Ray Karr's Very Improvised Website

5 Centimeters per Second (2007)

2025-11-05T00:00:00Z

First things first, this is a Makoto Shinkai movie (he's the guy who made Your Name). Though this one is very different—and in my opinion much better—you can still feel the kind of melodrama his more well-known movies go for: the romance is the most important and focused on element of these movies, you spend a lot of time seeing how they feel and the lengths to which they're willing to go for these feelings. If you are not into this kind of movie, you just won't like it. What makes this movie special is what it has to say about the love stories it tells.

These are three short stories; all of them could be their own little short film or OVA, but having them together definitely makes the message stronger. The first story is during middle school, the second story is at the end of highschool, and the third one is during adulthood. Other than this structure, the second difference I noticed is that there is no supernatural element at all. Your Name has the body swapping, Weathering with You has the sacred connection between the girl and the rain (or at least that's what I remember. I haven't seen it in forever), 5 Centimeters per Second has a train running late due to snowfall, a rocket launch in a small rural town, and a fleeting look at a rail crossing.
Already I love the grounded setting here. The beautiful animation and the weight all of these moments have make these stories feel just as magical, but also closer to home. This isn't to say I don't like supernatural elements in love stories, but there is something special in the world-ending desperation felt when the train starts running late and the scheduled meetup starts looking further and further away.

I also think the lack of a supernatural element helped the message I got from the movie. Everything below this paragraph will be spoilers, so before I get into that, I'll say this:
This movie is worth the watch. It's a little slow, it gets a little sad at times, and it won't change your life; but if you're like me, you will remember it. And HOLY FUCK it's sooooo pretty!!!!

ok spoiler time

In most of the romance movies I see, the characters are driven apart, but their love ultimately fates them to be together. Any ending other than the two characters embracing in the end is a tragedy, the overwhelming force of their love is not enough to beat the forces of the universe.
Both Your Name and Weathering with You end in basically the same way: the characters reunite at the end, years after the world has stopped tearing them apart. They see each other in some mundane setting, they seize the opportunity to call each other out, and we are left with the knowledge that they have thankfully reconnected, and the beautiful relationship we saw during the movie might just have the chance to go on after it's over.

In the last scene of the movie, the same boy we've been following through these three stories, now an adult and still incapable of moving on, happens to pass by his old childhood love (oh my god!) while walking to opposite sides of a rail cossing. They stop for a moment (could it be?), but a train passes them by as they turn around... he stands still for a moment, surely the curiosity and longing will make her wait for a few seconds... it seems like the train will go on forever, but it's almost over and... another train coming in the opposite direction! He keeps waiting, the chances seem lower and lower every second that passes, but surely her want, like his, is stronger than the forces of life. The second infinite train is about to finish its dizzyingly fast yet excruciatingly slow pass and... AND... she's gone... and that's okay. He smiles, and goes his own way.
All of the love stories in 5 Centimeters per Second end with the characters going their separate ways, not because of some supernatural force, not because of fate, not because of anything other than their lives simply having different paths.

And like, there's no world-ending disaster to overcome, no magic barrier keeping them away, she could have waited for him and he could have gone after her if only they pushed just a little bit harder. But life is what it is, it's hard to find an excuse strong enough to break its inertia, and even though that's sad, that's life sometimes.

I love romance where love is the strongest force in the universe, but I also find this story more... mature? adult? Whatever it is, I find it refreshing.

A Series Of Unfortunate Events (2004)

2025-09-07T00:00:00Z

it has its moments and the aesthetics are immaculate but ohhhh my god fucking Jim Carrey ruins it uuuhhhhhhhggggggggggggggggggggg

don't watch it unless you like people who are so fucking annoying you wanna kill yourself

Dennou Coil (2007)

2025-09-02T00:00:00Z

I usually see the phrase "slow burn" used for art that is boring at first and takes a while to really impact or hook people. Dennou Coil starts as a pretty alright anime and then gets better... and then it gets even better.

I can describe the premise pretty easily: we follow a group of elementary schoolers (about 9-10 years old, if I remember correctly) in a small Japanese town, in a near future where AR glasses are the new phones. Everyone has these glasses at all times. They're used for stuff like maps, internet browsing, phone calls, social media, etc. People have 3D cyber-pets that can only be seen with the glasses, and use glitches in this cyberspace to get weird items and do illegal exploits.
There's shady stuff going on with the cyberspace, and it introduces concepts that would be dystopian as fuck in real life, but even if the show acknowledges that they are there, it's not about that.

Dennou Coil is a ghost show masking as a sci-fi show. If you judge it for its technological realism, you'll be very frustrated. But if you accept the sci-fi aspect as part of its tone and themes, which work around a more traditional story about what would otherwise be spirits and mystical shit going on, it'll make a lot more sense.
There's places with eerie fog and shiny trinkets that can be used for creating magical seals, but they're called "obsolete space" (since they're an outdated version of their cyberspace), "metabugs" (explained as exploits of buggy code) and "metatags" (which are some sort of arbitrary code execution). People are safe from certain hostile entities in their houses and at shrines... because of their local regulations, which don't allow them to enter these spaces.

The general mood of the show swings between whimsical and very serious, which I appreciate a lot. I find that I care about the characters a lot more when I can also see them having fun and being silly. It gets more and more emotional towards the end, and the early silliness makes it more impactful.

Watch it, if you have the space for a show! I recommend it.

Targets (1968)

2025-08-09T00:00:00Z

Actually pretty nice!

It takes a little while to really get going. At first you kinda wonder why you're seeing these two stories happen and how they could possibly be connected to each other, but once shit started to happen I couldn't look away.

Two stories happen simultaneously: an old actor who wants to retire because he sees the world move on from him and his old movies, and a random fucking guy who snaps and develops homicidal impulses. It's two very different moods that pay off together really well.

I guess the real villain of this story is cars and car-centric infrastructure cus OH MY GOD. There are so many shots of highways, suburbs, A GIGANTIC PARKING LOT. I can totally understand how living there will make you wanna kill everyone.

Viudas Negras, P*tas y Chorras (2025)

2025-08-01T00:00:00Z

(Black Widows, Wh*res and Crooks)

Fucking hilarious. I was initially a bit skeptical of this show's humour because I mainly knew Malena Pichot (one of the writers, and one of the protagonists) from her old Youtube skech comedy, which I watched religiously as a kid, and I wasn't sure of whether her snappy and witty style of comedy would work as well in a full show with a plot, but less than halfway into the first episode, those worries were already completely obliterated.

The protagonists are Maru (left) and Mica (right), two women in their late 30s or early 40s who used to be black widows, women who'd date/fuck rich men so that they could drug and rob them. They've both left that life behind them, one of them opened a salon and the other became a high class and status wealthy woman living in a gated community. It's been 13 years since their last job, but circumstances have forced them to get back together. I won't say much more about the plot because part of the fun is watching it unravel.

Like many other Argentinian comedies, Viudas Negras' characters act a bit more like exaggerated archetypes than like realistic people. It's not for everyone, but it's a style that can be very funny if it manages to bring you to its level, which I think this show does excellently. They're just exaggerated enough to not be too out of palce when they do something crazy, but not to the point where you stop caring about them as people. There's a lot of "ooo, this is who this person REALLY is underneath all the bullshit", used for both character development AND laughs, almost no character is what they seem at first.

Since I'm writing in English, I will clarify there's a bunch of jokes about Argentinian culture in particular. There's a side-plot about Maru's rich friends that has some very funny jokes and references that you might not get if you don't have an analogue for the kind of rich people we have. I also could not find good subtitles, so you're kinda fucked if you can't understand Spanish either way lol

Towards the end, there are a few small things that feel a bit ass-pull-y, but other than that, I don't have any complaints about the show. It's fucking histerical, definitely watch it if you can.

Errementari (2017)

2025-06-25T00:00:00Z

This one's pretty good! It didn't blow me away, but it's a movie that stuck with me.

It's a Basque movie, spoken entirely in Euskera (apparently in a dialect that is not used anymore), and while the plot itself is not the most unique thing in the world, it's really well done!

