#are we really getting the plot where David's alters are trying to get him back?

[im-thekeeper]

guys g uYS GUYS

"GIVE ME BACK MY DAVID!"

HOLYFCKINGSHITHOLYFUC-

[squirrelwithatophat]

One thing that has always disappointed me about Wynne’s portrayal in Dragon Age Origins is that pretty much all of the player’s interactions with her occur after she is possessed by a spirit of Faith. She has, what, 30 seconds or so of screen time (standing around at Ostagar) prior to this life-changing, even self-changing, event?

The games show us what possession by a Fade spirit does (or at least can do) to a person through the story arc of Anders. Merging with a spirit of Justice radically alters his personality — in Dragon Age II, the way he speaks, his interactions with other characters, his outlook on life, etc. all much more strongly resemble the original Justice than the original human Anders of DAO Awakening. It also imbues him with a spirit’s burning antagonism towards demons and anything even remotely demon-related (whereas Anders the human didn’t express any strong opinions on demons or blood magic) and overriding need to fulfill its purpose. The quest log immediately after completing his recruitment quest (Tranquility, Act 1) reads, “Anders was revealed to be a spirit of Justice” (not simply that Anders was possessed by or host to a spirit of justice), and he himself elaborates early on, “He's gone now. He's part of me. It's not like we can... have a conversation. I feel his thoughts as my own. Not even the greatest scholar could tell you where I end and he begins.” David Gaider, who wrote Anders and Justice in Awakening and plotted out their story arc in DA2 (before handing off the writing to Jennifer Hepler), explained, “The character in DA2 is not Anders. Or, I should say, it’s not solely Anders. If one was looking for him to be solely Anders, that character is not there. He is both Anders and Justice. As I’ve said previously regarding Anders in DA2, if there was anything I would go back and try differently, it would be to make the transition between the old character and the new a bit less jarring.” There’s an entire 10+ hour game (Awakening) featuring the “real” (or perhaps simply “original”) Anders, in which he is the first lasting companion to be recruited and in which the player gets to learn in depth his history, his hopes and dreams, his fears, and just who he is as a man. Regardless of your perceptions of Justice-Anders and their actions in DA2, I believe there’s enormous tragic value in witnessing a character’s loss of self or “death of personality,” as Anders the human becomes subsumed by Justice the spirit. Unfortunately, you only really see this directly if you played Awakening first — while Gaider had intended ��to show his progression over the acts” from an Anders-dominant to a Justice-dominant personality, in Hepler’s hands the switch between the Anders of Awakening and Justice-Anders of DA2 is pretty “jarring” (in Gaider’s words) and left many DA fans confused. While in all honesty I’m deeply dissatisfied with the way Justice-Anders was ultimately written (to clarify, I’m referring to the “how” more so than the “what”), at least we do get to know Anders and can observe the change, with fairly long before-and-after shots to compare and write metas about.

But we get none of this with Wynne.

True, a Faith-possessed Wynne discusses her past on multiple occasions, although for the most part she tends to refer to the distant past, her childhood and ‘wild youth’ so to speak, and this distance makes it difficult to disentangle the effects of aging and gradual adjustment/resignation to life in the Circle from the direct effects of spirit possession.  There appears to be continuity in her overall beliefs from shortly before and after — she was deeply religious, identified as an Aequitarian by Niall (i.e., believing in reforming the Circle while remaining under Chantry rule), opposed to Uldred in his efforts to ally with Loghain and seek independence from the Chantry (according to her Codex), “trying to save what was left of the Circle” during Uldred’s uprising (see Codex), and so on — and she indicates that the spirit of Faith had taken an interest in her (acting as a sort of ‘guardian angel’) years before the possession, albeit for reasons she doesn’t quite understand. Faith’s attraction to Wynne could have been based on the latter’s personality traits, beliefs, or life struggles (considering that she had turned to, well, faith to cope with hurt and anger at being imprisoned in the Circle), and the preexisting similarity between them could account for the apparent continuity in Wynne’s attitudes and behavior. But again, we have to listen to retrospective descriptions and make inferences rather than actually directly see what’s going on.

So who was the real (or perhaps “original”) Wynne?

Don’t get me wrong; I hate awkward flashback sequences as much as the next guy, and I’m not going to shed tears over it. But it would be cool if Gaider gave us some prequel material.

[honourablejester]

Shadow & Bone Reaction

Okay, so I watched Shadow & Bone last night. Stayed up until 5am to manage it, so this is going to be muddled, but howandever. Spoilery and involved first impressions from someone who has not read the books below:

Right, so the Ketterdam crew are my favourites. Obviously. This was guaranteed

All three of them, I cannot decide between them

Jesper is a gambling addict which does grind my miserly gears a bit, but he’s also lovely and adorable and quite possibly the most badass person on the show, which is an achievement, and his interactions with Inej are beyond adorable, so I love him with all my heart

That thing Inej said to Alina? Whenever you need it, my hand is yours? That is me for Inej. More on this later

Kaz is a vicious little gremlin of a man with a badly hidden streak of loyalty, and he’s exactly my stripe of guile antihero, so of course I adore him madly

The absolute chaos of them just … accidentally poking their oars into the entire rest of the plot is beautiful beyond belief. They’re just there and mucking things up for everybody like someone threw a bag of spanners into an engine, and it’s beautiful

I was surprisingly really on board for Mal and Alina. Particularly them as kids, this pair of tiny scrappers against the world

I also loved the whole First Army part at the beginning. Like, Mal’s pair of friends, Mikael and Dubrov, they’re adorable (and I fucking screamed later, with the machine gun, you bet), him and Alina in the camp, his friends teasing him about her, him stealing Grisha grapes for her. The show got right in on the friendship and the love there, and honestly I was there for it

The Darkling, on the other hand …

Right. So. I expected him to maybe be … more subtle than he was? I mean, I think everyone’s expecting him to go villain here, so it probably wasn’t supposed to be that subtle, but …

That moment where Alina decides to kiss him. After being separated from Mal, with no communication with her old life, and with Kirigan being all sad and incredibly intense at her at random moments. Like. Long, long before we get to his whole forcibly altering her body to control her moment, I was looking at her kissing this dude and going ‘Oookay, okay lady, that’s, that’s not a good plan. I get that it’s Ben Barnes, do not blame you there, but that’s so not a good plan’

He just kept coming on so fucking strong, you know? The whole intense ‘I’ve been waiting for you my whole life’. He was bleeding desperation and control from the get go. And like, lots of people have those in this show, but where someone like Kaz or Inej feel like ‘I will stab you in the face right fucking now to get out of this alive’, Kirigan is very much, yes, ‘I will swallow your entire city in darkness and give a nice little speech about it to captive dignitaries who I’ll then murder because they shouldn’t have opened their mouths’

There’s more power there than the others, I think, so it feels less like ‘I’ll do what I have to do’ and more ‘I’ll do what I want’

Which his backstory was an interesting show on, yes, how he started out just as desperate as any of them, and then vengeance and black magic ate him. As it does. But still. He comes on too strong

(And the collar. The collar. Not even the massacre later matched that one for me, though Genya’s casual mention of him ‘gifting’ her at 11 came close. But it didn’t match the collar for visceral no. He mutilated Alina to implant a control device within her body. He can die in a ditch with his head covered in pitch and set on fire now. I can’t with him. No)

So, yes. Excellent villain, definitely, I just expected him to maybe take a bit longer to show it?

His minions are adorable, though. The two married heartrenders, Genya and the Durast she has the biggest danged crush on (gotta say, when Kirigan said he needed him for later, I was honestly expecting him to kill him for something, to hurt Genya, did not expect David to be in on the whole mutilating control collar thing)

The show did a lot of work humanising the various factions, so when you get moments like Jesper vs Ivan, round 1, you don’t want either of them to lose, because Ivan has a husband to go back to, and Jesper is Jesper. And then Jesper can’t shoot a pretty man in the face, and we’re golden

(Sidenote one: that scene was badass, holy shit, Jesper was playing with him, it was incredible)

(Sidenote two: Jesper vs Ivan, round 2? Less sympathetic on Ivan’s part)

(Sidenote three: the Ketterdam three vs Kirigan’s everybody was just, god I love them, we’re going to be straight badass all down the line, can you beat a centuries-old shadow sorcerer with a flashbang? An inferni with a knife? A heartrender with a gun while playing with him the entire time? Come to Ketterdam and find out! I love them)

Now. Now. The main thing for me. Inej. Inej and Alina and Kaz

The scene in the Little Palace where Alina shows her power. Ignoring everything that promptly went tits up for everybody. The look on Inej’s face. The look on her face. Hope and faith. From Inej, who’s been so hurt and desperate so far. Oh, that killed me. So much. I was there like, Alina, Alina, it’s not your fault, but you better be worth it, I know you don’t need the pressure but if you have to let anyone down, let it not be Inej. Not her. And Kaz Brekker, you sociopathic mushroom, do not fuck this up for her. Okay? Not this

And then he doesn’t. He doesn’t. He gives up a million kruge and potentially everything he has so he doesn’t have to break Inej’s faith. I loved him there. Right there

And like, he was trying to weasel something out of it. He was still trying to bully Alina all the way to the end, even after she saved his life, because he didn’t want to lose everything, he wanted to have some way to be able to bring Jesper and Inej back with him, because otherwise he was walking back to a city that hated him with literally nothing, since he’d mortgaged the Crow Club on Inej’s debt, and she’d walked out on him anyway, and he’d let her. So he tried to bully Alina, tried to force some way to let Inej come back, without actually forcing Inej. Just, you know, the saint she loved instead, and a woman who’d also just lost everything, and maybe could have used those jewels to stay ahead of pursuit for a while, but that’s not his problem. That’s not his problem

Kaz Brekker is a vicious horrible gremlin of a man, but not to his own, mostly, as much as he can avoid it, and like … did they know in advance what I like? Because that was it

(Him entering the fight on the skiff solely to save the other two, everyone else can die, but he’s going to dive Jesper clear of the Cut and hammer a volcra’s head in to save an unarmed Inej, that was beautiful. Even if I was a tiny bit annoyed at Inej for panicking and throwing her weapons away while outnumbered by flying things. No. Keep them close to stab anything that comes near you, honey, don’t throw them into the darkness. But Kaz saving his Crows was beautiful)

Also, to go back to Inej and Alina, just a little. How much do I love that Inej’s knife saved them all? Inej kissed her knife and planted in the Darkling’s chest, and it did fuck all to him, but then it’s the knife Alina used to take her freedom back and save them all

Inej’s knife freed Alina. Gave a slave her freedom back. Gave her saint her power. Not by killing, but as a tool to break a chain. I can’t. I really, really can’t. Whoever wrote that episode, thank you a lot

You may have guessed, I have feelings about Inej, and Alina, and Kaz, and freedom, and faith, faith in another power and faith in yourself and those you trust, and it’s all tied up in a knife and a debt, and people offering freedom to each other against their own best interests, and I really can’t with them. I can’t. I’m inarticulate over here

Like, this beautiful man did this hideous thing, made this horrible vicious collar, and then all these scared, battered little outcasts and ex-slaves and current slaves gave each other tiny moment after tiny moment after tiny moment that allowed them all to free each other

I can’t

And then Alina gave Inej her knife. The little letter opener that she’d robbed from the Little Palace. The little symbol of two tiny orphans having each other’s backs against the world. Alina gave that back to Inej

Inej’s knives are a whole thing. Kaz gave Inej a job, a way out of slavery, and it’s both joy and horror to her, freedom and damnation, she doesn’t want to kill people but that’s what knives are for, and it’s a freedom she sometimes forces herself to surrender out of trust in Kaz, and then she does kill people, but it’s to save those she cares for, to save Kaz, and then her knife saves them all as a key, not a murder weapon, and Alina, for whom knives are also a symbol of protection, for herself and those she loves, and now freedom as well, gives Inej hers as this tiny gesture that means so much …

And earlier, Kaz stopping her from killing the Conductor, and it was for his own reasons, it was because he needed the man for a job, but the fact that he did that meant that Inej’s first kill wasn’t a murder, an assassination to save herself, but a clean kill in defense of someone else. A kill she could explain to her saints. Especially the one that showed up, because Alina knows all about that

(And when her knives run out, when she’s lost them all on the skiff and is facing death, it’s Kaz who saves her, who pays his debt and preserves her freedom, because he can be trusted with them, with the knives and all they mean …)

And the two things Alina gives them. The knife for Inej, and the jewels for Kaz. A gift for the woman who saved her, and a bribe for the man who threatened her. And it’s exactly what they need. Both of them. It’s freedom and forgiveness and hope for them both. And she had no idea, she just gave what she had at the time. A saint by pure accident, like she’s been all along, but it meant the world. Sometimes all a person needs is one thing. A knife, a chance. A hope

Whoever was writing the thing with the knives, and the saints, and faith in yourself and those around you, you are a genius and I love you

And, like, I should move on. There were other things in the show. Nina and Matthias, I’ve pretty much not mentioned them at all (they are adorable, even as they’re basically Stockholming each other, and then the last episode hit, and everything was good, more or less, for everyone else, so that last fucking punch was a lot, thank you so much), I just …

Knives and faith. Inej, Alina and Kaz. I love everybody, but that was so much the thing that caught me here. That’s what I’m mostly getting out of this show right now

[firelxdykatara]

hello!! i just wanted to ask- i wanna do an ouat rewatch bc CAPTAIN SWANN but its pretty long and i honestly dont care for the other characters/how badly the overall writing was handled.. which are your favourite captain swan eps? anything them centered and i think ill just skip around to rewatch their romance as they did invent romance 😭😭 ty in advance <3

they absolutely did invent romance, you are right about that and i love them so much

UHMMMM as far as my favorite CS eps, here’s a roadmap of what I personally consider key eps in their journey (some of this is from memory but I haven’t done a full rewatch in a while so i’m going through the episode list as a refresher)

2x06: Tallahassee--this is a must-watch ep for any CS fan, and I really think this is the episode that sparked the fire that CS would become as a fandom. It has everything--flirtatious banter, all kinds of tension, deliberate parallels drawn between Emma and Killian’s pasts, as well as their first meeting being intercut with her relationship with Neal (which serves, especially in hindsight, to highlight just how sketchy that relationship was, and why she couldn’t bring herself to trust Killian--because the last time she felt this way about anyone, it ended horribly)

2x08 and 2x09: Into the Deep and Queen of Hearts--these episodes cover the race to the portal between Emma&co and Hook/Cora and while they don’t do a ton for CS as a relationship since they’re still enemies at this point, it lays great foundation for their future relationship development. Plus, sexy swordfight, Hook going out of his way to save Aurora’s heart--he may be a pirate, but he has standards ok--and Emma realizing Cora can’t remove her heart without her permission? Poetic Cinema

2x11: The Outsider--more of a Killian-centric episode, it shows a lot of Killian at his worst but it’s necessary for his overall character arc and I genuinely love looking back and seeing just how far he managed to come, to the point of eventually even letting go of his (very understandable) grudge against Rumplestiltskin.

2x12: In the Name of the Brother--am I including this purely for Emma&Hook banter in the hospital, and Killian saying ‘hey beautiful’ when he’s lying on the road because he just got hit by a fucking car? You bet I am. Also, go to youtube and look up ‘ouat season two deleted scene jello’, because it’s beautiful and there was a tremendous outcry in the fandom when we realized it had been cut from the episode lmao (It’s also the episode that made me start shipping Frankenwolf, which I’m still sad never went anywhere, but they had a lot of potential and great chemistry.)

