#If I have to become a Disney employee just so I can walk out a day later with the TLG series bible up my ass then so fucking be it /j

[kaythefloppa]

If a series bible for The Lion Guard, if one that even exists, is ever leaked onto the Internet, expect me to be there or expect me to be dead /hj

[steveharrington]

Disney is so weird bc like it’s very much a luxury thing but adults who can visit (for fun) every day are so out of touch. Like I have a friend who’s mom used to work there so she went very frequently as a child in a reasonable way (cheaper for employees, lived right by it, hell I’m sure yearly passes aren’t even super expensive compared to like, visiting for a solid week or two) but she still managed to be normal about it.

yeah like a lot of local residents who have a season pass are still really normal about it i think the real insanity comes when people become streamers and make going to disney world like. their job. because they get it in their head that they’re doing such back breaking laborious work because they…..walk around a disney park and hold their phone up…..god i could talk about this forever like. first of all so many streamers are So rude i personally think it’s really rude to have your phone out all full brightness on a ride and it’s like Egregiously rude to talk to your stream on a ride, they all just have such a sense of entitlement!! there’s one particular streamer my mom watches sometimes and we both hate him (it’s become like a hate watch thing for her) and i could write an Essay about why i hate that guy but one example is he was on rise of the resistance and ended up in a rider group with a family that had young children and the mother was like hey could you please not stream while you’re in here with my kids i don’t really want them on camera and he got MAD??? like he did pause the stream but when he came back he was so openly annoyed and kept complaining about how “he has the right to film in the park” like dude you are fucking 40 why do you NEED to stream this fucking disney world ride even if it means violating the privacy of children?????? idk so many of them are just freaks and i hate them

[nyxelestia]

I posted 3,226 times in 2022

102 posts created (3%)

3,124 posts reblogged (97%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@thecookiemonster77

@clotpolesonly

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I tagged 3,085 of my posts in 2022

Only 4% of my posts had no tags

#kinnporsche the series - 399 posts

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#the untamed - 128 posts

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Longest Tag: 117 characters

#so i think my parents assumed i would either be a surgeon or a serial killer so i got lots of doctor toys for a while

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

The media’s portrayal of Jon Stewart criticism of the Harry Potter goblins honestly explains a lot about fandom puritanism and social media mobs.

The tl;dr for anyone who is out of the loop is that on a podcast in December, Jon Stewart criticized the goblins in Harry Potter as being antisemitic in their depiction/origin - which is true, and people have been saying that for years.

As far as I know, though, he only called the tropes and goblins themselves antisemitic, not JKR herself. Yet now multiple media outlets are claiming that Jon Stewart accused her of antisemtism - and now, claiming Stewart is trying to walk back or deny his criticism when he rightfully says he did not.

And honestly, this explains a lot about the telephone game the media has become in the age of social-media and Internet dominated news.

677 notes - Posted January 5, 2022

#4

just in time

759 notes - Posted October 28, 2022

#3

929 notes - Posted March 24, 2022

#2

Pixar’s full letter, obtained by Variety, follows:

A Statement to Leadership from the LGBTQIA+ Employees of Pixar & Their Allies

We are writing because we are disappointed, hurt, afraid, and angry. In regards to Disney’s financial involvement with legislators behind the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, we hoped that our company would show up for us. But it didn’t.

Monday’s email, “Our Unwavering Commitment to the LGBTQ+ Community”, rang hollow. It began with the claim that Disney has a long history of supporting the LGBT community, but Disney Parks did not officially host Pride until 2019, in Paris alone. Disney has a history of shutting down fan-created Pride events in the parks, even removing same-sex couples for dancing together in the 1980’s. Additionally, Disney began capitalizing on Pride in 2018 with The Rainbow Mickey Collection, (while de-emphasizing the terms like LGBTQ+ and not even featuring explicitly LGBTQIA+ pieces such as Pride flag pins until 2021). To this end, it feels terrible to be a part of a company that makes money from Pride merch when it chooses to “step back” in times of our greatest need, when our rights are at risk.

The second claim stated that “corporate statements do very little to change outcomes or minds”. However, the very email making this claim opened with a corporate statement regarding the ongoing situation in Ukraine. Eight days after Russia invaded Ukraine, Disney paused the release of theatrical films in Russia and announced “We will make future business decisions based on the evolving situation.” Following the siege on the capital in 2021, Disney stopped all political donations to members of Congress who had objected to the presidential election results. In 2016, Disney told the state of Georgia: “We will plan to take our business elsewhere should any legislation allowing discriminatory practices be signed into state law” in response to the controversial Religious Liberty bill. By taking a stand, Disney directly affected the legislative outcome in Georgia. It has been proven that Disney’s corporate statements can and do make a difference.

Finally, we come to the push for Content as the answer. We at Pixar have personally witnessed beautiful stories, full of diverse characters, come back from Disney corporate reviews shaved down to crumbs of what they once were. Nearly every moment of overtly gay affection is cut at Disney’s behest, regardless of when there is protest from both the creative teams and executive leadership at Pixar. Even if creating LGBTQIA+ content was the answer to fixing the discriminatory legislation in the world, we are being barred from creating it. Beyond the “inspiring content” that we aren’t even allowed to create, we require action.

We are calling on Disney leadership to immediately withdraw all financial support from the legislators behind the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, to fully denounce this legislation publicly, and to make amends for their financial involvement. While signing on to donate to the HRC is a step in the correct direction, the shareholder meeting on Wednesday made it clear that this is not enough. Throughout the shareholder meeting, Disney did not take a hard stance in support of the LGBTQIA+ community, they instead attempted to placate “both sides” – and did not condemn hateful messages shared during the question and answer portion of the meeting. This is not what it means to “unequivocally stand in support of our LGBTQ+ employees, their families, and their communities.”

Disney taking a stand by honoring their company values has changed the course of legislation in the past. If Disney is true in its values, it will take a decisive public stand against the discriminatory legislation occurring in Florida and offer tangible support for the LGBTQIA+ communities affected by bigoted legislation sweeping the country. Stand against this bill in Florida and against the similar bills in South Carolina, Arizona, Virginia, and Tennessee. Stand against the transphobic legislation in Texas, Iowa, Utah, Kansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Missouri, and Alabama. Many hateful groups are attempting to eradicate us through legislation – we need you to stand with us entirely, not in empty words.

This matter is not something that can wait until Reimagine Tomorrow in April, or Pride Month in June. This matter needs to be addressed now. This is urgent. 42% of LGBTQIA+ youth seriously considered suicide in 2021, including more than half of transgender and nonbinary youth, with a large factor being the lack of support that these discriminatory legislations enable. Disney claims to care for the welfare of children, but supporting politicians like this directly hurts one of their most vulnerable audiences. There are lives at stake and Disney’s support could save those lives. “We still have more work to do,” your email said. This is that work.

Signed with Pride, The LGBTQIA+ employees of Pixar, and their allies

Disney has not publicly responded to Pixar’s claims, but after criticism over its belated response to the just-passed “Don’t Say Gay” bill, the $148.5-billion-dollar company pledged an astonishingly meager $5 million to “nonprofit organizations that advance social justice. The Human Rights Campaign advocacy group has refused to take the money—which is, for the record, 0.00003367 percent of Disney’s net worth—until the company takes more substantive action to combat the bill.

1,478 notes - Posted March 11, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

See the full post

2,512 notes - Posted July 28, 2022

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[naralanis]

little bumps in the road (pt. 8)

Previously on LBitR

“For the record, I still say Disney World would have been far safer than this insanity.”

Lena does her best to ignore Kara’s muttering. While this may be one of the more insane schemes she has ever concocted in her life, the truth of the matter is that she would have never, ever suggested it if she didn’t honestly think they could pull it off.

“Maybe,” she concedes, squinting at the drugstore compact sitting on the nightstand as she readjusts the wig. “But it certainly wouldn’t be as productive.”

She turns to Kara, who’s still frowning, and fluffs the strawberry blonde locks cascading from her own head. Maybe she should just bleach her hair and be done with it.

“So, what do you think?”

Kara’s frown deepens considerably. “You still look like you, Lena. I’m not sure about this.”

“Wait, hold on; I’m missing a crucial piece,” Lena retorts, reaching for a pair of thick, black-rimmed glasses sitting on the nightstand. “Ta-da,” she says flatly, pulling them on. “Unrecognizable, I’m basically a different person.”

Kara pulls a face, and Lena mentally kicks herself, rushing to pull the frames off.

“Kara, I didn’t mean...”

The blonde raises a hand, stopping her in her tracks. “I know,” she says, though she does so through clenched teeth. “I still think this is a monumentally bad idea. Explain to me why I can’t go with you.”

Lena sighs. “Because you’re supposed to be dead, Kara--it’s far less risky if I go in alone. Even if I get caught, you remain a secret. Plus-- I know the building. I used to own it, once upon a different Earth, remember?”

Kara crosses her arms over her chest, looking entirely unconvinced. “I still think we should wait for Alex. She’s going to respond soon, Lena, I know it.”

“Maybe she will, maybe she won’t. Call her again tomorrow,” she says, as evenly as she can. “But I’m doing this, Kara. I can’t just stand by while you go without powers for another day--who knows when Alex will actually be able to help? I need to do this.”

Kara stares, pensively and worriedly, not saying a word for a long time. She looks at the wig Lena’s wearing, at the outfit they bought a few towns over to make her look like some intern--button-down, dark jeans, oxfords, at the medical supplies they’ll use to take a sample of her blood and transport it to LuthorCorp tomorrow. Her gaze lingers on the glasses Lena’s still holding, and she releases a sigh, sounding more than defeated--she sounds afraid.

“You know you don’t have to do this, right?” she waves a hand over the considerable space between them, seemingly at a loss. “There’s nothing to... atone for, or whatever.”

Lena smiles, knowing it doesn’t reach her eyes.

“We’ll have to agree to disagree there.”

Kara looks anguished, seems to be grinding the gears in her head, like she knows that at this point she’s just grasping at straws.

“Is it too late to find a vet lab somewhere?” she tries, with no conviction behind her tone.

“No, but LuthorCorp will have the equipment for much faster, and more accurate results. I can do this, Kara. I promise.”

Kara visibly deflates, and Lena knows the matter will be dropped, just like that. “Fine. I concede. I’m never talking you out of this, am I?”

Lena feels her smile twitch a little, but she reaches over the gulf between them, putting the glasses back on the nightstand.

“No, darling, I’m afraid not.”

Kara’s responding sigh seems to echo in the motel room; it lingers in the air, heavy with a fear Lena knows she’ll try to brush off.

“Alright, fine. Now please take off that wig--you as a blonde is freaking me out.”

Breaking into LuthorCorp is quite simple, in a manner of speaking: all one needs to make it through the main doors is a swipe card. If she had the necessary materials, Lena could easily clone one with her eyes closed, but as it is, she needs to acquire one from an actual employee.

That is easily accomplished; Kara, decked out as tourist (complete with a neon-orange fanny-pack of her choosing), distracts a low-level minion having his lunch break on the public plaza right across the street from the main building, and Lena just walks right past them, disguise in place. His entry card and lab-coat are in her hands in less than a second, and in the other, she’s already crossing the street.

With any luck, Lena will be in and out of the building before the card is ever reported missing.

The problem, however, lies in getting into a laboratory. Any of the more equipped labs, those working on secretive (and likely illegal) projects, would lie behind layers and layers of security Lena has neither the time nor the tools at present to even try to break.

To their luck, Lena doesn’t actually need to try to sneak into any high-clearance labs--all she needs is a solid thirty minutes with a mass spectrometer of her own design; a handy not-so-little piece of machinery that had become standard in all L-Corp labs in their previous Earth, and, because Lex cannot resist stealing a good idea, LuthorCorp.

Still, even to access a simple, run-of-the-mill lab at LuthorCorp, Lena needs to go through biometric sensors--retina scanners, to be precise.

And maybe, just maybe, Lena had neglected to mention that little detail to Kara when they discussed the plan for the umpteenth time that morning while she methodically took a sample of Kara’s blood, but that’s neither here nor there.

Once she’s through the main doors-- Kryptonian blood sample packed into a Thermos full of ice in her purse (I am amazed and disturbed at how easily you were able to get medical supplies like these, Lena, seriously), it’s easy enough to make her way through the  elevators, carrying a stack of papers to look the part of an intern--no one even bats an eye.

The cameras on the third floor are exactly where Lena had expected them to be, so she walks down the corridor to where she knows is a supply closet, and swipes in with no problem. The layout of the building really had not changed at all since she last worked there, even if that had happened on a literal other reality.

Once she’s in, Lena only has to wait. She counts the seconds in her head in French, both to keep track of time, but also to calm her racing heartbeat, because this--this is the biggest gamble of her plan.

Since she obviously does not have a way to bypass the biometric scanners, Lena’s only option is to get someone to do it for her.

She lies in wait in the supply closet for about two and a half minutes, and then she hears it: the sound of footsteps, two sets of them, and idle conversation, coming down the corridor directly her way. Lena takes a deep breath, counts the steps as they approach--she only has one chance to do this right.

When the steps are right in front of the closet, she swings open the door with force.

“Ow!”

The hit is a good one--whoever’s on the other side blocks her from opening the door all the way with dull impact, and her papers go scattering all over the place.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry! Are--are you OK, did the door hit you?”

Lena’s holding a hand over her right eye, moaning and doubled-over in mock pain as two young men--both looking to be interns-- look her over with concern. One of them is already on the floor, gathering her papers.

“Ow, no, it’s my fault, I shouldn’t have opened the door like that--oww” she cries, maybe a little too dramatically. One of the interns, tall and lanky, steadies her as she fake-wobbles on her feet.

“Ouch, did you hit your head? Let me take a look at your eye, take your hand---yikes!”