It's the early to mid 1800s, Spain has just undergone a civil war, and the titular blacksmith is wanted by the authorities... of hell. He has made a deal with a demon, and there are those who believe the devil lives with him.

I can't say much more, because part of the appeal is finding out what is going on and how it all works.
The story is simple, but the details really make it work. I love that the main demon we see is just a dude, a guy who's kinda strong I suppose. Plus, demons here are mythical creatures with archaic rules they must follow. It's really cool stuff!

I wouldn't say this is an insanely good movie, but it's something different and a good watch!

The Eternaut (2025) & The Eternaut (1957-59)

2025-05-28T00:00:00Z

Straight up, this is one of the best shows of the year, and one of the best Argentine shows of all time.
What I'm saying is obviously premature, given that at the time of writing, there is only one season, which ends on a cliffhanger (MY GOD, what a cliffhanger!!)

The show begins with a regular summer night in Buenos Aires, Argentina (it's December because we're in the Southern Hemisphere). In the middle of Christmas preparations, end of the year plans, street protests, and regular hangouts with friends, snow begins to fall... snow that kills you instantly on contact falls from the sky without warning. The only ones who survive are those who just so happen to be sheltered from it.
More stuff happens after that, but you'll have to see that for yourself.

So, beyond the danger of the outside, the overwhelming ocean of death and despair, you also have to watch out for anyone who did survive, as society no longer is... or is it?

Without getting into too much detail, there's a lot of human organization happening in this show. People attempt to make something together in order to just... live, and what they make is shaped by the kinds of relationships they had with their fellow human beings to begin with. The post-apocalypse isn't a blank slate, it's made from the pieces of what was before.

Of couse, that's not the only thing that happens in it. The main character, Juan Salvo, excellently played by Ricardo Darín, also has his own goals and demons... and some of the things that happen are clear if you read the comic.

Speaking of the comic, the two works are quite different. A lot of the themes are the same or very similar current-day versions of them, and there are a lot of recognizable elements, but the show is clearly going in another direction. The characters in the show are more realistic (which isn't a flaw that the original comic had, it had more comic-book-like characterizations, which was pretty appropriate for that medium), and the human aspect to that incredibe tragedy is much more palpable in the show.
In the comic, it takes the characters almost no time to pick up arms and fight with a soldier-like discipline, which isn't bad! It works for a comic book, where explicit description carries a lot more weight than lifelike character moments.
Whether you've watched the show or not, I highly recommend reading the comic, the story is fantastic, and you can FEEL its very specific Argentine point of view. Stories based in the fears of the Cold War are often told from the perspective of what was called the First World, the US aligned countries. The Eternaut comes from the position of a non-aligned nation in the Global South. As such, there is a great deal of powerlessness in the comic; your foe is so far above you in terms of technology, skill, organisation and ruthless dedication that it does not even see you as an enemy but as a resource to be conquered and exploited.

Speaking of the unique perspective of The Eternaut, that's another great aspect of both the show and the comic : The setting of Argentina. This is not the United States: there's a shitload of Argentine music in the show, the characters play Truco, guns are not common and few people know how to use them, a lot of old technology is still lying around, and Juan (in the show) is a veteran of the 1982 Malivans/Falklands War. For Argentinians (well, the ones from Buenos Aires), it's also surreal to see so many recognizable places in a sci-fi apocalypse setting, which typically shows US cities. I can't count the amount of times I screamed "I'VE BEEN THERE!!" at the screen suring a scene. If you haven't been to Buenos Aires, you might not get anything out of that, but it's a neat thing :3

There's a lot I'm deliberately not talking about, because I really want you to watch it and read it. As of the time of writing, the show is on Netflix with great English subtitles (but a pretty lousy English dub), and the comic has been officially translated to English. I do not know where to buy the comic in English, but there are... places where you can find it online.

If the second season comes out and it's dogshit, I will retract my recommendation. For now, it's a supremely good show. The comic is also excellent, read that as well if you want a very different take on classic sci-fi.

Nobody survives alone.
Nadie se salva solo.

Sinners (2025)

2025-05-18T00:00:00Z

My favorite part of this movie was the earplugs I had to bring to the theatre so the sound was tolerable. MY GOD movie theatres need to turn it down.
According to Vicki, the projection was also slightly out of focus, so I guess every movie theatre in Buenos Aires is fucked and dead.

BUT beyond the terribleness of movie theatres, this movie was fucking incredible.

It's about two twins who open a bar in the rural south of the United States in the 1930s, and their little cousin, who plays the guitar and sings blues so well that he attracts vampires to the place (also time travelling ghosts, but those are harmless).

And these are capital V Vampires. They need to be invited to come in, they're subservient to their head vampire, and the ones who are turned still have their memories but lose their humanity and change fundamentally. Vampirism is a sad thing...

There's also plenty of sex, mostly in the first half of the movie. I quite like that, I think it's pretty human! These people are horny as hell.

The music is also incredible! Fuck, the vampires sing completely different music than all the others, there's obviously a lotta blues... fucking good. Would've loved to listen without earplugs, but that's movie theatres for me.

People claim it's best seen in theatres... I disagree. You can have a perfectly good movie-watching experience if you just watch it on a TV with good sound and don't look at your phone. The size of the screen is not worth going deaf and staying on a dogshit seat unable to go to the bathroom, move, or talk.

Fantastic stuff, I really liked this!

DX-Ball (1996)

2025-05-07T00:00:00Z

This is an extremely simple Breakout clone. You bounce the ball. You break the blocks. You get as far as you can on three lives. There is no music save for the title screen.

The physics of the ball are perfect, the paddle controls exactly like it should. This is FUCKIng Breakout, FUCK YES.

For me, who has a job and several university subjects, each with their own inexhaustible stream of assignments, this shit is exactly what I want, and exactly what I need.

10/10 I hear the sequel is even better, I'll play it one day.

Why fursuiting?

2025-05-05T00:00:00Z

I can’t remember the first time I saw a fursuit. For me, they’ve been a thing I’ve known of for as long as I’ve been a furry. The appeal seems obvious: your cartoon avatar, that thing that represents an idea of you within the furry subculture, which existed only by means of illustrations, reference images, maybe even a 3D model, becomes tangible, tactile, and inhabitable. You can bring that abstract thing to the physical world, play at being yourself, feel your creation in your hands.

Of course, this isn’t to say that’s the universal appeal of fursuiting. Some use pre-made suits, suits of their OCs, some fursuit as cosplay, or for kink. There’s probably a shitload ways to and reasons to wear a fursuit I don’t even know about. For me, it was about bringing life and physicality to a persona (a fursona!) of myself that had mainly existed as representation before.

I wrote that last sentence in the past tense, not because I no longer believe this, but because something changed in July of 2024: I got a fursuit head and wore it outside for the first time. Lots of things were exactly what I expected. I got to inhabit this representation of myself, I adjusted to the reduced visibility and hearing the head comes with, and I made sure to drink water and take it off every now and then to avoid overheating. What I did not expect was just how much I found myself swaying, jumping around, spinning all over the place. Beyond having to exaggerate my own body language because of the big goofy head I had, these movements felt entirely natural to me. Something about that head taps directly into my most playful side, and will not let me stay still or do anything without adding a joyful energetic flair to it.

Additionally, wearing a fursuit seemed to have an effect on everyone around me. Of course, seeing someone outside with a big and colourful animal head is not something that happens every day, but there was more to it than that. People weren’t just looking at something peculiar, they were interacting. Being so colourful and attention-grabbing also made me look approachable; some children started running around me and shouting “Bunny!” (I was clearly a Lucario but oh well, nobody’s perfect) just to get a reaction, random people would say hello and talk to me, some people even took pictures with me!
It also helped that I’m usually pretty sociable, but even then, there’s an ice-breaking quality to a fursuit that immediately makes it easier to connect with people that I would struggle with even on my most extroverted and friendliest of days.

