide audience, but always keep “the one” customer in mind, as if you’re speaking with them in person.

Include CTAs in a video as well – visually and in a video script.

Choose a video format – an explainer video, a demo, etc, and stick to their storyline and narrative.

The video doesn’t necessarily have to feature people. For example, Calendly, a meeting scheduling tool, provides a classic explainer video in a plain cartoon-like form. Such video format helps customers get the essence of a service and their value proposition.

Wrapping up

Do you want to see a significant boost in conversions? Then try these time-proven tactics to landing page optimization from prominent ecommerce and service companies.

Feel free to let us know how your page performed after implementing our tips. We’re looking forward to chatting with you in the comments section below!

Is Neo Yokio Really All That Bad?

Neo Yokio is certainly a production with some striking ideas embedded in its premise. Directed by Ezra Koenig, the adult cartoon follows the life of “magistocrat” Kaz Kaan (Jaden Smith) as he balances being both a demon slayer and a socialite in the affluent city of Neo Yokio. At a glance, the production seems pretty good. The series seemingly exposes, critiques, and satirizes the frivolous and vapid excesses of high society in Neo Yokio which is itself a completely bourgeois-centric version of New York. However, on closer inspection, Neo Yokio’s allegedly poignant social commentary and satirical humor are severely lacking. 

IT’S NOT FUNNY In fact, one of the more pressing failures of Neo Yokio is rooted in its comedy. It’s just not funny. Very little humor or adventure stems from Kaz being a demon slayer, to the point that his status as a “magistocrat” is hardly worth mentioning. Virtually all of the humorous exploits of the cartoon spawn from the luxury obsessed denizens of NYC. That’s the joke and that joke is repeated again and again and again. Out of context, these jokes are funny, but when they’re strung together one after another, it becomes all too clear it’s just the same scenario on repeat for the benefit of no one. What I’m saying is, the humor is ham-fisted, cliché, repetitious, and even alienating. Too many of the “jokes” rely on the viewer to be acquainted with knowledge that only a New Yorker, or more accurately, a wealthy New Yorker would be privy to. Mentions of the Hamptons, bespoke attire, 14th Street, squashing, field hockey, and Eastside require the audience to know about NYC upper echelons and any lack of knowledge into that specific class structure makes a lot of the show’s humor seem like white noise. Watching Neo Yokio is like being the new person in a group of friends and they’re all spouting inside jokes while you’re just left to politely nod along and try to find something familiar to you in their estranging anecdotes. It’s painfully obvious that this series was created by a bougie progressive minded New Yorker for bougie progressive minded New Yorkers. Clearly, some people are finding Neo Yokio to be a stupendous display of comical wit that to them doesn’t feel distant, but that doesn’t change how restricted the comedic antics of the show are in retrospect.

THE ANIMATION IS BAD: NO, IT’S NOT A PARODY OF BAD ANIME It also doesn’t help that Neo Yokio’s production quality and presentation leave something to be desired. Let’s all take a deep breath and say it with me now: “The animation is bad and the ostensibly bad voice acting is not an intentional parody of poorly animated and dubbed pre-2000s anime.” Since its release on Netflix a few days ago, fans of the series have been strong-arming the notion that because Neo Yokio is a supposed biting commentary against modern capitalist-centric society, that must mean that its lackluster animation is intentionally subversive. The problem with that interpretation is that in his interviews about the series, Koenig never once states that the animation and dubbing are purposefully mediocre as an homage to 20th century anime. Moreover, in an interview with Pitchfork, Koenig is confronted with accusations that Neo Yokio has a “poor art-style” and he doesn’t respond by saying it’s supposed to look awful. Extremely limited animation, overly simplified character design, and off model animation errors are the norm in anime. It’s very disheartening to see anime fans reject that reality in favor the banal excuse that Neo Yokio looks the way it does because “it’s satire, so it’s purposefully awful.” Plenty of contemporary anime have the same animation issues as Neo Yokio, so it’s nothing special. A staple of anime is the principle of quantity over quality and efficiency over value; the medium is about practicality above all else and Neo Yokio should be accepted as a part of that distinct animation process. As for the voice acting, it’s well done. It’s the really limited animation that creates the illusion that the voice acting is subpar. The actors and actresses are reasonably hammy and it would have worked if the animation were equally expressive and dynamic. The Boondocks is a good example of how overacting and over-the-top animation can create a great viewing experience. As for Neo Yokio, the fantastically campy and zealous acting of the performers is undermined by the stilted, dull animation. While there are cases where limited animation is paired with energetic voice acting to intentionally create friction, the clash of visuals and audio in Neo Yokio is clearly not intentional. All in all, the awkward disconnect between the cartoon’s poor animation and zany dubbing isn’t purposefully satirizing banal anime.  

JADEN SMITH ISN’T THE WORST THING ABOUT THIS SHOW   Jaden Smith isn’t a terrible voice actor in this role, because his awkward performance matches the blandness of the animation. He helps to make the main character, Kaz Kaan, into an endearing young man, who though exceedingly whiny, self-centered, and every bit as shallow as all the other citizens of NYC, Smith gives his character a sense of naiveté that adds some dimension to the hapless enforcer of bourgeois values. As Kaz was created in the image of Jaden Smith, there’s much that can be said about their similarities. Nevertheless, Kaz’s development throughout the cartoon is rather minimal and slow paced, resulting in him being an aggravating character to follow.

A TERRORIST SHOULDN’T BE THE MORAL COMPASS OF THE SERIES While Kaz is a bore to watch, Helena St. Tessero embodies Neo Yokio’s shoddy and empty social commentary. Helena serves as the moral center for the narrative; she’s portrayed as the voice of reason as she constantly decries the corrupt system of NYC. For most of the series, she spends her days sulking in a room of her parent’s opulent abode as a self-proclaimed “hikikomori” while listlessly parroting Marxist theory at Kaz when he comes to visit her. Towards the end of the series, she suddenly bombs a glitzy billboard and makes Kaz her accomplice when she goes to him to help her evade the authorities. At best, Helena is a whiny but “woke” moocher who lives as a hermit in the lap of luxury or at worst she’s an aimless terrorist and she readily endangers people’s lives to express her social opinions. She’s presented as an agent of justice and the audience is never made to doubt her actions, even though she’s done nothing to deserve our trust let alone our empathy. Stale humor and wonky animation aside, the most frustrating aspect of Neo Yokio is Koenig’s insistence on making Helena, the freeloading directionless terrorist, the moral compass of the series.

Helena symbolizes Koenig’s lack of investment in exploring the narrative as an anti-capitalist parable. If Neo Yokio’s premise were more skillfully executed with social justice issues being emphasized with tact and care, maybe we could have seen Helena protest and draw attention to the destitute and working class that live on the outskirts of Neo Yokio. Instead we got some rich white rebel causing mayhem because she’s disillusioned with her status, but refuses to do anything productive with her privilege. Furthermore, the general omission of the disenfranchised citizens of the city only proves to dampen the implied anti-capitalist message of the premise. The audience is given no sense of their struggle and survival as their screen time is sacrificed for the sake of more elitist shenanigans. 

IS NEO YOKIO REALLY ALL THAT BAD?   Neo Yokio had potential to be a good show which could have provided much needed criticism regarding classism and capitalism, but it falls flat under a torrent of one-note humor and an ill-conceived message. Overall, Neo Yokio’s so-called humor is insipid and its alleged social commentary is disingenuous. When Neo Yokio could have been revolutionary and entertaining, it’s instead a production that exists so that the rich socialites who had a hand in creating it can laugh at their own dull jokes and proclaim themselves to be socially enlightened. It’s not the worst, but it’s definitely not good either. It’s a special brand of bad with a few good ideas thrown in.

