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lokigodofaces · 4 years ago

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thoughts on loki ep 2: the variant (spoilers)

under cut to not disturb your scrolling

Overall I enjoyed so that's good

Uh frick my mind blanked so sorry if things are completely out of order

I don't know, I expected the renaissance fair to be 2012 or 2021 or 2024 (Loki's time, our time, current time in the "sacred timeline"). So I was genuinely surprised when it was in 1985.

Ok, i really like the title card thing. And how the year scrolls around. It's a nice aesthetic touch there.

I wonder why the female Loki variant chooses her locations? Does she have a thing for renaissance fairs, French cathedrals, and Oklahoma?

1985 is when Back to the Future came out. And it's y'know, one of the most popular time travel movies ever. So I think they chose that year as a reference.

Again, not liking that the minutemen only have numbers, not names. It is giving me lots of Clone Wars vibes. If you don't know anything about Clone Wars, the clones are given number identifiers by the Kaminoans. Things like CT-7567. The clones would give themselves names (CT-7567, for example, names himself Rex). A really good sign throughout the series that someone is a sketchy person is if they call the clones by their numbers. The clones don't want to be known as numbers. They are people too, they deserve names, so they come up with all sorts of creative names (Rex, Fives, Cody, Tup, Hevy, Hardcase, Echo, Waxer, Boil, Wolffe, Jesse, Kix, Fox, Hunter, Wrecker, Crosshair, Omega, Tech, Matchstick, etc). The jedi respect this, and the only jedi that i can think of that called clones by their numbers is Krell, who fell to the dark side. the Kaminoans and other sketchy people all call them by their numbers and the clones don't like it. A big focus of the show is on the clone's agency (at the end, they all have brain chips that take away their agency and force them to kill jedi), and how the clones need to be respected. So for me to see in another series that people are only given numbers is bad. What's worse is that the minutemen are fine with this. They don't see it as dehumanizing or belittling. They are brainwashed into being okay with it. Which says a thing or two about the Time Keepers.

did. did the renaissance fair really have Bonnie Tyler's "Holding Out for a Hero" for their renaissance themed fight? Is this normal? Was it normal in the '80's? We saw later that the female Loki can do electronic stuff. Did she rig it to play it? For the vibes?

Also the stuff before the song was about fighting for a princess, and in the end she kidnaps C-20.

Okay, btw, I'm just gonna say Lady Loki for a while because no one has explicitly said Sylvie yet, so I'm going to refer to di Martino as Loki until she or another calls her Sylvie. Cool? Cool.

I was thinking the "Holding Out for a Hero" fight would be the roomba fight or something. It is such a good song that has huge potential for this genre. Why did they use it in a lame fight as that one?

When Lady Loki did the spell on C-20, it looked similar to what Wanda and Agatha can do. As in, it had similar visuals.

Loki reading a random magazine he finds while sitting with his feet on the desk bored out of his mind because he has to learn sh*t is a MOOD.

What is Miss Minutes? She can jump around anywhere, and pop into computers. But she can't be just a projection. She took the effort to dodge Loki swatting at her, so that may mean she was corporeal. She also could be something similar to the Kree's Supreme Intelligence?

So, did Mobius give Loki the shirt, tie, and slacks, but really didn't give him the jacket until they had to call him in? What? That makes no sense? Did the TVA not have any jackets with the variant label? Did someone have to custom design a jacket for Loki?

What is up with this show giving me things I wanted to see only in holographic form? First we saw Coulson's death, and now Loki in his Jotun form in a holograph of another variant.

Okay, Loki being someone the TVA has to constantly deal with is very on brand. Loki is a creature of chaos, of course he's going to unknowingly rebel against the sacred timeline.

Also, headcanon that the Jotun Loki we see is king of Jotunheim because that would be epic.

Also, for personal reasons I choose to believe there is a Loki variant that defeated the Avengers and immediately went queer rights.

Loki's reaction to there being many Loki variants. He's seen what his life is supposed to be. I think he is even more upset that the TVA often deals with him, that there are so many things that could have been instead if it weren't for the TVA and the "sacred timeline."

Also, I totally think Mobius was waiting for another Loki to show up to help him defeat Lady Loki. They get them so often, it makes sense.

Loki explaining the difference between illusion projection and duplication was great. And very helpful to me personally understanding lore. Also, Mobius, get your crap together. If you're a Loki expert, figure this stuff out.

Loki calling the TVA out on propaganda, we love that.

The wolf quote is actually very nice, I quite like it.

Okay, the TVA doesn't even bury or cremate or do any sort of ritual for their fallen minutemen, they just reset the timeline. Which to me seems like another way to show how little the TVA actually care for their workers.

There are statues of the Time Keepers in Ravonna's office. The camera pays extra attention to it. Keep reading for more about Time Keepers and cinematography choices.

What. What sort of relationship does Ravonna and Mobius have? What is going on there? I am really confused.

Who is this "analyst on the side?" What is going on there?

Ravonna is MEGA SUS. Along with that, the Time Keepers are mega sus.

She signs R. Slayer. Yeah. Slayer. Not at all subtle, Marvel. Letting us know that she'll do the deed if needed.

Mobius you are sending me mixed signals. What do you want?

Okay, Mobius saying Loki was a "cold, scared boy" and an "ice runt" and stuff was totally a jab at Loki being Jotun.

Mobius saying Loki is insecure because of Lady Loki is...probably true.

With the elevator, the camera stops and focuses on the Time Keepers.

The Creation of the TVA, the beginning of time, the end of time, all classified. That is sus.

Loki almost crying over Ragnarok was good. Let him cry over the destruction of his home.

Loki being the one to discover something the TVA had no idea about after a day is on brand for Loki. And it shows how the TVA really are vulnerable.

Mobius: Really? In front of my salad?

No but the object lesson was well done and actually did help me understand what Loki was talking about.

Casey! Casey drinks grape juice! Imagine how confusing this is for Casey though. Loki is captured, threatens to gut you like a fish (whatever that means), and now he's dressed like an analysist, stealing your juice box. Does Loki get Casey more juice?

Honestly, Loki looking at everything logically and scientifically is fantastic. Adds to the science = magic thing Marvel's got going on, since Loki is a sorcerer.

Loki saying volcanoes are cool is fun. I agree. Volcanoes mean the planet is geologically active, which means we won't die. Also, there is a volcano named Loki on one of Jupiter's moons. I wonder if the creators knew that and put Loki in Pompeii because he is already linked with volcanoes.

Mobius telling Loki to start off small and Loki completely disregarding that felt very personal to me.

Loki being absolutely chaotic and telling everyone they were going to die while speaking perfect Latin was iconic. I want more of that content. Let the man be buckwild.

Again, Loki finding something out after a day that the TVA never knew about is on brand.

"Be free, my horned friends, be free!" I love that way too much.

Mobius being obsessed with jet skis wasn't something I expected, but I'm down for it. Heck, even Loki admitted they were cool.

The discussion on beliefs is going to lead to saying the Time Keepers are bullcrap. Hopefully.

Grapes and nuts are "candy" on Asgard. So, when Loki was eating grapes in Ragnarok, we can interpret that as him eating M&Ms. Second, this might add to something I've seen around here. I've seen things about a book somewhere with Loki saying chocolate fountains are mythical (which is really funny to me). So, I guess Asgard really doesn't have chocolate.

Oh my gosh, so many apocalypses between 2047 and 2051...hopefully none of those happen in real life.

Roxxcart is probably part of Roxxon, something that has been around in Iron Man movies.

Lady Loki got the shovel thing from Roxxcart that she left in Oklahoma! The minutemen said it was from the early third millenia, which is where we are now! 2050 also fits that category!

I saw something about the file saying Class 8 hurricane...there are only 5 classes...which means this is a crazy storm.

Does B-15 want Loki dead? This is a legitimate question, because I think she does. Dead or pruned.

Loki looking around at the storm, I love it. This could be him loving science, or him missing Thor, since Thor creates storms. Also, at this point Loki probably things Thor dies shortly after him in the sacred timeline, so Loki would be particularly sentimental about Thor.

I love Loki drying himself off and not anyone else. And B-15 yelling about his magic. And Loki's motions are so fluid, it's so aesthetically pleasing, I love it.

Dudes, I thought B-15 was going to try to prune Loki when they were alone.

Okay, was Lady Loki bsing about the azalea sale, or does Roxxcart actually do that? I want to know.

Wunmi Mosaku did a really good job as Lady Loki, I loved it.

Loki being annoyed at Lady Loki and saying he understood how Thor felt, does that insinuate Loki can do what Lady Loki was doing?

B-15 and C-20 were both very shaken after being possessed by Lady Loki. I wonder how that felt for them? We've had different explanations of mind control/brainwashing/similar from Clint, Bucky, Daisy, Mack, Fitz, and Monica in the MCU (including AoS). I wonder what is specific to Lady Loki's possession.

C-20 kept going on about something being real. What was that about?

C-20 revealed the location of the Time Keepers to Lady Loki!

Lady Loki not wanting to be called Loki could be a sign she is Sylvie.

There's something weird where Loki's voice echoed around while the camera focused on Lady Loki. Maybe she's telepathic?

Someone needs to keep a tracker on people telling Loki this isn't his story in a show literally about him.

But, that does add to themes for his life, and how everything was always about someone else in his life. He was always a supporting character for Thor, for Odin, for Thanos. Now, even in his own story, everyone insists he doesn't matter.

I was wondering what the reset charges would be used for. I wasn't expecting a massive bombing of the sacred timeline! Wow! That was unexpected and I loved it!

Okay, this isn't from me, this is from New Rockstars. But to list all the places mentioned on chronomonitors, either bombed or not: Knowhere, Barcelona, Niflheim, Dartford, Phong Nha, Lisbon, Vormir, Thorton, Cookeville, Asgard, Rome, Sakaar, Barichara, Porvoo, Ego, Titan, New York City, Tokyo, Hala, Kingsport, Xandar, Beijing, Madrid, Portland, Jotunheim. Bolded are other planets. Those are almost all the planets visited in the MCU. So fun easter eggs there!

I like Lady Loki's aesthetic. The fingerless gloves, the cloak, I love it. And YES SHE ISN'T SEXUALIZED. So many genderbent characters are excuses to sexualize women. But Lady Loki is just as covered as the male Lokis.

Lady Loki just...left the time door open for Loki to follow...for a really long time...I'm worried he's running into a trap.

What is Loki going to do now?

Theory time y'alls: Lady Loki bombed the sacred timeline to flush the minutemen out of the TVA, leaving it defenseless. And she's gonna go after the Time Keepers themselves. We know she gets into the TVA from trailer footage, and that's what I think we're gonna see next episode. I think she (like the Loki we are following) is upset over the lack of free will, and she plans to change that. That's why she wasn't interested in helping Loki "take over" the TVA, because she doesn't want to become the leader of a new TVA, she wants it destroyed.

Alright, back to the Time Keepers stuff. They keep focusing on the middle Time Keeper. Even in the end credits they have a weird cut to focus directly on his face. I'm not 100% on this, but I like this theory. That face is similar to Jonathan Major's, the actor confirmed to be Kang the Conqueror in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Kang is a well known time travelling villain in Marvel. Maybe he is Kang, and is using variant versions of himself (that's a Kang thing in the comics) to mess with the timeline, and no one expects that from him. Also, Renslayer was his S/O for a bit in the comics, and they keep framing her in front of that one Time Keeper's face. I feel like this would be a good way to set up Quantumania and to show how sus the Time Keepers are.

