Rene Magritte - The treachery of images 1929 (This is not a pipe) Meanings and analysis HD
#Rene #Magritte - The treachery of images 1929 (This is not a pipe) Meanings and analysis #this_is_not_a_tweet
(This is not a paintings blog ) 2021
When Magritte painted the Treachery of Images
In 1929 Magritte was 30 years old and depressed by the failure of his first exhibition in Belgium . Rene Magritte left his homeland and moved to Paris .There he met and befriended several of the Paris Surrealists, including poets André Breton and Paul Éluard, and he became familiar with the collages of Max Ernst…
Rene Magritte - The Poison / Good Fortune (Le poison / La Bonne Aventure ) 1939 analysis
Rene Magritte – The Poison / Good Fortune (Le poison / La Bonne Aventure ) 1939 analysis
The first in the series The Empire of Light The Poison / Good Fortune (Le poison / La Bonne Aventure ) 1939 by Rene Magritte
An early example of Magritte playing with the idea of the simultaneous appearance of night and day is a gouache painted in 1939 that is now in the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam. In this gouache, the horizon of a twilight sky is sharply lit by a sunset casting a…
As popular as The Karate Kid movies were, they weren’t nearly as big as Star Wars. Nothing is. But with the remake-reboot trend along with the 80s nostalgia that has plagued Hollywood, something like Cobra Kai is like a jackpot waiting to be hit.
It could have been one of those soft reboots where the old cast comes back to usher in the new heroes and fades into the existence and we’re left with a soulless cash grab of a series that has nothing other than references carrying it. We’ve had FAR too many of those – Ghostbusters Afterlife, Terminator whatever, Jurassic World, Charlie’s Angels, Jumanji, Picard…
And of course, our favorite – the Star Wars sequel trilogy. Boy did this thing not understand the assignment at all. But Cobra Kai does and it shows us that you can absolutely bring back a 30-year-old franchise to life without destroying its legacy. In fact, it adds to it.
Between the Arkenstone, the One Ring, and that cache of magic swords Bilbo uncovered during Thorin and company’s confrontation with the trolls that just happened to be the former property of the High King of the Noldor, Bilbo and Gandalf’s relationship is just a constant process of Bilbo showing up with some random artifact of world-changing significance and Gandalf sagely stroking his beard and making a pithy remark while internally screaming “WHERE DO YOU KEEP FINDING THESE THINGS”.
Alternately, this is why Gandalf always brings/sends hobbits on adventures. Because if you take a hobbit out of their nice safe holding-pen in the Shire, it will take them approximately ten minutes to stumble across whatever item of world-shaking importance is currently knocking around the vicinity. You take a hobbit out and set them loose and they will find ancient weapons of a godly age, ancient beings that pre-date the world, the one treasure in the middle of a hoard of treasure that you actually need, the single most deadly magic item in the world in the middle of a river, the same magic item in the middle of a cave centuries later, the local magic rock with a direct link to the current villain’s mind (which, in this case, was not necessarily a blessing, Pippin) …
If you put a hobbit down, basically, and there is an item of plot importance within a fifty mile radius, they will put their hand down and pick it up. Guaranteed. (Again, as with Pippin and the Palantir, this is not necessarily a good thing, but at least you’ll know where shit is)
Theother reason he always brings/sends hobbits on adventures is that they will also kickstart world-shaking actions if left unattended for more than five minutes. See also: Merry and Pippin toppling Isengard the minute they were left alone near people they could trick into war-slash-mischief. See also: Bilbo giving Bard and Thranduil the Arkenstone in an attempt to negotiate because the dwarves left him unsupervised and somebody needed to at least try and keep the peace. See also: Pippin suborning a Gondorian guard into outright treason in the place of the dead to save Faramir and the Gondorian Stewardship from Denethor’s madness. See also: Frodo, Sam and Gollum royally mucking up Sauron’s everything while entirely alone and unsupervised under his very nose.
Like, it’s a gamble. Taking hobbits out into the wider world and letting them loose unsupervised is not an action for the risk-adverse or the faint of heart. But if you want results in a relatively short time-frame, by the Valar it’s effective.
Hello! Sorry I’ve been so slow to write these analyses lately! I knew I was going to have a lot to say, so I had to summon the energy to start it knowing it wasn’t going to be a quick write-up. Hahaha.
Alas, here I am! This chapter didn’t have any Syaoran (lord, I miss him) or even Sakura for that matter! But this chapter was incredibly entertaining nonetheless! Also, omg look at that Clow on the cover page! Clow Reed art is so rare! Let’s dig in to chapter 60! More under the cut!
So let me start off by talking a little bit about how I always envisioned that initial meeting of Kaito and Akiho’s mother would go. I had mentioned a while ago that I was writing up a fic about their first meeting, but now that fic is kinda pointless considering we’ve now seen it for real in this chapter. Lol. However, I must say that I am actually pretty proud of myself of what I managed to get right. Here’s a little bit of the script that I wrote to help me lay out the bare bones of the dialogue I predicted they would have.
Akimom: -offers chocolate mint to Kaito-
Kaito: -takes a bite and shudders instantly-
Akimom: -laughs hysterically- Your face is so funny!
Kaito: I don’t know what’s funny about it…
Akimom: You make the same face as him!
Kaito: Him?
Akimom: -smiles brightly- The one I love more than anyone else!
Kaito: Love? -confused-
Akimom: Yes! -says excitedly-
Kaito: What’s that?
Akimom: Mmm…-thinks for a moment of how to explain it to him- love is when you like a person so much that you feel warm inside and your heart races whenever you’re with them or think about them! There’s no greater happiness than being with the one you love!
Kaito: That sounds like a fever…
Akimom: -giggles- It is similar, but I’m sure you’ll understand when you’re a bit older. There’s no greater happiness than being with the one you love!
Kaito: I don’t think so.
Akimom: Huh? Why not?
Kaito: I don’t likeanything
Akimom: Now, that’s not true….
Kaito: Why do you say that?
Akimom: Because you don’t like chocolate mint.
Kaito: That doesn’t make sense….
Akimom: The world is full of duality, and these things cannot exist without the other. Light and dark, good and evil, peace and war, hot and cold, and even likes and dislikes. You can’t dislike something without being able to likesomething.
And just so you know I didn’t just write this up a few days ago, here’s the screenshot of my Google Docs showing it has not been touched since October (see how productive I am? Lmao).
As I go, I may refer back to this a little bit, but now I’ll actually move on to actual chapter content.
The chapter starts off with what appears to be not their very first meeting, but perhaps their second. Akimom has already met Kaito once before when she asked him if he ate any foods he liked (back in the vision from chapter 41), but it seems she had been looking for him since that initial meeting. Kaito is by himself of course, and he had intendedto be alone. So much so, in fact, that he put up a barrierto keep other people out! But Akimom seems to have penetrated this barrier, and Kaito wonders how she managed to do this. Rather casually, she tells him she simply broke right through it, but what I love about this is that she hasn’t just broken a barrier physically but emotionally as well. She tore down those literal walls he built and forced him to do something he probably never imagined himself doing; engaging in normal, non-magic related conversation.
Kaito tells her that she’ll be missed at the meeting going on between the Association and her Clan, however this was more likely Kaito’s way of saying “Don’t you have somewhere better to be than talking to me right now?”. He also states rather seriously that although her Clan is friendly with the Association now, there is no telling when they will be crossed. His concerns make sense, considering both groups have selfish intentions, and it seems natural that eventually one of them will want to overpower the other once their mutual goal is met. But this statement to me also expresses that he sees her as someone who is naïve and might be harmed by this, thus a small amount of caring coming from him. He wants to warn her so she doesn’t get hurt. However, this could also be his way of continuing to try and push her away, seeing as he is one of those in the group he claims may betray her.
Akimom contests this brilliantly though, not letting it deter or frighten her, and mentions that since he is their strongest, that shouldn’t he be there? This is where the two of them seem to find their first thing in common, which is that the both of them find these meetings insufferably boring. It also appears that both the Association and the Clan don’t really seem to care if either of them are a part of this meeting. After all, they don’t want their opinions or to actually talk to them. All they want is their magic.
Despite knowing this, Akimom says she has better things to do with her time (what a boss), and I honestly really respect that. She’s not salty or angry about it. She simply takes that time to instead live her best life, and that seems to be eating as many chocolate mint things as possible. Lmao!! She loves chocolate mint so much that she is desperate to have Kaito try one, and this I think is something we can all relate to. Haven’t we all desperately wanted to recommend things we like to a friend (like me talking the ear off of anyone who will listen about Cardcaptor Sakura)?
She’sso excited, but Kaito doesn’t understand this at all. Instead he asks her why she bothers talking to him at all. After all, didn’t she hear what he said? He told her that his group may betray her, but she seems unfazed by this and even mentions how her own Clan only ever talks about controlling all the magic in the world. I do want to take a brief moment to talk about how terrifyingthis casual thing she said actually is. Soak that in for a moment…all of the magic in the world. That is a incredibly high ambition, and what do you think that means for the ones who don’t want to join their ranks? The implications of this goal seem very likely to result in violence at some point, and Akimom is well aware of this. Kaito seems to believe that she should not be speaking with him as a result of the Association’s own goals, but she rejects this and says “Of course I do! I need to get to know you better, don’t I?”.