2x22: And Straight On Till Morning--A few of the episodes in between have some fun minor interactions and flashbacks (and I always approve of episodes where Killian gets one up on Rumple, so 2x15 is fun for me if i ignore all the Neal bits) but the finale is where we finally get a glimpse of who Killian could be beyond his need for revenge. He didn’t have to come back, he didn’t have to bring back the bean and help the town--but he did.

Season 3a: there’s a lot of really good stuff here for Hook and Emma that is interwoven between the A plots of other episodes. I think, as far as half-season arcs go, it’s one of the best (and everything after 4a bombed hard, but I digress) But there are a few episodes that stand out if you don’t want to watch the whole season. (I recommend starting with the premier though, it was a really solid season starter overall.)

3x05: Good Form--this is the culmination of David’s poisoned-by-dreamshade arc, and is also Peak Captain Charming Bromance. Hook not only keeping David’s secret, but doing everything he can to help save him??? Poetic cinema. It also provides some crucial Killian backstory, showing how he lost his brother to the very same dreamshade. Plus, the character development--Pan offers Killian a chance to escape the island with Emma if he kills David, and instead, he saves him, refusing the deal and damn the consequences. Also also? The first CS kiss which drove the fandom WILD.

3X06: Ariel--not only to I love OUaT’s take on Ariel, but this episode has the infamous Echo Cave scene, which involves a lot of feelsy confessions and Killian being the one to tell everyone that Neal is alive and helping Emma save him despite his own growing feelings for her.....IT’S JUST A LOT AND I LOVE IT.

3x07: Dark Hallow--oh man, I’d forgotten about this episode, but it has Killian and Neal fighting over Emma, which may sound eye-roll worthy, but Emma is allowed to tear them a new one about it and it’s one of the few times she’s allowed to actually???? put her own feelings first so I have to include it here on spec

3x11 and 3x12: Going Home and New York City Serenade--these mark the end of 3a and start of 3b respectively, and it has some amazing shit like Killian vowing never to forget Emma and Emma smiling as she replies, “Good.” And then she and Henry are in New York with their memories completely altered, but Killian shows up because Storybrooke is back and in jeopardy, and he helps Emma get back to her family and her home and, much later, Emma finds out he sold the Jolly Roger to be able to do it and it’s just. It’s beautiful ok.

3x17: The Jolly Roger--there’s honestly not a whole lot in the back half of season 3 (until the CS movie) but of course anything named for Hook is a must-watch, and this is where we get the iconic line I swear on Emma Swan--which is Killian saying he’s in love with her before he even realizes it. We also find out just what he did to Ariel, and his attempts to make amends are what lead to Zelena being able to curse him, so it’s great from a character perspective as well.

The next four episodes round out the end of the season, and there’s a lot of great stuff in them--Hook refusing to get Emma to kiss him, but Emma feeling like she can’t trust him because he didn’t tell her about the curse to begin with, and then kissing him anyway to save his life regardless of the consequences.... but the only ones that are absolutely necessary are the final two episodes.

They are colloquially termed ‘The Captain Swan Movie’ for a reason, after all.

Killian and Emma essentially have an entire Time Travel adventure all to themselves, where they accidentally ruin her parents first meeting and have to fix it so that she’ll even be born, Emma finally getting into the storybook, the pair of them dancing at a ball, Killian rushing to save Emma only for her to get out of the cell herself, because “The only one who saves me is me.” Killian saying “I would go to the ends of the world for her... or time.” Finally fixing the timeline and making it back to Storybrooke and Killian feeling like he doesn’t deserve a place at the table so he doesn’t go inside, but Emma comes out to him anyway and finds out he gave up the Jolly Roger for her, the true start to their relationship...... IM CRYING JUST THINKING ABOUT IT I’M SORRY.

I personally really enjoyed 4a, the Frozen arc was one of the last good half-season arcs of the show, but a lot of people disliked it so it’s really up to interpretation. I don’t have as many Intense Opinions on this season (except hating almost everything about 4b and the queens of darkness arc), but I will say the episodes with good Killian/CS moments are 4x02 (Emma nearly freezes to death, Killian is desperate to save her, Captain Charming teamwork, my heart hurts), 4x04 (Emma asks Killian out on a real date, he tries to get his real hand back from Gold, things go massively awry and he winds up back under Gold’s thumb), 4x08 (Killian tries to save Emma from Gold’s plans), 4x11 (the 4a finale is just great in general), and then..... it cannot be overstated how much I hate season 4b, but 4x15 is the Killian-centric ep where his past with Ursula is revealed and he makes amends to her in order to get her to leave the QoD alliance and it’s great character stuff for him, and then there’s the season 4 finale.

Both parts are worth watching, if only because Deckhand Coward Hook still being a braver, more heroic man than ‘Hero Rumplestiltskin’ warms the very cockles of my heart, and of course the second part of the finale has him helping Henry to save Emma and it’s beautiful and also Emma watches him die for her and it is angsty as FUCK but gods I love it. Here’s where it gets tricky, though--my recommendation is, turn the episode off right after Emma finds Killian back in the present day of Storybrooke and they reunite.

Just turn off the episode there and skip right ahead to the s6 musical episode (Emma and Killian’s wedding ep) and pretend they got married and none of seasons 5 or 6 ever happened. >.> (Although I will say certain parts of the Underworld arc were incredibly feelsy despite how much I overall hated the season: 5x11 (the 5a finale, Killian as the dark one STILL being a better man than rumple, we love to see it), 5x15 (I am not immune to Brothers Jones feelings ok), 5x20 (emma literally takes a True Love Test trying to find a way to save killian, you don’t get more romantic than that--also Killian telling Emma to promise she won’t put her armor back up just because she lost him again??? my HEART), 5x21 (Hook does what he can from the Underworld anyway and zeus sends him back to Emma, they really just said ‘today I will invent romance’ and then Did That)

And then, yeah, just skip to the wedding. It’s beautiful, I enjoyed the music, personally, though I know musical episodes are hit or miss with most people. And if you turn it off when the last musical number starts (after the wedding ceremony, I believe) you can pretend it was the end of the show! =DDD

.....Oh my god I just rambled for years. I HOPE YOU FIND THIS USEFUL, ANON. I 100% support a CS-centered rewatch, their episodes were consistently some of the best across the entire series, and they are truly one of my favorite romances of all time.

[pochapal]

I hate doctor 11 but ive never been able to explain why in like words lmao. He feels like such a mary sue character imo and like theres something about his characterisation that was always just really ineffective (like the stuff about fishfingers and custard or whatever it was). Imo i'd love to hear you give top 5 worst things about the 11 era because i rlly just love when it gets torn apart

i hold nothing but a seething contempt and loathing for that man. every time he appeared on screen i felt ready to snap like a riled up chimpanzee in my enclosure. i am frothing at the mouth and overcome with a desire to start flinging heavy objects. this might be incoherent and inconsistent but i started this rewatch in feb 2020 and only finished this week so i got through 11′s episodes last august/september time and i refuse to revisit it to jog my memory or fact check anything i’m saying here because this man does not deserve the space in my mind for that.

the first thing is i can’t fucking STAND the quirky whimsy timey wimey bit he has going on all of the time. i can’t even say this is because this is a kids show and i was a teen and then adult when i first properly watched him but actually!! when i was eleven years old i’d sleep over at a friend’s house most weekends and it always coincided with the airing of a new season 5 episode and i remember we watched the finale with the dumb time hopping to get out of the box prison that was never explained and didn’t make sense and i thought at the time “this is really stupid”. and before that my only other doctor who exposure was watching the david tennant christmas specials with another friend and throughout childhood my only opinion on doctor who was “this is a tv show that is not for me but is one that all the boys i am friends with like so i will put up with it to maintain our friendships” but at least those episodes were both suspenseful and engaging enough to keep me watching all the way through. like who the fuck does an end of the world sci fi plot and approaches it with an “oopsy woopsy i am a funny little alien man who is going to stop you all by making you do a hecking silly” like it’s unneeded and self-parodies an already cheesy show to the point where it becomes unwatchable and makes it impossible to ever take this man seriously.

next thing that downright sucks ass so badly is the stupid fucking overwritten constantly escalating plotlines. like everything from season 5 up until his regeneration at the end of season 7 is meant to be this grand interconnected cosmic plot about how...the doctor trying to bring back his planet will end the universe or something so all the top powers across all of reality tried again and again to stop him from doing that except he doesn’t know what’s going on so he keeps thwarting these people who supposedly mean good?? i mean i sure don’t fucking know what they were trying to say!! like for some reason we never get the doctor suddenly becomes this superdemon that threatens everything so these people (whoever they are) decide to, in sequence: suck him through a time rift to erase him from existence, trap him in a prison and remake a universe without him, take his companion’s baby and turn her into a perfectly trained doctor killer, form two(!!) secret societies to hunt him throughout history that are only stopped by his companion splintering herself across his personal timeline to protect him, and repeatedly cause reality collapsing events because it’s a kinder outcome for the universe than what he will do. this grand and terrible event turns out to be...he spends a few hundred years chilling by a rift that leads to his home planet and protects a few generations of children from monsters which convinces them to give him infinite regeneration power then fuck off back to their pocket universe. and it’s like!! what is the point of anything that happens in this man’s era when everything is always “the darkest moment” or whatever the fuck!! i don’t care!! we never get a compelling reason to believe this bumbling clown of a man could ever be a universal threat!! the whole thing is so dumb i hate it!!!

thing number three i hate is how the eleventh doctor is ALSO characterised as this abrasive egotistic male supergenius to the point where he becomes genuinely indistinguishable from bbc sherlock. genuinely who enjoyed seeing this guy constantly tell people their tiny human minds can’t comprehend what he’s doing and then basically just wave his magic wand to solve whatever problem each episode is facing. 2012 is the year of human sin because this fucking shitsmear character archetype somehow became both a redditor role model AND a tumblr sexyman and it’s like!! nobody is enjoying this stop making this seem cool! him saying timey wimey thing any time he does anything is frustrating and dumb and locks the viewer out of giving a fuck about anything that is happening! smartest man in the room syndrome is a disease and the eleventh doctor is terminal with it. like remember how they established river as an accomplished scientist (when she wasn’t being a child soldier or a time paradox or whatever the fuck) and every time that came up mr doctor eleven man was like “oh this thing is obvious because i’m a genius and you didn’t realise because your brain is tiny so get out of the way and let the grownups think” or that time it turned out amy had been replaced with a slime clone for half the season and the doctor chewed rory (audience surrogate) out for somehow not realising this fact we didn’t know right from the start and like. this served no purpose other than to draw into severe question why the doctor is also this super beloved magical figure implicitly trusted by all children everywhere like. mr steven moffat is totally allergic to writing and solving mysteries in his tv show and fuck you for wanting to figure things out as you go along based on the new evidence you uncover at strategic plot intervals just let this asshole man use magical thinking to reveal he knew the answer all along and you’re a fucking idiot for not also realising this thing which had no basis or precedent anywhere else in the show.

speaking of dumb things let us not forget the absolute shitshow that was minority representation in this era. i’m not even talking about the low hanging fruit of how genuinely unironically sexist amy and clara were written where each episode moffat either seemed to loathe them or was incredibly horny over them and they had no character growth or arc or fucking anything. i’m talking about how fucking shit terrible the incidental representation was. god remember how every single fucking gay person who appeared in this era was written as one incredibly fucking stupid joke and how the women were all either sexy dominatrix, feeble girl in love, or Mother (or all three in some really terrible cases) and i’m not qualified to talk about this but also how incredibly white this era was and how on two separate occasions we had monarchs reimagined as sexy girlbosses with a gun played by black women who the doctor leched over. nothing about any of this was good ESPECIALLY coming off the back of rtd who was surprisingly forward thinking for 2005 and did a really good job of positing travel with the doctor as queer allegory. in comparison moffat gave us THE MOST heterosexual shlock i’ve ever had to endure. amy and rory could have been interesting characters were they not hemmed into this domestic bickering young straight married couple bullshit that was in no way changed or altered by traveling with the doctor except for the quasi incestuous river song reveal that was dumb and bad and stupid.

the last major mega gripe i have with the series is moffat’s fucking jingoistic boner for british military aesthetics. this carried over throughout his entire tenure as showrunner but was super terrible vomit inducing in eleven’s era. the unironic admiration for ww2 britain and winston churchill is downright wretched. are you incapable of telling a second world war story outside of churchill’s london and plucky blitz fighters. shit gives me hives so badly. and then!!! that weird church owned army that features in the future that end up being bad not for the concept of what basically amounts to an imperialistic intergalactic rendition of the fucking crusades but because they’re part of the nonsense go nowhere puzzlebox narrative that says the doctor is a not good man who will do bad things to the universe :(. remember how rtd’s doctor was a freshly traumatised man hot off the war criminal press who time and time again vehemently refuses to engage in military violence, but who tragically inadvertently turns every one of his companions into soldiers in his own personal army, and he has this moment of complete horror at the realisation and it is this which causes the downward spiral that ends in 10′s regeneration. and then how there’s this cringe line about how there’s a force of people who are “the doctor’s army, always ready to fight his battles when he’s not around” or some shit and then it turns out this is actually massive literal military operation and we’re meant to celebrate this. fuck off.

bonus round because this needs to be said but i have never hated anything like i hated that fucking human tardis episode. everything about it induced violent anger in me from the sickening overindulgence of that softgoth dark whimsy helena bonham carter tim burton aesthetic to the bafflingly terrible evil carny stereotype of those junk scavengers to the overblown sudden tragic shipbait romance of human tardis and the doctor. every word out of her mouth was trite shit and the fact that the death of her body was presented as this super emotional dramatic scene despite there being no buy in or incentive to care and the fact that every single person on tumblr in 2012 ate that shit up like it was fucking gourmet. i loathe every single thing about that episode so much.

[ks-caster]

Beth Liveblogs Black Widow

Bought that premium access on Disney+ so I can have the privilege of pausing for snacks and using subtitles as needed - so let’s go! 

Beth’s Spoiler-Free Review: Overall I thoroughly enjoyed the movie - the plot was compelling, the characters were likable, and the stunts were really excellent. I felt like hair and makeup dropped the ball on realism multiple times which I was sad about, because how she looks seems to be pretty important to Nat so I expected it to be done well in her movie. 

I did not like the way they framed the tail end (denouement - obviously because this movie is mid-series we know how it ends to an extent) - I felt like the connect-up to Infinity War was lackluster, especially compared to how enjoyable and dynamic the rest of the film was.

Spoilery live-reactions are under the cut. Click at own risk! Feel free to rebagel with your own impressions, thoughts, jokes and rebuttals!

The movie begins with a young Nat with blue dyed hair and visible roots, showing her natural red. Do you know how hard it is to get natural red out of hair, enough to make it blue and not green? And I’m supposed to believe that a middle-school age girl in 1995 Ohio had access to these chemicals? I’ll give her the white hair in IW/Endgame because she’s an adult with a lot of experience as a spy altering her appearance. But as a child? In the 90s? While her family is apparently in hiding? Sus.

The scene with Alexei laying on the on the wing while Nat learns to fly? AMAZING stunts. Amazing. AND someone in an action movie is finally smart enough to shoot the tires.