Lena removes her palm, previously dusted with the finest blush powder she could find at the drugstore yesterday, and makes a big show of blinking away her tears. The make-up gives her an instant shiner, and the fine powder has the added benefit of irritating the shit out of her eye--so the swelling and the tears are 100% real.

“I’m fine, really, thank you,” she says, waving them off and taking the sheets the other intern dutifully picked up. “I’m so sorry, I was in such a hurry--are you guys OK?”

“Better than you,” the first one, laughs, though he still looks concerned. “Are you sure you’re OK? Your eye looks pretty bad, do you want to go to the infirmary or something?”

“No, no, it’s fine -- I just got to run some stuff, then I’ll get some ice. I’m fine, really,” Lena waves them off politely, touching the skin around her supposedly injured eye.

The two men exchanged a worried glance, but the first shrugs his shoulders. “OK then, take care. Sorry again.”

“No worries,” she laughs, a little too high, but she’s so close, so so close... “I’m just a klutz--my fault, totally.”

She’s already walking away towards a lab, one she had checked during her walk from the elevator to the supply closet. The interns linger by the closet door for a moment, before slowly making their way to the elevator, still sending worried glances her way.

Lena swipes the stolen card, and immediately the panel by the side opens up, revealing the retina scanner and prompting her to scan her credentials. She leans towards the scanner, and the red light makes her blink; the machine buzzes and flashes red, and a robotic voice filters through the side-speakers.

Unable to scan. Please try again.

Lena huffs, audibly--she hears the interns’ steps pause someway down the corridor. She stomps her foot, and leans over the scanner again. It buzzes.

Unable to scan. Please try again.

“Shoot! You’ve gotta be kidding me right now!”

The steps grow closer, and for a moment Lena’s a bit worried she may be overselling her frustration, but before she can try scanning her retinas again, the tall and lanky intern is by her side.

“Did you try your left eye? Seems to be in better condition,” he jokes--his smile is genuine and friendly, but Lena puts on an impressive grimace of alarm.

“I never registered it,” she bemoans, feigning panic. “God, I meant to, but then it was just one of those things--oh my god, my boss is going to kill me--”

“Hey, relax,” he quips, raising a hand to stop what was going to be a rather dramatic tirade. He smiles, and swipes his card at the door, leaning over the panel and scanning his own eye.

Scan complete. The voice drones. Access granted; Montgomery, Jason.

The panel lights up in green, and the door unlocks with an audible hiss. Lena lets out a little squeak of delight that is barely faked--she can’t believe it worked.

“Oh my god, thank you, you’re a saint!”

She pushes the door open, but is barely a foot inside when an arm blocks her entry--she almost screams, body frozen in sheer terror as she turns to look at the intern the door panel just identified as Jason.

He’s smiling broadly. “Say, I’m sorry about your eye. Can I make it up to you over some coffee, later?”

Lena can barely contain her sigh of relief, but she puts on her sweetest smile and bats her eyelashes (though she’s not sure how good the effect is with the eye that is actually stinging quite painfully--what the hell was in that powder??). “I think you just did, Jason.”

His blush would have been cute, if Lena had not been on a very tight schedule. “Oh, I insist. When does your shift end...?”

It takes Lena a second to register he’s waiting for her name; she slowly maneuvers under his arm, dragging her fingers over the sleeve of his labcoat--she can practically feel the poor guy’s shiver as she leans in closer.

“Liz,” she whispers, close to his year. “And my shift ends at seven. The café across the street alright with you?”

He visibly swallows. “Yes, ma’am. See you there, Liz.”

Lena gives him a wink--with her good eye-- as he steps away. As soon as the door clicks shut again, she exhales with relief, leaning against it so she doesn’t just fall to the floor. Her knees are trembling.

She knew she could pull it off, but she also cannot believe she did.

With no time to waste, Lena practically bolts to the nearest spectrometer, quickly uncapping the Thermos with Kara’s blood sample and getting to work. It’s almost refreshing to be in a lab again, even under these circumstances, after weeks on the road. There is an innate sense of calm that falls over her when she’s working like this, like this is her element.

Like this is where she is meant to be.

The spectrometer whirs to life with Kara’s sample--Lena only needs twenty, maybe twenty-five minutes with it. She is tempted to stay for as long as she possibly can--there is so much equipment here that would be helpful... if only she brought a bigger purse, maybe she could have stolen some without detection, since there are no cameras in the labs.

The screen begins to break down the analysis, and Lena’s barely seeing it; she’s copying everything by hand onto a notebook--once the machine is done, she will make its history unrecoverable, and she doesn’t want to print anything through LuthorCorp printers.

Lena works quickly, annotating in her shorthand and trying to work as fast as the machine gives her results. She is barely processing what she sees; there will be time to read and figure everything out later, but now, she needs all the information she can cram into this little notebook.

She can feel her own eyes widening at some of the results, has to check them twice before writing them down--her pen furiously scratches across the paper, but her brain is already elsewhere, trying to reverse engineer the method of synthesizing what she’s seeing in Kara’s blood, trying to figure out ways to get it out of her system, trying to...

The spectrometer slows down and stops--the bar on the screen reads analysis complete. Lena releases a sigh of relief, hand cramping as she writes.

And then there’s the click of a gun right behind her.

“Fancy seeing you here, Lena.”

Lena shuts her eyes--the right one still throbbing, and raises her hands, still clutching the notebook as she slowly and deliberately turns around. She never even heard the door hissing open. She opens her eyes to meet a flinty, furious glare.

“Hello, Alex.”

Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

<< Previous || Next >>

[pm-my-hubbies]

Lani’s Crown | H.C.

Summary: Reader and Henry’s daughter has landed herself in a bit of trouble and needs to understand the importance they put into her hair.

Pairing: Dad!Henry x Black Mom!Reader

Word Count: 1.9k

I knew this day would come and unfortunately, I hadn’t prepared myself for it. “Hey, don’t forget you gotta have that talk with Lani pretty soon,” my conscience would remind me as I stared in awe at a queen with a head full of kinky hair. Like the snap of a hypnosis’ fingers, the task would slip away from me and I would return to whatever I had on my plate for the time being. Apparently, this “talk” wasn’t at the top of my to-do list.

My eyes shift from the shoulder length hair on the right side of my five year-old’s head to the gapped up left side. Something tells me she was reenacting Halle Berry’s notorious transformation scene from Catwoman as it’s become a favorite of hers in the past couple of weeks. This idea prompts me to hold in the snicker threatening to fall past my lips because right now is not a laughing matter.

“I honestly don’t know what to say Ailani.” I speak. It’s not that I’m mad at my baby because that’s what she is: a baby. She’s still struggling to steady the handlebars of her bicycle when she rides and her tongue has begun poking out the side of her mouth as she attempts to loop her shoe laces together. She doesn’t know how special her hair is because I hadn’t told her. And even if I did, it’ll take her brain ages to digest the information.

“I’m sorry, Mommy. I didn’t mean it.” she whimpers.

“I know baby but... why did you go for the scissors? You know you’re only supposed to use them for cutting paper and when adults are around. What happened?”

Today had been a good day at the restaurant. As the manager of the small-staffed bakery not too far from Lani’s school, majority of the tasks outside of sitting behind the desk fell onto me two weeks ago when three of the employees decided “a mental break” was necessary (I would’ve been fine if I hadn’t seen one of them chugging down beer after beer when I went out for drinks with some friends on a Friday night). Garlic wafted up my nostrils the moment I stepped over the threshold into our home and I knew something was up as my husband was cooking my comfort meal. He didn’t say anything when I asked of our daughter’s whereabouts. A nod in the direction of our dining room that was connected to the living room was all I needed to know something had happened. Lani has already placed her crayons to the side of her paper on the dining room table and peeked up at me with solemn eyes.

“Charlotte and I were play—” she began.

“Wait, Charlotte?”

Lani bowed her head in shame. “Yes.”

God fucking dammit. “Lani, why would... why would you play with Charlotte after Mommy told you to not be around her anymore?”

Her head was still low but I managed to catch the next statement clear as day. “Because she said I could make more friends if my hair was short like her and the other girls.”

I felt as if I were on fire. My body burned with anger and once again, it wasn’t directed towards Lani. Charlotte was once the little girl you wanted your children to play with every single day. But after some time, her true bad habits made an appearance and next thing you know, you were constantly disregarding the ringing of your doorbell as she shouted for your child. To add on to her pest-like behavior, Charlotte’s parents could never recognize the wrongs in her actions.

I shouldn’t be surprised such words could come from a child’s mouth but I am. Maybe it’s because it’s been a while since I allowed another kindergartener to bully me and I assumed times have changed for them to not talk out of their asses. Yet, here we are.

“Ailani, can you look at me? Please?” I calmly asked.

My daughter finally picked her head up and it was in this moment that all frustration I felt for her former friend dissipated. Her round cheeks were wet with fresh tears, brown eyes the size of saucers.

“Oh Ailani.” I cooed, walking around the coffee table dividing us to plant myself on the floor next to her. I pulled her onto my lap, her face pressing against my chest as her body racked with sobs. “Shhh, it’s okay.”

“I hurt your feelings, Mommy.”

“You did baby but that’s beside the point. Your feelings are hurting right now and it’s landed you in some mess.” I explained. Internally, I was chanting to not let the waterworks flow.

Lani continued her moment of sadness at most likely destroying the pride I held for her hair. The left side was the only destruction, which left more on her head. Still, blades made contact with the kinks at an inappropriate time.

Eventually, her body ceased the shaking and all I could feel was the large gulps she took as she calmed down. I guess now was the time to talk to her.

“You did hurt Mommy’s feelings because I love your hair. But at the same time, Mommy never told you how special your hair is so you wouldn’t do what you did.” I began. “Most girls want a crown to look like the Disney princesses they see on TV. I was one of those girls but I only wanted the tiara to be like the other girls. Do you hear me?”

She nodded. “Mmhm.”

“Good. Your grandmother told me that I didn’t need a crown to be pretty or like other girls because I already had one with me that followed me everywhere. And that, my Love, is my hair. Sit up for a second.” My daughter did as told, straddling my lap with bloodshot eyes looking into my watery ones. I placed my hand in her hair to massage her scalp. “The thing about your hair and my hair is that it’s unique. It’s what makes us beautiful. Some days we’ll braid it and other days we can wear it loose. The best thing about our hair is that it’s like a magicians hat to people that don’t look like us.”

“A magicians hat?”

“Mmhm. See, the only thing you know about a magicians hat is that it’s the same one they always wear. And every time they reach into it, it’s something new they pull out that amazes the audience every single time. With you, people will always see you with the same hair style until you straighten it. And every time you straighten it, it’ll be longer than before and amaze people each time. And that, my Darling, is because people are idiots when it comes to us and our hair.”

The cutest of giggles escaped Lani’s lips and I couldn’t help but to grin at the sound I got out of her. “Mommy no!”

“It’s true Lani! A lot of people don’t know much about our hair except to tell us how to style it. Your dad’s an exception, even though he can be a little dumb at times.”

“I heard that!” Henry exclaimed from the kitchen.

I chuckled as I leaned to the side to respond with, “Mind your business!”

“Can’t do that when you brought me into it.”

I glanced back at Lani with a smirk on my face. “You know what, your dad is right for once.”

Heavy footsteps echoed throughout the lower level of our home as Henry exited the kitchen to enter the living room where Lani and I sat. He held a similar smile to the one I wore when mocking his correctness. “Is this how you discipline our daughter when I’m not around? Throw me under the bus?”

“Not exactly.”

“Goodness woman.” He chuckled, treading over to where we rested. He swung his legs around my shoulder to plop down behind me on the sofa and place his hands on my shoulders. “Everything good now?”

Although her original hairstyle was jacked up now due to the scissors, I continued rubbing my hands through her beautiful hair. “I think so. But before I tell you to go upstairs and start running your bath water, I want you to remember something: girls like Charlotte are not your friend.”

“Your mother is right Lani.”

My head tilted up slightly so I could toss him a smile of appreciation for backing me up. “Friends do not tell you to change how you look so you can hang out with them. They chose to be your friend and should deal with it. Do you understand?”

“I think so.” Although it was meant to be a statement, she answered it more of like a question.

“Can you try to repeat that back for Mommy and Daddy but in your own words?”

She rapidly nodded her head. “Um... Charlotte should play with me because she likes how I look?”

“That’s our girl!” Henry praised her with a pinch to her cheeks.

“That’s right. And if she tells you what to do again, you either tell the teacher or tell her to stop. Yes?”

“Yes.” She affirmed.

“Good. Now go run your bath water for Mommy and then I’ll be up to wash you before we eat dinner.”

As soon as she hopped off my thighs to disappear up the stairs, Henry wrapped his arms around my neck. His lips landed on my cheek for peck. “You handled that well.” He mumbled.

I gently massaged his forearms with my hands. “You think so?”

“Yes. I was expecting the worse. Yelling, maybe a pop or two.”

“Some people will think I’m the worst parent for restricting my daughter from doing such a thing as today but that’s the thing: she’s not their daughter. If she cuts her hair, I have to bend over backwards and find styles for her hair and I really don’t have the time for that.” I elaborated, a huff following right after. “She’s lucky she did this today because now, she has an excuse to see her auntie Marilyn.”

“Oh but your Saturday.” I wasn’t looking at him but I could hear the pout in his voice as he pressed another kiss to my skin but this time on my neck.

I deeply exhaled. “I know, I know. I’ll just reserve it for Sunday like we’re supposed to anyways.”

Silence filled the spacious room now. Within seconds, the faint sound of water hitting the hard surface of our bath tub upstairs interrupted the peace that had quickly formed between Henry and I.

“Now that I’ve given her the heart-to heart talk, it’s your turn to talk with Charlotte’s parents.”

“What? Why me?” He groaned like a child restricted to the confines of his home on a Friday evening.

“Because I can’t catch a case. That little girl pissed me off and I won’t be so nice if I talk to her parents. And even if I did play nice, they’d still say something. When it’s you, there’s less backlash.”