My Top 10 Video Gamesss

I'm really bored so I'm just gonna do this, fuck it. Top 10 from a guy whose genre of choice is the action-(J)RPG, of which makes up about half this list. I'm gonna try to keep it pretty short and sweet, cuz like who cares, like why am I even doing this who cares. (Digibro says text-blogging is dead, like I need to make videos but like who would want to watch the video of some rando listing things either? Idk, like I don't really get any motivation for anything anymore. But I do like games/JRPGS soooo.... without further ado...). Also I'm doing a 1-game-per-franchise rule 'cuz otherwise it'd be largely Zelda and Final Fantasy because I have good taste, am sheepish and bland, and overly-content with the same 2 franchises. But yeah, I'm digging a little deeper here. 

1. Zelda Breath of the Wild-

This may seem risky, audacious and possibly even sacrilege to put a game that is only like 5 months old on this list, but really this is the only game that I could really confidently put on my top spot. I think this game is just about perfect, and even though its not technically my genre of choice, it comes pretty close to a JRPG, and yet feels more pure than that, and somehow even deeper in a way. I'm just astounded by everything from the mechanics, to the presentation to the flow of this game and more. But especially those things probably. The "flow" of this game for example feels so fucking organic and open-ended that it essentially feels like no other game I've ever encountered. You can wander for hours semi-aimlessly and still have an amazing time and work towards progress. 

The climbing/paragliding thing is just about the coolest mechanic I've ever seen or played in a game and works as a really amazing foundation for one of the underlying aspects of this game, which is sheer unadulterated exploration. And I was saying it somehow reminds of a JRPG even tho it's Zelda and that has everything to do with the deep item-management and collecting, the deep cooking/crafting system, and the huge array of weapons which all transform the combat from being vanilla-as-fuck as it was in previous console Zeldas (barring Skyward I suppose) to really cool, challenging and pretty dang deep, for a Zelda game at least. And that, along with so much of this, including the incredible different experimental non-linearity of it, make this unlike any other than Zelda save the first, revolutionary entry. A lot of the depth also has to do with the crazy deep physics. Did I mention the physics?? And though there's only like 5 dungeons (I easily count Hyrule castle, and this is not including 120 shrines and the various fortresses/mazes), they're really ace and easily rival my favorite Zelda dungeons in the way in which the structure of the dungeons must themselves be manipulated in order to solve their puzzles (my next top 5 is gonna be Top Zelda Dungeons btw..). 

So yeah, this game is just freakin' incredible and this iteration of Hyrule is probably my favorite game world of all time. Every inch of it is beautifully lit, realized, and filled to the brim with little puzzles, shrines, formidable foes and questing galore. Also the horses. The horses are sick. And yeah, climbing to the tops of mountains and paragliding down (or later using Revali's Gale to ascend rapidly) is the most free I've felt in a game since the weirdly amazing web-slinging in Spider-Man 2 (PS2). Also the difference between how weak and basic you feel at first to how you feel toward the end when you have the Master Sword, a crazy good arsenal of weapons that you've curated, all the spells and Shiekah slate magic and all the amiibo-dropped gear attained from an illegal/frowned-upon amiibo deck is freakin awesome and even cooler than the dynamic progression of something like Dark Souls. And the whole first 10-20 hours or so of a new file are especially “special” to me. Not that it gets less fun-- in many ways it gets more fun as you get more capable and experienced-- but the Plateau segment is a master class in tutorial segment design, and the way you learn to live off the land is kind of incredible... There’s this whole Buddhist-esque anti-attachment thing the game forces you to accept regarding early weapons breaking all the time that help make you depend so heavily on scavenging and exploring and always looking for more loot just so that you can survive. You really learn to live off the land, and well that’s beautiful. And everything about all the various mechanics and the world feel so holistic and cohesive and unified in a way that I just haven’t really seen before.  Anyway, yeah I could go on but I think that mostly sums it up. This is the only game where it feels like your actually exploring an amazing natural environment, but without like sore feet and bugs and being sweaty and stuff. It's just all the good stuff involved in taking in a crazy beautiful environ. I already said that but yeah. This game feels restorative, peaceful, meditative. And I never get sick of those lonely little piano chords. It's good. Perfect even. Really a masterwork for me. And the DLC is sweet to boot and still incoming, so yeah. Me likey.  2. Final Fantasy XV-

Where I feel really good picking BotW as my #1, and can do it without hesitation, and it's not even a tough call to make as my favorite entry of its respective franchise, this one is a bit more complex. And like a lot of FF fans would probably rightfully scoff and write me off right away, whereas Zelda fans would probably be more accepting of BotW as the top pick. Because it involves a shit ton of caveats. For one thing, deep deep down, FFXI will actually always be my favorite video game experience of all time. Always. Forever. Sorry not sorry BotW. But I'm not putting that one, because I feel like there's something weird about listing an MMO that I only played for 3 years as a child and can't really revisit in a real capacity. Its sealed in time and perhaps that's what makes it special. Sure I could get on one of the couple of PC servers still going but it wouldn't be the same. Another caveat is FFVII, IX, and XII (Zodiac Age!!) are all, to me, way classier and probably on a technical level "better" than XV. And yet, I'm kind of have this disease where 64-bit games have aged worse for me than any other gen, and while XII is fucking awesome (Zodiac!! ^.^;;), I don't have quite as much fun playing that as XV (though its pretty close...). Somehow, despite all its short-comings, FFXV almost perfectly captures the charm and joy of this series, and all my memories of it, while containing them within a fucking gorgeous-- immaculately so at that-- package that is super freakin' playable compared to older turn-based titles. Like, ATB/turn-based FF will always be more "legit" in a sense, but I can't deny I am an action-JRPG addict and this game hits the sweet-spot for me.

Did I mention how beautiful it is? While some might see the new fixation on open-worlds as kind of redundant-- and BotW has now kind of revealed the flaws in the old triple-A formula for them--, I think this is just a reeeeally good rendition of the "open-world" concept, which is something I always wanted in FF. And while you can't join in with other players like in XI and carve your own path in the world (multiplayer is coming though...), there is a certain feeling of freedom felt in this game that makes so many other FF titles seem so limited (lookin at you XIII). Also, pretty. It's pretttttty. And if BotW's Hyrule is my favorite game-map, Eos is my favorite world in terms of like lore, look, and design. It's freakin cool. It looks real and there are cars and there are modern-looking people like us but there's also crazy monsters, magic, teleportation, robots and evil empires (well those are real). And the monsters seem like something out of an otherworldly Nat. Geo. the way everything is so wonderfully detailed. Its freakin cool Dinotopia shit in this bitch. So yeah, while there are flaws-- notably of which are the lack of customization in character-progression that I love in games like XII Zodiac Age and with the kind of unrealized story which is spread mercilessly across an anime mini-series and OVA-- this game feels like a perfect monument to my favorite series of all time. And like you can play all Nobuo songs while exploring this amazing world. Like seriously that tiny little feature is what puts this over-the-top. Otherwise I might have honestly chosen IX or XII Zodiac Age 'cause they're classy AF and the RPG mechanics are deeper. But fuck it, when I play this, it's basically the best visualizer for an endless Nobuo Uematsu soundtrack I could imagine. And like Shimumura's new stuff is great on top of that. This point falls apart 'cuz I could just play an FF actually composed by Nobuo, but like this way it's like an endless loop of my personal favorite Nobuo. Nobuo... 