So, if you ask me now, the reason I fursuit is because it connects me with people, it connects me with myself, and it connects me with moments. It’s expression and play, and also very fun to just move around like a human-inhuman creature.

I fucking hate my ISP so fucking much

2025-03-14T00:00:00Z

So my internet service cuts out all the time. I've called my ISP thousands of times, and they make it a pain in the urethra every time. They don't have a phone line for tech support only, so I have to call, confirm I'm calling about my own plan, select 2 for home wifi, hear that my bills are paid, hear when I'll have to pay the next one, dial 3 for tech support, dial 3 again for home wifi, and then, one of two things can happen:

I get told the amount of my next bill and that I can pay it via the app and the call hangs up.
My bills are all paid, and my upcoming bill hasn't been generated yet so I don't get booted out for not having paid a bill that hasn't expired yet.

Then, if I get outcome b, one of three things can happen:

I get told by the automated voice that I can administrate my tech support through the app and the call hangs up.
I get told there is a generalised outage in my area that will be solved by the end of the day.
I have to dial 2 to let the automated voice I am near my router, and then they say they'll send "an important update" to it, which makes the router turn off and on again remotely, and makes any tech support calls to my ISP for the next 10 minutes go nowhere.
I have to dial 2 to let the automated voice I'm near my router and either because I already called and got the previous outcome, or because the planets align, I get put on a 2 minute wait line to get in touch with a tech support person.

If I get outcome 2, I get 50gb of free mobile data I can use only when setting my phone as a mobile hotspot for the next 24 hours, fucking hooray.

Whenever I call and I'm deemed worthy of speaking to a human fucking being it's a different excuse. "Reset your router", "your cables might be damged", "the building's antenna or whatever must've gotten disconnected due to the wind", every time it's something, and every time, they promise to assign a technician to my case.
IF the technician shows up, they never find anything wrong with my internet, cables, modem, or the building's internet shitbox. I never understood why this kept happening until one technician told me it's not about my internet, it's about my whole neighbourhood's underground cables, which they HAVE NOT FIXED IN YEARS.
Apparently, the poor bastards who work at tech support, bless their exploited and mistreated hearts, have to give you an excuse that can be linked to you, so you can feel like something can be done. Nobody has explicitly said that to me, but that's the only fucking thing that makes sense.

Plus, their phone menu changes every other week, so I can't just speed dial the numbers whenever I call, I have to listen to make sure it hasn't changed all of a sudden.
Double-plus, I found out if you have a technician visit scheduled on your address, you can't call tech support AT ALL, or go through the app for the free data, because they just say "your tech support visit is scheduled for dd/mm"

All the other ISPs are like this, they're all dogshit.

It's sickening, it's denigrating, I feel like the service being provided isn't for me, but rather that I'm an obstacle between the company and my wallet, which itself is an obstacle between the company and increasing their stock value.

Petey Wheatstraw (1977)

2025-03-04T00:00:00Z

It’s not the best Rudy Ray Moore movie, I think that’s still The Human Tornado, but it’s absolutely worth watching.

This doesn’t follow Dolemite at all, but the titular Petey Wheatstraw, a comedian who made a deal with the devil that he intends to back out from.

I’d say it’s about as funny as Dolemite (1975), and a perfect entry into Rudy Ray Moore. It has the rhyming, the awkward fighting, iconic lines with iconic line deliveries, all the things I love in one of these movies, plus a lot more delightfully low budget special effects!

As always, highly recommended. The best way to watch this if you’ve already seen Rudy Ray Moore’s other movies is by showing it to someone who has never heard of them at all.

Lake Mungo (2008)

2025-02-21T00:00:00Z

What if Paranormal Activity was good?

I kid, this is so much more more than that. It’s, in its essence, a fictional documentary about the life and untimely death of Alice, the daughter of a family who struggles to cope with her death and begins experiencing, well… paranormal activity.

It’s not a particularly fast-paced movie, but that’s what makes it so chilling. It lets you sit with every revelation, which the movie also takes its time to deliver. I saw some reviews mock it and call it “padded” for having long sequences of zooming into a grainy photo or video but, at least for me, every second added to the tension and curiosity. Still, if you’re prone to getting distracted or impatient, this might not be the movie for you.

Lake Mungo pulls a lot from those ghost investigation videos and blurry photos that made the rounds online back in the day, and it does so really well. What I particularly love about this is that it doesn’t stick to one medium: nowadays it’s more common to see horror that focuses exclusively on analog effects, such as Local 58, or on digital fuckery (I don’t know of any good examples, sorry). This movie, however, uses both really well. There’s grainy pictures, cassette recordings, etc; as well as digital recordings with that similar yet very distinct unclear quality that old and shitty digital cameras had.

There’s also a terrifying aspect to the way in which the walls around Alice’s private life are completely torn apart piece by piece. Of course, that makes sense given that she is… you know, dead. But the way in which they went about it REALLY got to me from both sides:
I saw the family’s point of view, finding this new and completely unknown side to your daughter, your sister, your friend, that she chose to hide from you which you now have to reconcile with the image you had of the beloved family member you were trying to let go of.
However, since this movie continuously deals with ambiguous possible apparitions of Alice, the idea that she might still be there, it also made me consider her point of view. What if I died and suddenly everyone had access to every private text message, every old photo I regret taking, every incomplete retelling of an anecdote, and every piece of information about myself I wouldn’t want known without me there to provide the appropriate context? What if I was still there watching my identity unravel before me and become a bloated and unrecognisable version of myself?

spooky shit…

Anyway, great movie, highly recommend if you like psychological horror.

I am actually done with Twitter for real this time.

2025-02-16T00:00:00Z

I recently locked my Twitter account, and removed all links to it from my site and other socials. I still open it from time to time. A few Argentinian accounts I like still post there, as the exodus to BlueSky has not reached that public yet, and there is one singular account I regularly enjoy seeing on my timeline, but other than that it’s pretty much dead to me. I don't post anything to it, and I don't retweet anything either.

And it feels good! It’s one less social media site to patrol, one less space where I have to simultaneously be audience, performer, and performance. Plus, it’s not like I did it out of willpower (not entirely, at least), the site is legitimately getting more and more joyless as time passes.

I open it and nothing keeps me in for more than a few minutes, nothing engages me like it did before. That doesn’t mean the site is encouraging better usage and less addictive tendencies, I just get sick of it much quicker. Instead of feeling surrounded by people I kept bumping into, I felt like I was going through the motions in a sea of people who perform those same motions like automatons who can only feel ennui and anxiety.

Speaking of automatons, that platform is infested with them. The other half of the Twitter experience reeks of burning machines.

The Doomsday Clock, a representation of how close I am to deleting these awful fucking sites.

Everywhere there’s ads of the exact same crypto, dropshipping, AI, nazi, or conspiracy posts that keep being shoved on my feed (and I do mean “exact same”. If you mute or block one of the ad accounts, you’ll see another one with identical words and images).
There’s discourse baiting and engagement farming with yields I’ve never seen in my life; sickening crop rotations of rage-inducing fake takes, vacuous chain posts and discourse farming, all genetically modified in a lab to fully optimise the amount of time (and times) you spend replying, sharing, dunking, contributing, etc.
Finally, there’s the sickening swarm of gimmick accounts that only compile industrial amounts of memes, cute videos of animals, and screenshots of other tweets, endless incestuous re-using of each other’s already re-heated content. It’s so bad it reminds me of Instagram, and I am seconds away from deleting that every other day.

I think the evolution of that first half I mentioned can be attributed, at least partly to a general sense of burnout. Less people use Twitter genuinely. Some leave because the site is getting less and less usable, or just full of nazis and bots (and nazi bots, of course). Others stay mainly or only because of Those Few People they liked bumping into, and seeing them migrate to another platform could encourage the same.

