#Angela’s more sympathetic and has good charactization

[corpsejelli]

Don’t care what anyone says I like Eddie dombrowski and I think he is a compelling character and not just some edgy dude who doesn’t like dogs

[smoshyourheadin]

spencer’s funeral and his partner is the special guest and roasts spencer so hard and than revels that they are getting a cat together but everyone thinks it’d a baby announcement lmaoooo or however you wanna end it

Special News

pairing: spencer agnew x f! reader

a/n: anon i love this idea so much!! guys please don’t come at me for these terrible jokes i’m just a girl really 😜 also i’m posting sm rn go me

requests are open <33

“lebron james inspired us with his baller moves. steph curry inspired us with his words. spencer agnew inspired us by being a piece of shit, so we would never follow in his footsteps.”

you’re stood at the podium of the funeral, spencer in the coffin next to you holding a bouquet of plastic flowers as he tries not to laugh.

“spencer is a gamer, and we all know that. but if he spent as much time with me as he does on world of warcraft, i’d be the happiest girl on earth, but hey, at least he has a high gear score to keep him company whilst i cook.”

you see everyone laugh as you switch the paper, angela cackling over what you thought was a pretty shit joke.

as the laughter dies down, you continue on. “spencer and me only ever disagree over stupid things, and i think to myself, he must know he’s short when he has to look up to see eye-to-eye with someone who's shorter than him, because i’m always right. i’m sure courtney feels the same about shayne.”

at this, courtney yells “FACTS!” from behind one of the cameras, and you shoot her a wink.

shayne then stares you down, and all you say is “shayne don’t worry, i’m a short king ally!” which he just smirks at.

“i have some pretty bad jokes here, so let’s quickfire some.“ you mutter to everyone.

“if sleeping on my arm were an olympic sport, he’d have more gold than michael phelps.” this earns a giggle from spencer, as you have a folder on your phone of him asleep in the most awkward ways possible, always lying on your arm somehow.

“he’s so obsessed with video games, even his posture looks like it's from a character model that hasn't loaded properly yet.“ this makes everyone cackle, spencer opening one eye to glare at you, and you just laugh him off.

“your gamer boy posture is so bad, chiropractors have your picture on their vision boards on what to improve on.”

“do you guys think that,” you exhale through your nose at what patrick has written on your prompt card. “spencer’s idea of sitting normally the same as a pretzel’s idea of being straight?” which is so bad it’s good, making you crouch down to laugh.

you stand back up after a moment, your stomach twisting over what you’re about to do. it’s going to be so worth it, but gosh you feel bad.

“spencer, my lovely boyfriend, is a mt dew kickstart addict, certified gamer girl, and a soon to be father” and at this last statement, everyone gasps, and spencer’s eyes shoot open and he sits up. he looks at you intently, and you see him experience about a hundred emotions at once

you smile at everyone, turning to a camera, pulling out a printed off certificate of adoption, a picture of a tiny ginger cat taped to it.

“we got a cat!” you say, almost proud of how shocked everyone is

as you turn to look at spencer, you hear shayne’s laugh, and you look at spencer with sympathetic eyes, mouthing ‘i love you’ to him over all the laughter. he just smiles, knowing that this cat is going to be so loved by you both. especially you. because you love him so much.

as you sit back down, spencer sits up. having come back from the dead, he has some things to say. he goes through everyone at his funeral; alex, shayne, damien, tommy, selina, and then, you.

“and finally, my beautiful girlfriend, y/n. my bundle of sunshine, blinding and hard to look at directly.” you scoff at this, and he looks at you with a look that says this is a joke please don’t kill me when we’re home.

“i mean, come on, you cry at surf's up? i guess even animated penguins have higher emotional intelligence than you.” he manages to say through a fit if giggles. spencer always teases you for this, even though he cries at the NGE film. loser.

after wrap, courtney comes over to congratulate you on your cat, and just catch up generally.

“so, cat parents hey? proud of you girl” she says with a grin.

“yeah, i kinda feel bad scaring everyone into thinking spencer gets game in bed.” you reply, earning a laugh from her.

“don’t be mean to me! i’m a player you know?” spencer says coming up behind you.

“okay, sure you are mr ‘i cry at anime’.” you snap back.

he throws his hands up in defeat, and you kiss his cheek, going off to see amanda.

“she’s so cool.” courtney says

“yeah,” spencer replies. “she’s not that bad.”

she elbows him in the ribs, and he clutches his side

“i mean, she’s the best!” he says through strained teeth, courtney doing a proud nod before catching you up.

[agender-witchery]

It hurts

After talking with people in discord for the week that this has been going on, I think my feelings on the Project Moon situation are just. Like, this was a company I felt was "safe". Obviously corporations are not your friends, but this was a studio that consistently pushed out games with progressive - and at times even radical - messaging. This was a studio that has consistently written solid characters with gender as an absolute afterthought. Emma is a boy! Harold is a girl! That's how little gender matters, which, ironically, is something that matters.

I can't think of another franchise I've engaged with that just... writes women as people. I've heard George R.R. Martin is like that, but I never engaged with the TV series that introduced the US to the concept of filler or the book series it was based on. I'm gonna gloss over Lobotomy Corporation a bit here because the story only has 13 characters, but 12 of them return for Library of Ruina. In Ruina you have Binah, Angela, Nikolai, and Elena as assertive women that take control of the situations they're in. You have passive uwu smol beans like Hod and Eileen! You have characters who are war criminals and that's not a mark of a villain, that's just a part of their backstory! Some of the women here have just Done Crimes! One of the women IS a crime! And men are treated the same! There are characters with traumas and behavioral disorders who act like real people would! Lesti saw the aftermath of Love Town and started talking about food! Beef intestine no less! Philip saw his colleagues get murdered and physically manifested a mental breakdown! Xiao saw her husband get murdered and physically manifested literal burning rage!

All of the writing has been good! All of it! And it has consistently written women in a way that is flat out rare, even in 2023. And Limbus has been doing the same! Outis is assertive! Ryoshu is assertive! Hermann is assertive! Don is an idiot and Faust refuses to talk half the time! Heathcliff is assertive! Meursault is assertive! Gubo is assertive! Hong Lu is an idiot and Sinclair is/was a pathetic sop! Across the board, the character writing is just GOOD. As Lobotomy Corporation progresses, Ayin's shitty behavior becomes more and more apparent! And that all culminates with Angela being tossed aside like garbage once she's no longer useful to him, as you hear her desperate wishes to just be seen!

All of that, or at least most of that, was Kim Ji-hoon. But Kim Ji-hoon is also the person who hastily fired VellMori at 11 PM, over the phone, while he was out of office in Japan, because some incels accused his company of being sympathetic to feminists in 2023.

And it fuckin hurts that the source of those stories, the stories that I just spent three paragraphs praising, the stories that are so important to me, could turn heel in half a second like that. As if he was writing completely different stories than the ones I've been reading. And I hate that? I hate that. Because there isn't a replacement! I don't get Grandma War Crimes and Dumbass Justice Enactor in other stories! Like, maybe some will come close, maybe some will have the same exact character somewhere, but never all of it together. Never written as amazingly as the City is.

So it hurts. And the silence is loud.

[loudmound]

What don’t you like about the remake? I gotta know

anon i fear you are going to open pandora's box with this question.

since it was revealed in 2022, i will say that my very passionate, fiery, and searing hatred for its very existence has definitely simmered, and what i hold now in my heart for it is a very... cautious disdain.

i'll do my best to break it down for you.

PART ONE: BOOBER TEAM LOL

so... for starters, bloober team, the developers behind the remake, has had something of a muddied history with riding off the coat tails of games past, airlifting concepts from them wholesale, and layers of fear was no different in that respect. there's also the can of worms that is their survival horror title "the medium", which is basically bloober's silent hill 2 before the sh2 remake.

spoilers for the medium, but what can be gleaned from it thematically deeply concerns me as a sh2 fan, i.e. the notion that a victim of csa is simply too far gone and either the player character has to kill her or herself with the adage "you cannot save everyone". not to mention the fact that said victim's abuser was framed in a far more sympathetic light than she was, framing his predatory behavior as a monster controlling him from the inside. it's disgusting and insensitive, simply put.

this theme of "if you're mentally ill or suffer from trauma, you're beyond help and simply better off dead" also appears in their blair witch game, which is... great. from jump, i have had less than favorable opinions on bloober team, not for the quality of their visuals or their gameplay, but what stories they're most interested in telling, and how they go about telling them, exactly.

now, to blanket state that every single person on bloober team are hacks and frauds and don't have a shred of integrity telling the stories that they do would simply be ignorant and incorrect. i wholeheartedly believe that there are individuals working on the sh2 remake right now who want it to be the best that it can be and Very Much Want It To Be Good. it's a shame that these individuals who don't have much in way of creative control are getting thrown under the bus, too.

i can, however, maintain that opinion while also finding their backlog of games prior to the upcoming remake very disconcerting and have that inform my overall level of distrust in their integrity wholesale.

PART TWO: PRESS X TO CRY

i don't think there's anything that makes me more miffed than thinking about when the first remake trailer dropped.

so, we see our friend jim rush into the bathroom, seemingly out of breath, and wash his hands in the sink. we then get a shot of those hands, trembling with fear. he then takes thumb to palm, rubbing circles into them, presumably as a means to soothe himself. we then get him looking into the mirror, seemingly confused and out of place. he touches his face, much like he does in the original.

now, i understand that the notion of jim's emotionality has been a hotly debated topic. some people like it. some people don't. and i'm one of those people who doesn't. at least in this particular vein. in the original sh2, the cold open we get with james slowly approaching the mirror, shrouded in shadow, running his hand over his face as if he doesn't think he's real immediately sets the tone. we don't know who this man is or why he's here. as far as we know, he's just a random guy looking for somebody. namely: We Do Not Know He's Guilty Of Anything.

jim, however, is OOZING of guilt. he literally washes his hands, for christ's sake. anxiously washing his hands of his deed. the fact that it's more obvious that he's a guilty man from the start rather than further re-contextualizing his behavior throughout the narrative and to the reveal is a very classic blooberism.

bloober has a very bad habit of being... heavy-handed when it wants to implicate. saying what something is without saying it outright. this can be found in the most recent release date trailer, where angela desperately tells james that "[she'll] be good for him" ('him' being her sexually abusive dad, of course) in a scene which looks like she's in front of the giant mirror. in the original, it's apparent that Something's happened to her, but we're not sure what until the abstract daddy boss fight later in the game where she says "or you could just force me. beat me up like he always did."

it's not that sh2 wasn't ever blunt or heavy-handed with its storytelling, of course, but it's a matter of when it's appropriate to forego subtlety. eddie, for example, doesn't make vague allusions to or sugarcoat the abuse that he experienced as a fat person, and that's fitting! being candidly violent and more outward in contrast to angela who for the most part is very withdrawn and meek works very well. sometimes, being blunt is the best course of action for optimal characterization/narrative progression.

also, on the topic of jim... i call him jim simply because he does not read as james to me. he's a new individual that's operating within a james-like role; he's just... simply a different person. he's very, very gritty, and VERY visibly neurotic. to me, he's very much anxiety tunnel-visioning: hyperfocused on one thing that everything else seems to fall by the wayside.

i never got the implication that he was dissociating like the original james is, of which i think is a core trait of his, and probably informs a lot of why i do not read jim as james. this is a very take it or leave it kind of opinion, and it's not that i feel super negatively about jim's characterization, either. it's just... idk i don't think screaming and crying while falling to your knees is a very james thing to do. james fell to his knees silently after he screamed, comparatively. shrug.

it's like... james is a herding dog and jim is a sighthound. same animal, different kind.

and then there's maria. but i wrote a whole post on that already, so you can read that here. people have also written numerous think pieces about why her redesign is so nothingburger, too, so i'm not the only one who thinks this way, either.

angela in the remake is alright. i have my gripes, but she's okay. what concerns me the most is the VERY PERTINENT lack of eddie. he has been very notably absent throughout this whole song and dance, and it's getting fucking ridiculous. WHERE IS HE BLOOBER. I KILL ANOTHER HOSTAGE THE LONGER YOU KEEP HIM FROM US.