But anyway... Yeah I like the look, combat, magic, world, characters, chocobos, and the look again. Also the potential... I think multiplayer could be really, really cool honestly. So while it bears some of the issues all post-Enix-merger FF games have (like weirdly dropping parts of the plot which is like...why???, or the fact that they're having to patch it all year, and are adding stuff (can you say DLC $$$$)), it's still a minor masterpiece for me. And while not as deep, or even as charming as old PS1 FF or 16-bit FF, its just so damn playable. I'm not a good retro-gamer like other people-- I like my games new and bright/shiny, and this game is shiny AF. So yeah. I clearly have to defend the hell out of this, but fuck it, it's great. Like seriously the design of everything? Just walk around and like look at it. LOOK AT IT. Character models!!! Lighting!!! Facial animation and movement!!! Omg. Okay, yeah I'll leave it at that. Don't hate me. 3. Super Smash Bros Wii-

I feel like I don't even have to explain this one. This is quite simply the perfect multiplayer game. And as with BotW and FFXV, I like these latest iterations a lot, which may seem sheepish and like plebian-core but fuck it. Melee was reeeeally fun back in like 2008, but I'm not trying to play that rn. Robin all day. And Cloud?? So yeah, there's just something kind of endlessly sweet about a game where the likes of Mario, Pac-Man, Sonic, Megaman, Cloud, Ryu and... Bayonetta (??) all collide in a game with amazing physics, awesome platform-y freedom-of-movement and a deep competitive scene which almost make this seem like some kind of weird master-game. Like the Master Sword of games. An Einherjar/Valhalla of all videogame character of fame and fortune. So yeah, its great. I can't speak about it to it to the length I did with FF and BotW because I feel like it speaks for itself. Its just pure, unadulterated Nintendo/pan-franchise world-colliding fun. 4. Nier Automata-

Nier/Drakengard lore is fucking crazy, deep as hell, and multi-faceted AF and Yoko Taro is freeeeakin cool and the best game director this side of Hideo Kojima. And where the first Nier is an amazing, lovably imperfect game-- clunky combat, and weird genre-hopping and all-- this one is like freakin' awesome to play front-to-back. Unless you like don't like abruptly inserted bullet-hell segments. But the main combat is irrefutably sick, which is crazy. Platinum games took a reeeeally weird game-world and made it feel super slick despite all the amazing quirks that are inherent to Yoko Taro's games. Also this is one of my like top 5 maybe 3 game soundtracks of all time. It's amazing and reminds me of my favorite Yuki Kajiura soundtrack for .Hack//Sign. Is there a term for awesome vaguely medieval-ish female-vocal heavy mystic-sounding music? 'Cause this game has it in spades and it's freakin sweeeet. Alongside some like soulful adult-contemporary R'n'B ballads? Buy yeah, amazing-feeling combat, a plethora of combos and weapons, a solid amount of depth to character progression, and really fun bullet-hell segments make this game sooooo playable and maybe my favorite action-RPG of all time (FFXV doesn't quite feel like a true action-RPG?)

But then, on top of that it has an amazingly evocative story, with wonderfully dynamic characters who are lovingly revealed over the course of multiple play-through, in a an epic struggle that revels in the philosophy of Sartre, Kierkegaard, and Marx among others. That in itself is freakin' crazy. Games/anime/movies with AI characters or like androids can be so cliche in their exploration of existentialism, and this game can seem like its gonna be like that at first, but it ends up making good on its promises, and functions as just a really cool exploration of a rich philosophical tapestry. And it's all beautifully told, in these really nice semi-muted colors and with these super lovely character models. Plus the open-world is surprisingly great to run around. I love the over-grown human city thing, and the super atmospheric music come together with the aesthetic to make this game so emotional. Like honestly, along with other aspects of the story, this game is sooooo feels-heavy for me. It can be really sad, and there's this amazing dichotomy/friction between how fun it is to play, and how like strait-up bad it can make you feel sometimes. To like even play it. Getting into that would be spoiler-y and stuff, but yeah I'll kind of leave it to there. The story is awesome. 2B and 9S are amazing. The concepts and way this game actually effect you are super unique, and all the presentation-aspects bring it together so beautifully. It's just like... wow. Like play this game. then play it 5 times to get all the endings. 5. Metal Gear Solid V-

I almost have to make the same caveats I did for FFXV for this game as well. Yes, I know, it's not perfect. It partly represents like the downfall of this whole series, and the darker side of video-games in general. There's a pachinko-level pay-wall type thing inserted right into this and there's some behind-the-scene drama involved that strait-up led to Kojima's departure from Konami? (firing??) Idk, idc, I don't have the energy for that, honestly. So maybe I'm a horrible MGS fan, but I'll be damned if I don't love this game unabashedly. I first played it during a time when I had basically spent 5 years not playing any video games besides Smash, and it was an amazing reintroduction into the world of triple-A titles. Emergent gameplay. Openness. The most handsome character model of all time (Big Boss is my daddy). And that Asia song "Only Time Will Tell". Seriously-- something about the way that song synchs up with the feel of sneaking into an Afghani military outpost in the early 1980's any damn way you please is like the story of this game for me, and part of why it's on this list. That song is everything. Like in the context of this game that is. But also outside of it too? But yeah the sheer openness is just incredible. Not open in the same way like Skyrim or BotW is, but in terms of how you complete each and every mission. It feels like your writing the script to your own big action movie every time you set out. Like the game doesn't force anything on you. Did I mention Big Boss is fucking hot. 

And yeah, great music, gameplay and overall presentation, and the cool base-management stuff adds this really cool RTS-ish depth that fleshes out the game wonderfully. Add some solid online PVP, a sweet mech and the gatdamn coolest most open-ended stealth gameplay I'm aware of, and you have yrself a winner. Sorry old, classic MGS, I gotta go with the new model. It's just so damn playable. Like yeah, I know, Konami is like really bad, and fucked up, and like if I really respected Kojima maybe I wouldn't chose this one? But like man I can't help it. I love it soooo much, contemporary triple-AAA-developer-dysfunction and all. Oh and Asia. And the Pere Ubu "Man Who Saved the World". And "Take On Me". Honestly without the tape-collecting/playing this might not be included. But yeah, its clearly great.

6. Dark Souls- Idk, I'm not even a huge Souls guy but this game is kind of breathtaking. I got it for cheap and went in a skeptic, and remained that way for a decent chunk of it, but around the time I was getting to Sen's Fortress things started to click like crazy. This game is undeniable and I'll leave it to the plethora of well-made YouTube analyzers to really get into why. But for me, as far as action-RPGs go, this feels like it has some of the most legit customization and progression of any RPG I've played. It's got an amazing world, with the vertical-nature of the map and way that inter-locking various paths slowly reveal themselves is an amazing thing to behold as the game unfolds. I also just really love the online aspects of this game. I played this game when Dark Souls III was just about to come out and it gave it this kind of spooky feeling. Like I still got invaded a good bit and had help when I wanted it from others, but I could tell it wasn't as busy as it might have been during its initial hey-day. Like playing a weird culty Dreamcast game online in like 2005 (Phantasy Star Online anyone?). This spooky feeling of people being there but not at the same time fits the lore and the world itself really well and that aspect is probably even more exaggerated now (plus the fact that I fuck co-op proves im a n00b). But the fact people were still playing it at all, and still do to this day, speak to how singular and amazing it is. For me, this is just the end-all be-all as far as  archetypal high fantasy worlds go-- at least as far as the darker side of things go. Its a bit heavy metal and dreary for me as far as fantasy goes (I like my shit kinda twee and anime-core), but if I want dark and bleak, with an underlying sense of old-world scenic beauty, this game is unbeatable. Like literally, I can't beat it. That's my one complaint: too hard! I'm a noob, maybe one day I'll git gud and stop getting wrecked-- one can hope... 7. Persona 5

This is weird to put after Dark Souls 'cuz if I'm honest I feel like this game has so much more charm and character and like personality than Dark Souls? Idk, I guess I can make that claim. Like Dark Souls has tons of personality, but like Persona 5? I guess it has to do with my slight preference for action-RPG over turn-based, but this game almost seems like one long ass 100 hour+ trek through sheer charm and personality. Hm, PERSONA-lity? Wow genius. But really, this game is just dripping with unique style and charisma. And I'll be honest, I wen't in expecting a lot and for a solid like 20 hours initially I wasn't all that into it. I'm still kinda an SMT noob so I think I'm just impatient for how long this game takes to reveal itself. It's just freakin big and deep that it literally takes that long and then some to truly get going. But once it does... oh boy does it. I think it might be the coolest turn-based game I've ever played in terms of just the sheer combat itself (sorry all pre FFXI Final Fantasy games???). Equal parts FF at its deepest and classiest and Pokemon at its um. Well idk, it's not as Pokemon as Ni No Kuni, but the Persona-collecting system is freakin great. And the level of challenge the combat/dungeons have seem almost pitch-perfect in a way RPGs rarely do. And then add in all the social links/dating sim components, and the open world, and the weird Sly Cooper-inspired stealthy dungeon-crawling and you have like one of the craziest, coolest most legit JRPGs of all time.