Also, Loki was absolutely adorable the entire episode. And he got to sleep! Yay for him!

Again, I enjoyed, and can't wait for next week!

#loki (2021)#loki (2021) spoilers #loki (2021) review #loki laufeyson #tva loki #dimartino loki #sylvie lushton #mobius m mobius #ravonna renslayer #hunter b 15 #hunter c 20 #miss minutes #time keepers #aaaaaaaa im excited for the next episode

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goodgeon · 6 years ago

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𝐑𝐄𝐂𝐑𝐔𝐈𝐓 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐅𝐈𝐋𝐄.

NAME / ALIAS + INTRO : hi, i’m Rivka ! i’m 50% of dying light’s mod team, focusing on mostly graphics + aesthetics and letting Bee ( aka my Fully Better Half ) work her magic with words and worldbuilding. ZODIAC SIGN : scorpio sun / capricorn moon / scorpio rising and boy can you Tell HOGWARTS HOUSE : ravenclaw ‘til we die FAVORITES / WRITING

✧ ARCHETYPE / TROPE : soulmates … soulmates. reincarnation. ‘ in a hundred worlds, in any version of reality, I’d find you and I’d choose you. ’ momma’s boys. ‘ the calls are coming from inside the house ’ psychological horror + ari aster - esque next level body horror. big men who are baby and the tiny women that make them blush. rebels. hedge witches. the monstrous feminine. I Have Nothing To Prove To You. found family on that ‘ i’ve had arlo for a day and a half and if anything were to happen to him i’d kill everyone in this room and then myself ’ type level. bear jews. disabled characters whose power is enhanced / provided by their differences rather than ~limited~ by it because be the representation you want to see in the world. ✧ EVENTS / TASKS : any type of plot that involves keeping secrets or a Big Reveal, in both planning and execution. big bets. slow burns / long cons. fallout after Big Fuck Ups and figuring out what happens after the Point of No Return only as we go along. i’m also WAY INTO playlist / aesthetic tasks because i’m nosy + a visual learner and i love seeing what other people’s inspiration Looks Like. ✧ FACES : jodie comer, ilana glazer, zoë kravitz, odeya rush, natasha lyonne, natasha liu bordizzo, angela sarafyan, tracee ellis ross, liv tyler. all white men look the same to me but if i’m stanning it’s because they’re a jewish boy with both dad + d*ddy energy. also florence pugh if you’re reading this im free on thursday night and would like to hang out. please respond to this and then hang out with me on thursday night when i’m free.

DESCRIBE YOUR ‘ CHARACTER TYPE ’ IN A SINGLE PHOTO / GIF / MEME :

FAVORITES / PERSONAL

✧ BOOK / FILM : Slaughter-House Five — Kurt Vonnegut ( yeah, i know ) + a dead - heat tie between Moulin Rouge and Inglorious Basterds. ✧ SONG / ARTIST : there is no time nor place that i will not spontaneously cry to billy joel’s lullabye ( goodnight my angel ), don’t test me because i really did put it on AS I TYPED THIS and am tearing up + if king solomon was threatening to cut the baby in half, i could listen to just ben platt for the rest of my natural life and be 100% fine ✧ SNACK : dark chocolate covered pretzels but also i love hot cheetos even if they Absolutely Do Not Love Me Back ✧ FANDOM(S) : ahhhhh it’s been Marvel / DC comics for the better part of [ redacted ] years, but i’ve also written / dabbled in Chronicles of Narnia and Inglorious Basterds. baby Riv was also way into bandom but we’re never ever going into detail about that ever.

DESCRIBE YOURSELF IN A SINGLE PHOTO / GIF / MEME : like if you cry - laugh every time

FAVORITES / IN - UNIVERSE

✧ MARAUDERS - ERA CHARACTER : Alastor Moody, next question ✧ TRIO - ERA CHARACTER : Luna … Miss Lovegood … also Neville Longbottom but if i have to choose between them sorry it’s Luna all the way i love her ✧ SUBJECT : Potions don’t @ me ✧ SPELL : the Unbreakable Vow ( filed under : rad pieces of magic that were never given the ATTENTION THEY DESERVED )

#dyinglightrecruits #ooc tbt #posting this from here bc james' blog isn'T SHOWING UP IN THE TAGS OOF

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upalldown · 4 years ago

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Tyler, The Creator - Call Me If You Get Lost

Seventh album from the Los Angeles-based Odd Future rapper featuring guest appearances from 42 Dugg, Ty Dolla Sign, YoungBoy Never Broke Again, Lil Wayne and Pharrell Williams

7/13

In the 2000s, mixtapes became the most effective and popular medium for aspiring rappers to build fanbases, seduce critics, and serve as commercial proof-of-concept to major labels. Even established rappers used the format to work out new ideas or to circumvent those labels entirely. As file sharing turned what was once a regional enterprise into a global one, rappers who would have previously given a song here and there to the DJs who issued compilation-style mixtapes began headlining their own. And so instead of cutting a hundred demos that might never be heard, or rapping a capella to starchy executives in boardrooms, many artists who broke during the W. Bush years did so by jacking industry beats and rapping underneath those DJs’ excited yelps, their formative work rewound and doubled back until it settled in your brain just so.

When digital streaming platforms made it easy to profit off of online-only releases, provided the artist or label owns the rights to what’s uploaded, “mixtape” became a nominal term used cynically to signal which rap records were meant to be taken more seriously than others. (Think of how many times you’ve seen advertising for an artist’s “debut album” only to think, “Don’t they have three albums already?”) Call Me If You Get Lost—which is either Tyler, the Creator’s sixth or seventh album, depending on whether or not you count 2009’s Bastard—argues for the mixtape not as a tidy bit of careerist maneuvering, but as an aesthetic tradition. It’s an inspired choice, nostalgic but irreverent, and suited perfectly to his strengths: It grants him the freedom to play with tone, to write personally or use his gravelly voice as texture, to treat the harshest raps and the most delicate hooks as mad experiments gone wrong.

Call Me is hosted by DJ Drama, the animated Philly native whose Gangsta Grillz series includes some of the most essential rap records of the century so far. There are times when the album evokes the grittiest of those tapes—its single reimagines a Gravediggaz song—but it breaks up the heavier cuts with shards of bright pop. (At times Call Me recalls In My Mind: The Prequel, the 2006 Gangsta Grillz tape by Tyler’s hero, Pharrell.) Drama is at his comedic best, goading on verses or underlining Tyler’s monologues about jet-setting (“A young lady just fed me French vanilla ice cream!”). He’s irresistible even when he’s fucking up the album’s title, as he does on the excellent “Hot Wind Blows,” which reunites him with Lil Wayne.

While DJ Drama’s presence is indispensable, it is not the only thing that recalls those old .zip files. Of Call Me’s 16 songs, only five make it to the three-minute mark—and that includes the two marathon affairs, “Wilshire” and “Sweet/I Thought You Wanted to Dance,” which run eight and a half and 10 minutes, respectively. Even within those shorter records are sharp breaks and jagged connections: see the way both “Corso” and “Lemonhead” open with menace before moving to more Technicolor sounds, or the way “Massa” inverts that progression, seeming at first to be brighter only to quickly get dulled out again. When Tyler’s old Odd Future comrade Domo Genesis rappels into “Manifesto,” he does so under cover of a drastic beat switch that throws the song into chaos.

The Gangsta Grillz conceit allows Tyler some latitude to meander—the platonic-ideal mixtape includes freestyles, original songs, radio singles, snippets of unreleased material—but he gives Call Me enough motifs that they eventually fuse into a spine. There are near-constant references to travel (the smartest of these is the beginning of “Massa,” where he cuts off an earnest-seeming monologue about his passport mid-sentence, as if he knows how it sounds) and to Rolls Royces: the way the new models’ doors open; the fact that Tyler now owns a pair; the detailing on their ceilings and the cookie crumbs he litters on their floors; the fact that their signature umbrellas are superfluous in Los Angeles. He returns to both these things the way rappers might circle back to an anchor word or phrase while freestyling. This has an intoxicating effect: Over the course of Call Me, it becomes unclear whether these material flexes are his focus, and the more wrenching personal revelations bleed in and take over, or if it’s the other way around. It’s probably a little of both.

As for the personal: Those bloodlettings come in a couple of different forms. There is “Manifesto,” where he meditates on the impact of his past shock-rap provocations and vents about the way he scans to both Black and white audiences; there is his revelation, on “Massa,” that his mother was living in a shelter when his breakout 2011 single “Yonkers” dropped. But the matter he dedicates the most time to is (what sounds like) a single fractured affair between himself and a friend’s lover. This is rendered in prosaic detail on the sprawling and anxious “Wilshire”: one minute he coolly concludes that the affair is worth ruining a friendship over, the next he finds the idea unthinkable. He is deeply, passionately in love, then nervously analytical. It has already inspired swaths of gossip and speculation as to the identity of the woman (and, consequently, the friend). But you picture Tyler alone in a hotel room somewhere, refreshing his phone, hoping it will inspire a single email.

There are plenty of moments on Call Me If You Get Lost that are playful, sometimes joyous. “Wusyaname,” which makes smart use of YoungBoy Never Broke Again and Ty Dolla $ign, is a sweaty flip of H-Town’s “Back Seat (Wit No Sheets)”; the anecdote about Tyler’s mother is paid off with her own, almost unbelievably colorful monologue. Yet even these have a pall cast over them. In the middle of “Massa,” Tyler raps in a low register and a deliberate flow: “Everyone I ever loved had to be loved in the shadows.” This maps onto the affair from “Wilshire,” and maybe onto his past relationships with men, but it is tragic—the notion that a feeling so pure could be swallowed by the secrecy it requires. At moments like this, Tyler seems uniquely in touch with himself, ready to be naked on record. But later in the same verse, he raps about being so paranoid he has to sleep with a gun—now in a voice so affected it’s unclear whether it’s a cry for help, a joke, or both. These things do not move linearly; the willingness to be sincere does not mean it’s easy to do so. If Tyler feels his true life happens in the shadows and crevices—the gaps between what everyone else is meant to see—it’s only appropriate he revived a mixtape format that pushes once-hidden ideas and asides to the center of the frame.

youtube

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/tyler-the-creator-call-me-if-you-get-lost/

#tyler the creator #call me if you get lost

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playfullyevil · 7 years ago

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TMA fic - Comfort Food

Martin fluff

Hugs need to happen before the bad things come next week.

Martin had gotten rather good at avoiding eye contact with anyone who happened to be wandering the Institute’s halls as he made his way into work. Walking through the main door, he cast his eyes to the floor, ducking the gaze of the person behind the reception desk. He made his way to the recessed door along the left-hand wall and the stairs beyond.

He used to be so social, stopping to chat at the reception desk, sometimes he even brought pastries. Occasionally, he would pop in on the research department to say hello and check in on anything that may due to be archived. At any other job, Martin Blackwood would have been known as, “friendly but a bit odd.” Among the institute staff, you had to be especially strange to be labeled “the odd one”. The institute collected those sorts of people, or converted them. As an employee of The Magnus Institute, Martin was simply “the friendly one”. Not anymore, not since...