PART THREE: CONCLUSION, AKA NEVER TRUST A COMPANY WITH YOUR HAPPINESS

all and all, i don't have very high hopes for the sh2 remake, not because it doesn't look good, play good, etc.; the way that a game plays, and even more so how a game looks doesn't matter to me so much as how the narrative is executed. the remake, photorealistically, looks great! the environments are very rich. that's all well and good.

but, again, looks alone cannot sway me. it's nothing that i haven't already seen before done by games past. i'm not excited for a sh2 that looks like a re2r or a re4r, simply put. there was a style developed within the limitations of what the ps2 could handle, and with the massive upscale in technology and photorealism above all else, it's undoubtedly lost. while a matter of taste, of course, i just find myself very straight-faced looking at what teasers we have of the remake. i'm not amazed, nor am i amused! it's as simple as that.

and also, we should mention that at the helm of it all, konami has been milking the silent hill franchise for all it's fucking worth. maybe the members of bloober team are trying to genuinely make a good game for once, but konami wants that money at the end of the day, if the spectacular failures of games past, as well as silent hill themed experiences such as ascension are anything to go by.

also also, this remake is never gonna satisfy every single sh2 fan. that's just the truth of the matter. i think some people are really gonna love it and some are really gonna hate it. realistically, i'll be very meh on it. i can find some things to like about, but that's really it. if i'm cherry-picking things i enjoy about something i'm largely reticent on, i wouldn't call that enthusiasm in the slightest. would you?

anyways, thank you for reading. i hope these answers suffice and satisfy.

[wafflesinthe504]

The Rookie 5x12 Thoughts

Spoilers for The Rookie 5x12 below. If you've watched the episode or don't care about spoilers, please enjoy!

Before I really get started can I just give a shout out of appreciation to all the The Rookie gif makers out there. Y'all really snapped tonight. Honestly, I think this is the quickest work you guys have done! Chef's kiss to all the gifs out there.

The cold open of tonight's episode was great. Seeing everyone just pile in all dirty and bruised up due to whatever happened beforehand and a flustered Kelly Clarkson was cool to see. Nyla and Angela being the only ones not covered in dirt because they're detectives was the best part. Their little fist bump was so cute.

But honestly I would really like to know what happened that led to almost everyone being covered in dirt and leaving the scene with cuts and scrapes. Like did something explode, were they in a derelict warehouse and had to fight some bad guys, like what happened?

Anyways, onto the rest of the episode.

I was so happy to see Tamara again. Her just chilling out doing yoga with Lucy trying to play off the fact that she got home late. It doesn't matter how good of a liar Lucy is anybody with eyes can see that her and Tim are dating. The relief that Lucy expressed when Tamara told Lucy that she knew she was dating Tim. Lucy was just happy for someone else to finally know and be able to talk about her relationship with Tim. Our girl was ready to talk about the amazing relationship she has with Tim. Also, Tamara being the reason that Lucy decided that today was the day. Honestly, I want to see Tamara and Aaron meet at this point. Its only right that the captains of the ship get to hang out for a bit.

The return of Oscar Hutchinson is always a delight. Look I know that man has committed plenty of atrocities (mainly stabbing Wesley), but I find him pretty funny. I really like how he's the one antagonist that has really been shown to actively get under John's skin. Any time Oscar is even mentioned is basically becomes the worst day of John's life. Even though Oscar has proven to be a dangerous criminal I just find it funny that his main character trait is to be as annoying as humanly possible. I also really like the fact that even though could have just been born this way every time we meet him its made clear that he just chooses to be this way. As great as sympathetic villains and antagonists are I really enjoy seeing a someone who is just clearly irredeemable and doesn't want to be redeemed either. Oscar just exists to be chaotic and I love it.

As much as I like Celina's character I really do wish that the writers would sort of abandon the idea of Celina having some sort supernatural ability. I feel like the other times were a little bit more believable since there was at least evidence that something was off, but Celina just instantly knowing that Oscar was somehow in danger really threw me off. I mean unless Celina was just messing with him I don't understand why it was necessary to put that in there. At the time there really wasn't any way she would have really known that Oscar was in danger.

I think a better idea would been to just let her notice how off the doctor seemed when she was being threatened.

Bonus: I just love how Nolan is absolutely in love with Bailey and loving the fact that she can totally beat him in fight.

I know I probably say this every week but I just can't get enough of Angela and Nyla. Honestly if wasn't so invested in Chenford they would easily be my favorite duo on the show. They're just so many great layers to them. Both of them are amazing detectives who are also moms and wives with beautiful families. They're both the protectors of their respective families, but they still get to show a full range emotion and complexity and I just really appreciate that.

A lot of the time spent this episode with Angela and Nyla are while they're on a stakeout of a criminal who turns out to be none other than Elijah Stone. When Nyla first found out that Angela lied to her about who they were following I was worried for a little bit that it would be dragged out for dramatic reasons but I'm really glad that they didn't let it fester and had Angela apologize at the end with Nyla accepting the apology. I also really liked seeing Angela be honest about how terrified she is of the current situation and how much pressure she feels on herself right now to be the protector of her family which is something that we know Nyla can relate to with her having to protect James from a robbery in a recent episode.

I just love how much these two have each other's backs. Its great representation of a great friendship that extends beyond the workplace and can healthily work through rough times in their friendship.

Bonus: Angela is pregnant again and Jack is going to be a big brother. The scene at the end with Angela telling Wesley was really cute.

Today was an official end of an era and a beautiful beginning to a new one. Tim and Lucy rode together for possibly the final time (for the best possible reason). Oh, how the tables have turned. We have gone from Tim Tests to Lucy Lessons and it was amazing. Seeing Tim be the one in denial about how objective he can be about Lucy was amusing to watch. That man hasn't been objective about Lucy since season 2. The only one he was kidding was himself with that one.

Lucy doing things just slightly off but knowing that they were things that Tim would usually nitpick about just to prove a point and swiping the earrings just to prove to Tim that he wasn't able to be objective any more when it came to her was an absolute genius play.

I really enjoyed seeing them working together at the house where the doctor's family was being held hostage. Even before I really started shipping them I always liked how well they worked together due to how well their able to balance each other out. Its most definitely something I'll miss, but hopefully we'll still get a few scenes of them together working together later on.

I will say that I am really excited to see what's next for both of them in their careers. For so much of the series their careers have been tied to each other in some way, shape, or form and I wonder what its going to be like seeing them pursuing their careers separate from each other.

I hope that we actually get to see Tim in his new desk job for at least a little bit. For the whole time we've known him he's always been a very physical character and I think it would be interesting to see how he acts be in a much less physical job. As a court liason I could see Tim interacting with pretty much every lawyer we know including the red hair one defending Elijah which could be an interesting dynamic.

Lastly, but absolutely not least the end scene Tim and Lucy succeed in getting 'naked time' with each other. Everything about the last scene with them was just perfect. Lucy cooking them dinner, Tim telling Lucy about his job change, the gentle kiss turning passionate. I loved everything about it.

I can't wait to see more domestic Chenford. Here's hoping the next time we see them they'll be at Tim's place and we can see Kojo again.

Bonus: Tim and Lucy in the parking lot literally could not be any more obvious short of them making out right then and there. Them trying (unsuccessfully) to play it cool in front of Wade.

______________________________________________________________

Hope you enjoyed. If you want come chat with me in the comments about anything The Rookie related.

Until next time have a good day or night.

[moviemunchies]

It’s the Year of the Dragon, so let’s talk about a dragon movie!

In Damsel, Millie Bobby Brown stars as Elodie, a young noblewoman from a land suffering severe famine. Her family receives aid in a bride price for her marriage to Prince Henry of the fabulously wealthy island Kingdom of Aurea. It seems a dream-come-true until, right after the wedding ceremony, Elodie is ritually sacrificed to the dragon that lives on the island in the mountain cave near the castle.

It turns out that every generation, Aurea sacrifices three maidens to the dragon, and she’ll leave the kingdom alone. Now Elodie has to find a way to escape the maze-like caverns, using her wits and whatever she can find, while being hunted by a sadistic dragon that delights in taunting her prey.

I should start with: subjectively, I kind of love this movie. Shoreh Aghdashloo tends to always be great in her roles, and she makes a fantastic dragon here. I would watch a dozen movies of her playing an evil dragon, because having her voice a character who relishes in wrecking stuff and people? This is great. I love the dragon’s design, too. Thank Tiamat, we finally get a movie dragon that’s not a wyvern. We spend so much of the movie only seeing bits and pieces of her, until we get to the third act and we finally see the full dragon and it is glorious. Playing with her prey like a great cat who spits flaming liquid. Excellent. Fantastic. Beautiful.

I really like dragons, okay?

Objectively, though, there are some problems with the way this movie was written.

The biggest is that the movie tries to make the dragon ultimately sympathetic to the viewer. And you’re probably going to guess how long before the Reveal, as there’s pretty much only one way writers try to make murderous dragons sympathetic. Which is, uh… look, I don’t know that it works. The gist of it is (minor spoilers, I guess) that the dragon thinks she’s killing maidens of the Aurean royal line. The attempt to make her sympathetic leans not on her realizing she’s been cruel and callous to innocent women who didn’t deserve it, but instead realizing she hasn’t been cruel and callous to the innocent women who still didn’t deserve it, but were descended from someone who did. Ultimately, the movie seems to be okay if the dragon was horribly killing women if they had the wrong bloodline, I guess?

I don’t think it’s what was intended, because the Aurean family is just… garbage, man, with Prince Henry as the only one with a shred of decency, and that is a small shred. It feels clumsy, is all.

Maybe it’d be overlooked if the Aureans got more development, but they don’t. I’m not saying I need them to have sympathetic motivations; Lord knows they don’t need those at all. They can be terrible people, of course, and I think that’s all that the makers of the film wanted them to be. I would have liked to have seen more of them, though. Even if I don’t need them to be relatable, I’d like a better grasp on why they think this is an okay thing to do.

Elodie’s stepmother–she also needed some work. Angela Bassett performs fantastically here with what she’s got, and so we get some good groundwork, I just think there could have been more done with this character.

The movie clearly wants us to think it’s a happy ending, and I don’t know that it is. I think there’s a throwaway line about how Elodie secured supplies to take home to help with the famine, but I notice discussions I’ve seen of the movie don’t mention it, so maybe I’m mistaken. Other factors make me really question how happy that ending’s meant to be, though.

Also, those glow worms were really convenient. Not a huge problem, as they’re established early on, I just think maybe the way they work is a little too easy.

Even with its issues, however, I think the movie’s first half is legitimately fantastic. It’s thrilling, it’s cool, it’s got a killer dragon, and it’s got someone trying to survive in a cave. Performances all-around are great and fun to watch.

So maybe it doesn’t hold together as well as it could–still, it’s not a bad dragon movie, and if you want to see awesome dragon action, the movie works for that.

[Also apparently there’s a novelization which takes the story in a completely different direction? I’ll be checking that out of my local library soon.]

[theunusualchameleon]

The Narrative Importance of Mag 14: Piecemeal

Mag 14: Piecemeal is important in a narrative sense to prepare listeners for the intensifying of the plot, as an enduring piece of mystery and horror in a sometimes overdefined system, and to shake up and defy that same system, preserving the chaos and inexplicability that makes The Magnus Archives what it truly is.

Episode 14 of the Magnus Archives, Piecemeal, is often dismissed as one of the weird episodes in Season 1, before the general themes were ironed out. It involves a confusing and horrifying death, and brings up a character who, to those experienced in Magnus structure, would be expected to show up again. Indeed, the other character introduced in episode 14 is Mikaele Salesa, who proves instrumental in later plot developments. But we never see Angela again, except for the mildest nod to her continued existence in season 5. 

Some say that makes this episode a structural disaster; one of the odd, stupid, confusing episodes that give season 1 its unique charm. Even Jonny, in a Q & A, admitted to the episode being one he wanted to redo. But there’s so much more going on that makes Piecemeal important to the development of the Magnus universe. 