Nice skills on young Nat, getting the gun. Since we know from Endgame that Nat’s father is named Ivan, we know that Alexei isn’t really her dad. She also refers to presumably the red room as going “back.” Was she lent out to these agents to legitimize their family?

-0-

Nice knife moves, Yelena - I love the hand switch.

Ooooh so she was being mind controlled and the red stuff freed her? Interesting.

-0-

Nat is in Norway - visit Thor! He’d love to have you. (I’m mixing up my timeline, aren’t I?)

Supplies Dude whose name I didn’t catch refers to the Avengers breakup as a divorce - I kinda love it. It’s accurate!

BUDAPEST omg are we finally going to get the story?? Are we??

Box dye? I’m supposed to believe she got all that red out of her hair with flippin’ Loreal? Really? And that toner isn’t even the color she ultimately went - it’s too yellow. Sus.

-0-

Oop, looks like Nat got caught up in Yelena’s desertion.

Do not give Nat your metal frisbee, robocop - she’s been around Steve long enough that she knows how to use it.

I laughed out loud when she did the string him up thing with the cables - literal spider move, I love it!

Mystery box is empty - classic bait and switch.

-0-

BUDAPEST - WE ARE IN BUDAPEST - IT’S HAPPENING PEOPLE

Nat closing the door behind her is a small thing but I appreciate it - no sneaking up behind her.

When Yelena throws Nat in the kitchen and her feet hit the door and she spins before she hits the ground? That was a helluva stunt.

Oooooh honey. No body left to check is ALWAYS movie code for they lived.

Dreykov’s daughter? Another hint from Avengers 2012? C’mon, movie.

Riding the chimney down? Another incredible stunt. 

Dreykov can scan his soldiers’ bodies and terminate them if they’re too damaged to keep fighting? Big yikes. With Nat where she is character development wise, the stakes are now much higher because if she injures an opponent they may be killed remotely.

“Do you want me to chase him down and un-steal it?”

The car door under the bike was an excellent stunt - as was the car going into the subway. Though I’ve never seen a subway entrance big enough to admit a car.

Who hasn’t wanted to slide down the middle to avoid the crowded escalators lol.

Yelena making fun of Nat’s sexy poses I am LIVING omg.

Running water for wounds. RUNNING WATER. NOT ALCOHOL. The vodka goes on the INSIDE for the pain - the running water cleans the OUTSIDE. If there’s a convenience store then there’s a bathroom, with running water. Cleansing with something like alcohol is a LAST RESORT and you do not look like you’re at that point resource-wise. I thought these ladies were supposed to be highly trained in all of the things?

“Could be fun though.” “I saw where he put the keys” “Top drawer green cabinet.” I love their chaos.

Yelena’s vest and its pockets and the resulting conversation are positively majestic.

“You are sensitive.” “You’re a very annoying person.”

-0-

Do! Not! Move! Around! Like! That! While! Getting! A! Tattoo!!!! That poor artist was trying his best and Alexei just...

Ooooh was Red Guardian like Captain Russia? Interesting.

“Just don’t make a scene.” “You made a scene didn’t you.”

David Harbor running up that wall and then wiping out after the guard shocks him... I really loved that stunt, especially since they don’t show him being all super cut - he’s a big guy! He’s allowed to have fat over his muscles and still be a strong dude! I love it.

“Such a poser.” Girl, you need to meet Loki - he does a lot of hair flips too lol.

The sibling energy between the girls during the rescue!!!

“Whooooooa... this would be a cool way to die.” Yelena, I’m not necessarily disagreeing with you but get your head in the game girl.

Poor Alexei - he never gets to do the dramatic escape from *inside* of the aircraft.

Hang on, no ovaries? So all of these women are now in immediate, surgically-induced menopause? The uterus part makes sense if the intent was to prevent them from getting pregnant if they have sex during a mission, but, what, they gotta be on estrogen supplements for the rest of their lives? That’s just really poor planning. Like it was hilarious the way Yelena went into the biology of it to make Alexei uncomfortable, but that really doesn’t make sense to do to your superhero kids. It’s just bad science.

Love that Yelena keeps her vest even after she changes into her matching white flight suit. That vest better make it to the end of the movie.

-0-

“Honey, we’re home.” I 100% expected her to shoot him on sight tbh. it would have been funny.

Alexei squeezing into the uniform is such a post-pandemic feel. Also all of the fancy braids at that table; I see where Natasha got her propensity for them.

Animal cruelty warning, ugh. Poor piggy Alexei.

Oooh the photo album and Natasha remembered staging the pictures; they’re emotional for her but in a different way.

I wonder if robocop’s shield is actually Alexei’s.

The singing between Alexei and Yelena was a really beautiful moment because it was neither auto-tuned-good nor hilariously bad - it felt really real, especially the way Yelena’s so choked up she can barely make sounds come out.

Uh-oh, mama has one of those monitor your vitals and kill your ass suits. The suits I understand - the eyeliner though... when and why did she do her makeup?? That’s not really the thing that comes to mind for me when I’m getting ready to do something athletic, like say kidnapping my supersoldier fake family.

“This is a much less cool way to die.” Also WTF why would they do that. Wouldn’t it be easier to get the information out of her while her brain is still attached to, y’know, her mouth??

CLEVER CLEVER CLEVER they switched outfits and faces ooooooh like mother like daughter.

The door opening as Alexei is leaning against it dramatically bahahahaha

I love the plan. I’m thoroughly weirded out that Melina has a red wig just lying around that perfectly immitates Natasha though. 

“Yelena, it’s mama. You have a two-inch blade in your belt.”

Oh. My. God.

Antonia.

A pheromone lock preventing them from hurting them if they’re close enough to smell him - I like it. It’s clever and new.

Bahahaha poser! You posed I saw you! Still love the vest.

Natasha is really good at manipulating people’s emotions to get what she wants - I mean, scary good. So if she’s provoking Dreykov into beating her up, there’s a reason. 

“Using the only resource the world has too much of - girls.” Kill him. 

-0-

When I say I whooped out loud... SEVERING THE NERVE. Thank you for your cooperation. YAAAAAAS QUEEN.

-0-

“Slight change of plans - we are going into a controlled crash.” The way she said that was just so mom-like omg!

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The grenade as a delivery system was super smart - but yikes what if she’d mistimed it and blew Natasha up? Also, after the beating she took and how hard she had to wack her own face into the desk to sever her olfactory nerve and the amout of blood we saw her leave behind from doing that, her face should be a LOT more messed up, come on makeup department.

“Get as far away from here as possible.” And then keep going because General I-Collect-Supersoldiers-Like-Stamps Ross is about to turn up at your location looking for trouble and he’d snap you ladies up like there’s a fire sale and you’re going out of stock.

This crash doesn’t look all that controlled, Melina. I’m starting to suspect that most of the widows won’t live long enough to make their own decisions...

All of the aerial stunts were amaaaaaazing - the way Nat slowed herself by sliding down the panels so Antonia could catch up with her and she could deploy her parachute... 

The vest survived the movie!!!

Fuuuuuck Ross is showing up and he sucks and I hate him and I’m super worried that he’s gonna take the vest from Nat if he takes her into custody. Please don’t let her lose the vest. 

Okay, there is now zero reason for Nat to stay behind. They have an aircraft. She had plenty of time to just board it and leave?

-0-

Okay okay okay Ross did not get her and did not take the vest. But am I supposed to believe she bleached her hair, toned it blonde, and then re-bleached and re-toned it to silver? Who does that? That would be terrible for her hair. Her scalp would be burned all to hell from the amount of chemicals needed to not only get all that red out but THEN get the blonde toner out. Y’know what color silver toner is? Blue/purple. Y’know what happens when you mix that with yellow? Green. And not a nice green either (I speak from experience). No. Her hair at the end of the movie? Cancelled. 

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SHE GOT THE DOG!!!

Oh, ouch. Big ouch. I hurt like a lot now. This is so not an okay way to end the -

...

Countess I-Forgot-Your-Name-Already?

Oh no. Oh no. That’s worse. That’s a lot worse. We are now setting up the Hawkeye series and I while I’m horrified that this was how they ended the film, I gotta say that’s going to make for some wonderful angst in that series on both Clint and Yelena’s parts and I am here for it!

OVERALL IMPRESSION

I really, really enjoyed this movie, I thought the story was compelling, the stunts were really excellent, and I liked the character dynamics and the twist

I did not like the ending - it just sort of fell off quickly and didn’t feel satisfying after an otherwise really fun movie. I also take issue with the hair and makeup as shown among the characters, as seen in my several rants to that effect.

I would have liked to have seen a few more childhood/training flashbacks, and absolutely would have loved a cameo from Jeremy Renner (not just his voice) and to see him and Nat meeting and him giving her the whole dad speech that he does so well - bonus points if she could have then quoted him to Yelena or Antonia, showing the way that multiple people had a formative effect on her (an answer to the “The Avengers aren’t really your family either” comment).

[cadomoisspokenfor]

Legion Rewatch Notes,

Chapter 4:

Frizzytop

I theorized in episode 2 that David could see through the 4th wall, or at least into a different universe. At the start of this episode Oliver outright breaks the 4th wall. Perhaps powerful reality benders just have that capability. If David knows, and Oliver knows, then Farouk definitely knows.

“A great philosopher once wrote, ‘In times of peace, the war like man attacks himself.’ This is the route of all our problems.”

“We are the route of all our problems. Our confusion, our anger, our fear of things we don’t understand.”

If we carry those 2 quotes throughout the rest of the show, then no doubt the tragedies that happen later on are caused by a collective misunderstanding of each other. And a collective lashing out at that misunderstanding of each other.

“Violence, in other words, is ignorance.”

The most central theme of the show is empathy vs fear. I s’pose whenever there’s a conflict in the show we’re supposed to be asking whether the characters should answer with empathy or fear. Certain characters lives have revolved heavily around fear. And that informs their decision making quite a bit. This will all come up again at multiple points throughout the show.

Syd... probably can’t break the 4th wall. So maybe it’s most logical to interpret this as her inner monologue. Very Jessica Jones esque.

The same voice lines from when Syd was searching for David in episode 1 are played. I guess there go to whenever Davids lost (whether in the world or in his mind) is to transmit Syds voice calling his name in hopes he’ll hear it and come back.

Kerry can pick locks.

The concept of “bad mutants” is well established amongst the veteran summerland crew. Ptonomy’s caution about David is probably because he feels he has a selfish vibe, and that’s a well known red flag of “bad mutants.”

It should also be noted he’s partly afraid of him because he has so much trouble understanding him. His powers, which when used affectively are essentially the ability to understand where someone’s coming from, keep getting overrided by Davids.

It’s now to the point where Ptonomy is doubting his own ability to tell what’s real and what’s not real. He was pretty confident he’d always know somehow in episode 2. Now, not so much.

Ptonomy very early on is open to the idea that David both has powers and psychological issues. “He’s unstable. You try hearing voices for 10-15 years, self medicate with hard drugs and then get dumped in a looney bin.”

Ptonomy also determines that because of his instability combined with the fact he has powers, David is a bomb waiting to go off.

I suppose if we’re trying to figure out their logic with the whole “the combination of being mentally ill and having powers makes him dangerous”, and considering that their right now going over an incident where David robbed his therapist for drug money and then bashed the doctors head in when he came back, the direct concern is that David makes bad decisions and/or selfish decisions (at least), and if he were to make a bad decision regarding his powers a lot of innocent people could get very badly hurt. Or killed. Along with the worry that the voices in his head don’t exactly give him the most angelic of advice at times, and because of his powers he’s very capable of fulfilling their wills, so to speak.

Based on Olivers speech at the beginning of the episode though, it might be safe to say the overall message is instead of acting on fear they should act on empathy and help David overcome his problems instead of vilifying him for his mental illness.

Syd suggest Davids hiding his real memories behind a fake ones and Ptonomy says she going through a lot of effort just to convince herself Davids a good guy. I never really got what he meant, but I guess what he meant is that Syd’s trying to find a justifiable reason for why David would attack Dr Poole like he did when the obvious answer is just “He’s got violent tendencies.” I always just thought she was genuinely hypothesizing, ya know, trying to solve the case. Maybe she was and Ptonomy’s just mean.

“I was looking for the man I loved. Or did I just love the idea of him? The face he showed me?” Doubt springs up early. Why can none of the characters reconcile that a person can have both good and evil in them at the same time? That’s... all people, in fact.

When Kissinger ask if Amy knew David had powers Amy says, “I think so.” Amy potentially acted on fear as well, in regards to her and Davids childhood that is.

Kerry mostly only thinks of herself in relation to Cary.

Cary misses Kerry when she’s gone. Even besides the roles they fill for each other, they generally enjoy each others company. They’re quite literally as close as 2 people can be. Each one living for the sake of the other.

Davids once again surrounded by a crowd of people all yelling in his face. After they disappear though he recovers pretty fast. I guess he’s used to it.

Clockworks Podcast pointed out that the music Davids wincing at is sax heavy Jazz, which is (abstractly) the sound The Devil With Yellow Eyes makes whenever he appears. If my theory about David seeing through the 4th wall is correct, then maybe he’s actually hearing that sound whenever TDWYE is around. Alternatively, Farouk blast that in his head everytime to mess with him.

“Sorry... I forgot about your um... I had a similar- proclivity? Malady? I forget the word- what’s the word? I’ve been here a long time.”

If the previous paragraphs are right, Oliver’s probably implying he was also affected by a mental parasite at some point. It might’ve even been what stranded him in the astral plane.

From Davids perspective he skipped over the entire second half of Chapter 3.

Oliver is essentially explaining the plot of the show to David and the audience before it’s even been unfurled.

“You have an unquiet mind, so you war with yourself, like a dog trying to chew off its own tail.”

David’s still in a very pessimistic guilt ridden place at this point in the story. That’s probably the internal war Oliver’s talking about.

... why can’t Oliver leave the astral plane again? If he did have his own mental parasite, it seems long gone by now. If he just can’t find his way back, then how does he do it in Chapter 7?

Syd calls non-mutants “normals.”

“We were the ghost in a haunted house.” ~Syd, Chapter 4

“You think ghost like living in a haunted house?” ~Syd, Chapter 12

Why does Syd keep hallucinating The Angriest Boy? Or is that just visual metaphor?

Ptonomy’s a very, “Get the job done and look classy while doing it” sorta guy.

“To fight and conquer in all our battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.” ~Sun Tzu, Ptonomy

Is the above quote perhaps relevant to the shows message during other conflicts throughout the series? Could it be subtly implying all the characters should always look for non-violent ways to defeat their enemies? I.e. not just a classy line from Ptonomy, but a statement of themes within the show.

The food David, Philly, and Dr Poole are having in Philly’s memories is cherry pie.

In Philly’s memory David says, “I don’t keep a lot of stuff.” And Philly comments that there’s no evidence David had a past. At least among the things David owns at that point. I know Farouk edited a lot of Davids memories, but why did David himself get rid of so much physical stuff? Syd said the reason he broke into Dr Pooles that day was to destroy their taped conversations. What’s compelling him to erase himself from existence? Is it as simple as “Farouk”? It seems like on a deeper level David doesn’t want anyone to know too much about him. Everyone’s only allowed to know what he tells them. His way of feeling in control I guess.

Philly did the classic “I can fix him” when she started dating David.

Philly implies David going off his medication and keeping bad company is what caused the downfall of their relationship. And subsequently his life, probably.