But yeah the saving grace for me is the actual turn-based system/combat itself. For a turn-based, its bizarre how kinetic and speedy it can feel. You have all the time you need to strategize if you so chose, but once you know what your doing it can be like lightning, right up until the point where your arguing with a demon to either fork over some loot or join your party, or else your moving fluidly back into great dungeon-crawling action. And then yeah all the crazy super-Japanese high-school student simulation stuff rounds things out delightfully. Like, I admit I like my RPGs to either be high fantasy or else cyber-punky and this is neither of those. Like I'm not even sure what aesthetic so much of this is... smooth jazz and sassy r'n'b moodiness, and like Japanese high-school-attending outcasts who moonlight as stylish treasure-hunting demon-slaying thieves and fight against the inner-world manifestations of corrupt adults-- like what is that vibe? I really don’t know, but I suppose its something all true otakus understand on some inherent level, even if it does remain mysterious and ever allusive in its charms to me. 

But the story is cool and huge (Seriously, 100+ hours! What?!!?) and plumbs psychological depths and doesn’t pull punches when it comes to getting a little dark, if maybe in a somewhat simplistic way. But yeah, this game oozes charm, like in the way Mona is so undeniable as a side-kick. I mean they’re almost annoying too but then like, no, Mona’s pretty great though. There are things I can almost imagine it doing that would make me like it even more (like the whole day-cycle thing never quite feels as open as I want it to? But like if it was it'd be like 300 hours. Just that thing where you speed through yr day and almost skip right to one scene in-class and then BAM its after-school), but yeah like this nitpick doesn't even fully make sense. It's just that this game is open-ended af and yet it can also sometimes feel kind of like your spending a lot of time clicking through text without a ton of control. But really that's just the like first 20-30 hours. And again the combat is just undeniably solid. So yeah, it's lite-novel-y and when yr not in dungeons it can seem like yr clicking through an anime almost, but I mean that's kind of also what makes it amazing.

And I'll just touch lightly on presentation stuff like the amazing soundtrack and the f a b u l o u s  style of all the menu's and just over-all visual flair of this game, 'cause literally everyone notices that instantly. The dungeons also seem kinda weirdly PS2-looking to me, but like it doesn't matter. This game has a crazy amount of depth and charm that make more immaculate looking triple-A's seem soulless. Plus, yeah like all the menu stuff and like visual segues make it seem so much more stylish than them too even though its clearly not on the same level technically. So yeah, this game’s a lot of win. I was skeptical of the hype honestly, and aspects of Persona 4's world are a little cooler to me still, but man this game is just like... yeah it's good. It's soo long and so written and chock full of a very distinct kind of charm that it seems comparable to having some kind of weird virtual pal inside my ps4 (Does that sound sad ^.^;;). Like it's just cool to know I can always pop it in and hang out with my old pals Ryuji, Ann and Morgana. And Makoto.  For like 100 more hours now. How long is this? Where am I, I've been playing it for 3 days, help!? 8. Odin Sphere Leifthrasir-

I'll have less to say to this 'cuz I'm pretty new to the hype-train and thank god 'cuz I wrote way too much about P5? But yeah, this game is the addictively-awesome side-scrolling action-RPG/Beat-'em-up I didn't know I needed in my life. At first I thought the over-all look was kind of not really my thing, but I've done a full 180, and while its not the like more traditional anime/FF-esque style I'm used to, I've come to see just how beautiful and fresh its style is. And then the combat itself is sweeeeeeet. Endlessly playable and as deep as you'd want a still kinda light-feeling action-RPG to be. Plus there's a deep cooking system which just always takes good action-RPGs or any game over-the-top for me. Most of the game is done exploring these really fun combat-filled levels but some respite is found in the mini-farming and cooking mechanics. And the crafting adds an extra dimension as well. Soooo deep. I also love that it scores you on how stylishly your playing by tracking yr combos. This is one of the more fluid and engagings JRPGs I’ve played, and the hand-drawn look is to die for. So yeah, I'll keep it short and sweet, but the action is great, the characters' various play-styles are wonderfully varied, and the overall presentation is just so unique and cool. Oh and the story ends up being like really legit? Caught me by surprise. It's mostly just good old fashioned sprite-based fun, with a really sick Norse-inspired fantasy aesthetic. A video game's video game (what does that mean?? (you get it)).

9. Dark Cloud-

The true OG "Dark" action-RPG of my dreams and heart-- sorry Dark Souls, you were a decade late. This game encapsulate the joy of PS2-era action-RPGs, a high-point for the genre. The kind of vaguely bland-but-still-unique fantasy look of it (a successful "Ocarina-killer" for my money, on a visual level at least), the procedurally-generated dungeon crawling, and the freakin’ awesome city-building and NPC-interacting make this game pure win. Like yeah, its a bit clunky with its combat, but charmingly so for me. Its mostly just got this really nice sustained vibe of like sheer pleasantness all throughout, and I just can't get enough of its over-all vibe after all these years. Harder to put this one into words... but yeah the city-building and little tiny touches with all the NPC-helping and questing is what make it special for me. Especially the city-building (you get to restore these little towns that have been ravaged and you have to make everyone happy with the way you set things up. So Japanese and so fun..) Like what a cool, weird feature that ends up being great. Idk, its great. I like the vaguely arabian-ish vibe too. It's just...  really good. It's just sheer PS2-style win. So yeah this one is mostly a lot on inarticulate nostalgia but fuck it. 10. .Hack//Infection-

Speaking of inarticulate nostalgia...Now I can't quite say this game is like truly a "good" game? All the way through at least. In some ways its part of a big cash-grab for Bandai-Namco. I'll go with the first one in the series, but its really just a piece of a whole along with 3 other games, that may have been a bit padded and intentionally designed to leach a whopping 200 US from a true dreamer back in the day, who just couldn't help themselves. BUT it's also kind of amazing. Like the combat and dungeon-crawling is a bit cut-and-dry (is it just me or are procedurally generated PS2 dungeons kind of sick?) but its enough. You have tons of party members to choose from, a plethora of magic scrolls to use if you so choose, and your 2 trusty little twin blades with which you can press X to slash with until the cows come home. A game like Kingdom Hearts as an action-RPG seems so much more fluid and kinetic and yet? Well KH is ridic, and if I'm gonna die on some hill for a goofy anime-core action-RPG it'll be this one any day. It combines my favorite aesthetics (mysterious celtic-y high fantasy AND cyber-punk) by way of being a game-within-a-game, and by being about a fictional MMO while not actually being an MMO it's kind of meta AF also. Also, the stuff with the emailing the other party members you meet and the system that has you increasing your bond through these simulated conversations with other players just reeeally gets to me, and seems cooler than Persona confidant-developing honestly. I'm a huge sucker for the original anime, and you got these really sick OVA anime discs with each entry which were set in the real world that the game existed in and even though that shouldn't factor in really, I admit it does. It all comes together as this kind of cool, weird, slightly-trashy anime wet-dream from my childhood at the end of the day. Also, some sick music, sick AF character designs, and an overall concept (that I'll actually defend to the death despite some of the superficial anime plotting/characters) round things out very nicely. Just the fact that this is a game about an MMO... like what a concept (and a decade before that SAO garbage fire shit). Plus Grunty raising. And the G.U. Last Recode remaster is right around the corner, OMG!!!!!!

also rans/runner ups: 11. SSX 3

12. Resident Evil 4

13. Katamari Damacy

14. Super Mario Galaxy

15. No More Heroes

16. Spider-Man 2

17. Catherine

18. Bomberman '93

19. Tekken 4

20. Marvel Vs. Capcom 2

BA1b Summary: Week 3

Animated Sketchbook We were briefed the project through an engaging lecture, in which we will be developing good sketchbook practice and explaining why gaining a ‘sketchbook habit’ is an important thing. For this project, we will be keeping a sketchbook containing a series of drawn outcomes based on primary resources. We are to not only draw, but write down thoughts, quotes or ideas to go along with it: it’s about recording from observations and imagination through marks and words. As animators, this is a core skill and crucially important to whichever animation technique or art form I intend to specialise in.

