I listened to the song of the leaves as I crunched along the road. There was a chill running up my back that my coat couldn’t keep out. It was nice to feel, it had been a long walk and I was starting to overheat.
I was thinking of you as I listened to my music. Would you like this song? Would you think it was silly or something that was right up your alley? Would you sing along?
I remember when we sang together. Going down the same road in a car instead of by foot. That car was a lot like our friendship. Dented and old but unstoppable.
Those dents, I could never buff them out. We had done things to one another. Caused each other pain.
Sometimes you just have to live with it. Walk with the damage done to you. Was it unforgivable? Not this time. Would we forget? Probably not.
I watched all six episodes of Gundam Requiem for a Vengeance over the course of two days last week. My non spoiler review is that it’s well made and very good. My spoiler thoughts are below the jump.
*SPOILERS FOR GUNDAM REQUIEM FOR VENGEANCE*
For the uninitiated, the Gundam franchise is about a world where humans have created colonies in space and that has made people on the earth and colonies turn into the Hatfields and McCoys. They are constantly at war with the colonies being represented by the nation of Zeon, who in most continuities are the bad guys because they’re constantly trying to drop colonies on the earth to create nuclear winter.
Their main advantage in the war are weapons known as mobile suits, specifically the Zaku.
They make short work of any defenses the earth and colonies can throw at them. Usually the series picks up when the earth and its subsequent resistance comes up with an even better mobile suit called a gundam.
They are usually superior in every aspect and are able to dice through most of the Zakus. And they are usually piloted by hyperemotional teenagers and lead to ponderous discussions of war and the nature of a soldier’s existence. It sounds silly and it partly is but it’s nice to have a war franchise be made by people who think that war is bad as opposed to a lot of American media, which thinks that war is just peachy-keen.
Our story starts with the four person Red Wolves squadron of Zaku pilots who are making their way through Europe. We see how well they’re able to handle themselves with tanks and other weapons barely able to scratch them. The four pilots are pretty standard issue characters. They’re brash and hotheaded and say things like “Good hunting” to one another.
During the first episode, they settle in for the night at their base and everything seems to be going well. Until, there’s an explosion and rising out of the flames is the gundam.
It’s presented in the same way that Godzilla is with similar music and an air of inescapability and unstoppability. Everything they throw at it only seems to distract it before it subsequently kills its annoyances. Red Wolf Squadron is halved and the rest of the forces are destroyed. Are two leads, Iria and LeSean set out to save what survivors they can.
The rest of the show is a desperate cat and mouse game against and enemy that outpaces all of the main characters. Iria, our main character, is a complicated woman who has her duty but knows it means letting her friends and fellow soldiers die sometimes as well as making sure she doesn’t get back home to see her son.
There is an impressive dream sequence where she is seen in her former occupation of virtuoso violinist playing on stage in a long red dress. The bottom of the dress becomes blood that’s filling up the theater while she’s applauded by an audience of dead Zeon soldiers.
The show finally ends when she discovers the truth of the Gundam’s pilot. He’s not some grizzled adult but a scared kid who is forced to fight. She tries to spare him but while convincing him to stand down another soldier comes up behind him and stabs him in the back. Leaving Iria bereft and desperate to keep fighting to make sure that no other children have to be caught up in this conflict.
It reminds me of the Admiral Pelleon quote from the Star Wars Extended Universe.
“We go to war so that our children will never know the fear of it. Then our children go to war and we realize what fear truly is.”
To sum it up, the 3D animation works well with the designs of the characters and mobile suits. It’s nice to see a show where it’s not some world ending threat but instead a few days in the lives of a group of people. The main downside is besides for Iria I didn’t really feel like I got to know any other characters. There could have been another episode just to flesh everyone else out.
But I do think it’s worth watching if you like Gundam or anime in general.
It’s been about two weeks and I’m fully in my apartment alone, dug in like a tick. Boy, oh boy, do I love it.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m still on good terms with my old roommates. But there’s just something to be said about coming into my apartment, immediately throwing my pants away and just enjoying having to answer to no one. I’m never going back.
It took me about two days to get my apartment completely in order. I had it all planned out in my head before I started so that helped me get everything in its right place. I have a closet for my hobbies, I have a great utility closet and I have the nest.
The nest is a large futon mattress that I can put up into a little couch or its original mattress form. I did it this way so my bros can come over for sleepovers. The kitchen has the main downside in that the oven is very old and not as good as I wanted. I also don’t control the heat, which is weird.