The second half is part of a larger problem that also affects other social media sites, and the internet in general, but it hits Twitter HARD and contributes to that same unusability. Lots of gimmick accounts have been bought and overtaken by crypto and far right parasites looking for the biggest platforms to preach and advertise on, but this goes even further. Now more than ever, if you see a viral post with an exceedingly stupid opinion being dunked on, or random accounts posting the same viral videos that have been making the rounds for more than a decade, they might actually be bots, with engagement boosted by other bots meant to bait engagement not for the clout but for money (either because verified accounts can *technically* earn money from engagement, or because they’re trying to artificially inflate their numbers so the account can be sold).

As Twitter and other sites get more and more saturated with non-human, non-genuine capital C Content, I move on to other sites I care about more. Bluesky is better (for now) since it suffers less from the bot infestation. I also use Tumblr, though not that often.
And, more and more, I’ve been taking the kind of stuff I would usually share on social media and either keeping it to myself or showing it to my friends and family. I write my thoughts on movies and games here, or I message my dad to tell him about the music I’m listening to. I think of some funny wordplay and I send it to my partners. I find all of this much more enjoyable! The people whose thoughts I actually care about can tell me what they think, and I’m left with their impressions instead of how many impressions I got.

The Human Tornado (1976)

2025-01-21T00:00:00Z

oh my god this shit is incredible

This movie is even funnier than the first one, both intentionally and unintentionally.
The plot itself is less focused, as it has two pretty disconnected plotlines that could have each been their own movie, but that’s alright since it’s not the plot itself that carries this movie.

Dolemite is on tour through the United States (though every club shot seems to be the same set, and sometimes it cuts to him at the same spot, wearing the same clothes) doing both comedy and sex work. At a house party in the south (though very obviously filmed in California), he gets attacked and framed for murder by the local racist sheriff and has to flee to his home state. Meanwhile, his club is closed and his girls hired by the mafia, because Dolemite’s club is too successful, and they needed to poach the talent.

The movie is way more ambitious, it has more ADR, crazy editing that sometimes borders on YTP, bigger fight scenes, more of Rudy Ray Moore rhyming for no reason. They are all hilarious.
If you liked what Dolemite had to offer, there’s more of that as well: iconic one-liners, kung-fu fighting girls, a funky soundtrack, and Dolemite himself is absurdly macho and charismatic in-universe.

There’s also some incredibly weird and surreal sex scenes that border on parody and feel like a Gene Roddenberry fever dream. I don’t really want to describe them because they’re incredible and deserve to be experienced with a fresh mind.

Another notable aspect is that, in spite of having one joke character whose entire deal is being gay and weirdly into getting kidnapped, there’s a trans woman whose gender is never questioned. She gets to kick ass, and she’s treated as sexy, in the same way as the cis women (it is still a 1970s movie, there’s a lot of male-gazey shots).

I can’t think of any other movie that made me laugh this hard. I love it so much.

Dolemite (1975)

2025-01-04T00:00:00Z

Way funnier than I expected it to be! Both on purpose and by accident.

I looked up stuff about this movie before watching and it taught me that I should never ever trust Reddit opinions on art. They had me worried that this was gonna be old and boring, but it ended up being old and hilarious!

It’s not a life-changingly great movie by any means, but it’s no bad time at all.
I would’ve loved it for the style and soundtrack alone, but there’s a lot to love here, from Rudy Ray Moore’s way of talking, to the awkward action and dialogue.
Sometimes it feels like they wrote two versions of the same line and couldn't decide on which to use so they just left both in, sometimes Dolemite knocks motherfuckers down by kicking the air next to them, it's all great.

One of the appeals of low-budget and so-called "bad" movies is that you can see and feel them being made. You see something that doesn't look all that seamless and immediately think "this was a choice that someone made because they wanted to tell a story", and that's a very human emotion that I felt a lot while watching this. I saw a lot of passion in this film, and now I wanna check out other Rudy Ray Moore movies.

The one thing that holds it back just a bit is the audio quality. Coupled with the extremely thick 1970s AAVE, sometimes I would not have been able to understand what was going on were it not for the subtitles. The music and sound effects during action scenes can also be messy at times, to the point where I’d turn the volume down.
But that’s low budget mid-70s filmmaking. If you expect it, it’s not gonna hinder the experience that much.

The actual plot of this movie is also a little thin. While Dolemite was falsely imprisioned, the owner of his rival club acquired his and used his power, wealth and corrupt political connections to sell guns and drugs, so now Dolemite has to stop him and get his club back by being badass. I think the low plot works for this movie, though. It's fine.

Overall, lovely and incredibly fun.

The Producers (2005)

2025-01-04T00:00:00Z

jesus christ

complete garbage. stopped watching halfway through.

every song, save for the first one, drags. every joke lasts too long.
it made me doubt whether i ever liked the original mel brooks movie or if i just liked the springtime for hitler bit.

mind you, i love musicals. i have a high tolerance for bullshit. this was too much bullshit. they somehow managed to turn an 80 minute alright mel brooks movie into a two hour nightmare.

dreadful experience, don't ever watch this. unless maybe you're so into "politically incorrect" humour that you're willing to slog through the most boring and repetitive songs ever produced.

Mouthwashing (2024)

2024-12-18T00:00:00Z

Mouthwashing is one of those "you should experience it with as little prior knowledge as possible" type of games, which makes it frustrating to talk about without turning it all into a circlejerk for people who are already fans.

So, I'll try not to say too much on this section, as I do have things to say, but I don't want to just make this something for people who've already played it.

The section for people who have not played it:

This is a horror game, extremely light on jumpscares and extremely heavy on disturbing topics and psychological shit. It's pretty short, I started and finished it in an afternoon, but FUCK was it a good afternoon.
I found the story very touching. It didn't make me cry like Outer Wilds did, but it made me feel dread, anxiety, pity, tension, horror and anguish in a way that no other story-driven game has managed to do (YET. As of the writing of this blog post, I have begun playing through Silent Hill 2, and it is hitting me in similar places, story-wise).

That is all I can say, other than do NOT play it if you have photosensitive epilepsy or can get easily motion-sick from first-person videogames.

Now the part where I yap about specific stuff you shouldn't know about if you haven't played it.

Open, if you dare.......... actually, only open if you've PLAYED THIS GAME ALREADY. DO IT, IT'S WORTH IT!!!

Ok, I said I found the story touching. Yes, I did. But it would've been a lot more impactful without the fucking chaser scenarios.
The Blind Beast, Swansea, that goddamn maze, they were scary for five seconds, then they became annoying and tedious. AND THEY'RE RIGHT AT THE END OF THE GAME.

Other than that, I loved the ending, I loved discovering more and more about the lives and facets of these characters, and I feel like I'll never forget their sad little lives.

Shadow Generations (2024)

2024-11-12T00:00:00Z

Shadow Generations

OH MY FUCKING GOD, YES!!!!!!!!!!!!
SHADOW IS SO FUCKING COOL, MAN!!!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I cannot believe this is real.

This game does something no Sonic game has done for me since Unleashed. I see this game and I see love, I see life, I see passion!

What I expected with this game was a Sonic Generations level pack themed around Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic Heroes, Shadow the Hedgehog, and Sonic ‘06 where you could play as… well, Shadow.
Instead, it plays a lot more like a polished Sonic Frontiers. Shadow has a less powerful boost, and a turn radius much more suited for moving in directions other than forward, forward and forward, and you have to know which of his abilities to use at which times to move forward. And while I hated Sonic Frontiers for feeling like mindless movement through a basic feeling island with jarring platforms and rails floating purposelessly, the design of both the levels and the overworld feels very well thought out and cohesive (oh yeah, and also good as FUCK). I’ve seen multiple people compare it to Bowser’s Fury, and I think that is pretty accurate. You have a really big zone filled with tiny challenges that also get you to where you need to go, which are the more linear (but still pretty open) main levels.

Some of the overworld challenges are annoying, and it sucks that the chests you find by completing (or breaking) the little platforming sections need one of three types of key found in levels, meaning that you can reach a chest and find out you can’t unlock it yet, but this is only more than a minor annoyance if you want to go for 100%.