His once open, youthful face, with bright eyes and a quick smile now blank and dead eyed as those working in artifact storage. He had always been pale but now could be accurately described as ashen. A seemingly boundless optimism had fueled him through all his years in the institute including his stay in the archives, the incident with Jane Prentiss, and even its aftermath. All of that had reached its end with the disappearance of the head archivist.

Settling at his desk, the archival assistant took stock of the papers piled on his desk and sighed. No matter how hard he worked, it seemed he could barely make a dent in the chaotic shelves. He missed doing proper research on the statements, when he had the time to go out and conduct the occasional interview. Really do the job thoroughly.

There just wasn’t the time for that anymore and he rarely left the institute's basement. Elias wanted the archives properly organized and he wanted it done yesterday. Sometimes, Martin could do a bit of googling to verify or cross reference the occasional fact. More often than not the statements were recorded with only the sparse notes already included in the files. If there even were any.

He had weeks ago stopped asking Tim for help, not that he could reliably find the man. It didn’t look like he had been to his desk today, but it was early yet. His coworker had been showing up to work less and less. When he was in, he spent most of his working hours moving papers from one box and back again, on autopilot. More and more Tim would disappear into the storage room to lay on the cot there, staring blankly up at the ceiling.

A flash of fluorescent pink caught Martin's eye from under a file folder. He shifted it aside to reveal a note written in flowing script.

Martin,

You haven’t been by to see me in a while, we should catch up. Meet me for lunch?

-R

The large, cursive R trailed off into a swirling floral pattern at the bottom of the note.

For anyone not assigned to the archives to make their way down here was a rarity. The archives weren’t a musty basement but a warm, welcoming place they are not. There were enough strange things that go on in the rest of the building that few people deliberately seek out the creepier areas below ground level.

Rosie usually kept herself busy on the third floor with the rest of the research staff. Martin wasn’t sure if he had ever seen her down in his little corner of the institute. Obviously, she knew her way around as she was able to find his desk and leave a note without any difficulty.

It had been at least two months since Martin had last taken lunch in the company of another person. He’d barely been up to the canteen since before Christmas, preferring to eat at his desk. If he ate at all. He had skipped breakfast and the thought of lunch made his stomach voice its displeasure. Martin affixed the sticky note to the clock on his desk and got up to make some tea.

Buried in work time lost its meaning, speeding by while at the same time passing in long, draw out stretches. Boxes brimming with chaotic folders piled to the left of the desk were gradually, but steadily making their way to the organized stack on the right. Statements were skimmed, supplemental material glanced at, and verifiable facts were typed into a search engine. Most ended up in a box marked for the discredited section. A yellow sticky note declared it the “Pile of Nonsense”. A few made it into a stack earmarked for further investigation and eventual recording attempts. First digitally, but if all else failed, out came the cassette recorder.

Martin was reading through the account of Rachel Tyler when a polite cough drew his attention. Looking up, he saw Melanie standing in front of his desk. “Anything interesting?” she said nodding her head toward the paper in Martin’s hand.

“What? Oh, Ms. Tyler seems to believe the coffee shop that opened up near her office is run by witches.”

“Witches? The broom riding kind or the child-eating kind?”

“The kind with ‘satanic glyphs marking their pale skin and ornaments to their dark master embedded in the flesh of their face,’” Martin read aloud.

Melanie’s hands shifted to rest on her hips, “Sounds like a stuffy, old lady upset that the kids making her coffee don’t share her delicate sense of aesthetics.”

“Likely so, ‘The music pulses from the speakers in a dark rhythm that attempts to hypnotize the clientele.’” Martin continued. “Must not have been very effective hypnosis, the shop closed in 1989.” He closed the file and slid it into the box on the right.

“Too bad, sounds like a fun place.”

“Must have been ahead of its time.”

“Must have.” Melanie agreed, “Oh, before I forget, there was a woman up in the lunchroom asking after you.”

Martin’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “What?”

“Rosie, I think she’s called.”

“Oh no," he groaned, looking at the clock. "it’s nearly two.”

“Well she was still up there a few minutes ago. If you hurry you can probably catch her.”

Martin briefly considered the pile of work in front of him when his stomach made a conspicuous gurgle. Melanie raised her eyebrows at the noise before heading off to her own work. Getting up, he pushed in his desk chair and headed up the stairs toward the canteen.

The lunchroom was empty except for Rosie, who was sat down at a table near a window. She spotted him as he entered and waved him over with a warm smile. “Martin, come over and have a seat. I made lasagna last night and have far too many leftovers.”

He hurried across the open space toward the table and slid into the seat. A rare sunny day was pouring light in through the window and Martin squinted at its brightness. He’d been working in a basement for over a year now and his eyes were out of practice dealing with this quantity of natural light.

“Christ, you look like hell. You really haven’t been taking care of yourself very well lately, have you?”

The archival assistant looked down sheepishly and raked his hand through his hair. He idly wondered when the last time he’d actually run a comb through it.

“Sorry, it’s just been a rough week,” he mumbled.

“It’s more than that,” she insisted. “I’ve barely seen you the last couple of months, no one has. I know things are… strained down there but you don’t have to avoid me.”

“I didn’t want to be a bother…”

“Nonsense! You’re no bother. Here, eat.” The older woman pushed a plate piled with lasagna toward him. He reluctantly picked up the fork and began toying with the food, eventually bringing a bite to his mouth. It was delicious, a perfect balance of pasta, sauce, cheese, and spice.

“Go on then,” she encouraged. “I’ve got a container for that Tim of yours too.

Martin choked on his food and stuttered out, “Tim's not! H-he’s not my, my— anything!”

“That’s not what I meant but that sounds like a conversation for another time.” She flashed a conspiratorial smile before knitting her brow in concern. “I worry is all, you’ve been skulking around like a kicked dog. I won’t make you talk about it if you don’t want to, but I need you to understand that I’m here for you if you do.”

“I, I uh, thanks,” he said quietly, speaking more to his plate than to Rosie.

“You’ve had a rough go of things this last year and it’s okay to need help dealing with that. I’ve spent my share of nights on the couch in my office but living in the basement of this old building couldn’t have been easy." She gestured to the abstract molding that gave the suggestion of eyes. "Even during all that you still managed to be your cheery self. This has obviously hit you much harder and I want to help if I can.”

Silence hung in the air for several minutes broken only by the quiet sounds of Martin eating. Not an awkward silence but one shared by people comfortable enough with each other they don’t feel the need to fill every empty space with words.

Eventually, Martin spoke up, “Thank you for the lasagna, it is really very good.”

“Thanks,” Rosie smiled, “it would seem that, despite my best efforts, I have become my mother after all.”

Martin looked up from his plate with a questioning look.

Rosie shook her head, “She had a habit of trying to solve problems by cooking them away. Anytime someone she knew was upset she would be in the kitchen baking sweets. Which reminds me…” She reached down under the table to retrieve a container.

“Oh, you didn’t have to do that.”

“Martin dear, I baked these because I wanted them. Believe me, I have a bigger tin in my desk right now and even more at home. Save me from myself and take the damn biscuits.”

“If you insist.” Martin saw right through Rosie’s “justification” but he also knew better than to argue the point. Besides, Rosie was an excellent baker.

“Thank you.”

“Thank you.” Martin said, “Thank you, for everything. The biscuits, the lasagna, the… everything. I really should be getting back, there is so much work to be done.” He stood up and began to stack the containers Rosie had given him.

The older woman had risen from her chair and walked over to Martin. Her arms slightly open, offering a hug but giving him the space to decline should he wish. He hesitated briefly but stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her soft frame.

Surrounded by her warm presence, Martin felt safe for the first time in as long as he could remember. Something broke in his chest and he felt himself start to cry softly into her shoulder. He didn’t realize he’d been drowning until she offered him the life raft and Martin clung to it desperately. Rosie gave him a little squeeze but did not let go then began to rub circles into his back.

Martin wasn’t sure how long they stayed like that. Pent-up stress and grief bled out as tears into Rosie’s blouse. She made no move to pull away even as he began to shake and make ugly sniffling noises. The older woman just held him, murmuring reassurances to the crying man.

Taking a shuddering breath, Martin gathered the broken pieces of himself and stepped away from the embrace. He sniffled and wiped at his eyes. “I’m sorry, it’s just that-- I don’t know what… everything is--” he threw his arms up in exasperation and looked helplessly at the ceiling.

“You don’t have to apologize for being a human being with limits.”

Martin grinned sheepishly and huffed out a laugh. “It’s just, this place, it’s…”

“I know. Believe me, I know.” She smiled and scratched Martin gently between the shoulder blades for a few moments. “Are you going to be alright?”

“Honestly? I don’t know, but I do feel much better than before.”

“I’m not sure if a fortress made of pillows will help you endure everything but I’m willing to give it a go if you are. My office couch may be hideous but it is comfortable and the cushions are sturdy.”

“I will keep that in mind,” Martin laughed and started toward the exit.

“Don’t forget your food,” Rosie called after him.

“Oh, right. Thanks again.”

Rosie handed him several containers of lasagna and a tin of biscuits. “Make sure Tim gets some. I don’t want him to think I’m playing favorites.”

“Will do. You’re the best Rosie.”

“So they tell me.” She smiled and waved her goodbye.

Crossing the main foyer, Martin smiled and nodded to the receptionist as he passed. He descended the stairs with more bounce and vigor than he had in months.

#The Magnus Archives #fluff #Martin #Rosie #hugs #i made a thing!

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captainsupernoodle · 8 years ago

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some poi headcanons bc the season 1 finale killed me

Finch:

Sleep is for the weak

mainlined coffee before/during building the Machine but switched to tea because of health problems

drinks ridiculous amounts of tea because having something to munch on/sip helps him think

hates not knowing things. if you ask him a question he doesn’t know the answer to you won’t be able to tell but he is immediately filled with the burning need to know What, Why, and How.

for this reason he knows a bunch of random thinks in excruciating detail, including but not limited to: the construction method of the pyramids, the history of the clock, the names of everyone who has walked on the moon, why Facebook is banned in China.

He does not like bugs, either the coding kind or the literal kind.

He’d never exercised a day in his life until someone at MIT mentioned the health concerns linked with not getting enough exercise. This sparked a research binge, which scared him into visiting the gym every day. He claims it’s so he can think more clearly.

Has created a number of scholarships at multiple colleges and made donations to help with things his clhoodmates struggled with, such as easy access to fresh food, transportation, and healthcare.

