I know it's technically a breakup song but I simply cannot hear Suburban Legends and not sit here thinking hmmm fits a certain traumtized stickball mafia couple if it were an au MCD fic.

WHAT IF... SANDERS SIDES BUT MAKE IT A TROPEY TEEN BEACH AU

Endgame!LAMP. Dukeceit, Remile

Just 2k stream of consciousness words from a plunny that grew legs TW for v slight underage drinking, one joking mention of violence, and a non-specific discussion of intrusive thoughts

-Janus has just moved there because his parents wanted to start a new "adventure" and he is a Stereotypical Teenager. Very "ugh MOM I wanna go back to my FRIENDS for my LAST SUMMER BEFORE COLLEGE"(most of his friends suck. He should not spend time with them. He does not know this)

His Parents buy him a surfboard and tell him to try it out as a way to get him to Shut Up

Hes a Skater Boy(cue music) so he picks it up super fast from like,,, youtube videos

 -He gets told to Get a Job if he wants to like, keep buying surf gear?

All the local kids work at like one restaurant/yacht club type place right on the beach

Janus gets hired as a host

 -Logan is a beach badge checker, Patton, Roman, and Remus are beachfront restaurant waiters but Roman just Really Wants To Surf, Emile and Virgil are Lifeguards, and Remy is a bartender

 -Janus is Very Good At Customer Service because Fake Smiles

Patton recognizes this Immediately

He shows him the Rage Closet which is a tiny room with an arm chair that locks from the inside where you can punch a pillow on your break when it gets to be Too Much

-Janus is Attached now and there is no getting rid of him

Patton Fully Endorses this and introduces him to the rest of the group

Janus Knows Immediately that LAMP is In Love but says nothing because he aint no snitch

-Remus surfs, but he also always wear a thong while doing it

Roman wears a full wetsuit and somehow still gets Board Rash. Remus is somehow immune and it infuriates him

 -Janus, not knowing that the twins live right on the beach cuz they are RichTM: Hey Ree I kinda wanna learn how to surf would you be able to teach me 

Remus, who religiously watches Janus surf every morning, but is absolutely willing to play this game: Yeah absolutely

Patton, later: “lets rinse off at the twins they’re right here” Janus: theyre.... What?!

 -Meanwhile, elsewhere, Virgil and Roman are double teaming Logan to drag him into the water with them cuz he’s pouting about losing a debate with their manager about how he didn’t really be mean to the dudebro who wanted to get his buddies onto the beach without paying, he was just enforcing the rules. And if the dude was so offended by Logan’s Very Accurate Dragging that he complained to management then, well, that’s his problem not Logan’s

 -Logan is never without a book. Ever. And its always a different book. Janus is starting to think he owns a library

One day he is just... reading a Physics textbook. Not taking notes or anything. Just reading. 

Roman is Very Very Alarmed by this because he is Gay and Math is Scary

"Roman I'm also gay that is not a determining factor"

"Yeah but you can't drive"

"...fair"

 -the first time janus has a shift with the twins, he cant stop staring, not just because hes like,,, super attracted to Remus but also because they are like Chaos Incarnate and yet somehow get the most tips??? He doesn't understand???

It's just cuz they are both Huge Flirts and Flatterers and the patrons dont care that they're not-so-subtly beating the shit out of each other right there on the dining floor because theyre just so charming

 -one of the bartenders gets aggressively snapped at by a customer and called "sweetheart" and before Janus can even begin to react Remy is there, sunglasses off, fire in his eyes, telling them to settle their bill and get the fuck out

Janus, used to City Restaurants- "Wont you get in trouble with the owner?!"

Remy, who knows Nothing Else But This- "What?? Not likely I only did it cuz Thomathy wasnt here to do it himself"

 -the restaurant is closed Monday and Tuesday so that is the Pseudo Weekend for the staff where everyone hangs out at the beach

Emile and Virgil take Tuesdays off but still work Monday’s cuz they feel better being the one watching over their friends

 -Roman, staring at Virgil on the lifeguard stand: ugh he’s so pretty I almost wish I was drowning just so he could give me cpr 

Janus: you wanna potentially get your ribs broken just for lip contact? 

Remy, staring at Emile on the lifeguard stand: listen, if that’s what it takes, I’ll take it

Remus, immediately going up to the lifeguard stand because he has 0 impulse control: hey my brother and cousin want you to break their ribs 

Virgil and Emile: excuse me?????

 -Patton will literally spend hours in the water. Logan physically drags him out to put sunscreen on him every two hours to the minute. Patton does not admit that he purposely "forgets" just so Logan will do so

Logan is Dark and has never used sunscreen ever but Patton is so pale and he just gets so concerned about him. Patton thinks its adorable

He has pages of research on proper spf determination.

Roman and Remus use spf 15 just on their faces and have never once burned in their lives

Logan wants to submit them for scientific study because that shouldnt be possible

Virgil calls Logan out on the fact that he also should be wearing sunscreen and Logan like... blue screens he cant believe in all his research he missed that

 -Patton is like... a ridiculously strong swimmer. Virgil still has a heart attack every time he goes for laps when there is the slightest hint of an undertow

Patton Knows This so he tries to stay in Virgil's sight line for the most part if there is an undertow. Or just dives over the waves again and again.