Kaito sees she’s not getting the message, so he decides to try and take matters into his own hands by literally walking away. Lmaooo. But Akimom stops him and asks him to try one bite of the chocolate mint and tell her what he thinks of it. Little Kaito sees no point in it because she is able to see the future in her dreams, and why bother asking him a question she already knows the answer to, right? In this page, yet another dreamseer has been unveiled, and it seems to be a theme in CLAMP that these dreamseers (which seem to be almost entirely female), are incredibly strong in magic. The dreamseers we know of now in Cardcaptor Sakura are: Sakura (of course), Nadeshiko, Yelan, and now Akimom (I’m not sure if Clow Reed, Eriol, or Kaho count as dreamseers or not, but they all have some level of reading the future, just maybe not in dreams). So basically the main cast’s mothers all are dreamseers. Lol.
Kaito addresses how Akimom’s specialty is seeing the future in dreams, however I was a bit surprised to the question he asked her next. He asks her if she sees what his power can be helpful for, and his face looks so sad here. The impression I got from this is that he is a young child desperately trying to find his purpose in life, and he’s probably been told that his magic is his purpose and this is all he needs. But he wants more. It seems he wants to find more of a purpose for his magic other than just being really really strong. It’s not stated, but I imagine Akimom is probably the first person he’s ever had this conversation with.
She seems to kind of avert the question by cracking a lighthearted joke about how she doesn’t yet need his help with house chores since she’s still tall enough to change lightbulbs and is pretty self capable. Hahaha. But of course, Kaito pushes her for a less silly answer. She tells him that she had a dream that if she went to a certain place that she’d meet him, and that she was fine with this because even if she does see the future, it is up to herto decide what she wants to do with this information. By saying this, I think she was also telling Kaito that he too can decide what he wants to do with his power and that it is not something predetermined.
She finishes by saying that her choice was to get to know him, and he pulls up his cloak a bit shyly before telling her that he is not interested. Haha! He starts to leave, but this time Akimom doesn’t try to stop him. He’s clearly hit his limit of social interaction for the day, and even she can see that. He makes a quick getaway, and quietly to herself, Akimom has a hope that someday she can call him by name (which I imagine she will someday!).
The next page shows future interactions, which are all adorable in their own right, but mostly contain her really going hard on offering him chocolate mint snacks (including choco mint potato chips? Wut?). I imagine he consistently refused these harmless offers until one day he finally gives in and tries a chocolate mint treat for the first time. Akimom can hardly contain her excitement and anticipation as to what he’ll say, and it doesn’t take him long to tell her that he hates it. Even though he dislikes it, it is true that he has found progress by actually having an opinion about something! This I where I’ll bring up my little fanfic script from earlier. I had a feeling that Akimom’s dynamic with him would be trying to find something he likes, because if he can hatesomething, then he can absolutely likesomething, and I’m so happy I got that one right!
Another thing that I managed to get right (along with many other fans of course) is guessing that he indeed does not like choco mint. You may be wondering “Chrissy, what does this mean and why is this so important?”. Well, CLAMP has been teasing this whole choco mint thing since its introduction in chapter 36. It was mentioned so often in that chapter that fellow CLAMP enthusiasts and I could not help but think “Okay, this has gotto mean something.” It was expressed which characters like and dislike choco mint in the chapter, and there were only a handful of people who clearly dislikedit. These people who dislike it came out to be: Chiharu, Touya, Fujitaka, Eriol, Akiho’s father, and Syaoran (this is also where the speculation that Akiho and Syaoran might have the same dad came about, and I can’t straight out deny it, but it seems extremely unlikely. Hahahaha). Kaito was the only one who was purposely left out of this chapter and it was dangled in a rather mysterious way to have us all pulling our hair out and wondering what it means. Lmao. But I had always had the feeling he would be not a fan. And why did I think this? Well, because of Syaoran of course! The connections between them seem to be building, and now we’ve got another thing they have in common to add to the list!
Now that they have found something Kaito dislikes, they can find something he likes, and he pulls up his cloak again in a bashful way (which makes me just want to hug him, because omg how precious is he). The next panel shows him eating chocolate covered pretzels, and he confirms he can eatthem, but this appears to be neither a confirmation of liking or disliking, so it is another bust for Akimom’s attempts. She tells him she made them herself, and he follows up by saying this must have been a bother. After all, doing anything at all seems like a bother for him still at this point, but maybe her efforts were what encouraged him to become so good at household chores and cooking in the future. It was something obviously that made her very happy, so maybe he thought ‘if I can learn how to do these too, maybe I can feel happy’.
Kaito notices that she seems more cheerful than usual and asks her if something happened. She wonders how he noticed, and he expresses that it was something obvious, but Akimom says that the Clan never said anything. It seems implied here that maybe they noticed but simply didn’t care. They don’t seem like the type who really cares about anyone’s emotional well-being. But Akimom is positively radiant, and says that it is because she got to have another meeting with a distant relative. This person has seemingly worked with Akimom for years to try and summon a specific spirit (which I can only assume may be Momo), but Kaito probably doesn’t understand the connection between her meeting this person and her more cheerful behavior.
But being as observant as he is, he notices another magical presence despite it being hidden under several layers of concealment. Akimom blushes quite a bit at this and decides to show him her ring, seeing as she can’t hide it from him. She holds the ringed finger to her face very affectionately and says that someone has sworn to protect her with the ring (which gives me total Syaoran vibes, I have to say). Kaito comments that whoever gave her this ring must have been very powerful. Akimom confirms this and says they are the second strongest magic user in the Clan after her (which based on what the Clan said in chapter 31 about Akiho’s parents being the strongest in the clan, it seems that this person is Akiho’s father), and Kaito asks her if she has fallen in love with their power. He seems incapable of understanding the concept of love and how power could not be the thing that attracted them to each other. It’s understandable how he would think this as the Clan probably specifically pairs people based on power, but power has been known in the CCS world to create some forms of attraction (like Syaoran’s initial attraction to Yukito for example). Kaito mentioned in Chapter 41 how he still did not understand what Akimom meant when she spoke of love, so it makes me wonder if this is part of the reason Kaito seems so interested in Syaoran? Maybe he thinks the two of them are together due to attraction from their powers but is trying to understand how it differs from just magical attraction.
Akimom denies that she is attracted to this person because of their power and that she doesn’t fall for someone just for that reason. Yes, they are powerful, but she loves for different reasons entirely. She loves them because they are the person just for her, and she decided this when she met them. This was a decision she made on her own and not because of what her dreams told her.
Now, here is where Cinzia and I yell obscenities at Kodansha for their dreadful English translations. Go check out @meimi-haneoka’s post on this chapter, but every month she does incredible work dissecting the translation errors and making sense of them. This page in particular has caused quite a bit of commotion and confusion due to the words on the page and who is on the page. I’ll start off by saying now that no, Momo is not Akimom’s lover.
The English translation on this page says “my beloved will do what I ask, even if they’re a bit hard headed. They’re very kind”. But this is notwhat the Japanese version says. Cinzia has properly translated this part, which appears to be ‘I will make a request. To a creature that is quite stubborn, but very kind’.
Completely different, right?
So I say WHAT THE FUCK KODANSHA? This is just as bad, if not worse, than the ‘Mana’ incident last year (exactly one year ago it seems), and the one in Chapter 41 where it appeared that Kaito was accusing Syaoran of using Sakura’s cards for selfish reasons. It’s a freaking travesty, and I’m sure they have very little time to translate these before publication, but like…really? If Cinzia can determine what is actually being said without being a professional translator and in less than a day, then why the hell can’t Kodansha’s translator get one freaking month without errors?! Ugh! Okay, venting over. Lmao.
So this page is not some great reveal of Momo being her lover but rather stating that she knows a little of what the future holds, but that she will ask a request of this creature as well, which happens to be Momo, so this point she had effectively moved on from talking specifically about the one she loves and was speaking more vaguely about the future in general. I imagine this request is when she gave Momo the ring and asked her to protect ‘her Alice, and the other Alice as well’. I think Akimom might have been aware already at this point that she would become pregnant with Akiho and would need to protect her as much as she can. She might have even known at this point that she would not be around soon.
Kaito states he knows nothing of dreamers, but Akimom expresses that him not having those powers of foresight is a goodthing. He asks why, and she tells him that if he were good at everything, then life would be boring! I agree with this sentiment, but I think she also knows that with that knowledge comes pain, and she doesn’t want that for him. He seems somewhat distressed at not knowing the future, but Akimom tenderly tells him that even if she can’t help him find something he likes, that he will find that thing out there in the world, and it will be something his alone. This seems to further make me believe she knew at this point she wouldn’t be around, because of the words ‘..I will probably not be able to look for what you like together with you’ (from the original Japanese version). Why would she say this unless she knew she wouldn’t be there for him to find said thing? But she believes in her heart that he will find it, and she says that something will be waiting for him. I believe this ‘something’ is Akiho.
The scene comes back to the present, showing Kaito waking up on the couch after having passed out in the hallway. He asks Momo if she carried him there, and she hilariously responds in her tsundere way that he was in her way. Hahahaha. What a legend. He describes Momo the same way that Akimom did by calling Momo ‘hard-headed but kind’, and Momo seems to know immediately that he had dreamt of ‘Lillie’.