Firstly, the statement giver, Lee Rentoul, is a bad person. This is very clearly stated. He’s a career criminal who spent several years in prison, and later kills a man and is happy about it. The statement givers so far have largely been innocent victims, or at least sympathetic protagonists. Even Trevor Herbert, the vampire hunter from Mag 10, considers himself a force of good. Lee Rentoul gives us, the listeners, a gateway into the idea that the statements we hear will not always be given by good people, giving us time to get used to the idea before doing so is narratively vital, such as a statement given by an avatar. Later statements given by avatars, criminals, monsters, or similar are usually filled with vitally important information. If the listener were distracted worrying about the morality of the statement giver, they might miss something. Piecemeal gives listeners a chance to get worrying over morally unsound protagonists out of our systems, and more emotionally prepared for the escalation of the plot further on. 

Secondly, the eventual irrelevance of Angela and her assassinations reinforces the idea that Magnus takes place in a larger world than what we can see. In a different Q&A, Jonny laments the fact that to have sufficient payoff in the mystery department, concessions must be made in the horror department. So much horror comes from having no idea what’s happening, and that has to be given up as the story continues and the listener learns more and more. 

A prime example of this is the coffin. First introduced in episode 2, the coffin is terrifying and mysterious. We end up knowing nothing about it, and the horror is maximized. Over the course of the story, we learn more and more about the coffin. By the time its arc resolves in season 4, it is well established as dangerous, but not the nameless horror it was at the beginning. We know exactly what fate awaits those who open it, and while it isn’t pretty, it is known. Someone skilled and knowledgeable enough can even escape it. 

The occasional inclusion of incidents which are never properly explained provides the proper horrified feeling usually only experienced in first time listeners to those who go back and listen again. Even after 200 full episodes of information, we still have no idea what was going on, which keeps it scary and helps Magnus stand up well to repeat listeners.

Finally, the nebulous nature of what power is involved plays an important role in the later discrediting of Smirke’s Taxonomy. It is initially unclear what power is involved in Piecemeal. Initial readings might sort it firmly into the realm of Flesh, with the fascination with losing body parts. Closer or more thematic readings might pick the Web, for the strange pileup of coincidences, or the Stranger, for the strange woman who is never elaborated on, or even the End, focusing on Lee Rentoul’s struggle and fear of his inevitable demise, and still remaining alive even as more and more bits fall off of him. 

But here’s the thing: It’s none of them. The idea of Smirke’s 14 as categories that every manifestation must belong to one, with only the briefest concession for combinations, is ultimately doomed to fail. Smirke’s Taxonomy of Fear is a useful tool for initial cataloging and categorization, but it’s just that. A tool. Again and again, the powers are highlighted as something chaotic and unknowable. Any model used to understand them is limited by our reality. Some statements fit neatly into the 14, which makes sense, as that sort of event would have to be relatively frequent in order for Smirke himself to identify and catalog them, which could be further elaborated on in an entire other essay. But it remains important to have the occasional statement that doesn’t intuitively fit into any of the 14, for the sake of emphasizing the limits of the system. This is also true for various other early episodes, such as Mag 4: Thrown Away, also often dismissed for being nonsensical.

Mag 14: Piecemeal is important in a narrative sense to prepare listeners for the intensifying of the plot, as an enduring piece of mystery and horror in a sometimes overdefined system, and to shake up and defy that same system, preserving the chaos and inexplicability that makes The Magnus Archives what it truly is.

[pipperoni32-blog]

Vineyard Remains

by Addison McKnight / 4 stars

(Expected publish date March 12, 2024)

I'm so lost on how I feel about this book. It's… difficult.

When Angel and her brother TJ are brought to live with her grandparents on Martha's Vineyard, their world has been turned upside down. Their father has just been murdered by their mother. Their grandmother changes their names to Angela and Thomas, to give them a new life.

Angela had always been fond of the island; they would spend summers there with their grandparents, and she was close to her cousin Kiki, who was only a year younger. Upon moving, Kiki's father (their father's brother) warns Kiki away from Angela, and it's almost easier to Kiki to hate Angela, who she'd been jealous of. Angela had gotten away from the island, and now that she's back, she gets to live with her rich grandparents, while Kiki is stuck alone with her abusive alcoholic father.

Both girls fall in love with Bo Brooks, the island's baseball star who's sure to make it to the major leagues. Angela dated him first, but when she moves away for college, Kiki move in. Bo loves Kiki and can't imagine leaving her, but he can't resist carrying on an affair with Angela when she's in town. Both girls end up pregnant with his child, and as luck would have it, both go into labor the same stormy night. Kiki well before her due date, due to her father's abuse when he found out she was pregnant. Angela's grandmother Kathleen is the only doctor available, and she opens the closed hospital, hoping help with arrive in time. None does, and when Kiki arrives later, Kathleen is forced to deliver both babies, leaving the girls alone and struggling more than she'd wished to. One girl goes home with a baby, one girl is sent to the psych ward convinced she'd heard her stillborn baby's cry.

The years that follow, Kiki struggles as a single mother. She's finally free of her father, but life is not good. She's still stuck on the island, left with Bo's indifference and his parents' cold disapproval. She spends years in a shed with the daughter she can't seem to feel close to. Angela struggles with her memories of the night, with the fear she'd done something awful to her child that she can't remember. Just like she can't remember clearly the night her father died.

I'll be honest - I struggled through the middle of this book. While the trauma they were raised with, and their continued experiences trying to survive, were dealt with expertly… I just didn't like them. Was I sympathetic to the trauma they faced? Did I wish for them to find better lives, absolutely! Instead, they were caught up on both wanting to keep Bo - who was in no way an ideal boyfriend. How either of them were attracted to him was beyond me, and the years they wasted in that pursuit, the pain caused by it… it made all three of them toxic.

One of the books I was close to not finishing, it might come as a surprise to why it's getting a 4 star rating from me. I think, in the end, it came down to the fact that while their problems didn't all magically go away, things did take a turn for the better. We did get answers - not ones that made everything ok. I severely disliked actions that were taken, to the point that I gave up on characters and thought them beyond redemption. Why should I care, when they instigated so much of their own suffering? However… I did find it very realistic. What both girls experienced, the trauma that shaped them, and their struggles to survive. To just be ok. Real life doesn't always have happy endings. You can't just wish things better. Instead, you have to work at it daily - and you're going to need help along the way.

If you enjoy realistic stories, stories of people who live with trauma and struggle to find their way. Of people who don't make the right choices, who some how seem to make that wrong step at every turn, this one is for you. If you like stories of the women who survive, who find themselves wanting to give every opportunity to those who come after them, this one is for you.

[lobpoints]

The entire point is about ayin is that he had this particularly mindset on how he wanted to be a better person but given up hope in doing this in his journey of continuing Carmen ideal and see himself as monstrous so he can't do anything but wallow in guilt doomed to ever repeating his past misdeeds since that what the whole LC principle is based on since he thinks like that and he thinks that as an irredeemable individual like him this is the only way he can bring good for other and that mindset is inevitably what caused him to go into a deep end and commit more horrible acts and the actions that caused the most harm not only for himself but people who are involved with him and you dont necessary need to view this in a sympathetic light since the narrative pretty much open on whether or not you need to feel bad about him especially after the narrative made clear about the harm he caused but people taking this and immediately come to an "ayin bad ayin good" or how justifiable ayin is in discussion once pointed out is, missing some point perhaps

[forthegothicheroine]

Top 5 female antiheroes?

My distinctions between who's an antihero and who's a likeable villain or a hero with dark traits may be arbitrary, but here goes!

1. Moll Flanders. I love Moll so much, you guys! If you haven't read the book, it's basically the plot of Reba McEntire's "Fancy"- girl is born into poverty and decides that she is going to be a fine lady no matter what she has to do to get there. I love that she is so straightforward about herself, including noting when she does things that can or can't be excused (conning people when she was poor was to survive, breaking and entering when she was better off was just for the thrill and she does feel bad about that.) She takes pity on women in bad situations, and she also mugs schoolgirls for their jewelry. She marries lots of people (the incest was an accident) and loses track of her children and runs a crime empire based on stolen imported lace. She periodically stops the story to tell the reader that she's only warning them not to follow her example, then continues to talk about how she ended up rich and happy from all this. I've been wanting to write fanfic for years about her having a conversation with a de Sade character because for a book from 1722, her views on morality are surprisingly pragmatic; she seems to feel that pure virtue and pure sin are both luxuries, and people without the money or leisure to indulge them just do what they can. She should be played by Patti Lupone.

2. Speaking of Patti Lupone, Mrs. Lovett! Unlike simple robbery, tricking people into cannibalism cannot be excused due to low money, but she's very funny about it! I'm actually less into her relationship with Sweeney Todd than her relationship with Toby, because it's another instance of a villain who feels sympathetic and charitable to individual people without stopping being evil, which is a trope I love. As a theatrical role, I like the range of attitudes she can be played with, from Angela Lansbury's witchy mania to Patti Lupone's washed up femme fatale, or even Helena Bonham Carter's hopeless romantic grabbing at a dream that can't happen. Please, please, let me play Mrs. Lovett someday! (I would also like to play genderbent Toby but I'm getting on in years.)

3. Baba Yaga. I read a lot of Russian fairy tale books as a kid (they had the best illustrations) and Baba Yaga was a real revelation to me: she could be a good guy or a bad guy depending on the story! That was amazing! She could terrorize helpless girls or help them defeat villains worse than she was, and she could never be killed off for real! She plays the role of fairy godmother to Vasilissa's Cinderella, except her version of glass slippers and a pumpkin carriage is just murder! And in her defense, she decorates her house with flaming skulls and heroes keep bothering her; to paraphrase Shrek, what does she have to do to get a little privacy?

4. Morgan le Fay. I like to think she and Baba Yaga get together once a month for Morally Ambiguous Witch Brunch. She's another character who can be a good guy or a bad guy depending on the story, or a good guy who goes bad or a bad guy who goes good. Given how many contradictory legends there are about her, I like to think of her as mostly benevolent but with a very bad attitude and a deadly temper when crossed. I think she can always be found lounging around in velvet with a goblet of wine in her hand, even on 'off' days.

5. Keiko Furukura. The protagonist of Convenience Store Woman is more of a classical antihero; she doesn't kill anyone or anything like that, people just find her weird and unsympathetic. Keiko, as the title indicates, works at a convenience store (which are much nicer places in Japan than in America, but still not a super prestigious job.) She likes putting things in order and having only surface level relationships with other people, but her mother is worried because she isn't married or working a more impressive job, so she sets out on an ill-advised journey to become more 'normal.' One of the blurbs on the back of the book called it "chilling." I think this is completely unfair- she just wants to live her life the way that makes her happy!