“I— dammit. You’re right.”

“Get to work Superman.” I playfully ordered as I stood up between his legs to stretch my cramped limbs. A giggle my lips as his hand lightly connected with my ass. I felt like a love struck high schooler all over again when I spun around to lean against his strong frame and place my hands on his pecs. “You’ve got some saving to do and for once, it’s not me.”

“Indeed I do.” He mumbled before leaning down to deeply kiss me.

[fatefulfaerie]

Abnormality

Zelink Week 2021 prompt #6/7 @zelinkweek2021

Word Count: 2,225

Incarnation: Age of Calamity

Additional Prompts Followed: Timeline Alteration

“UTA” inspired by the “TVA” of the Disney+ series “Loki”

Trigger Warnings: abduction, brainwashing

Before Link knew it, he was being pushed along a dark hallway, hands tied and feet tripping on each other when he was pushed too abruptly.

“Faster.”

He could barely see, but long, blinking blue lights told him it was a narrow space, and his boots sounded as if they were walking on steel. He walked faster nonetheless. His own iron armor made even more of a ruckus.

“Where are you taking me?” He asked over his shoulder to the man who was pushing him. “What’s going on?”

He was in Hyrule Field last he remembered, returning to the castle after battling a Moblin. He saw an odd, egg-shaped robot and the next thing he knew he was pushed to the ground, landing in the steel trappings of wherever he was now. He was brought to his feet and pushed whenever his captor thought his pacing was too slow.

The man never answered. Link was blasted with light when a door opened as if automatically with the same noise as a sword slinking into a sheath. Link, who marvelled at such unprecedented technology, was pushed in before he could remark at it. The man behind him was gone when those same doors closed behind him.

Link looked behind him and there were no longer doors, just a wall. So he looked in front of him.

The room was clad with a silver material unlike stone. Angles jutted out at odd places and Link had never before seen architecture like this as he slowly paced forward towards the table.

Someone cleared their throat, a woman. Link’s head popped directly forward.

“Name?” She asked.

“What’s going on?”

“Name?” She repeated. It seemed Link found another person who would not humor his questions.

“Link,” he answered.

The receptionist seemed annoyed, eyes rolling to the back of her head and her eyelids fluttering. Link wondered what he did to upset her, but she scribbled something down on a piece of paper nonetheless.

“Birthdate?”

“August 16th,” Link replied. “But--”

“You have been charged with the crime of temporal misdemeanors,” she interrupted. “How do you plead?”

Link’s mouth moved but no sound came out.

“T-temp…” he tried, but failed. “What even is that? What did I do?”

“How do you plead?” She asked. There seemed to be no negotiation.

“G-guilty,” Link stammered. “I guess.”

She pointed her pen to the left, where there was now an opening, a doorless entrance.

“Step onto the platform for processing please.”

Link hesitated.

“Now,” she said without even looking up, and so Link did as he was asked, stepping onto the platform with oddly textured lines. With a jolt, it moved him along, Link’s arms drifting from his sides and knees bending as if bracing for danger. But before he could even get a sight of what was in this next room, his vision was clouded by white mist, a substance that shot a tingling feeling throughout his entire body until he couldn’t even feel his body. He was paralyzed completely and before he could fall, mechanized hands clutched his limbs, his arms, his legs. He felt his armor being stripped off but he didn’t have the control over his eyes to see who was doing it or where it was going, to object to showing this much skin and feeling this vulnerable in a strange place. Neither could he employ his vocal nodes to object to the last bit of clothing being removed until he was left only with a blue Sheikah-grade undergarment covering his most private area.

He could still see though, still tell he was being moved along into the futuristic building with no discernible connection to anything he had ever seen in Hyrule.

When he finally stopped, he stopped in front of a man behind a podium. Around Link were burn marks and the foul smell of burning flesh. His heart began to race.

“Link 816-D, you have been--”

But the echoey voice of doom was stopped when someone came racing through a now opened door, a woman in a blue dress with jagged and yet structured patterned white lines. The dress was far too tight and far too short for anything fashionable in Hyrule, but the dark-haired woman looked professional and put-together nonetheless. The fact that her dress almost exposed her knees was the least of Link’s concerns, it was just odd.

He definitely was not in Hyrule.

“He is to be questioned,” the woman said. Link couldn’t deny she was beautiful. He tried not to think about it. “Concerning the matter of the leading variant at large.”

“Very well.”

Link felt the greatest sense of relief when he was able to move again, permitted to step off the platform, and given garments to clothe himself in. They actually quite resembled the white and blue that everyone in this place wore, Link given white pants, a blue shirt, and a jacket that said “variant” on the back.

He stayed silent until the woman sat him down in a room, sitting across from him with a welcoming smile.

“Sorry about all that,” she said with her hands clasped into each other and her elbows on the table. “We don’t have the best reception here at the UTA. Let’s just say you are very lucky to be with me right now.”

Link didn’t quite know what to say.

“I-I’m sorry but…” Link stammered. “What is the UTA? Why...w-why am I here and...who are you?”

She pursed her lips.

“Somehow I always forget you guys come in here with no context,” she said, almost apologetically. “Allow me to explain. My name is Whitney and I am an employee of the UTA, which stands for the Unified Timeline Authority. We are in charge of making sure that the timeline is pure of contamination such as unauthorized time travel, timeline splits, and nexus events that cause timeline splits. We have worked long and hard to turn a chaotic and temporally lawless timeline of Hyrule into a unified and cohesive timeline. We work tirelessly to make sure the timeline stays straight, and doesn’t veer off from the set path.”

It sounded rehearsed to Link, but more than that, it sounded confusing. He got bits of it but he still stared, overwhelmed beyond belief.

“Okay, okay,” Whitney said, pulling out a piece of paper and a pencil. She started drawing a straight line on the page.

“Here is your timeline. You pull the sword at thirteen but you put it back, right? You didn’t tell anyone?”

Link nodded.

“Okay so time moves along and you age, as you know.”

She started drawing another line, exactly parallel to the first.

“Meanwhile, there is an alternate universe where you do keep the sword. Believe it or not, these both are heading towards the same destination until BAM!”

She stopped drawing the first line abruptly and let the second keep going straight. She continued the first with a line askew, making an angle.

“You encounter the little robot and everything changes. The destination is put in jeopardy at a rate we’ve never seen before. So we step in.”

“You have seen the robot so we took you. We also took the robot so he can do no further damage. We then go to where the robot came from in the first place and make sure he doesn’t come again. Thus, we have two robots. Both are now destroyed. Now I know what you’re thinking. Two robots but one of you, how does that fix it? Eliminating the second robot made it so that it never contaminated your timeline, and so there is now another Link that made it to the destination, the event where all alternate timelines become one. Thus you are the extra Link, a variant.”

She erased some of both lines and made it so that the two lines converged into one, drawing a dot at the exact place where they did and labeling it “the destination”.

“So I’m here because I saw the robot?”

“Not quite. You see, we could have wiped your memories or even wiped you but we took the opportunity to gain some…intel…about another variant.”

“Who?” Link asked.

“You,” she answered simply.

“What?”

She almost laughed.

From below the desk she pulled out a clipboard, the exact one that Link saw that first woman with. She handed it over to Link, who took it and knitted his brow at what he saw.

At least half of the names on each and every of the many pages were either Link, Zelda, or Ganon, each name accompanied by two to four numbers and a single capital letter.

In the middle of the last page was what the judge called him, Link 816-D.

“Yeah sorry about that,” she said. Of all the things she could apologize for, she sounded too casual to be apologizing for any of them, for kidnapping him, for stealing the armor he earned, for uprooting his life. “You are actually the fourth Link to come in with that birthday, thus Link 816-D.”

Link put the clipboard down slowly, and returned his gaze back to the diagram.

“The destination,” he said, before looking up. “What is it? Why is it so important that you can’t have it not happen?”

The destination is the singular moment where we were finally able to unify the timeline into one. We refer to it as the calamity.”

The word struck fear into Link’s heart.

“C-calamity…” he began, attempting to fight his shock at how cheery she said that word, how casually she referred to something that could kill thousands of people. “As in Calamity Ganon? Are you serious? You...y-you want that to happen? Do you realize what that means?”

Whitney nodded.

“It’s unfortunate,” she said. “But it was necessary that we let it happen. The near destruction of Hyrule was the only way to unify the parallel timelines. It isn’t the first time we took advantage of a disaster to slowly work towards unification. There used to be three separate timelines that were nowhere near parallel, mind you.”

Link went pale, cold. His eyes stung and his lungs paused. Not only did they permit the calamity but they let entire kingdoms be destroyed for their order.

For some reason Whitney assumed that Link was just as comfortable as her with the situation.

“The variant we are concerned with exists in the single timeline beyond the destination but the variant is trying to undo the calamity, and we need to know why. Activating that robot and sending him across parallel timelines was his first attempt. He is, of course, only a variant of you, but we feel that questioning you will lead to a bit of clarity as far as his motives. If you submit to questioning right here and now, we can offer you a job, you won’t have to worry about being destroyed or anything. I used to be a variant, too, you know. All of us were variants once. We’d love to have you join us.”

Link wondered how long this woman had been here for her words to sound so fake, so insincere, so rehearsed. Perhaps she was kidnapped as a child, perhaps she was raised by other people like her, who lost themselves gradually.

Thus Link most assuredly did not want the job, did not want to be a part of something that trades apocalypses for senseless organization, that trades lives for convenience.

The kingdom of Hyrule he once served not ten minutes ago was so much more…

It was...

Well he supposed they were no better, doing those same things, just on a smaller scale.

So he could either work for the UTA or be destroyed like the variants who did not comply. He could die for his morals or he could sacrifice them.

But perhaps there was a third option, one where he fought for his morals, destroyed the UTA from the inside.

“I’ll take the job,” he finally said, Whitney smiled. “But I have to ask...you said you were a variant...who were you?”

It didn’t seem like a question that was commonly asked, and she hesitated. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to answer, it was more like she genuinely forgot. Link narrowed his eyes.

“I was a variant of Princess Zelda,” she said. “I used to go by Hilda but when I got here they labeled me as Zelda 108-A. I was taken the moment Lorule got it’s own Triforce. Lorule was destroyed by the UTA, but...it was already a mess.” Whitney shrugged. “It was probably for the best.”

Her entire kingdom was destroyed and she showed so little empathy. Link could hardly believe it. She was so casual about it, like she was talking about what she had for lunch.

“A friend got taken alongside me but,” she laughed. “You know it’s funny I don’t remember their name.” She shrugged again. “Must not have been a very good friend. I’m sure you’ll be a better one.”

Link pitied that poor friend. He could very well have been her best friend, could have refused to comply and could have been erased from her memory so that she would comply, would slowly lose herself and become another drone of the UTA.

Link inwardly refused to resign to the same fate, to maybe, if possible, save her too.

“What is your first question for me?”

[florrickandassociates]

TGF Thoughts: 5x10-- And the violence spread.

So, that’s it for season five. I’m still trying to sort out how I feel about the season as a whole and Wackner’s arc. I’m hopeful that writing this will help me decide.

This episode has a Previously, and it’s rather conventional. I’m guessing it’s here to bookend the season, with conveying information being only a secondary objective.  

Did we see Rivi scream, “You’re done, Wacko, you’re done! Canceled! Canceled!” in the last episode or is that new to this previously? I feel like I absolutely would’ve had things to say about a) Wackner being called “Wacko,” which has been RIGHT THERE this whole time, and b) the use of “Canceled,” which is a thing Rivi would never say but is VERY thematic (you know, cancel culture and also Wackner having a TV show and also this being a TV show that’s wrapping up* Wackner’s arc).

* The way things end this episode, I’d say we’re done with Wackner. The Kings have said they aren’t sure about the plan for season six, so never say never, but I think that if we see Wackner again, it will be as part of a different arc.  

I went back to 5x09 and while we do see the same shots of Rivi screaming, whatever he’s saying in 5x09 is in Spanish. So either he was saying this in Spanish or the dialogue here is totally new.  

I’m a little sad that I knew in advance Robert King had directed this episode, because I want to know how long it would’ve taken me to guess. I’d like to think this first shot, of Diane flopping down on her bed in a very pretty floral print dress, then Kurt flopping down in the opposite direction, would’ve given it away. We usually don’t get shots that are both striking and kinda balanced unless RK’s directing.  

This also has some big season three opener vibes—the scene where Diane turns to Kurt and says, “I’m happy,” thus jinxing the entire season.  

Diane and Kurt are about to go on vacation, which means, of course, that Diane and Kurt are definitely not about to go on vacation. I’ve watched 12 seasons of this show; I know all the tricks!  

If I didn’t get it from the initial staging of the opening shot, the camera panning to Diane and Kurt’s suitcases and then back would’ve been another clue that RK directed. He ALWAYS has the camera in motion.  

I love that Diane’s travel outfit is a dress you could wear to a fancy party and a statement necklace. Of course it is.

And if I needed evidence that RK and MK wrote this episode (which I didn’t; it is a finale so I knew they wrote it), Diane quoting Waiting for Godot is a clue there.  

I really should read Waiting for Godot, shouldn’t I?  

“Wow. Educated and a good lay,” Kurt responds. I know that the political stuff between Diane and Kurt can get more than a little murky, but banter like this reminds me why they stay together and why politics never drive them apart. Also, it’s really nice to see Diane and Kurt have some fun banter that isn’t about politics.  

And Diane making kissing noises and asking Kurt to meet her halfway! This just feels like I’m spying on someone’s private life and I love it. Not in a voyeuristic way, since this is actually a little uncomfortably private, but in a, “ah, yes, these do feel like real people” way. This is the kind of “a little goes a long way” character moment I always want more of, and Kings episodes ALWAYS include stuff like this.