THAT’S RIGHT, WE FINALLY HAVE A NAME FOR AKIMOM, AND IT’S BEAUTIFUL!!!
Fittingly, when Momo says her name, there are lilies in the background. Kaito seems to change the subject and mentions how he was surprised to see the book that even Clow Reed couldn’t control in Akiho’s hand with Momo as well. He was also surprised to see the form Momo had taken. I can understand this surprise considering Akiho is known to have no magic power at all, so she seems the least likely of people for the book to end up with. Momo explains that had she been in another form, even the Clan would have recognized her, so it seems her adorable rabbit form was necessary for hiding not just from non magic wielding humans but also those who do wield magic. Kaito seems to think that Momo’s appearance was fortuitous and timely for his goals in the forbidden magic, and he wonders if Lillie foresaw this as well. Chances are she very much did, but I’m sure Kaito thinks about this often in these ‘hitsuzen’ moments.
Momo asks if he really isn’t going to change his mind before she tells him that things are progressing with the story of the Twin Alices, Sakura and Akiho. But she warns him that this story won’t go according to his wish alone but rather the wills of all involved . And once it has begun, there will be no going back. Cinzia noted in her own analysis that the specific way Momo says this is exactly the same as the mysterious voice that told Sakura and Akiho “You can never go back”. So it seems possible that this mysterious voice could be Momo, however I am a bit skeptical.
I think by saying this, Momo is telling us this is Kaito’s last chance to back out, which means very very soon things will escalate.
Anyways, I think the next chapter will very likely start with the play or at least be some sort of dramatic rehearsal. I think ‘that time’ is approaching very quickly now, and I cannot contain my hype. Next month is Sakura’s birthday, so I’m praying we get something real special!
OH MY I LOVE THIS DUO SOOOOOO MUCH!!!!!!!! HERE IS WHY!!!!!
They have such a good dynamic. It’s a mix of “opposites attract” and just them working well together.
1. Opposites attract. I mean yeah Vi and Caitlyn are superficially different (oil and water ). Vi is from a poor background in Zaun, and Caitlyn comes from one of the richest homes in Piltover. Vi is sloppy, Caitlyn is very proper. This just makes them so fun to look at!!! But it also doesn’t mean that they are fundamentally different.
2. They are fundamentally the same. They both do things for the people that they care about. Vi obviously is doing a lot for Jinx, and Cait is doing a lot for Vi. Trading her gun, saving Vi from Sevika, etc. I mean Caits gun is really important to her but she traded it so that she could save Vi AND LEAVE HERSELF DEFENSELESS. They both are SO good at fighting, they both try to prove themselves, and they both want what’s best for Zaun and Piltover. ❤️❤️
3. They work well together. Vi is up close confrontation while Cait can handle the far away confrontation. Vi can represent the undercity and Cait, Piltover. They both have strengths that can be utilized in almost ever setting. There can not be a better couple to balance Piltover.
4. They keep coming back to each other!!!!!!!! “We are oil and water. Not meant to be.” Said Vi. AHEM?!?!?!? SO MEANT TO BE. Vi walks away and Cait can’t stop thinking of her (shower scene). And Vi CLEARLY can’t between her sister Jinx (who she has dedicated her whole life to protecting) and Caitlyn (someone she just got introduced to) hmmmmmm. You can’t tell me they weren’t meant to be!!! Though they had a little break up thing, they came back together in the last episode. LOOK
They came back together!! And in the trailer for season 2 they were together.!!!!
hes 19, with unlimited power, and he ain’t got a gf. the only time we see him interact with any women his own age is when he’s rejecting like 7 of them rapid fire. he pretends to date pacha in a gag that lasts like 10 solid minutes. listen to me god damnit
Okay, but just in case anyone is coming to tumblr dot com for my hot takes on 20+ year old kids’ movies: Kuzco super WAS gay (or at least coded as such) and of course, I didn’t get it until I watched it as a gay grownup.
He is played obviously camp and dramatic, for a start, and there is the aforementioned “hate your hair/not likely/yikes yikes yikes/let me guess you have a great personality” summary dismissal of all his potential brides. Then he spends dinner asking Yzma about Kronk (“so he seems nice? He’s what, in his late twenties?”) and otherwise being slightly obsessed with him.
Then there is the whole Adventure of Doom with Pacha, him being ever huffy about the Kiss of Life, and then the restaurant gag where Kuzco takes to playing Pacha’s fake wife and dressing up in ladies’ clothing with great gusto (reinforced by the waitress’ “bless you for coming out in public” remark when Pacha says they’re on their honeymoon). Then when he is finally de-llamafied, we don’t see him paired off with the obligatory girl from the lineup earlier, as might otherwise be expected in a Disney movie. Instead he is still single, but goes to found family it up with Pacha, Chica, Kronk, etc, which dare we remark is a very queer trope.
In short, I have no idea how a Disney movie with no white people (all the characters are Indigenous/people of color), a gay king, cross-dressing jokes, and the most offbeat plot of all time actually ever got made (can you imagine the Family Friendly Mouse doing that today? Let us also talk about Kronk because he is a brilliant deconstruction of both toxic masculinity and the musclebound henchman stereotype.) Other than that this was the Chaos Hour of animated movies in the late 90s/early 2000s, and yes.
So yes. There you have it. I will not be taking criticism at this time.
In response to the question “How did a movie like this get made at all much less by fucking Disney?” there was a recent Vulture article that outlines the whole shit show of a history behind this film according to everyone (writers, directors, VAs, Stings) involved. The gist of the story is that they fucked up making a whole, true-to-form Disney musical that never came to see the light of day SO BADLY that Disney switched directors, locked the writer’s room, and didn’t review a single script until weeks after the film was in theaters.
Please, read this article if you have some time. This story is wild, and involves directors being pitted against each other Bake-Off style and a shockingly intimate documentary created by the wife of Sting who, himself was heartbroken by the decimation of the songs he wrote for the film including cutting a fantastic Yzma villain song sung by Eartha Kitt that is SO DAMN GOOD but would not ever have fit the more nailed-down Yzma we would eventually come to know and love. It’s so catchy though, I’m doubling up on calls to action but please listen now:
holy shit read the article. it’s worth it and completely batshit
I’m so glad that this happened. It’s a phenomenal film.
* I want you all to know I had the Square Enix Youtube page loaded up and I went to that first thing in the morning, and then physically blocked the screen with my hands and slowly uncovered it one calculated sliver at a time until I saw a runtime on a video that seemed right and looked to see it was indeed ’Kingdom Hearts 20th Anniversary Announcement Trailer’ without seeing any potential individual trailers, so I got to go into this totally cold. Even up until the last second I didn’t know if it was gonna pull a fast one and technically be some kind of interquel.
* Damn this is crisp, especially since it’s running on Unreal Engine 4 when the finished product will be 5.
* “Your options are endless” suggests this could go well beyond Quadratum, but I hope they commit (at least on Sora’s end) to this being a full-fledged open world game.
* That does indeed look like a Star Wars AT-AT foot! That’d make that gorgeous landscape Endor, and I do like to think of Sora escaping Quadratum, thinking “oh thank god it’s funny animals and generic bad guys, the world makes sense again”, and then a dad is trying to murder his son with a sword while a spooky old freak cackles in the background and Sora just breaks down. With the franchise’s degree of influence on Nomura I’d be fascinated to see how this plays out, and also being extremely real Kingdom Hearts>Star Wars so I’d be happy to see the material elevated.
* I thought using The Caribbean’s style engine in the Yozora fight was a very deliberate choice, and following that up here by giving Sora a relatively realistic ‘do rather than his classic Goku hair is tripling down on that.
* I bet I would be extremely excited about Strelitzia if I had played the mobile games.
* Someone immediately doxxed Sora and apparently the flat he’s in is $1.2 million in the real world, our boy’s living in style. If he has a permanent living space in this game, might there be a day-night cycle ala Final Fantasy XV? Jesus, would rather than camping out like Noctis’ crew the lost boy in the city with no way home literally have to sleep under bridges or on benches if he can’t make it back to the apartment safe haven?
* THE REAL WORLD IS KINGDOM HEARTSHELL
* This thing seems to have as much in common with the Invisibles or to my eye even the Dark Inferno as much as the old Darksides.
* The little shot of the guy falling out of his car is the bit that truly brings it home for me as 'holy crap, this is basically the real world’; I had wondered why they put Big Hero 6 in the game before this when it’d potentially undercut the impact, but the contrast is a stark one.
* Getting a full look at it in motion, while it can’t beat the iconic power of II, this might be my favorite look for Sora after that - that was the peak of what it was doing, this is the next step in an entirely new direction that III only started on the road towards. Pour one out though, I now assume Sora injured his feet as a kid and slowly gained courage throughout his adventures to tone down the padding:
* I don’t read many Kingdom Hearts fanfic these days, but I’m still following @kitsoa’sIV[or]y Wall, and the beginning of the trailer so closely mirrored the opening of that that I legitimately wondered for a second if Sora wouldn’t be able to summon his Keyblade.
