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So I'm not an expert, but a couple notes from what I've learned:

Absolutely, give it a shot; as for fear of failure, the only way you can be sure you won't succeed is if you don't try. A note on description, though: it is generally true that people who struggle with description (particularly elaborate description) will find screenwriting a less difficult/not impossible process. However, writing action (by which I mean almost anything that isn't dialogue) is challenging and intense work; the writing has to feel like watching a movie, giving off the essence of the scene rather than every single detail. However, this rule isn't hard and fast. Anyone who says "don't direct with the script" is the enemy. If the visuals, camera angle or character placement is important, it needs to be in the script.

Word. Often, you'll find second or incomplete drafts of movies rather than the final draft. However, they can still be a valuable resource. Here's a decent resource for screenplays: http://www.dailyscript.com/

And here's a great podcast by a couple of screenwriters, which I've found enjoyable and at times therapeutic: http://johnaugust.com/scriptnotes

I feel you up until that last sentence. This is a myth created by Final Draft. While it is true that feature scripts should be between roughly 95 and 125 pages, that too is an arbitrary rubric. I think the page-per-minute rule has just become a popular idea because it makes screenplays seem way simpler and easier than they are. For instance, with a script I've been reading recently (X2: X-Men United) the page-count-to-screen-time comparison is 25 minutes off, about a fifth of the movie's length.

Also, if anyone is looking for screenwriting software, Highland is available on the App Store for $30, and Celtx is available for free as long as you have an internet connection.

My point is that Ansem, Seeker of Darkness and (to a lesser extent) Xemnas weren't written with Xehanort's scheme in mind, mostly because Xehanort's scheme seems to have been more or less made up on the spot by the writers in 3D. That is to say that in my opinion, the answer to the question of "where does KH2 figure into the plot with the X-Blade?" is that it doesn't. Nor do the plots of any of the KH games other than Birth By Sleep and 3D. Well, except for the fact that the characters from those games have been repurposed towards a new plot, which in turn renders almost every accomplishment so far null and void.

These seem like pretty good explanations, but all of them also seem retroactive. I think the most obvious answer is that Nomura and co. are making this up as they go along. In the case of Ansem, Seeker of Darkness, he doesn't seem intent on much other than overrunning the worlds in darkness. He doesn't seem terribly interested in Sora or the Keyblade. As for Xemnas, maybe it's because he didn't have his memory ("or maybe, I'm all there ever was"), but regardless I think both his and Ansem's stated intentions are more or less sincere in their respective games, and now they've been repurposed to do this complicated lights-and-darknesses thing after the fact. I understand that they're trying to give the whole "Xehanort Saga" a kind of cohesiveness, but I don't believe for a second that all of the plotlines have actually led up to this, given that every plot connection between the games is clunky and in no way suggests previous authorial intent.

So happy that there's going to be at least a little more of Sun this season, I was worried they were going to get rid of him. He creates a really interesting dynamic, and also seems to bring out the best/most interesting parts of Blake's character. The animation looks excellent, and I like the design of the new characters from what I've seen. Can't wait until it premiers; also the disappointment in my inability to go to RTX has compounded on itself.

Used to love this band when I was in my teens; Tim Mcllrath's voice is undeniably powerful. I still really enjoy Revolutions Per Minute and Sufferer & the Witness, but Endgame was just... bad. Lots of lame and unmemorable songwriting. This new single sounds even worse, just completely flaccid and lacking in motivation, like RA on autopilot. Hopefully they can turn it around and either go in a more experimental, Fugazi-like direction or go back to hardcore punk. This middling TRL crap will not do.

On the one hand, I'm very confident that KH3 will have the same fun and addictive combat system and I'll race through to the end. That said, as the thread says, some things I fear:

-Weird/terrible worlds: There's not much left to draw on in terms of classic Disney movies. A visit to later versions of worlds from BBS might be cool, but other than that the game needs to avoid revisiting worlds like the plague, making this a very difficult situation.

-That it will meander around with a repetitive mechanic like sealing Keyholes (again) for most of the game, then jam exposition and climax into the same sequence almost simultaneously, leaving everyone confused and frustrated (i.e. be a repeat of the plot from KH2).

-On that note, that it have a painfully slow start which barely introduces the mechanics of the game and focuses on a largely irrelevant subplot (really the beginning to both KH1 and 2).

-That the plot will be too bogged down with trying to tie up loose ends from the other games that it won't actually tell any kind of comprehensive story. One fear that I don't have is that it will sacrifice tying up loose ends (like Roxas becoming his own person or Xion coming back) to make room for a decent story.

-Star Wars/Marvel Summons. I don't think there will be any worlds based on the new Disney-owned franchises, but perhaps summons. I wouldn't care for those.

-That the story will somehow be so disappointing and so stupid that I give up on the franchise entirely. It's unlikely, but possible.

New Post! This one's on Neon Genesis Evangelion http://animecriterion.blogspot.com/2014/05/neon-genesis-evangelion-part-1.html

I'd like Destiny Islands to have some kind of greater meaning. Clearly, its name has cosmic implications, there was some kind of special door to darkness there, and it was interesting how Terra and Aqua wound up there without intending to. Sora picking up the Master Keeper in the trailer is a good sign. But I hope there's some tangible reason given for why keyblades or keyblade wielders are drawn/born there (I have a theory which probably doesn't belong here... or anywhere).

I love me some hookah as well, though I'm not nearly as invested in it-- I don't own my own pipe, but then again I find there's something charming about going to hookah bars and being bombarded with Bollywood music videos and overpriced falafel. Anyway, welcome, welcome!