[attemptsonherlifepdf]

modern gothic, sci-fi, and the moral binary: why the matrix is one of the most relevant gothic pieces of the last twenty five years

the gothic is a genre that is designed to explore transgressive behaviours and private desires, and often does so by having these explicit acts committed by a supernatural character. this serves to not only characterise the behaviour as monstrous but ‘Other’ people who behave that way. while this is typical of traditional gothic literature, modern gothic tends to present sympathetic villains, who suggest to audiences that transgressive behaviours are not inherently threatening or deserving of punishment, but simply different. as put by kelley hurley, ‘through depicting the abhuman, the gothic reaffirms and reconstructs human identity.’ in order to understand the progression from traditional gothic to modern genres that stem from it, namely science fiction, psychological thrillers and murder mysteries, we must first understand it’s basic timeline.

gothic literature began as a genre with very little positive reception, originally seen as a frivolous, and unserious style of writing. often called ‘dark romanticism’, the genre used the ‘purple prose’ and decadent architecture of romantic literature, but associated it with more sinister narratives concerning religion, murder and both sexual and identitiy-oriented transgression. originating from horace walpole’s ‘castle of otranto’, the genre was used to reflect the cultural anxieties of the time period, and thus gained traction by being temporally relevant. modern gothic’s deconstruction of the ‘good vs evil’ binary is a reflection of contemporary understandings of the aforementioned topics, which address the complexities of transgression. notable examples of later gothic literature include susan hill’s 1983 novel, ‘the woman in black’, a pastiche of traditional victorian ghost stories that utilises sympathetic villains to add complexity to the idea of villainy. additionally, the work of angela carter, particularly that of her 1979 collection ‘the bloody chamber’ which uses gothic conventions to subvert more conservative fairytales and fables, another instance of this ‘dark romanticism’ technique.

by presenting transgression as complex, rather than fulfilling one side of a binary, modern gothic allows us to consider if transgression is even that dangerous; it serves to dismantle the idea that ‘different = threatening.’ a brilliant example of this is the previously mentioned work of carter, and her short stories ‘the tiger’s bride’ and ‘the courtship of mr lyon.’ these stories are subverted retellings of the traditional ‘beauty and the beast’ fairytale. While maintaining the general events of the original ending, where beauty stays with the beast of her own volition, carter offers up two dynamics between the human and abhuman that serve to recharacterise ‘Othered’ creatures as less threatening and more sympathetic and innocent. ‘the courtship of mr lyon’ mimics the original story’s ending, with beauty’s understanding of the beast resulting in his transformation back to human. ‘the tiger’s bride’ offers the reverse: in beauty’s acceptance of the beast, she transforms to be animal-like like him as well. this appears almost as an act of solidarity. perhaps an incredibly modern reading of carter’s metamorphosed characters is as an allegory for transgenderism. discussions around gender identity during the 1970s in britain, even in second-wave feminist circles, were more concerned with rejecting and redefining traditional gender roles than they were with the personal identity of individuals, so we can assume this was not carter’s intention when writing these stories. however, ideas of physical transformation, and how proximity to the ‘Other’ can ‘radicalise’ one’s own identity are very fitting with treatment of transgender people both historically and presently. genres that stem from the late gothic, namely sci-fi, have been known for using metamorphosis as an allegory for marginalised identities, using physical transformation as an allegory for ideological or emotional transformation. a prime example of this is lana and lilly wachowski’s series ‘the matrix.’ written as a trans allegory, the movie series criticises the social pressure for conformity the way carter does and attempts to explicitly recharacterise trans people as an innocent non-conforming identity rather than a threat. carter’s exploration and reproval of established values similarly tends to centre around ideas of gender, making this reading not entirely unreasonable. she suggests that societal fears surrounding gender identity and liberation are unfounded.

ultimately, carter paints various traits and identities that are widely considered ‘threatening’ to be multifaceted and liberating instead, as she views the established values that they ‘threaten’ to be restrictive and in need of changing. the matrix represents these established values with ‘agents’ who attempt to hide the true nature of the world from the population. in the preface to the bloody chamber collection, helen simpson writes that 'human nature is not immutable, human beings are capable of change', arguing this point as the core of carter’s gothic subversions. she suggests through her writing that what is perceived as a social threat is often based upon what is uncomfortable rather than what is actually dangerous. her work is partially ambivalent in that it does not instruct what is right or wrong, but instead depicts societal relationships and allows the audience to interpret it.

the matrix achieves a similar result, with gothic elements and subversions supporting it’s messages.sci-fi takes gothic settings, ideas of liminality, decay, transgression and the Other, and recontextualises them with in the hypothetical far future. traditional gothic settings such as the ruins of decadent mansions become abandoned high-tech buildings. the binary between conventional and transgressive shifts from being a contrast between catholic ideals and more modern behaviours to being a contrast between those profiting off capitalism and those suffering from it.

implicit in the matrix’s notion of discovering a newer world more true to reality is the idea that ‘different’ or ‘unconventional’ experiences and identities are not threatening, but liberating. the matrix suggests we can unlearn our villainisation of trans people, and does so through the use of various gothic conventions. to begin with, gothic texts are often written to reflect the cultural anxieties of the moment. lilly wachowski has stated that the movie was ‘born out of anger at capitalism and the corporate structure and forms of oppression.’ the late nineties in america was certainly a time of tension for lgbt people. frank rich sites ‘the homophobic epidemic of '98...spiked with the october murder of matthew shepard’ as an era of extreme difficulty for the lgbt community in the usa. this hostile environment is reflected in the nature of the matrix’s ‘agents’ and their insistence on maintaining the illusion of free will that comes with the false reality they push. they are in no way open to ideas that differ from their own and actively come down on those who suggest them. this anxiety for the lgbt community is reflected in the movie; the anxiety itself is expressed through a combination of subverted and traditional gothic tropes. gender itself is a topic highly relevant to the gothic. the wachowskis utilise binary oppositions, the most obvious example being the red pill vs blue pill’ scenario. the movie poses a stark contrast between two approaches to life: ‘the willingness to learn a potentially unsettling or life-changing truth, by taking the red pill, or remaining in contented ignorance with the blue pill.’ its interesting for a piece that is intentioned to deconstruct binaries to construct this binary, but it does serve a purpose. this binary serves as a device to show, allegorically, the experience of trans people in western cultures. belinda mcclory’s character, switch, is a specific representation of the gender transition process. in the matrix she appears as a woman, and in the real world as a man. while the wachowskis may not have had the creative freedom to include an explicitly transgender character, this was the closest and most specific hint they could have given the audience, right down to the character’s cratylic naming. switch’s experience presenting as both man and woman, and only one of her presentations occurs in the ‘true reality’ that is representative of people’s true natures and personalities. this use of metamorphosis mimics the way many trans people must present as their assigned gender at birth in public, and their true identity in private, that their physical body and their perception of themselves when they have control of their appearance are not necessarily aligned. this parallel relies upon the binary consisting of a false reality and a true one to illustrate its point.

it has also been suggested that the red pill is representative of a hormone pill, and many viewers have likened neo’s mental restlessness to gender dysphoria: ‘what you know you can't explain, but you feel it. you've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. you don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad.’ these small parallels coalesce to form the movie’s representation of the trans experience in a way that is arguaby subtle to the cisgender viewer. neo openly rejects being called ‘mr anderson’ or ‘thomas anderson’ from our first introduction to him. he replaces his given male-coded name with something seemingly androgenous for his own comfort, and ‘mr anderson’ almost serves as a deadname, which only the agents who enforce a false reality use to refer to him. agent smith uses neo’s two names to frame his two separate lives very distinctly; ‘one of these lives has a future, and one of them does not.’ with an understanding of the trans subtext of the movie, this appears as a thinly veiled reference to the difficulties openly trans people face. coming out, in most places in the world, can result in loss of employment, loss of contact with family, and so on. as put by lili wachowski, ‘transgender people without support, means and privilege do not have this luxury. and many do not survive.’ agent smith appears to be warning neo of the dangerous of living as his true self, insistently referring to him with his given name rather than his chosen one, even if just for bureaucratic reasons. neo’s name is a vital to his defiance against both agent smith and the false reality he seeks to maintain:

agent smith:

you hear that mr. anderson?... that is the sound of inevitability... it is the sound of your death... goodbye, mr. anderson...

neo:

my name... is neo.

in defiantly maintaining his chosen name, neo pushes for the true reality to be accepted and understood. this is motivated by the fact that ‘i don't like the idea that I'm not in control of my life.’ this is an instance of neo taking control, by asserting his identity. the high stakes of this scene mimic the high stakes that trans people face in asserting their identities in an unaccepting social climate. the movie also acknowledges the public perception of trans people as a threat: ‘i know that you're afraid... you're afraid of us. you're afraid of change...the matrix is a system, neo, that system is our enemy.’ appearance vs reality is yet another key aspect of the gothic that is utilised in the matrix, and the narrative forces the viewer to consider whether they would accept a harsh reality or prefer total ignorance and accept what appears in front of them.

the movie’s treatment of violence against its protagonist is particularly relevant to the gothic. typically, queer-coded men or people of colour in fiction experience physical violence allegorical to the way female characters are written into sexualised danger: for trauma-based character development. violence against minorities in media, specifically gothic media, is often symbolic rather than just plain horrific. female, queer or bodies of colour are seen solely as political identities, so the violence they face is violence against an idea, not a person. queer or queer-coded men like neo are often feminised to a certain extent, even if its simply rejecting the title ‘mr’, to allow the violence against them to be symbolic or political rather than personal. often with cisgender, heterosexual, white or male characters, any cruelty they face is considered to be senseless and is characterised as brutal, pure violence, as their bodies are simply allowed to exist as bodies without a political statement attached to their existence. they are not making a statement or defying standards simply by having bodies. the gothic specifically uses symbolic violence in its later stages, and it is often faced by characters who are ‘Othered’ such as frankenstein’s monster being faced with angry hordes of people, or the suicide of jennet humfrye, the titular character of the woman in black who had a child out of wedlock. this symbolic violence in the matrix is particularly relevant to the above scene between agent smith and neo, where neo’s retaliation involves not just physical fighting but defiance over his own identity.

setting in the matrix is quintessentially modern gothic, and is an integral part of characterising the differences between appearance and reality. the real world and the matrix are characterised both by their physical appearance and the characters associated with them. the whole movie is shot with relatively bleak green, grey and blue tones; the unnamed cities in the matrix were filmed in sydney, australia, but are supposed to appear as a city that could be located anywhere. this makes viewers somewhat comforted as the cities appear familiar, but their association with the antagonistic agents makes it difficult to truly identify with them. in contrast, the real world appears cold, crude and difficult to survive in, but is home to a crew of sympathetic rebels that the audience is supposed to root for. the city of zion is all harsh metal and can feel like a very temporary, unsafe residence but scenes such as the party in matrix reloaded characterise it as a place of community. the duality of each setting is typical of the gothic, and allows the viewer to explore the complexity of the movie’s conundrum. no option is the easy, immediate or obvious choice. the viewer must consult their own morals and values. ideas and anxieties surrounding moral decay are vital to the narrative of gothic tales; the genre explores and seeks to define humanity, and doing so often involves ethnocentric set of morals associated with good and bad. concepts like metamorphosis, identity, and the rejection of religion or christian/western ideals all play into this, but this is where modern gothic’s acknowledgement of complexity reframes things. most developments described as ‘modern gothic’ apply to sci-fi as it is an extension of, or evolved from,1960s-1990s gothic.

in presenting the aforementioned topics as multifaceted, the genre is able to imply or sometimes directly suggest that the ways in which presentations of them differ from established values is not immediately threatening, but simply different or even sympathetic. the matrix almost reverses traditional expressions of transgression by suggesting that those seeking to maintain the status quo are enforcing restrictive and immoral ideals, and that those whose agendas differ from the status quo are seeking liberation. this appears very similarly in angela carter’s previously mentioned work, exemplifying the parallels between sci-fi and the gothic. ‘the matrix stuff was all about the desire for transformation but it was all coming from a closeted point of view.’ lilly wachowski states. transformation and metamorphosis are topics so in line with the content of the gothic, allowing authors to explore and compare different states of being in order to eventually, sometimes implicitly, condemn one and promote the other. in reference to how she was drawn to use sci-fi as the medium for this story, she says that ‘we were existing in a space where the words didn't exist, so we were always living in a world of imagination.’ things that cannot work in our social climate can be allowed to work in an imagined scenario, with imagined consequences separate from the real world, similarly to the gothic’s use of the supernatural as a vehicle for taboo actions and values.

the wachowskis select science fiction tropes that are core to the gothic as a medium for the matrix’s allegorical meaning: taboo subjects, metamorphosis, binary oppositions, moral questions and stark settings. the matrix arguably serves as a bridge between the two genres, while also being unmistakably modern in its support of trans people and its open criticism of capitalism and social systems. this is not to say that earlier texts do not argue similarly points, but that the popularity of the matrix means that these points and messages are widespread and consumed by a massive audience. the movie was released in early june of 1999, and by august 2000, the matrix dvd had sold over three million copies in usa, making it the best-selling of all time. its unlikely that those three million dvd owners had all interpreted the movie the way the wachowskis had intended, as is the case with all media, but their anti-capitalist and pro-lgbt rhetoric was still present in the movie and has become glaringly obvious to more viewers over 20 years beyond its release date. using binaries as a tool to deconstruct other binaries is a device used more and more within sci-fi and the exploration of morals, systemic structures and the role of lgbt people are both vital to both genres. trans people are originally characterised as ‘Other’, but are rightfully humanised and encouraged to pursue their true identities: ‘to deny our impulses is to deny the very thing that makes us human.’

i.k.b

[thegayhimbo]

Stranger Things Season 4 (Vol 1) Review and Thoughts.