John:

doesn’t sleep very long at night and never very heavily, but takes catnaps anytime, anywhere.

is very well-read, but it’s an eclectic mixture of classics, NYT bestsellers, and trashy romance/action novels that he could pick up at convenience stores before stakeouts and during quick resupply stops.

when he has a chance, he likes historical, action/adventure, mysteries, and fantasy. Sherlock Holmes and J.R.R. Tolkein’s works are his favorites.

hates being inactive and was always outside as a kid, and even as an adult he always has something to occupy him on hand or plays games with himself. always picks up crossword or sudoku books along with the dime novels.

is actually really good at photography, almost solely so he wouldn’t die of boredom on stakeouts. the analysts always know when they’re working with his pictures because they’re always focused, lit nicely, and are often aesthetically pleasing.

actually taught himself a number of things out of necessity or to keep himself occupied, including a number of languages just so he could read the available books or talk with the populace, local games from all over the world, how to use common cleaning agents to create weapons, the proper method to making & serving Moroccan mint tea, multiple versions of cat’s cradle and other string games, how to play cards of all varieties, how to kill & cook a chicken...

loves dogs of all shapes and sizes, as well as any other animal he can get to like him (stray cats, a pet parrot, the donkeys they used as transportation/pack animals in Tikrit)

Carter:

incredibly driven & goal oriented, was a very intense kid & independent teenager, very stubborn

very grumpy in the mornings, gets herself out of bed & out the door with sheer force of will and liberal application of coffee

also drinks red bull and monster

very much a night owl, takes her work home with her

likes to relax - when she remembers there’s life outside of work - with a good book & coffee that isn’t the precinct swill; has a secret weakness for romance novels & romcoms

a bit of a dorky sense of humor in private; tyler is constantly Done

tyler got his Done-ness from her. she’s mostly Done when her coworkers, suspects, or random people on the street are idiots, don’t file paperwork correctly, are lazy or cut corners

was a member of a self-defense/martial arts club

decompresses at the shooting range on occasion, has pretty good aim with a number of weapons, kills at darts

an adrenaline junkie - has gone skiing and skydiving

first vehicle she bought was a motorcycle

Fusco:

wakes up early but kinda zombies through his morning routine

goes to bed early and heaven help you if you disturb his sleep

likes to play music when he’s on his way to work; whatever’s on the radio, but has an affinity for active, upbeat & positive music

nicknames everyone, sasses everyone

actually really likes working with Carter and thinks that friendship was the best thing to come out of Reese appropriating his life

unfailingly loyal to his true friends, and does consider John one of the few that he has

knows that everything that has to do with Reese’s mystery mission is going to end badly but is having fun in the meantime, when he’s not pulling his hair out over Reese’s orders

is actually the most sensible out of the four, not that anyone listens to him

likes dorky presents, keeps the policeman/camera, and is a big marshmallow under all the pessimism and snark

#poi #person of interest #john reese #harold finch #reese #finch #joss carter #detective carter #carter #fusc #lionel fusco #headcanon #my headcanon #poi headcanon #reese headcanon #finch headcanon #carter headcanon #fusco headcanon

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knotfodder · 2 years ago

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whenislunch · 8 years ago

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tumblr

This summer I saw my favorite artist perform live on an island off of Manhattan that used to serve as a jail/mental health institution.

When Frank Ocean came out with his screen grabbed text file posted as a “photo” on Tumblr in 2012, I knew the platform was something special - the one niche he could safely post something so revealing and vulnerable and still not open himself to the direct hate-filled or homophobic comments of any other forum. I had signed up for Tumblr the year prior. I joined with the fantasy of becoming a famous food blogger (and later as a nail artist) so I could quit my publicity job and score all of the PR perks that I so readily dished out to any 'mommy' with a touch of digital pretense.

Personal space on the vast internet was never my craving. I resisted being too present, and enjoyed the ability to control how much I “put myself out there” on facebook, twitter, and later Instagram. With my original two tumblrs, like Frank, I could focus on sharing and following the things I cared the most about: in early cases, it was fan art of Bill Murray, gifs of Daft Punk, and mostly photos of food I had eaten from the everyday life of a new New Yorker discovering the cult nature of the restaurant scene (a similar practice to my behavior as a teen taking shitty photos at punk shows in St Pete, Florida to pin on my bedroom wall). Tumblr became my collection of “curated cool," and nobody cared how hard I was trying or what I put up there, except for me, and it became my favorite place on the internet. Eventually, I realized all of the writers I was admiring on The Awl were including their Tumblrs in their bios, and I was there to follow them. I saw Rebecca Black become a meme before her one-hit would become a wedding band wonder. If sitting at the open kitchen counter at an edison bulb-lit restaurant was the closest you could get to a food industry version of “backstage”, then a Tumblr dashboard filled with all of the blogging generation of the “fake news media” was the analogy. It’s human nature to want to be seen and understood. Selfies perform better than friendies on Instagram - and GPOY’s on Tumblr… well I challenge anybody on music.ly to define the acronym without that peeking at the Childish Gambino Genius page first.

And that’s the tip of the iceberg for where I stand with Tumblr now. After three years of hanging out in the same field, they invited me to meet them at the dugout. After four months of interviewing and pitching challenges and pretending like I was at a digital optimization workshop, I was offered a job. After five years, or nearly, I’m ready for another one. I had the BEST time and the BEST TEAM working at Tumblr. Sentiment is incalculable, and being the Comms professionals that we are, we can swear to the moon that the effect of press results on a brand is unquantifiable when one piece can qualitatively alter the nature of the public’s perception versus the reality of a goal. And I had the the immeasurable luxury to be surrounded by the smartest, most creative, intensely productive, and to borrow a food world phrase - hardiest colleagues in the history of the internet.

My first day at Tumblr also belonged to six others - together we endured a questionable onboarding interaction and then were sent with laptops and branded hoodies to our respective seats at our superdesks on various floors. There were dogs everywhere. I was told that I’d be introduced to the company on Friday and to submit two truths and a lie to help them get to know me. Here they are:

I have photo credits in the New York Times and New York Magazine

I appeared as a backup dancer in a rap video in high school

I watercolor paintings of crustaceans as a hobby

Leave your guess in the comments (oh wait, it’s Tumblr, you can’t).

Friday lunches were my lifeblood for a couple of months. Every week for at least seven thereafter unloaded a new set of amazing humans to be introduced in some absurd way by Sean from recruiting. I remember @sexpigeon vs Homer’s owner in game of pictionary, Johnny and Jake quickly competing for my heart as #1 engineer dudes, and of course, the instant classic game of Mark Coatney/ Marc Cote/ Marked Coat. Tumblr ramped up fast thanks to Lee, a fundraising series and at the tireless behest of my personal champion, Lindsey Dole.

Meanwhile, more magic was brewing in the cauldron. I heard @amandalynferri talking about some game she invented called Pretty Little Lasagna box, or I heard Maddie recalling the time she had her palm read in 14th street psychic's booth seeking refuge from a snowstorm, or @lexkap who sat on the other side of the building with a dog on her lap DM’d me on hip chat to show me her own nail art blog. Then a few of us won a chance to see a sneak preview of a new arthouse film by Harmony Korine and featuring an ensemble cast of former Disney talent that had been filmed in my hometown with a y2k airbrushed aesthetic - there was something innately emotional tied to each of us with this first viewing of Spring Breakers. When we left the midtown theater alongside the ATL Twins, I realized that this company had curated a community to match the intended behavior of its user base. We all connected on a level beyond any workplace I had experienced before.

And there was the professional side to the job - the work wins came quick because I was so lucky to sit under leaders who wanted the team to succeed. Rick Webb and Katherine encouraged me to dig in, and get deep with these shiny new toys called “evangelists” - Valentine, Nate, Liba, Annie, Max, Rachel, Jen, and briefly DCH. An enviable group of brilliant minds and creative energy who have all gone on to accomplish even more for their respective industries than a marketing budget at a start up could have enabled - and I had the pleasure to help share their Tumblr stories with the world - from a puppy bowl to annual southby's to groundbreaking art auctions to thirteen fucking fashion weeks to 35+ art and music shows (brrr)?

And then Tumblr got acquired and the Jenna Wortham turned the New York Times blue, and I got to do something I’m sure will never happen again in my entire career: I threw a party where the goody bag included a free tattoo, and multiple brave souls got them (Tyler, @bryanasortino, Megan & Johnny, among others).

And then Karen (aka #takingitallin aka @beautifulliving) joined, and me and Katherine gained a new teammate at the same time that I gained a new soul sister (and because of her self-described passion for advertising I never had to write an announcement about a new ad product ever again.) I’ve never been more challenged to succeed as I have over the three years I sat next to Karen - a generous and driven woman with endless dreams of supporting others (literally, ask her about the gap in the undergarment sector), who will always find a spot to squeeze me into a photobooth. Even at her wedding.

And lucky us, because then we invited @lilders into the #teamcomms fold and wow, wow, wow was life good. It was my honor working with Lily as she grew from FIT intern into somebody we should all aspire to work for someday.

Which leads to me to the poker faced improv master of all - Katherine. Allora @alittlespace! I am so lucky she believed that this girl who came into talk about a hypothetical strategy to get Eleven Madison Park on Tumblr and then pitched her a fantasy football launch party hosted by Nick Kroll and Mark Duplass could fit in and have the privilege to join the Tumblr Communications team. KB - I’ve already written you the dopiest thank you letter and shared my orchid growing miracle secrets - but it can’t be said enough - I am so grateful to have worked for you for all of these years. You are the best boss, and we will always be the #bestteam.

Because of Tumblr (and @david), I had the pleasure of working with so many additional incomparable people on projects outside of my designated Marketing Comms position, wearing more hats than we even produced for branded activation swag:

Designing and contenting for months with the relaunch of the precious Staff blog with David, Peter, Damien, Tag, Toph, among others

Setting the inaugural year in review with Danielle, Amanda, Christine loose (and then doing it again and again and again, with the wonderful team at DKC - especially that time we added a serving Kale to America’s breakfast.

Marathoning dozens of events with amazing producers like Julia, Suzanne and Magic - and encountering the native talent that thrives on Tumblr like Humans of New York, Chloe Wise, Sam Cannon, Johnny McLaughlin, Jillian Mercado, to a point where I can honestly say “I knew them when.”

Participating in the first ever Sales Offsite aka the greatest bar mitzvah ever thrown by Lee Brown, Dan Walsh and Sarah Won and the rest of the coolest sales team ever assembled (here’s to you @katemaxx, @jeffdtaylor, Meredith, Ari, Kira, and so many more)

Reaching back into my fashion bag of tricks and launching three different clothing lines.

Creating partnerships to show off super surprises at nerd parties at Comic Con and another breaking the internet for Art Basel

Interviewing the CEO of Shake Shack for the one-time-only live episode of “5 with a side of fries" in front of the whole company.

Urgently dealing with Legal, Ads, Trust and Safety on one of the definitive news story of a generation after nine months of back channeling and reporting.

DOING IT FOR THE CULTURE: Racing with the content and analytics teams for stats on the contentious day of #thedress, and then bling rings, witches, boneghazi, superwholockians, wholesome memes, studyblr, emojis, and of course, the toe thing! Thus redefining what it means to “go viral.”

Cleaned a ball pit for the dude from the 1975 to make a splash into them and trolled a legacy music publication

And wow - it took me this long to mention Post It Forward…I am so proud of everyone who helped make Tumblr the most empathetic community on the internet: Nicole Blumenfeld, Jeff D’Onofrio, @skiphursh “Dolphin", @dougrichard, Andy Sebela, Jess Frank, Sarah Won @swon, @pauwow, the brilliant and diligent Michelle Johnson. From building the blog, commissioning the art, recruiting and onboarding the partners, writing the endless number of give/gets, planning the sponsored posts and social content, running the day to day on the blog (and bequeathing that role to Lily), then doing it again with the Mental Health Quilt and IRL with the Post It Forward Summit - I’ve found my new track as a special projects person who can take on any issue, even suicidal teens. If this is my legacy, I’ve planted seeds in the garden I might never see. And special thanks to Victoria, who allowed me to speak at Obama’s White House about why kids need a place on the internet that can help heal - so long as they can find each other.