And there it is. The phone rings as Diane and Kurt are about to start out for the airport. Diane thinks the call must be for Kurt, but it’s for her. It’s a very flustered Liz, informing her that STR Laurie’s execs are on their way to the office for a surprise visit.

If the Diane/Kurt scene didn’t tell me that Robert King directed, I almost certainly would’ve gotten it from the sudden cut to Liz, walking through the hallways and doing a million things at once with a ton of background noise. No one loves chaos the way Robert King loves chaos.  

This episode STRONGLY reminds me of the Wife season five finale. It is equally chaotic and also spins a ton of plates. But, mostly, the similarity I see between the two episodes is that they are both extremely fun and captivating to watch because of how much momentum they have, but everything just feels slightly hollow and not exactly focused on the thing you want to see.  

(Shout out to my friend Ryan, who messaged me the 5x22 comparison before I could message it to him!)  

I decided I should rewatch the first few minutes of 5x22. I am now 15 minutes into 5x22 of Wife and 2 minutes into 5x10 of Fight. Oops.  

Apparently, STR Laurie planned a surprise visit because they heard RL was dysfunctional. You don’t say!  

I felt like 5x09 concluded with STR Laurie being won over by Allegra and the RL team, so this is a bit of a surprising place to start the episode. But, since Diane seems surprised too, I’ll allow it.  

Now Liz and Diane have 90 minutes to agree on a financial plan! Kurt’s on the phone with the airline before Diane even hangs up with Liz.  

Diane is determined not to lose out on her vacation and asks Kurt to change the flight to 8:00. “Kurt, we are going on this vacation if it kills me!” is a line I would worry was foreshadowing on basically any other show.

The RL/STRL PowerPoint template is pretty ugly. They want to call 2021 their best year yet, thanks to the deal between Rivi and Plum Meadow Farms we saw last week. Even though we saw champagne and signatures, the deal isn’t done yet because Plum Meadow can back out if Rivi goes to jail.

RK also loves close-ups more than any other director on the show; I do not love close-ups.  

The Plum Meadow deal is such a big deal that for the quarter, they go from $45 million to $5 million without it. They should just not say numbers. I can believe it’s big enough to take them from a modest profit to being behind projections or whatever, but I can’t believe that they have $5 million in other business and $40 million on this one deal.  

It seems that Rivi was arrested. I don’t think it is ever said in this episode why. I assume the arrest relates to his behavior in Wackner’s court, since there were police officers there, and I suppose that Rivi is a big enough deal the police would actually take him to real court, but are we not going to address the weirdness of Rivi being arrested in a fake court where his employees are being tried, then taken to a real court by the same people who just an episode ago were disillusioned with real court? This seems like a plot point.

Carmen on a frantic phone call in the backseat of a car feels very 7x22.  

Who is James that Carmen has in her contacts!? And why does everyone always put Liz in their contacts as “Elizabeth Reddick” when everyone calls her Liz?  

Carmen calls Marissa to go argue in Vinetta’s court since she’s on Rivi duty. Carmen doesn’t take Marissa’s job in Wackner’s court seriously and then notes that this instruction is coming straight from Liz, so Marissa falls in line.  

Wackner’s case of the week is about rural Illinois wanting to form its own state separate from Chicago. There’s a farmer who feels like his tax money is only going to the big city and he wants it to stay in his community.  

They’ve just now added stage lighting to the set of Wackner Rules, dunno why they wouldn’t have done that earlier!

I don’t know what standing you’d have to have to bring a case about wanting to divide the state in two to court, or if this is even something a court would or should decide, but, sure, Wackner and Cord, go for it. There are no rules!  

This map splitting Illinois into two new states that Cord is holding is a dumb prop because Galena, where this farmer is from, is in the same section as Chicago. Do I pause every reference to Chicago on this show and then google information to see if the writers bothered to look it up or pretend they’ve ever set foot in Chicago? You know I do.

“Secession!” the audience screams. Does the audience of Wackner Rules really want to see this?

A Good Fight Short! And it really is short: “Stop this obsession with secession and breaking up the Union. It’s boring and it’s dumb, end of song.” I feel like that’s the thesis statement for this episode, or one of them (that this episode seems to have about ten thesis statements is kind of my problem with this episode, tbh). This episode is very much about danger of things becoming too fractured—the COTW, the copycat courts, the firm drama—and I feel like the writers come around to just saying no, this is enough, we need structure and consistency.

But more on that later. MUCH more on that later.

Marissa is swearing more because “the world has required it.” She notes this to Wackner as she calls him out on the secession case. Cord barges in.

Take a look at the employee of the month poster on the back of the door at 5:39. Then at 5:40, look at what’s in the box just to the right of the center of the screen: it’s an employee of the month poster with Wackner on it! Cute easter egg. (Would Marissa definitely notice this and have questions? Yes. Is this here as a cute easter egg for eagle-eyed fans? Almost certainly.)  

“Insane is just one step away from reality if you get people to believe, and you know what makes people believe? TV.” Cord explains when Marissa asks how they can possibly be litigating this case. That’s thesis statements two and three, folks. The first is that if you get people to believe, then anything is possible, which sounds like a tagline for a Disney movie but is actually super dangerous; the second is that reality TV is a way to persuade people and change opinions.  

So we’ve got: (1) Factions are bad. (2) People are persuadable and the rules don’t actually matter. (3) Reality TV changes minds. Let’s see if there are more.

(Yes, these theses do kind of add up to a whole—The rules don’t matter, so if you persuade people, through reality tv, you get factions of people believing their own sets of rules and facts—but what I'm interested in tracking throughout this episode is how well the writers actually bring these theses together.)

(And this is setting aside that key themes in previous episodes, that I think many of us were looking for resolution on, included outlining the flaws with the extant “real” justice system and exploring the role of prison in the justice system. From this episode, I don’t think the writers ever intended to really tackle either of those issues. That’s fine—I'm not sure that TGF has something to say about prison abolition and I don’t want a thought experiment where the writers actually try to fix the legal system—but feels a bit disjointed. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, but 5x08 and 5x09 needed to do a better, clearer job of setting up this finale. The key themes of Wackner’s arc were always present, but they needed to slowly narrow the scope so the resolution felt inevitable and clear. Instead, we spent time on things like parking spaces (when we could’ve had a real plot about how Wackner’s court gains legitimacy through violence, incarceration, and playing on people’s frustration with the real systems) and Del’s focus groups (when we could’ve instead done a plot about Wackner gaining fans who wanted to use his methods to do ill). Everything I just mentioned in the parentheticals is in the show! It’s not subtext! We see it all! We see Cord use violence and prisons to enforce Wackner’s rulings; we see the cops turn to Wackner out of frustration; we see that the people drawn to Wackner Rules and to Wackner’s court are increasingly sounding more and more like right-wing populists! I can’t be too hard on this arc because, again, all these ideas are there. I’m not coming up with them on my own!)

I’m just saying: this ending would’ve been a lot clearer and a lot more interesting had the writers focused on what I mentioned above instead of the distractions of the last two episodes.  

Whew, that was a ramble. Hope you’re ready for more rambles.

On a similar note, I’d like to reiterate my problems with how the writers used Marissa after the private prison reveal. I don’t have much more to say than what I wrote last week, but it’s another example of the same problem. Marissa objecting to Wackner’s court because she notices what it’s becoming and how Cord plans to use it for political gain (two Illinoises (??) changes the Senate and the Electoral College...) always was going to be part of the endgame. Marissa only seriously objecting after the fourth or fifth line Wackner crosses feels bizarre.  

Cord does NOT like that there is another court, and wants to protect Wackner’s IP. Wackner, as we saw last episode, does not feel threatened by the other court. In fact, he seems to be excited by it.  

I love Liz questioning Diane’s outfit like it’s unprofessional. It’s a little low-cut and showy, but I don’t think unprofessional is the word I’d use for it.  

Now they have 45 minutes to decide The Future Of The Firm and Diane wants to be considered a name partner. Oh, that debate is still raging?! Every time I think it’s done it comes back, which should probably be a sign to Diane that her options are to leave and start something new, jettison Madeline and the others, or step down. Staying on as name partner and calling it a black firm is just not an option.  

“Diane, there is a split in the firm that...” Liz starts, before asking some associates to leave the room. Ha! The reveal Liz and Diane aren’t alone is a pretty fun touch.

“The Black equity partners don’t want to be in your work group,” Liz informs Diane. “Because they think they’ll be punished by this firm?” Diane asks. “No, that’s paranoia. We don’t punish here,” Liz responds. “Of course you do. My fracking client. My union client. The Black lawyers who work on those cases—they're considered traitors” Diane says. “Because those CEOs are racists,” Liz counters.

Lots going on here, and I’m not sure I understand it all. Why would the equity partners—who are partners—feel like they’re being punished by being in Diane’s work group? (And also what does a “work group” mean and why haven’t they talked about it in the past?) When Diane starts talking about the lawyers who staff her clients, she’s not talking about equity partners; she is talking about associates.

And people are giving associates shit for working on Diane’s clients whom they happen to be staffed on!? That’s sad, though believable.

“So what do we do? Only bring in clients who can pass the racial smell test?” Diane asks. I mean, actually, yes. IF the goal is to be a black firm and to have that designation mean something in moral terms rather than marketing terms, then yes.  

“It’s okay if you’re a drug kingpin like Rivi, but it’s not okay if you want me as lead attorney?” Diane says. Also, yes. Diane makes good points here.  

“Diane, this is not about you,” Liz counters. Um, sure, but it has to be about something, Liz. Unless you’re trying to build a firm you don’t control that makes 88% of its revenue from a drug dealer (40 million out of 45 million this quarter = 88%; I told you they shouldn’t give me numbers) but happens to have black people in charge, you have to grapple with this question. I don’t think anyone who’s fighting for the firm to be a black-led (not owned, bc STRL) business is the type of person who thinks that having a black-led firm that does all the same shit as any other firm is in itself a good thing, so you NEED to address your client list. Madeline is anti-Rivi, anti-Cord, anti-Wolfe-Coleman (the rapist guy), pro-social justice, and pro having a black led firm.  

“I mean, why... why do white people personalize this?” Liz asks. “Oh, now I’m just a white person?” Diane responds. I... don’t know what to do with this! Liz is right that Diane is taking this personally; Diane is right that Liz needs to deal with the rest of the client list. But no one is saying the things that REALLY need to be said: That all their decisions are meaningless in the shadow of STRL, and that deciding to be a black led firm isn’t the end of the discussion if they haven’t decided what types of clients they want to have.  

“What happened, Liz? Last year we were intent on an all-female-run law firm,” Diane starts. Oh, THIS AGAIN! Diane never learns, does she? She never seems to realize that no one she’s approached with this idea is NEARLY as in love with it as she is. She probably still wonders to herself why Alicia—who partnered with her at the end of season seven basically just because it was the easiest, most frictionless thing to do—didn't seem more committed to their firm.  

“Diane, there is history here that we are trying to...” Liz says, but Diane cuts in to note that women (women like Diane Lockhart!) have history too! In fact, she’s spent “35 years fighting gender discrimination to get to this position.” “And we have spent 400 years fighting racial discrimination to try and, you know...” Liz starts, before cutting herself off to get back to the ticking clock.

Sigh. Just talk about the actual thing instead of talking around the thing, guys. Diane is obviously deserving of A name partnership, in the abstract. This is an undeniable fact. And while Diane is definitely making this about herself rather than the big picture, I don’t think Liz trying to trump Diane’s 35 year career with the history of black people is going to win her any arguments? Like, just say what you mean and say it clearly. What Liz, I think, wants to express is that Diane’s individual accomplishments aren’t the issue here and everyone thinks she’s deserving (though Liz suggested Diane was not deserving a few episodes ago, which I didn’t understand then and don’t understand now). The problem is that Diane is trying to fight a battle that’s about something much larger than herself with, “but I'm a good lawyer!”  

And that’s KIND OF what Liz is saying here, if I add all her sentences up and read between the lines, but, again, why not just say it?  

“Alright, now we have 43 minutes to fix race relations, gender relations. STR Laurie’s gonna fire our asses, and you know it,” Liz says. I am curious what that would look like. Wouldn’t that just mean that STRL wouldn’t control them anymore? I’m sure being fired would be bad and all, but wouldn’t it free them from the contract they wanted out of last year?  

“Let’s split the firm down the middle. I hire half the lawyers, you hire the other half,” Diane suggests. What does this mean? Why are you hiring your employees? Huh?

“You hire the white associates, and I hire the black associates?” Liz confirms. This seems like a very bad idea that would make things a lot worse and open them up to lawsuits! I also still do not know what they’re even talking about. And I don’t know why Allegra isn’t a part of this conversation.

“I’m not saying it’s good. I’m just saying it’s what we’re left with. It's what we can agree on,” Diane says. I really wish I understood what “hire” meant in this context because I don’t understand why they have to split anything or why this has to be done now and I don’t understand why this would possibly be a good solution. Can you imagine the backlash when people realize all the white people report to Diane and all the black people to Liz and that people were taken off of the accounts they’ve worked on for years to accomplish this? And this must be something that the employees would know about eventually; otherwise they could just randomly assign half to Liz and half to Diane.  

I’m sad Madeline isn’t in this episode because I feel like we needed to see more of her POV as well as the associate POV. I don’t really understand the divides at play within the firm or what the staff and other partners are asking for, but I suspect it isn’t this.

Hallucination Jesus is back, and at least there’s actually a point to him this time (he shows up when Jay is in Vinetta’s court and reminds Jay that Vinetta will rule based on her religious beliefs). I still dislike the hallucinations.

Jay advises Marissa, who is Jewish, to talk a lot about Jesus in her defense.  

Charmaine Bingwa is really great as Carmen, and obviously she is not fluent in Spanish, but it’s so funny to me that the only time you can hear that she’s Australian is when she’s trying to say Oscar like she’s speaking Spanish.  