Apologies for this coming a little later than I thought. I ended up rewatching  season 4 twice. The first time was for the experience, and the second time was to take notes and pick up on details I missed initially.  Needless to say, it’s still playing through my head as I’m writing this.

For the sake of people who haven’t seen this season yet, I will be tagging this as SPOILERS.

Here’s the basic breakdown:

1.) I appreciated how the show took on a darker and more mature tone in season 4, especially in comparison to the last season. There were some extremely creepy moments that kept me on edge, and times where I didn’t know where the story was going. I love feeling like this when I’m watching a movie/TV show because it means the writers are doing a good job keeping me immersed. I was also engaged in all 4 story arcs (Vecna’s attack on Hawkins, El’s journey into the past, Mike and his friends trying to find El, Joyce’s trip to save Hopper) and never got bored with any of them. I also disagree with anyone who claims the episodes were overstuffed. If anything, I appreciated the longer running time in order for the Duffer Brothers to tell the story they wanted to, and I love how this season expanded on its mythology.

2.) The opening scene in the first episode hits hard with the recent shootings that have happened in the United States. I get why they put the Warning Label at the beginning of the episode.

3.) Eddie quickly became a favorite character for me, and I felt bad for everything he gets put through. I also liked his brief but friendly interactions with Chrissy at the beginning of the episode.

4.) I know that this gets El in trouble, and it’s something that’s not advisable to do in real life, but watching El smash in Angela’s face with the roller skates after she cruelly bullied her like that was darkly satisfying to watch. I have no sympathy for Angela, and there are people out there who would have been less kind to her than El was.

5.) It feels like they’re not-so-subtly hinting that Will has a crush on Mike and is going to come out as gay. I’m basing this on what I’ve seen so far: The painting he draws and takes with him but is reluctant to show Mike, his comment about being a ��third wheel” in Mike and El’s relationship, what he tells Mike about how scary it is to open up to the people you care about the most.......................they had Robin come out as lesbian last season, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they go this direction with Will as well.

6.) Speaking of Robin, she was a delight this season! ☺️ Her quirky and socially awkward nature provided some great moments when she was interacting with Steve and Nancy. I’m hoping they give her a good resolution when it comes to which girl she wants to be in a relationship with.

7.) I was both disappointed and disgusted with Dr. Owens’s betrayal of El. I know they try to make him look sympathetic and explain his reasons for doing what he did, but that was still unforgivable. I also don’t really understand his reasons for trusting Brenner at this point, especially when Brenner is the one who caused this most of this mess in the first place, and probably has his own agenda.

8.) Speaking of Dr. Brenner..........................CALLED IT!  I speculated he was alive long before season 4 happened. Poor El really can’t catch a break. 😥 

9.) I don’t know how people feel about this scene........................but I was okay with the way they handled Max’s grief over Billy’s death. As much as I despise Billy as a character, I don’t think it was OOC for Max to mourn him and regret the way their relationship was. I appreciated how the show dealt with the complexities of an abuse survivor dealing with the death of the person who abused them. I was worried for a while that they were going to use this story to absolve Billy for his abusive behavior in the previous seasons (as well as to pretend he was a good brother to Max when he wasn’t), and I was relieved they didn’t go that route. The scene where Max is at Billy’s grave and reads her letter to him was emotionally touching, and Sadie Sink did a fantastic job!

10.) It’s a small moment, but it’s telling that Max went out of her way to write a letter to Steve when she thought she was going to die. The few interactions the two of them have gave the impression that Max has started to see Steve as both a friend and a protective older brother-figure. Aww! 🥰 

11.) I love Steve and Nancy individually as characters, but for the love of God............PLEASE DON”T HAVE THEM GET BACK TOGETHER IN A ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP!!!!!!!! I do NOT want to see Nancy cheat on Jonathan, and I don’t want a love triangle where Nancy, Steve, or Jonathan come out looking like assholes. We already went through this in the first 2 seasons, and I am not interested in seeing this story get rehashed. Why can’t Nancy and Steve just be friends?

12.) Speaking of Jonathan.............am I the only one who feels like they’ve run out of ideas for where to take his character? 😒 His friendship with Argyle is okay, and Jonathan smoking weed was funny on occasion, but it’s starting to feel like the writers don’t know what to do with his character anymore.

13.) I’m reserving judgment on Lucas’s story right now because I’m not sure it’s completely finished yet. I’m theorizing that Lucas might be instrumental in stopping Jason and his gang.

14.) Speaking of Jason, am I the only one who was reminded of Gaston from Beauty and the Beast? Whipping the town into a mad frenzy to hunt down Eddie and the other members of the Hellfire Club, and to hell if innocent people get hurt or ostracized because of his actions. That town hall meeting was one of the most horrifying moments in the show. And that’s saying something considering how this show is chalk full or horrifying moments.

15.) The scene where Hopper and the other Russian prisoners try to fight the Demogorgon reminded me strongly of Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. Wouldn’t be surprised if the Duffer Brothers used that as inspiration for this season.

16.) Murray and Erica have started to grow on me. Erica’s sass was funny, and I like how she stood up for the Hellfire Club when Jason was painting them as a Satanic Cult. She was braver than anyone else in that room for speaking out against him. Likewise, I loved Murray’s fight with Yuri and his “black belt” karate skills! 😂 

17.) They finally managed to get Steve’s shirt off and objectify him! 🤣 

18.) Mike and Hopper were much more likable this season compared to season 3.

19.) I know Hopper is tough, but I still question his ability to ride on a snowmobile barefoot in the middle of wintry Russia at subzero temperatures, and not get frostbite on his feet.

20.) Minor question with Dr. Owens lab: Where do all the scientists and guards go once the day is over? Do they just live in that silo now? Do they have cars? If so, where are they parked, especially since they’re in the middle of a desert that they’re trying to keep off the grid? How do they get supplies delivered to them? I know these are minor questions, but they’ve been in the back of my mind since rewatching.

21.) More Nancy and Robin scenes please! 😀 

22.) Vecna was the right amount of disgusting and scary for a villain. I didn’t see the twist coming about him being Number 1, or even being Victor Creel’s son, and Jamie Campell Bower did a great job portraying him as a nihilistic sociopath. I also like the twist that it was Number 1 who massacred everyone at Hawkins Lab and not El. It seems like El finally has an adversary who’s equal in power to her.

23.) Soooo....................anyone think it’s possible that Mike, Dustin, and Lucas’s parents are going to find out about the Upside Down this season?

24.) Love the comparison between Vecna and Freddy Krueger! Lol! :)

I’ll come back and edit this if I have any more thoughts. Overall, I enjoyed this season and look forward to Volume 2 in July!

[leighistired]

Out Loud

A Martin character study AO3 Link

“G’night mum, love you.”

“Make sure you put the trash out, don’t want it stinking up the house.”

At 12 it occurs to Martin, he can’t recall the last time his mother said “I love you” to him. She must have. He knows she loves him, so why can’t he remember her saying it? Was it before dad left? It can’t have been that long ago. He knows if he brings it up she’ll just tell him off for being silly so he just decides to not say it unless she says it first. She doesn’t say it.

“Look how nice our neighbor’s garden is,” she says instead. “If only we could have such a nice garden.”

“The neighbors hire a man-” Martin tries to explain. He had just done law maintenance over the weekend; he would have to bring up memory issues next time they saw a doctor.

“Aren’t you happy with how I provide for you?” She snaps. “Ever since your lousy father left us I have done my best even with my health and all you can talk about is getting a bloody gardener.”

“Sorry, mum,” he says. It’s better not to argue when she gets like this.

“Forget it. Just get me my tea.”

He goes and brews her a cup of Oolong tea. It’s far too bitter for his tastes but it’s all he buys when he does the shopping. Perhaps that was it, instead of saying she loved him she just provided for him.

Martin tells himself that until she gets too sick to work and begins needling him to get a job at 14. Suddenly he’s providing for her on top of school and everything else but that didn’t mean she didn’t love him. She was just sick and the medication she was on made her tired most of the time so it wasn’t like he could expect her to be excited to see him; especially not when he’s the one bringing it to her.

“Is soup the only thing you buy?” She asks one evening when he brings her dinner.

“You didn’t have soup last night,” he reminds her patiently after a long day of school and work.

“Oh, so you think I’m ungrateful? I am your mother! I gave birth to you! You should be happy to take care of me!”

“It would be nice if you acted like a mum for once!” Martin snaps back. He regrets it as soon as he says it and doesn’t wait to hear her response. He leaves the house and sits in the park near his house for a long time and cries. Of course she loves him. It must be so hard on her to be stuck at home all day with no one to talk to and there he went snapping at her. She’s asleep by the time he comes home and neither of them mentions it in the morning.

Martin doesn’t know what he expects when he starts to transition. He hadn’t even called it a transition at first, he just likes how he looks with short hair, baggy clothes, and a sports bra. His mother disagrees. There are days she won’t even look at him and when she does it’s usually even worse.

“You cut your hair again,” she mentions one morning over breakfast. “Just when you were starting to look like a girl.”

“Yup,” Martin replies tight-lipped. He had been thinking it over for a while and he’s slowly coming to terms with the fact that he isn’t a girl. The way she says it hits him sharply. If she was never going to say “I love you” to a daughter, why would she say it to a son? He doesn’t bother coming out to her properly because he can already see the disgust on her face when he gets a proper binder.

When she decides to move into a full-time care facility, it’s almost a relief. He feels foolish for expecting her to say it when she leaves. He feels even more foolish when he says it in goodbye. The receptionist gives him a sympathetic look when she doesn’t say it back but the receptionist probably assumes his mother has memory issues and forgot who he was. She doesn’t. Still, he appreciates the gesture.

Dating is nearly impossible for most of his life. It’s easiest to blame his busy schedule; he doesn’t even have time for friends outside of school. The fact that no one even asks him out isn’t something he wants to think about. After he drops out of school and his mother leaves, dating and friendship don’t get any easier. He can’t let anyone he works with get close enough or they’ll find out his real age and utter lack of qualifications. Online dating is also out of the question for similar reasons. If one of his coworkers saw him with the age 19 in his profile they would either know he wasn’t actually 25 or they would think he was a creep and he didn’t exactly feel comfortable lying about his age to potential dates. Meeting people organically isn’t the worst thing in the world but it’s difficult. He makes a few passing friends at a local trans support group but even then, he can’t get close to anyone without risking someone discovering his falsified CV.

He doesn’t have his first real boyfriend until he’s 23 years old. They meet at a Holloween party thrown by a mutual acquaintance and date for almost five months before Martin ruins it.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Dominick, I love you,” Martin says as he serves dinner.

“Oh, uh, it’s a little fast to say that, don’t you think?” Dominick had stammered awkwardly. Was it? It didn’t seem like it to Martin and even if it was, it was true. He loved Dominick.

“I-I don’t think so,” Martin replies nervously. Some distant part of himself starts to berate him for being so needy.

“It kind of is. Let’s just pretend you never said it and we’ll see how we feel in a few more months, ok?”

“You mean we’ll see how you feel,” Martin says a little bitterly.

“Why can’t you just relax and enjoy the holiday?”

Martin had sighed in resignation and picked at the rest of his plate. They broke up a week later because Dominick felt like they were “looking for different things.”

Martin doesn’t have another serious boyfriend after that. He goes on a few more dates over the years but nothing that lasts longer than five months. Nothing that lasts long enough to say “I love you.” In some deep dark part of him, he wonders if he was ever meant for love. His father hadn’t loved him enough to stay, his mother hadn’t said she loved him in over a decade, and he’s not even sure he was in love with Dominick. He gets crushes, sure, but he just throws himself into his work at the Magnus Institute instead.