His nickname is Ariel. He thinks its just cuz of the swimming and the fact hes a red head. LAP all separately also tack on that its the swimming, the red hair, and the hnng pretty 10/10 would follow out to sea ala Prince Eric

 -first beach bonfire Janus goes to Remy is Fully In Emile's Lap like... half an hour in

he has had like maybe a sip of a beer

Remus says he still claims this is because he is a Clingy Drunk

no one will call him on it, least of all Emile

 -there is truth or dare. Roman may or may not skinny dip you have no proof

 -Logan gets infuriated that he cannot roast a marshmallow properly

Patton does it perfectly every single time but its ok cuz he shares and Logan eats it right from his fingers and Roman and Virgil are just in the background Trying and Failing not to be the Most Jealous

Patton thinks theyre upset they didn't get marshmallows and makes some for them too and there is lots of Significant Eye Contact involved

Janus is going to spontaneously combust if they don't get their shit together

 -Janus is out walking on the beach one night on a full moon cuz he cant sleep with everything so quiet around here when he sees a bright green patch out in the water and goes ...wait

he calls out to Remus and he comes into shore and is like "waves are perfect at night you should join me" so janus goes back and gets his board and they surf and chat for like the entire night

Janus finds out Remus couldn't sleep cuz intrusive thoughts were keeping him awake

Janus listens and doesn't judge, just lets Remus talk it out

They go back to shore and fall asleep on the sand next to each other like mid sentence still talking, now about whatever creative business idea Remus had, and get woken up by Logan's morning rounds like "come on guys you know you're not allowed to sleep out here" but they dont care theyre both just *blushing emoji*

-Logan Always Has A Notebook right? And a regular book he reads. And everyone assumes they are like Notions and Observations, but no, it’s actually blank paper and he uses it to sketch and then one day he leaves it behind and someone either Virgil or Patton finds it and flips through it and it’s all sketches of them and Roman and they’re like??? Actually really good? Anyway that’s how they find out Logan is actually minoring in art even though he’s majoring in something Very STEM 

And he never told his best friends because like almost all his pre college art is Them and he doesn’t want to be caught having Feelings and by the time it gets to college it’s been too long and he can’t tell them now 

Roman takes one of the sketches of him surfing and makes it his profile picture on All Social Media He Has and Logan is so flustered he nearly breaks his damn phone

Patton is so offended he didn’t get invited to Logan’s first showcase that he doesn’t talk to him for like two whole hours 

Virgil quietly asks if there is any art of all four of them, finds out there is, and makes a print and keeps it on his bedside table

 -They are all Pining Outwardly Now and its Worse

 -Remus : you have known them since pre-k please ask them out I beg of you 

Roman: You just dont get it 

Remus: I asked Janus out after 4 weeks what is your problem

 Emile: Virgil, I love you, you are my Partner in Anti-Drowning but you are so stupid 

Virgil: What???? All I said is that you and Remy are really cute and I'd love to be in a relationship like that 

Emile: I am not a violent person, Virgil, but I have the strong urge to smack you

 Patton, in the Rage Closet: They're all just so hOT and ReSPEctFUL 

Janus, waiting for his turn, trying to act like he cant hear him: I Am Looking Elsewhere

 Logan: I just don't understand why they were more upset that I didn't tell them than that I'd been making art of them for years?? Shouldn't that second part be worse??

Remy, who has been partial to Every Single One Of AMP Waxing Poetic About Logan: Yeah, no idea /s

 -the twins get into a surfing competition as a pair and everyone goes to see them and support them

Thomas airs the competition on every tv in the restaurant cuz he’s Proud of his Bois

They WIN cuz they are Creative and Talented and came up with all sorts of crazy tricks while they were fucking around in the water but it earns them Major Bonus Points for originality

 -Roman does the run off the podium and into Love’s arms trope with just like... whoever’s closest lets go Patton because he is a Waif and forced himself up front so he can see

The other two are Devastated because well shit but then Roman pushes through the crowd, still holding Patton’s hand, and gives them this smile and is like “remember in like second grade when we said we’d do everything together and made a pact on this beach”

Analogical: uhhhhhh yeah

Roman: holding you both to it. No take backs. This counts. Now kiss me, dammit, we WON and they DO MANY TIMES AND ITS REAL CUTE

 -Meanwhile dukeceit have Mysteriously Disappeared and No One wants to be the ones to go find them. They show back up, eventually. Janus has a branch in his hair and remus' hair is sticking straight up and when he opens his mouth roman glares at him and tells him in no uncertain terms that they do not want to know

 AnYWaY these are my children and I will gladly answer any questions about them. I left out Janus Backstory and Creativitwins Angst and Many Individual LAMP Scenes and Remile/Dukeceit getting together and Epilogue but can absolutely provide such things on request

Roma (2018) review: Roma has gained a lot of international attention recently, with numerous critics placing it on their "Best Films of 2018" list and the film being short-listed for Best Foreign-Language Film in the 2019 Oscars. However, not all of the criticism has been favourable, with a number of viewers criticising the sparse plot, slow pace, and other aspects.  Partially financed by Netflix, Roma ran afoul of that company's policy of (extremely) limited theatrical release (to preserve the film for its streaming subscribers).  There was a fair amount of controversy about this in Mexico, where the major cinema chains didn't want to show the picture because of the very brief window provided by Netflix: director Alfonso Cuarón noted that his movie was being shown in more cinemas in Poland than in Mexico!

    Frankly, Roma is much more of a "festival" film (and in fact it won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and has been nominated for numerous other prizes) than one aimed at mass audiences, either in Mexico or elsewhere.  Shot in black-and-white with no "name" performers, the film is set in 1970-71 Mexico and makes considerable use of its setting (although the plot isn't intrinsically linked to its time period): many of the details will be incomprehensible to foreign viewers (and probably to most Mexicans under the age of 50).  However, the film's basic themes can be understood by all, which to some extent explains its popularity among the international intelligentsia (who are, no doubt, also entranced by Cuarón's film form, which is definitely worth the attention).