Despite everything, Philly still feels sympathetic towards David.

“Whoever altered Davids memory-“ Ptonomy very early on humors the idea that Davids being acted on by a 3rd party.

The longer Kerry is away from Cary, the more antsy she is for a fight. She’s not supposed to have to sit through all this “boring stuff.”

Ptonomy left after he got the info on Pooles location from Philly. He probably wanted to get the rest of the information from the source. Ironically, they probably woulda gotten closer to the real answer if he’d just looked a bit longer.

Sys proudly says “Yes” when “Dr Poole” ask if she’s in love with David.

It never really comes up again, but Kerry and Cary are physically linked. Maybe even psychologically. When one of them gets hurt, or even exerts their body a lot, the other can feel it, even if their own body doesn’t take on the actual damage. This is still true even if they’re miles apart.

Syds definitely portrayed as the hero at the end of this scene.

“All those years of practice-“ A part of David always knew he had powers. I wonder, did he practice a little in secret? Or is he saying he was at Summerland for years? That doesn’t really add up. But then... what does he mean by years?

Lenny encourages David to get angry so that his powers will strengthen enough for them to overpower the astral plane. Sort of... cheating his way out. David will later achieve more feats of strength through honing his emotions. Like many heroes, his level of power is intrinsically linked to his emotional state.

Very directly here, Davids violence is caused by ignorance. He doesn’t know Syd switched bodies with Walter and is trying to escape.

[fangirlinglikeabus]

every target novelisation....2!

planet of giants by terrance dicks ok so i think that the reason that this is...good, and an unearthly child was...not good, is because this was written 9 years later when like. other, non-terrance dicks people were also novelising stories and he wasn’t just grinding them out on an industrial level. planet of giants isn’t one of the greats of doctor who but this is a competent adaptation - it doesn’t add much but it does flesh out what’s already there, giving us some backstory elements and making the appearance of giant insects and bodies seem a bit more dramatic than they could manage in 1964. unfortunately it also alters my favourite line from the story (‘i don't know how you know, you're supposed to know!’) and the doctor is weirdly hostile at the beginning (he’s looking forward to ditching ian and barbara, he responds to barbara’s observation ‘drily’ like he’s being a bit sarcastic over her, um, *checks notes* noticing important details). also, dicks describes this in the opening as ‘the doctor’s most grotesque and terrifying adventure’ and i’m like...planet of giants? really??

doctor who and the dalek invasion of earth by terrance dicks ok this one legitimately doesn’t change much at all. it cuts down on some things (including the doctor’s end speech being shorter - i’m assuming that’s a space thing), fleshes out on pov bits as you can in prose, gets rid of the smacked bottom line. bizarrely there are a few times that susan calls her grandfather the doctor which...i’m pretty sure wasn’t there originally. aside from all those small details, yeah it’s basically the same, but it’s well adapted for prose (i genuinely think it stands as a novel in its own right), and depending on your reading speed it might actually be a nice, shorter alternative to the television version - it was around 45 minutes less time for me. some general things i wanted to comment on: the resistance is explicitly shown as kinda gender segregated (exclusively women are preparing food when we first see it) which irritated me; the description of parliament as a symbol of ‘human progress and tradition’ reminded me of blood harvest having the lords/commons system as the Ideal Form Of Government, in terms of how terrance dicks thinks (this may only interest me? idk i very probably spend too much time thinking about the political views of this particular dead dr who script editor); there’s a use of holocaust here that’s technically accurate to what the word literally means but it felt weird to me to use it.

the rescue by ian marter oh man i’ve been busy and this took me aages to read. it kinda...diverges increasingly from the original story as it goes on. we’ve got some scenes with the seeker crew (incidentally one of them says ‘ass’ and i was like???hello???you’re allowed to do that in a dr who book from 1987???), and then most of the expanded stuff is in the climax. dr who and bennett have a full on brawl! ian, barbara and vicki visit a destroyed didoi city on their way back to the tardis! mysterious silver figures! a giant worm encounter! incidentally, this does have way more of a downer ending than the original because it’s strongly implied that the last two of the didoi were killed by seeker crewmembers who fired in a panic, after which the report that forms the epilogue ends with “goodwill to all persons” to give us a taste of bitter irony. so that’s kinda grim. um...there’s actually a lot of little changes and minor expansions to this one as well so off the top of my head: we learn more about why vicki left earth (global warming :/), sandy is a lot more threatening-looking than on screen, the crashed ship gets its name changed to astra-nine, ian and barbara hold hands briefly, barbara’s fall really leaves her beaten up. i like the seeker crew comparing the tardis briefly passing them to various non-police box objects from the future (although the link to china is a bit eastern world=alien association for my tastes), dr who telling vicki ‘give that pretty face a wipe’ is clearly him attempting to cheer her up and it’s not meant to be weird but i found it weird. finally, i’ve gotta say i appreciate ian marter’s commitment to ‘mildly unsettling’ in his descriptions of tardis materialisations. this was the last novelisation he wrote before his death (the book’s dedicated to him) and mild criticisms aside, i do think he’s a good writer and he brings an interestingly different angle to the series. 

the romans by donald cotton oh my god. how do i even start this. i’m not even going to try cataloguing all the changes because this isn’t even close to a straight adaptation. it’s told in the form of various documents collected by tacitus - the doctor’s diary, ian’s journal that he keeps to prove to the headmaster at coal hill that he and barbara haven’t just eloped (i’m not joking, this is the textual reason for it), an assassin’s letters home to his mum, nero’s scribblings, and various other little details. vicki and barbara get less attention than on screen because we don’t see much from their perspective (vicki unfortunately doesn’t even get to chase the assassin out, she just screams in this), and the nero assassination plot is exclusively confined to being mentioned in the epilogue. it’s also a lot broader, or at least consistently broader, which means that ian’s side of things is treated a lot more lightly (which i was personally fine with) but also that we still get nero’s predatory behaviour being played for laughs. there’s also a few comments about women early on that i was unhappy with, and use of fat as an insult. generally, though, i thought this was great! there were a lot of things that i don’t have space or time to include here but i really liked. i guess i’d consider this as a companion piece to the tv version rather than a replacement, which some of these do basically serve as. they tell the same basic story, but they’re so different in a lot of ways that i think it’s worth looking at both. i just checked my notes and remembered this so content warning: poppea sabina’s first section references suicide.

doctor who and the zarbi by bill strutton ok so i think the web planet is boring. i don’t know completely why, i don’t think it’s any one thing, it has some interesting ideas, but it is! it’s fucking boring! anyway, we have a bit more casual sexism in the novel, we’re missing that fun convo about aspirin between vicki and barbara, but really i don’t think it adds or changes much - like even the chapters correspond pretty much exactly to the tv cliffhangers. i guess it’s competently written prose-wise, but i genuinely can’t get over my conviction that this story is boring. am i being unfair? maybe! i like some of the early atmosphere, though, and i appreciate a book which refers to ‘the ship tardis’ (lowercase) and ‘doctor who’ throughout the entire thing. oh yeah, and i encourage you all to look up the illustrations for this. i don’t know who that woman is but she’s definitely not vicki.

doctor who and the crusaders by david whitaker ah yes, the infamous ‘susan married david cameron’ novelisation. tbh i don’t like the crusades and this has the same problems - i don’t care about the english, el akir is every orientalist stereotype whitaker could possibly cram into one man, and That’s Not How A Harem Works. do i think it’s the most egregiously racist doctor who story of all time? probably not! it certainly has sympathetic arabic characters too. but i prefer most other historicals, at least. however, if that isn’t you, i’m sure you’ll get something out of this. there aren’t any particularly extreme changes to the plot structure, although it’s missing some later scenes at the english court, but it’s well written and probably if you like the original you’ll enjoy it more than i did. there’s some dated language surrounding black characters, though, i’m not a fan of the whole ‘we aren’t so different’ speech ian has (because it rests on ‘we all believe in a higher power’ which uh. i don’t. guess that means i’m not ‘civilised’. also generally i don’t like the argument that we should respect each other because of what we have in common - you should respect other people whatever!), and the prologue at the beginning where they muse on history and destiny assumes that the english invaders and the arabs are both equally right in their own ways (the doctor outright says this!)

the space museum by glyn jones so, i really like the space museum. mainly for vicki’s revolutionary fervour, but there are other reasons too. however, i don’t think that this really adds enough to be of interest - although we do get some information about the two alien species’ biology, and a bonus explanation of why everyone speaks english (the moroks briefly considered invading earth so programmed some earth languages into their translation system). there’s a bit more wandering around the museum, some minor tweaks and expansions in other areas, an underground tunnel scene where we learn a bit of the planet’s backstory...ian and the doctor are very snippy to each other in this, which i find funny. oh yeah, and there’s a bizarrely meta bit where ian comments on poor dialogue? basically, this is a book i enjoyed, but really it just makes me want to watch the space museum instead of reading it. just a heads up, there’s a character who briefly considers suicide to get out of his bosses being angry with him. 

the chase by john peel ok before i get started i need to establish that the cover for this one slaps. anyway, i don’t respect john peel at all but this was...alright? doesn’t expand much plotwise (although i suspect both the sand monsters at the beginning and the plants at the end have slightly more to do) but we get a fair bit of pov stuff. unfortunately lacking ian’s dad dancing and hi-fi the panda, the marie celeste bit is no longer played for comedy (barbara angsts over it) and even though the two paragraphs dragging morton dill are kinda funny i’m not sure how i feel about him being committed for claiming he saw daleks. ian and barbara’s departure plays out a little differently. steven is blond for some reason. we learn as well that daleks are charged by solar panels (at least they’re pro-green energy??)

the time meddler by nigel robinson pretty competent, straight down the middle novelisation, although that is tempered by inserting some weird sexist bits for steven and also lowkey being nostalgic for 11th century england at a few points? it’s also a bit more violent than we see on tv, and if anything the rape is more loudly implied, so heads up. other than that, there are a few minor embellishments (we’re explicitly told the dr and monk recognise each other, vicki tells steven that the tardis is important to her because it’s her home, a few differences between the monk’s tardis and the doctor’s are described, vicki views steven following her as a triumphant victory in their power struggle which i personally find funny), and there’s a prologue (recapping steven’s arrival in the tardis) and an epilogue (which delays the monk’s discovery of the broken tardis because he walks to hastings first to try and get involved there). i had fun, but it’s not a must read. 

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

Spider-Man 2099 v3 #13-16 Thoughts

This was mostly great fun!

I must admit when hearing about this arc and even approaching my re-reading of it, I was not looking forward to it. Typically event crossovers derail the ongoing plot in a big way, and for PAD’s Spidey work and for his 2010s Spidey 2099 work in particular it was a problem.

Plus I despise both the original Civil War 2006 and as this arc was originally released was in the midst of despising Civil War II.

I don’t know if it was the fact that I’d forgotten most of the plot points, the fact that I binged the whole arc or if the tie-in nature of the story lowered my expectations but regardless, I wound up really enjoying this arc, much like the last one.

In fact comparisons to the last arc are very apt as they’re almost going in for the same thing.

It’s an adventure in the altered 2099 future depicting futuristic versions of characters and groups we’re (in theory) familiar with, utilizing a fair amount of older 2099 continuity.

The difference is that whilst the Sinister Six arc was more Spider-Man centric, this arc is more concerned with the wider 2099 universe.

Just off the top of my head this story features:*

·         Spider-Man 2099

·         Captain America 2099

·         Strange 2099

·         Hawkeye 2099

·         Black Widow 2099

·         Hercules

·         Hulk 2099

·         The X-Men2099

·         ‘The Power Pack’

·         Punisher 2099

·         Iron Fist 2099

·         Deadpool 2099

·         Daredevil 2099

·         Moon Knight 2099

·         Sub-Mariner 2099

·         Ghost Rider 2099

·         Nik Fury, granddaughter of the original Nick Fury

·         And Ravage 2099 (although he’s an original character debuting in the 2099 line anyway)

 Now featuring this many characters is a double edged sword, much like the last arc.

On the one hand a lot of them have little development, little substance to them. They show up with cool looks, cool abilities and the novelty factor of seeing futuristic versions of familiar characters.

Some of them are pre-established people too, like Daredevil 2099 and Moon Knight 2099. So there is fanservice to be found there, but if you really liked those characters you didn’t get that much out of seeing them briefly back in action.

On the other hand I think considering this was a mere four issues and with this many characters, giving them all depth and distinction is difficult. More importantly I think it would detract from the fact that this is ultimately Spider-Man’s book. It’s about him and his ‘world’, of which these figures are definitely a part of, but also definitely not the point.

The fact is PAD does the best he can with what he has. More than this, I think it’s an example of PAD making the lemonade out of lemons and making the tie-in nature of the issues work for him  as opposed to making his series work for the tie-ins.

For starters he uses Ulysses lightly but effectively. He gets the ball rolling on the plot and beyond that has little involvement. In fact the entire story has little to do directly with the events of Civil War II, which is a plus given how shite the crossover is.

Rather PAD uses the tie-ins as an excuse to essentially present his own story with the general gist of Civil War, which you could say is true of every 2099 spin on the classic characters.

So in practice this arc is less a Civil War II tie-in and more Civil War 2099. It actually has more in common with the original 2006 Civil War story except you know, it isn’t dogshit.

There is an anti-superhuman legal act in force. Superhumans work directly for the government to round up their fellows. Those opposed to the law fight back. Hell Skrulls are even the root of the problem, which was initially the implication during Civil War 2006 and Secret Invasion.

PAD also demonstrates how massive crossovers and events like this should ideally be played. If I were being blunt, there isn’t much substance to this, there isn’t much character exploration.

With so many characters who draw from so many genres that simply don’t really go together (Greek myth side by side with sci-fi monsters, arcane magic and crime noir), going for something simple, superficial and yet fun (with at best a singular central character who shoulders whatever substance there is to be found) is the most logical approach to such events.

It’s why Infinity Gauntlet and Secret Wars 1984 are still fun reads decades later but hot trash like Civil War II has been forgotten about. The former know they’re trying to have fun and at best place one or two characters as the heart of the stories, the latter try to include everyone, be about everyone, and also strive for substance in stories that can’t support that.

Getting back to the specific heroes vs. heroes nature of the series, if there is one major failing in the set up its that the two sides don’t feel evenly matched.

The rebel superhumans have heavy hitters like Hercules, Cerebra, Hulk, Sub-Mariner and Strange, whilst the government forces...well, don’t have anyone in the same league. They’re also outnumbered by the rebels.

The pro-government side is also a clever use of subversion as they are comprised of the Punisher, the X-men and the Power Pack. Now I know little of the Power Pack so I did feel a little lost with them, and know equally little about the X-men 2099. But what little I do know makes their choice of sides unexpected but toally logical. The reasons given are that mutants were deemed not responsible for their powers as they were born with them and thus granted amnesty from the anti-super human laws provided they work for the government. Essentially mutants were given their best chance for rights and protection from persecution BY discriminatory laws. Ironic, but as the comic points out, mutants accepting this deal makes sense given their history.

Now we need to talk about Jameson and the Skrulls.

On the one hand it was a good twist. It had sufficient set up and you genuinely didn’t see it coming. It also made for neat and effective explanations of Jameson and Power Pack’s surviving into the distant future along with their questionable histories (like marrying Liz Allan or JJJ running Alchemax).