Shadow’s story is also much better suited for Generations, a game about looking back, than Sonic’s. To quote KingK’s review:

"Really, the idea of traveling through your past fits Shadow much more than it does Sonic, since Shadow has always been defined by his past. Whether he's trapped by it or choosing to walk away from it, everything he does is in conversation with his history. (...)
Sonic is trudging through his past to get back to his birthday party and stop the Time Eater from ruining the fun. As such, he blasts through levels he may or may not recognise, because he isn’t the type to reminisce on adventures long gone."

Also unlike Sonic Generations, there isn’t a single level or level challenge I dislike. They really made stages that take full advantage of Shadow’s strengths and stuck with them without feeling repetitive at all. Maybe its existence as a side game that complements the original Generations left it unburdened of the need to be a Big Fucking Ten Quadrillion Hour Game. Whatever the case may be, I have been replaying the fuck out of these levels since finishing it and I’m still having fun with them. I’m still figuring out the perfect run for all the levels, looking at gameplay, mouth agape in amazement, and trying it all out myself.

Shadow Generations also accomplishes something I haven’t seen a Sonic game do successfully since Unleashed: it’s cool.
It’s hard to explain exactly how but, since Colours, no other game managed to pull off the confidence Shadow Generations has. Frontiers tried, which I respect, and Forces pretended to try (bah, I’m sure the developers tried, but the end result just feels like a half-hearted half-step).

I’m, again, speaking in vague and nebulous terms that refer only to a feeling I have, but it feels like the developers commit to the story: they set it up as a serious and earnest look into Shadow the Hedgehog’s relationship with his past and not only do they commit to the tone and beats without a hint of irony, but also to the aesthetic aspect of it. I never once got the feeling that the story, gameplay scenarios or animations lacked energy like Colours, Forces and even Frontiers to a lesser extent did. And when I say “energy”, I don’t mean “fast-paced” or “extra”, though that helps a lot in a Sonic game. I mean the energy behind it. It feels like every aspect is trying to go as hard as it can.

This is the feeling I am trying to get at. Shadow the Hedgehog has swag. If anyone understands what I’m rambling about and knows how to put it into words, please let me know!

And play the game, too. If you already bought Sonic Generations, wait for it to go on sale (or use alternate methods to get it). I played it on Switch and the port was really good! It ran at 30fps at a lower resolution, but it never got muddy, it never froze, it didn't have any input lag and it controlled just as well.

Revenge (2017) & The Substance (2024)

2024-11-06T00:00:00Z

These movies were both directed by Coralie Fargeat. I watched them pretty much back to back with Vicki and the director definitely has a strong voice. They feel realistic and surreal at the same time. The Substance is the stronger of the two but they're both well worth the watch.

Revenge (2017)

This movie deals with rape and rape culture. The name leaves the relation that the main character has with rape very clear. It is bloody, beautifully shot (oh my god is it beautifully shot), and very fun. It plays a lot with suspension of disbelief and sometimes it goes a little too far, but it never gets in the way of the enjoyment.

The antagonists are all a representation of different sides of rape culture and the absolute contempt patriarchal men have for consent.

Stan is the typical guy who tries to be “nice” and “quirky”, clearly only interested in sex that takes any and all playfulness, kindness or even attention as flirting and implicit consent that he is now entitled to. He follows the rules and shows consideration only when he absolutely has to.

Dimitri is the silent observer. He’s not actively pursuing, but his silence and inaction are still violent and harmful.

Richard represents the kind of guy who’s first and biggest priority is maintaining the status quo. He’s angry at his friend for raping Jen, not because that’s wrong but because they will be in trouble. His actions are entirely motivated by wanting that incident to go away, and in doing so, he proves to be much more sinister and calculating than the two other guys combined.

Overall, it's a fun watch!

The Substance (2024)

I enjoyed this one even more. For the most part, the voice of the movie is a lot more clear and present. It features a lot of needles, so it was a really hard watch for me, as I’m super squeamish around them, but I was fine.

The Substance is about an aging star who, on account of her no longer being and looking like a gorgeous young actress and model and now just looking like a gorgeous older woman, has to put up with being demeaned, sidelined and even fired. The network barely even tries to hide their contempt of her and how much they just want her replaced with a new younger body.

The solution she arrives at is The Substance, a means to create a younger, prettier, more “perfect” version of herself that she can be every other week. She immediately goes back to her job, now even sexier and bolder, and begins this cycle of:

Week 1: She’s young and pretty and successful. She lives the good life, the glory, the stardom.

Week 2: She’s old and depressed. Her entire week is spent inside waiting for the day she can be young again.

And to avoid spoiling too much, I’ll just say this is harrowing to watch her get consumed by this other life, growing more and more depressed and self-loathing (to both her old and young self) the more she experiences this duality.

I can say it touched me, I was having an experience right up until the end, where I think the catharsis of the ending just fell flat.

While this movie is just as unsubtle as the previous one, and that’s ok, there are moments where it just spells out things that could have been left for the viewer to notice on their own.

Still, an absolutely incredible movie.

Halloween (1978)

2024-10-31T00:00:00Z

I'm not a big horror person, so that aspect might've been a little lost on me, but I did really appreciate the genuine mastery of their clearly low budget.

They used a cheap repurposed William Shatner mask, a few mics and cameras and not much else and made it all work. All the sets are real houses, lived in or abandoned, all the lighting (as far as I can see) is made up entirely of the sun, street lights, car lights, house lamps, etc and they give a film a very natural look that would probably have costed ten times as much as the entire production to make in a studio or with CGI.

The only effects that don't hold up are the blood and the handful of leaves they sprinkled around to make their summer suburb look like autumn but my god, even when you see the flaws, you see the fucking movie being made.

sick ass movie

The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)

2024-10-30T00:00:00Z

This isn't really an impression since I've seen it before, but I just watched it again last night and I really liked it again.

SPOILERS

He couldn't Manwhore Mansplain Manipulate his way out so he resorted to Manslaugher.

Great movie, tense as fuck, SUPERB acting. highly recommend.

Malignant (2021)

2024-10-28T00:00:00Z

AUGH nice. The sentence I said while watching it with my partner was “this feels like schlock from a parallel universe where every movie is sick as fuck”. It operates on b-movie logic, so it gets away with sometimes lying to the audience and having pretty awkward dialogue.

What elevates this movie from other schlock is that every aspect of it is extremely well executed. The lighting is incredible, the special effects are fantastic, there’s one action scene that fucks extremely hard (you’ll know it when you see it), and at no point did I feel like the filmmakers weren’t going all out on this.

It’s funny and genuinely cool as hell at times. Just be aware that it deals with abuse and miscarriages at the beginning.

Cabin in the Woods (2011)

2024-10-27T00:00:00Z

Pretty fun! I’m glad I watched a few other slasher movies before it so I could understand what was going on and all the references.

The meta element was enjoyable, right up until the end, where they drop the allegory for a second to show you their spectacle of CGI death before picking it back up to tell you what the movie is about, the end.
Still, that was the last 10% of the movie, the other 90% is still mostly a fun ride.

There’s two other minor obstacles to overcome for enjoying this movie: one is the Joss Whedon writing, though it mostly works since his cynical witty comedy dialogue style works for the realistically cynical characters the movie has. The other minor issue is that some of the genre subversion and jokes don’t land exclusively because the movie told the audience exactly what was going on at the beginning.

It’s a good watch if you’re into slasher films!

This is not the end of Twitter, but it could be the beginning of the end for mine.

2024-09-18T00:00:00Z

With every new way in which Twitter gets worse, there’s always some joy and anxiety over whether this will be the end of the platform. It dies a little bit every time but it never fully croaks.
Everyone ends up getting something that makes them want to leave, something that breaks through the layers of genuine enjoyment, capture, and maybe even addiction; and I might have gotten mine now.

I say this over and over, and so does everyone else who uses that godforsaken site, but Twitter is a bad platform. It has been so for years, and since Elon Musk’s takeover it has only gotten worse.

It was already a mess. It had a culture of instant micro-engagement that encouraged people to post the most inflammatory or divisive shit to incite the worst discourse and generate the most engagement.
Be it discourse, content farming, “one pizza topping has to go” post, etc, all of it was already a part of Twitter. Nowadays, in 𝕏 The Everything App, all of that has been supercharged and botted to hell, and in between all of it, you now see Elon Musk’s favourite nazi telling you why the West is falling.