But a home is like a pet, it’s never perfect but that’s what makes them so special. I’m never going back to living with people until I fall in love with someone.
My mental state just feels so much better too. I have so much more energy and ability to do things. I can’t way to really dig into my hobbies. Last night, I was pushing through my exhaustion to finish a wonderful glitter unicorn puzzle.
I also know that it’s important when living alone to stay social. You can get weird if you’re left alone. Well, I’m kind of getting burned out by people. I’ve been hanging out a lot with people to the point that I could kind of use a break.
If nothing else, I’m going to start doing this blog and it’s only going to get weirder.
Since the last post on this page, I have moved into my own apartment for the first time in my life and I’ve celebrated a birthday. This is my first post in this apartment.
It’s a strange thing to walk into a home and know that everything inside of it is yours alone. It reminds me of when I was a kid and started working for the first time at 15. The Playstation 2 had just come out and I had seen the groundbreaking Grand Theft Auto 3. A game bigger than anything I had ever seen before, with 3D graphics and it allowed you to go anywhere.
I wanted it so badly. I had saved up enough money from my part time job at McDonalds. I was so scared and nervous back then being around people. I would honestly want to do that again now. There were so many big personalities.
But anyway, I was a little bit persistent for my dad to drive me to my local video game store. He eventually did and then we had to go get the composite cables for it. My dad was a good sport about it. But I remember holding that PS2 in my hands and I said to him.
“This is mine. I earned this. No one can take this from me.”
And that’s how I feel sitting in my apartment. I took a risk going back to school and through some hard work and a lot of luck, I’ve landed a job that can keep me afloat. The apartment is mine to do with what I want. I’ve built a reading nest in my living room. The temperature is mine to control. I can walk three feet into my apartment after work and my pants are gone. It’s a wonderful feeling.
The other thing I can do is be creative in a way that I never was before. I got self conscious playing my guitar when my roommates could hear. Now I can play whenever I want as long as I don’t bother my neighbors. Fortunately, the soundproofing seems to be pretty good. I haven’t heard anything from them but I don’t want to push buttons.
If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you might have noticed that I haven’t posted anything this week. Well, I’m moving to a new apartment. I’ll let you know about everything once it’s done. Thank you for your patience.
Batman prepares. Batman is always prepared. Superman can do anything. These are the reasons that these characters are loved and people think they’re boring. They’ve lasted for so long. But it’s also been said they’re hard to write for.
There is a problem in DC where super powers can become so godlike that it becomes hard to think of challenges for them. The great cry in every MCU movie is “Why don’t you just call the Avengers?” well, in DC it becomes “Why does anyone try anything when Superman is around? Or Shazam? Or the Green Lanterns?”. There are so many massive threats that it’s ridiculous that anything other than God coming down to throw down with the heroes of Earth.
Marvel understands this and has kept most of their heroes “street level”. They are only able to do so much. It’s why people can become fearful of mutants. Some mutants are known as Omega level and that means that they can destroy the world if they so want. In my eyes, that just means that they’re on the same level as Superman.
When Spider-man fucks up, you can say, well that’s just who Spider-man is. He’s powerful, super strong and fast. But you could probably kill him with a small army and some air support. There’s a reason that his villains to bring him down didn’t need to ascend to god level, they just had to come at him all at once.
You can see this in Supernatural, the boys hunt monsters and all these things for near two decades during the run of the show. However, they’re still idiots and that makes them compelling. Because even the best fuck up.
That’s how you should be able to write Batman and Superman but people think of them being too perfect. Too powerful. That’s why one of the most loved versions of Batman is the one from the animated series. He’s a human. He’s smarter and stronger than the average human but he can still get stabbed by the Joker.
We don’t want Gods. We want good people doing good things. A hero shouldn’t stand above you but with you. They should be selfless and kind and inspire you to do the same. There is of course some variation to keep them interesting but that’s what a hero does.
It’s something that I try and put in my writing. I write the person first and then figure out what their power would do to them. Would it make them good? Bad? Corrupt? That’s up to what happens when I put finger to key and pen to paper.
My buddy Donnie and I have been recording episodes of our podcast I Hope I Can Make It Through for some time. For those that don’t know, it focuses on the show Degrassi the Next Generation, which focuses on the kids from the earlier Degrassi iterations. If you look at it a certain way, the whole series is about Emma Nelson. Her mom, Spike, was a teen mom in the first series and we see her grow up in the Next Generation.