"I know you’re hiding something when you speak English,” Rivi says to Carmen. Heh.  

“Community court” is such a nice, unthreatening term for referring to Wackner and his copy cats. Thanks for that, Carmen!

It’s a smart plan to mention Jesus a lot, I guess, but Jay and Marissa both should’ve realized that Vinetta is too smart to tolerate obvious pandering. I’m a little surprised Jay doesn’t get up and argue since Marissa is, obviously, not familiar with the New Testament.  

Marissa wins this round with facts and logic.

Why is the judge who was handling Rivi’s previous charge now in bond court? Make it make sense.

I like that Carmen calls out the ASA for swearing hahaha  

Why... would this Matteo kid just casually mention he was holding a gun, omg.  

In Vinetta’s court, you can be charged with murder and tried because... you had a gun and also there were murders at other times. Coolcoolcool no problems here.

Community courts for civil cases? Sure. That’s basically arbitration. Community courts for criminal cases? Bad, bad, bad idea.  

Vinetta’s reasoning: “Those murders happened on our street, and the police haven’t convicted anyone because they don’t care. We care. This is self-defense. And how is it different from your court?” Aside from the whole imprisoning people in her basement thing, Vinetta’s not wrong. I almost brought this up last week but hesitated because I couldn’t remember the details enough to decide if I wanted to recommend it, but there’s a book I read a few years ago that seems relevant here: Ghettoside by Jill Leovy. Again, been a while so don’t take this as a wholehearted endorsement or anything, but from what I remember, the central issue at the heart of the book (it’s non-fiction) is that a poor black community (I think in LA?) doesn’t trust the police (in part) because the police don’t solve murders, and then with no way of getting justice through the court system, there’s more violence as a stand-in for justice. https://www.vox.com/2016/8/26/12631962/ghettoside-jill-leovy-black-crime

I’m not sure if that’s QUITE what Vinetta is saying but it seems similar, and it’s a decent point (though not a justification for her court). Why should she trust the system to improve her community when it’s ignored her community for years?

I like that the writers chose two very different, very understandable characters for their community courts. It’s easy to see why Wackner and Vinetta feel the need for alternative courts; it’s easy to see why others would trust them. This arc doesn’t really work unless there’s a legitimate frustration with existing systems...  

Marissa calls Wackner’s court a “joke,” which she should understand by now isn’t the case. (Marissa’s smart; she knew it wasn’t a joke the second she saw David Cord get involved.)  

Vinetta accuses Wackner of copying her court, which alarms Marissa. This isn’t addressed again, and I don’t know if it’s true! I could really go either way on this. On the one hand, I absolutely believe that Wackner saw/heard about it, liked it, and did it himself without thinking much of it—and if this is the case, then the ending where Vinetta gets in trouble for violating Wackner’s IP is a lot more of a gut punch. On the other hand, I don’t really feel like the seeds for this were planted. We see Wackner innovate a lot and try new things and he has an explanation for why he does everything—how much of that is Vinetta? And Vinetta clearly watches the show and likes it or she wouldn’t have recognized Marissa, so it’s a little hard for me to just believe her claim when literally all I know about her is she has a court that looks like Wackner’s and she is aware of and feels positively towards Wackner rules. Also, Wackner knows about Vinetta’s court (from Marissa) and sounded excited about it last episode. Sure, he didn’t necessarily know which one it was, exactly, but I assume if he’d copied the idea and then heard about a case involving people from the exact same community where he found the idea... his reaction would be different. So IDK. My reasons for doubting Vinetta’s claim are probably based a little too much in things I’m not meant to spend that much time paying attention to.  

“I fucked up. It’s in the same court, but now it’s a murder case,” Marissa tells Diane. I do like hearing characters admit when they fucked up!  

Diane hears that STRL is delayed, so she heads out to help Matteo. When she goes to change into her pantsuit, she finds that she’s grabbed Kurt’s bag by mistake. “Of course. That makes sense,” she reacts.  

Diane pushes her flight to the next day, also telling Kurt, “And yes, for some reason, I took your suit instead of mine, so fuck it.” I love it when the characters feel like real people.  

I am not sure why Kurt is getting to the office when Diane is leaving or why Kurt is there—to pick Diane up on the way to the airport, maybe?

Carter Schmidt walks into RL at the worst possible time, threating to blow up the Plum Meadow deal. Another 5x10 to Wife 5x22 similarity: he’s in both episodes.  

Liz heads out to help Carmen with Rivi, and then STRL arrives. Oops.  

Credits!

One thing about Wackner’s court that should definitely be a warning sign even though it seems noble: he ignores just about every warning sign, like this rowdy crowd screaming WE LOVE YOU WACKNER or the potential interests at play in a case about secession, because he thinks his fair judgement can overcome these obstacles. If the world worked that way, there’d be no need for his court in the first place.

Is anyone representing the State of Illinois in this trial? If not, then... how is it happening?  

Dr. Goat, some dude who claims to have some hidden historical document about how Illinois is actually two states, is clearly making stuff up and yet Wackner indulges him and Cord. I feel about this the same way as I feel about the Devil’s Advocate: That Wackner would not allow this to go on for more than five seconds before calling bullshit and therefore there is no reason I should have to sit through it.

Why is some guy screaming, “No taxation without representation” like dude you absolutely have representation. But of course, I’m expecting him to be logical, and the point is that he is not.

Dr. Goat’s Latin phrases—shock!-- don’t actually translate into anything like what he said. Even though this information is verifiable by a quick google search, the crowd starts screaming “Liar!!!!” at Marissa. If only I could say this felt unrealistic.

Wackner asks Dr. Goat to bring in the document.  

“You look like you’re heading to the beach,” Vinetta says to Diane, who looks like she’s heading somewhere but definitely not to the beach. Vinetta asks where Diane was headed on vacation. Diane says she’s headed to Lake Como, and unnecessarily clarifies that “It’s in Italy.” She assumes Vinetta doesn’t know that... but Vinetta does.

“So you’ve been there before?” Vinetta probes when Diane says it’s beautiful there. “Just once. We don’t get away often. We thought we’d splurge,” Diane says. Vinetta stares at her and smiles, and Diane hits her head on a basket that’s hanging in Vinetta’s kitchen. If I just write out the dialogue here, it sounds like a perfectly average conversation, but everything about this conversation is so charged: Diane is afraid to look like a wealthy white woman; Vinetta’s pleasantness is pretty clearly also a way of sizing up Diane.  

Vinetta shows Diane pictures of neighborhood children and young adults killed as a consequence of gang violence. You can see she’s not trying to do anything other than help her community, even if her methods are highly questionable.

Diane argues that Matteo should be given over to the police; Vinetta disagrees: “The police haven’t arrested anyone for those murders, any of these. Since the BLM movement, they’ve pulled back from our streets. No one’s coming to help. That’s why I started this court. It’s not a joke to us.” Wait I’m sorry did Vinetta just blame lack of good detective work in black communities on... the BLM movement?!?!?! Is there any foundation to this!? Why can’t it just be that the police weren’t actually doing a good job of policing/finding justice and were being antagonistic towards the community instead of being helpful and no one trusted them?? That explanation is literally right there.

Jay suggests the Jesus strategy, again.  

“It’s women! We could just move on, install men,” STRL guy says. I don’t know if he’s joking, but ugh. Also, what is RL if it has neither Diane nor Liz? A bunch of lawyers who will all promptly quit when they see their bosses get fired and a few opportunists?  

Kurt is watching golf in Diane’s office, and the STRL people love it. Of course Kurt accidentally makes friends with them.  

Court stuff happens. It’s not good for Rivi, and then Liz and Carmen come up with a theory: Plum Meadow is stalling the deal so they can find Rivi’s more stable second and make a deal with them instead.  

Wackner giving Dr. Goat a single point on his stupid little board, for any reason related to his obviously fake totally unverified document, is dangerous. Why would you signal to a crowd that’s clearly not interested in fact that they have a point? That’s basically egging them on.

I know Wackner’s judgment is obviously not 100% sound—need I remind you of the PRIVATE PRISONS?-- but I thought it was more sound than this.  

Wackner shows off his knowledge of paper and proves that Dr. Goat’s document is a fake. Why... did he just give Dr. Goat a point???  

Or is he moving the point from Dr. Goat to Marissa?  

Dr. Goat sounds like a fake name I would call a character in my recaps long past the point of anyone other than myself remembering the joke. (See: Mr. Elk)

“The truth is ugly. The only thing uglier is not pursuing it,” Wackner tells Marissa. How is taking on a case about very obvious falsehoods, funded by someone with a vested interest in the case, that gets people riled up, some noble pursuit of truth?  

STRL and Kurt are now drinking and discussing hunting, while Diane’s arguing for Matteo in Vinetta’s living room. Vinetta is—as was always obvious, sorry Jay—far too smart to fall for this patronizing bullshit. She screams at Diane and plays back a recording (on a baby monitor) of Diane coaching Matteo to lie about his faith.

Soooooo yeah no you can’t do that, that is bad, recording conversations between lawyers and their clients is not good even if it leads to you exposing their schemes...

Then Vinetta places Diane under arrest, which obviously isn’t going to end well for Vinetta.  

Liz and Carmen suggest a post-nup to Rivi to see if Isabel is planning on turning on him.

“I’m going to have to kill her,” Rivi says sadly. I don’t think Rivi will ever kill Isabel because we already did that with Bishop.  

I’m going to assume that Diane chooses to stay in basement prison instead of calling one of the many, MANY, MANY people she could call to get her out/take down Vinetta because she doesn’t want the situation to be publicized or further deteriorate. That said, it’s really not clear why Diane just accepts being sentenced to basement prison with a cell phone.  

Love the STRL man looking at that picture of Diane and HRC. They’ve gotten so much mileage out of that photo.  

Wackner’s court has no rules, but at least since it has no rules, I can’t complain about how its rules make no sense!  

What is this, debate practice?! Ugggghhhhh I can’t deal with this case for much longer.  

Marissa takes a breath, then decides to pursue a strategy she knows could blow everything up.

“Then why care what Judge Wackner decides? Why should you defer to him? Why defer to anyone?” Cord says that’s the point—the people have decided to trust Wackner. “So if you don’t like this court’s decision, you’ll just start a new one?” Marissa asks. “I guess,” Cord concedes.  

“So then why does this matter? This court?” “It matters only insofar as we continue to agree that it matters,” Cord says. “So if you don’t like Judge Wackner’s rulings, you can just ignore them and create a new court?”

Good point, Marissa. Good point. (Does this count as a thesis?)

“I’m guessing that I will like the way the judge decides,” Cord says. Well, that’s basically a threat.

Wackner takes a break and heads to chambers—without Marissa.  

Kurt goes to visit Diane in basement jail. He’s granted a conjugal visit, which means Matteo gets moved up to the bedroom so Diane and Kurt can have some alone time.

Diane is staring at an image of Lake Como in her cell. I thought it was odd she brought a printout of her vacation destination with her, so I LOVED the line where she explains that Vinetta printed it out for her. COLD. (You know who also would’ve done this if they’d for some reason had a basement prison? Bree Van de Kamp. You know what show DID do a basement prison arc I’d rather forget? Desperate Housewives!)  

I love how Diane responds to basement prison by making jokes non-stop.

“I thought the craziness would end with 2020,” Diane says. Nope.

Kurt brought alcohol; Diane brought pot gummies.  

I love that Kurt has never had pot before. I was going to say that I bet Diane’s had a few experiences with recreational drugs when I remembered we had a whole damn season of Diane microdosing.  

Christine and Gary’s acting and their chemistry really bring these basement prison scenes to life. The writing and directing are really sharp, but it’s the actors who make these scenes something special. You can tell Diane and Kurt love each other a lot. You can tell they’re disappointed about their vacation and exhausted by the chaos of the day. You can tell they’re in disbelief over this situation but also find it funny.  

Didn’t Rivi and Isabel have an adult daughter who died of COVID a few episodes ago? Weird she isn’t mentioned in this scene. Maybe from a different marriage/relationship?

Isabel called the SA’s office because she thinks Rivi’s a threat? I think this is a power play.

Heh, Carmen saying, “Shut a black woman up!?” in disbelief in court. Love it.  

Isabel instead flips her story and supports her husband and fights for his release. With no intervention from Plum Meadow, this gets the judge to free Rivi. I don’t really understand what’s happened here or why. I get the resolution, but I don’t get why Isabel called the SA or why this went away so quickly. I still don’t even get why Rivi’s been arrested.

Diane and Kurt put up Christmas lights for ambiance and talk about how they never go on vacation.

“I wanna see the pyramids on this coast!” drunk & high Kurt insists, hilariously. “I mean hemisphere. I like the Aztecs. They, they care about people.” I’m not going to transcribe the rest of the dialogue because it loses its magic when you’re not watching the scene.  

After some fun banter about travel and movies, Diane changes the topic. “I should quit, shouldn’t I? That judge upstairs? She looked at me like I was the most entitled white bitch on the planet. And that’s the way they look at me at work.”

Kurt tries to say that’s not true, but Diane knows it is: “Yes they do. I’m the top Karen. And why do I care? I mean, I... I could find another firm. I could quit. I can’t impose my will on people who don’t want me.”

YES. I see a lot of debate over what the “right” thing to do is here. But I think we are long past “right” and “wrong.” At a certain point, this stops being about absolute moral truths. If Diane doesn’t have the respect of her partners and employees, that is a very real problem for the firm and for Diane. How can she continue to impose her will on a firm that doesn’t want her, all the while claiming to be an ally? (The back half of that sentence is the most important part.) Forget whether or not Diane “should” have to step down. Forget what’s “fair.” If the non-Diane leadership of RL thinks the firm should be a black firm, and the employees of RL think so too, and Diane just doubles down on her white feminism, she’s creating an even bigger problem for herself and ruining her reputation in the process.  