   Cleo, a young indigenous woman from Oaxaca, works as a servant in the household of Dr. Antonio.  The family includes his wife Sofía, his mother-in-law doña Teresa, and their four children: Sofi, Pepe, Toño, and Pedro.  Cleo goes on a date with Fermín, a friend of her fellow servant Adela's boyfriend Ramón; Cleo and Fermín have sex and she becomes pregnant.  Fermín vanishes at the news; when Cleo finally tracks him down, he denies being the father and threatens Cleo with physical violence if she contacts him again.

    Meanwhile, Dr. Antonio abandons his family for another woman, but his children are told he's doing medical research in Canada.  Cleo and doña Teresa visit a furniture store to purchase a crib for Cleo's baby but are caught in a violent confrontation between student protesters, the police, and plainclothes police hit squads: many people are killed.  Cleo goes into labour and her baby, a little girl, is born dead.

    Sofía takes her children to the beach and insists the depressed Cleo come along but "as a guest," not a servant.  While there, Sofía reveals the truth about her husband to the children. Shortly before they depart for home, Cleo saves the lives of Sofi and one of her brothers who are in danger of drowning, even though Cleo herself cannot swim.  Once back on shore, the shaken Cleo confesses that she didn't want her own baby to live.

    The family returns to their home in Mexico City.  Antonio has removed some furniture and the house is different, but the family will adjust.  Cleo resumes her place as the beloved family servant.

    There are two basic thematic aspects of Roma. First, it's a woman-centered (one might say "feminist" but I won’t presume to put that label on it) film.  Second, it's an examination of racial/socio-economic relations in Mexico (specifically, but feel free to extrapolate to anywhere else on the globe that seems to fit).

    At one point in Roma, Sofía tells Cleo to remember that "women are always alone."  There are virtually no sympathetic adult males in the film: Ignacio, the family chauffeur, does his job but has no personality to speak of, and Adela’s boyfriend Ramón is slightly sympathetic and helpful to Cleo at one point, but that’s about it. Dr. Antonio, even before he abandons his family, is frequently absent (he also chain-smokes, which is a mark of villainy--in 2000s cinema, anyway).  He leaves his wife for a younger woman, deceives his children (which means his wife has the responsibility of breaking the news to them), and pays no child support.  This last at least has the positive aspect of causing Sofía to leave a teaching job she dislikes for a full-time job in publishing.  We don't get much more information on Antonio's personality or the state of his marriage to Sofía, so our impressions are based on the picture Cuarón paints (more like, sketches) of Antonio, and it's a negative one.  When Sofía and the children spend Christmas at a relative's hacienda, one of the men makes a drunken pass at Sofía and insults her when she turns him down, one more negative male image in Roma.

    The other major male figure is Fermín, who admits he had an impoverished adolescence and used various drugs before he was "saved" by martial arts training. Later, when Cleo asks if he and a large crowd of young men are training "for the Olympics," he says "something like that." What they're training for is, as it develops, the police death squads known as the "Halcones" (the Falcons), who viciously attack student protestors. [The film doesn’t really explain who they are, so those unfamiliar with this period of Mexican history may be confused.]  One of the few movie-style coincidences in Roma is the appearance of Fermín in the furniture store during the riot sequence: he brandishes a pistol and comes face to face with Cleo but doesn't speak and just runs away.  This appearance answers the question of the purpose of Fermín's training, but it still seems too movie-fake.

    In contrast to the men, both Cleo and Sofía are admirable figures but still recognisably human and flawed.  Roma is not a film that allows its characters to openly discuss their thoughts and feelings, so the viewer has to deduce what Cleo and Sofía are going through by observing their actions.  Cleo seems like a decent, trusting young woman who's deceived by that dirty rat Fermín, but in point of fact we don't get much insight into their relationship at all.  They decide to go for a walk in the park rather than see a movie, and suddenly they're in bed in a hotel (where Fermín does a nude martial arts routine with a shower rod).  Is this the same day?  A week later? A month later?  When Cleo finally realises she's pregnant, she says it's been three months since her last period, and when she tells Fermín, that's the last she sees of him for at least several months.  We do not see them together as a couple, so it's unclear if he seduced her, or it was a mutual decision, or what.

    Sofía assures Cleo she won't be fired for getting pregnant, and in fact the whole family is rather accommodating to her: Sofía takes her to the hospital to determine if she's pregnant, introduces her to a kind lady doctor, etc., culminating with the unfortunate trip to the furniture store to buy the crib.

    Cleo seems rather passive on the whole, but summons the courage to undertake an extended journey to find Fermín and confront him.  [And, perhaps coincidentally, demonstrates that she has great inner strength: she's the only person who can perform the physical feat that Professor Zovek challenges a huge crowd of athletic young men to do. No one notices this]  It's also clear that Cleo behaves one way when in the presence of her employers and others of their social class (including doctors, etc.) and another when she's with her friend Adela.  They speak the Mixtec language to each other, and seem like any two carefree young women interested in young men, movies, and so forth.  We get only vague hints of Cleo’s life before she arrived in Mexico City: brief references to her village and her mother.  There’s no indication how long she’s been working for the family, for instance.

    Unlike the relatively sparse male cast, there are a number of female characters in Roma who provide support to Cleo.  Sofía, as noted above, is generally sympathetic to Cleo (she loses her temper at one point, but on the whole is a decent boss, as is doña Teresa).  Fellow servants Adela and Benita are Cleo’s friends; Dr. Vélez is an exemplary medical professional, kind and not condescending.  So there’s a certain air of female solidarity in Roma, understated but obviously present.

    The second major motif present in Roma is its depiction of socio-economic, cultural and racial relations in Mexico. At the risk of over-simplification, Mexico’s three main “racial” categories--whites, mestizos (of indigenous and white, largely Spanish, heritage), and indigenous people (indios)--have also been separated socially and economically, with the whites on top, the mestizos in the middle, and the indigenous people at the bottom.  However, the divisions are not always clear: there’s a saying that “an indio ceases to be an indio when he/she wears shoes” (as opposed to huaraches or going barefoot); similarly, speaking Spanish as a first language “elevates” one above the indigenous people like Cleo, who speak a native language and Spanish.