And that’s what brings me to one of my favorite moments. It comes from the episode, Coming of Age. You see, Emma Nelson is an opinionated environmentalist and activist. Her friend, Manny Santos, who deserves far better than she ever got, just kind of wants to have fun and chase boys.
In this episode, Emma starts experiencing mood swings and doesn’t understand what’s happening to her. At one moment, she finds herself sitting on a bench. She gets up to go to class and Manny yanks her back down. Emma has started her period for the first time and it’s stained her white skirt. They walk awkwardly to the restroom, Manny trailing behind her, holding a magazine against the back of her skirt.
They don’t have any spare clothes so Manny goes looking for her. Emma hears someone enter and it’s the queen bee, Paige. When Emma tells her it’s her first time, Paige’s tune changes immediately. She says that she has a spare pad and offers it to her. They discuss growing up and Emma laments no longer being a kid. Emma worries about becoming Paige and with a characteristic bit of wit Paige responds:
Paige: Please, you wish.
Manny returns with a giant pair of gym shorts. They go to class to give a book report in front of the room. Manny desperately holding up the giant pair of shorts. Two boys, Toby and JT who would get better when they get older joke that Emma might have wet her pants. Emma snaps back that she got her period for the first time and it’s perfectly natural. They proceed to give their book report.
I love these two scenes. Girl friendships! Girls supporting girls! Awkward high schoolers. It has everything. For me, that’s when this show really shines. Manny and Emma don’t interact as much as they get phased out for the next group of characters. However, I’ll always remember this as the peak.
For the most part, it’s only been used for Neo-Tokyo from Akira. It’s such a cool prefix to depict a city that has been through something and is now firmly in the future. Unfortunately for Akira’s Tokyo, it had to go through a terrible event.
Same as Neon Genesis Evangelion where Tokyo is now Tokyo-3. Still cool but not as cool as Neo-Tokyo. Now, what are we going to do etymology-wise with the various cities in America, which are already new versions of English cities and towns. Let’s run through a few and see how we feel.
Neo-Boston- I feel like this is a good start. It does make me think of people screaming about the Sox but they’re wearing like Geordi LaForge glasses. Would Boston make a good spaceport? I think so.
Neo New York City- That’s just ungainly. I think it would be best if it was Neo-York City. Actually, typing that out that I’m not so sure about that. Then it feels like it’s giving all the joy to York and ignoring the whole part of New York City. NNYC. Okay, reneging on what I said before, I think that Neo New York City is the way to go.
Neo Intercourse- Yes, yes, yes. This is the way to go. So, for those who love map based humor, knows that there is a town in Pennsylvania called Intercourse. Renaming it Neo Intercourse gives it the idea of future love sex. Let me touch you with my cybernetic arm. Then we’ll plug into the net with our VR headsets and engage in a roundtable about funk music.
Neo-Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch- Okay, this one is a no brainer. We need to find a way to make this town’s name even more confounding and long. Really put the following gentleman through his paces.
Neo London- This is also a home run like Boston. It feels like all the bleak futurism of London comics is coming starkly through with this name. There would definitely be zeppelins.
I’m going to revisit what the future versions of cities would be like but how do we arrive? In the altered words of David Byrne, how do I get there? Well, I think we need to move away from a pessimistic outlook that leads to Neo-places.
I think when a city becomes utopian and producing renewable energy that’s the badge of honor they get. Greenways, windmills and solar panels.
Join me soon in Neo-Silent Hill! Where Pyramid Head has a hoverboard and iPhone.
I’ve always had terrible handwriting. Even now as an adult, nothing has really changed. I write down the magic items in my DND campaign and half the time have to read it for my players.
When I was younger, they gave me extra writing homework to try and improve my handwriting. It never worked. No matter how many sentences I wrote. Cursive? Forget it. The only cursive I could handle was the loud band that sang about terrible relationships.
I had a thought today about why my handwriting was so terrible. I think it’s because I get really excited whenever I get the chance to do it. It’s the same reason that my typing is so full of typos. I’m kind of like those dogs that sprain their tails from wagging them too hard.
I thought about practicing it more but outside of the working world and my DND players, no one else reads my handwriting but me. Anything I do creatively I do in a word processor. I keep a diary so it’s a good way to make sure that no one reads that either. I think that was an episode of Doug.
When I have to write a love letter again, I’ll make sure to take my time.
Franklin Cota, an author and podcaster 