* I only recently started paying attention to Yoko Taro’s work - one of the mandatory multiple playthroughs of Nier Automata, and watching one of the Drakengard endings - but that’s enough to see he’s had influence on Nomura, especially with Quadratum. In that regard, the fight on the freeway and especially this Heartless seemingly draining most color from its surroundings (pay attention to the cars it’s hefting) definitely gave me Copied City vibes.
* Crushed that the move to a new saga isn’t met with the restoration of the Command Deck, but apparently the last COMMAND option below items is now 'Build’?
* A lot of Sora’s moves here are clearly previz fakery in the same way as the reveal trailer for III, but that this is even suggestive of what they have in mind is pretty stunning.
* I know it’s a drill which I understand has some Gureren Lagann vibes (another show I want to watch someday), but let it not be overlooked that before it forms Sora fully does a Kamehameha.
* Even just that pan up the building emphasizes how different the visual storytelling is here than anything we’ve seen in Kingdom Heartsbefore.
* New logo slick, and the triumphant horns accompanying it? Magnifique.
* Glad to see the boys and glad to hear the sound effect to emphasize that there’s at least a slice of this that still plays by the old rules; their destination makes sense but boy, they really gonna bring James Woods back again?
* If Kairi is not journeying with Donald and Goofy I will be incensed.
* There have been different translations/interpretations regarding a key comment: one that Nomura chose between making Kingdom Hearts IV or a Verum Rex game first and chose IV because folks were worried about Sora, the other which I find more plausible is that the debate was which of those two to name this game and he chose IV out of concern that players wouldn’t associate it as a mainline Sora game otherwise (and presumably because Disney wouldn’t be having any of that) - I’ve seen other comments supposedly from him elaborating on both, one saying he didn’t want to develop two games at once, the other that they still call this Verum Rex around the office, but barring a crash course in Japanese I’m pretty sure which take I believe for now. In any case, that they considered naming this after their Final Fantasy self-parody if not in fact literally making that is beautiful to me.
* I assume I will be in my 30s by the time this comes out but that it won’t be a 6 year wait like last time.
* I was worried that the success of III would lead to Disney clamping down on Nomura, but instead they seem to have really decided to let the mad freak to whatever he wants, and I couldn’t be happier.
*releases pack of dads into home depot* go……be free
invasive species encroach on lesbian territory
This is a common misconception because they’re such similar environments, but you should be aware that dads are native to Home Depot, while lesbians are actually native to Lowe’s. At this point, however, both dads and lesbians have made themselves at home in both Home Depot and Lowe’s to the point that trying to separate them back into their original ranges would probably do more harm than good to the delicate ecosystem of large chain hardware stores.
A properly raised and socialized Dad will be perfectly comfortable cohabiting with Lesbians. Its not really “encroaching on another’s territory”. You wouldn’t say that about foxes in a forest that also homes bobcats, would you? No. It’s just two different species that have both evolved to live in similar/the same environment. As long as they recognize each other as equals, Dads and Lesbians are more than capable of cohabitation.
Now, if you were to release a pack of Lumberjacks into a Lowes or Home Depot, that’s where chaos will reign. Being adapted to a far harsher and more demanding environment, the Lumberjacks would simply push Dads and Lesbians both out and also consume far more than a sustainable amount of resources. It would be like releasing bears at a country club.
As a former timber-harvester… I feel this is potentially accurate in theory. But highly improbable in actuality.
Lumberjacks, like most megafauna species generally require more space than the average hardware store, even a big box store could provide. The misconception is that Lumberjacks are a social species because of how they often work and live together.
This is a matter of necessity, not preference, and a survival technique for thriving under the LogBoss.
A “pack” of Lumberjacks, if not under the environmental pressure of a LogBoss will naturally disperse until they each have a wide territory.
Lumberjacks rarely fight for territory.
One on one, a Lumberjack could drive out a Dad or Lesbian, however the latter tend to travel in social packs.
Lumberjacks will passively retreat on the presence of large numbers of people. Kind of like Sasquatch.
Getting a “pack” of Lumberjacks assembled would be hard enough unless they were forced into a Hardware Store by a LogBoss. In that case, they would already be in a heightened and potentially agitated state far above their natural behavior. This artificial scenario can be likened to a circus animal running amok. If it had been in the wild, the incident would not have occurred.
Free-roaming Lumberjacks are the cryptids of the Hardware ecosystem. They are surprisingly quiet and unobtrusive.
Please stop labeling Lumberjacks as dangerous roving social predators. They are intermediate level omnivores and remarkably peaceful unless threatened.
As a hardware store worker I can say that this is all 100% accurate.
now how in the FUCK am i supposed to leave tumblr when a god tier post like THIS is just is just waiting for me daily?!?!?!
question where does the “art student” or “DIYer” “crafter” or “soap maker” or “miniaturist“ etc. who has ventured into the store for supplies fall into the ecosystem/what is their impact of said ecosystem?
Most of the above are native to craft and hobby stores (art students, historically, are native to museums, but having been introduced to hobby stores, have found a niche for themselves and thrived), but all can be seen in hardware stores on occasion due to territorial overlap. They are generally low-impact, as they tend to stick to specific small areas and primarily utilize different resources. While a large group of any of them can be disruptive (art students, in particular, are known to travel in packs), in general, they are more likely to have territorial disputes with one another than with the local fauna.
A point of clarity -“crafter” is a bit misleading; while it conjures a specific image, much like ‘fish’ or ‘reptile’ it actually covers a broad array of wildly disparate species, and in general, more descriptive nomenclature is preferred. Fiber artists in particular are a genus to watch out for, particularly in groups. Beware a roving pack of domesticated quilters. They fear nothing, will go anywhere, and due to their social nature, will often seek interaction from other species that thrive best in solitude. They are quite friendly, and will happily adopt members of other species; the concern is that their adoptees do not always wish to be adopted.
I think one of the most important parts about film and tv analysis is never forgetting that no matter the genre or setting, the story is probably being filtered through the perspective of a person who lives in California
Like if you’re watching a tv show and you’re starting to feel alienated by some of the motivations and worldviews the characters all seem to share, consider that you aren’t the weirdo, they are, because they’re being written by people who are at any given moment no more than five minutes removed from a kale smoothie
What we learned in the Rick and Morty season finale:
The “Central Finite Curve” is the collective name for every universe where Rick is the smartest being, a walled-off branch of the multiverse where Ricks reign supreme.
Evil Morty wasn’t C-137′s ‘original Morty’ or anything similarly poignant, just an above-average Morty who got sick of Rick’s shit and any Morty could have become like him given enough time. His goal was to escape the central finite curve by moving to a universe outside of it, and this was easier said than done because he had to puncture a hole through the aforementioned wall in spacetime. He did this by turning the citadel itself into a giant portal gun powered by pureed Ricks and Morties.
Morties are cloned in the Citadel after Ricks engineer Beths and Jerries getting together to create a fresh batch of Morty DNA. This means there aren’t as many Beths and Jerries and Summers compared to Ricks and Morties in the finite curve as we initially assumed: it’s actually uncommon for there to be a full Smith family unit in any given universe, which is something I had extrapolated from the reveal in Rickternal Friendshine. We already knew Ricks treated Morties as expendable and that the Citadel interfered with universes within the curve, but now we’ve really seen the level of control they exert. I had assumed the name of the racket was creating “real estate” universes for Ricks to move into to cope with losing Beth, but it turns out most Ricks don’t even have that level of pathos to them. It’s always been about propagating Morties for use as disposable sidekicks, and Rick C-137 lives in what is essentially a disused breeding farm.
Rick C-137′s backstory was established. The Rickshank Redemption’s flashback was completely real, just embellishing how long it actually took to create portal tech. He then spent decades chasing down and killing Ricks, searching for the one who killed Beth and Diane. Along the way he ran afoul of The Federation, did everything seen in Rickternal Friendshine, became a jaded alcoholic in his despair of never managing to avenge his family, killed even more Ricks who were retaliating against his rampage, and helped design the Citadel when the Ricks who would become the Council begged him. He abandoned the Citadel rather than joining it, crashed his ship into the garage of a Smith family, and that’s where the series started.
As a direct consequence of Rick C-137′s Beth dying as a small child: not only is our Morty not Morty C-137, there is no Morty C-137.
All things considered, the most shocking twist is that after 5 seasons of seeing Rick C-137 as a heartless miserable bastard, he’s actually the most loving and heroic version of himself.
2020 continues to suck so bad and so I am canceling all discourse. No more. I’m done. From now on we talk only about how Veggietales’ classic Silly Song “Oh, Where is my Hairbrush?” is the greatest operetta of our time. It has everything: intrigue, distress, hope, identity crisis, betrayal, charity, friendship, grief, loss, acceptance. Renewed lease on life.
Intrigue: We start act 1 with the titular question: where isLarry’s hairbrush? Why is it not in the bathroom where Larry believes he ostensibly left it? Who might have taken it? Why? Where might Larry have left it without remembering? Larry’s distress is palpable in this timeless anthem of wonder and sorrow, quoted by myself and countless others every time we ourselves have been unable to locate our own hairbrushes.