Working in the library isn’t bad. He gets along with his coworkers well enough but he can never get close to them. Not close enough to love them as friends or be loved in return.

Then he gets transferred to the Archives.

Jonathan Sims is not the first asshole boss Martin has ever had. He doesn’t understand why Mr. Bouchard sent him down to work in the Archive in the first place and his first impression with his new boss is less than stellar when a dog follows him into the building. It doesn’t help that Jon is good-looking and every once in a while Martin catches glimpses of a version of the Archivist without a stick up his ass. Like when he spends Martin’s ice cream birthday talking about emulsifiers. If only he would be clearer about what he actually wants from Martin. No report or follow-up seems to be good enough, even with the help of Tim and Sasha.

Martin works hard for Jon’s approval. He doesn’t know why he wants the recognition but it’s either this or quit and he really, really can’t quit. So he spends three full days looking for every woman named Angela over fifty in Bexley only to be berated for actually talking to one of them and then he offers to look into a case about spiders that clearly upsets Jon only to get trapped in his flat by a zombie worm woman.

When he finally escapes, he takes a few worm corpses with him and he dumps them on Jon’s desk while he’s in the middle of a statement. Let Jon try and disprove that When he gives his own statement he makes special emphasis on reminding Jon how hard he worked to meet his exacting standards. He refuses to be yelled at for this.

Except Jon believes him. More than believes him, in fact. He offers Martin a place to stay. Of course that would be enough to ignite a crush in Martin.

As soon as they get to document storage Martin sits on the cot and begins to cry with exhaustion. He expects Jon to leave but again he surprises him.

“I-it’s alright, Martin,” he says awkwardly as he pats Martin’s shoulder. “You’ll be safe here and I’m certain Elias will respond promptly to my request for extra security.”

“Thanks,” Martin sniffs. He can’t remember the last time he cried in front of another person.

“Would...would you like me to stay until you fall asleep? If- if you think it will help.”

“Oh, er...no...I’ll be fine, thank you. You should be getting home, anyway. It’s Saturday, Jon.”

Martin blacks out as soon as Jon shuts the door to document storage. When he wakes up he finds his crush on Jon stubbornly still in place.

He can’t help himself after that. He starts taking special care of Jon in hopes of encouraging the kind man he saw that night into emerging. At the very least Jon doesn’t yell at him as much and he even thanks Martin for the tea he brings. It’s then that he notices other things about Jon, like how rattled he gets by certain statements and how he’ll often go an entire day without eating or drinking anything unless someone brings him something. That someone being Martin. He also notices how late Jon leaves, if he leaves at all.

It’s on one such night of Jon still being in his office at 11 o’clock that Martin knocks on Jon’s office door.

“Jon?” He calls gently.

“Hzzmt! Martin?” Jon responds, having been startled awake from dozing at his desk. “You should be asleep.”

“And you should be home.”

“I see your point,” Jon sighs. “I’ll finish up here and head home. Unless you need something?”

“Actually….I-I was thinking,” Martin beings. “Since I sort of kicked you off your cot...D’you want to come back to document storage with me? You know, get some sleep?”

“What?”

“Er...forget I-”

“The cot would be rather cramped with both of us,” Jon warns as he gets up from his desk. “If...if you’re sure you want me to join you.”

“Yeah...I thought you had work to do?”

“It can wait until morning, no use keeping you up longer than necessary.”

Martin only half regrets offering to share a bed with his crush. Jon was right, the only way to fit both of them on the cot is for both of them to sleep on their sides (or for Jon to sleep on top of Martin but even the thought has his face burning) and it’s difficult for him to fall asleep with Jon’s back pressed against his. It’s good to hear Jon fall asleep, though, and as time wears on it’s easier for Martin to goad Jon away from work to sleep a few hours.

The more of himself Jon reveals the harder Martin falls for him. Especially after Jon accuses him of being a ghost during the Prentiss attack. Even with the guilt Martin feels every time he looks at Jon mummified in bandages. That was Martin’s fault. If he had just paid more attention then he wouldn’t have lost Jon and Tim in the tunnels. He does everything he can to try and make up for it; despite Jon becoming more and more closed off by the day. Intellectually, Martin knows that Jon has gotten like that with everyone, but something deep down makes Martin feel like it’s his fault Jon’s gotten so cold. It doesn’t help that Jon seems to have gotten friendly with the policewoman investigating the murder of the previous Archivist. Tim even seems to think they’re having an affair which does wonders for Martin’s self-esteem. Jon wouldn’t be the first straight man Martin has ever had a crush on but Martin was pretty sure Jon wasn’t straight. Again, he wonders if he’s done something wrong to push Jon away.

After Jon stumbles out of his office covered in blood claiming to have had an accident with a bread knife Martin finds all the excuse he needs to regularly drag Jon to the canteen to make sure he eats something. The silences during those lunches are hard. They had eaten together before but now Jon wasn’t talking to him. The most Martin could get out of him were a few one-word answers. He tries not to think about how it reminds him of his mum.

“So,” he tries for the millionth time while Jon picks at his sandwich. “Did I tell you what happened while you were at physical therapy the other day?”

Jon doesn’t say anything but he looks up with a gaze that bores into Martin.

“Uh...A little girl came in alone with a statement, she must’ve only been eight years old,” Martin says. Jon looks at him with an expression that almost seems afraid. “Don’t worry, it recorded fine on digital. She walked right down into the Archive, walked up to my desk, and said ‘Excuse me. My name is Beatrice Walker and I’d like to make a statement about a supernatural occurrence.’ She sounded so grown up and she refused to leave until I had recorded her statement. Turns out her dad was using the library for research and she had just wandered off.”

“What was her statement about?” Jon asks to Martin’s surprise.

“Oh, a hamster with mysteriously changing spots.”

“Ah,” Jon replies thoughtfully. “Not much need for follow-up there, I suppose.”

“Not unless you really need me to track down the shop where her parents picked up the new hamster.”

He catches the briefest of smirks from Jon before the conversation dies again.

After that Jon’s coldness and paranoia comes out in the form of a screaming accusation over letters Jon found in the trash. Martin barely manages to make it to the bathroom before he bursts into tears after coming clean about his CV. Tim thankfully doesn’t check on him while he silently curses his taste in men. Jon doesn’t meet his eye for the next week in what he bitterly hopes is guilt. He does seem slightly more willing to talk with Martin at lunch, though.

Then Jon goes missing. After trying to get Martin and Tim to go home early because Jon was feeling under the weather; he disappears. Not before apparently bludgeoning someone with a pipe and isn’t that exactly what he and Tim need to see as soon as they get back from a two-week kidnapping by a spooky door monster?

With Sasha gone, Jon missing, and Melanie King being suddenly hired by Elias, whatever’s left of Martin’s relationship with Tim deteriorates. More so when Martin becomes the only one in the world to believe Jon could be innocent. It’s probably that that makes the police detective “investigating” Jon so actively hostile toward him. Apparently, people say he and Jon are “close” and that probably only means the lunch thing but he wants to imagine it’s something more. Like people are somehow picking up that Jon likes him back.

When Jon comes back to confront Elias it’s all Martin can think to do to fall back on his tea-making. He ducks into Jon’s office with a piping cup of the overly sweet tea he spent months perfecting to Jon’s taste and finds him with his face buried in his one non-bandaged hand.

“Jon?” He calls as gently as he can while he closes the door behind him. “I brought you some tea.”

It’s when Jon looks up that Martin notices the bloody mess down the front of his shirt.

“You’re hurt. Let me go get the first aid-”

“No!” Jon interrupts frantically. “Just...Could you just stay with me for a moment?”

Martin acquiesces and they sit side by side on the sofa in Jon’s office in silence until Jon starts sniffling into his tea. He offers Jon a hug and Jon all but dives into his chest to cry. It’s the saddest most broken thing Martin has ever heard and it’s all he can do not to pull Jon into his lap and curl around him protectively.

“Martin...I-I...I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “For everything. For Sasha and Prentiss and...and for the way I treated you. You didn’t….no one deserves that.”

“None of that was your fault and I sort of deserved it. I didn’t actually know what I was doing.”

“You didn’t deserve it,” Jon insists before going back to quietly crying into Martin’s jumper. Martin doesn’t respond. He can’t recall the last time someone’s apologized to him. At least not like that. He’d been told off most of his life for not doing things up to people’s standards. A few people over the years had told him he didn’t deserve it but Jon was the first person to apologize. No wonder Martin was falling in love with him.

Damn it.

Cuddling doesn’t become a regular occurrence for them by any means but Jon begins doing more to seek Martin out after that. They eat lunch together more often and Martin stays up late to talk to Jon while he’s abroad. It drives home how deeply buried into Martin’s heart Jon has become. Especially after he comes back after going missing for a month and has the audacity to joke about being moisturized by a clown mannequin for a month.

He wonders if Jon feels the same way. Sometimes Jon will smile shyly at him, and he can almost believe that Jon would be interested in a relationship if the world wasn’t ending. The last time they speak before the Unknowing they’re in document storage.

“Are you ready?” Jon asks as he shifts nervously.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Martin signs. He heard what happened to Melanie. He knows what’s likely to happen to him. Some small part of him is screaming to just tell Jon his feelings like it’s the climax of an action movie.

“Stay safe,” Jon says.

“Come back,” Martin replies. Jon offers him a hug. It’s no movie kiss but it allows Martin to hold Jon as close as possible. Jon himself is hanging off of Martin’s neck and it feels like a final goodbye.

Then Elias confirms what Martin has always suspected deep down. That his mother never loved him or if there was a time when she did, she stopped when his father left. Even after everything. After he spent years taking care of her. After he had to quit school to care for her. All she ever saw was his father. All his transition did was to remind her further of how much he looked like his father’s son. At least it was worth it. To distract Elias so Melanie could find evidence to arrest him.

Then Peter Lukas shows up and reveals that Elias planned to get arrested. Worse than that, he offers Martin a promotion of sorts.

Then they get the news from Yarmouth. Tim’s body is found in a charred heap, Daisy is missing, and Jon is dead in all but brain activity. At least Basira is physically alive.

Martin spends as much time as he can next to Jon. He’s used to loving someone who can’t love him back. Maybe this is all he’s destined for. Love unrequited. He talks to Jon’s dreaming corpse. Tells him about his day, reads him poetry, even a statement, but nothing draws Jon out of his coma.

Then his mother dies. He barely has the emotional strength to mourn her. Instead, he scatters her ashes and mourns his childhood lost to trying impossibly to earn her love.

After the Flesh attacks, Martin makes a decision. He’ll join Lukas. It’ll probably lead to his death but what did that matter? His mother was gone and didn’t care about him anyway. Tim and Sasha were gone. Jon was basically gone. Basira and Melanie were the only people left that he vaguely cared about and by doing this he could at least protect them.

He visits Jon one last time in the hospital. He’s still covered in wires and his eyes still flit around violently behind his lids as Martin sits down next to him and takes his hand.

“Hey Jon,” he says quietly. “I...This is the last time I’m going to see you...Probably ever. I know, I know old dramatic Martin surely he’s exaggerating. I’m not. The Institute is in danger and...I have a way to keep Melanie and Basira a little safer, so I’m doing it. I just came by one last time to say...Jon, I...I love you. Goodbye.”

He gets up and presses a kiss on a part of Jon’s forehead not covered in wires before leaving. It’s alright that he doesn’t say it back. No one ever says it back to Martin.

When Jon wakes up everything becomes that much harder. Suddenly he had a reason to live and the way Jon pursues him makes him almost believe...No, even completing the thought would be dangerous for all of them. Jon trusts him enough not to be constantly badgering and that makes it worse. When Jon is there the Lonely makes Martin resent his presence and when Jon’s gone Martin resents his absence.

The final, most excruciating pain is when Jon comes after him in the Lonely. He’s excepted his fate in the chilling numbness of the Lonely. Maybe that’s why he says it. The certain, inevitable rejection would be numbed utterly. So he says it.