However, there is still a genuine appeal to Twitter. I found a LOT of artists through it thanks to how tweets are usually shared, and through art trends that just flourish every other week. The kind of shitposting that comes from Twitter can also be really, really funny; to quote my partner: the toxicity can be intoxicating sometimes. Additionally, Twitter is one of the few remaining social media sites where NSFW accounts and art remain, where NSFW is a PART of the environment and not an entirely separate and segregated porn website.
(that is its own separate topic which I might write about in the future… then again, i might not)

There’s a few Twitter clones and alternatives around, some of which have existed since before the Elon takeover. They all come with their own perks, their disadvantages, and they’re all The Answer to “where do we go if not Twitter?” but none have managed to meaningfully stick around and work as genuine competition to Twitter. We could talk all day about each platform’s specific problems, but the truth is that nobody goes there because everyone’s on Twitter.

Any big social media site will be just a good place to keep up with friends and other people you’re interested in. You can message your friends, yes; and you can find them in other places as well, yes, but they’re all on Twitter, and interacting there feels like casually bumping into them. This situation is unlikely to change unless they move somewhere else, and they’re not moving somewhere else because they’re all already on Twitter, and that’s where they casually bump into each other.
Or at least that’s the case for most people.

One of the latest fucked developments has been the removal of Twitter from Brazil. In short, Musk had the option of complying with Brazilian law or not operating in Brazil at all. He chose the latter.

As a result, there are no more Brazilians on that site (bah, people in Brazil, since it’s banned within the territory of Brazil, not for everyone with Brazilian nationality). Those who had Twitter have now moved onto other social media sites, and their absence is not unnoticed.

I’m not in Brazil, I live in Argentina, where (at the time of writing) the president tweets SO much and has Elon Musk’s co𝕏 so far down his libertussy that it’s unlikely we will lose access to the platform in the near future, but I do know people from Brazil.
A good friend of mine is Brazilian and I used to bump into her on Twitter a lot. I can still reach her just fine, but there is one less place to bump into her, and knowing for certain that we will not have that kind of interaction on that site just makes me not want to use it.

The next time I think of tweeting “this movie is ghosted with the shell” or “la banda del club de corazones solitarios del sargento pepa”, my next thought will be “damn, she won’t see this” and while it usually doesn’t make me not want to post it, it does make me want to post it less, and that feeling is increasing with time.

Maybe that’s what will do it for everyone, maybe that’s what it takes. Not their favourite artist or a few mutuals leaving the site but those two or three people they really care about bumping into.

Or maybe not, but I know this is certainly motivating me to start switching to Tumblr and Bluesky bit by bit.

¡Qué Complicado es ser "queer" en español! / Being billingually queer (sucks!)

2024-07-27T00:00:00Z

DISCLAIMER:

This blog post is about problems ingrained in the Spanish language. However, given that my website is mostly in English, and that I would love for English speakers to know about this issue, I’ve translated my own blog into English and provided a handy little button to switch between the two languages.

Español

English

¡Qué complicado que es ser queer en español!

La comunidad LGBT (y el progresismo en sí) le da mucha importancia al lenguaje, las palabras que usamos para describirnos, para hablar de nuestras experiencias, y para hablar en general. Solemos ser muy conscientes del efecto que tiene la palabra en la cultura. De ahí provienen ideas muy buenas como hablar de “parejas” en vez de “novios” o “novias” para no asumir la heterosexualidad como predeterminado o hablar de “todes” en grupos mixtos o genéricos para quitarle la predominancia al masculino; surgen cada vez más nuevas maneras de hablar de nuestras vidas y experiencias, y nuestra terminología evoluciona constantemente a medida que esta se dialoga y debate.

Tener esta terminología a mano es muy importante: nos da palabras a las cuales podemos asignar experiencias o comportamientos nunca antes categorizados o tomados en serio y nos permite, una vez que los términos adquieren cierto reconocimiento general, comunicarnos de manera muy eficiente con gente que no conoce nuestras vivencias, nuestros problemas, etc.

¿Cuál es el problema?

La gran mayoría de nuestra terminología es muy reciente, y el debate del que origina se da principalmente en círculos angloparlantes (y, por lo tanto, muy estadounidenses) de internet. Esto genera muchísimas palabras, conceptos y discusiones que pasan antes que nada en inglés y luego se trasladan al español (sé que hay idiomas con más términos propios, y que también tienen este problema, pero estoy escribiendo principalmente sobre mi lengua natal).

Así terminamos con términos visible y auditivamente distintos a nuestra lengua. En inglés, el término que se usa para el nombre de nacimiento de una persona trans que ahora se llama distinto es deadname (dead por “muerto” y name por “nombre”), término que no sólo es consistente con otras palabras que terminan en -name (surname, nickname) sino que instantáneamente se entiende qué es: un nombre ya muerto, un nombre que no es. En español, el término que usamos para deadname es… deadname… se escribe y se pronuncia igual. Lo mismo ocurre con misgender (que se refiere a la acción de referirse a una persona por el género incorrecto), sólo que que este sufre aún más por ser un verbo: le decimos “hacer misgender”. Luego hay calcos como non binary a “no binario” que llegan al español con una formalidad más elevada que en el idioma original; siglas sin traducir, como MLM (por Men Loving Men) para el amor entre hombres; o términos que a pesar de tener análogos en español, se usan comunmente en inglés (en círculos trans hispanohablantes, a menudo se refiere a la feminización/masculinización de la voz como voice training).

No hace falta pensar demasiado para notar un problema muy grande: este tipo de préstamos y calcos léxicos tiene un efecto limitador en quiénes pueden participar en charlas LGBT. Se forma a través de cada extranjerismo y palabra incómoda una barrera que excluye o ahuyenta a aquellas personas que no sean bilingües y/o ya conscientes de los diálogos que se dan en círculos LGBT contemporáneos (los cuales están mayormente en redes sociales). De esta manera, el conocimiento y la educación LGBT resulta más inaccesible por el simple hecho de ser y a la vez no ser en español.

Pero eso no es todo:

Esa es la problemática más clara y obvia, pero una consecuencia menos visible de esta particularidad terminológica es el efecto que tiene en la percepción general de la comunidad y los temas LGBT.

Al estar repleto de extranjerismos, calcos, y términos que por accidente resultan más formales que su versión en inglés, el diccionario LGBT nos dota de un aire pomposo, académico, de algo cheto, pijo, fresa, esnob, mamón, zorrón, etc. el cual nos resta importancia y sesga a la gente en nuestra contra. Hay términos más naturalizados como “gay”, pero estos tampoco se salvan de ese registro elevado del que carecen en inglés.

Por experiencia personal, puedo hablar de más de una ocasión en la que hablar de pronombres (otro préstamo horrible del inglés, ya que el género gramatical en español va mucho más allá de los pronombres, pero se usa ese término igual) o de especificidades como lo que es genderqueer y la diferencia entre poliamor y no-monogamia resultó en que dijeran, en más o menos palabras: “¿Y qué le importaría esto a un pibe de la villa?”.

La idea que se expresa es que el aspecto local, de la periferia, y de las clases más bajas o trabajadoras es algo que impide que el pueblo tenga el privilegio de ser LGBT. Como si antes de ser un género o una sexualidad que nos separe de la cisheteronorma monógama tuviésemos que alcanzar cierto nivel de tranquilidad económica y educación. Como si lo nuestro fuese un pasatiempo o capricho y no nuestra vida e identidad.

Tampoco considero casualidad que en muchos países donde no se habla inglés (sobre todo aquellos en el supuesto “tercer mundo” y “oriente”) la narrativa conservadora anti-LGBT consista en denominarnos una invasión cultural estadounidense o una frivolidad política que distrae de los problemas económicos del país.