That's definitely an evolutionary narrative that holds some water, although I find increasingly often that articles on gender relations kind of lazily throw in a theory about evolutionary psychology that the author made up on the spot; one which isn't really based in science at all. One thing that makes me question it- although this may be an apples-and-oranges kind of point- is divorce statistics. In the U.S, approximately 60% of heterosexual divorces are initiated by women. This is surely in part because there are far greater instances of male-to-female physical abuse in marriages than vice versa, and in those cases the woman would most likely initiate the divorce, but I wouldn't think that would account for a whole 10% greater incidence. Also, although it is early in its existence, current analysis of same-sex marriages show a significantly lower rate of divorce in male same-sex marriages, and a significantly higher rate in female same-sex marriages. In short, (although I realize you weren't making such a basic argument) it seems like the women= seeking commitment and men= seeking fertility conception of gender is somewhat off-base, even though it's intuitive.

Thank you so much; I've been meaning to comment on your thread as well, you're a production genius. I have no idea how you do it (no, literally, please tell me how haha)

I completely hear you as to the enunciation problem, that was a real problem that I think was symptomatic of my own lack of confidence in my voice. Here's a newer track which I think corrects the problem at least partway:

I'll start with the latter part: that is essentially what I was trying to get at with regards to the gender distinction I mentioned, as I feel like the male imagination (or maybe it's just me and my brain works strangely) is able to separate the sexual act from people more easily than women's.

With regards to the earlier topic, it's certainly the case that we have a guilt culture in the west, and that masturbation was seen as a source of guilt until fairly recently, and still is a source of it in some religious sects, etc. So in that sense, masturbation isn't really a point of pride, but it's now largely accepted as something men just do. Even I personally view it as more of a biological function than anything else. But with regards to women's sexuality, it's been systematically repressed throughout most cultures and throughout most of history. The worst part of this now is a sort of anti-feminism that I've noticed becoming more prominent in my lifetime; so while someone like Belle Knox might write about how she thinks that "patriarchy fears female sexuality" and her point is totally valid, so often I hear that it's other women who **** shame and frown upon women who express enjoying masturbation and even sex.

(For all who don't know, Belle Knox is an adult actress and blogger who attends Duke University and was outed by a classmate; she wrote a great series of articles on the subject, all of which are borderline NSFW but well worth the read: http://www.xojane.com/sex/duke-university-freshman-porn-star)

" Dying of your own will. That is the one and only absolute freedom there is. "

Excellent point, Spider Man 2 was an awesome game. Maybe the best movie-to-video-game adaptation ever (not sure, haven't played all of them). Even the first game was fun, if heavily flawed. Never played the third game, but I heard it was kind of a mess, which is definitely apropos. Still, if the video games were submitted as part of the Raimi trilogy, its stock would certainly increase in my book.

I remember seeing Sam Raimi's Spider Man as a kid and enjoying it; Willem Dafoe was a pretty good Green Goblin, and the first scenes with Peter discovering his powers were entertaining and fun. The movie has aged very poorly. Toby Maguire is a wet blanket of an actor, a constant reminder that Jake Gyllenhaal (a massively more talented actor) very nearly took the role. The character of Mary Jane is pretty one-dimensional and flat here, and I find Kirsten Dunst totally unappealing as an actress. Really, if you're going to fail the Bechdel test and make your female lead a helpless damsel, you might as well make her desirable in some way. This is where the movie really goes wrong: being Spider Man doesn't seem cool, because I don't see myself in Peter Parker, I see some boring turd. Mary Jane is neither attractive nor interesting. Sam Raimi's direction is so poor in anything that isn't an action scene that he makes James Franco seem like a terrible actor. Good action scenes don't make a good action movie, especially if the action movie is a portrayal of a beloved character.

Spider Man 2 is a frustrating, joyless, illogical train wreck, the best scene of which is a train wreck. Mary Jane is developed as a character here... to be an utterly insufferable ditz. Sam Raimi probably isn't a misogynist, but actions speak louder than words. James Franco is even worse in this movie. Doc Oc is compelling to a point, but so much of his storyline is a retread of the motifs of the Green Goblin plot from the last movie. Peter losing his powers takes up a huge chunk of the movie, and it's not only emotionally hollow (because I still don't like Peter), but utterly illogical and visually uninteresting. Barf.

Spider Man 3... the awfulness kind of speaks for itself. Its gender politics go from dubious to horrendous. Peter Parker gets an emo haircut, does a bizarre hard jazz dance (or whatever you call that debacle) and hits a woman, then cries on a rooftop in a black Spider Man suit. How did this script get greenlit?

As for The Amazing Spider Man, it had a whole host of problems. The writing was a mess. The villain was totally generic and bland, and his evil plot was stupid. Peter was written as a semi-abusive ******bag. Yet, for all this, it did the very basic function of what a Spider Man movie should do. It made being Spider Man seem kind of cool; Andrew Garfield just has a charisma and affability that Tobey Maguire lacks, and it makes Peter more relatable, despite some questionable lines/actions. There was a real, believable connection between Peter and Gwen. Speaking of which, Gwen Stacy is way more interesting than Mary Jane, and Emma Stone is not only funnier and more charismatic but way more attractive than Kirsten Dunst (these things matter in a good-ol'-fashioned action movie). I honestly just wish that the first trilogy had been done better, with different leads. But if I were to pick a Spider Man movie to watch right now, it's doutblessly to ASM I would go.