As it turns out, adults need that, too. From tailing Frank Ocean’s Ferrari to the most woke, mentally aware community and on to, thank god, a bonafide company to match - I will forever cherish my time at Tumblr and I’ll forever been asking #whenislunch. But from every tomorrow on, it will be somewhere else. And you can find me on the internet!

Here’s my LinkedIn, I’m looking.

#bye tumblr #good luck david karp #this is my job #this is my life #memes #tumblr hq #tumblr staff

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biofunmy · 6 years ago

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25 best TV shows of the year, from ‘Fleabag’ to ‘Pose’

After 2019, TV will never be the same.

This year, TV got bigger than we ever could have imagined back when there were only three channels. Over 500 scripted series premiered new episodes, two major new streaming services (Apple TV+ and Disney+) debuted, “Star Wars” and Meryl Streep came to TV and “Game of Thrones” ended with massive ratings but disappointed fans. And yet we still are mostly talking about where we’ll be able to easily access reruns of “Friends.”

But there were some really fantastic TV series we hope some of you managed to watch between all the Twitter reactions and marathons of Disney animated movies. And spoiler alert: “Thrones” and its terrible ending didn’t make the cut.

You still have plenty of time before New Year’s Day to catch up on USA TODAY’s top 25 series of 2019.

Joe (Penn Badgley) stalks a new woman (Victoria Pedretti) in “You” Season 2. (Photo: Tyler Golden/Netflix)

25. ‘You’ (Netflix)

The soapy thriller starring Penn Badgley was a pleasant surprise in its original home on Lifetime, and became a sensation once it moved to Netflix, which will stream its second season Dec. 26. The second outing with self-aggrandizing stalker (and murderer) Joe is just as addictive as the first, if a little repetitive. But of all the current series that traffic in bad men doing bad things, “You” remains one of the few that asks interesting questions about its bad guy.

24. ‘Evil’ (CBS)

Akin to “The X-Files” for religion – in which a psychologist, a priest-in-training and a tech expert investigate claims of miracles and demonic possessions – “Evil” is a hard sell on paper, but a surprisingly coherent and gripping series. Created by Robert and Michelle King (“The Good Wife” and “The Good Fight”), it is thought-provoking as an investigation of organized, institutional religion and as a source of thrilling horror stories about exorcisms and evildoers.

23. ‘Living With Yourself’ (Netflix)

Paul Rudd is one of Hollywood’s most charming (and ageless) actors, and he does welcome double duty in this dark comedy about a man who ends up with a clone that is significantly better at living his life. Full of existential angst and pratfalls, the series neatly balances comedy and drama. It’s also a great showcase for Irish actress Aisling Bea, who turns in a breakout performance that isn’t overshadowed by Rudd’s star power.

22. ‘Country Music’ (PBS)

Ken Burns rarely disappoints. The legendary filmmaker turned his lens on the history of a uniquely American music genre for this 18-part documentary that traced its roots and rise. It may have also changed some minds about what country music really is and who it is for.

Sadie Sink, Noah Schnapp, Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, and Caleb McLaughlin in Stranger Things 3 . (Photo: Netflix.)

21. ‘Stranger Things’ (Netflix)

After a disappointing and derivative second season, the ’80s-set supernatural series – Netflix’s most popular – returned with new episodes that took more risks and repeated fewer plot points. With the Soviets as new villains, new horror inspirations for the monsters and new relationships to explore – particularly the friendship between Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) and Max (Sadie Sink) – the series crafted a third season that was almost as captivating as its breakout first.

20. ‘Veronica Mars’ (Hulu)

In our current nostalgia-obsessed TV era, there are plenty of truly terrible reboots, remakes and revivals (“Fuller House”), but sometimes bringing back the original cast and creators years or even decades later results in good TV. The most successful attempt in recent years is “Veronica Mars,” the cult neo-noir series canceled by CW in 2003, revived in 2014 for a movie and brought back yet again for eight episodes by Hulu. Kristen Bell and creator Rob Thomas found a mystery worth Veronica’s talents, and room for the beloved-but-damaged detective to grow. Its shocker ending divided fans, but nothing about the new “Mars” felt cheap, forced or dated, and that’s a true achievement.

19. ‘A Black Lady Sketch Show’ (HBO)

If you missed this small but mighty new sketch comedy series in August, it’s worth catching up on all six episodes of the hilarious first season. Created by Robin Thede and produced by Issa Rae (“Insecure”), the series’ talented black women comedians excel in sketches that are unique to their experiences and universal in their humor.

Mj Rodriguez as Blanca, Billy Porter as Pray Tell on “Pose.” (Photo: Michael Parmelee/FX)

18. ‘Pose’ (FX)

FX’s groundbreaking LGBTQ drama became bigger and more intimate in its excellent second season, homing in on its best characters while making its stories more ambitious, tragic and complex. The season was more focused and compelling than its promising first year, with especially strong performances from Emmy-winning Billy Porter as Pray Tell, Mj Rodriguez as Blanca and Indya Moore as Angel.

17. ‘Stumptown’ (ABC)

There is nothing particularly revolutionary about this procedural drama starring Cobie Smulders, but it stands out among the new network offerings this year because of the thoughtful and fresh way the writers make age-old detective stories. Smulders shines as Dex Parios, a deeply caring if not always smooth private investigator, and her performance elevates “Stumptown” beyond just-another-network-cop-show.

16. ‘The Good Fight’ (CBS All Access)

Despite getting a little more fantastical every year, CBS All Access’ “Good Wife” spinoff is still the drama that best captures the current sociopolitical era. Its third season, with the addition of Michael Sheen as a Roy Cohn-inspired lawyer, was a little wacky without getting too weird, with smart scripts and great performances, most notably from Christine Baranski and Audra MacDonald.

15. ‘The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance’ (Netflix)

This prequel to Jim Henson’s 1982 film manages to go above and beyond the beloved original. On aesthetics alone, the series is a huge achievement, but it also tells a fantasy story as lofty and politically complex as “Game of Thrones.” That “Crystal” manages to make fully-realized characters and plots through mesmerizing puppetry rounds out a superb epic.

Olivia Colman as Queen Elizabeth II on “The Crown.” (Photo: Sophie Mutevelian/Netflix)

14. ‘The Crown’ (Netflix)

God save the Queen, whoever happens to be playing her. Netflix’s British royals drama proved it can go deep into the reign of Queen Elizabeth II by successfully swapping its original cast for an older set of actors, including Oscar winner Olivia Colman in the lead role (previously played by Emmy winner Claire Foy). The third season has a few bumps, and struggles to make Elizabeth the center of her own story, but the addition of a young Prince Charles (Josh O’Connor) and his romantic escapades makes up for Colman’s brief screen time.

13. ‘Superstore’ (NBC)

Like a cheap bottle of wine at Target, “Superstore” just gets better with age. NBC’s workplace comedy is smarter and funnier every season, and 2019 episodes represent the show at its peak. “Superstore” kept its stories and character dynamics fresh this year by promoting Amy (America Ferrera) to manager of the Cloud 9 big box store, changing her socioeconomic status in an instant and drastically altering her relationship with her co-workers, including boyfriend Jonah (Ben Feldman).

Kayvan Novak as Nandor and Harvey Guillen as Guillermo on “What We Do in the Shadows.” (Photo: John P Johnson/FX)

12. ‘What We Do in the Shadows’ (FX)

Based on the cult 2014 film from Jemaine Clement (“Flight of the Conchords”) and Taika Waititi (who directed “Thor: Ragnarok” and “Jojo Rabbit”), “Shadows” is the funniest show this year, an outright bacchanalia of vampiric failures, energy draining and nerdy virgins. The comedy moves its focus from hapless vampires in New Zealand to an even more inept clan in Staten Island, New York, with lofty goals such as taking over the world via city council meetings.

11. ‘The Good Place’ (NBC)

The philosophical afterlife comedy hasn’t been quite as brilliant in its fourth and final season, but even at 85% strength, “Good Place” is still smarter and funnier than most shows on TV. Nailing an ending to a series that asks questions as big as this one does (what does it take to be a good person?) is always tricky, and most crucially the series is staying true to its delightful characters.

10. ‘Shrill’ (Hulu)

At last, “Saturday Night Live” standout Aidy Bryant has a starring role worthy of her talents in Hulu’s “Shrill.” The actress finds a quieter side of her comedy in this Portland, Oregon-set series based on writer and fat-acceptance activist Lindy West’s memoir. It marks the best portrayal of life as a plus-size woman on TV, neither patronizing nor unrealistic, and tells stories beyond its protagonist’s weight on a scale. With just six hilarious episodes, it’s one of the few TV series that would have excelled if it had expanded.

Merritt Weaver, left, and Toni Collette play detectives who initially butt heads but learn to work together in Netflix miniseries “Unbelievable.” (Photo: Beth Dubber/Netflix)

9. ‘Unbelievable’ (Netflix)

True-crime stories can be many things: seedy, enthralling, vindicating, angering or satisfying. Based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning ProPublica article, “Unbelievable” is both infuriating and triumphant, highlighting the deep flaws in our criminal justice system while also celebrating the work of two genuinely heroic policewomen. With a stellar cast, “Unbelievable” tells the story of a rape victim (Kaitlyn Dever) who isn’t believed by police, and the two detectives (Toni Collette and Merritt Wever) who bring her attacker to justice years later – after he raped several more women.

8. ‘Undone’ (Amazon)

As deeply emotional and affecting as it is unsettling, Amazon’s animated series gets under your skin, in a good way. The series’ rotoscoping technique, in which animation is drawn over live footage, provides an eerie edge as it tells a magic-realist story of a stagnant 20-something woman (Rosa Salazar) who can travel in time and communicate with her dead father. But for every psychedelic trip Alma takes, she also takes a more grounded one as she tries to repair damaged relationships and plot her next course.

7. ‘Dead to Me’ (Netflix)

Christina Applegate gives her best performance in Netflix’s black comedy about a widow who unknowingly befriends the woman (the great Linda Cardellini) who killed her husband. Twisty but not gimmicky, “Dead” is addictive. The series has an abundance of acting talent, including James Marsden, who finally gets a role that takes the sheen off his perfect smile.

6. ‘Watchmen’ (HBO)

Although it started off a bit unsurely, HBO’s very loose adaptation of the graphic novel has blossomed into one of creator Damon Lindelof’s best series, and from the man behind “Lost” and “The Leftovers,” that’s some achievement. The series has a superb cast – including Regina King, Jean Smart, Jeremy Irons and Tim Blake Nelson – that elevates smart scripts that get better as the season progresses. Lindelof and his writers find surprising ways to bring the superhero story from the 1980s into today’s culture, helping “Watchmen” upend the comic book formula once again.