Puedo citar la manera en la que Rusia justifica la creciente opresión al colectivo LGBT, o Uganda criminaliza la homosexualidad con cadena perpetua, pero mi ejemplo favorito es un poco más inocuo y a la vez indicativo de cómo esto está presente más allá de en los gobiernos más extremistas:
En mi trabajo anterior de intérprete, tuve la oportunidad de interpretar una conversación (para preservar la confidencialidad, no voy a revelar el contexto) en la que tuve que comunicar en español la pregunta “¿Se identifica usted como lesbiana, gay, bisexual, transgénero, o no-conforme al género?” la respuesta que recibí fue “Yo soy macho, mexicano, no me ando con esas joterías”.
Lo que ocurrió en ese diálogo en el que tuve el placer de traducir “joterías” al inglés fue que el señor instintivamente trazó una división entre su identidad nacional mexicana y el colectivo LGBT, que le parecía algo estadounidense.

Una versión más local de este fenómeno existe en el interior de Argentina. El estereotipo de una persona de Buenos Aires para el interior es que somos ricos y esnobs, que usamos palabras en inglés cada dos por tres, y que lo hacemos para presumir nuestra superioridad de gran ciudad. De esta manera, en las provincias más conservadoras del país, a todo lo LGBT se lo asocia con Buenos Aires, con nuestras empanadas de bacon y cheddar y con nuestros turistas que encarecen absolutamente todo.

Políticamente, también se genera una supuesta brecha entre el progresismo social y el progresismo económico que no existe (o bueno, sí existe pero para nada al mismo nivel) en países como Estados Unidos, el Reino Unido, Canadá, etc. donde ambas militancias van de la mano (con buen motivo, en mi opinión). En Argentina es más común pensar en una izquierda preocupada por los derechos LGBT, el feminismo y mitigar el cambio climático como algo separado a una corriente más enfocada en fomentar el consumo interno, aumentar sueldos y controlar la inflación.

¿Y entonces qué?

Obviamente no estoy proponiendo que todo esto sea causa directa de que tengamos palabras raras, pero sí quisiera hacer hincapié en la importancia que tienen estos términos al darle forma a la discusión política de la que dependen nuestros derechos humanos.

¿Qué quisiera yo? Alguna manera de conseguir términos simples, que suenen como palabras en español o, si no, locales (a lo cual nos acercamos al reapropiarnos de términos históricamente despectivos), que faciliten la explicación y no parezcan terminología académica.

¿Se puede? No sé. Quizás deseo lo imposible, quizás es más simple de lo que parece, pero vale la pena quitarle estos límites a nuestra expresión y en el proceso abrir puertas.

Literalmente esto quiero

Opoona (2007)

2024-05-17T00:00:00Z

My god, what a delightful experience.

Opoona is an obscure little RPG for the Wii. If you need the short version: it’s a game with lots of love and lots of flaws that managed to captivate me so much that I am actually writing a whole ass 1500 word long review of it. There we go, now I’ll say the same thing in too many words:

I’ve known of this game for several years, I might’ve even seen it at my local game store as a kid, and it has always been in my I’ll play this some day list, but what really made me want to play it was this excellent review by my friend Mei. I won’t talk about the aspects of the game she mentions, partly because she does it way better than I ever could, but mainly because I resonated with a very different side of the game. I encourage you to read it; it’s short, sweet, and really gets to the appeal of the game.

So, you’re Opoona, an adorable child of a race known as Tizian, travelling on a spaceship with your mom, dad, two siblings, two crew members and way too many dogs. Your ship crash-lands on the human planet of Landroll, where people live in domes to protect themselves from the Dark Force of the outside world and you have to work until your parents recover and your ship is repaired.

As you work more jobs, visit more domes, and befriend its inhabitants, you learn more about this society’s history and its problems, and you get to really help it in more ways than one as the stakes rise.

Beyond its basic plot, the world of Opoona (that’s Landroll, the world of the game, not Tizia, the homeworld of the main character) is another one of its main appeals. Every single dome and area in general is absolutely gorgeous.

Coupled with the beautiful soundtrack, I found myself stopping to admire the mesmerizing scenery, taking screenshots and sharing them with everyone more times than I can count. It helps that the world itself is not just pretty but also very well crafted.

Nothing floats in the void, everything is connected, everything has a sense of place, and most landmarks can be seen and accessed from more than one place, making every map feel like it has an in-universe purpose beyond just being a pretty (oh, so pretty) backdrop for the game.

Look and the pretty flowers!!

Further establishing the sense of purpose everything has is the world’s bureaucracy. This is a game obsessed with bureaucracy. Everything is a process: every door is an ID checkpoint, every elevator takes its time, everytime you hop onto a travel pod to get from dome to dome, you need to go through a multi-stage process, both to get on and off of it. Nothing is instantaneous, everything happens for a reason.

This aspect does get tedious by the time you reach the second half of the game, but I believe that tedium is worth it, as it contributes to what I find to be most compelling part of the game, what resonates the most and makes me feel involved with the world:

This is a coming-of-age story through and through. What really touched me about its execution was how well it manages to make you feel like you’re growing up.

To begin with, you are a tiny alien little guy. You’re physically small and have to look up when speaking to almost everyone; plus your design is simple, cartoony and stubby, compared to the more anime-ish look of the human characters.

You also don’t know how the world you’re in works. This is where the previously mentioned obsession with processes really comes into play. The first thing that happens after you wake up in Landroll and get told that your parents are in the Space ICU is you walking up to an elevator, hearing an error message jingle and being told that you’ve stepped onto the platform without an ID and therefore cannot use the elevator.

After you get your new ID, you’re left with insufficient directions to explore the office labyrinth that is the Tokione dome. You can follow the signs, ask people for instructions, look at the dogshit map of the place, but you will inevitably stumble and get lost before you find your way.

That was my first experience with almost everything: the layout of the domes, the strangely worded in-game menus (probably a result of poor localisation), the doors I couldn’t yet access, every public worker telling me “actually, this is the license issuing desk, you need to go to that other identical desk over there to get your quotas”.

oh shit

But this is not going to be the case for long. In the same way you progress by levelling up, getting more important jobs, and dealing with higher stakes in the main story, you also learn how this whole system works. You stop getting confused and anxious at the layouts, you know where the important part of every menu is, you know how to check everything you’re missing and, just like most of the in-game adults, you keep having problems with the system, but you learn how to work both through it and around it.

I don’t think any other game, or any other piece of art that I know of, has managed to capture this feeling in me. I get memories of opening a bank account for the first time, not being sure of who to talk with, what to say, what to ask, where to go, recounting the steps in my head without any confidence whatsoever. A year later, I knew all I needed, and I knew how to ask about what I didn’t already know. SO many integral parts of my life work like what initially seems like arbitrary and indecipherable rituals but ends up being a tedious but easy to maneuver process. Everytime I notice myself successfully navigating a bureaucratic aspect of society with ease, I get this feeling of “I’ve come so far and grown so much” that Opoona expertly captures.

And now, the problems with the game:

If you’re someone who absolutely needs the gameplay to be what carries a game forward, you’re probably gonna have a bad time playing this game. The combat in Opoona is original, but it never quite works. It has an active-time (or active bonbon, as the game calls it) turn-based system where your and your enemy’s actions have a cooldown and everyone attacks as soon as they can. You’re supposed to pull the stick in one direction and let go to fling your Bonbon (that floating ball the Tizians have) to the enemy at an angle, and figure out how and when to fling it to hit the right enemy on the right spot. You also have special moves and items, accessible through a more traditional menu system.

The problem is that battles fall into two distinct categories:

Scenario a: You fling your bonbon once or twice per enemy and win.

Scenario b: You absolutely need special moves and items or else the enemies will kill you in seconds.

This means you never really have a chance to experiment with any special moves other than the big AoE attacks and max heals, because every second that you spend reading what the buff, nerf or status effect moves do and trying them out is a second your party is spending getting their asses handed to them, and every battle where you have some breathing room is a battle you don’t really need any special moves in.