    It’s not entirely clear in Roma, but one assumes  Antonio, Sofía, and their family are white, Fermín is mestizo, and Cleo is an indigenous person.  Cleo, a servant, is theoretically lowest in status (although her living conditions are certainly better than those of Ramón--who lives in a shanty in a slum, where presumably Fermín lives as well).  Her work is strenuous and continuous (caring for 3 adults and 4 children in a very large house) but we do not see her being mistreated or abused. Indeed, the children are emotionally attached to her and she seems to sincerely care for them as well.

    A more critical reading of Roma would suggest that Cleo’s treatment by the family is exploitative and paternalistic, in turns.  No indication is given of how much she’s paid, how much time she gets off, etc., but there are numerous scenes of her working endlessly, getting up before the family awakes and staying up after they’ve gone to bed.  In one scene, Adela and Cleo half-jokingly turn off the light in their room because doña Teresa can see it and will complain about the expense. The final shot of the film shows Cleo climbing an exterior staircase to the roof of the house to do the laundry, a set of stairs which seems to go on forever.  A jet flies over, signifying an outside world that Cleo will never experience. What will happen when the children grow up and move away?  Or when she is physically unable to do the work required of her?  

    There’s no overt racial commentary in Roma. Cleo and Adela converse in the Mixtec language and in Spanish, interchangeably, but the only person to comment on this is Pepe, the family’s youngest child, who says “stop talking like that!” because he can’t understand them.  Cleo’s interactions with the medical staff at the hospital are not characterised by any overt racism or condescension: Roma isn’t “about” racism so it doesn’t hammer its point home in this way; the viewer is left to observe and draw his/her own conclusions. This is fine but for the uninitiated the conclusion might be that racism isn’t an issue in Mexico, and there are those who would dispute that.

   What is clear--overtly in one sequence, subliminally in others--is that Mexico is a nation in which there is considerable socio-economic stratification. When Cleo sets off to find Fermín, she has to take a bus to an outlying neighbourhood that has unpaved, muddy streets, where people live in shacks and have few if any public utilities (a politician is heard making a speech about this, but offers only platitudes).  This contrasts strongly with the upper-middle class neighbourhood where she lives (the colonia Roma, from which the film gets its name), the lavish hacienda where the family spends the holidays (the many guests accompanied by their many servants), and the glimpses we see of the modern Mexico City downtown and its shops, cinemas, restaurants, and so forth. However, even in these latter scenes we’re aware of the numerous vendors on every street, selling snacks, knick-knacks and toys to make a precarious living.  

    Alfonso Cuarón and Guillermo del Toro are the two Mexican film directors with the highest international profile currently.  While del Toro makes most of his movies outside Mexico (even his debut feature, Cronos, had an Argentine and a Hollywood actor in two of the three main roles), Cuarón has alternated his projects between domestic (Sólo con tu pareja, Y tu Mamá también, Roma) and foreign pictures (A Little Princess, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Gravity, etc.).  Roma is not only a very “Mexican” film, it’s one that--as I noted above--seems almost deliberately designed to appeal to a very narrow audience (or a broader audience that will miss many of the subtleties).  

     A fair amount of commentary has focused on Cuarón’s technique: long takes, leisurely pans across the screen (including at least one 360-degree pan, I didn’t count), traveling shots, and so on.  I’ve no strong opinion about this style: it neither bothered nor impressed me unduly: although certainly some of the various panoramic shots are quite beautiful and/or visually interesting, I didn’t find that this enhanced (or detracted from) the overall impact of the film. Perhaps it did, subconsciously, and I simply didn’t notice it.

    I have not read any interviews with Cuarón so I’m not sure what justification he gives for shooting the film in black-and-white.  Because it’s a period film, or that’s the way he remembers things, or because his (mostly excellent) recreation of 1970-71 Mexico would look “fake” in colour? Pawel Pawlikowski indicates his most recent films (Ida, Cold War) were shot 4x3 and in black-and-white to emulate Soviet bloc cinema of the early 1960s, but that’s obviously not Cuarón’s reasoning (Mexican cinema was all-colour by the late Sixties).  

   Production values are excellent.  Performances are all fine although the general “feel” of the film is rather cool, with relatively little melodrama allowing for flashy ACTING!!

    Trivia notes:  in the cinema sequence when Cleo reveals her pregnancy to Fermín, they’re watching a 1966 French film, La Grande Vadrouille. Mexican actor Claudio Brook can be seen in the footage (he’s one of the pilots in the airplane with the nun). The Silvia Pinal vehicle La Hermana trinquete (1969) is showing at the Cine Metropolitan in another scene. The family watches a television show with Loco Valdés, Alejandro Suárez and Héctor Lechuga: presumably this is “Ensalada de locos.”      

      Zovek (played by wrestler/actor Latin Lover) appears in (recreated) television footage and in the sequence when Cleo finds Fermín doing martial arts training.  Professor Zovek [Francisco Javier Chapa del Bosque] (1940-1972) was a real-life physical culture guru and escape artist who was at the peak of his career in the period covered in Roma.  He starred in two films and two comic book series that portrayed him as a mystical super-hero.  

