Topics

Did it really take a zombie apocalypse? The Walking Dead has several integral characters who happen to be same-sex attracted, yet their place in the narrative does not revolve around their sexuality. It is stated, inferred or shown, but is not a major plot point. Does this mean we are finally able to present LGBTQ characters without dwelling on their sexuality? How is this viewed by the fandom? Why does mainstream media still feel the need to sensationalize a character’s ‘coming out’?

The media loves sequels. Name almost any popular action, animated, or other movie from the last decade and you can pretty much bet it has a sequel or is getting one this year. The same is true for television shows. For example, Fuller House serves as a sequel to Full House, although it's something of a reboot, too. Books that were not meant as series also get sequels. The wildly popular Wonder (a personal fave) has some short story sequels from the POV of other characters besides Auggie.

Sequels are great, and there's obviously a huge market for them. But do we always need them? That is, do we always need or want to know what's next, or can we be content to let characters live happily ever after, as it were? What about writing our own sequels – besides being a ton of fun, do fanfictions and headcanons fill some sort of creative void? Discuss.

Film adaptations are the result of taking a story, usually a text, and adapting it to, well, film. Adapting a piece of work for the screen is not easy. A novel, for example, was created with specific detail. Taking a 300-page novel and condensing it into a 120-minute film is challenging. You are forced to remove or adjust certain characteristics to fit concerns, like financing. Otherwise, you may have a short story with hopes to create a full feature. That's just the beginning. Imagine if there is a verbal story carried on through generations. What does a screenwriter do then?

Can something that was created for another medium successfully "work" as a film, narratively and stylistically?

In 1954 François Truffaut coined the term 'auteur' in his groundbreaking work "Une certaine tendance du cinéma français", a descriptive that would subsequently be used to describe directors whose style or approach is so idiosyncratic that their films would be easily recognized (See Wes Anderson, Scorsese, Charlie Kaufman and the Coen Bros). But could this perspective and theory be possibly applied to the video game world?

We don't hear much of names in the video game industry, but the ones that come to the top of my head include Hideo Kojima, Shigeru Miyamoto, Toby Fox (for his sheer creative control in Undertale), Ken Levine (of the Bioshock games) and Sid Meier, who has built his own empire from his Civilization games. So my question is: is it possible to consider such visionaries auteurs? Can their games be considered solely products of their own unflinching vision? Or is another step in order: wherein we ought to consider companies/collectives as auteurs in their own right?

As video game players have risen from a small subsect of people into a large swath dominating the country and planet, how has this effected how we humans interact with one another. The Tetris Effect is when a repeated activity shapes the way your brain functions, as the repetitive action causes the brain to assign importance to said action. Given the prevalance of gaming today, how may be the Tetris Effect be changing society, and how may this look in our future as gaming becomes further mainstream.

Discuss exposing the correlation of the comic relief character in television often being overweight actors that Hollywood has created. Often case they are the only overweight actor on the show or film, and it may even be the only part offered. When screen casting the casting call may even call specifically for an overweight comedic relief. Discuss the implications of this and how it can harm the industry as a whole, as well as the effect on actual overweight individuals exposed to such decisions.

EXP: Gilmore Girls, The Hangover, Austin and Allie ( feel free to use your own)

Anime is mainstream, there is no question about that. Yet, why is there such a lack of intensity of discussion about Japanese movies that aren't animated, with the exception of Akira Kurosawa's films, especially Seven Samurai and Rashomon? Any thoughts on what is causing this? Feel free to add any information on Japanese cinema and animations' reception internationally as well.

I have only fairly recently discovered that Netflix now streams anime, many of which is produced by Netflix themselves. Netflix delving into anime gives me mixed feelings: does it spell the end of 'real', 'pure' anime – anime being a Japanese invention, there seems to be an unspoken rule that it can borrow as much references from the outside world without stop being 'anime' yet if another country attempts to create an animated work inspired by anime, such as Avatar the Last Airbender, it is not considered anime. Herein lies the confusion. Netflix is an American company yet their Original anime series seem undoubtedly 'anime' – looking, sounding, and feeling like anime. In this topic, I have quite a few questions: does Netflix creating, producing, and distributing anime spell the end of Anime being 'pure' or does it mean that Anime has finally progressed even further upon its path of global, nay, universal domination? At what point , or how much foreign involvement is needed before anime stops being anime? As many 'Japanese' anime outsources work from other countries especially China or Korea for in-betweening, does this mean that as long as the creative force behind the work is Japanese, the resulting work is Anime?

Well, after witnessing the recent crunchyroll anime awards and laughing spectacularly how much loss potential that the award show was, I started questioning what makes a show great, let alone to be the best. Does it have to be a show that's critically acclaimed by not only critiques but the general audience? A show with great animation, story and music, or something that is just dumb fun to watch and yet interesting not to get bored after a few episodes? I'm curious to hear your opinions on this topic.