Our tutor explained how a sketchbook should be the line between imagination and observation: to juggle our own crazy concepts and ideas with real-world objects and places. The lecture explored how keeping a daily diary can be extremely helpful to us as animators, allowing us to focus more attention to our surroundings, details and allows our work to resonate with the audience we observe: sketchbooks often lead to profound or engaging small observations of human nature.

Our final drawing exercise explored the idea of studying a subject in motion, in which we drew a bear from video reference. Whilst this was an enjoyable activity, it was also challenging. In order to capture the bear’s form, I had to make very quick, loose marks in order to build up the form over time. The process left me with several unfinished ghost drawings, however I was developing my understanding of the subject through pose and posture.

Over the Christmas holiday, I will be completing a sketchbook using a range of drawing exercises, including diary comics, animal referencing, and finding characters in meaningless marks and ink splotches. I want to take this project as an opportunity to develop my drawing skills, understanding of animals whilst developing characters and plots in the process.

Digital Principles This week in Digital Principles, my main goal was to produce a refined version of my pre-visualisation morphing animation, and begin experimenting in After Effects. Last week, I identified the weak points of my first attempt through peer feedback: suggesting that I should slow everything down. The main learning point was to allow the audience to see each prop for longer: to work on the timing of the sequence.

My final previs for this project shows a greater appreciation and understanding of my chosen film, Arrival, than my earlier experiments - and a successful response to peer feedback. Here, I’ve taken out the distracting rapid motions of my first test, and given the sequence time to breathe: allowing the audience to see both props before morphing into one another.

Our tutor had spoke about how creating 3D objects for this task is a challenge, but would result in a very exciting final outcome. I wanted to take this challenge, and set out to create a 3D Arrival ship in After Effects, following a series of video tutorials.

This proved to be a challenge, and whilst I was able to create a thin rotating disk in After Effects, initially I was not able to create a shape that followed my original turnaround animations. This week, whilst I wasn’t able to choose a colour palette, has been quite succeessful, I feel. I’ve taken the time to understand my film again, taken a new approach to the task and have been able to produce several iterations of previs sequences and challenged myself to make 3D animations in After Effects. As a suggestion from our tutor, I decided to immerse myself in the atmposhepre of my chosen film during the working process: listening to the Arrival soundtrack on repeat. This helped reduce any distractions, and allowed myself to get lost in the work. My only concern with this project is if I’ll be able to create an animation that is up to a exciting, professional standard given both the restrictions of the software and time. Whilst I’m extremely tempted to create it frame by frame in another software, I want to challenge myself to stick to the brief and produce it entirely in After Effects. Moving forward, I will continue to experiment and play around in After Effects, producing the morphing animation with 3D shape layers. I also want to decide on a colour palette, selected from the film itself.

Narrative Research In this week’s narrative research session, we explored the fairy tale and the theories of Russian folklorist Vladmir Propp. To begin the lecture, discussed the learning outcomes of this unit, and looked at the history of fairy tales and their place in animation. This session is especially relevant to the second essay question, in which we are to make a Proppian analysis of an animated fairy tale, and explain animation’s particular suitability for telling fantastical stories.

The lecture explored how a fairytale is a story about whimsy, discovery and wonder with magical qualities, although the actual magical element can be rather minimal. Originally, fairy tales were once sensationalist, grisly tales of sex, violence and magic. Through adaptation and evolution, they. Have changed to engage an all-ages audience. These tales often resented the audience with a happy ending through grim justice, and we discussed how animation has been a brilliant platform for the fairy tale:  the craft itself is endowed with a magic unrivalled by any other art form, and so here, subject and craft work together beautifully.

We also explored the theories of Russian folklorist and scholar Vladmir Propp, who broke down fairy tale narratives into 31 Functions, a breakthrough in the narratology scene. His approach reduces story down to it’s moving parts, allowing us to look at a beloved story wit fresh eyes. We explored how Propp identified seven character archetypes, each with their own role in the narrative called a ‘sphere of action’.

This week, I’ve begun to consider a direction for my essay: exploring the superhero story. On this blog, I’ve mentioned a few times how superhero movies are the new fairytales of cinema, and it’s an idea that really interests me. I want to tackle a film that allows me to discuss a range of topics, from Propp’s functions to a social and cultural impact beyond an appealing character design. Currently, I’m considering writing about either Mega Mind, or a more recent pick: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

A film that’s still being talked about at the moment, Spider-Man offers the opportunity to discuss visual storytelling, a revolutionary visual style and cultural significance as Miles Morales picks up the mantle of the Web-Head, alongside it being an adaption of a comic book storyline. I’m clearly interested in this idea, and over the Christmas period, I want to begin looking at potential film choices for this essay. Ideally, I’d like to start with a few potential candidates and develop a question and final film choice from that selection, evidencing a few analytical directions before I begin writing.

Celebrating the Birth of a Legend with Hideaki Anno's Top 10 Works!

Whether you’re a casual anime fan or a diehard follower, chances are you revere, worship, or at the very least know the name of Hideaki Anno. As an eclectic and ambitious director and one of the founders of GAINAX studios, his career has had no small part in revolutionizing anime as we know it. His influence persists through some of the most memorable mecha anime and monster animation, dating back to Hayao Miyazaki’s classic, Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind, where he received recognition for helping animate many of the more complex scenes in the film's climax. His style makes him a certified nerd genius, meaning he knows exactly how to make some of our favorite franchises and genres great because he grew up with them much in the same way we did.

To celebrate Hideaki Anno’s 59th birthday, we’re listing off our top 10 favorite works as we fondly look back on a filmography that is as timeless as it is visionary.

10) Rebuild of Evangelion

It’s difficult to gauge how good something is when it hasn’t finished yet, especially when its conclusion has been more than eight years in the making. So we’re settling with the reimagining of Anno’s most influential work at number 10. Whereas the original Evangelion broadcast lacked the budget to achieve Anno’s true vision, the Rebuild movies were able to capitalize on its popularity and create visual spectacles that were closer to his ambitions. The new story may take some controversial twists and turns, but Rebuild is certainly an experience that Eva fans shouldn’t miss out on.

  9) Love & Pop

In 1998, Anno made his first venture into live-action filmmaking, which expanded his passion for pop culture, and comes in at number 9. This harrowing coming-of-age story follows a group of Japanese high school girls who are embroiled in the seedy industry of compensated dating. In the transition from animation to live action, Love & Pop loses none of its creator’s creativity. The film was reportedly filmed almost entirely on handheld cameras, and uses odd perspective and camerawork to convey emotions. As a poignant commentary on Japanese society and the importance of self-worth, Anno succeeded in carrying out his patented brand of visual philosophy in his first live-action project.

  8) His and Her Circumstances

This 1998 anime comes hot off the heels of End of Evangelion, but represents a departure from Anno’s usual beat up until that point. Whereas he told very humanizing stories through the lens of sci-fi, His or Her Circumstances brought his drama back to much more realistic settings. The show focuses on a young girl who feigns perfection in high school despite her numerous personality flaws, and the relationship drama that she and her friends face.

