An essay about the most recent sample of fandom uproar towards an artist’s vision and examining what it means to critique another’s work.
Stan Lee once wrote, “it seems to me that a story without a message, however subliminal, is like a man without a soul.” He did this in response to the ongoing criticism Marvel comics received for its continued expansion of representation (not all of which was good, mind you) and the moralizing of its stories. Now I’ve arrived at a similar point, not as an author or creator but as an audience member. …
*SPOILERS*
In an interview with Variety last May, screenwriter, genre pioneer, and mad scientist Damon Lindelof detailed the steps he takes when writing television. For whatever your tastes are, and I’m sure they vary from my own, we can still appreciate the volume of success that Lindelof has had with various endeavors. From Lost to The Leftovers to his latest success Watchmen, Lindelof has proven both capable, and for my mileage, potent in the ways he chooses to tell stories via the medium of television.
One of the steps in the long process that takes the greatest deal of effort is…
An essay about how Marvel Studios’ current run on television should be seen as historic for both abusing its clout with an audience, but also rewarding audiences with unique, high-budget experiences that only rhyme with cinematic filmmaking.(Published Before Loki Season Finale)
Marvel Studios is quite obviously a pop-culture phenomenon, quoted as revolutionizing franchising filmmaking — especially franchise comic book filmmaking — by making the obvious connection of matching universal-sized comic book storytelling with its predecessor’s worldbuilding methodology. The architectural rendering of stories then becomes laced with significance. It informs the next chapter or the next character or simply nods to…
An essay about Neil Gaiman and the lessons I’ve learned from his fiction and his masterclass.
It was in the spring of 2018 when I began the wreckless endeavor of writing my first novel, diving headfirst into the abandonment of normalcy in the way becoming a writer almost certainly implies you are not normal. It was a terrible novel, a bumbling, thrown-together work of compilation, disengagement, and second-guessing. Three years later, I am writing another one. This time, however, it feels different. Even though I’m typing on the same keyboard, the same cozy blanket is nestled around my waist, and…
A review about Atwood’s sequel and its inability to match the tension of her original work.
For all the bleakness and feministic torture imbued within Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel, the charm of reading her ecumenical dystopian narrative is found in the underlining tension. How Atwood donates swathes of value to memory by manifesting this anxiety to forgetting, she weaponizes these mirages of yesterday as defenses against a society attempting to break you. As Offred discovers in the closet of her commander’s house, in the previous Handmaid’s writing, “Nolite te Bastardes Carborundorum” (don’t let the bastards grind you down.) …
A poem that challenges the duality of being true to myself.
Who am I? Who am I
not? Where do I fit
in this grand plot?
Take away a piece
of my mask. Is there anything
underneath? Was there?
Is there a sun where I can bask?
Should I bury myself?
Would that answer their prayer?
“Hope it’s a phase,”
a momentary error.
Straighten my tie, straighten my posture,
straighten.
Hide myself,
cloaked in a haze,
misshapen.
Ignore his glance, ignore
his charm. Obscure myself,
concealed to conform,
maintain their trance.
Where do I begin? Where
do I end? Do…
A longer work about the symbols carried around our lives and their significance.
It’s something inherited,
owned and drossed.
Embedded with parentage,
it simply cannot be tossed.
It’s like a relic,
a shape that has grown useless.
Despite its so-called ties to the angelic,
its sins remain anchored to the ruthless.
It’s non-expensive,
found alongside many other nooks and crannies.
Sold at almost any shop you can mention,
it’s impossible not to notice, it’s uncanny.
Yet worth is seeped into its bones,
from the moment you take it into your hands.
You’re aware of the forbidden zones.
The breadcrumbs tethered…
Shelby Fielding
Writer, Aspiring Author, & Coffee Enthusiast