Act 1 concludes with hope as Pa Grape enters and informs Larry that he “thought [he] saw a hairbrush back there!” This news elates Larry, and begins the theme of pure, enduring friendship we see throughout the operetta. Fresh from his bath or shower, Larry is in a towel. But his cries attract the attention of his friends, who rush to his aid, and though there is awkwardness abounding as they encounter Larry in a towel, his friends push through this embarrassment in order to give Larry their messages, as they want to help their friend no matter how awkward the situation. The news that his hairbrush may soon be located fills Larry with joy.
But his joy is short lived. Act two begins with the arrival of Junior Asparagus, who attempts to help in his own way, by asking the question that the entire audience has been thinking, but has not yet had reason to voice, captivated as they are by the emotion of Larry’s predicament: what does Larry, a bald cucumber, even need a hairbrush for anyway? Larry is shaken! Taken aback! Identity crisis ensues as Larry bemoans his lack of hair, and therefore his lack of need of a hairbrush, and wonders what this will mean for him and his hairbrush. His search for his hairbrush has been given new dimension. He has never before asked himself this question. Never before wondered how this might affect his beloved hairbrush! (And we could go deeper here as well. Why does Larry own a hairbrush? Was it a gift from someone he loves? Perhaps his Great-Aunt Ruth, who has a beard, gifted it to him in case Larry too one day grew a beard. Or maybe Larry once had hair for his hairbrush? Is Larry a compulsive shopper or even a hoarder who purchased this hairbrush on a whim, unable to resist a sale, even though it was for an item he had no need of?)
Act 3. A guilt-ridden Bob the tomato enters and makes his startling admission: he has given Larry’s hairbrush to the Peach, who has hair. After all, Larry doesn’t need his hairbrush. In fact, he does not use it! (Why then, has he been searching for it? He is emotionally attached to it. It is old, he has had it for awhile, according to Bob. We could use these clues to ascertain why exactly Larry has the hairbrush to begin with, or what he was intending to do with it once he found it, but the truth is that it doesn’t really matter. It goes beyond suspension of disbelief. Veggietales has masterfully crafted a tale where the audience is too swept up in the emotion of the protagonist and his love for his missing hairbrush to care about the base inconsistency of a bald character owning a hairbrush!)
Bob and Larry are the best of friends. Despite their banter and bickering on occasion, they are clearly the very best of friends. And yet Bob has betrayed his friend’s trust by giving away his hairbrush! The play reaches its darkest moment. Though Bob has apologized, Larry is not yet ready to forgive. “Not fair! Oh my hairbrush!” Larry laments, anger in his eyes and voice. His hairbrush is not just missing, it has been taken! Given away! And why? Because the peach has hair, and he doesn’t? Not fair! Larry speeds past denial, as Bob would never lie about something like this. He has no time for bargaining, he dwells on anger and skips to depression. His hairbrush is gone, and he is left with only anger at his friend and sadness at the loss of his hairbrush.
Act 4 commences with Larry in the midst of his grief, which is interrupted by the arrival of none other than the Peach himself! As they are both in towels, the status quo of the scene is shaken up. For the first time an intruder has made Larry feel shocked and slightly embarrassed, throwing him out of his angst, and presenting an emotional palate-cleanser to the scene. This restart is essential, as it pulls Larry out of his sorrow and anger and allows him to feel the emotions elicited by the Peach’s words: “Thanks for the hairbrush.”
Everything changes. It was one thing for Bob to explain that he gave the hairbrush to someone who needed it and would use it more than Larry; it is another for Larry to meet face to face with the recipient of his hairbrush; to see for himself the truly epic head of hair the Peach possesses. This is a head of hair truly worthy of his hairbrush! Furthermore, though it was Bob who gave the Peach the hairbrush, he had made it clear who the hairbrush came from, and Larry is clearly touched by the Peach’s gratitude. He silently forgives Bob. He reaches acceptance. He acknowledges the charity of the situation. He still loves his hairbrush, but he has accepted that it has gone on to a better life with one who needs it. But because he still loves it, he finishes the show by calling out to the retreating Peach, imploring him to take care of the hairbrush. He circles back through the emotional journey he has been on in his final verse, showing succinctly where he has been and where he has arrived. “Take care” The hairbrush is valued, please take care of it. Just because he is letting it go does not mean he does not still care about its wellbeing. “Nice hair” at heart Larry is still a good person and he will of course compliment the Peach’s hair. There is no bitterness against the Peach here; Larry has let go of his anger and found peace with the situation. “No fair” echoing his earlier angry “no fair”s about Bob giving away his hairbrush, now Larry says the phrase to himself, following his compliment of the Peach’s hair, acknowledging that he does not have nice hair like the Peach, and therefore has no need of a hairbrush, and that’s kind of no fair, but also not that big a deal, as long as, of course, the Peach “Take[s] caaaaaaaaaaare! Of my hairbrush!”
The Larry who turns to bow is a happy one. He has survived his tribulation, solved the mystery of the missing hairbrush, and found peace with his own self, his emotional attachment to things, and his relationships with other people in his life. He is a happy cucumber ready for the new day.
A theatrical masterpiece, all taking place beginning to end in 3 minutes, 6 seconds, counting introduction and outro.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
*throws my reblog at you* HERE! You’ve deserved it after all the effort you’ve through creating this masterful post!
One thing I noticed in the 1996 adaptation of Romeo + Juliet is how Lady Capulet is all spunky, slightly crazy and overdramatic, like she is everywhere you don’t even know where she is going. She might have been a party animal in her younger years, like some kind of a socialite that it is all about parties and having a great time, until marriage and a child happened.
But yet, after the party, you get to see her trapped, suffering in silence, as if she has no voice to speak up against her husband on rushing their daughter into marriage, in pain for the loss of her only nephew, possibly abused by her husband (hence that scene where he is forcing Juliet into marry Paris) he pushed her away or slapped her, and that part where she is leaning on the elevator’s door, she is literally scared, and unleashing the angry beast of her husband made her pushed away her daughter, as if she is done with it all.
Fellow fans: what are your thoughts on her character?
In all my sincere honesty, I may be a fan of Romeo and Juliet, but I’m not skilled enough to do a full-on analysis like I’ve seen here.
honestly tho that scene in the incredibles where mr. incredible sees the names of all the old super heroes that used to be his friends / that he knew from Back in the Day and how every one of them has been killed by syndrome is such a chilling scene for so many reasons
like for one, everyone he knew is dead at this point and has been killed on the same island he’s at now and two, its heartbreaking bc that means that almost every hero wanted to try out being a hero again despite the laws against it and wanted to try and help someone out and relive their glory days, only to be straight up murdered like fuck that scene is just so fuckin intense
I think the core of that scene for me is, when you’re insane like me and you go through it frame by frame, you can work out that Gazerbeam defeated the omnidroid twice - the only super we have enough information to confirm did so. I always wondered about his body in the cave, how and why he got the password… But it makes sense. This thing goes haywire, gets an upgrade, and goes haywire again? He must have been hella suspicious! So he does what any good superhero would do - tries to get to the bottom of what’s really happening on Nomanisan Island. During the process he’s clearly caught and wounded but has just enough time to get himself somewhere he can leave a final message, just praying that the next super to come along will find it and break the cycle. Gazerbeam is my hero.
Incredibles 2 has a lot to live up to
All of this and…
I’m just realizing that the name is No Man Is An Island???? As in, everyone needs someone to depend on and connect with, no one is ever completely alone or should act all on their own.
Also Gazerbeam probably has X-ray vision–so he not only survived long enough to defeat the Omnidroid, he had the ability to see Syndrome entering the password.
Holy guacamole! I should pay more attention, I don’t think I got any of that stuff!
does anyone think about the fact that now mr. incredibles has to live w/ the fact that all his friends getting killed by syndrome could have been avoided if he had just been nicer to syndrome from the beginning
^I was thinking that from the beginning reading this and was shocked it went through so many comments before anyone pointed that out.
Syndrome waited until his machine was almost ready to go before asking Bob to come to Nomanisan. He also was surprised to find out that he was married to “Elastigirl”, which means he likely built his list and went through everyone else before finally deciding it was time to kill Bob.
Also, Syndrome literally didn’t find Bob until the start of the movie. He found Frozone and was stalking him. If Lucius hadn’t hung out with Bob, then Frozone was going to be the next one lured. There’s literally a scene of Mirage realizing that the guy in the car with her target is Mr. Incredible. He wasn’t going through the list, he was stalking and finding every former Super he could, luring them to the island, and then killing them, for the sake of improving his robot. Finding Bob was just a happy accident, and Syndromes obsession with him meant that upon finding a bot that could beat Bob, he figured he’d hit perfection and was ready.
and like, let’s be real here in the intro Buddy was crossing the line the second he showed up, Mr. Incredible mentioned he’d been very nice to Buddy, via signing a ridiculous amount of autographs and doing pictures and stuff, and that he was not going to risk a childs life as a sidekick (albeit in less words). Buddy literally showed up by breaking into his car, and then stalked him all evening until he was arrested. That’s disturbingly obsessive behavior, there’s no amount of niceness that would stop Syndrome, it was an impossible situation. No amount of nice was going to appease Syndrome, the second he faced any sort of rejection from Mr. Incredible he was going to lose it and go supervillain. After his arrest he should have gotten put into therapy, but yknow, set in like. the 50′s. so it makes sense he fell through the cracks when the cracks were a goddamn canyon. Don’t victim blame Mr. Incredible.
reblogging for the last comment because blaming mr incredible for the deaths of his comrades is honestly such a weird take and i dislike how it’s framed as “fact” when it’s not. it’s syndrome’s fault and syndrome’s fault alone. full stop. he murdered them because he was selfish, entitled, and obsessed with mr incredible to a fanatical degree.