    Roma is an excellent film, but not one that I find transcendent or especially profound.  There were parts I didn’t like at all, and Cuarón’s deliberate pace makes some scenes drag on interminably.  I wouldn’t characterise the film as a whole as “pretentious” or “self-indulgent” (although it is apparently semi-autobiographical), but the director’s style and the film’s minimal “plot” mean some audiences will be bored and others will be entranced.  I liked it for several reasons: it’s well-made and stylish, and the setting (Mexico in the early 1970s) is one with which I have a certain familiarity so I was constantly seeing things of interest (often in the background).  If this was, for example, identical in nearly every aspect except it was set in 1970 France I’d probably still find the period details fascinating (that’s just how I am) but they wouldn’t have the same resonance for me. Those who have little or no knowledge of Mexico, especially in this time period, won’t “get” these references, and will have to be satisfied with the “story” and the film form.

[Some version of this review will appear in the new issue of The Mexican Film Bulletin, out before the end of the year.]

01/BASICS

Full Name: Sterling Atsila Walsh Nickname: None he’s agreed to, but in true sports team fashion, various people have called him: Ster, Ster-fry, Ster-Ster, Sterber baby, Silver, and Hi-Ho Silver  Birthday: November 3rd, 1996 Gender: Cisgender male Sexual Orientation: He’s demisexual and pansexual, but he doesn’t know either of those terms - what he does know if that he’s never really enjoyed kissing any of the people he has at parties and clubs because it’s always felt empty, somehow incomplete and underwhelming in a way that doesn’t live up to what it’s supposed to be like in his head or what it’s cracked up to be in the movies. He also knows that he is deeply and resoundingly attracted to people being good at what they do - no surprise that that usually means athletes who are good at their respective sports.  Astrological Sign: Scorpio Spoken Languages: English, a few words and phrases of Cherokee Birthplace: Holladay, Utah Relationship status: Single as ever (read: very)

02/PHYSICAL TRAITS

Hair Color/Style: Black, various degrees of waves/curls depending on how damp his hair is, how humid it is, how much he’s raked his hands through it, etc. He wears it longer on the top than the sides, usually pushed back, though without product it tends to flop down into his eyes and make him look younger than he is. Eye Color: Brown Face Claim: Charles Melton  Height: 6′1″  Tattoos: None, though it is on his bucket list  Piercings: None, though during his ‘I hate you because you made me live in a cult and now everyone makes fun of me, mom’ rebellion phase in high school he wanted to get snakebites; he will take this fact to his grave.  Unique Attributes: Freckles and moles on his face, shoulders, and back. He has a scar on his chin from where the butt of a gun kicked into it when he was a kid; he’s got a lot of calluses and scars on his fingers and hands, mostly from hard labor when he was a kid, but the ones on his knuckles are from punching. He has a few scars on his face from fights. 

03/PERSONALITY TRAITS/TYPES

Positive Traits:  Determined, hardworking, observant, self-disciplined, loyal, thorough, organized Negative Traits:  Standoffish, critical, miserly, blunt, conceited, apathetic, callous, controlling Hobbies/Interests: Exy, fitness and running (though the latter is strictly for exy-related purposes), slowly getting a cinematic and musical education to catch up on everything he missed as a kid and teen, his motorcycle, and getting high enough to pretend he’s not as constantly lonely and afraid of the future as he actually is.  Insecurities: Physically? Nada. As for his genuine thoughts and fears about himself, part of the conceit that’s strictly an act; he’s concerned that exy is the only thing he has to contribute to the team, that his connection to the other Foxes and his entire identity with this group of people is surface level. He was told over and over again that he cannot survive without other people, so he holds a very real, very deep concern that the Foxes will ultimately and entirely reject him, leaving him in the cold.  Quirks/Eccentricities: Rakes his hands through his hair a lot - when he’s thinking, stressed, angry, overwhelmed - and isn’t necessarily aware of it. Can make a makeshift something out of nearly anything, can assess the usefulness of certain items for survival purposes at a glance, is uncannily good at eyeballing weights and quantities.  MBTI Type: ESTJ-T Enneagram Type: Type 8 - The Challenger Moral Alignment: Varies between Lawful/Chaotic Neutral and Lawful/Chaotic Good  Temperament: Choleric