But I must admit, I was a little bummed by the Skrull reveal as I found the prospect of Jameson as the actual villain behind this fascinating. I’ve noticed that Peter David’s Spider-Man work, whilst not painting Jameson as a villain per se, has painted him often less flatteringly than he’s usually been played since the 1980s. In the 1960s-1970s, Jameson was one step away from practically being a super villain, his bufoonishness often offset his more unethical practices in the eyes of readers.

In PAD’s stories he still does unethical stuff and so the idea he could go down a road where he’s essentially happy to persecute super humans is frighteningly believable.

The Skrull reveal undermined this, and undermined the great twist halfway through the story that Jameson was behind everything. I thought it was Tyler Stone so the subversion really worked!

It also wrapped things up a little too neatly, in the sense that the heroes could get along just fine because the heroes on the opposite side were fake anyway. Maybe that was a subtle dig at the original Civil War, that they should’ve done something like this instead of commit to the schism in the superhuman community. But at the same time since we’re dealing with a version of the Marvel Universe that doesn’t need to last long term that’s kind of unnecessary.

One small criticism I have, and this is a nitpick. I felt that the part where Spidey was holding Punisher hostage before the issue ends wa not properly resolved at the start of the next one. The X-men have simply retreated, the heroes have gone back to their bases. It’s like if you smashcut in the middle of a hostage situation to the aftermath when everything is fine.

Over all a great way to do a tie-in and deliver a fun time for old time 2099 fans. I’m not one of them and even i had fun with this.

 *Note, whenever I don’t put ‘2099’ after a character’s name it means we’re dealing with, at least supposedly, an older version of the 616 characters, rather than new characters adopting their mantles.

[zhouxuns]

thoughts on the finale

overall, s3 was quite good. but the finale makes it all feel pointless. and not just s3, but s2 and s1 as well. and i know the line about “the universe acknowledges you” was because of what was to come and was supposed to be some sort of comfort to the audience, but it wasn’t. at least not for me. legion never stuck the landing for their finales so this doesn’t surprise me. but i’m gonna rant anyways.

several things i didn’t like.

1) no acknowledgement whatsoever of the hallers who gave david a loving life. they retconned the hallers’ existence this whole season to push the idea that david never received love in his childhood and didn’t grow up looked after. despite the fact that we’ve seen throughout s1 how dearly important david’s childhood was and how important mama and papa haller were to him and how much he loved them and vice versa. i mean really, no acknowledgement of amy haller at all? the woman he cared about most besides syd? his sister? who was so important to him, we got a multiverse episode about how key amy was to david’s lives? not even an acknowledgement towards lenny when she killed herself inside amy’s body? and even worse, we’ll never know precisely why the xaviers gave david to the hallers in the first place. i found this retcon extremely insulting to david’s character, but to adopted families/foster families.

2) farouk’s redemption. how utterly insulting to the audience’s intelligence to redeem farouk with no recognition for his insidious actions and unrelenting vile choices. he possessed a baby, terrorized it for fun, abused a child, he sexually molested david every time david was frozen with fear to further suppress him, he raped lenny, a lesbian, whenever he felt like it, he stole people’s bodies because he felt like it, he killed endless amounts of people. and then they have this same farouk ask his younger self if he was really that hateful and petty as if the audience is supposed to forget that just a year prior to that conversation, that this same farouk brutally murdered an innocent amy haller to get at david and, as lenny said, raped her whenever he wanted. the same person who continued to plant the ideas in david’s head that he’s god and doesn’t have to regard the lives of other people. the same person that kidnapped syd and manipulated her into turning against david before he even betrayed her. like, for real? just retcon all of that to pretend like farouk had a change of heart and always loved david and wants world peace? all it takes is to share beer with your old enemy despite the fresh blood on your hands? wow. how embarrassingly bad is that on the writers’ behalf.

3) syd. not only did syd have a mere handful of lines in this episode, but yet again, it’s as if the writers changed their minds about syd’s feelings/characterization. she’s got to be one of the most jerked around characters on this show. she used to be consistent up until the latter half of s2 when the writers decided to make syd ooc for the sake of plot (you know, the david is evil crap). syd just episodes prior expressed that she felt it was worth it to have been with david and that she wouldn’t change it. she didn’t regret their love, she regretted their downfall. in her final moments, she’s back to bitter snark, borderline defeating the whole empathy episode. i loved the bit about saving baby david, but loathed the “i am” in response to david saying she’ll be extraordinary without him around. it retcons the entire value of syd’s history, her life choices, her self perception. syd, who ALWAYS believed she was extraordinary, given by her famous quote “who teaches us to be normal when we’re one of a kind”, suddenly will be a “better” person w/o having known david? when it was through him she found summerland, found mutant allies, found freedom, found a second childhood. and then what is the purpose of saying her new life will be distinctly amazing if we don’t even get to see it? not even an epilogue paragraph of what syd became in her new life? it felt like such an impersonal send off for her. she’s the female lead but yet again she ends up on the reduced end of things.

4) no consequences. the entire theme of s3 was, time traveling can change the past, but it can’t change who we are. there were no consequences in sight for any of these people. all those awful things david did, murdering and orphaning people, causing his best friend/sister’s suicide, drugging those hundreds of women, none of it mattered when legion pretended like it was supposed to. we didn’t really see david grow. we didn’t truly see him redeem his self. we didn’t see him express any true regret or remorse for all he did on the way there. right up until he end he remained in his entitled tantrum state. all it did was justify everything he did. because the past got rewritten. david got his second life and the people he sacrificed to do it don’t matter. and really? “sorry” was all he could say to the woman he raped and hurt the most? big yikes. legion’s faux commentary on make entitlement and sexism went absolutely nowhere. it’s absolutely bull crap. further proof that rape should’ve never been part of this show, let alone trying to do commentary on rape culture.

5) disjointed elements. switch turning out to be a time god felt so last minute and so lazy. she suffers and endured all this abuse from david because she was meant to “grow up” into her celestial clock form. sure it’s better than just her dying, but it feels as if her screentine was dedicated for a disappointing surprise. given how much screentime switch took up, i expected better. this is my main problem with shows adding more characters to the main plot. it causes the original characters to be neglected which results in less screentime for the originals (syd and the loudermilk twins) or being killed/written off (lenny, ptonomy, the birds) and usually the pay off isn’t good.

6) the severe lack of follow up. we will never know what oliver’s 1 + 1 plan was. we will never know what ultimately became of the birds. what became of ptonomy, who they turned into a flash drive and gave all of 3 lines to for the whole season, we’ll never know what the 3 years from now event change ptonomy calculated turned out to be, or what became of summerland or division 3. we’ll never know why they showed 616!legion in the desert. we will never get a true apology from syd to david and vice versa. we will never get an actual explanation for why farouk was allowed to roam around freely and unchecked despite him being the root cause for david’s demise.

7) the impersonal approach to mental illness. what’s the deal? legion had such a sensitive despite clinical approach to mental illness in s1. they handed the diagnoses with such care and the themes involved with it. in s2 it’s all but abandoned, and in s3 the theme returns, but with no personal touch whatsoever. ah gabrielle has the sickness, it runs in the women in the family, okay mental illness is hereditary for david, understandable. how come this is something david never reconciles his self with? how come they never give david’s true diagnosis? we know he has dissociative identity disorder, but david doesn’t. david is expressly in denial about being mentally ill, even saying he’s not “crazy” to his mother. yet he has a system of alters he works with. they all say “i am legion” which we know is what his collective of alters are called, but that’s it. one of the things david wanted to change was his mental illness. is he ever going to learn he can’t change that because he was sick all along because of his mother? his mental illness is such a huge aspect to her character yet in s3 it just feels like a post it note stuck to his chest. no one regards it with sensitivity. no one accepts responsibility in exacerbating his condition. nothing. legion used to be about mental illness. then they shed it for social commentary which held no weight, and destroyed the characterizations for an outcome that was ultimately inconsequential.

overall, this just proves to me that legion needed more than 3 seasons. easily 4-5 seasons would’ve worked better for this. legion doesn’t even leave things up for interpretation, it just leaves most of what they set up unanswered. i felt since s2 that it had been too soon to develop the story they were developing and i was right. choosing a 3 seasons arc where 2.8 out of the 3 seasons the male lead is a sympathetic and genuinely good character to make him evil and narcissistic and apathetic? makes no sense. or when the female lead used to be this complex morally grey character and at her last hour becomes isolated once more and is quoting things straight out of 2014 tumblr? i mean really? wtf.

the other characters didn’t get to do enough across these seasons. they were cannon fodder for david’s story/development (or lack thereof) more than anything else. once they were less proximal to david, they were less relevant to the writers too.

syd and david’s relationship didn’t last nearly long enough before they were thrust into ghastly new territories. and the same goes for everyone else’s dynamic on the show. far too much offscreen development occurred. farouk having a change of heart? you truly couldn’t pinpoint any point where farouk ever felt sorry for david or cared about anyone else but his self. he’s been nothing but condescending, sadistic, manipulative, and countless other atrocities. d3 and the summerlanders being comfortable with farouk with no mind control at play at all? get real. kerry and syd’s friendship was nice tidbit but we didn’t see it develop at all. it would’ve been important to see these female mutants develop a relationship. it’s the most frustrating thing aboutall of this. clearly more time was needed.

we needed more time for these things to feel truly earned. but noah was way in over his head because of how busy he became by the time s2 swung around and decided to cut the show short. i don’t buy for one minute that 3 seasons was the plan all along. everything about legion’s story progression beyond s1 screams improvisation and a messy one at that. there wasn’t enough time for these characters to breathe, too much characterization and story had been retconned to get the ending over with, and legion choosing to end where it began, except all the characters we loved are gone, all the things that made the show most important to us are gone, feels more depressing than i thought it would.

it’s going to be difficult rewatching the show especially from its flawless premier season, knowing none of it happens at all. it’s literally unfathomable to think that 3 years later this is where we’d be. i’m so disappointed.

[smokeybrandreviews]

No Fate But What We Make

I was watching someone go in on Terminator: Dark Fate for having too many identity politics and it got me thinking; Why are all of the Terminator sequels after Judgment Day, absolute sh*t? I really enjoy the first two films and even consider the third a guilty pleasure. I remember seeing Salvation in the cinema and thinking to myself how goddamn terrible it was a a film. I passed on Genisys when it was released in theater but caught it on VOD. Man, the less said about THAT clusterf*ck, the better. I passed on Dark Fate, too, until it hit home. Admittedly, i liked that one more than it’s predecessors but that’s because it’s basically Terminator 2 with hints of the emotional sprinkled in, and the T-X from 3. With a world rich in potential like the Terminator franchise, why can no one make a good sequel? Why do all of these movies constantly suck? Interestingly enough, i think each subsequent film explains, through there very existence, why the franchise needed to end after Judgment Day.

Judgment Day - The Narrative is closed.

Sarah and John Connor are over. Their story is done with the climax to Judgment Day. There is no where to take those characters. Forcing them into a narrative outside of the future war will never work. I liked what they tried to do with The Sarah Connor Chronicles, but even that plot got convoluted and asinine real quick. Which is why i find it funny Genisys cribbed a ton of ideas from it. Sarah Connor’s story is, one hundred percent, resolved. After Judgement day, she’s irrelevant. That film was the passing of the torch to John, so to speak. It’s supposed to be his franchise now, like Dragon Ball Z was supposed to be Gohan’s series. Thing is, how do you tell that story? How do you embellish John’s narrative without making a contrived cash grab? The answer is you can’t. That’s why Cameron never revisited the world of Terminator. His story was done. Those characters were finished. To him, the story was told and there weren’t anymore to tell. That don’t stop studios, tho!

Rise of the Machines - No one cares about awkward adult John Connor

Terminator 3 is a notorious cash grab of a story but i like it enough. It’s harmless to the mythos, overall, and has some cool ideas but it falls short in so many other aspects. I think this one was the first to be rated PG-13, which neuters much of the action the franchise was known for. It kind of made up for it with Kristanna Loken naked and wet for a little while. Also inflate-o-boobs. The killer flaw with this movie is the fact no one cares about John Connor as an adult outside of his war time bad-assery. That bit with the nightmare he couldn’t possibly have, because he has no idea what the future war looks like, in the beginning off the film? Yeah, that’s where the franchise should of went. That’s where the logical narrative progression goes. That’s what everyone wanted to see. Instead, we got a vagabond John Connor who’s too stupid to move out of the city he grew up in, after “dropping off the grid.” Shenanigans ensue, Terminatrix occurs, Judgment Day still happens. Colonel Candy is the best thing about this movie and that scene was cut completely out of the goddamn movie. Also, what the f*ck happened to Cyberdyne?

Salvation - The future war needs to have a compelling story

The thing about Salvation and why it failed so miserably even though it is exactly what fans wanted, is the fact that it’s rehash crap. You get glimpses of that dystopian future in the beginning of the first three films, each peek getting better and more elaborate as budgets increase and tech gets better. By the time Salvation blew it’s load all over cinemas, every one had an idea about what that war would look like. How awesome would it be to see a wave of robot skeletons unloading on human targets. The “creatives” chose to set this film in the beginning of the goddamn war. John is not the bad-ass he should be. He’s kind of a petulant asshole, to be honest. I mean, motherf*cker ain’t even in charge. More egregious is the fact that this is literally Terminator 2. all over again. Adult John is Reese, Young Reese is young John, and the T-8oo is that weird hybrid dude. There are some original elements but they’re terrible and inconsequential. We were promised a barren, dystopian, world of ashen skulls and metallic terrors, slaughtering humanity in unrelenting waves. We got Vietnam with cyborgs. No one asked for that. You showed us what we wanted and gave us a box of sh*t instead.

Genisys - Set it in an alternate timeline that convolutes the already convoluted mythos

Alternate timeline is actually a viable option and completely plausible withing the established law of the universe. Genisys made an attempt at this and i thought it was an admirable try. Unfortunately, the movie starts a convoluted mess. If you go this route, you have to set up a brand new narrative, a brand new arc. You need a new conflict and new characters. You can’t rehash the sh*t you did before because, at that point, why the f*ck am i watching the new movie? Why wouldn’t i just watch the original content? That’s exactly the trap Genisys falls into. There’s a lot of great ideas but the execution was just plain awful. All of that time jumping and alterations and whatever else, created a plot so bloated, you’d be forgiven in you thought it was ripe for slaughter. Terminator was never this heady. The plots to the most successful entries in the franchise are exceedingly simple. Protect Sarah Connor. Protect John Connor. Stop Skynet. What the f*ck is the plot to Genisys? Why is there so much extra sh*t in the way of the three leads and their development? I liked Terminator John though. That design was dope as f*ck. Also, i have a massive crush on Daenerys Targaryen so watching her in anything is kind of dope. Even this fart. 

Dark Fate - Reboot the franchise but cling to the old like your life, and profits, depend on it

This option is probably the best option going forward. I would love to see the future war that Cameron envisioned but i doubt he revisits this franchise. He’s got a hard-on for Fantasia or Avatar or whatever the f*ck the blue cats do over there. Dark Fate f*cked up by being wildly unoriginal. Everyone says it’s the best sequels since Judgment Day but that’s because these assholes pulled a Force Awakens and literally just remade Judgment Day. It’s the same movie, beat for beat. They even brought Sarah Connor back to be the mentor figure. Like i stated before, there is a ton of “muh feminism” all up in this movie and that is divisive to lesser people but my problem with all of this “GRRRL Power”, i s the fact that none of them are good, well written, characters. They even found a way to make Sarah Connor a caricature of who she once was. You’d think watching her son be murdered in front of her, buy a machine from a future they eliminated, would give you some kind of PTSD. That sh*t wasn’t even remotely explored. Dark Fate hits the rarefied air of being a terribly bad narrative AND a botched rehash.