Kurt stands up on the prison cot and warns Diane she might make a decision she’ll regret. This scene is so cute. Why can’t other shows do drug trips where the characters just act silly and have great chemistry? Why does it always have to be some profound meditation on death whenever characters get high?

“I think I like starting over. I like the chutes and ladders of life. I mean, I want the corner office, but then I wanna slip back to the beginning and fight for the corner office. I mean, I think maybe it’s better that I don’t get the top spot,” Diane says. LOVE to hear her admit this. I’m not sure I would’ve come to this conclusion on my own, and it sounds like it’s a bit more about how the writers like to write (you know, the “we love our characters to always be underdogs”) than Diane, but... you know what? I believe it. I fully believe it. Diane LOVES to fight, LOVES to feel like she’s in the right, LOVES power plays and to be making progress. She LOVES winning. The fact that she isn’t just choosing to retire right now, even though she’s past retirement age and has a great reputation, is in itself enough for me to believe that she would find it fun to repeatedly start over.

Plus, it’s a fun new direction for the show to take in season six, because they’ll get the same sense of conflict without the actual conflict. This season’s arc was firm drama and resulted in a firm name change... but it didn’t feel like a knock-off of Hitting the Fan. Diane trying to work her way back into power (I assume by becoming a better actual ally, otherwise doesn’t she just end up in the same exact situation?) should also provide conflict without being repetitive.

Hahahahahaha Kurt immediately reacting to this serious statement by being incredibly silly and horny and then Diane singing “I Touch Myself” to him, man, I love these two. I want to know the story behind this song choice.

Wackner emerges from his chambers. The score is tied. Wackner calls Cord corrupt and notes that they can’t just decide to call Downstate Illinois a new state based on his ruling. Now it’s thesis time!

“I was taken by Mr. Cord’s arguments of individualism. So much of our country has been built on people finding their own way, not being held back by bureaucracy. Yet, if we only follow individualism, that way lies chaos. And that was not the point of this court. Or at least not my point. Judgment for the defense. There will be no Downstate Illinois.”

“If we only follow individualism, that way lies chaos.” is probably the clearest of the many theses of this episode. To recap, we have:

(1) Factions are bad. (2) People are persuadable and the rules don’t actually matter. (3) Reality TV changes minds. (4) Institutions only exist when we collectively agree they exist (5) Individualism = chaos.  

But let’s put a pin in this for now and let the chaos of individualism play out.  

The crowd does not like Wackner’s decision, and decides that an appropriate way to express their displeasure is to make anti-Semitic remarks towards Marissa and then start throwing chairs. What nice people.  

As the crowd goes totally 1/6 on Wackner’s court (thanks for pointing this out to me, Ryan—I cannot believe I didn’t make the connection myself!), the door slamming into the desk finally pays off since Marissa and Wackner are able to use it to keep the crowd from reaching them.  

They immediately turn to the police, or they would, if they could get service. I’m sure it’s not a coincidence that as soon as things get bad, they want to involve the existing system.  

Wackner Rules is, somehow, still taping in the midst of all the chaos. I don’t know if I think they’d air this, but someone certainly would. (I wonder if any of the cameras we see in these scenes are actually the cameras filming the other angles of the riot.)  

Cord shakes his head and walks out, unharmed.  

“You think they’ll kill us?” “I think they might,” Marissa and Wackner fret.  

“My dad said the whole world would be a better place if everybody realized they were in the minority. ‘No matter where you are,’ he said, ‘Make sure you keep an eye on the exits, and make sure you’re closer to the exit than the Cossacks are to the entrance.’” Marissa says. Love Eli Gold coming through with thesis number 6 (and maybe thesis number 7).  

“Your dad sounds a little paranoid,” Wackner says, correctly. Remember how I mentioned I accidentally wound up watching 5x22? Eli calls Alicia and responds to her hello with, “DISASTER!!!!” I miss him.

“He was, but he wasn’t wrong. He said, ‘Stay away from parades. They’re cute until they’re not. And don’t trust any pope who was Hitler Youth.” “What’s that law called?” “Godwin’s Law. My dad said anybody who argued for Godwin’s Law has never been near an actual crowd. Crowds love you, they hug you. Then they grab a gun and try to kill you.”

“Why? Why do they do that?” “I don’t know. Hate is fun. It’s clear-cut.”  

I really like all of this. It is a little preachy, but it isn’t wrong and it’s self-aware. And, more importantly, it’s in character. I absolutely believe that Marissa would tell lots of stories about Eli in a moment of extreme stress. It’s nostalgic, probably comforting, and it also helps her feel like she’s on the right side with the right arguments. So, even backed into a corner, she’s still a winner: she has theory on her side.  

Wackner speaks a foreign language (I do not know what language but I wish I did) and says, “A guy could get killed doing this,” which makes him and Marissa laugh as things crash around them.

Idk about you all, but I couldn’t really get myself to actually worry about their safety during this scene. Maybe Wackner’s, just a little, but I got the sense we were supposed to focus more on the chaos and destruction and monologuing than on the actual danger. That’s not to say the stakes didn’t feel high, but rather to say that this didn’t feel like an action sequence where you don’t know what’s going to happen next. The point was to watch the court fall and think about why it fell, not to worry about if Marissa would live.  

Diane and Kurt are woken up by sirens and loud noises. The cops arrive and are shocked to find professionally dressed white people in a basement cell. They let Diane and Kurt out with compassion, but scream, “don’t you fucking move” to the people on the floor.

“It’s okay, they didn’t do anything,” Diane says. This is, as I theorized earlier, probably why Diane just sits there until her punishment blows over instead of escalating things.  

If the cops weren’t there to free Diane, why were they there? Why, because they like David Cord and David Cord has gotten Chicago PD officers to protect Wackner’s IP.  

If I had to say one thing in favor of Vinetta being the originator of the community court idea, it would be that it’s SUCH a gut punch to watch Diane and Kurt walk away from their bizarre little adventure as Vinetta gets arrested in the background, and it hits ten times as hard if Vinetta’s only being charged because some white guy is claiming IP that’s actually hers.

(I think Vinetta is probably, at this point, actually being arrested for imprisoning people illegally, but, still.)

“Pfft. Some judge,” one of the cops who adores Wackner says of Vinetta. Racist much?  

Marissa and Wackner emerge from the backroom. “I think I better get back to work,” she says, meaning her RL job. "Me too,” Wackner says, grabbing a Copy Coop apron. He’s an employee of ten years.  

I don’t think this lands as well as it’s meant to. I think the point is supposed to be that Wackner’s just some guy—not a billionaire, not an academic, not a judge, not a lawyer—with an idea. But it’s a little too neat. And it doesn’t explain how Wackner financed his court initially, nor does it explain why he has basically unlimited access to Copy Coop space and resources. I’d buy it if he were the OWNER of Copy Coop, but I have so many questions about him being an employee.  

Diane tells Liz she’s actually going on vacation this time, and they laugh about how Kurt bonded with STRL.

“I want you and Allegra to be name partners. I’ll be an equity partner,” Diane says. “Why?” Liz asks. “Five years ago, when I hit rock bottom, this firm took me in. So I don’t like the idea of splitting this firm in two. And I can’t lead if no one will follow.” “And your clients?” “We’ll manage them together.” YES! I love this. I don’t love it because I necessarily think it had to go this way, but because it’s so refreshing to see Diane say that she actually is willing to take a step back because she cares about the firm and the people there more than she cares about being a name partner. This isn’t something we usually see. When we hear “this firm took x in” it’s usually being said incredulously against someone who’s decided to leave and steal clients (cough, Hitting the Fan, cough).  

It’s been pretty clear for most of this arc that Diane and Liz like working together and they like their firm, but that no one (other than Diane, I guess) is willing to let RL lose its status as a black firm, and that the employees and equity partners weren’t going to be satisfied until Diane stepped down. Diane really had three options: Stay and piss everyone off and claim the whole firm for herself, quit and go somewhere else and totally abandon the good working dynamic she had, or step down and put her money where her mouth is.  

Also yeah the clients were never actually going to be an issue! They were only an issue because Diane intentionally went about informing them she was stepping down in a way she knew would make them worry!  

“I think I need to prove myself,” Diane says. I’m not sure that’s the key issue or that she can ever prove herself fully, but we’ll worry about that next year.

“I missed you,” Liz says. “I’m here,” Diane replies. “I know. Thank you,” Liz says.  

Diane decides she’s going to move downstairs so Allegra can have her office. I think there’s another office on this floor, since she, Adrian and Liz all had offices. This feels a little bit like Diane’s in love with the idea of making things difficult for herself and maybe hasn’t fully grasped the point, but, you know, I’ll take it.  

Diane tells Kurt her decision and he asks if it was the right thing to do. She says she doesn’t know—but she says it with a smile. Kurt notes he’s going hunting next month with the STRL folks and will put in a good word for her. Ah, yes, because STRL still controls all of this and all of this is moot! Thanks for the reminder Kurt! Diane says she wants in on the hunting trip. Of course.  

And the elevator doors close. Remember how closing elevator doors was a motif earlier this season??? It’s back!

Then we get a little coda with Wackner Rules airing a new episode that’s just violence and destruction. This sequence seems to straddle the line between being there for thematic reasons for the viewers and there to show what happened in the show’s universe, but I think it’s main purpose is theme, so I will not go on a full rant questioning why Del would want to air this.

A white blonde lady in an apron watches the destruction of Wackner Rules. She looks concerned. “That was violet,” she says with dismay. And then we see she’s holding a guy in a jail cell in her kitchen.  

And then we see other courts, as America the Beautiful plays. One’s in a garage debating kicking someone out of the neighborhood; another is across the street about the same case. There’s one in Oregon about secession. There’s one among Tiki Torch Nazis deciding only white people can own property. There’s (inexplicably) one about pronouns. There’s one with arm wrestling, one that happens while sky diving, and a bunch of others. It’s pretty ridiculous, and not necessarily in a good way. It feels at once like the natural extension of the Wackner Rules show and like an over the top parody you’d see on another show. Tiki Torch Nazis screaming “only white people can own property!” is the opposite of subtle writing. Tonally, this sequence feels more like the zany humor of Desperate Housewives or the insanity of BrainDead than anything TGF has done before (and TGF’s been plenty surreal), and it doesn’t quite work for me. It feels like it is trying to prove a point in the corniest, most on the nose way possible. It almost feels like it’s parodying its own plotlines.  

On my first watch, this ending for Wackner left me stumped. I knew the writers were making an argument against individualism (Wackner’s speech + the repeated references to The Apprentice) and cults of personality. But I couldn’t figure out a real life analogue to Wackner’s court, and since this ending was so obviously trying to be About Something, that bugged me. Sure, that last sequence could be an argument against people making community courts, but WERE people making community courts? I didn’t see the urgency.

And then I talked to @mimeparadox. And as soon as he said that it was about factions and people playing by their own sets of rules beyond the justice system, it clicked. I’d been looking for Wackner’s plot to be a commentary on the legal system. It is much broader than that. It’s a commentary on the weakening of democratic systems (the Big Lie, etc.), more broadly, and Wackner and his common-sense approach are just a way to get liberal viewers to go along for the ride.  

Now that I understand the point, or what I think is the point, I like this conclusion. Circumventing the system leads to chaos; that’s why we have institutions and bureaucracy, and I think the show is arguing that these institutions should still be respected despite their flaws. The many theses of this episode all come together to make this point (though the reality TV stuff is a little more tenuous and I'm a little shocked we got through all of this without any commentary on social media?): If we stop having a shared belief in institutions and instead follow individual leaders (whom we may learn about through reality TV), the rules will stop mattering and we’ll end up with a fractured country and widespread violence.  

But, and maybe this is just about me being upset I missed both the obvious 1/6 parallels AND the point of the arc the first time through this episode (my defensive side feels the need to also note I first watched this episode at like 5 am when I was barely awake), I don’t know that I actually think this episode does a great job of driving its point home. There are SO many moving pieces to the Wackner plot and SO many references. There are so many threads we never return to from earlier in the season, and there’s so much that strains credulity (like Wackner taking Dr. Goat seriously for more than a split second). It’s pretty clear what the themes are—even though I’m saying I missed the point my first time through, I've hit on all these themes separately in past recaps and posts—but, I dunno, something about this episode just feels scattered. Maybe it’s all the moving pieces, maybe it’s all the moments where it sounds like the characters are voicing related ideas that don’t quite snap together to form one coherent picture, or maybe it’s that Wackner’s plot gets two endings (the actual ending + the coda) and it’s up to the viewer to put together how they relate.

I really don’t know. At the end of the day, I think there was a little too much going on with Wackner and that the writers needed to use the episodes between the private prison reveal and the finale to narrow—not broaden—the scope of what they were trying to do with Wackner. But I also think that what they were doing with Wackner was really, really smart and original. I don’t think I can overstate how impressed I am that the writers took an idea that sounded, frankly, awful when I first heard about it and turned it into something captivating and insightful that I was happy to spend nine weeks watching.  

Overall, a few bad episodes aside, I thought season five was the strongest season of TGF yet. I haven’t seen this show be so focused in... well, maybe ever. Having two overarching plots that received consistent development and felt like they were happening in the same universe at the same time REALLY helps make season five feel like a coherent whole, and I can’t wait to rewatch it.  

[itcamefromthetoybox]

Michael Keaton Starring in “Birdman”

Alright, we all know a new Spider-Man movie is coming out soon. Disney dropped the trailers for it, the internet has been exploding with speculation, and somehow, Tom Holland hasn’t spoiled the entire plot yet as of this writing. Of course, a new Spider-Man movie means new toys, like some we’ve previously discussed on this blog. My fiancee, being absolutely awesome, actually got me one as an early Christmas gift the other day, in fact! So today, let’s take a look at “Spider-Man: No Way Home Wing Blast Marvel’s Vulture!”