04/FAMILY & HOME

Immediate Family: Mother (Adsila), aunt (Tsula), and uncle (Jonathon). His father was out of the picture before he was even born, effectively charring the possibility of being interested in his Korean ancestry. How do they feel about their family?: Sterling’s relationship with his mother is complicated (whose isn’t?). He’s completed devoted to her and her well-being - he’s planning on moving her out out her sister’s home, ensuring that she’s well taken care of financially, physically, emotionally, once he’s playing professionally, a goal that is as much for her as it is for himself - while also resenting her not only for depriving him of a normal childhood, but for her weakness in the aftermath of the raid at the commune and the cult being shut down. It terrifies him that he can’t do anything to save her from the despair and listlessness of her depression, and it makes him unspeakably angry to be this helpless, that this wasn’t something they could have prepared for the way they prepared for everything else.  He feels an obligation to keep in touch with her, but talking with her (or trying to, mostly having to carry the conversation himself) is a painful reminder of both his past and the responsibilities of his future. He’s never been close with his aunt and uncle, and their interactions have always been stilted; he doesn’t harbor any particular affection for them - if anything, he wants as much distance from them as possible so he won’t have to feel the pity and the confusion and the hurt in their gazes.  How does their family feel about them?: Adsila loves Sterling, but that love has always been secondary to something else - whether it was eclipsed by her passion for art, or swept up and colored by her beliefs about the pending apocalypse, or muted and hidden by the severity of her nearly catatonic depression. It hurts to talk to him, hear the reminder of her failure, and it hurts even more to see him, see the anger he wears like a letterman jacket, see the way his resentment is too big to fit in the small basement they’re supposed to share. Tsula and Jonathon try their best to be empathetic, to tell themselves in whispers in bed at night sometime around Christmas that He’s only like this because of what she put him through, Jon, and I know, ‘Sula, but does he have to talk to us like that? Would it kill him to be a little more grateful?  Pets: As far as he can remember, they didn’t have any pets before they left for the commune, and he was told the commune didn’t have the resources to spare to support animals. One of the younger members of the commune brought a cat back from a trip to town with her in secret and showed it to the kids there, and Sterling got really attached to it, feeding it and giving it water despite his mother’s warning and gentle reprimands. One of the more ...intense members of the commune ultimately found the cat, killed it, and put it on display in one of the communal areas as a warning.  Where do they live?: His aunt and uncle’s home in a suburb of Pleasant View, Utah, though he spends as little time there as possible during the summers and breaks.  Description of their home: Small, desert suburbia extraordinaire. Neat and homey, with a lot of tan/neutral decorations with accents of sunset colors and kitschy knick knacks. Too clean, too quiet, and stifling. He and his mother live in the basement of the house, and in all fairness, his aunt and uncle did the best they could with what they had, but the basement is still not well-lit, and his mother mostly keeps it dark and undecorated, even after living there for nearly a decade. Bare essentials, mismatched and secondhand, with a partial wall sectioning off his mother’s sleeping area; Sterling sleeps on the futon, though most of the time he doesn’t bother to convert it out into the full bed. The space never felt big enough, even when he was a kid, so the feeling of having outgrown it is stifling. He sleeps in the armchair, the hammock in the backyard, or sometimes on the roof during the summer and fall.  Description of their bedroom: His part of the room in the Tower is sparse when it comes to decorations - he has a poster of the US Exy Court over his desk in an attempt to keep himself focused. There’s always a pair of headphones on his bed or tangled on his desk or snaking out of his backpack. He keeps four small cacti on the windowsill next to his desk, compliments of his mother at the beginning of each school year. There’s a nondescript emergency kit compiled in a duffel bag shoved under his bed. He keeps things neat and organized so he can find them at a moment’s notice. He used to make his bed every day, but he’s gotten more lax about it this year. 

05/THIS OR THAT

Introvert or Extrovert? Extrovert Optimist or Pessimist? Depends on the situation! When it comes to things being in other people’s hands, he’s a pessimist and doesn’t put much faith in anyone else. When it comes to his own ability to succeed, he’s mostly an optimist; by this point, he’s fairly confident in his ability to survive if anything apocalyptic ever happens, compliments of the kit in his room and the storage unit a couple miles off campus, but that’s always cut with an undercurrent of worry that he’s not actually as capable as he thinks he is if other people aren’t prepared, too.  Leader or Follower? Leader, though not a very good one Confident or Self-Conscious? Overly Confident  Cautious or Careless? Careless Passionate or Apathetic? Both? He’s super passionate about exy, about his team, and cares a lot about his motorcycle, but he’s only able to apply that same passion to people or life in general when he’s drunk and reckless. His apathy for other people’s beliefs and feelings is ultimately a misplaced attempt to push other people away before they can do the same to him.  Book Smarts or Street Smarts? Street smarts, though that’s not necessarily the word I would choose - more of survival smarts that would be appropriate for living in a desert or, shockingly, an apocalyptic wasteland.  Compliments or Insults? Hahahahaha

06/FAVORITES

Favorite Color: Burnt orange  Favorite Clothing Style/Outfit: Athleisure aesthetique all goddamn day. He lives in that Adidas/Nike aesthetic, and can typically be found in at least one brand name article of clothing at any given time. Has extensive snapback and hightop shoe collections, both of which he keeps very, very clean. Doesn’t wear any rings, but will occasionally wear beaded bracelets. So many pairs of black or grey joggers. So many hoodies. Only one leather jacket, currently.  Favorite Bands/Songs/Type of Music: He tends towards rap and hip hop, though he’s gotten more adventurous and headed into some alt and indie rock; he mostly steals music from other people’s tastes, though, to try them out and figure out whether he actually likes them himself.  Favorite Movies: Mad Max: Fury Road; Independence Day; Lion King; Iron Man  Favorite Books: He doesn’t have any.  Favorite Foods/Drinks: Pizza.  Favorite Sports/Sports Teams: Exy, always; always Exy. He’s been known to watch baseball and basketball in the off-season, though, even if he complains his way through it the whole time.  Favorite Time of Day: Sunset  Favorite Weather/Season: Snowy / Winter  Favorite Animal: Honest answer is the wrens that make their homes in cacti, but if anyone asks, he just scoffs and says fox. 

The Degrade and Decline of Death Battle: An in-depth analysis of Thor vs Wonder Woman

Over the past year and a half or so I’ve had something of an odd relationship with the Web series Death Battle. Some of their fights I agree with (Black Panther vs Batman), some I don’t agree with but understand their reason for (Voltron vs Megazord), and some I personally feel the got wrong right out (The META vs Carolina). While in the past I would disagree with some of their outcomes I could almost always see the reasoning for it and I could make peace with that. They have also consistently said they are not gods and a make that they do make mistakes and so I could easily forgive the odd error.

But as of late the mistake, errors, and misinformation have become much more frequent and it makes it harder and harder to give them the benefit of the doubt any longer. This became extremely apparent in their Thor vs Wonder Woman battle. While there have been outcomes I don’t always agree with in the past, this is the first battle I can say they got categorically wrong. This is not an opinion, this is not my take on things, this is a fact. Now that is not to say the outcome they came to is inherently incorrect but more that the battle they presented was so riddled with errors and problems that it simply cannot be said to be a true and real analysis.

This particular battle has proved them lacking in logos (their evidence and facts) and this, in turn, damaged their ethos (their credibility and my trust in them).

Before I get into my explanation and analysis I will give this warning. This will obviously contain spoilers for the mentioned battle, this part of the reason why I waited so long to post this. But it has been a number of months and most of those who are interested already know the outcome of this Death Battle and this warning is merely proper form and I am giving those who have not a fair chance.