“I really loved you, you know?”

And Jon looks broken. Even after he rips Peter’s statement from him. Even when he reaches for Martin’s face with hands that seem far too warm and makes him See. Knowing Jon loves him isn’t like “knowing” his mother loves him. Instead of a lie born in Martin’s mind to stamp down the fear of rejection, it’s a reality pouring from Jon’s mind mingled with Jon’s fears of rejection.

Jon’s hands still feel too warm compared to the icy chill of the Lonely as he leads Martin out. Still, he refuses to let go all the way through the tunnels, the Institute, talking to Basira, packing at each other’s flats, and on to the train. The way to Daisy’s safe house feels like a blur and when they finally arrive it’s all Martin can do to remember to take off his binder before collapsing into bed with Jon’s warm arms around him.

He wakes to Jon’s quiet crying. The awful, stifled thing that breaks Martin’s heart.

“Jon,” he whispers.

“Martin? Did I wake you? I’m sorry, I’ll-”

“It’s alright, Jon,” he assures as he swaps their positions so Jon is tucked firmly against him. Jon makes another broken noise and Martin can’t stop himself from crying, too.

“I-I’m here, Martin. You aren’t on your own,” Jon soothes and Martin almost has to laugh. They lay crying and comforting each other until they both fall back asleep.

When they wake up properly they take stock of the safe house’s pantry and make a list of things to pick up in the village after breakfast. Martin gives in to the temptation to buy a new notebook to try and write poetry in. They have enough canned food to survive to the next ice age so they pick up perishable items like milk, bread, butter, and eggs. Jon also picks up fresh peaches and a box of Martin’s preferred tea. It’s easy to pretend like they going on a normal shopping trip as they walk up and down the aisles to check things off their list.

They return to the cabin and settle in. Martin sits on the sofa and tries to write out a poem while Jon tries to read a book from Daisy’s personal collection. After a while, Martin beings to feel Jon’s gaze on him.

“Is there something on my face?” He tries casually as he’s met with an expression he’s never been on the receiving end of.

“I was just thinking about how much I love you,” Jon sighs. Martin can’t stop the noise that comes out of him. All his life trying to earn love and Jon just says it while Martin’s thinking of a synonym for ‘yellow.’

“I-I don’t expect you to reciprocate,” Jon says quickly, his soft expression suddenly turning worried.

“But I do.”

“Oh…Oh!”

“Yeah.”

Jon starts giggling and it’s impossible for Martin not to follow suit until happy tears stream down both of their faces.

[shimmershae]

My thoughts on Episode 7--Promises Broken

Placed behind a cut for those of you that would rather escape my babbling, lol.  You’re welcome.  

The episode opens with Maggie, Elijah, Father Gabe, and Negan.  

Right away I can’t help feeling disappointed because the emotional core of last episode (Kelly and Connie’s reunion and the aftermath) seems like it’s being ignored and punted further down the road so we can waste another hour getting piece meal progress on the Reaper front, but I’m going to try to push my misgivings away and enjoy this episode for what it is, so.  

“Daryl just told us to go home.”  

And save your hides and keep the rest of the community safe?  I can’t argue that Negan might have an actual point here, lol.  But Maggie sure can.  

Not gonna lie.  When Negan came back with “I think he was being subtle. He said they were armed with lookouts” I had to LOL.  

“We will never be even.”  I mean.  Maggie been frustrating me with her stubbornness in this suicide mission, true.  But she right.  They will never, ever be even.  

“Ya’ll know Blackbeard, too?”  I admit it.  I laughed.  A little.  

Okay.  I don’t know if this bodes well for this episode or not, but the cold opening in this episode?  Was the most underwhelming cold open of this season.  

At least the opening credits still give me that old familiar rush of the heyday of TWD.  

Fake Stephanie and Eugene are on Walker clean up duty.  Hmm.  I think I’m going to refer to Fake Stephanie as Fifi until she gets a real name for brevity’s sake.  

Fifi handles herself surprisingly well with the Walkers.  Is she one of Mercer’s stormtroopers working undercover maybe?  

Somehow I doubt it’s true that our friends can trust “Lance” but whatever, lol.  

I hate to admit it but I’m already kind of bored with this episode.  We’re barely over 6 minutes in.  

I didn’t recognize Princess without her fluffy pink coat!  

Zeke is definitely struggling.  

I do like that these two  have been paired up.  They have taken to each other quickly and already have a good rapport.  There’s something endearing about their scenes together.  

“Never been afraid of hard work.  Kinda anti-friends who die from stubbornness.”  Have I mentioned lately how much I love Princess?  Because I really, really do.  

So it’s been days.  Has it been days that Maggie and Negan and Co. have been outrunning the Reapers?  I’m talking since they left the safe house.  Does that mean that it’s also been days since Kelly and Connie’s reunion?  This timeline is so slow and yet they keep telling us it’s been days and making me think we’ve been missing time.  Like I can’t even.  

You know Carol’s “Pookie is in danger” senses have to be big-time tingling by now if it’s been DAYS.  

Also?  Alden almost certainly has to be dead.  

But I digress.  They obviously don’t want us getting hung up on the apparent time warp between ASZ, Meridian, and the Commonwealth.  It’s like the Bermuda Triangle of the ZA.  

“A person with your pedigree...”  

Okay then.  Commonwealth is full of uppity assholes.  Good to know.  

Yumiko looks classy!  I say that in my best Princess voice, lol.  

Well.  At least they’ve given Daryl Dog back.  Has Dog come to his senses though?  That is the question.  

Daryl sharing a smoke with the enemy to gain some intel.  Or maybe just the keys to food storage.  

So.  Another redshirt (Elijah’s sister’s friend) we don’t know bites the dust.  Meh.  Including that tidbit in the trailer was purposefully misleading, lol.  Not that I want people to die, but still.  

“But the one?  He’s mine.”  Let’s take bets.  Was it Carver Elijah has a beef with because it just seems like it was.  Could also be that his name is the only one I know, lol.  

Where is Maggie sending our hobbled Father G?  

“I kept my mask for practical and sentimental reasons.”  Negan?  You almost had me.  He really can’t help his inherent asshole-ishness can he?  

But seriously.  Yuck at what they about to do because I assume Alpha and Co. at least cured the nasty skins.  

I wish I could say I give a damn that they’re attempting to give Leah some more likeable layers but it’s a cheap cheat so naw.  

There’s that damn river that symbolizes the great divide between Daryl and his love and his family.  At least it’s pretty.  

I’m with Daryl.  Is Pope just looking to cleanse the earth of those he doesn’t feel belong or what?  Wheedle the truth out of her, Daryl.  

“You never needed anyone to make you strong.”  

Think our guy has ever said this to his real girl?  

It’s kinda funny that the Whisperer flunkie is now the herding Whisperer tutor.  

Is that the Reaper’s version of a priest?  Sorry.  I swear.  I’ve been trying to pay attention during their scenes.  But my mind wanders because it feels like Woodbury and the Sanctuary all over again.  The Whisperers at least were elevated by Samantha Morton, Ryan Hurst, Thora Birch, and yes, Jeffrey Dean Morgan.  Like I love Norman Reedus and the character he’s crafted in Daryl but he’s not enough to have me enthralled with Leah and these dudes.  I don’t care if they were all Calendar pinups before the ZA.  

Truly.  A+ casting with Yumiko’s brother.  

Yeah.  Something’s definitely fishy about Tomi’s reluctance to go back to his old life in the Commonwealth, but the desire for a slower, less stressful existence is definitely relatable so I’m not going to hold that part against him at all.  

What did Maggie say after Elijah asked if Negan had changed?  Because I replayed it a handful of times and still don’t know.  

This Lancy Hornsby dude reeks of slimy politician.  

Too much one on one Daryl and Leah in this episode.  Without any kind of chemistry at least these two drag each other and their parts of the episode down.  Leah’s character is a fail for me and it has nothing to do with shipping reasons.  She’s just not believable or authentic to her role as a mercenary.  

“If I could do it all over again, I’d have killed every single one of you.”  Damn.  Well.  He’s being true to himself, I guess.  Unapologetically Negan.  

Again.  I can’t say Negan’s wrong exactly but shit does he deliver some uncomfortable truths.  

Princess’s childlike delight over treats is <3.  

Look at Eugene running toward danger!  OG Eugene would never.  Abe would be so proud.  

Eugene and Fifi actually work pretty good together but it all feels so staged.  I feel sorry for our guy.  

“This guy was being, well, an asshole.”  LMAO @ Josh’s delivery. The asshole definitely deserved that punch and his date deserved to be eaten.  

Real Stephanie is so pretty.  

Aww.  She’s concerned about Eugene.  

Oh shit.  Eugene punched Pamela Milton’s little entitled prick of a son.  This feels like the ASZ Monroes all over again.  Sorry.  I can’t remember their names.  

Poor Eugene.  Have I said that already?  

Is this Lance Hornsby guy the lesser of two evils or...”  

All the chances you’ve gotten, hmm?  Seems to me they’ve been set up for some failure too, though.  

Maggie and Negan leading a herd where?  Meridian?  

That poor woman.  Just wanting her family safe and spared of seeing her meet her maker.  

f

So Leah’s not completely cold.  Okay.  Doesn’t mean she’s able to be saved though.  

At this point, Kang is just  yanking Daryl’s chain and ours in the process.  

Even hidden behind that skin mask, Elijah made me tear up when he saw his sister.  

No previews?  What a copout.  

Not Kang correlating Maggie and Negan to child and coach, lol.  

The narrative they keep pushing about the villains having families and FEELINGS doesn’t change much for me, Angela.  Gracie was the only innocent in that outpost Team Family attacked.  I’m not saying they should have done it but stop trying to make the bad guys sympathetic.  It isn’t earned.  

Interesting how she mentions Gabe is trying so very hard to hold onto faith.  

If Leah’s the frog boiling in that pot?  They better be serving frog legs to the starving community she’s hunting.  Just saying.  

Overall impression of this episode?  

It was boring.  No seriously.  

I wish I could say I liked it better but it was just meh.  I can’t even muster up any words because I just feel blah about it and that’s not a good feeling to have going into the first final (mid?  half?  tri?  I don’t know what to call it) episode of the season.  

Withholding the previews further adds to the doldrums because what is there to actually be excited about here after that episode?  At least try to pique our interest, Angela.  

[felikatze]

Hello I will once again, mf rambling since I have lob brainrot

Ooo I would like to say that Carmen's goal is more or less the same and even after hundred and thousands of years she has never once grow to hate humanity seen from her answer toward Angela's question of "are you not going to stop what you are doing?" by saying "not until everyone learns to love themself for who they are". Her dialogues during Keter realization are still consistent with what we already learned from her previous goal being "I want to whisper into people ear and let them know their deepest desire so it could be manifested to the surface" with what her goal in lob about wanting people to be free (mentally speaking in a way of not being constrainted by social standard or themself) and be able to obtain the power to reach their end meet themself without the need to depend on the Wing (lead to the creation creation EGO and so on and in lor Distortion). I would say that Carmen's decision of whispering Angela to follow her desire is less in the sense of "my ideal was wrong all along" but plainly what it is being that she motivate Angela to just, be free and be herself, after all it is her ideology that people should be free and be achieve anything with their own hand. I think the only that actually changed about Carmen is her own realization that she is also a human therefore can be selfish and have desire of her own (I.e her bloodbath quote of "I want to live, when the thought run through me my body shudder with regret" or Angela comment in the true ending about how Carmen is human after all so she must have her own desire and she wanted to live till the end to watch her dream success as well) which is like, good for you girl, go wild <3

I WOULD ALSO LIKE TO SAY THAT, I FIND IT very interesting that despite being a person with weak heart Carmen is not naive till the point where she thought her dream could be achieve without sacrifice. Her decision to sacrifice Enoch is explicitly because she found herself in a corner and thought that a result is necessary no matter what cost, the way she handed thing down to A because she is aware that in the future she must make sacrifice, she must hurt other. And like it not like she entirely dumping everything on A since she also tried hard to reach till a certain point and like, she is like those feeling of like "when you tried to be mentally prepare for something for a long time and thought you could handle it but then when that thing actually happened it hit different". Where she is aware of the inevitable sacrifice but upon facing the decision where she has to made it and realized the gravity of it she doesnt dare to look forward to the future or moving forward. She was also under the pressure of being this "perfect leader" that she put on for other people to put all the expectations on her too so when the first crack appears everything just slowly going down which is super oof tbh 😔.