The Terminator franchise should have never made it past Judgment Day. Those two films were excellent and told a comprehensive story. The characters reached their inevitable conclusion and most plot points were resolved. If you wanted to make a Terminator sequel, the Connor saga had to end. You absolutely had to move away from those characters and that part of the world. But that’s that conundrum; How do you create that story? What characters are even relevant to that very specific, very Connor-cenetric, narrative? Who in the Resistance is worth following? Who is in the Resistance, period? What event is worth creating? A lot of long running franchises have this problem. Aliens is crippled by this sh*t. We finally got off the Ripley train but now we’re on the David train. I feel like there are incredibly creative individuals out there that can do something with the the Terminator toy box. Neill Blomkamp immediately comes to mind. The stuff he wanted to do with Alien was incredible and I think time traveling, cyborg, war machines is one helluva world to play in. Alex garland can probably give you some sort of existential terror to grapple like he did with Ex Machina and Annihilation. I think he'd be great with portraying the incremental evolution of Skynet and it's eventually take over. Denis Villeneuve did wonders with Blade Runner. His flair for sweeping visuals and impactful scenes would be perfect to frame the future war. Any of these directors could create a dope ass Terminator film but it would be an original tale, something not tied to the Connor saga, and there's no way any studio would allow that to happen, not in this tepid Hollywood atmosphere. There is a distinct lack of creativity in Hollywood and an acute aversion to taking actual risks. That sh*t has handicapped the box office. That sh*t is why all we get are reboots , sequels, and reimaginings. That sh*t is why Terminator should have died back with Judgment Day.

[smokeybrand]

No Fate But What We Make

I was watching someone go in on Terminator: Dark Fate for having too many identity politics and it got me thinking; Why are all of the Terminator sequels after Judgment Day, absolute sh*t? I really enjoy the first two films and even consider the third a guilty pleasure. I remember seeing Salvation in the cinema and thinking to myself how goddamn terrible it was a a film. I passed on Genisys when it was released in theater but caught it on VOD. Man, the less said about THAT clusterf*ck, the better. I passed on Dark Fate, too, until it hit home. Admittedly, i liked that one more than it’s predecessors but that’s because it’s basically Terminator 2 with hints of the emotional sprinkled in, and the T-X from 3. With a world rich in potential like the Terminator franchise, why can no one make a good sequel? Why do all of these movies constantly suck? Interestingly enough, i think each subsequent film explains, through there very existence, why the franchise needed to end after Judgment Day.

Judgment Day - The Narrative is closed.

Sarah and John Connor are over. Their story is done with the climax to Judgment Day. There is no where to take those characters. Forcing them into a narrative outside of the future war will never work. I liked what they tried to do with The Sarah Connor Chronicles, but even that plot got convoluted and asinine real quick. Which is why i find it funny Genisys cribbed a ton of ideas from it. Sarah Connor’s story is, one hundred percent, resolved. After Judgement day, she’s irrelevant. That film was the passing of the torch to John, so to speak. It’s supposed to be his franchise now, like Dragon Ball Z was supposed to be Gohan’s series. Thing is, how do you tell that story? How do you embellish John’s narrative without making a contrived cash grab? The answer is you can’t. That’s why Cameron never revisited the world of Terminator. His story was done. Those characters were finished. To him, the story was told and there weren’t anymore to tell. That don’t stop studios, tho!

Rise of the Machines - No one cares about awkward adult John Connor

Terminator 3 is a notorious cash grab of a story but i like it enough. It’s harmless to the mythos, overall, and has some cool ideas but it falls short in so many other aspects. I think this one was the first to be rated PG-13, which neuters much of the action the franchise was known for. It kind of made up for it with Kristanna Loken naked and wet for a little while. Also inflate-o-boobs. The killer flaw with this movie is the fact no one cares about John Connor as an adult outside of his war time bad-assery. That bit with the nightmare he couldn’t possibly have, because he has no idea what the future war looks like, in the beginning off the film? Yeah, that’s where the franchise should of went. That’s where the logical narrative progression goes. That’s what everyone wanted to see. Instead, we got a vagabond John Connor who’s too stupid to move out of the city he grew up in, after “dropping off the grid.” Shenanigans ensue, Terminatrix occurs, Judgment Day still happens. Colonel Candy is the best thing about this movie and that scene was cut completely out of the goddamn movie. Also, what the f*ck happened to Cyberdyne?

Salvation - The future war needs to have a compelling story

The thing about Salvation and why it failed so miserably even though it is exactly what fans wanted, is the fact that it’s rehash crap. You get glimpses of that dystopian future in the beginning of the first three films, each peek getting better and more elaborate as budgets increase and tech gets better. By the time Salvation blew it’s load all over cinemas, every one had an idea about what that war would look like. How awesome would it be to see a wave of robot skeletons unloading on human targets. The “creatives” chose to set this film in the beginning of the goddamn war. John is not the bad-ass he should be. He’s kind of a petulant asshole, to be honest. I mean, motherf*cker ain’t even in charge. More egregious is the fact that this is literally Terminator 2. all over again. Adult John is Reese, Young Reese is young John, and the T-8oo is that weird hybrid dude. There are some original elements but they’re terrible and inconsequential. We were promised a barren, dystopian, world of ashen skulls and metallic terrors, slaughtering humanity in unrelenting waves. We got Vietnam with cyborgs. No one asked for that. You showed us what we wanted and gave us a box of sh*t instead.

Genisys - Set it in an alternate timeline that convolutes the already convoluted mythos

Alternate timeline is actually a viable option and completely plausible withing the established law of the universe. Genisys made an attempt at this and i thought it was an admirable try. Unfortunately, the movie starts a convoluted mess. If you go this route, you have to set up a brand new narrative, a brand new arc. You need a new conflict and new characters. You can’t rehash the sh*t you did before because, at that point, why the f*ck am i watching the new movie? Why wouldn’t i just watch the original content? That’s exactly the trap Genisys falls into. There’s a lot of great ideas but the execution was just plain awful. All of that time jumping and alterations and whatever else, created a plot so bloated, you’d be forgiven in you thought it was ripe for slaughter. Terminator was never this heady. The plots to the most successful entries in the franchise are exceedingly simple. Protect Sarah Connor. Protect John Connor. Stop Skynet. What the f*ck is the plot to Genisys? Why is there so much extra sh*t in the way of the three leads and their development? I liked Terminator John though. That design was dope as f*ck. Also, i have a massive crush on Daenerys Targaryen so watching her in anything is kind of dope. Even this fart.

Dark Fate - Reboot the franchise but cling to the old like your life, and profits, depend on it

This option is probably the best option going forward. I would love to see the future war that Cameron envisioned but i doubt he revisits this franchise. He’s got a hard-on for Fantasia or Avatar or whatever the f*ck the blue cats do over there. Dark Fate f*cked up by being wildly unoriginal. Everyone says it’s the best sequels since Judgment Day but that’s because these assholes pulled a Force Awakens and literally just remade Judgment Day. It’s the same movie, beat for beat. They even brought Sarah Connor back to be the mentor figure. Like i stated before, there is a ton of “muh feminism” all up in this movie and that is divisive to lesser people but my problem with all of this “GRRRL Power”, i s the fact that none of them are good, well written, characters. They even found a way to make Sarah Connor a caricature of who she once was. You’d think watching her son be murdered in front of her, buy a machine from a future they eliminated, would give you some kind of PTSD. That sh*t wasn’t even remotely explored. Dark Fate hits the rarefied air of being a terribly bad narrative AND a botched rehash.

The Terminator franchise should have never made it past Judgment Day. Those two films were excellent and told a comprehensive story. The characters reached their inevitable conclusion and most plot points were resolved. If you wanted to make a Terminator sequel, the Connor saga had to end. You absolutely had to move away from those characters and that part of the world. But that’s that conundrum; How do you create that story? What characters are even relevant to that very specific, very Connor-cenetric, narrative? Who in the Resistance is worth following? Who is in the Resistance, period? What event is worth creating? A lot of long running franchises have this problem. Aliens is crippled by this sh*t. We finally got off the Ripley train but now we’re on the David train. I feel like there are incredibly creative individuals out there that can do something with the the Terminator toy box. Neill Blomkamp immediately comes to mind. The stuff he wanted to do with Alien was incredible and I think time traveling, cyborg, war machines is one helluva world to play in. Alex garland can probably give you some sort of existential terror to grapple like he did with Ex Machina and Annihilation. I think he'd be great with portraying the incremental evolution of Skynet and it's eventually take over. Denis Villeneuve did wonders with Blade Runner. His flair for sweeping visuals and impactful scenes would be perfect to frame the future war. Any of these directors could create a dope ass Terminator film but it would be an original tale, something not tied to the Connor saga, and there's no way any studio would allow that to happen, not in this tepid Hollywood atmosphere. There is a distinct lack of creativity in Hollywood and an acute aversion to taking actual risks. That sh*t has handicapped the box office. That sh*t is why all we get are reboots , sequels, and reimaginings. That sh*t is why Terminator should have died back with Judgment Day.

[unfolded73]

How Do We Get Back (6/16) - schitt’s creek ff

Summary: In a literal alternate universe where the Roses escaped financial ruin, David and Patrick struggle with loneliness and a sense that something isn’t right. A chance meeting in New York and a terrible tragedy drive them to question whether the timeline they are on is the right one.

This chapter is explicit. 3.4k words.   (ao3)

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5

_____________________________________

Chapter 6

When Patrick’s attention drifted from the movie, which was frequently, he caught himself imagining that this was what his dating life could have been like — a large, masculine hand in his and another man’s stubble against his own skin. As it turned out, Patrick was not a fan of The Lake House, but he was a fan of cuddling on the couch with David. And he was a fan of the way David kissed him after the movie was over, his cheeks still wet with tears from his emotional reaction to the plot of the film. It was endearing that David was so moved by a film that he’d clearly seen several times already, even if the movie had made no logical sense.

Patrick was still unused to the way desire surged up and overtook him, making his head swim and his heart pound and his hands tremble. “Should we go to bed?” David asked, and Patrick couldn’t imagine a world in which he’d be able to refuse that request.

They undressed quickly, and Patrick was again struck by how comfortable he’d gotten with this in such an insanely short time. It felt like a spell had been cast over him, removing nervousness and doubts and guilt and just letting him feel. It should have been scary, getting into bed naked with this man he still didn’t know that well, but when David pulled him into his arms, kissing him as they found a natural rhythm of writhing against each other, it felt like the most natural thing in the world. He trusted David, but for the life of him he couldn’t have explained why.

“Could I try, umm…” Patrick felt his face heat up. What didn’t feel natural to him was talking about sex, but he’d learned quickly that David expected negotiation. Pressing his face into David’s neck, he spoke against his skin. “I want to try… sucking you. If that’s okay.”

“It’s definitely okay,” David said as his hand skimmed over the curve of Patrick’s ass, “but you know you don’t have to… this doesn’t have to be, like, an even exchange.”

“I know.” He kissed the corner of David’s mouth. “But I’ve been thinking about it all night.”

“Well, in that case,” David said, his voice high and breathy.

Patrick kissed him one more time before moving down his body, letting his nose drag through David’s chest hair. “And by the way, I like how hairy you are.”

“Hmm, well, I have my chest hair thinned out professionally, so you don’t know how hairy I am.”

Patrick paused, scrutinizing David’s chest. “Wait, really?”

David nodded. “I used to have all of it waxed but chest hair is back in style, so…”

“Huh.” Patrick glanced down at his own chest, which had never had much hair. “Unlucky for me, I guess.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, you look great.”

He couldn’t help but preen a little at that, and he leaned over again to kiss David’s stomach. “Really?”

“Yes, you have very nice arms and a good cock and ugh, please don’t kiss me there, I ate too much Thai food.” David said, hands fluttering at Patrick’s shoulders.

“Okay, sorry.” He moved further down the bed, running a hand over the top of one of David’s thighs. “Although you really have nothing to worry about.”

David laughed a little. “I appreciate your attempt to undo decades of societal programming, but it probably won’t happen in one night — oh, fuck.”

Patrick had decided he’d stalled long enough, so he’d dived in and ran his tongue up the underside of David’s cock, putting an end to any more discussion of David’s body issues.

He took the head in his mouth, swirling his tongue, tasting the precome that leaked from the tip. Any question in his mind that he might not like this, any lingering doubt about his sexuality at least as it applied to David Rose, was quelled. He loved this. He loved the way his lips stretched around David’s girth, and the salty taste of him, and the velvety texture of David’s skin against his tongue. He operated on instinct, doing to David what he himself enjoyed: a flutter of his tongue against the head and firmer suction as he took more of the length into his mouth. It was a challenge; David wasn’t small and Patrick was a novice. But he’d always been up for a challenge, and that was all this was: a new skill to practice and perfect, like rapid plucking on his guitar or making an accurate throw to first base. He moaned around David’s cock, so turned on that he began to wonder if he could come just from sucking another man.

“Oh my God, come here, come here,” David gasped, pushing him off.

Patrick wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and frowned, moving back up the bed. “Sorry, I’m new at this.”

“What? No, you’re great, you’re a natural, I just need—” He pulled Patrick down on top of him and kissed him, David’s hands moved to Patrick’s ass and encouraged him to thrust his hips. He felt David’s saliva-slick cock against his own and he shuddered, immediately lost to the demands of his body. “Can we… do this?” David asked.

“Yes. God, yes.” David’s legs bracketed his hips and they ground against each other, both of them on the edge. He met David’s eyes and it was suddenly so incredibly intimate, more than he could handle, and Patrick squeezed his eyes shut.

David came first, his teeth biting down on Patrick’s shoulder as he moaned, and that was all it took to push Patrick over with him. His vision whited out and he lost all track of the noises he was making or the way his body was moving as he rode out the pleasure. It took several slow seconds before he was able to even think about peeling himself off of David, grimacing at the mess between them.

“Yeah, maybe we should jump in the shower,” David said, looking down at himself.

“Good idea.” Patrick said, but didn’t move from where he’d collapsed at David’s side.

“Come on.” He heard David moving around, so Patrick levered himself up onto wobbly legs and followed the other man into the bathroom.

David kissed him as he waited for the water to heat up. “You really are a natural at giving a blow job, I wasn’t just saying that.”

Patrick flushed. “Uh, thanks. Who knew?”

“I just wanted to…” David’s eyes rolled up to the ceiling, the way they did before he was about to confess something. “I wanted to come together if we could.”

“Yeah, I’m glad. That was nice.” Nice, he scoffed internally. It was incredible. Life-altering. Everything about the last twenty-four hours with David had been life-altering.

The got into the shower together, rinsing off and leaning against each other, warm and sleepy as the steam rose around them. Patrick wanted to kiss David and so he did, pulling his head down and coaxing his mouth open. It was in some ways the most intimate thing they’d done, perhaps the most intimate thing he’d ever done with another person, this drowsy makeout session as water poured over them from David’s expensive showerhead.

Once they were dried off and back in bed, skin warm from the shower, Patrick hesitantly moved close to David’s side, and was gratified when David put his arm around him, pulling him closer.