According to Animefringe writer Adam Arnold, Anno did research on actual high school students in order enrich the anime’s plot and characters with a touch of realism. His introspection into the sociology of people’s relationships was supplemented by a unique art direction that featured scenes depicted using panels from the original manga, and lines of dialogue that featured little to no animation. Anno’s sense of style and storytelling is in full force, even without giant robots or monsters to complement the character drama, earning His or Her Circumstances a comfy seat at number 8.

7) Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water

For a series inspired by Jules Verne, conceived by acclaimed anime director Hayao Miyazaki, and directed by Anno himself, is it any wonder that 1990 anime makes number 7 on our list? The show revolves around the titular Nadia and her inventor friend Jean who join up with Captain Nemo and a host of other characters to try and stop the Neo-Atlanteans from taking over the world.

The series earned several Anime Grand Prix Awards in 1991, including “Best Work” of that year. It also placed at #72 in a 2001 Animage list of top 100 anime productions. It’s been lauded for its dark and mysterious narrative undertones being expertly woven into the show’s charming and upbeat nature.

6) Cutie Honey (2004 Live Action Film)

As another one of his live-action films, Anno took on the sizeable task of adapting Go Nagai’s classic and influential magical girl series. That’s a winning combination for number 6! The 2004 film stars award-winning actress Eriko Sato as the titular outfit-changing superhero, and features a ton of original character depictions, such as making Honey’s best friend,Natsuko Aki,a police inspector. Various scenes featured wacky visuals and magical action that oftentimes likened the movie more to a glorified motion comic than a film. However, a stylistic choice like this could be traced back to Anno’s love for classic Japanese pop culture stories, and a desire to bring that charm to life in its purest form.

5) Re: Cutie Honey

Of course, Cutie Honey shines as an anime, and Anno succeeded in bringing the project back to its roots. Re:Cutie Honey is a three-part OVA that came out only two months after the live-action movie. While the story remains the same between the film and the OVA, its characters received more development and many scenes retained the charm that Cutie Honey is known for.

  Though Anno is credited as the director, he worked with three different directors across each episode, each of them bringing their own style and polish to connect with Anno’s vision. Its stylized visuals, quirky anime dialogue, and homages to other classic anime make Re:Cutie Honey one of the more memorable works that Anno had a hand in.

  4) Gunbuster

This classic mech mini-series marked Anno’s directorial debut back in 1988. Inspired by 1986’s Hollywood film Top Gun, Gunbuster tells the story of Noriko Takaya, a clumsy but determined young girl who enrolls in a mecha pilot training school in order to follow her father’s footsteps in the battle against malicious aliens.

  As Anno’s breakout directorial work, this already featured many hallmark elements that we know him for today. From unique mecha and monster designs to a compelling and emotional narrative with a dash of fan service thrown in there, Gunbuster remains a pillar of 1980s anime and truly set the precedent for what Anno had in store for the world. The show’s final moments also featured his patented “vision exceeding budget” technique of having to cut corners on action sequences during the finale.

3) Neon Genesis Evangelion

  You probably saw this coming a mile away, because Neon Genesis Evangelion deserves no better place on this list than in the top 3. Anno and Evangelion are practically synonymous, as his show remains one of the most influential and memorable works in anime history. Evangelion dared to tell a harrowing and visceral introspection on depression and the human condition through the trauma of young and immature mecha pilots, reflecting Anno’s own depression at the time.

  Since its premere in 1995, it's been widely credited for revitalizing anime during a time where the industry was in dire straits. In a 2009 interview, anime producer and current AT-X President Keisuke Iwata once posited that it even played a major role in anime's initial global appeal. It challenged other creators at the time to tell stories of psychological depth and gave rise to more impactful and emotional anime. Acclaimed director Makoto Shinkai himself stated that anime as it is today owes a great deal to Evangelion. There’s really not much else to say about how revolutionary Evangelion is, or how imaginative Anno was in creating it.

  2) End of Evangelion

Of course, Evangelion literally wouldn’t be complete without End of Evangelion. With a proper budget and a reputation as one of the most popular and memorable creators of his time, Anno was able to transcend Evangelion’s controversial final episodes and deliver something truly special within this 1997 feature length film.

End of Evangelion marked a major achievement in Anno’s career by allowing him creative catharsis. The trauma and development behind the main cast is brought to a head as Anno’s vision is fully realized. Shocking and intense visuals and a healthy dose of Anno’s trademark psychological and existential drama made for a much more direct, if not considerably surreal, conclusion to Shinji Ikari’s tale.

1) Shin Godzilla

In his most recent 2016 live-action film, Anno adapted one of Japan’s most iconic pop culture characters, and he did it rather perfectly. Known as Godzilla: Resurgence in Western theaters, Shin Godzilla received critical acclaim in Japan for Anno's unique yet faithful take on the classic kaiju. Though the monster was generated with CGI, its visceral organic design was made to emulate the feel of a traditional tokusatsu monster suit as an homage to Godzilla’s roots. However, he also implemented his own twists on the character, showing off a gradual evolution of the monster and displaying considerably epic upgrades to his classic Atomic Breath.

  The film won an abundance of Japanese film awards, including the 40th Japanese Academy Prizes for Film of the Year and Director of the Year for Anno and Shinji Higuchi, a close friend of Anno’s who worked previously worked with him on several of Anno’s projects, including Evangelion.  

Reportedly, Anno initially turned down the project while he was in the midst of a depressive episode after completing Evangelion 3.0, citing that he didn’t feel confident enough that his film would meet the standards that previous Godzilla films have set. But with the love and dedication he put into the film along with the accolades it built up, its place as on our list one of Anno’s best works is a no-brainer for us.   

  Honorable Mention: Anno as portrayed in Blue Blazes

While Anno certainly didn't direct this 2014 Japanese drama, this endearing depiction of the acclaimed director deserves a shout-out on our list. Based on a semi-autobiographical manga by Kazuhiko Shimamoto, the show provides a fictionalized record of his student years at the Osaka University of Arts, which he attended alongside Anno and several other notable anime creators in the 1980s. 

  Anno was portrayed by Ken Yasuda, who presented a hilariously-dramatized version of Anno who would act out his favorite kaiju battles with his friends and flaunt his eclectic knowledge of animation techniques, character habits, and tokusatsu suit actors. The show also showcased many of Anno’s impressive animation assignments and even recreated his charmingly-homemade Ultraman student film project.

Hideaki Anno is nothing less than an iconic anime visionary, whose imagination and deep appreciation for pop culture knows no bounds. As a creator, he's spent his career constantly climbing out of the depths of depression to create impactful and outstanding work in both anime and live-action filmmaking. It's no exaggeration to say that anime as we know it wouldn't be the same without Anno and his boundless creativity!

Which of Anno's work is your favorite? How would you rank his shows and movies? Drop a comment and let us know!

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Carlos is a freelance features writer for Crunchyroll. Their favorite genres range from magical girls to over-the-top robot action, yet their favorite characters are always the obscure ones. Check out some of their satirical work on The Hard Times.

Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: [email protected]

It’s there when I wake up. Something’s wrong. I haven’t opened my eyes yet. A minute ago I was sleeping. But now I’m awake and it’s there, lurking: Something’s wrong. My breathing tightens. I stretch my legs beneath the sheets. I feel my heart beating. The sense of creeping fear is diffuse, elusive, hard to pin down. It’s like catching sight of something from the corner of my eye. Something’s wrong.

Only nothing is wrong. I know that. I’ve experienced these bouts of dread for as long as I can remember. It’s familiar, which does not help me hate it any less. 

Explaining chronic anxiety to someone who doesn’t experience it is like trying to describe a color they’ve never seen. I have friends who are surprised I suffer from anxiety. After a lifetime of learning to compensate, to push myself beyond my six-year-old fear of joining the Girl Scouts, I do not come across as a nervous Nellie. I am outgoing, talkative, adventurous. Last spring, I planned a Class IV whitewater rafting trip with my husband for three days in the summer. I started dreading it the minute after I booked it. 