Asante Blackk in “When They See Us,” Ava DuVernay’s retelling of the Central Park Five. (Photo: NETFLIX)

5. ‘When They See Us’ (Netflix)

Ava DuVernay’s striking miniseries gives voice to the so-called Central Park Five, a group of five black and Latino youths wrongly convicted of assault in one of the biggest trials of the 1980s. With an extremely talented group of young actors as the falsely accused adolescents – Asante Blackk, Caleel Harris, Ethan Herisse, Emmy-winner Jharrel Jerome and Marquis Rodriguez – the series brings the story to the screen as a brutal, unrelenting tragedy.

4. ‘Back to Life’ (Showtime)

This British tragicomedy, starring and created by Daisy Haggard (“Episodes”), focuses on Miri, a woman who returns to her small seaside village after spending 18 years in prison for a crime that’s explained as the series progresses. Although Miri has left iron bars and jumpsuits behind, her small town is a prison of its own, where she is hated by all but her parents, her new boss and her kindly neighbor. Touching on themes of forgiveness and deception, the series is breathtaking in its emotional scope, despite the small story it tells over just six episodes.

3. ‘Chernobyl’ (HBO)

The brilliance of this historical miniseries, which chronicles the 1986 nuclear disaster at a power plant in Soviet Ukraine, creeps up on you as you watch its five episodes. Despite portraying so much death and despair, “Chernobyl” is never crass or exploitative, but rather it simply, anger-inducingly explains the failures and hubris that led to the disaster, and the people who tried to mitigate its consequences.

2. ‘Leaving Neverland’ (HBO)

Among 2019’s many true crime documentaries that made viewers question established media narratives and powerful people, this one – about two men who accused Michael Jackson of sexual abuse when they were children – stood out. Wade Robson and James Safechuck were given a platform to tell their harrowing stories, and director Dan Reed is unflinching as he captures the pain and suffering of the men and their families. Tough to watch, it’s also an eye-opening look at the lasting effects of abuse, and the way the media handles allegations against powerful men.

Phoebe Waller-Bridge as Fleabag in Amazon’s “Fleabag.” (Photo: Amazon)

1. ‘Fleabag’ (Amazon)

Could there be any other choice for No. 1? Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s dark comedy ran away with the 2019 Emmy Awards for good reason. Few series have ever been as emotionally affecting and brilliantly written as “Fleabag” in its second season. The story of a self-hating and self-destructive woman (Waller-Bridge) falling in love with a Catholic priest (Andrew Scott) was both a shocking sequel to the first and an exquisitely perfect ending to Fleabag’s tale. We’ll miss her dearly.

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crossedbeams · 9 years ago

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ROSE REVIEWS… THE X-FILES - S1.E8: ICE

<< 1.6 The Ghost in the Machine ————————— 1.9 Space >>

What a week it has been! What a month in fact (because that’s how long ago I started this recap). Ice is one of my favourite early episodes which explains why this is longer than the combined beards of ZZ Top. Someone teach me self control? Please?

Go under the cut at your own peril, here there be worms.

The Plot

Some dudes playing with ice have gone radio silent and left a creepy message, Mulder and Scully get sent up to investigate with a ragtag team of socially inept scientists and then cut off by bad weather with some seriously suspect wormlike organisms, and more sexual tension than you can shake an oversized drillbit at.

My Stream of Semi-Consciousness

YAY! ICE!

I’m glad they start out with the dog just nommin on something spilled instead of one of the dead people. It makes it easier to root for him later which is good coz it’s a cute dog. Apparently it’s also Blue’s dad!

Then there’s what appears to be a disembodied limb in a box. Why I have no idea. but I am soon distracted by the entry of this dude who appears to have been scorched, stripped and then attacked in an incredibly symmetrical fashion by a pair of clawed ketchup bottles.

Like c'mon prop monkeys! Blood is NOT that colour and when did you last see someone with matching pectoral wounds (given it’s not sex related… probably). Also now I’ve been looking at it for too long and I feel like he has one nipple that is significantly bigger than the other and I’m having trouble moving past it.

And WHY is he shirtless. At what point in the whole fighting to the death in the ARCTIC was he like… wait mate… I need to take off this shirt off because #aesthetic.

Though to be fair I probably would.

Aaaaanyway

His radio makes more noises than the tardis.

We’re not who we are. Okay. We get it. But on a serious note do they ever actually discuss why he says this. Because I feel like grammatically it’s questionable and the space worms seem more into murdering each other than making dramatic speeches.

His assailant looks very heeeeere’s jack" and is wearing a shirt. I’m rooting for him until they get into the worst duel ever. Don’t put your guns so close. This whole bit tbh. The worms seem to have very complicated motivations and choreography, Maybe they’re abstract prehistoric space worms. Am I making sense. I don’t think I’m making sense.

It’s okay though I can compose myself during the CREDITS.

This video from the dead science dudes is the dorkiest thing I have ever seen. There are quilted body warmers, pasted on smiles and overenthusiastic high fives. You can see why these guys are extras and not the series stars. But at least they were all having fun before they brutally killed one another.

Mulder and Scully are watching this video in a room with both a blackboard and a window. Where are they? Is the basement being cleaned? Is this Scully’s office? If so why does she have so many damn tables!

Why do people insist on digging into old ice/trenches/under the sea. It always ends badly. EVERY DAMN TIME. Cthulu is down there people. Or godzilla or some shit. Just leave it alone and make nachos. Much better.

Not to be pedantic (okay who am I kidding) but pretty sure the background here doesn’t match what was behind him in the scene.

It’s only 1993 goddamn and Gillian Anderson is already learning how to ruin us all with her exquisite face. We were all screwed from the first time someone pointed a camera at her. All her tiny facial nuances remind me of the queens of old Hollywood and the things they could do with a quirk of the lip.

Then Mulder squats down and grins at her and though he’s basically implying they’re being sent as sacrificial lambs he doesn’t seem too sad about the concept of being trapped in an igloo full of corpses with his partner. He goes from amused to gleeful when he tells his teeny partner to bring her mittens and I’m thinking Scully seems excessively perturbed at this stage… is she having a moment of forboding? Or does she just really hate Alaska? I mean this is pre Palin so there’s no good reason to be quite so down on it…

And heeeeere’s Denny

Not content with really loving rocks (geologist) and being called Denny he also likes to do this in public places.

Denny is not getting any.

I do miss cassettes though.

Enter small winterwear troll AKA Dana Scully in a jacket so big she may be wider than she is tall. Mulder in contrast appears to be wearing jammies, jeans and a jacket, which are - incidentally - my three style essentials. Well those three and a resting bitch face.

Mulder makes awkward chat about San Diego while Scully pulls a face like she didn’t used to live there and then the other scientists arrive and they engage in a charade worth of the Chuckle Brothers with IDs, “It’s me! It’s You!” Mulder even checks Scully in case, one assumes, somebody else was hiding in her coat and has leaped out to replace her since he introduced her to Denny less than 30 seconds ago. Possibly he just uses it as an opportunity to sniff her. He’s only human and I would… I also feel like at this point the writers were overly concerned with linking back to “we’re not who we are” from earlier. Every single combination of the words “we”, “who” and “are” is well and truly thrust in. And we’re only at 7.12.

Also hello Felicity Huffman.

“Two federal agents, a geologist, a medical doctor and a toxicologist” sounds like the beginning of the worst walked into a bar joke ever. It would have some incredibly scientific punchline probably involving the word ampule. I’d try and write it but… we I can’t be bothered!

Everyone is so weird and cagey. The script must have been full of side-eye instructions. A word to the wise - if you’re ever asked to go on a business trip where people are behaving like this, don’t go. It’s the start of a horror film and you will die.

Especially if someone else there is called Bear.

Bear could be Steven Tyler’s brother. Or maybe they just have the same surgeon. His car is the only car in the universe dirtier than mine.

And after Scully standing weirdly close to Huffman (I forget her character name) for way too long (like seriously? SO strange), Mulder trying to reassert his Scully monopoly with some unnecessary touching (DRINK!) we see some stock footage which can only mean we’re up, up and away.

Icy Point and the power’s off. Of course. Do they ever investigate why the second they arrive anywhere the lights stop working? That’s a damn X-File.

For guys who blew their on brains out these dudes are artfully arranged. And pretty sure one of them is tensing. You’re dead man. Nobody cares about your abs anymore.

Scully says ‘flashing’. She means the camera. Epileptics on set can thank her but I can’t help being disappointed. Imagine if she meant her boobs…

Mulder comforts Felicity Huffman with his intimate knowledge of arctic research generator noises. Who knew Oxford university offered so many eclectic courses. Unfortunately they didn’t offer one in dog combat because Mulder goes down. Pretty sure Huffman falls over too but only out of shock or being knocked off balance by her coat.

Poor Bear is bleeding ketchup so we know he’s fucked. It’s fine though, Scully is a medical doctor and she finds some super gross disease beans in the doggo’s armpit which means she will also save the day. Standard.

Worm under skin, WORM UNDER SKIN! Ths grosses me out every time so drink every time we see unnecessary subdermal wriggling. *drinks*

Scully has completed five autopsies before anyone else has done more than get their coat off and get infected with a space worm, but ruins the effect by brandishing a used and uncovered needle with gusto whilst doing her jargon spiel. She may just be trying work out how to rescue her hair from it’s current anti-gravity state, her fringe is levitating at a sweet 120 degrees from her forehead which has got to be upsetting when you’re as put together as Scully is. Regardless,

Mulder seems unperturbed but may just be distracted by Bear wigging out about his own personal armpit beans.

There are some high quality knitwear/ winter neutrals going on in this episode. Maybe they were sponsored by fruits of the loom or some shit.

Mulder and Denny get all excited about satellite pics, apparently Mulder’s interpreting skills around some sort of bizarre geological scanning are rusty. TRY NON-EXISTENT MULDER. YOU DON’T KNOW SCHIST ABOUT GEOLOGY! Sorry. For the pun and the yelling. But seriously. If I made a list of all the things Mulder and Scully know that they shouldn’t…

DINOSPERM! Dinosperm. Does whatever a dinosperm does.

The second Mr Bodywarmer (I can never remember anyone’s names so tis is what I’m calling him) disses Scully’s autopsy skills you know that Mulder’s gonna disagree with him. Contagion be damned, suggesting Sculy has missed something is a no no - even in Season 1 - and especially when she’s pouting like this.

Oh no! Mulder says they have to stay (my favourite trope), Scully pulls the doctor card to seal the deal and now there is no way they’re not having arctic sex right? Everyone gets some… well except Denny who kills the mood by opening up way too easily about his bowel movements. Poor Denny. High school can’t have been easy for you.

But it’s fine because Bear flips his shit, or more specifically flips out about a shit, and everyone has other things to worry about. After some arctic democracy which really draws a solid line between Mulder/Scully and Huffman/MrBodywarmer (in case you’d missed all the other clues) and emphasises the disposability of poor Denny, they pull a gun and shit gets real.

Down goes Mulder!

Down goes Scully!

Turns out big man Bear is no match for Macho Moose and Flying Squirrel. The others prove once again to be utterly useless, standing about and watching. Honestly, given how much Mulds and Sculls know about other science they should absolutely not know, the the rest of the cast seem kinda superfluous other than as human coathangers for knitted beige monstrosities.