Approached from the perspective of being an interactive story, what is unique to games like MMORPGs (esp. sandboxes), metroidvania, war games or survival games, as stories? What are some of the ways that gaming has innovated new ways of telling stories (think non-linear, interactive etc). Games can pull together disparate storytelling techniques like visual, auditory and interactive in a way that books, comics or film alone can't. Has the gaming industry harnessed this potential?

If you want to narrow it down to a specific category i'd recommend visual novels and RPGs, as they feel a lot closer to the question.

With the release of Devilman: Crybaby, many anime fans in the west were exposed to the shocking story of Devilman saga. While Devilman was known to be the classic that inspired many dark-themed manga and anime works, the series was mostly unavailable for the wider audience. Those who knew about the original story felt the same shock in different style, but many new fans were exposed to the brutal scenes and plots of Devilman.

It would be worthwhile to examine the impact of Devilman on the popular works and how they shaped the genres dealing with dark and grotesque fantasies.

8 out of 10 cat owners, who expressed a preference, agree that a growing body of evidence supports our new and improved formula's usefulness in combating the signs of ageing with up to 99% accuracy when compared to our nearest competitor…and so on. That sentence is complete and utter nonsense and yet it represents the gobblegook we see and hear every day, whether it be a claim about cat food, beauty products or WiFi. Discuss and analyse the insidious growth of weasel words, especially within the mainstream media, and how this can affect the ability to think critically and stifle independent creative thought. Alternatively, is there actually a place for weasel words (other than the bin)? No animals were harmed in the writing of this topic suggestion.

Analyze the lack of on-screen romantic love, as the spouses/love interests of the two main adult characters (Cooper and Dr. Amelia Brand) have both died. However, there is an incredible amount of love between Cooper and his daughter Murph, which allows for there to be love within the story.

What is it about Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland that has managed to endure so many remakes without audiences calling for enough? With the exception of adaptions such as the video game Alice: Madness Within and books like Alice in Zombieland, few break outside of the original story and yet, particularly throughout the nineties, every time you turn around there appears to be a new adaption.

Look at parody fiction, and discuss at what point it stops being "Parody" and becomes "Art", can these coexist? Is parody automatically art?

Suggestion: Hillywood Productions; YouTube

The one common debate among anime fans is the quality and importance of filler. Most of the time filler is used in anime not to surpass its ongoing manga that came first so it is used to pad the story out so the manga is further ahead of development than the anime. But when it comes to stories that doesn't have an original source, filler is often used to slow the pace down to let audiences get familiar with the characters and even build up its own lore. But these days audiences want a faster paced story at the cost of character development and world building. So should filler be excluded from all stories if it has no purpose? Or when done right, should it be allowed to stay?

Discuss the difference of story and plot, and how each contribute to the film experience an audience has. Many people think that story and plot are the same thing; however, the story consists of any events that impact the characters, while plot consists of what we see on the screen.

I had to do some research to refresh my memory of this literature before starting this topic. I think children's books are a very important part of the literature world. A writer has the ability to teach a child an important lesson while also entertaining them.

One important author who transformed the way children were perceived in their respected genre was Beverly Cleary. She wrote long-standing series such as Henry Huggins and Ramona Quimby. Throughout her series, where each character was under the age of 10, Cleary wrote about relatively mature conversations such a parent losing their job.

With this topic, I think it would be interesting to take a look at some fictional childhood role models and speak about their significance. Perhaps we can even broaden this to reach countries other than the United States.

With the hype surrounding Marvel's latest film Black Panther, there is a lot of focus from word of mouth and marketing that this is the first black superhero on the big screen. That is not true however as many have been shown in tv and films before such as Blade and Luke Cage. Yet Black Panther's role for POC representation in film is much more culturally significant than the other african-american superheroes that appeared on the big screen before the King of Wakanda. By comparing how the others were represented in comparison to Black Panther today.

This is a fairly personal topic I'd like to write myself, but will leave to more experienced Potterheads.

I was ten when the first Harry Potter book came out. I grew up in a moderate, but still observant Christian family who considered it too much of a risk to expose me and my then-six-year-old brother to a series that contained any form of witchcraft. I didn't read the books then and later, got too busy with other books. Besides, I didn't want to be labeled childish for carrying around HP paperbacks in, say, high school.

As an adult, I've finally gotten around to opening my Hogwarts letter and starting the series, and it's been a lot of fun. However, I can't escape this fact: I'm a thirty-something woman. I have a different HP experience than the average 11-year-old.

And so I'm curious to see an analysis of this phenomenon. Does age matter when you're discovering HP for the first or two hundredth time? How do children and adults view the series differently? Are there less or more "mature" ways to interact with it? Or, as I suspect, has Harry Potter bridged age gaps in a way other book series can only dream about doing? If yes, how did J.K. and Harry do it?