Just a head’s up, this paragraph does have spoilers for “Spider-Man: Homecoming.” For those of you who didn’t see “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” Vulture was the main antagonist. He was a blue collar worker whose company was hired to clean up after the Avengers’ fight with aliens in New York, only for Tony Stark to make his own agency to deal with that, putting Vulture’s company out of work and making a nice penny for himself by handling the damage he was partially responsible for. Vulture, facing the risk of losing his only means of providing for his family and having to lay off all his employees, started using alien tech left he had already salvaged to create a winged flight suit and start stealing tech from Stark to sell. And somehow, we were supposed to see him as a villain here. Considering that at the end of the movie, he was one of the only Marvel villains to not die on screen and he refused to give up Spider-Man’s secret identity, a lot of people walked out of the theaters seeing Vulture as someone to like and root for.

I just can’t hate this guy. If a rich asshole ruined my life, I’d also run around dressed like an animal trying to get payback. My fursona: REVENGE!

This figure’s look is almost completely inspired by Vulture’s Homecoming design, with only a few changes. His hands are sculpted holding what look like tasers, which he never had in the movie, and his wing pack includes two large cannons, which he also never used before. Other than that, his design is right out of the first movie, and the box even says it was inspired by Homecoming. He’s meant to go with the Web Spin and Web Grappler Spider-Man figures we looked at a while back, and goes great with them. He feels like a bigger, bulkier figure, which makes sense, as he is a grown man in good shape wearing bulky clothing and armor and Spider-Man is a kid in tights. Also, unlike Spider-Man, Vulture actually has really good balance, which is kind of funny because his whole deal is flying around, and not standing there.

In terms of articulation, Vulture has elbow and shoulder joints, and what feels like a balljoint neck. However, the frill of his jacket and the shape of his helmet mean that it’s hard to tell and he can’t look up. Because his hands are sculpted to be holding tasers, Vulture can’t hold anything in them, which bugs me a bit, to be honest. Vulture has no leg articulation, but this is due to the gimmick, which we’ll look when the time is right.

…

The time has come! Vulture’s gimmick is pretty cool. Squeezing his legs flaps his wings and also causes his cannons to flip up over his shoulders. When they’re up, though, you do have to fold the barrels down into firing position and then back again when you want to put the guns away. The cannons being up doesn’t impact the wing flapping, so you can have him fly through the sky, blasting Spider-Man (and also Iron Man, who did directly almost ruin his entire life). The cannons are pressure-activated, meaning you have to push the back of the missile to launch it out of the cannon.

Big Bird’s packing heat!

I have two complaints with the gimmick. The first, and maybe this is just a problem with my particular figure, is that his left wing isn’t as stable as the right wing and wiggles a little when it flaps. My second complaint is really more with the pressure guns in toys in general. See, when I was a kid, you’d push a button to fire a missile, or pull a trigger. The pressure missiles are becoming more popular, which could be a problem for people with certain disabilities that affect physical strength and what you can do with your hands in general. I for one know that if my condition’s acting up, I honestly might have more trouble firing a missile like that. I know that’s something hard for able-bodied people to understand, as they haven’t had to deal with it, but it can be a real challenge sometimes.

Disney Presents: “Harvey Birdman: Attorney At Law”

Vulture is very much aimed at kids and goes for about $15. He’s a fun toy and definitely something Spider-Man fans, or people who hate Tony Stark, would love, and he’d make a nice holiday gift. You can find him now on toy shelves. This is JL signing off and wishing you all Happy Toy Hunting!

[rachelbethhines]

Tangled Salt Marathon - Happiness Is

This is possibly my favorite episode of season two. Yet, it is also the point the where the series starts to fall off a cliff. Only that’s not something that you would realize upon a first watch; just in hindsight and only with some basic knowledge of the behind the scenes drama that led to this and the fall out with the fandom that followed afterwards. 

Summary:  Rapunzel begins to feel homesick for Corona when she finds an old letter written by her father in one of the many lanterns sent from her previous birthdays. In attempts to uplift her spirits, Rapunzel explores the island and comes across a magical idol that brings instant happiness to whomever possesses it. Rapunzel begins to hallucinate her family and friends back in Corona and soon shares the idol with the rest of the group. However, everyone starts to become obsessive over the idol, desperately wanting it for themselves. Rapunzel tricks everyone into giving her the idol, but when the Lorbs try to help Rapunzel, they fall under the idol's control and soon begin to terrorize the village.

Let’s Start with the First Elephant in the Room; Frederic 

So throughout the episode Rapunzel is struggling with being homesick. Which is fair enough, that’s an understable reaction to being on the road for months by now. However, to showcase this Rapunzel keeps seeing hallucinations of her father. There are some other characters too, but her dad is the first person she sees and the only one in Corona with speaking lines. He’s the one to tempt her with the idol. 

Did we just forget that Frederic is her abuser? 

Look, even if you accept his apology in Secret of the Sundrop and believe he has learned his lesson, that doesn’t just erase the pain he caused her. Her thoughts about her father should be more realistically complex then this. Now add in how she makes a such a clean break from her other abuser, Gothel, but still holds him on a pedestal shows a disturbing bias on the part of the writers. 

Also where’s this love for Arianna? You know the only real mother on the show? The show that’s aimed at little girls? The one parent who hasn’t flat out abused the main character yet? 

Seriously, Chris, what the fuck? 

This is a Missed Opportunity 

So part of the reason why I like this episode is that we get insights into each of the characters and their desires. As such this is one of the few episodes where the group actual feels like a group friends. However, Cass’s vision is wasted here. 

So at first glance this seems to aline with what we know of the character thus far. She loves her dad and wishes to impress him. That’s only if you take season one into account, though. Later episodes will contradict this goal. If you wanted to set up praise and validation in general as Cassandra’s motives, then here is where that should have happened. 

Show her getting a medal, have cheering crowds surround her, have her be a hero, or something. You can’t claim her relationship with her parents as the driving force of behind her later actions if you don’t actually involve one of those parents as part of the resolution to her arc. 

Either she lacking attention from her dad or she’s jealous of Rapunzel. You can’t have it be both because those two things don’t intersect. Rapunzel is not and never was a threat to her relationship with her father. 

So Umm...I Don’t Think This Plot Point Has the Impact That the Writers Think It Does 

So this hilarious, and it is intended to be funny, but it’s not for the reasons that the show gives. 

The idea is that this is some shocking revelation. That Rapunzel would never do this under normal circumstances and it’s a hint that the idol is corrupting her. 

Only the rest of the series doesn’t aline with that at all. This is just the real Rapunzel behaving as the she normally would but without the usual veneer of excuses. 

It’s funny because it’s the show calling out Rapunzel hypocrisy for what it is plainly, not because it’s out of character. 

But funny only gets you so far. The show is perfectly happy to play up Rapunzel’s awfulness for laughs, but then conventily ignore it when it comes time for the characters themselves to call her out on it so that she can grow and learn.       

The show runs under the sitcom idea that comedy excuses all sins; which then backfires horribly when it tries to be serious and mature. 

You can’t joke that the king threw a random person in a stockade for little reason and then expect us to still like him when he persecutes a child. Same applies here. 

The sitcom set up only works when there is minimal at stake and all parties involved are equally awful in their own ways. 

Then Why Not Just Go Home?

Once again, there’s nothing at stake in season two. Rapunzel has no real reason to be on this trip. Nothing is stopping her from just going home if that’s what she wants. The idol only makes her happy because it shows her want she wants, but she could actually have what she wants as soon as the next ship arrives. So what’s the issue here? 

This is why you need external conflict in order to make internal conflicts work. There’s has to be something preventing the main character from achieving her goal or otherwise she just comes across as a dumbass. 

And Now Here Comes the Second Elephant; Varian 

I have several things to talk about here, and none of them actually concern the scene itself but the creator’s treatment of the character and the show’s fan base.

For you see, Chris did a very, very stupid thing.  

He wrote the character driving the plot out of the show. The character who also happens to be the most popular person in the series. Only to then use said character’s VA and this one cameo as promotion for this whole season. 

Needless to say, fans were disappointed.   

However, the Tangled fandom is exceedingly polite; more so than most. The lack of Varian was met mostly with confusion, and maybe a few off handed jokes, rather than anger. When opportunity arose people naturally had questions concerning the character.     

And that’s when Chris put his foot in mouth. 

This Tumblr post details how Chris got kicked off the Tangled The Series Discord by bullying a bunch of Varian fans while on there. 

https://starxapple.tumblr.com/post/617852117763391488/zhantiri-uuugh-fine-since-people-are-getting

I shan’t get into it fully, but for those who discovered the show after season two had aired, this caused a massive backlash from the fandom. 

A good chunk of the fandom just walked away, and rightly so. The few that stuck around despite these remarks found themselves harassed by certain sections of the fandom who saw Chris’s bullying as permission to pursue the same behavior. However, most importantly, the ratings plummeted. 

Season one hovered around the the 1 million mark, give or take a five point difference. The first part of season two dropped to half of that, and after this episode and the hiatus it sunk even lower, down to the mid-thirties. That’s over 20,000 people who just jumped ship over this. That’s not a normal decline. 

No matter what your personal feelings are of the character of Varian or how he was handled in the show, that’s still a massive PR fassico that cost the series big time. 

To add to this mountain of bullshit, there was also a massive walk out of crew members after season one had finished production. Most of them women. They even desperately threw out ‘we’re hiring’ calls to cover this. Which given that’s it’s Disney and that nepotism is usually how one gains employment in the entertainment industry, something unusual must have happened behind the scenes. Especially if most of the people who left were women. 

We’ll probably never know what really happened. People don't usually talk about behind the scenes stuff like that due to contracts and the aforementioned nepotism. However, all clues point to Varian.   

Something changed at the last minute concerning his story. Chris himself had confirmed as much when discussing the note and the Brotherhood. We also gotten other hints that content was edited out at the last minute. Plus the writing becomes more shoddy as the series goes along, showing how slapped dashed everything is together.  

Then there’s the rumors. 

I must stress to you that this is only a rumor. As pointed out earlier, most animators aren’t in a position to talk freely about what goes on behind the scenes. Do NOT harass them over it or make things awkward by asking them to clarify this. However it’s been suggested that the female crew warned Chris that removing Varian from season two and re-writing his story, along with making Cass the villain, would be a bad idea before they left and Chris didn’t listen. Much to his folly. 

Chris is no longer a Disney employee and has yet to move on to any other projects. He says he left, but I more suspect that Disney just didn't renew his contract and no one has picked him up since. I take no joy in the idea that someone may have lost their job, but if true, then Chris has little to blame but himself. 

So What Did Change?

We don't know anything for sure. We know from discussions about the note that there was a proposed Brotherhood plot that involved Varian that was then cut. There was also talks about a Cass and Varian team up in season three. 

This was then changed to the Saporian take over, which is foreshadowed in this scene. However even that got edited down and under the flimsiest of excuses. 

One of the writers, Ricky, suggested that they thought cutting back to Corona would be too confusing for the audience; which is a load of bull. I mean how poorly do you think of your audience’s comprehension skills that they wouldn’t understand a change of scene or a flashback? Yet you fully expect them to pick up on your lazy foreshadowing involving the mirror? So much so that you sent them on a quest to find it between seasons two and three.

Then there’s this gem from Chris. 

Ok ignoring the fact that you so totally could have featured both Gothel and Varian, seeing as they serve two different functions in the story and mean different things to Rapunzel.... What guilt?!!! 

Rapunzel doesn’t ever act guilty over anything involving her treatment of Varian. 

That’s when you realize Chris isn’t talking about her feeling guilty about Varian’s predicament. He’s saying that Rapunzel feels guilty of leaving her father behind with this ‘dangerous’ criminal. Which is a big fuck you to everyone. 

That’s why Frederic is the center focus of Rapunzel’s hallucinations. Why she’s more concerned for his safety over Varian’s trauma. Chris really be out here trying to use the abused 14/15 year old orphan as a scapegoat for the grown ass dictator who ruined countless lives. Because he thinks a grown woman should feel guilty for leaving her abusive father behind and pursuing her life’s dream.

Dude, I try not to assume the worst of people just cause they write fictional characters that I dislike, but Chris really makes things hard not to when he treats his self insert this way. 

Oh but we’re not done yet. 

When Varian Fans Complain About the Lack of Varian; We’re Complaining About the Lack of a Coherent Plot. 

Certain sections of the fandom, bolstered by Chris’s BS, try to act like simply being a Varian fan is grounds for dismissal of any criticism of the show and it’s writing. As if having personal preference for something makes you automatically ‘entitled’ or some such bull. Yet doing so ignores the fundamental complaint that they are making. 

We’re not whining about our favorite character not getting enough screen time. No one would have complained about his lack of presence in season two if they had properly resolved his story in season three and had Chris not been a dick to the fans. But it becomes evidently clear as the series goes along that removing Varian left a major hole in the plot. One that makes the entire story and the rest of characters suffer as well. 

Think season two is boring? That’s cause they cut out their main villain at the last minute and failed to replace him with anything. 

Upset that Hookfoot was brought along for zero reason?  He’s the replacement character for Varian who no doubt was going to appear in season two originally. 

Wish there was more on the Brotherhood and the Dark Kingdom?  Their story impact was greatly reduced when Varian was written out.

Are you a Eugene fan and mad about how the Dark Prince plot went nowhere?  That’s cause the original Brotherhood/Dark Kingdom plot was dropped when Varian was.

Dislike how Cassandra’s character was ruined with her villain arc?  She was originally meant to be possessed but was changed last minute to be a Varian rip-off in the hopes that she would gain some of his popularity.   

Wish Zhan Tiri, Demantius, and the Disciples actually went somewhere and that ZT had coherent plan?   That plot were changed last minute to make Zhan Tiri a scapegoat for Cassandra now that her story was changed to replace Varian.

And of course let’s not ignore the character who suffers the most from lack of Varian.... Rapunzel. 