Now we get into the meat of this analysis. In the actual battle itself, they declare Wonder Woman the victor sighting several reasons that I can discredit using both math and proper research in both characters mythos. Again this is not my opinion, these are facts.

STRENGTH

To start things off I would like to address one of the more glaring conclusions they came to, and that is their strength analysis for both Thor and Wonder Woman. They state Wonder Woman is stronger than Thor and cite her feat in helping to pull the earth as evidence of this. Now there are a lot of problems in this one analysis alone.

First and foremost is the easiest problem to address and the is Wonder Woman’s participation in this feat has one very big problem and his name is Superman. Superman is strong enough to move the planet on his own so, much like when the pair slowed the descent of eternity, Wonder Woman’s contribution is negligible because she shared the feat with a hero who is so much stronger than herself. But even if she did pull the weight they calculated it would still be less than the actual weight of the World Serpent.

Now they calculation for the weight of the World Serpent as about 17 Trillion tons. Now, this sounds like a lot of weight but when you consider that the amount of water in the Great Lakes equates to about 24 trillion tons it is clear to see that this clearly cannot be correct.

While I cannot say for certain how they came to this conclusion I can disprove it fairly easily. There is a law called “The square–cube law” which is a mathematical principle which describes the relationship between the volume and the surface area as a shape’s size increases or decreases. It states when an object undergoes a proportional increase in size, its new surface area is proportional to the square of the multiplier and its new volume is proportional to the cube of the multiplier. Now, what does this mean? It means that, in layman’s terms, that if something increases its size by a factor of two it’s weight would actually increase by a factor of eight.

With this mind let’s take as Burmese python with a measured length of 23 feet weighing in at 200 lbs (there has never been a confirmed recording of an anaconda as large 550lbs as the one they used in Death Battle) and scale it up. In their video, they state The World Serpent is 50,000 miles (that’s 264,000,000 feet) long. This means Jormungundr is 11,478,260 times larger than a python so he would weigh roughly 1.51x 1021 times as much. That is 151 Quintillion tons, already much higher than the 2.2 quintillion tons calculated fro Wonder Woman even without accounting for constricting strength, the fact Jormungundr is likely denser than a snake of the size would be as all beings from Asgard and Jotunheim (of which he is a descendant) are on average 3x denser than similarly sized beings from Midgard, or the fact his constriction strength is likely much higher the 16x body weight calculation for snakes much in the way an average Asgardian or Jotun is many times stronger than a similar proportion human on Midgard.   

All this is actually unnecessary to prove Thor is stronger than Wonder Woman as he has single-handedly lifted a score of planets, pushed and reversed the world engine, and overpowered a power infinity stone-wielding Drax. The above calculation was done more to show the lack of research that Death Battle did in this instance. Thor is clearly much stronger than what they determined and is in fact much stronger than Wonder Woman.

SPEED/REACTION TIME

This analysis is a little harder to nail down than strength or durability as neither character puts any great emphasis on their movement speed. Wonder Woman has a fairly large has a decent amount of time put into showing her reaction time as she can be harmed by comparatively rather mundane attacks. But even here we can see some rather blatant failures on the research team of Death Battle.

First and foremost is Wonder Woman’s Shattered God feat. This feat is largely an unprovable one, as much is clear when they use the wording “probably faster” when comparing the Shattered God particles to Mjolnir’s speed. We are given no time. distant, or speed to try and even start to determine the speed at which these particles travel. But we do know that they are not traveling at the speed that was assumed in the battle.

They claim that these particles are traveling from the edge of the universe when Wonder Woman started to deflect them. This is evidence that the research team either did not actually read the comic (as I have) or chose to ignore certain elements. But in the actual comic it states that the Shattered God was broken at the big bang and his particles road that to the edge of the universe, and then after countless millennia he started to come back together. While no real timeframe is actually given we are lead to believe that the particles have been traveling for quite some time. After reading this series a few things are pretty clear. First is that the particles are not at the edge of the universe as they have started to come back together before that point in the comic where this feat occurs. Many of his particles are have already started to reform as he is already partially reformed at this point, so we know for a fact at the particles that begin the barrage cannot be at the edge of the universe.

But there is a more telling point in the comic and that is when Wonder Woman picks up Trevor Barnes and flees from the particles when she starts to become overwhelmed and actually able to outpace them at least for a short time. While we have no actual maximum speed we can calculate we do have a feat that can give us a rough idea. Wonder Woman can keep pace with Jesse Quick, by using the break in the air she creates much like how racecar drivers do. Jesse can move at roughly half the speed of light. This means the particles are moving slower than that. While this is impressive due to the sheer number of particles it does not display the reaction speed they assumed she had.

There is also the feat they used with Zoom where she was able to tag him while he was leaving time displaced copies of himself (a feat Quicksilver has also done) but she does so while not being able to see. While this may seem more impressive it is actually quite to opposite. Studies show reaction time is actually quicker when people use their sense of hearing rather than their eyes. This may not seem like it makes sense as light travels faster than sound, but this has been shown many times in real life and this is displayed when people catch arrows blindfolded. While they can see arrows long before they hear them they actually can react much faster to sound stimuli. While it’s hard to say if this would translate to such higher speeds it is also not entirely unreasonable to think this would scale to the superhuman levels.