I go for long periods when anxiety leaves me alone, and I forget the tightness of its grip. But when it comes back, triggered by stress or worry about an upcoming challenge, it sticks around, greeting me every morning like some noxious troll who won’t shut up. Something’s wrong, it insists, or more accurately, something is about to go terribly wrong. I know this thought is irrational, but that doesn’t stop the spiral of anxiety that ensues. Nerves twitch under my skin. I scroll my list of things to do and feel uneasy, even about the tasks I’m (supposedly) looking forward to. When days begin like this, happiness is not on my agenda.

Too Much of a Good Thing

All animals react when confronted with danger, and that’s a good thing. The so-called fight-or-flight response, also known as the stress response, helps animals either move away from a threat or fend it off. Anxiety—the ability to anticipate danger—is even more of a good thing. Anxious humans who avoided areas rife with predators or saved food in anticipation of crop failure had a better chance of staying alive to pass on their genes. And make no mistake, that’s all evolution cares about. It doesn’t care that we exquisitely anxious humans might survive but be miserable a lot of the time, massaging our worry beads down to nubs. Let’s face it, in the modern world, with far fewer real threats in our environment, many of us are suffering from too much of a good thing. 

Too much anxiety robs you of your capacity for joy. When everyday worry becomes chronic, it can flip over into one of several flavors of debilitating emotional disorders. Some sufferers develop specific phobias—agoraphobia, claustrophobia, social anxiety. Others, like me, suffer from generalized anxiety disorder, a free-floating emotional malady. The National Institute of Mental Health estimates that one in five Americans have had some kind of anxiety disorder in the past year. In turn, anxiety can lead to sleep disturbances, panic attacks, hypochondria, depression. 

With so much misery at stake, it’s a relief to learn that lots of smart people have figured out how to ease anxiety. Whether you suffer from occasional worry or have a full-blown anxiety disorder, it’s possible to become fully engaged in life again. In the last three decades, scientists have decoded the spiral of reactions that, over time, build an anxious brain. Turns out, I’ve wired my own brain to be anxious. The good news is I’m learning to rewire it—and you can, too. The more we know about how anxiety actually works, the better we get at beating back the troll. Or at least making it behave. 

Nothing to Fear But Fear Itself

To understand anxiety, you’ve got to start with fear, because anxiety is like fear run amok. Neuroscientists now know there are two distinct pathways in the brain that trigger the fight-or-flight response. Here’s the most direct one: You encounter something in your environment—a man running toward you with a knife, a car veering into your lane on the highway—and a part of your brain called the thalamus sends visual information directly to an almond-shaped structure called the amygdala. That’s the control center for the fight-or-flight response. When the amygdala detects a threat, it triggers a surge of adrenaline and an increase in blood pressure, heart rate, and muscle tension—to prepare you to act. A few weeks ago, as I rode my bike home, I suddenly braked, turned my handles sharply to the left, and barely avoided being hit by a car that had run a stop sign. I never saw it coming. But my amygdala did, and it may have saved my life.

To understand anxiety, you’ve got to start with fear, because anxiety is like fear run amok.

Here’s the modern glitch in that evolutionarily brilliant response: “We don’t go into fight or flight just when we’re being chased by a bear,” says Adrienne Taren, a neuroscientist and emergency-room physician at the University of Oklahoma. “We’re getting it every time our email pings or we’re sitting in traffic. Our amygdala is just going and going and going.” That constant barrage of low-level alarm is what we call stress.

So where does anxiety come in? Because we’re such imaginative creatures, we can get stressed out by simply thinking about something that may go wrong. The part of the brain that worries about a future event we’re anticipating is the prefrontal cortex, and that’s where the second pathway to anxiety starts—the one that creates that flurry of anxious thoughts you can’t seem to control. Worried thoughts in the cortex trigger a stress response in the amygdala, which explains why we can freak out about things that aren’t even happening. “I think of the amygdala as sitting there watching cortex television,” says Catherine Pittman, a clinical psychologist and coauthor of Rewire Your Anxious Brain. “You can be on your back porch, looking at the beautiful trees, but you’re thinking, ‘How am I going to pay my mortgage with these medical bills? They’re going to take my house away!’ Your anxiety spikes even though nothing around you is dangerous.”

It’s important to realize that the cortex can’t create anxiety on its own. It can only activate the stress response when it gets the amygdala involved. The amygdala, on the other hand, can bypass the cortex, detect threats in the environment, and react, quickly. When I swerved to avoid being hit by that car, my amygdala took over while my cortex was still figuring out what was happening. Similarly, when a veteran feels anxious at what sounds like gunfire, it’s because his amygdala has gone into overdrive. The amygdala is constantly sweeping the scene, comparing our current experiences with associations learned long ago and some that are probably hard-wired. When it finds a match, it compels us to react, even if the current situation really isn’t all that threatening.

The cortex is like a parent who intervenes to prevent a child from acting on his or her impulses. It acts as a check for when the amygdala overreacts, recognizing, for instance, that what sounded like gunfire was actually a car backfiring and promptly tamping down the anxiety. Sometimes, though, the amygdala’s response is so overpowering that it drowns out the voice of the cortex. That’s anxiety in overdrive. 

The neuroscientist whose work led to the realization that anxiety arises from two distinct neural pathways is Joseph LeDoux, the director of the Emotional Brain Institute at New York University. His discovery of a direct neural pathway to the amygdala overturned the conventional wisdom that the cortex played the starring role in creating anxiety and instead placed the amygdala at center stage. This revolutionary development has enormous implications for why some anxiety treatments work better than others—and for why mindfulness approaches are now getting so much attention.

Getting to the Amygdala of the Problem

In the 1960s, people who suffered from anxiety would have been advised, taking a cue from Freud, that they needed to uncover the unconscious forces driving their fears. By the ’70s a more pragmatic approach had taken hold: Learn to change the thoughts and behaviors that lead to anxiety. Cognitive therapy has proven successful in helping people interrogate the negative thoughts underpinning their worries: Are people really judging me so harshly when I give a presentation? And what’s the worst that can happen if they are? Patients learn to question whether their thoughts are realistic or if they’re catastrophizing based on scant evidence.

We now know that cognitive therapy is effective at tackling anxiety that originates from thoughts in the cortex. But it does nothing to tackle anxiety that arises from reactions in the amygdala itself. “Your thoughts can’t change the way the amygdala reacts through using logic or reasoning with it,” says Pittman, who is also a professor at Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Indiana. “The amygdala only learns through experience.” 

So where does anxiety come in? Because we’re such imaginative creatures, we can get stressed out by simply thinking about something that may go wrong.

So how do you target the amygdala directly? One way is through behavioral, or exposure therapy, which helps the amygdala “unlearn” associations it’s made between danger and particular experiences—like encountering strangers, loud voices, boarding a plane, or driving a car. Behavioral therapy uses the gradual, repeated exposure to whatever’s causing anxiety as a way to help the amygdala learn a more neutral association between the experience and our reaction to it.

Another way to treat amygdala-based anxiety is to simply calm down that part of the brain. Medications are one option. Xanax and its other incarnations are members of a class of drugs known as benzodiazepines. “They basically put the amygdala to sleep,” says Pittman. And that works. But if your goal is to lessen anxiety over the long haul, taking benzodiazepines will impede your progress. “What is learning?” asks Pittman. “It’s neurons firing repeatedly so that new connections form. Neurons have to fire to rewire. So if you give someone a medicine that prevents neurons from firing, how is the amygdala going to learn?” Alternatively, the reason that another class of drugs—the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors known as SSRIs—have proven helpful for anxiety is that they appear to help neurons form new connections. “SSRI’s promote more communication between neurons,” says Pittman. “People start to be able to think outside the box a little.”