You know what’s really great
In the beginning when Mr. Incredible says, “Go home, Buddy. I work alone.” He’s holding up Bomb Voyage
In Syndrome’s flashback, he’s looking down on him, no bad guy in sight
Do with that info what you will
oh
damn
This is such good analysis, but it’s also worth mentioning the difference between these two scenes which, supposedly depict the same thing. In the first, Bob is clearly busy, trying to keep his eyes on Bomb Voyage (a fantastic supervillain name!!!), so he is distractedly telling Buddy that he is busy and that he doesn’t need help. The lighting is realistic, and although he is CLEARLY fed up with dealing with this obsessive and toxic fan, he keeps an even tone and doesn’t snap at him.
In the flashback, it’s a different scenario completely!! The lighting is all focused on Bob as if he’s under a spotlight and it is only the two of them. Bob’s pose here is also ridiculously condescending. He has his hands on his hips like a superhero and is looking down at Buddy with contempt and scorn. In addition, when he turns to leave, he dismissively waves his hand as if saying “Get out of here.”
It’s also interesting to note Buddy’s position here. His arms are extended either in worship or as an expression of all he has to offer in this relationship. He sees himself as a victim because he thinks he gave all of himself to Mr Incredible, just got him to reject him.
It’s also amazing to me how much Buddy’s suit is a reflection of himself. Everything from the black and white color scheme representing his black and white way of thinking, to the huge S because here only thinks of himself.
Bob’s suit, however, is blue. In addition to being associated with a calming and rational thought process, I think it’s also to represent that he’s on the side of the police. He’s not here for his own glory, he’s essentially working as an extension of the police force
Also, let’s not forget when Bob is catching Bomb Voyage and trying to keep Buddy from yeeting himself towards almost certain death, he’s on his way to his own wedding.
That makes two things abundantly clear:
Bob doesn’t have an aversion to working with other people. Remember when he runs into Elastigirl earlier in the day? She reminds him not to “forget”, and he promises he won’t. They were standing over a thief they ended up accidentally nabbing together, or so we thought. They bantered back and forth about working alone, yet they nabbed that thief so seamlessly, you’d think they’d done it before. Then you find out later, Elastigirl is the woman at the altar. Making it clear that they had to have worked together, very frequently, enough to end up trusting each other to the point that they revealed their secret identities and had a romantic relationship outside of Super work, culminating in literally marrying each other. Bob is more than fine with a partner because he marriedhis.
The other is that, Bob is trying to protect Helen. She may be more than capable of handling herself, as she flirtatiously reminds Bob on the rooftop just hours before their nuptials. But the one thing that’s priceless to the Supers are their secret identities. With Syndrome following Bob begging to partner with him, it puts Helen in danger. A fanatical fan like that can end up possessive, meaning once Syndrome discovers her, could see her as a direct threat stealing “his” position working with Bob. And because he obviously has a knack for following people undetected (he was right on Bob’s heels all over a huge metropolitan city for literal hours), he could very well stalk Helen, discover her secret identity and expose her in order to eliminate her, putting her directly in danger. Bob isn’t an idiot, he knows working with this kid doesn’t just put this child in danger, but also his own wife and their identities. It’s better to say he works alone and let this kid down as gently as possible, hoping to finally shake him off for good so he can work in safety and peace.
Which leads me to my next point. Blaming Bob for all his friends getting killed is buying directly into Syndrome’s revisionist history of Bob “rejecting” him. Remember, if Syndrome hadn’t shown up to Mr. Incredible busting Bomb Voyage, none of the ensuing chaos with the bomb on the rocket boots getting dropped on the train tracks and blowing them up, causing Bob to lose Bomb Voyage, then forced to stop a speeding train, resulting in the passengers getting injured, the attempted suicide being thwarted which injured the guy, and everybody suing Bob for it, ultimately culminating in the Super’s fall from public grace and forced retirement. All of those consequences are because Syndrome refused to listen to Bob and meddled in dangerous affairs, making everything indescribably worse. If he had never showed up, none of the above would have happened and Supers would have never been forced into retirement, meaning none of Bob’s friends would have been lured from said retirement by Mirage and Syndrome’s private contract offers which resulted in their deaths.
this post got SO much longer AND better
Not sure if this matters by now but
This post inspired me to rewatch the Incredibles
First off, I love posts like this.
Second, I also love this because the Hero Syndrome thing perfectly ties into Syndrome/Buddy’s whole plot in the movie.
Cuz think: why would he want to kill off all the other supers in the first place? I mean, Buddy definitely hates Bob, sure, but what about the others? What was stopping Buddy from just using his technical knowhow to become his own superhero like Batman or Tony Stark? Honestly, the only difference between him and the Supers is that they had their powers naturally, whereas he created his.
But that’s just it: the supers were born super. And Buddy wasn’t. And he didn’t like that. So he crafted a plan to destroy the Super Hero. Not just a superhero - the superhero. The concept of a “super” hero itself. He killed off supers to test his robot, yes, but also to remove competition for his spotlight. And once he gets too old, he’d retire and mass-produce his gadgets to the public, making them forever outshine and outpace any naturally-born supers.
Cuz like the man said: once everyone’s super… nobody is.
One thing about fandom culture is that it sort of trains you to interact with and analyze media in a very specific way. Not a BAD way, just a SPECIFIC way.
And the kind of media that attracts fandoms lends itself well (normally) to those kinds of analysis. Mainly, you’re supposed to LIKE and AGREE with the main characters. Themes are built around agreeing with the protagonists and condemning the antagonists, and taking the protagonists at their word.
Which is fine if you’re looking at, like, 99% of popular anime and YA fiction and Marvel movies.
But it can completely fall apart with certain kinds of media. If someone who has only ever analyzed media this way is all of a sudden handed Lolita or 1984 or Gatsby, which deal in shitty unreliable narrators; or even books like Beloved or Catcher in the Rye (VERY different books) that have narrators dealing with and reacting to challenging situations- well… that’s how you get some hilariously bad literary analysis.
I dont know what my point here is, really, except…like…I find it very funny when people are like “ugh. I hate Gatsby and Catcher because all the characters are shitty” which like….isnt….the point. Lololol you arent supposed to kin Gatsby.
I would definitely argue that it’s specifically a bad way….a very bad way.
Depending on the piece of media, it could be the intended way to interpret it and thus very effective. When I watch Sailor Moon, I know at the end of the day that Usagi is a hero. She is right, and her choices are good. She and the Sailor Scouts may make mistakes, and those mistakes can have consequences, but by presuming the goodness of the protagonists, I can accurately describe what actions and values the story is presenting as good. (Fighting evil by moonlight. Winning love by daylight. Never running from a real fight. Etc etc)
If I sit around and hem and haw about whether or not Usagi is actually the villain because she is destined to reinstate a magical absolute monarchy on Earth in the future, then I’m not interpreting it correctly. I can write a cool fanfic about it, but it wont be a successful analysis of the original work.
But like I said, that doesnt work for all pieces of media, and being able to assess how a piece of media should be analyzed is a skill in itself.
I was an English major. One of our required classes was Theory & Criticism, and I ended up hating it specifically because of the teacher and the way she taught it, but the actual T&C part of it was interesting. And one of the things we learned about was all the different ways of reading/interpreting/criticizing media - not just books, ANY form of media.
Specifically, I remember when we read The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James. We had special editions of the book where the first half of it was the novel itself, and the last half was like five or six different critical analyses of the book from different schools of theory. The two I remember specifically were a Marxist interpretation and a feminist interpretation. I remember reading both of those and thinking “wow, these people are really reaching for some of this”, but the more I read into the analysis and the history of those schools of thought, the more I got it. So for my final paper for that class, I wrote an essay that basically had the thesis of “when the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail”. If you have trained yourself to view every piece of media through a single specific critical lens - well, you’re going to be only viewing it through that lens, and that means you’re going to read or watch it in such a way that you’re looking for the themes you’ve trained yourself to look for.
My teacher didn’t like that, by the way; she’d wanted each of us to pick one of these schools of thought we’d been learning about and make it “our” school of thought. She wanted us to grab the a hammer, or a screwdriver, or a spanner, and carry that with us for the rest of our lives. She somehow didn’t expect me to pack a toolbox.
My point is: Like OP said, sometimes the tool you need is a hammer. Sometimes you need a screwdriver. Sometimes you can make a hammer work where what you need is a screwdriver, but you’re going to end up stripping the screw; sometimes you can use a screwdriver in place of a hammer, but it’s going to take a lot more effort and brute force and you risk breaking the screwdriver. Sometimes you need a wrench and trying to use a hammer or screwdriver is going to make you declare that the bolt is problematic and should never be used by anyone. Sometimes what you really need is a hand saw, and trying to use any of the others…well, you can, but it’s going to make a mess and you might not be able to salvage the pieces left over.
These skills aren’t being taught in school anymore and you can see it in the way high school aged kids act about media and stuff.