Yet another glaring issue with this comparison in the video is they do not even use Thor’s greatest reaction time feat. Thor’s claims to have fought beings much faster than quicksilver even going as far to call him slow. We know this is not just him boasting. In the same run where Thor defeated and  Power Infinity Stone-wielding Drax and was also able to track and hit a Space Infinity Stone- wielding Pip the Troll. The space gem allows its user to manipulate space anyway one sees fit. Its most basic powers allow one to teleport themselves and others any place they can picture in their mind regardless of distance or preventive measures such as walls or spells. It can increase the speed of the user. Its more powerful abilities allow one to appear in multiple places at once or altering the distance between objects contrary to the laws of physics. This means Pip while using the stone, had access to virtually infinite speed much like how Drax would have had Infinite strength and durability.

While this does not mean her reaction time is slower than Thor’s, she may, in fact, have better reaction time than Thor due to the fact she has to be able to protect herself much more frequently than he does. It does mean her movement speed is in fact much lower than Thor’s. What does this mean?

 In Death Battle, they calculate Thor’s speed with Mjolnir as 500,000 times faster than light. This is again another glaring issue as the Comic says Mjolnir can fly to the edge of the galaxy, not the universe, and back in 60 seconds. The speed they give isn’t even fast enough to reach Alpha Centauri in 60 seconds let alone the edge of the galaxy but that’s not the point I’m really trying to make here. But even at 500,000 times faster than light that puts Thor’s travel/movement speed much higher than Wonder Woman’s and this means his reaction time is more than fast enough to block and intercept her attacks.

This is where many people start to become confused and make mistakes when it comes to speed. People may think “Batman says her reaction time is faster than Superman’s, doesn't that mean she faster than him?” while I can see where this thinking comes from it is false. Wonder Woman has train her already superman sense to the point where she can perceive can react to objects moving faster then she can move out of necessity. Much like fighter pilots train to increase their reaction time. This is done because she can be harmed relatively easily whereas beings like Thor and Superman simply shrug off or simply aren't even bother by things that can harm Wonder Woman such as bullets. This means that in a drawn-out battle between the two it is entirely possible that one would be able to score a decisive blow against the other until their means of defense are bypassed.

DURABILITY

This category is one where I believe they came to a somewhat proper conclusion stating Thor is much tougher than Wonder Woman. But even here they fall short in many ways.

They stated that Thor has no defense against Wonder Woman sword. This is an outright incorrect statement. Thor has been cut and stabbed before so claiming he has no defense is rather odd. He has been stabbed by a sword forged from the truth, as nothing cuts like the truth. The all-black Necrosword, a blade made and used to butcher gods. It doesn't matter how sharp Wonder Woman sword is, Thor has been run through by blades before so even if Wonder Woman Sword is a million times sharper than the Necrosowrd it functionally doesn't matter. He has been cut before and knows how to defend against blades.

As far as Wonder Woman’s durability goes there is a big problem and its linchpin argument at that. Because Wonder Woman is more resistant to blunt force trauma the cast of Death Battle claims Mjolnir would not be that effective against her and even stating in an interview afterwards that the fight was so close that if Thor had been wielding Ultimate Thor’s hammer ( which has an axe head) the fight could have gone very differently. Let’s ignore the fact that they list Jarnbjorn in Thor’s equipment and don’t factor it in even though he does use it in conjunction with Mjolnir when he had both. But instead, let us talk about the nature of Wonder Woman’s durability.

Blunt force trauma seems to has less effect on Wonder Woman whereas bullets and arrows can pierce her skin. This means one of two things, either the force applied by the bullets over the area of the bullet’s tip if enough to punch through her skin’s ultimate tensile strength, or she is magically resistant to bludgeoning damage. In either case, the conclusion they came to about Mjolnir not being that effective against wonder Woman is false.The force Thor can apply over the face of Mjolnir's hammer face would be astronomically greater than the force applied to the area of a bullets tip.

In order to explain this, I’ll get into the physics of cutting. In order to cut or pierce something, you need to overcome the object’s ultimate tensile strength. This is done by increasing the pressure applied. Pressure is equal to the force applied to an area. In order to increase something cutting ability you can either decrease the area, such as with an extremely sharp blade or by increasing the force. For the purpose of this Death Battle we know Wonder Woman can be harmed by bullets fired from relatively mundane firearms. A strike Frome Thor’s hammer would apply more pressure than any bullet ever fired despite the fact it has such a broad face because he can generate more force than an exploding sun. So Thor’s hammer would be able to bypass Wonder Woman’s skin’s ultimate tensile strength.

Ther another possible option is that due to her godly heritage that she has some form a magical resistance to blunt force trauma. This seems more likely because she is able to take hits from characters like Zod who punches, much like Thor’s strike, would generate much more force than any bullets. But even this resistance wouldn’t do her much good against Thor as Mjolnir can negate magical defenses and has done so against beings such as Silver Surfer and The Juggernaut. So the claim they make about Thor’s hammer not being able to much to her false on every level.

MJOLNIR 

Mjolnir deserves its own category because they chose to omit so many of which would have been huge game changers and also made many mistakes yet again.

I’m not going to take the time to list every single attribute of the Hammer as there is already a very extensive list here. But will point out some of the more glaring issues.

They don’t even mention the Godblast, which can kill immortals. But beyond that Mjonlir can also harness alpha particles to atomize any weapon, create barriers that can withstand a blast that can withstand a blast strong enough to destroy 1/5 of the universe and can even literally draw the lifeforce out of someone.

They also misattribute some of Thor’s powers solely to Mjolnir. Thor has stated he can rely on Mjolnir too much. He can perform the total weather control, flight, and even his most potent attack the Godblast without the aide of his hammer.

CONCLUSION

Taking all this into account it is clear that this battle was done rather poorly. Now I’m not going to say that they are intentionally misleading people, I really don't think that is what happened here. I think that their research team did not do their due diligence and there is a distinct lack of communication between the parties involved. This is not to say Wonder Woman couldn’t beat Thor, although my own research seems to disprove this possibility, this Death Battle is most certainly not the answer.