It's a weird thing, I've never really been one that's been very interested in Blogs. In all honesty, I don't really know if I like the idea of Drifts, this has been a page on the website ever since it's creation a few years ago, but it always felt like I needed a good excuse for the first one. I think I've decided to do that now. Drifts may change over time, I'll probably come back and add more details as I think about it.
I've been wondering what I should put on this page for the longest time. I wanted it to be a think tank for ideas or my preferences, but I've always been a person that likes to keep my cards close to my chest. Often this means I don't really like to share my ideas, since I may want to use them in the future. Stuff like the USB Jerry Can are projects I've wanted to do for a while, but I never talked to anyone about it until I was almost done, since I like to try to complete projects before talking about them.
I feel like I should add a bit of a brief about me. My media preferences are shaped by my background and experiences, and often I believe this leads to people not understanding why I like certain media so much.
Starting off, I'm a Canadian, to the extent that I don't really know what my actual background is. I like to joke to others that my family was probably the first off the boat in North America, as I only know my background from family names. I grew up in Southern Ontario (like 50% of Canadians), but grew up in the country nearby a small city. I have always liked the country, I take that from my dad, but similar to my dad, I got his interest in Tech. This creates a very unique scenario, where I really enjoy new Tech, but love the countryside. To some extent, it's a strange dichotomy, where I want to work in Tech, but come home to the quiet country. I haven't quite found that balance yet, but I hope to.
One other major influence is that I grew up in a Christian household, hold Christian values, and still am Christian. This is not likely to change, but this is one of the largest things that influence my media preferences. I often like to find the Christian values inside of non-Christian media. Christianity can be very interlinked with the culture, and I love looking for signs of it in places you wouldn't expect.
There are certain preferences that I would consider almost non-negotiable for me. While media doesn't necessarily need to include these, if it does, I will likely enjoy it more. I consider these non-negotiable because I constantly find myself going back to these values as I read and watch media. Some of these are things I just think are cool, but some are on based on my morals, I've ranked them in rough order of importance:
I'll go through these in more detail here:
I hate open-ended franchises. I like my stories to have a clear resolution, it means the creator has a clear direction on the franchise, and it creates a reason for the media to exist. Some of my favourite movies have been movies that aren't a franchise, and only have a couple entries in the series.
I really like movies like Blade Runner, since they were never designed to be a franchise, it makes the single movie much deeper.
Music is huge uplift to a movie. Not just adding good music, but having it fit the mood and tone is a major factor in how much I like the media. I really enjoy when an artist works to create music fitting to the soundtrack, rather than the usual orchestral music in movies.
I love Sci-Fi, it's my favourite genre in media. If it includes some Sci-Fi elements, I'm at least interested in consuming the media. Other genres just don't interest me a lot, fantasy is one of my least favourites, in general it takes me a while to like a fantasy story.
Sci-Fi has some of the coolest visuals in the world, I love movies with striking colours and effects, there's just nothing like it!
I want stories that have a clear moral message. The more movies I watch, the less I like generic movies. Anyone remember the message in Red Notice? You don't even remember that movie? That's probably why.
This does kind of link in to the last point. I look for Christian values and themes in the media I consume, while it doesn't need to necessarily be explicitly Christian, I don't like when it diminishes them. Nihlistic media or media that explicitly rejects even the possibility of God both frustrate me (questioning is okay, it's the flat out rejection that I dislike). I don't like feeling talked down to, and it seems like some movies are doing this more and more.
Go back to Drifts