I mentioned tedium in a positive light, but Opoona also features the wrong kind of tedium at times. There are missions that require you to go back and forth between two domes over and over, and if it weren’t for the fast-forward button in Dolphin, they would’ve taken me hours to complete. Three missions in particular appear to be entirely random as well, one of which I abandoned and two of which I would have dropped were it not for save-states. I could go on.

this place... i hate this place...

The game also suffers from a complete lack of direction at times. Mind you, I played the fan English re-translation, which keeps the strange tone of the writing but corrects some moments where the game straight up gives you the wrong instructions and hints and I still had issues figuring out what it wanted me to do. If there weren’t any walkthroughs on the internet, I might have dropped the game altogether at the halfway point. You might have better luck with the original Japanese or other languages.

However

Problems with the gameplay aside, the story and worldbuilding really carry Opoona. I started out confused at the layout and all the identical looking people and after hours of a game that consists mostly of walking around and pressing A a lot, I finished the game caring SO much about the fate of the world, its inhabitants, and Opoona’s friends and family.

So yes, I would recommend that people play this game, but only if they have a patience for the more obtuse and tedious parts, and they have this walkthrough handy. It’s a beautiful game with lots of love and lots of passion that deserves to touch people’s hearts.

Words Don’t Come Easy (Or Why Speaking to Others Is Torture)

2024-03-05T00:00:00Z

Ok, it’s not torture, but it often is frustrating.
For as long as I’ve thought about what speaking to others entails, I’ve never stopped feeling as if I never fully cracked the code to communicating with others. I can get by just fine, it’s not like I speak gibberish and Seinfeld quotes (not that there’s anything wrong with that), but talking does feel to me a bit like playing a board game whose rules I keep learning as I go.
There’s always been this filter between what I say and what people get. I mean, everyone has it to some extent, nobody really gets the full meaning of every word you say, they just get the meaning they have associated with said words in their mind, which might be ever so slightly different from yours. But as interesting as it is to consider, that’s not what I’m writing about.

"I never said that!"

People seem to take everything I say in absolutes: if I say I don’t like loud noises, it means I’ll break down and cry every time someone raises their voice; if I say I’m not good at starting conversations, people think I need some sort of accommodation for my debilitating social ineptitude; if I say I’m introverted, people are surprised when I end up loving hanging out with multiple friends at once.
This gets even worse when applied to taste. I can never think something is generally not my preference, because the moment I say I don’t like a movie’s use of slapstick, the colour green on a wall, or how a beer brand’s red beer tastes, people suddenly assign traits to me that I never asked for. Now for the rest of my life and the next one I’ll have to hear “I know you don’t like slapstick, but this movie’s actually pretty funny,” “Right, I forgot you don’t like green decorations,” and “I made sure to get you a different brand, cause I know you hate this one”.
It’s part of why talking about my feelings and tastes proves so tiring to me. Once I put it all into words, they’re bound to be distorted and warped into the feelings and taste of a cartoon character that people think is me.

“That’s not what I meant, where did you get that from?”

If you know me, you’ve probably heard me say some variant of the sentence “People always seek some other meaning than the words that I am saying.” This is one of the most persistent problems I’ve had in my entire life and after almost 22 years, I still haven’t figured out what to do about it.
To know what I mean, you first have to know that I have a tendency towards taking things literally. I’ve learned not to do it, and I can kinda tell what most people mean when there’s more meaning behind the words they say (I have to borrow from my media literacy skills a bit). I write this because I think other people experience the opposite problem with me: I tend to say or ask things without any other purpose than the one expressed in my words, and people take it to mean something entirely separate. If I'm hanging out with friends and I say I’m out of my element, they assume I wanna leave, or if I say clothes make me uncomfortable, people assume I want to have sex with them. I knew there was some sort of logic to it but it wasn’t until recently (embarrassingly recently, like post-pandemic recently) that I realised that the words you say matter, but the fact that you are saying them matters almost just as much. Turns out, words do come easy! It’s just everything around them that’s hard!

The part where I wrote an entire aside on The Sopranos, I swear this is important.

This is going to sound very stupid, I know, but I only really internalised this after watching The Sopranos. In that show, there’s a lot of not-so-subtle manipulation. A threat in the shape of a smile and a compliment, an order dressed like a complaint, layers and layers and layers of plausible deniability that holds the mafia structure together.
There’s this one scene where Christopher goes to The Esplanade, the construction site where a lot of the politicking swirls around, and exchanges a few words with Patsy about these new fibre optic cables and how they’re the hot new thing. Then they stare at each other, and Patsy gets the order; he steals the fiber optic cables without ever being explicitly told to do so. Later on, when Tony gets angry at Christopher for what Patsy pulled off, and Chris confronts him about it, Patsy’s justification is “you gave me a look,” something that Chris dismisses as ridiculous, though we all know that look was 100% intentional.

So, I learned that, while nobody gets that I want someone dead or something stolen when I talk to them, they are trying to figure out what I want from them… when most of the time I don’t want anything (and I say “most” because I catch myself doing this every now and then, though not intentionally).

I’ve also tried to pick up on the kind of idioms and expressions people use, but that’s very fallible. I usually know what they mean, and people usually understand what I’m saying with them, but every once in a while, I find out an expression I’ve been using for years always meant something completely different or something very inappropriate for whatever situation I’m in. This means I never feel truly certain of what I’m saying when it comes to certain expressions. I have to fumble through it, I’ll forget whatever explanation or definition I get.

So, what do I do?

For the “people think I want something from them” problem, I try to wait until the right moment to say things, but I don’t really know what the right moment is, and I can’t just not say them (I mean, I can, but it takes some effort, and why wouldn’t I talk to people?), and I mostly say stuff because they came to my mind.

For that same problem, and the “people always get the wrong impression of what I say” issue, I’ve adopted the wonderful technique known only as “interrupting them to explain how wrong they are.” I do this because it’s extremely hard to correct those misconceptions once they’ve formed. I can’t just say “actually, it’s not that I hate that brand of beer, I just prefer other brands’ red beer,” they’ll just forget it the instant I’m done speaking until the stars align and their chakras open. No, it’s way easier to say it as soon as I can to keep that idea from taking shape.

Another thing I learned to do is add eighteen quadrillion qualifiers to everything I say, cover every base in advance so there’s no chance of anyone getting anything other than what I mean. I don’t say “I don’t like the green in this wall,” I say “I don’t think I like how this particular kind of green looks in this wall when put up against all the other decorations. I’m not saying green can’t look good on any wall, or that it should be changed, because the important thing, ultimately, is for whoever decided to have this wall be green to like it. I just think that I, particularly, would probably choose a different colour for it.”
If you ever get the impression from talking with me that I intentionally choose every word I say, and what tone to say them in, that’s because I do!

And does it work?

No! And I’ve gotten so used to some of these habits that I don’t really know how to un-learn them.

Some things I want to reiterate and clarify in case anyone gets the wrong impression

I am not saying that nobody gets me or that I can’t connect with anyone. Like I said, I get by and I have done so for years. This is not a crippling problem, it’s an annoyance I’ve gotten used to living with and only recently started thinking about. Most of the time, I’m fine being a tiny bit pedantic and knowing I might have to clarify things later on.

I am also not saying everyone but me is a dumb NPC who doesn’t think. I noticed that this whole thing has a very “ugh, I don’t understand hoomans” tone I was never really aiming for and I understand this is mainly my own inability to express myself in words and emote, not people’s incapacity for receiving my message. I’m just sharing what I live with.

Plus this isn’t something that happens with every single person. There’s people who really do hear my words and take them from what they are, ask before coming to a conclusion, and/or are patient with me because they know it’s a little challenging for me.

I’m also not calling for an end to implicit meaning and ambiguity, or for everyone to treat me like Data from TNG (well, maybe just a little, as a treat).

What I ultimately want out of this is something I try to practice every day: a little patience and a little charitability. Whenever there’s ambiguity, I try to clarify, or at least find the most charitable interpretation (not that I’m perfect at this, I do struggle with it sometimes). I think we’d all live and connect better if we applied something like this to how we deal with ambiguity.