They wouldn’t survive something like Lolita because I swear they’re being taught to turn their brains OFF and be spoon fed all their thoughts by someone else.
It’s really creepy.
I promise these skills are taught in school. I’m an English teacher. In a school. Who teaches them.
Now, Lolita is generally reserved for college classes. But a lot of the rationale behind continuing to teach the “classics” in high school (beyond the belief that a shared literary foundation promotes a better understanding of allusions and references) is that a lot of the classics are built on these kinds of complex readings and unreliable narrators and using historical and cultural context helps in their analysis. (I do think that we should be incorporating more diverse and modern lit into these classes, please understand)
Do all schools or individual teachers do this *well*? No, of course not. Do all students always really apply themselves to the development of deep critical thinking skills when their teacher pulls out A Tale of Two Cities? Also no.
But this isnt a “public school is failing / evil ” problem. Being able to engage in multiple forms and styles of analysis is a really high level skill, and my post was just about how a very common one doesnt always work well with different kinds of stories.
OP, why do you describe analyzing Sailor Moon in a different way than (you assume) the author intended as “hemming and hawing?” I would argue there’s a lot of value in approaching texts at a different angle.
Because ignoring context, tone, and intent when analyzing media is going to lead to conclusions are aren’t consistently supported by the text you are looking at.
“Usagi is a villain because she’s a queen and I think absolute monarchy is bad” ignores the way that Usagi, the moon kingdom, and basically all aspects of the lore are actually framed within the story. None of the characters’ actions or motivations make consistent sense if we start from the assumptions that “Usagi = monarchist=evil” and it would cause you to over look all the themes and interpretations that DO make consistent sense.
At some point you have to take a work at face value and see what it is trying to say.
Is the breakdown of monarchy actually relevant to the themes and messages presented in Sailor Moon? No, not really.
So focusing on the Moon Kingdom monarchy and the ethics there of is sort of… besides the point. The Moon Kingdom is a fairy tale, not a reflection of reality.
I’m not actually interested in the tax policy of the Moon Kingdom, you know?
Now, is it *cool* to look at works in various ways? Sure! Are some people interested in the tax policy of the Moon Kingdom and want to explore what that would look like? Sure! And honestly if you want to explore the ramifications of idyllic fairy tale monarchies on the real world, then that’s really cool too!
But if you are looking at a work to understand what it is trying to say with the text itself, then you need to take some of its premises at face value. Usagi and the Sailor Scouts being the Good Guys is one of those premises.
And really the “Usagi is secretly a princess from the moon” is just a part of the escapist fantasy for most little kids watching more than it has anything to do with actual themes of monarchy.
There is a lot of value in being able to look at a text from various angles. And it’s perfectly okay to use a text and concept as a jumping off point for other explorations.
But the problem comes when people say that Usagi was definitively a villain in Sailor Moon, or that say Steven Universe with themes of family and conflict resolution is excusing genocide by not destroying the Diamonds. It misses the point of the fantasy. It misses the important themes, the lessons and point of the show to look at it like that.
Basically: reinterpretations are cool, but you gotta know how to take a work on its own premises too.
Exactly. Like, magical princess that shows how monarchies (or the idea of princesses in general) is broken or toxic? Utena and Star vs The Forces of Evil are right there.
The idea of a cute talking cat granting girls magical powers to turn them into warriors against evil and getting them killed being evil? Not a good take on Luna, but Kyuubei in Madoka? Exactly this. That’s like, the point of Kyuubei- to riff on the trope that Luna, and Kero, and Mokona represent.
Media can raise all sorts of interesting conversations and discussions and ideas. But there’s a very real difference between trying to awkwardly force those readings on a work where the tone and framing and context don’t support it and acting like the media is actually supporting those messages, and using those ideas to explore it in a different work or to analyze the trope across the genre more broadly.
Moral and pure does not a protagonist make, and fandom is rife with that exclusive interpretation of storytelling. OP makes really good points; this thread is one of the best analyses I’ve read about lit crit on this site lately.
Stories aren’t made in a vacuum– every trope/theme/character archetype comes from somewhere and (general) you do yourself a disservice by viewing everything as whether it’s morally uncorrupted or not.
Chara enjoying the no mercy route is a very large misconception within the fandom. There’s this idea that they want to kill everything, or at the very least like doing it. However in game evidence suggests the opposite.
Chara Gives Us Advice On Sparing Others
The idea that Chara is pushing for killing and death is simply false considering they actively help us spare monsters. For example they encourage us to find a way to spare Toriel after reseting because we previously failed to do so.
Chara also encourages us to not be creepy and say messed up things to Toriel after we’ve killed her previously.
Chara does actions of similar caliber with more monsters than Toriel though. For example Chara encourages us to not pick on Loox.
Chara does this basically through out the entire game too. They actively give us advice on how to spare everyone through out the whole game.
Chara Becomes Pessimistic When We Kill
On neutral routes if we kill monsters Chara becomes so upset that they’re pessimistic. This is seen in multiple ways. The first of which being the infamous dog food line. If we spare every monster we encounter the dialogue says this:
The difference is that if you kill even one monster the dialogue changes to this:
What’s important about this is the implications behind this, half full vs half empty is a phrase, specifically referring to optimism vs pessimism.
So what does this mean for Chara? it means they’re negatively affected by us killing monsters. This is seen in more direct ways as well. For example after killing Toriel Chara shows remorse for what we did.
Chara also becomes emotional when we kill Undyne on a neutral run.
The No Mercy Run
The no mercy run is a large pill to swallow with a lot to analyze, however it’s safe to say that Chara is in mental distress during this run. Regular, lively narration turns to basic and lackluster narration,
Normal save point descriptions just turn to “Determination”,
and Chara forces us through interactions.
Why are they doing this though? Because they want to get it all over with. They’ve been told it’s their purpose so they listen, but they dont enjoy doing so, and actively try and make it as quick as possible. They even snap out of it sometimes, like when they hesitate before killing their brother, Asriel.
Chara also comments on the fact that we have a perverted sentimentality,
and that they cannot understand those feelings.
They even feel obligated to suggest that we pick a different route.
TL;DR
In conclusion Chara does not enjoy killing because of their narration that tries to bring us down a pacifist path, they’re pessimism when it comes to the death of others, and their distaste with the no mercy route.
Our very Christian-influenced culture I think shapes much of our moral understandings around conflict with “bad” people. It focuses too much on “forgiveness,” while simultaneously emphasizing suffering as payment for wrongs. And so we look out into media that challenges us and try to apply those two concepts as if they are the only options.
Because of this, I think many people misunderstand that Steven Universe is not a story of redemption or reconciliation. It’s not revenge, so it must be one of those, right? But no, rather, it is a hopeful vision of a world where anyone, even the most harmful people, can grow and change for the better, not because it is emotionally satisfying in the short term (although it may be for some) or because it fulfills some moral obligation, but because it is the only way to progress forward.
The Diamonds don’t have a redemption arc because it’s not the Diamonds’ story, it’s Steven’s story, told exclusively from Steven’s point of view and about Steven’s needs. And what Steven needs is for those with power to stop hurting everyone so that everyone can heal.
Steven doesn’t need to see the Diamonds ritualistically suffer to “redeem” themselves because what they personally do or don’t do doesn’t matter, it’s not about them. This isn’t about forgiveness or sympathy. We never see Steven express a desire to have a close familial connection with the Diamonds; rather, he actively avoids it, interacting with them only as necessary. We never learn the Gem’s origins or what led them to become a planet-conquering Empire or any lessons they learned from it; it may be tragic, it may not, but it doesn’t change how to move forward.
Rose and Pearl tried to move forward through armed rebellion, and it technically worked - Homeworld stopped oppressing them and left them alone. But the cost was trauma to everyone: themselves, their friends, the Earth itself, Homeworld and its Gems, the Diamonds, the generations that came after: Steven, his human friends and family, younger Gems like Peridot and Amethyst. It was the best they could do with what they had.
But Steven and his world needed not retribution or reconciliation, but healing. He learned to recognize and utilize that trauma to connect with the Diamonds, not to forgive them or be merciful or guilt them or make them atone, or any other predominantly Christian moral concept, but to get them to simply understand and grow, to use that understanding to get them to stop the harm and destruction they’re causing.
I don’t need you to respect me, I respect me I don’t need you to love me, I love me But I want you to know you can know me If you change your mind
This short song was such a powerful, underrated expression of Steven’s intent and the shows themes and vision: a depiction of the difficult, painful, but necessary journey of compassion in the face of trauma, relentless fighting for understanding, and deep human connection as the only means for changing everything.
It is truly a one-of-a-kind piece of children’s media, and it should challenge us to think about our values and how we conceive of what the world could be.
ok so after having read a few fics in the silmarillion fandom for the first time in literally years…. I remember now why I could only very rarely find fic I liked. it’s the language.
there’s always the danger when you’re writing fic for something where the author has such a distinctive voice: you can either try to emulate it - and potentially fail - or not bother, and potentially sound odd and anachronistic. I get it! it’s hard!
but. guys.