WORM UNDER FLESH, DRINK.

Impromptu surgery always makes me squeamish so lets not talk about this. Suffice to say its gory and ends poorly for Bear. RIP buddy, you were kinda a douche and your hat was stupid but nobody likes a neck worm.

Just keep drinking till it’s over.

The woman on the radio is semi-peppy given she’s just told them they’re stuck. Maybe she’s drinking whatever Sarah Palin is on.

Sculy’s OCD hand washing is adorable and I want to pet her. And the others are all still just standing there though now with a corpse centrepiece. React people! Do something!

Top quality CGI right here! Wormeo is looking fine and definitely three dimensional.

The worm theory is all very plausible, except that the last bit makes no sense. The worm doesn’t want to kill it’s host, just the hosts with its pals in… so what is the worm’s end game? Last worm standing? Any thoughts?

I am all about the aesthetic of this next scene The half light the corrugated metal with shadows and the height difference all in silhouette. It’s even added to by Mulder’s signature monotone rant. But the problem is, I’m so MSR thirsty that when this happens…

I just want them to throw down and get it on on the floor. KISS! NOW! Corpses be damned. See, This is what this show has done to me. I used to have standards.

Denny is not down with all the tension so he retreats to baseball while Huffman and Bodywarmer, who bicker like Mulder and Scully but lack ANY sort of chemistry (this is the show we might have gotten if the Gillian/David alchemy hadn’t happened) conspire like a pair of whiner babies. Bodywarmer is as paranoid as Muder, but he’s also an assclown.

Then Mulder and Scully take their coats off in a dramatic way and once again my mind is in the gutter. Which is actually appropriate as it’s naked spot check time and things are about to get a little homoerotic. Pretty sure Mulder lost some sort of bet when Scully was the one to suggest a naked group activity. Also pretty sure he was disappointed that it was just another spot check and that he wasn’t invited.

Leaving this here for science.

There are multiple documentations of the exceptionally sapphic encounter between Scully and Huffman, whoever decided to light them in red while the dudes got to strip off in a normally lit room was certainly only aided by the fact that Scully's jabby doctor hands from later series have not yet developed.

My main takeaway other than this being basically the only scene in which Huffman doesn't irritate me (and I think I quite liked her in DH though I can't remember a damn thing that happened on that show), is that Gillian Anderson has more chemistry in a fraction of her lower lip than most people have in their whole body. I mean seriously: authority, vulnerability, comfort and a little sex all in one move. This little thing?

She would probably have chemistry with a rock if she needed to. How is it so effective? How does one scene that lasts less than a minute have more relationship in it than all of Huffman and Bodywarmer's interactions combined? How is the entire world not worshipping at her tiny feet?

And the award for least comforting bedtime sendoff goes to Mulder, for both bringing up bugs biting (as if they're not already freaking over dinosperms getting all up in their spines) and then shooting down Scully's attempt to normalise things. "The spots on the dog went away". Really? She's lingering outside her room, and instead of being nice, or comforting, or taking her mind off things with some vigorous shagging you give her puppy eyes and a shortcut to nightmare town?

Go to bed and think about what you've done Mulder. Leave Scully alone with your comforting words, ominous lighting and a dead man's half naked lady posters.

Cue montage of nobody coping in different ways with Mark Snow blinky-blonkiness to up the tension.

As a an unapologetic Scully fangirl I do sometimes forget that at this stage, Duchovny was very much the star and focus. Scenes like this remind me, where we watch him get dressed (I am fine with lots of shirtless Mulder), wander about, do reacting, hang out a little with this cabinet that definitely looks like it has a face and could just have eaten Denny on it's own...

Anyway my point was that as much as Gillybean is growing as an actor and making herself felt in the episodes, studio intentions be damned, this is all DD, prowling about with drama and he does it well. Also you can see his nipples through his shirt. Clearly my priorities are straight. Well... mostly.

That said. Mulder is an idiot. When a cabinet is bleeding, what sensible person opens it while squatting in front of the spot where clearly a corpse is going to fall out. He didn't learn that brand of idiocy at the VCU.

Speaking of Scully asserting herself, Bodywarmer (I think his name is Hodge?) and Mulder get in to a sweaty macho shout off and teeny Sculls gets in the midde. Huffman just kinda floats about.

And we have a series first! Mulder and Scully hold each other at gunpoint! Loud noises! Angst! Betrayal! Delivery of the episodes motto which STILL makes no sense."You may not be who you are?"" Well no he is him, he just might have a worm in his brain But points for consistency. Shame it doesn't apply to the series overall plot arc!

Anyway, in the end it's fine because Mulder relents when it becomes exceptionally clear that for all that she's smol and mostly calm, Scully will shoot his ass, though she'll feel a bit bad about it. At this realisation Mulder goes full puppy and lets his owner put him in a pen. But he doesn't get shot. Yet. Little he knows...

So Mulder gets shut away. It's totes emosh. Like Celine Dion backing track emosh. Mark Snow step aside because this bish has spare time and windows moviemaker...

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Moving on...

Pretty sure that fluffy!Scully striding in a plaid shirt with a gun is my spirit animal.

It's super convenient that both members of team non-MSR are sleeping in ridiculously uncomfortable positions, despite the recent excitement, so Scully can be forced to surrender her weapon. But hey - we only have 10 mins left and the plot must go on.

Bodywarmer decides the time has come for him to be alpha male but unfortunately, everyone still hates him, Scully doesn't want in on his shitty duet, especially when it's clear that he'd toss his partner in a second. Huffman finally grows enough balls to suggest Scully might have a point about not turning on each other and looking for treatment but his ego is out of control.

I really wish Bodywarmer had gotten eaten instead of Denny, Denny and Huffman could have been useless fuzzballs together and the only thing I ship Bodywarmer with is my booted foot making hard contact with his testicles after his misogynistic asshole moves in the lab. I'm starting to understand why Huffman has no personality. Scully starts to realise she got preeeety lucky that Mulder's just an alien obsessed puppy and not an utter fuckboy, before snapping back in to science mode for wormageddon.

I'm gonna take a moment here to shout out Lila (@startwreck for the following graphic). Theses two animated worms even have more tension than Bodywarmer and Huffman. So when we did the group rewatch we may have turned it into a fix that the worms were in love...

Me and the space worms have one thing in common. We do not like company.

WORM IN DOGGY EAR! DRINK!

Not sure how a stethoscope would prove the worms inside the dog were dead but I'm not a medical doctor. Either way, Mr Woofty is okay and lets be honest, aside from Mulder and Scully he's the only one I care about at this stage.

Tfw bae may have a brain worm but you wanna be sure and one of your companions is an asshole and the other one is actually the neck worm's host.

Poor Mulder isn't even allowed to accustom his poor little molerat eyes to the light before having to defend himself. Which got me thinking... the light switch is inside the room. We saw him turn it on earlier. So he's sitting in the dark of his own choice, just to make himself more tragic. Precious baby.

This face could have been avoided.

This scene though, this could not, There is now a section in the FBI handbook called, "Protocol for the investigation of possible parasitic space worms", this inspection is the example of how not to do it. Ably assisted by D'Angelo and my amazing video skills once again I give you - "this would be sexual harassment if they weren't both so into it - so don't try this in the workplace kids"

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Scully comes out with Mulder in tow like the kid who came home from school with a friend who wasn't invited. "Mom I know you said no but look at him". After a quick round of, my partner is less infected than your partner, they get ambushed, Scully makes the squeakiest squeak of a no that is still audible to the human ear and finds herself in the sex cupboard.

Commence a struggle scene worthy of You've Been Framed, drink for Huffman's neck worms and also for this face.

In her struggle to escape a worming, Huffman pauses long enough to through some vials off a freezer shelf, that she has to open. Before she goes for the gun. Logical. And then they all have sex on the floor. I mean seriously.

But it's all good coz she gets to gnaw on Mulder's pec while the worms do battle royale in her pituitary gland and everyone makes it. Well except Bear and Denny. Huzzah! Scully gives Huffman (whose name I have just discovered is Silver or Da Silva which I'm sure I knew when I started this but honestly that was weeks ago so...) a celebratory belly rub.

I'd take it.

They finally escape, and Mulder of course wants another round trip to hell but hell has been torched. Scully does a good job of looking sympathetic in front of Bodywarmer, but as soon as they're alone she tells Mulder how she really feels. To paraphrase, no, she doesn't want to play with ice worms of death any more and yes she would rather be in Aruba. But she does wait for him. Maybe so they can finish what they started in the sex cupboard in the SUV.

I hope,

And so it ends..

Quick Score (Full Deets in the top pic)

Story: Original, bold and pacy - 9/10

Mulder: Broody, ballsy, sexy - 8/10

Scully: Smart, sceptic foil to the crazy - 8/10

UST: The first suspense episode, creepy original goodness 5/5

Other Cast: Solid ensemble of misfits delivers - 8/10

Bonus Points: Hot damn sexy moments, extra gazing, partner doubting, memorable, my fave 5/5

TOTAL - 42/50 - Grade A and new topspot sitter!

Join us next time for more ridiculously overthought brain farts

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mastcomm · 5 years ago

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Kobe Bryant’s ‘Mamba Army’ Fans Were as Relentless as He Was

The mention of Kobe Bryant could instantly start a fight, whether in a bar with friends or a in far-flung corner of the internet.

In the 2000s, fans angrily discussed whether Bryant, the Lakers superstar guard, was as good as the man he had modeled his game after, Michael Jordan, or even Tim Duncan, the San Antonio big man who would lead the Spurs to three of his five championships that decade.

LeBron James entered the conversation in the 2010s, and Bryant’s ardent defenders shrugged off the talented James as, indeed, no Kobe — look at the rings! By then Bryant had won five titles, including in 2010, and James had not won any. There was still much else to debate: Was Kobe a ball hog? Did he shoot too much? (No, of course not! You trust Smush Parker with those shots?)

The peak of such debates came in 2014, when a man in Southern California apparently drove almost an hour to try to fight a Celtics fan who had dared say on Twitter that Bryant wasn’t an elite player. Thus the phrase “Meet me in Temecula!” entered the cultural lexicon.

Fans of Bryant, who died in a helicopter crash on Sunday at the age of 41, were as relentless in his defense as he was on the basketball court. They felt like they had to be. Theirs was a different fandom than what had existed for past N.B.A. greats like Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. It was severe tribalism as a counter to an aversion to Bryant outside of Los Angeles, a reaction to those constantly underrating Bryant’s exceptional skill — at least in their eyes.

“To the degree that they are more aggressive and protective of his legacy or his game, I think that’s owed to reflecting his personality,” said Harrison Faigen, the editor of Silver Screen and Roll, a Lakers fan site under Vox Media’s SB Nation. “He was someone who really was out there in championing himself and talking about how great he was.”

For each time a sports fan declared that Bryant was an all-time good player instead of an all-time great, there was an equal and opposite reaction from Kobe’s fan base — known as the Mamba Army — feverishly pointing to his five championships.

“They’re fanatical in a way where they’re unwavering in their devotion to Kobe,” said Tyler, the popular Twitter personality @DragonflyJonez who has more than 172,000 followers and hosts the Jenkins & Jonez podcast. (He only goes by his first name in public.) “They don’t care what you say. They don’t care what the numbers say. It always comes down to five rings. At the end of the day, that’s what it always comes down to: Were you a winner or were you not?”