“Just for a minute; I don’t like getting sweaty in my sleep,” David said.

Patrick grinned. “Okay, David.”

~*~

“I told you not to go back to him! Didn’t I tell you not to go back to him?”

Patrick woke up with a start, uncertain if the shouting voices he was hearing were the remnants of a dream. He picked up his phone from the nightstand and squinted at it. 4:47am. He was alone in bed.

“Right, and you’re so skilled in relationships, David!” This was a woman’s voice, and she sounded like she was crying. Patrick got up quickly, searching around on the floor for his clothes.

“Maybe not, but I know Stavros is bad news. I’ve told you every time he’s broken your heart but you keep going back for more, and every single time I have to pick up the pieces,” David said.

“Don’t act like you’re the only one who helps the other one after a breakup,” said the woman.

“Oh, you mean like when Sebastian left me and you didn’t even return my texts about it for five days?” David said.

“I was skiing in the Alps, David.”

“You don’t ski!”

Patrick opened the bedroom door and ventured out into the living room. David was in a t-shirt and sweatpants, one side of his hair adorably sticking up from the way he’d slept on it. Standing across the room from him was a woman in her late twenties. She had long hair with blond highlights, an incongruous gold headband across her forehead, and mascara streaked down her cheeks. She wore a sparkly dress that was short by any standards, but particularly for a February night in New York.

“Oh, you have company,” the woman said flatly, then sniffled. “I didn’t realize.”

“Sorry my sister woke you,” David said, his teeth gritting together.

“Hi,” Patrick said. “Nice to meet you.”

“Is this the one you were texting me about?” she asked.

“Fuck off, Alexis.”

Patrick was intensely curious about what David had texted his sister about him, but he also couldn’t help but notice the fact that Alexis was clutching the back of the sofa she was standing next to, swaying a bit on her high heels and not quite focusing her eyes on anything. On top of being upset, she didn’t seem sober.

“David, do you have tea? I could make your sister a cup of tea.”

“Yeah, in the cabinet next to the fridge,” he said, waving his hand to the kitchen. “Alexis, sit down,” David said more softly.

From the kitchen, Patrick could hear the murmur of their voices. Alexis was still crying but at least they weren’t arguing anymore. He opened the cabinet David had indicated, happy to see that David’s Canadian roots meant he owned an electric kettle. Patrick pulled it down and filled it with water, plugging it in and pressing the switch to start the water heating up.

David had made a few comments in the course of their conversations to indicate that his parents had been absent a lot of the time, leaving David and his sister to take care of each other. For the first time, Patrick really wondered what that was like, having parents who didn’t make their kids the center of their world. He’d envied David’s upbringing earlier when they were talking about coming out of the closet, but now the downside seemed evident. David and his sister both seemed to have personal lives overflowing with past or present heartbreaks.

Patrick found a box of tea bags and some mugs, and when the kettle clicked, he filled each of them, staring down into the darkening water as he listened to the murmur of voices from the next room.

“I think… I think he enjoys manipulating me. Gets off on it,” Alexis was saying as Patrick rejoined them in the living room, setting a mug of tea in front of Alexis before going back for the other two.

“Yeah, I know, he’s the worst,” David muttered.

“I knew he’d cheated sometimes in the past, but the way he flaunted it tonight…” she continued.

David said something Patrick didn’t hear while he was getting the other mugs, but he returned in time to hear Alexis say, “He humiliated me in front of everyone.”

“How?” asked David.

Patrick went to get a box of tissues from David’s bedroom, coming back in and setting them down in front of Alexis. She took one and dabbed her eyes; if she noticed how the tissues had appeared there, she gave no sign of it.

“He texted me and said everyone was going to be at Plunge tonight. That it was going to be a big night because Finneas O’Connell was going to be there celebrating his twenty-first birthday, and he’d make sure that me and whoever I wanted to bring would be on the list.”

David looked impressed by this fact. Patrick had no idea why.

“So I texted everyone: Klair, Lil, Blair, Tiff, the whole gang, and told them to come. We get there, and not only are we not on the list, but Stavros at that very moment starts posting pictures of himself from across town, partying with Tyga and making out with all these models. And I’m just standing there on the street, and everyone sees the posts — everyone knows that he’s doing all this to make me look as stupid as possible.”

David glanced at Patrick and shook his head, but Patrick wasn’t sure exactly what he was reacting to: his sister’s club-hopping lifestyle or the names of her friends or the fact that Alexis’ current level of upset seemed to be centered around some ill-timed pictures on social media.

“So then Klair goes, ‘let’s get out of here,’ so we go to another club and order, like, a million shots, but the whole time people are texting me asking if I saw the pictures Stavros has been posting all night. It was a nightmare.”

“Mm hmm,” David said, noncommittally.

They sipped their tea in silence for a minute.

“Anyway,” Alexis said, “he’s just pissed at me because I caught him trying to take his condom off when we were changing positions the other night. He thought I wouldn’t notice, I guess.”

“What the fuck?” David shouted, his voice rising.

“That’s assault,” Patrick couldn’t help but add. He knew he wasn’t part of this, but he felt a surge of sympathy for Alexis. Perhaps she was a vapid socialite, but she just seemed so lost. And she certainly didn’t deserve this man’s abuse.

Alexis sniffled and wiped at her face. “No, I know, but—”

“No, Patrick’s right,” David said, shooting him a grateful glance. “Alexis, please never see him again. He’s a monster.”

Alexis nodded, and David reached out and awkwardly patted her back.

After a few more minutes, Alexis seemed to shake her dark thoughts off, swiping under her eyes and sitting up straight, her eyes brightening a little. “You know what? It’s gonna be good, actually. Because Klair said she might take a trip to Dubai and she invited me to go, so that’ll take my mind off of Stavros. Nothing like going dancing all night on the other side of the world to put things in perspective.”

David narrowed his eyes. “And when would you be doing that?”

Alexis had pulled out her phone, her finger scrolling on the screen like it was an autonomic reflex. “I don’t know. Friday, I think?”

Sighing, David stood up. He looked resigned. “You can crash in the spare room tonight, Alexis.”

Alexis looked up and gave him a simpering smile. “Thanks, David. Thanks for getting up in the middle of the night and taking care of me.”

David fluttered his hand in the air, a gesture that seemed to mean ‘it’s fine, whatever, don’t make it a thing’ and retreated to his own bedroom.

“Well, it was nice meeting you, Alexis, in spite of the circumstances.” Patrick said, standing to follow David.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “You don’t seem like one of David’s usual hookups.”

“Oh, no?”

“No, you seem too normal. Like a person. You seem like a person.” She pulled off her heels and picked them up, heading for the spare bedroom.

“Thanks, I guess?” Patrick said.

“Night-night.”

Patrick found David sitting on the bed, his expression hard to read. Which was unusual for David; even knowing him for such a short time, Patrick felt like David’s facial expressions were always easy to read.

“Sorry about that,” David said.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s good she had you to come to.”

“Yeah, and then she’s off on another trip before I can turn around. That’s the way Alexis has done things since she was a kid. She shakes off her problems and runs away.” David sniffed, collapsing back against the pillows. “I’m going back to sleep.”

Patrick looked at his phone. “At this point, I may as well stay up. I’ve got to catch the ferry back to Hoboken by 6:45.”

David groaned. “Okay. Wanna do dinner tonight? I could take you to my favorite pizza place. Proper Neapolitan pizza — you’ll think you’re in Italy.”

Patrick’s stomach turned over. “Um, actually my flight back to Toronto is tonight. Today’s the last day of the seminar.”

Eyes popping open, David sat up. “I thought you had one more day.”

Patrick shoved his hands into his pockets. “No, I do have one more day of the seminar, but then I have to go straight to the airport after.”

“So you’re flying home. Tonight.”

“Um… yeah.” Patrick had the sudden wild impulse to postpone his flight. To cancel it. To never let David Rose out of his sight ever again.

David stood up, pacing over to the windows. It was still fully dark, sunrise over an hour away. “Okay, well, it was fun. Have a nice life.”

“David…”

“What?” David was pretty transparently trying to hide his disappointment under a layer of apathy. Patrick felt a little bit honored to have inspired that level of emotion in him.

“There is a big part of me that doesn’t want to leave—”

“Oh yeah? What part of you is that?”

David’s implication was clear. “It’s not just the sex,” Patrick said. “But I have responsibilities. I’m supposed to be at work tomorrow, for one thing, and…”

“And you have a wife.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Whatever, I didn’t invite you to move in with me. We had two dates. It’s not like our lives are in any way compatible.”

That stung. Patrick took a step back. “Yeah, I guess not.”

David continued to avoid looking at him, and Patrick felt the words he wanted to say dammed up behind his lips. That David made him feel right in a way that no one ever had. That his life would never be the same. That he didn’t want to go. Instead of saying any of that, he leaned over and picked up his shoes. “Goodbye, David.”

David turned back to the bed, lying down and burrowing under the covers. “Bye.”

Once he had his shoes and coat on, Patrick left the apartment and descended quietly to the street. He immediately headed in the direction of the place where he’d gotten a taxi the day before. When a hand reached out and grabbed his ankle from a bundle of blankets next to the sidewalk, Patrick jumped. And also might have screamed a little bit.

The owner of the hand sat up, and he recognized the homeless woman from yesterday.

“Have you figured out how to get back?” she asked him.

“Get back where?” he said, edging backwards out of her reach.

“Back where?” She seemed very indignant at the question. “Back home.”

“I’m going home tonight,” he said, wondering why he wasn’t walking away from this conversation. Patrick supposed he wanted to catch a glimpse of where her madness led. Perhaps because he was feeling a sort of madness of his own getting close to the surface.

She shook her head. “That’s not the home I mean. You know it’s not right, don’t you? You know it’s not where you belong.”

“I do,” he whispered.

The woman fixed him with a steely stare. “So fix it.”

Patrick backed up another couple of steps, then turned on his heel and began walking away. As he did, the woman started to sing. Her voice was clear and beautiful, and it carried a long way in the predawn air.

Give me a lifetime of promises and a world of dreams Speak the language of love like you know what it means…

Chapter 7

[eggoreviews]

My Top 25 Games Advent Day 10 - Detroit: Become Human (#16)

“We are gonna tell them peacefully that we want justice. If there’s any humanity in them, they will listen. And if not, others will take our place and continue this fight. Are you ready to follow me?”

This is a divisive game if ever I’ve seen one. Some cite David Cage’s latest multi-branch epic as a modern masterpiece of cinematic gaming, seamlessly weaving three tales of humanity and equality that is genuinely and sometimes harshly affected by your choices. But others, a fair amount of others, see this title as an overblown, janky mess with David Cage’s typical wonky, heavy-handed writing and themes that don’t even attempt subtlety. Me personally, I can see both sides of the fence. So here’s my take.

Going into Detroit, I honestly wasn’t expecting much, being well aware of the reputation Cage carries from his previous projects, but I’m a big ol fan of decision-based adventure games as anyone who’s been reading this countdown will know, so I thought it’d be a fun distraction. Detroit turned out to be what I consider to be the best decision-based game ever created (there’s one other in this list that places above Detroit, but you’ll see why when I get to it). And that’s purely down to the game mechanics alone, even just putting aside the characters and writing for a moment, the sheer amount of endings and branching pathways is baffling. This is a game that is perfectly in tune with every single choice you make, which can often result in deaths of characters that you can’t undo and then boom, you lose the rest of that character’s storyline. It’s harsh, but it means every player gets a different experience and gives much, much more weight to the decisions you make as you strive to get everybody out at the end. Detroit is genuinely a wild ride, made even more enjoyable by its various crime scene investigations, fight scenes and chase sequences, which all keep the overall gameplay from becoming stale.

Now, I know some people criticise this game as a whole for not digging into AI or telling another Ex Machina story about science and technology and ‘tHe SiNgULaRitY’ or whatever, but that’s because that’s really not what Detroit is trying to do. Detroit tells a story of standing up to prejudice and reminding us that humanity should always strive to do better by those that are oppressed, and using the allegory of androids is excellent in driving this home. Detroit is a story of overcoming prejudice in an increasingly terrifying world, as the city of Detroit itself is home to those hurling insults and violence at androids, while simultaneously becoming reliant on them. It’s an interesting paradox, especially as the game continues to give subtle speculation in the background of various scenes as how technology could affect infamous cities such as Detroit in the future, as well as giving an insight into the potential international climate in 2038, from bees dying out to a potential war over the Arctic between the US and Russia. The speculative world-building in this title is stellar, and it’s something I think a lot of people gloss over when considering this game to entirely lack subtlety.

Moving on the foreground of Detroit, here’s where the majority of the people point to Detroit’s massive ham-handedness. The characters. Detroit places you in the control, and basically places in your care, three entirely different characters with completely different and engaging perspectives on the growing number of ‘deviant’ androids:

Connor, a prototype detective android, begins the game entirely sided with his own oppressors, doing everything he can to ensure his mission is complete. Connor can remain as a cold, ruthless, uncaring machine for the entire game, to the disdain of your reluctant colleague and eventually close friend (boyfriend) Hank. Or, if you’ve made enough choices to make Connor reflect on his life, you are given the choice to later defect and allow Connor to discover his humanity. Here’s what I love about Detroit; going back to the masterful story branch crafting for a moment, the game doesn’t allow you to make throwaway choices that entirely contradict how you’ve been treating a character for the whole game, so Connor’s eventual deviancy can only come about if that’s how you’ve been playing him. What’s even more powerful is that, if you choose to stay on the original path Connor was taking, his eventual obsolescence is all the more heart-breaking, as he realises all too late that he was manipulated and used by his creators to harm those who wished for freedom, only to have himself replaced by a more advanced model after being successful. Now that’s how you do an ending.

The second, Markus, yet another prototype gifted to the artist Carl (played by the legendary Bishop himself, Lance Henrikson) to take care of him in his old age. Markus’ story has a hell of a lot of dimensions to it, as you acknowledge throughout your time with him that, despite the fact he is still a slave, he lives what could be seen as a privileged life, compared to other androids at least, living with the artist that simultaneously owns him and dictates his entire life, whilst also urging him to seek his own humanity and think for himself. Some interesting hypocrisy from Carl, which is another reason why it’s so easy to have mixed thoughts and feelings on certain characters. Characters are morally grey in Detroit, even if it doesn’t seem so on the surface! So there’s some of that nuance people seemed to forget was there (but hey, this is all just my opinion so uhhh don’t @ me telling me I suck). In the end, having fallen from his sheltered life into one now entirely dictated by himself, Markus finally sees for himself the horrible treatment of the rest of his kind and resolves to take action and becomes a symbol for the android rebellion, rounding off a satisfying arc for a character previously completely blind to the suffering of his fellow androids.