I mean this gently. but so much fic attempting to copy some hint of tolkien’s style fails so very miserably. so. so badly. you can use your own voice - that’s absolutely fine, and often indeed the wiser choice - but if you do choose to try and sound like tolkien….here is a post tailor made for you.
first of all, let’s look at the difference. why does this -
But Annatar paid heed most of all to their lord.
sound more tolkien-y than this -
To their lord the most ardent of his attentions were given.
?
(the second is a real sentence from a fic. the first is one I have ‘tolkienised’ myself.)
*deep breath*
tolkien was VERY aware of the provenance of certain words and has characters talking in VERY distinct registers at different times for specific purposes. and different styles of speech and word order and language (french/latinate vocabulary versus old English/germanic vocabulary). any unsuccessful attempt is thus extra jarring, because language isn’t only a signifier for specific social groups in-universe - he also uses it at the level of the text.
and yes maybe I’m extra salty about this because I’m a linguist and have Actually Studied the history of English as well as old English and an EXTENSIVE amount of comparative germanic languages…but here goes.
to highlight the difference in how tolkien uses different words from different sources, I’m going to compare the difference for example between the language used in the lament for the rohirrim vs the song of eärendil
Where now the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing? Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing? Where is the hand on the harpstring, and the red fire glowing? Where is the spring and the harvest and the tall corn growing?
VS
In panoply of ancient kings, in chainéd rings he armoured him; his shining shield was scored with runes to ward all wounds and harm from him; his bow was made of dragon-horn, his arrows shorn of ebony; of silver was his habergeon, his scabbard of chalcedony; his sword of steel was valiant, of adamant his helmet tall, an eagle-plume upon his crest, upon his breast an emerald.
maybe not the best comparison because significant parts of the latter also exhibit a) very germanic vocabulary ‘to ward all wounds and harm from him’ and b) lots of fun alliteration / stress / metre / cool half-rhyme/assonance stuff and c) VERY germanic syntax ‘he armoured him’ where ‘him’ = ‘himself’ - but compare the words for talking about armour, for example.
when tolkien uses excessively germanic old-english-y things he does so deliberately. when he uses excessively middle english french chivalric language he does so deliberately.
he’s making a point. do you think that people really spoke like that when he was writing the books? compare the language merry and pippin use to that in the oath of fëanor! he is aware of the effect different words have, and the power language holds. if he uses a word like puissance,it’s going to be used to deliberate effect, because the majority of the REALLY archaic vocabulary in his works is germanic, not latinate. (and I’m not talking first age, I’m talking…early stuff, things like the story of kullervo, which uses a different ridiculously archaic word for ‘fence’ or ‘glade’ every single fucking page and is written with syntax that hasn’t been used for hundreds of years). not latinate. it’s not french. it’s GERMANIC.
and this is difficult because it goes against everything most of us are used to in daily life. the majority of most ‘higher’ vocabulary came from the dual sources of the liturgical (latin) and the socially superior (norman french). to this day we can find many examples of ‘simple’ vocabulary like handortoothand more specialised, more formal vocabulary - like the equivalent manualordentist.and of course tolkien uses french and latinate words like the rest of us - it’s impossible not to. there are different levels of loanwords, and powerreads far more naturally than puissance.
but tolkien chooses often instead to use might.
we’re..less familiar with this. we are! there’s no question about it. every book or article we read is stuffed full of french and latinate stuff. so I think what people aim for is like…Vaguely Old-Worldly. but the problem is they don’t think about what that means. it doesn’t mean the same for tolkien as other writers. he isn’t chaucer. he isn’t shakespeare. he can and he does wield germanic vocabulary for incredibly specific, often archaic purposes. most fic writers will struggle with that.
similarly important and very related: one of the things that marks Tolkien’s writing as so spectacular is his use, at times, of INCREDIBLY SIMPLE narration. he can and does do otherwise, but SO much of his writing has this clarity to it. a simplicity. and this is deliberately stylistic too! look at this passage when théoden leads his armies into battle:
And darkness was removed and the hosts of Mordor wailed, and terror took them, and they fled, and died, and the hoofs of wrath rode over them
thisand, and, and…is a very common structure in old oral epic: a lot of epics would start every new line with and. it’s simple, but incredibly powerful: and terror took them, and they fled, and died. isn’t that enough? doesn’t that say everything? terror took them, and they fled, and died. what more is there?
another thing is sentence structure. you guys. my dudes. once again, much of tolkien’s sentence structure is far simpler than you think. I don’t mean all of it - think again of the oath of fëanor - but most of it really is quite simple. what makes it ‘hard’ and ‘confusing’ is similarly its germanic-ness: structures like yet naught was seen orto the mountains they had fled feel archaic to us, but all they are is ever so slightly more germanic than we are used to. which in turn is not the same thing as complex - as all readers of modern day German with its love of 12-comma sentences and paragraphs spanning more than one page know.
look at this description:
All about them were small woods of resinous trees, fir and cedar and cypress, and other kinds unknown in the Shire, with wide glades among them; and everywhere there was a wealth of sweet-smelling herbs and shrubs. The long journey from Rivendell had brought them far south of their own land, but not until now in this more sheltered region had the hobbits felt the change of clime. Here Spring was already busy about them: fronds pierced moss and mould, larches were green-fingered, small flowers opening in the turf, birds were singing.
yes, it’s long. yes, there’s a lot going on. but look at the structure. if you simplify it it’s something like there were trees; and there were shrubs. the journey brought them south, but not until now had they felt the change of clime. here spring was busy; plants were X, and birds were Y.
this is literally just coordination - the most basic of structures. the not until now part is the sort of thing that throws people off, because it’s not a structure we’re so used to seeing. but this is nota complex sentence structure, it’s just ordered a bit different.
with all that in mind, I want to revisit quickly a few of the sentences to give a proper example of what I mean. here are some parts - just a few examples - of what bugs me about much fic
But where ordinarily such words would have stung, they would have seemed barbed and venomous and Celebrimbor would have replied with acrimony in kind, …
One subtle curl of puissance and he could have this elf lord on his knees.
To their lord the most ardent of his attentions were given, and often he could be found at Celebrimbor’s side if he was not otherwise occupied. Though at first they fenced about each other, their conversations thrust and parried as do all fledgling friendships forged in uneasy times, as the days rolled by a true sense of camaraderie began to unfurl between them.
I’m not talking about the quality of the writing, let others judge that - I’m talking SOLELY about the types of words used. notice anything about the words I’ve bolded? yeah. those are all latinate/french.
let me rewrite a few of these sentences. I’m Not Saying look I can write better but guys. if you are trying to write Like That then…take a few of the tips above, and it might just sound less anachronistic.
Such words from another would sting; but Celebrimbor’s answer would come swift and sharp.
But Annatar paid heed most of all to their lord. Often they walked together through the great forges of Eregion, and took delight in each other’s wit.
As the days passed the friendship between the two men grew.
once again. I’m not saying these are Better Writing. but they exhibit the principles I talked about.
which are:
1) utilise words that stand out to the modern reader, yes, but for specific purpose and effect. if you’re going to use puissance,recognise that it stands out and is oddly formal, and use it in an appropriate context. where you don’t want that effect, use something more neutral (powerormight)
2) archaic words are germanic more often than latinate/french. obscure latinate/french vocabulary, as above, is used for very specific purposes.
3) simple narration, simple sentence structure and simple vocabulary. write with clarity. write as if it’s meant to be read aloud. look at the landscape description above; it’s measured, and well-balanced. there’s no need for purple prose.
4) germanic sentence structure - yes! very complex sentence structure - no. look at the sentence you wish that I had gone in his stead orhe paid heed most of all to their lord. the separation of those two elements - and therefore greater flexibility - is more representative of an older stage of the language. more archaic canmean ‘sentence with twenty clauses’, but it usually doesn’t. not here.
5) pay attention to the conventions of epic and oral story-telling. you can start sentences with ‘and’ and ‘but’ more than your english teacher probably allowed.
6) where are your characters from? if you are trying to use regional language or slang - do your research. the hobbits use a lot of West Country Somerset / Wiltshire language, for example
I have no idea why I didn’t notice this before but I’m pretty sure the reason why the Byers would be able to afford a house like the ones seen in some BTS photos is way simpler than we think.
It’s Hopper’s will.
El would likely be the sole beneficiary because Diane is fully cut off and El has been adopted, so all of his assets would go to her.
Since El is a minor, that also means the money wouldn’t fall to her, but to the next closest person according to the will (which considering Joyce is her guardian, it would probably be her)
So yeah, I don’t think there’s really a mystery as to how they afford a nicer house, assuming the BTS one is theirs.
*edited for spelling, thanks to the anon who pointed it out!
Okay this entire inquiry might be obvious but I need to know. Does anyone know how long Sara’s fight with cancer was?
Because I took a look at the timeline leading up to season one and I realized something.
So from what Winona said about Lonnie, he left when Will was 5 (1976-early 1977, as Will’s birthday is in March). We also know Sara Hopper died in 1978.
My question is: When was Sara diagnosed?
Because if she fought for as long as I think she did due to the nature of her disease, her diagnosis and Lonnie’s departure might have happened in or around the same calendar year.
Of course, this assumes there was nothing strange about what happened to Sara, and whether or not that’s true is of course up for debate.
I could be wrong, I hope I’m wrong, this might also be an obvious fact, but I needed to get it out there. I didn’t ever realize just how close to each other those events actually were.