Also on topic of Carmen I'm obsessed with the fact that day 48 where Abram showing flashback where he compared Carmen to be on the cliff of expectation and one crack and she will go down and never be able to lift her head again (which has happened), him despairing about how you will fall to the ground no matter how many expectations you have and then Angela in the true ending of lob going "the taller you stand the harder you fall" to mock A like the poetic analogy

quite acute of you, i'd say, dear anon!

I'd agree with how you said, Carmen's goal remains the same: freeing the people of the City to pursue their own happiness.

Now that I think abt the dialogue more, I think you're probably right about her not hating humanity. Even so, her saying that "people can only love themselves" is still much more cynical than what we've previously seen of her. A stance like that pretty much rejects the existence of compassion, even though her wish for people to express themselves is, itself, compassionate.

In the end she was just human indeed. Everyone in the lab put her on a pedestal as the figurehead, and she simply could not handle it. Nice use of that day 48 quote, god knows I don't remember dialogue well enough to quote it directly.

Carmen is in the end also a very complicated character. On one hand, it's a very "Well, what did she expect?" sort of reaction, on the other, as you said, the pressure got to her. It all just snowballed~

Though her goal is the same, I'd still say her method is different in the end, otherwise she wouldn't have tried to stop Angela, even if she respects Angela's decision. I wonder a bit about the pre-bloodbath keter realization scene, with the lob angela confronting lor angela. All later scenes deal with Carmen, so is that also Carmen, or nah? If it is, that Angela has a very "I know what's best for you and you don't" attitude.

It ultimately depends on the angle her goal led to. For the Seed of Light, as intended by Ayin and later Angela, is for people to "face their true feelings and express them." (pulling from the beginning of Keter realization)

Carmen's "exposing the true self" seems the same, yeah, but the way she goes about it, the Distortions themselves are happy, but there's too many bodies in their wake. It's why Angela makes the choice to spread the Light instead of hoarding it, too. If she selfishly pursued only her own revenge, it would ring hollow with guilt.

Also sometimes what people think makes them happy in one moment ends up not being true at all.. e.g. again Philip where U'm not sure deciding to never feel feelings again is like, a good choice. Generally. If you refuse to acknowledge your feelings, even the negative ones, and just run away from them in pursuit of your grand goal, it WILL bite you. Like, perhaps, Carmen, trying to shoulder too much responsibility by herself, crumbling under it.

I do love your interpretation of Carmen as a more sympathetic character! It's similar to a lot of my feelings abt trash man Ayin tbh,, God these two.

Also what you said abt Carmen being supportive of Angela,,, I do love that a lot! I feel like Angela got a lot of closure from her "parents."

[athenagrantnash]

Gunpowder Milkshake review

There are four elements to a film that, when all are achieved, can elevate a film from “good” to “great”; and any film that can achieve at least two of these elements is certainly a good and enjoyable film.

These elements are (in no particular order)*:

Aesthetic

Cast (charm, likeability, acting skill, etc)

Characters

Writing (story, script, dialogue etc.)

*While all four elements are important, writing is in my opinion the most important of the four.

So does Gunpowder Milkshake achieve all of these elements? Let’s discuss. (not a spoiler free review)

1) Aesthetic

I cannot say enough good things about the aesthetic of this film. The lighting, the camerawork, the set design, the costumes, it is all top notch. There is never a moment where what you are looking at isn’t visually engaging.

One of my favorite elements is how much is said about each character based on their costumes. 

Karen Gillan’s Sam wears an orange jacket for the majority of the film - a jacket she stole because she didn’t like the clothing provided for her. Early in the film it’s established she doesn’t quite know what kind of assassin she is - she is as undefined as her jacket. But there’s a sportsmanship about her, as she won’t kill the three stooges when they aren’t trying to kill her, and she draws the line at ever letting a child be in danger.

Chloe Coleman’s Emily spends the entire movie in a yellow coat - representing the optimism and joy that comes with childhood innocence, an innocence that at the end is marred by the blood red handprint across the back of her coat.

The clothes worn by Angela Bassett’s Anna May, Carla Gugino’s Madeleine, and Michelle Yeoh’s Florence are all very similar, but specific to each character.

Anna May wears dark blue - signifying depth and power - and she has more layers than anybody else - Madeleine has the sweater/jacket, Florence has the vest, and Anna May has both. And just like her clothing, she has layers. You can sense the power and ferocity, and anger that lies rippling just below the surface, only just barely kept in check. 

Florence wears green - signifying serenity - , and her outfit has nothing loose or soft about it. She is exactly as she appears to be - exactly as a tiger stalking its prey appears to be - quiet, contained, serene... deadly. It’s her serenity that keeps Anna May’s ferocity in check, but don’t mistake that for safety.

Madeleine wears pink - signifying kindness - and instead of Florence’s vest or Anna May’s vest/suit jacket combo, she instead wears a soft sweater. She is kind, trusting to her instincts, and protective of Emily. But her kindness is not weakness - just look at her weapon of choice if you disagree.

And while everybody else is wearing bright and/or striking colors, Sam’s orange jacket, Emily’s yellow coat, Anna May’s blue suit, Florence’s green vest, Madeleine’s pink sweater, Scarlet - completely at odds with her name - is wearing colors that are practically nondescript. She has isolated herself from the other Librarians, and that’s shown in a beautifully subtle way through her clothing. And yet, in a further note of subtlety, she is wearing soft oranges, showing her connection to Sam (also in orange) and how that connection is what brings her back from her isolation. Her clothing is loose, but not soft, reflecting a deceptive casualness, which matches her personality perfectly.

I’m not even going to touch on the visual brilliance of the lighting, set design, and camerawork because words literally will not do it justice. You just have to watch and see for yourself.

Additionally, an argument can be made that, since “action” is not its own category, that would fit into this section too - and while it’s literally impossible to top how visually engaging the lighting/set design/camerawork/etc. are, the action is certainly on par with it. The fights are all incredibly fun and creative, and they take advantage of the setting they are placed in, the road blocks or handicaps the characters have to work with, and at no point ever feel stale, repetetive, or boring.

So where does this movie rank in aesthetic? 5/5

2) Cast

There is not a weak link in this entire cast! Karen Gillan, Lena Heady, Angela Bassett, Michelle Yeoh, Carla Gugino, Paul Giamatti - every single one of these actors has proven time and again how much talent, charm, and onscreen charisma they have. Relative newcomer Chloe Coleman legitimately holds her own, even among such a star-studded cast, and is simultaneously sympathetic, charming, likable, and absolutely adorable.

Even bit players like the three stooges that Sam takes out, Emily’s dad, the doctor, and Jim McAlester play their roles to perfection.

As a side note, am I the only one who was a little bit disappointed that McAlester’s first name was Jim? It would have been hilarious if his first name was Kevin, and then we could have drawn our own conclusions about the criminal turn Kevin McCallister’s life took when he truly embraced his childhood propensity for chaos.

So where does this movie rank in cast? 5/5

3) Characters

This is where the movie starts to falter a little bit. Every single character is likable, but a lot of that can be attributed to how excellent the cast is.

Most of the characters are fairly cookie cutter, and while there is nothing about them that is particularly annoying or stereotypical, none of them have enough depth to truly be “great” characters.

The closest any character has to having any sort of depth or complexity is Nathan, who - while he doesn’t hesitate to send an entire army after Sam - sends her a private message and provides the only help he can.

Not that any of the characters are bad - I think my analysis of the lead lady’s clothing proves my opinions on that pretty conclusively - but they could have been better

Additionally, at just under 2 hours there is barely enough time to develop them properly. Florence in particular could have been much further fleshed out in ways that are not solely inferred through the costume design and acting.

The relationships between Emily and Sam, Sam and Scarlet, Scarlet and Anna May, Sam and Madeleine, Anna May and Madeleine, and Madeleine and Emily are done fairly well. I understood each dynamic and how it worked in the larger story that was unfolding. Florence had none of that - to the point that (if not for the inferred analysis based on clothing) I’m still not entirely sure if she or Anna May was the de facto leader of the librarians. If they had added something - either her legitimately having a moment where she takes charge or (even better) establish a rivalry between Florence and Anna May over who is in charge that would have done a lot, but unfortunately as it stands Florence didn’t get the development that Michelle Yeoh deserved.

So where does this movie rank in characters? 3/5

4) Writing

If the movie started to falter a bit when it came to its characters, it faltered even more when it came to the writing. In fact it’s the writing that can be blamed for the characters not given the development they should have gotten, even if these are two different categories.

And yes, it’s an action film, so technically the plot takes second place to the fisticuffs and gunplay - and while I’m not going to hold the genre against the film, even as an action film the script could have been a lot stronger.

Most importantly, the movie should have been at least thirty minutes longer in order to allow more growth and development for each of the characters. One scene that should have been in the movie was one of Emily while she was captured by McAlister. He should have tried to turn her against Sam, not realizing that the revelation that he had killed her dad had already done that. But Emily is smart, and the more he talks the more she realizes she’s directing her anger at the wrong person. Then when Sam turns herself in so that she’ll be safe it solidifies it for her - Sam might have pulled the trigger, but she’s not the heartless killer that she should be angry at.

And that is just one example of how a longer runtime and a few more rewrites could have given the story and characters a lot more depth.

Now onto the white elephant in the room.

“There’s a group of men called the firm” (yes, I’m going there... somebody has to).

I get what the film was going for, but this is the most perfect example of why it needed one or two more rewrites. 1) If it’s a group of men, why is Sam working for them and why is she recognized as the best at what she does? The movie is trying to imply inherent sexism, but because it felt the need to slam us over the head with that line all subtlety was lost.

Sam could have just called it “a group” and then we the audience would see that while men and women work for them, the ones calling the shots are all men. And then to turn around and show how much more prepared, professional, and competent the Librarians are would make this point in a much more subtle and compelling way. There is a lot more power in using that kind of storytelling than in explicitly telling your point to the audience in so many words. 

However, while most movies that go this route make all their male characters useless or stupid, Gunpowder Milkshake did manage to not do that. Other than the three stooges, which Nathan chose to send after Sam because he didn’t want her killed, therefore by design are supposed to be useless, all of the people that our mains go up against feel like legitimate threats.

And I’m glad, because as a woman I do not like the recent tendency to turn men into useless idiots and then imply that is the only way the women managed to defeat them. I want women going up against men who are at their best, and still win. And this movie did that.

Additionally, I will say that the whole “group of men” thing is a minor quibble on my part, as it doesn’t fall into the pitfalls most other movies who are making this point fall into. But it is unfortunately an example of why the writing could have been much better.

Add in some awkward dialogue that only worked because of how ridiculously charming and likable everybody in the cast is, and we unfortunately have writing that is sub par and does not live up to the standards set by the other three elements. The aesthetic, the cast, and even the characters deserved better writing.

As a side note: Where do these people get their milkshakes that they manage not to melt even after three hours? Because that’s some circa 3000 level galaxy brain and I want it.

So where does this movie rank in its writing? 2/5

Conclusion:

I said at the top that for a movie to be “great” it has to meet all four elements, but to be "good” it only has to meet two, and Gunpowder Milkshake  definitely  meets two of the elements.

Where it begins faltering and falls short of being “great” is in the characters and the writing, which is a shame because the brilliance of the cast and the genuinely engaging and breathtaking aesthetic deserved to be in a movie that can be called great.

I would love a sequel to this movie that does flesh out the relationships better, provide more depth to the characters, and allows for the writing to match the quality of the cast/aesthetic.

So what is my total ranking for this film? 3.5/5

It’s good, and I will definitely watch it again and recommend it to people, but it so easily could have been great.