And the third, Kara, is a household android that has lost all memory beyond a horrible accident she seemed to have suffered. Unlike the polar opposite stances of Connor and Markus, Kara and her growing bond with her previous owner’s child Alice represent what Markus is fighting for and what Connor is fighting against; finding humanity. Kara doesn’t want a part in war or rebellion, her only desire is to protect the child she’s now caring for. While this perspective was extremely important, not least as a way of seeing firsthand how your large scale choices as Connor and Markus are affecting smaller scale narratives such as Kara and Alice’s bid for freedom, my one and only gripe is wishing they’d made Alice, and to a point Kara, into more developed characters that could stand on their own. While their plight is poignant and effective and their motivations are clear, the same can be said of Connor and Markus, who each have their own nuances and quirks to their character that subtly portray the humanity they’re discovering in themselves. Kara and Alice, with a little more development outside of their main drive, could’ve made that plotline just a little more interesting, but I maintain that their perspective was essential in showcasing the outcomes of your choices. Plus, Luther is an awesome character and I love him more than anything. It all just goes to show that a lot of the subtlety some claim as missing entirely can be found in other aspects of the experience, most notably the world-building and the excellently composed soundtrack. In particular, I think the move of choosing an individual composer for each character was absolute genius, as it gives each one their own unique musical style and atmosphere.

I know a lot of this, especially the characters and their arcs, may seem like cliches and so on the nose it isn’t even trying, but I think in this case, it just works. Stories of breaking away from ingrained prejudice can be just that and sometimes benefit from telling stories as they are, Detroit didn’t need to be stylised or rooted in subtle, shifting plot threads to leave me an absolute emotional wreck by the time I finished playing. Sure, it tackled its heavy themes with as much grace as a blind rhinoceros, but that didn’t detract at all from the emotional value of each individual plot thread and it certainly didn’t hamper the experience of being completely engrossed in a story where your choices matter more than anything else. David Cage may have rightfully earned his reputation as a bit of a fumbling, heavy-handed writer, but this game is so painstakingly crafted from every character to every setpiece and every choice alteration from minute to grandiose, makes that famous Cage jank almost entirely disappear. Almost. And if you yourself are a Cage skeptic as I once was (and to a point, still am), I encourage you to give this game a try.

Standout Moment Award: The crossover finale of all three main narrative threads is absolutely perfectly executed, and feels equally impactful no matter your choices. But, you know, obviously the best canon ending is when everyone gets out alive.

Standout Character Award: Connor. Of course this had to go to Connor, the ever-conflicted, messily efficient twinky android who is definitely dating Hank takes today’s standout character shoutout.

Tomorrow: No. 15; framed swordsman gets pissed off at a world-ending prophecy, bothers entire world for help.

[kcrabb88]

Okay, so I’ve slept on it and have some more thoughts on BBC Les Mis as a whole? My brain broke it down into two parts, which are Good Moments In an Adaptation vs. A Good Adaptation as a Whole and also Accessibility of the Adaptation to New People (Or, Who are Adaptations For). These are of course just my personal ramblings! Different people are gonna feel differently about things, but I need to process. 

Good Moments In an Adaptation vs. A Good Adaptation as a Whole

This adaptation, particularly in the last episode, did have some good MOMENTS. The final barricade sequence? Nice. Javert’s actual suicide? Well done. Most any thing with Gavroche? Stellar. But I think the thing for me, as much as I did enjoy those moments/sections of the story, so much of the rest of it was just a MESS, that on the whole I can’t call it a good adaptation. And I think this comes down to one thing in particular. As a writer and a reader/viewer, I look for the emotional beats. Not just in the moments, but how they build and how they draw through, and that is where Davies really, really failed for me. And I think because parts of the last episode were so much better than the previous 5, I saw what could have perhaps been, but was not. The thing for me is that Les Mis is SUCH an emotional story, and I shouldn’t have only cried at the end (good on them for finally making me cry! But I should have been more invested earlier on in the series). Les Mis leaves a particular feeling in me when I read passages of the book, or watch the musical or another solid adaptation, that strange mix of bittersweet hope and grief all mixed into one, and I only felt that when I was watching some of the Amis stuff in the last episode, and not as powerfully as I could have if that had been built up properly, though it was at least better than the Valjean content. I even liked the bits with the particular worker and Enjolras! Good stuff but WHY couldn’t they have just named him after the worker we do have? Why not just call him Feuilly? There was even a glance of what should have been Feuilly’s writing on the wall. Why not tie that together? Frustrating. And this adaptation is full of stuff like that that isn’t pieced together for optimal impact. 

There were other small moments I liked that weren’t Amis based. Fantine’s bead bird! The moment where Valjean and Cosette were talking about him calling her Papa! Javert and Valjean’s carriage ride. But one big, big issue I have is that Davies didn’t REALLY tie in Valjean’s story line to the barricade story line.Like  yes, plot wise all the paths crossed there where they were supposed to. But thematically? No. I don’t think I ever considered how much a character assassination against Valjean could affect the power of the Amis storyline, but it did, for me, even though unexpectedly (with 2/3 of the Amis missing and Enjolras not really being Enjolras until the last episode) those bits hit me the most in the emotions. The place where Valjean and the Amis intersect is that they’re all trying to change the world, just in different ways and on different levels. But they are all trying to inject more kindness and love into what’s around them. And BECAUSE Valjean was so wrong basically the entire time, it almost made me wonder “why does Davies think the Amis are here, other than to intersect Valjean’s path with Marius’ path?” It felt like the two stories were a bit disconnected, because when you’ve got Valjean going around saying “the world sucks” and being frankly abusive to Cosette, you don’t feel the thread between Valjean’s story and the Amis’ story. You don’t feel the barricade as a part of a larger whole. It makes the barricade feel like a vehicle toward something else rather than something that matters on its own merit, though oddly it WAS the most powerful part of the adaptation. 

I’ve said it already, but the Valjean and Cosette arc falls so terribly flat after what happened with the way Valjean treated her, and the Creepy Levels of Codependency. I don’t need to talk about it more, really, but as much as I liked Cosette being the one to realize Valjean saved Marius, it didn’t fully work because why would she love him so much, really? After how he treated her. Again, a good moment that had impact but wasn’t earned. 

Javert’s arc kind of falls in here as well. Because the moment of his suicide WAS so well done. Like DAMN, David Oleyowo, make me gasp and start crying when you were crying. Plus the reading of the letter! But because they did all that weird stuff with his character throughout (Jean Valjean is the LEADER OF THE REBELS, why????) the moment itself, great as it was, lost some power. I think one thing I can say for this adaptation is that they had some amazing actors (Lilly Collins I’m thinking a lot about) who just weren’t served by the script. 

Accessibility of the Adaptation to New People (Or, Who are Adaptations For)

I know, I know, I’m rambling, BUT. I was thinking this morning about the moments that did make me emotional and how I was glad to really finally get some, though it got me wondering, would those moments have affected people who didn’t already love the source material? With Gavroche, probably yes. Everyone gets upset about Gavroche. But the Amis stuff in particular that was good, was GOOD because I care about and know those characters. Seeing a bright, merry Courfeyrac go down, to see Enjolras whisper “this is history” to him, means something to me because I love them. Grantaire and Enjolras holding hands in their death means something to me because it’s such an iconic Brick moment that was nice to see. But despite the better last episode, the series as a whole wasn’t accessible for people who hadn’t seen it before? If I was new to Les Mis or only knew a little bit, I wouldn’t have understood what was going on. I wouldn’t have sympathized for Valjean and would have wanted Cosette to run out of there. Javert would have seemed like The Guy Who is Overly Obsessed With One Thief. And it got me thinking about who adaptations are for, which is a conversation people have had since forever. Is it for people who love the source material, or for new people? I think it’s really supposed to be a combo of both, and I don’t think this one On The Whole did a great job of either. 

The End 

I keep going back to the final moment, and still just...really don’t know what I feel about it. I think I saw someone else call it a downbeat, which I think is a great way to describe it. I wanted to glean something cool from it, but I’m not sure I can? Like, I wanted to draw coming back to these two little boys and acknowledging Hugo’s focus on on the Every Man and the Little Guy in light of this huge epic story that DOES tell us the story of all these names history wouldn’t remember against the backdrop of a France roiled by change and revolts, how kindness and love can radically alter people’s lives, and how those people and what they did MATTERED. How what they did mattered even though they were former convicts and rebels and people society would look down on, and that’s part of what was so radical about the novel in the first place, giving the spotlight to people like that. But I’m not sure that’s what they were going for or not, and because Davies sucked the emotion out of so much of the series, it didn’t really have that feel for me. 

So I guess, in the end, I saw glimpses and glimmers of good things I liked, but that weren’t drawn through to have impact because the script and lots of character choices were A Nightmare. And I think this goes to show that when you so thoroughly mess up Valjean’s character and his choices, it taints the entire thing. If Valjean had been better, I probably would have liked it a lot more. But alas, that did not happen. Well, that, and you know, ERASING all the weird sex stuff, Please Stop.

Pretty sets and costumes can’t make up for missing the core of emotion that Les Mis is about, thought at least those were nice. 

But! I’m really enjoying the good meta and thoughts this has brought up, and also you know NEW FANDOM JOKES. 

[class-wom]

Legion Chapter 25 “Morning After”-Thoughts – SPOILERS!!!

NOTE:  Due to the fact that I didn’t see the entire ep, this one will be a little bit different from my usual “morning after”-musings/ramblings/whatever.  It’s more of a thought-gathering and speculation based in part on the Chapter 26 preview as well as the few scenes -- namely the final scenes -- that I did ultimately watch, to say nothing of the notion of “Okay, how do I balance this with everything I’ve seen thus far?”                       

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 SPOILER TERRITORY

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1)  Okay, whatever my mixed feelings about Oliver Bird in full-blown leisure suit/martini mode may be after Chapter 13 and his role in Amy’s fate in particular and his reunion with Melanie at the expense of David and Farouk’s “revival,” I will concede that this was a cool moment:

2) Please tell me with regard to this parable parallel in terms of the “present day” situation that the Wolf represents Farouk and Cynthia represents David!  Granted, the “Not everyone wants to be saved”-moral of this tale does put the potential fate of our antihero* in a grim light (hey, at this point, my expectations are such that I’m almost resolved to that idea anyway, tbh!), but given the part played by Farouk in Chapter 24 and where the last two eps are taking us with regard to the original showdown between Farouk and Xavier, I really would hate to see Syd and the Loudermilks siding with Farouk yet again, especially since it appears to be setting us up for a “David & Charles vs. SK”-type of scenario!  I’m hoping “us and them, not us or them” is more with regard to David/Legion and less to Farouk at this point; they’ve already put ((ahem)) enough eggs in Farouk’s basket, and look where we are now!

3)  Okay, Syd and the Loudermilks (with an emphasis on the latter, I might add!) may be a little easier to root for now; I’ve said all along that the Loudermilks are the most sympathetic of the “old gang” left, with everyone else either reduced to robotic form or of questionable motives and/or allegiance and obsession just as bad as David’s if not worse!  And yet even they seemed to test me in Chapter 23 in particular:  Yeah, okay, even if I do understand his low trust issues at the time of Chapter 21 with Cary all too well and why he felt it necessary, I wasn’t okay with David brainwashing Cary, and naturally Cary came out of it none too pleased -- I get all that.  But just taking Switch and running off with her, calling it a “rescue,” and assuring her that she’ll “never have to hide again” only to throw her in a box in hopes of hiding her from David?!?  Yeah, I can’t possibly imagine why Switch so easily turned on Farouk and came back under David’s wing, tooth-losing and time demon-battling included, and it’s entirely possible that she’ll be associating Cary with Farouk from now on, which should put that dynamic in an interesting light in future eps!  🙄 (My new theory on that:  Perhaps one of the Legion-alters managed to get the box open and wake her while Farouk was busy taunting David? just a thought...)

4)  So all Syd needed to become “a true hero” was a completely new upbringing with a loving, functional adopted family, namely the Birds? could someone tell me (this is a rhetorical question, people!) why that was true for her and not for David? or was that the point, that he had that all along but Farouk’s toehold and/or his own genetic code was strong enough that he had somehow sensed the entire time that something was wrong and his seemingly happy childhood was a lie?  (Farouk as a fake dog certainly didn’t make things easier for him as a kid, you have to admit!)  Or is that the whole “Some don’t want to be saved”-philosophy, aka the entire point?

5)  Okay, Mel, let’s see if I have this straight:  What now gives Syd “the power to save the world” is “love, empathy, and understanding.”  Can we please back up to your rather (SK-influenced, granted) contradictory advice to her in Chapter 18, when you were literally putting a gun in her hand, encouraging her to “be a hero” and telling her that the best way to survive was to rely on herself?  And here’s an idea:  If you had given her the former advice in Chapter 18 instead of freaking her out, telling her “He doesn’t really love you!” and adding words to the effect of “He’ll turn into Legion the World-Killer,” do you suppose she could have avoided all of those antagonistic moves that, surprise-surprise, brought “Legion the World-Killer” (to say nothing of David’s subsequent violation of her!) out in full force by Chapter 24?!?  Prevention is less costly than cure in the long run, Mrs. Bird -- and the whole “Yeah, but NH ordered an entire season of eight eps!”-argument is all well and good, but still...

6)  It would be really nice when these folks come out from under the influence of Farouk that they acknowledge it with some sort of regret.  I mean, if the whole point is to “own mistakes” and all that, but maybe in their own way, they are, idk... 🤷

7)  “Not everyone wants to be saved.”  Substitute the word “help” for “save” and somehow that goes double, triple, and quadruple when you’re using the phrase “We want to help you!” when you trap the person in a force field, surround him with guns, and bring out his old enemy to really rub his nose into it, as what happened in Chapter 19! 🙄  That still kinda bugs me; I’m hoping that Syd’s ill-fated encounter with Legion in Chapter 24 will help her to realize that mistake and her part, intentionally or otherwise, in strengthening Legion’s resolve and increasing their literal “us vs. the world”-mentality.  It’d be nice if she admits that may not have been the wisest move on her part (part of the self-forgiveness eluded to in interviews, perhaps?), but at this point, I’m not holding my breath!

8)  Okay, embellishment on a point touched on briefly in #2:  Now that the already-fragile trust issues between David and Syd have been further marred by Farouk’s “brilliant” advice to Syd to lie and seduce David into compliance, and now that Legion is wary of Syd’s “trickery” and protecting David from it at all costs, I’d say Syd and the Loudermilks have their work cut out for them where dealing with Legion is concerned.  Syd’s choice of words at the end of the ep, “I know how to fix it” rather than “I know how to stop him,” are admittedly encouraging; I’m hoping they’re officially done with blatantly trying to kill David and instead will try to focus his efforts more in genuinely fixing the past and his family situations, since the point of this ep seemed to be that the key is a loving family support unit.  (Worth noting, Switch’s own distant relationship with her father, and I’m not sure if anyone else picked up on this, but her mother has never been acknowledged in any way, shape or form! read into that what you will!)

9)  We do remember that Melanie’s initial interest in David and his powers was to weaponize them (at the time) against D3, right? yeah, just thought I’d throw that out there, now that she’s in “Use the Force of empathy and understanding to save the world, Syd!”-mode.  Let us not forget that when the Summerland Gang first picked Syd up from Clockworks in Chapters 1 and 2, they were under the impression that it was David and not Syd who was truly being rescued!  They were initially interested in the one with literally explosive potential, not a mere body-swapper!  And if you want to file this one under “Character and Plot Growth and Development,” okay, fine.  But just because it’s filed doesn’t mean it should be completely swept under the rug imo!

10)  The Chapter 26 preview seems to indicate that Syd and the Loudermilks will visit the Xavier home and potentially bump into Gabrielle and even Baby Davy.  Now that has some promise! 😁

In “conclusion,” can you imagine how long this would be had I watched the ep in its entirety? 🤣 bwahaha!

*Yes, I’m using that word instead of “villain” concerning David; deal with it!!! 😝