That was the era Bryant played in. He was one of the few superstars whose career spanned the explosion of both the internet and social media. N.B.A. Commissioner Adam Silver, during an interview on Monday, noted that Bryant had entered the league shortly after the league’s website launched. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube emerged in between his championship runs. When he retired in 2016, two decades after he was drafted, he did so with a poem that quickly went viral on social media.

All of this meant that as Bryant’s career progressed, published opinions weren’t limited to cranky newspaper columnists. Instead, fans got louder. And louder. Suddenly, there were N.B.A. message boards and Reddit posts where fans could have at it. Twitter amplified those discussions and democratized the assessment of player legacies. It wasn’t just up to shows like ESPN’s “Outside The Lines” and “Pardon The Interruption.”

“We had to spend so much time defending him,” said Anthony Irwin, who hosts a podcast called “Locked On Lakers.” (Until recently, Faigen was his co-host.)

“It became such a habit,” Irwin said. “You saw it even after his career. Any time some player did something incredible on the basketball court, there was always somebody out there who referenced it back to, ‘Wait, is Russell Westbrook better than Kobe now?’”

Bryant deftly used the digital age to enhance his own brand, targeting international audiences and rapidly expanding his fan base. Part of the reason Bryant devotees seemed to loom large in discussions is that there were so many of them all over the world, especially in China. But that relationship with his enthusiasts was compromised after he was charged with raping a 19-year-old woman in 2003. The case was dropped before it went to trial, and a separate lawsuit the woman filed was settled out of court. Even then, many of Bryant’s fans stuck by him.

“For better or for worse, you get an ‘us against the world’ mentality,” Irwin said. He added: “Over the course of Kobe’s career, especially the latter half, if you brought it up, it was, ‘Well, he didn’t actually get convicted of a crime.’ That was the starting point of that conversation. It got kind of gross.”

For his aficionados, Irwin said, what Bryant “did on the court now carried over to off the court. I’m not saying Lakers fans or Kobe fans handled that well, but where it came from was just, ‘He’s our guy.’”

News media mentions of the case since Bryant’s death have angered some of his supporters. The Washington Post reporter Felicia Sonmez tweeted a link to an article about the rape accusation in the hours after Bryant’s death and was immediately deluged with criticism and, she said, death threats. Sonmez said later that she had checked into a hotel out of fear for her safety. Other news media that mentioned the accusation in their coverage also have been met with backlash.

The intensity of the supporters is likely in part because Bryant hit his prime just when the N.B.A. was desperate for a new torch bearer. Jordan had retired for the third time in 2003. Fans wanted someone to step into an impossible-to-fill abyss. The problem for Bryant was that several players also vied for that role. Vince Carter, Tracy McGrady and Allen Iverson were all guards with flashes of Jordan’s flair. Even on the court, Bryant was a divisive figure. Some opposing fans thought his game lacked aesthetic beauty, even though his brutal competitiveness was universally acknowledged.

The gap between Bryant and those players at their best wasn’t as large as the canyon that existed between Jordan and the rest of the league in the 1990s. There is even an argument to be made that Bryant wasn’t the best player on his Lakers teams during his first three championships. This created more dispute among league observers as to whether Bryant was, as some said, truly the heir apparent to Jordan.

There were also simple, more traditional reasons for the loyalty of Bryant’s fans. He played for the same team his whole career, allowing him to spend 20 years cultivating a relationship with them. He won more than most other stars in that time frame. And playing for the Lakers, a historic franchise in a large Los Angeles media market, put him right in the middle of Hollywood, filled with celebrities he could hobnob with.

Bryant, like many of those celebrities, was also in living rooms every night as a constant presence on national television. A generation of West Coast dwellers grew up with him. As the rapper Snoop Dogg said on the Fox Sports show “Undisputed” on Wednesday: “When he first got to L.A., he wasn’t great. He was a kid. He was learning, and he was making mistakes. I was a kid at the same time. So it was a beautiful story watching his story and watching mine.”

Bryant certainly was not the first superstar to have a dedicated fan base. Bird probably doesn’t have to buy a meal in Boston ever again. Ditto for Iverson in Philadelphia. Jordan has his own committed legacy-protectors. But Bryant’s résumé in a rapidly expanding digital world created a new class of N.B.A. fan: millennials with multiple platforms on which to yell and defend their guy. Perhaps this is the point of fandom — to defend your rooting interest with gusto any way you can.

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americafuneral10-blog · 7 years ago

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Misrepresented Pricing

Dead Ringers, a data-based mystery phone shopping service which secret shops funeral homes and cemeteries across North America, has compiled data from October 2015 covering multiple factors including online pricing among funeral homes. In its data, Dead Ringers found that approximately 21% of funeral homes post prices online (this includes the General Price List and any limited pricing such as packages or merchandise).

This is comparable to the results of The Funeral Consumers Alliance and the Consumer Federation of America’s recently published FCA Study which found that 27% of funeral providers post their General Price List or some prices online. The Funeral Consumer Alliance wants greater transparency in deathcare including posting General Price Lists online. Dead Ringers encourages funeral providers to post pricing online because this offers the consumer transparency. However, with the advent of websites like Parting.com, a free consumer service which provides pricing information for funeral services in a user’s specific area, pricing has become readily available and accessible to consumers. In addition, Dead Ringers’ research revealed most funeral homes provide pricing over the phone (Dead Ringers data collected shows 62% of funeral providers disclose pricing information even if the provider is not directly asked for pricing).

What is not comparable is the belief that all Direct Cremations are the same.

In a press conference held by the Funeral Consumers Alliance in January 2018 announcing the results of their recently completed FCA Study, Josh Slocum, Executive Director of the Funeral Consumers Alliance, said that they were surprised at the vast difference in direct cremation prices. The Funeral Consumers Alliance and the Consumer Federation of America pointed to Washington, DC as an example and cited a range of prices from $1295 to $7295. Slocum stated that this range was unfair to the consumer because, by definition, direct cremations must contain the exact same services. The Funeral Consumers Alliance continued by stating that there should be no difference in pricing as the FTC requires direct cremation packages to be identical for all funeral and cremation providers.

Poul Lemasters, Esq., an owning partner of Dead Ringers who also attended the press conference, asked why there was an expectation for all direct cremation prices to be within the same range. “If we were to call every hotel in Washington, DC—the same city used in the FCA’s example—and we asked for a standard queen-sized room—wouldn’t we get a vast range of prices?” said Lemasters. “Wouldn’t we also expect and want hotels to have different prices for the same type of room due to many different factors? It would be like comparing a queen-sized room in a 1-Star hotel to a queen sized room in a 4-Star hotel. There would absolutely be a price difference, a difference in service and quality—even though every room would have a queen-sized bed within it.”

The Funeral Consumer Alliance and Consumer Federation of America base their study on various Federal Trade Commission Funeral Rule requirements including handing out a General Price List and offering direct cremation but did not explain the Funeral Rule basic service fee. The FTC requires funeral homes to list their non-declinable basic service fee. This required fee, per the FTC states:

The fee for the professional services of the funeral director and staff that are added to the total cost of the funeral arrangements. This basic services fee can include a charge for the services performed in conducting the arrangements conference, planning the funeral, securing the necessary permits, preparing the notices, and coordinating the cemetery or crematory arrangements. This fee also may include overhead that you have not allocated elsewhere.

(Please note that the FTC allows the basic service fee to either be a non-declinable fee or the fee for services and overhead can be included in the price of the caskets. Almost all providers handle this under the first option—listing their fee as a non-declinable fee).

“Why is the basic service fee important? Because, by definition, this fee includes all the costs a funeral incurs for such common things as getting paperwork filed, making arrangements, plus, overhead,” said Lemasters. “It is not hard to imagine that the basic service fee could be, and typically is, different from business to business. And it makes sense, as no business has the same overhead costs or employee costs for providing services.”

The basic service fee is a critical point in understanding how direct cremation is represented, but it’s not the only factor. “We see a wide variance among funeral home basic service fees and direct cremation fees across the United States,” said Tyler Yamasaki from Parting. Yamasaki went on to say that when shopping all the funeral homes across the United States, “We also see a variance between funeral home sizes, location, aesthetics, all of which explain why costs can be different.”

This basic service fee is also important because it serves as the foundation for pricing direct cremation. When determining the price for direct cremation, a provider’s basic service fee must be included. The funeral provider has the choice, per the FTC, to either include their entire basic service fee, or if they believe the entire basic service fee is not appropriate, then the funeral provider can charge a portion of their basic service fee. But, this fee is determined based on the providers costs, which varies. Some funeral homes are brand new facilities while some are old facilities, some have a handful of employees while others had dozens, some are online providers while others have 10,000+ square feet of physical space. All of these items can affect the prices a funeral home may charge.

In addition to the funeral homes basis for setting a price, Dead Ringers’ data also showed a number of factors the consumer considers when making a purchasing decision.

“Pricing is not always the only factor a person uses in making a purchasing decision,” said Cole Imperi, part owner of Dead Ringers. “It goes back to the hotel analogy, some people choose a 1-Star room for the night while others might choose a 4-Star. Their reasons for doing so are all just as unique as the differences between the hotel room choices themselves.”

Dead Ringers collected the following information, based upon Washington, DC data, and it confirms the vast similarities in pricing structure. (See Chart 1 and Chart 2) Dead Ringers data shows that hotels and funeral homes both share a similar range among the high and low available price. The data shows that each have a median range—where most competition exists. For hotels, the data showed a median average of $199.00 and 52% of all hotels at or below 10% of the median. It also showed the highest priced hotel is over 8 times the price of the lowest priced hotel. For funeral providers, this data showed a median of $1,995.00 and 56% of all funeral homes pricing themselves at or below 10% of the median. The data also showed a range of $6,550.00 between the high and low. Additionally, the data showed the highest priced funeral home at just over 7 times the lowest priced funeral home. The data shows that approximately 50% of both funeral homes and hotels exist within a common median price. The data also shows that there are high priced and low priced providers, outside the median and average price. Finally, the data shows that outliers (the high and low priced businesses) are comparably the same distance from the median.

What does it all mean? Services and products in ANY service category are very different—and the consumer should have the option and right to decide what they are willing to pay. Consumer groups are questioning why direct cremation prices are different, and are representing to the consumer that all direct cremations are the same. The fact is that not all providers are equal—in any service category. Why would one family choose to pay $7,000 for a direct cremation versus another family choosing to pay $1000? That is truly a choice the consumer should be allowed to make. The real question is how do you properly explain your charge—$7,000 or $1,000 for direct cremation is relative to not only what you offer, but how you offer it.

“Educate your consumer so that they see there is a difference, and then let them decide what that is worth to them,” said Imperi.

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mastcomm · 5 years ago

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Kobe Bryant’s ‘Mamba Army’ Fans Were as Relentless as He Was

The mention of Kobe Bryant could instantly start a fight, whether in a bar with friends or a in far-flung corner of the internet.

“We had to spend so much time defending him,” said Anthony Irwin, who hosts a podcast called “Locked On Lakers.” (Until recently, Faigen was his co-host.)

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#Sport

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