But drugs aren’t the only—or the best—way to calm down the amygdala. There’s also the so-called relaxation response. It’s the “rest and digest” antidote to “fight or flight.” Using MRIs, scientists can now see how, just as the amygdala revs up during stress, it calms down when people employ the deep breathing exercises that prompt the relaxation response. 

And that’s part of the reason that mindfulness shows so much promise for treating anxiety. Sitting quietly and focusing on the breath activates the relaxation response. But mindfulness-based meditation combines relaxation with something more: a nonjudgmental attitude toward emotions that arise, an acceptance of whatever happens. What the new brain research suggests is that, by combining the relaxation response with a cultivation of paying attention to our thoughts, we can address both of the pathways that lead to anxiety at the same time. 

How Mindfulness Changes the Brain

Adrienne Taren began studying mindfulness because she was interested in stress. Studies have shown that mindfulness makes people less reactive to stress and better at regulating their emotions. But as a researcher at Carnegie Mellon back in 2012, Taren wanted to know what was happening in their brains. Her first study compared a group of people—not meditators—who exhibited mindfulness as a personality trait with another group with high stress levels. The results were striking. People who scored highly for mindfulness had smaller amygdalas than those who reported high stress. “The assumption is that a larger amygdala is more active,” she says. “If you have a smaller amygdala,you aren’t so stress reactive.”

The next question: Can people who aren’t mindful by disposition rewire their brains to become less reactive to stress? Taren enrolled high-stress, unemployed people in a three-day retreat, where half were taught relaxation strategies. The others were trained in a condensed Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program. “We wanted to find out if there’s something specific about mindfulness that’s causing these effects,” says Taren, “not just that stressed-out people relaxed and felt better.” Taren measured the amygdala size of both groups, and after just three days of mindfulness training, the meditation group had smaller amygdalas. That suggested they’d actually made their brains more resistant to stress. 

Perhaps even more significant, Taren found that the mindfulness training had weakened the connection between the amygdala and an area called the anterior cingulate cortex, a frontal region responsible for executive functions like decision making and paying attention. Decoupling the stress center from the logic center allowed people to feel more distance from their anxiety, which made it more manageable. “You’re able to just observe those emotions, which dampens the stress response that keeps the front of the brain from working,” she says.

Taren’s work echoes a growing body of research from neuroscience labs across the country suggesting that mindfulness causes brain changes in both the amygdala and the cortex. Neuroscientists are the first to say that they don’t completely understand the significance of these changes. But for now, they do know that breath-focused meditation seems to help people’s amygdalas become less reactive to their own self-critical beliefs. It also makes them less likely to see social encounters as threatening. When people with generalized anxiety disorder are shown pictures of emotional faces—happy, angry, or neutral—their amygdalas react to the neutral faces more fearfully than to the angry ones. “They perceive them as threatening because they don’t know what the person is thinking,” says Sara Lazar, a neuroscientist at Harvard University. “So they go on high alert.” Lazar found that, after mindfulness training, their amygdalas became less dense—the neurons were like trees that had been pruned—and no longer reacted to neutral faces as threatening. 

Mindfulness training also changes the way the prefrontal cortex responds to anxiety.  “Anxious people have that voice in their head 24/7, going:  ‘What if? What if? What if?’” says Lazar. “Normally we completely identify with that voice, but mindfulness helps us step back and change our relationship to it.” Mindfulness works differently from cognitive therapy, which aims to change thought patterns to short-circuit worry. Instead of trying to eradicate anxiety, mindfulness gets you outside of it so it’s just an experience you’re having. That distance helps you endure experiences you find stressful or scary so your amygdala can learn a new way to react. 

Adrienne Taren became interested in mindfulness from the perspective of a stress researcher. But when she saw the changes it evoked in the brain, she began a practice of her own. “I’m the Type A kind of overachiever who developed an anxious personality,” she says. 

Mindfulness has helped her in the emergency room, where she needs to stay in the moment and make good decisions. It also helped after a painful bike accident. Taren is an off-road cyclist who rides on gravel for hundreds of miles, for fun. After healing from her extensive injury, she panicked when she tried to mount the bike for a competition. Her natural reaction was to suppress her anxiety. But her mindfulness training helped her see another way. “I started talking to my anxiety. I was like, ‘Hello, we’re going to be together for the next 20 miles.’ I was able to picture my anxiety as this little bubble of emotion floating along beside me,” she says. “It was almost comforting.”

A Little Fear Goes A Long Way

Around the same time my fear of joining the Girl Scouts was keeping me up at night, a little girl was born in a Midwestern town with a rare genetic disease. By the time she reached adulthood, the disease had entered her brain, destroying her amygdala. That woman, now known as Patient S.M., helped scientists discover the key role the amygdala plays in anxiety and fear. S.M. feels no fear from external threats. 

To me, that sounded like a dream come true. When I first developed a mindfulness practice, I secretly hoped I could shrink my almond-shaped amygdala down to a peanut. To live fearlessly, able to take risks, pursue adventures, connect with other people without holding back out of worry that my body’s nervous system might betray my uncertainties? Sign me up. 

But over the last year or so, my goal has shifted. Extinguishing anxiety is no longer what I’m after. Instead, when anxiety arises, I simply pay attention to its physical manifestations, and slowly—not because I’m wishing it away—my worry recedes. It sounds crazy, but having started on this journey to do everything I could to obliterate anxiety, I’ve learned to value the role it plays in my life. It helps me be more compassionate with myself. It reminds me to trust other people. And that leads us back to Patient S.M. 

She has no fear, so her curiosity knows no bounds. She is aggressively social and wants to interact with every stranger she meets. “She has zero personal space,” says Justin Feinstein, a neuroscientist at Laureate Institute for Brain Research in Tulsa, who’s studied her extensively. “There’s no bubble. She has no discomfort looking you in the eye even if you’re a total stranger.” When Feinstein took S.M. to an exotic pet store, she held a snake and closely examined it, rubbing its scales and stroking its flicking tongue. She wanted to touch a large dangerous snake—asking to do so 15 times—despite being told it might bite her.  

S.M.’s story offers a lesson in the crucial balancing act between letting our curiosity lead us to new encounters and heeding the fear that makes us avoid them. She’s been the victim of assault many times—had a knife held to her throat, been held at gunpoint—because she is unable to recognize threatening situations. To be sure, living without an amygdala is dangerous. But for those of us with the opposite problem, whose amygdalas see threats all around us? We might benefit from paying more attention to our curiosity, the antithesis of fear. 

In the weeks before our rafting trip, my greatest anxiety was of fear itself. I worried what I’d do if my body betrayed me, gasping for breath and panicking. I’d prepared for months, with daily meditation, but even so, my anxiety as we drove to the meet-up point was high. I used every tool in my box: I sang songs on the radio to distract me. I awoke at our campsite by the river the next morning and meditated. Then I took a half tablet of Xanax. 

That first day on the river, I bonded with the four Hawaiian men in our boat. As we crashed over the rapids, I observed “me” in the boat, too busy to feel anxious as we paddled like crazy. My vantage point had shifted: Instead of feeling buffeted by each rapid, I just saw myself paddling down the river. I didn’t once panic…even on one particularly gnarly rapid when we crashed into a boulder and my husband somersaulted out of the boat. He was OK. And—I realized—I was too. For the next two days I meditated in the morning, but I didn’t reach for the Xanax. My amygdala was learning there was nothing to fear. My sensations of anxiety had changed to excitement. By the last day, I felt like I could paddle on whitewater every day. 

I won’t lie: I’ve awoken anxious many days since that trip. But there’s a distance to my angst that wasn’t there before. I’ve noticed that the physical experience of anxiety doesn’t have to spiral out of control, that it can even make me feel more alive. I call this the Anxiety Paradox: By allowing myself to feel anxious, to not succumb to the desire to “just make it go away,” anxiety somehow lessens its grip on my psyche. And that opens up a space to let joy in. 

The post Make Peace with Your Anxious Brain appeared first on Mindful.

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