Chris’s defense for leaving Varian out of S2 is that it’s “Rapunzel’s Story” and that Varian was only ever a plot device meant to push her along on her quest.  Which means that Rapunzel no longer has anyone pushing her along on her quest!!!

All characters are plot devices. If they aren’t there to serve a story function then they need to be cut. Even Rapunzel herself serves a plot function. She’s meant to be the protagonist of a coming of age story. Which means she needs both an external conflict to face and an emotional arc where she grows as a person. Varian is the plot device that serves both of those functions but he’s now been removed and is no longer allowed to serve his original purpose. 

Chris reached into the machine while it was running and pulled out one of the main gears and acted like he always meant to do that. He legit sat there and pretended that everything was running smoothly even as smoke poured out and warring alarms blared. He then tried to shove bubble gum in its place hoping no one would notice as everything fell apart around him. 

Cause he’s the thing; no idea is without merit. It’s all about presentation. Removing Varian from season three still could have worked, but it required A.) replacing him with another foe and B.) making sure his arc still got a proper conclusion. 

I’ll talk more about Varian’s half-arsed redemption when we get to it; but for now let's focus on the more immediate problem. No one thought to give season two an actual overarching conflict in light of Varian’s absence. 

That’s a fundamental oversight that pretty much signals that season two was re-written at the last minute. You have an overarching plot in an action adventure show but no main adversary? I refuse to believe that everyone involved was too stupid to do that on purpose; but if they were rushed and lacked a crew because they walked out due to last minute story changes....yeah that’d I buy. 

Because there’s more than enough options to go around; Lady Caine, The Baron and Styalan, Hector and/or Adria, Zhan Tiri’s Disciples ect. were all options. So was keeping the rocks a threat, or have Cass start her villian arc earlier; with proper motivation this time. They could have even come up with someone entirely new. 

You had over four years to plan this shit out; why is it not more well put together?! 

How Come Rapunzel Can Easily Admit Fault to Pascal But Not Anyone Else? 

Pascal should have sat perched on Varian’s and Eugene’s shoulders giving Rapunzel ‘I’m done with this’ looks all throughout season three. It’s apparently the only thing that she responds to. 

Why is the untalkative camelanion the only one allowed to call out the main character’s BS without going villain? 

Conclusion

That’s all there really is to talk about in this story. The actual episode itself is good. It’s the behind the scenes crap that bubbles underneath its surface that needed to be discussed. That way when going forward with the marathon you’ll better see what I’m talking about when I explain how future episode suffered from the lack of planning and foresight. 

[angelictaehyun]

𝐓𝐗𝐓 𝐀𝐒: a disneyworld employee.

song ; how far i’ll go by auli’i cravalho

「 𝐘𝐄𝐎𝐍𝐉𝐔𝐍 」

Prince Charming, duh.

He was hired on the spot to play Prince Charming because he’s just that attractive. He walked into the audition room and barely spoke a sentence before he was hired.

Has a lot of beef with Cinderella since he’s lowkey prettier than her. Everyone in the park is aware of their tension, but they try their best to act professionally in front of management. 

However, there was a time they almost fought in front of a tour group of elderly folk. Taehyun relished in the chaos per usual.

“Jealousy is a disease sweetie, get well soon,” — Choi Yeonjun, hearing Snow White gossip about him in the locker room.

At least twice a week, he’s begging Beomgyu to let him ride Splash Mountain after close.

.

.

.

「 𝐒𝐎𝐎𝐁𝐈𝐍 」

A job he shouldn’t have... Animal Kingdom trainer. 

He has to showcase the “exotic” fauna of Animal Kingdom, which is a lot more tedious than one would expect.

He’s 100% scared of a good portion of them. Why he chose this job is truly beyond him and everyone else.

However, he’s probably the member that has worked there the longest and surprisingly, he doesn’t hate it, even though the idea of holding a snake still terrifies him. Not yet at least.

Has a panic attack when the children try to grab the snake... while it’s in his grasp. Children test him to no end, it’s like they want to get swallowed whole by a boa constrictor.

He’s so sweet with the animals, including those that terrify him. He enjoys talking to them, he finds it comforting. He also likes to think they understand him. Definitely the type to whisper to them, “Hey, if you can speak, you can say so. I won’t tell. I promise.”

He’s usually doing the same two things. He’s either trying to train the iguana for a performance (and close to losing it because the iguana is an ass) or he’s in Kai’s gift shop, bothering him.

「 𝐁𝐄𝐎𝐌𝐆𝐘𝐔 」

Splash Mountain operator because he really likes seeing the fear in people’s eyes before they get on the ride. 

He’ll chug three Redbulls daily just to put up with the children and Kai. He loves the kids though, who’s he trying to fool.

Spends a lot of time laughing at the photos of people’s reaction as they go down Splash Mountain. He started a picture wall in the break room and every ride operator has contributed a photo; it’s become a must-see attraction for every employee.

He’s kind of jealous of the person in the Buzz Lightyear costume. Beomgyu won’t admit it but he thinks the suit is cool and he would very much like to try it on.

He tries to make balloon animals for the children as his side job, but he’s only capable of making a worm.

He enjoys bugging Taehyun during the latter’s shift. He’ll eat three hotdogs consecutively and feel nauseous immediately after. 

Typically tries to fight Taehyun for saying “I told you so,” but is usually too full to move.

Absolutely despises seeing people propose in front of Cinderella’s castle. Like, honestly, how much more cliché could you get?

「 𝐓𝐀𝐄𝐇𝐘𝐔𝐍 」

The hot dog cart cashier, because he needs the consistency of the job.

Got hired at seventeen and hasn’t known peace since.

If he has to hear “It’s a small world after all,” one. More. F*cking. Time. He’s going to astral project his body into the next dimension.

He will fight someone. Anyone, really. Including little Timmy if he starts to act up.

As much as he doesn’t like admitting it, much like Hyuka and Beomgyu, Taehyun has a soft spot for the children running around the park. He’d be damned if he ever admitted that though.

He’s an avid supporter of the beef between Yeonjun and Cinderella. He really enjoys the chaos it brings to the park.

Constantly trying to “borrow” one of Soobin’s snakes. The older spends much of his time trying to keep Taehyun away from them. There was this one time a snake went missing and all eyes were on Taehyun (the snake was found later, and turns out Soobin accidentally misplaced it—which is horrifying).

「 𝐊𝐀𝐈 」

He’s a simple giftshop worker, but he’s way too enthusiastic about his job. It’s honestly concerning. 

The rest think he’s on cocaine but no, that’s just how Kai is.

He is the exact opposite of Taehyun in terms of employee mentality.

He’s not even a character performer yet he watched all the cartoons and movies to pull off the acting perfectly.

You know how people say, “Oh, Disney cast members are brainwashed,” yeah, Kai is the epitome of that statement. However, he’s a good reason why Disney is considered the happiest place on earth.

He keeps a bottle of glitter next to the cash register so he can sprinkle it onto all of the children that come into the shop.

Probably the most likely to become the “Disney adult” in the future. 

Stole a bunch of Mickey and Minnie Mouse ears and tried to sell them on Ebay for some extra cash. 

[ilovereadingandilovebreathing]

One Spider-Man and a Baby

A/N: This was supposed to be part of a 5+1 in response to an ask prompt, but I’ve been stuck for...honestly I have no idea how long at this point, and I really want this one to see the light of day, so I’m posting it. 

Summary: Peter is definitely out past his bedtime, but to be fair, babies are also definitely not supposed to be out in the dead of night...or in dark, spooky alleys. 

It’s a slow night on patrol.

Peter is sitting atop a Subway, his legs hanging over the edge, and he’s just finished munching on a complimentary six-inch. He stands, stretches, and shoots his balled up trash in to the large silver can below him before hopping to the ground, opting to walk in the shadows instead of webbing so that his food can settle.

It’s very early in the morning (or late at night, depending on how you look at it); it’s low traffic hours, so for once, Peter is able to navigate his own city as Spider-Man with ease. Every once in a while, he passes a pair or a group of partygoers, slurred exclamations of “Spider-Bro!” and “Wow, Spider-Man!” making his cheeks burn with pride. He’s just fist-bumping an especially enthusiastic passerby when a new sound reaches his ears.

The cries of a baby definitely aren’t novel sounds to Peter, especially around bedtime in New York, but something about these cries are wrong, aside from the fact that it’s almost 1 in the morning. They seem raw, desperate, even.

Following his ears, Peter comes to the mouth of an alleyway. He listens for a moment more before slowly inching his way into the darkness.

“Hey, Karen,” Peter mumbles. “Do we have night vision?”

“Of course, Peter.”

Instantly, the small space is lit up in a strange, fluorescent green that Peter has seen on numerous ghost-hunting shows.

“Seriously? Green? I feel like I’m on ‘Ghost Hunters.’”

“I believe that was the intended effect. Mr. Stark was aware of your television preferences.”

Peter smiles a bit, but it melts when he realizes where the cries are coming from. Peter carefully steps toward a large dumpster and hoists himself up; a dark blue infant car seat sits on top of a pile of full black garbage bags. Peter quickly dives over the edge of the large bin and wades toward the source of the continuous cries until he’s able to lift the blanket draped over the handle; the smallest baby Peter has ever seen lays swaddled inside. The tiny human’s face is so wrinkly and pinched that even Peter can tell it’s the closest to a newborn you can get without being in a hospital. Peter feels his stomach turn over when reality sets in: someone probably abandoned this baby here. The night vision just picks up the tear tracks on the baby’s cheeks, and Peter’s heart clenches.

“Karen, can you scan the baby for injuries?”

“She appears to be unharmed, Peter, but her body temperature is low. Considering she is a newborn, I suggest skin-to-skin contact if possible.”

“Oh....” Peter considers for a moment. “I have my Midtown hoodie. It’s pretty thick.” He knows his backpack is webbed up behind the aforementioned Subway, about fifteen minutes away, but he knows he can’t leave the baby behind. “You said skin-to-skin, right, Karen?”

“Yes, Peter.”

“Okay, Babygirl, we’re gonna get you warm.” Peter hits the spider logo in the center of his suit, and it becomes lose all around him. He slips out of the top half of his uniform and reaches into the car seat; he carefully brings the squirming infant against his chest and grits his teeth when she cries louder at the movement and harsh cold. He holds the surprisingly light little body with one arm and then the other as he slips them back into his sleeves. He presses the little spider again, and the suit becomes form-fitting around them. “Hey, Karen, can you loosen the suit around Babygirl?”

Immediately, the pressure against his chest lessens, and he cradles the little one there, shivering at how cold she is against his warm skin.

“Can you put the heater on low, Karen? Don’t want to hurt her.”

His suit is instantly less warm than normal, and Peter hugs Babygirl close. She’s still crying, so he tries to bounce her a bit, like he’d seen on countless T.V. shows.

“She’s probably hungry, huh, Karen?”

“Most likely.”

“Mmmhmm...Is there like a shelter or something nearby?”

“May I suggest a hospital?”

Peter smacks his forehead. “Duh. Get me directions to the closest one with a 24 hour emergency room.”

“Done. Directions starting.”

Peter grabs the carrier and sets off under Karen’s direction. It’s an hour journey on foot, but Peter would rather not risk upsetting the baby more than has already been done.

As they’re walking, Peter tries to keep Babygirl as steady as possible, running a hand over her head over and over, cupping the infant to him as he silently pleads for her to calm down. 

“Karen, what calms babies down?”

“Top results include: feeding.”

“Can’t do that.”

“Diaper changes.”

“Also can’t do that.”

“Pacifiers.”

“Didn’t see one.”

“Rocking.”

“Limited ability right now.”

“And singing.”

“If I do that, she’ll scream.” Peter snorts. 

“Why is that, Peter?”

“Let’s just say I’m not the best singer.”

May may not be his biological aunt, but he definitely inherited his tone deafness from her by proxy. 

“You don’t have to be. Just the sound of a voice can be comforting. Studies show that babies are calmed by hearing familiar voices talking, but singing has been shown to be even more effective.”

“What about humming?”

“Close enough.”

“Hmmm...this is weird, Karen, but I have ‘Bella Notte’ from Lady and the Tramp stuck in my head right now.”

“I can play that quietly for you, if you want.”

“That works.”

The opening accordion notes of the Disney classic play quietly around them, and Peter smiles. “I’ve always loved this song. There’s just something about it.”

“Are you going to sing along, Peter?”

“I already told you I’m awful, Karen.”

“You can still hum. The vibrations might be soothing for Babygirl.”

“I guess-hey, Bella. I’ll call her Bella. That’s nicer than Babygirl.” 

“Bella is a nice name. It means ‘beautiful.’”

“I like it. Bella Notte...” Peter takes a deep breath and silently resigns himself to humming for Bella’s sake.  

The baby has quieted down quite a bit by the time the hospital comes into view, and Peter has literally memorized “Bella Notte” as it plays for the 20th time.  

The ER only has a few scattered patrons when they arrive, and thankfully, none of them really acknowledge the strange pair. “Karen, voice disguise.” Peter whispers as he crosses into the reception area. 

“Uh, hi. I’m, uh-”

“Carrying a baby in your shirt?” The receptionist is terse but smiling just a bit as Peter fumbles with the carrier.

“Uh, yeah. I found her abandoned in an alley.”

“Oh, dear.” The woman clicks her tongue and picks up her phone. “Katie,” She sighs after a few moments. “Can you come to my desk please? An infant. Yup. Thank you.” She smiles softly at him this time. “One of our pediatric nurses is coming. There is a single bathroom back here if you you want to take her out...privately.”

“Oh, thank you so much.” Peter tentatively rounds the desk and nods when the receptionist, Patricia, her nametag says, lets him in the locked door.

In the privacy of the one-person restroom, Peter rips off his mask and sags against the wall, breathing deeply and unevenly as he tries to get his bearings. He can’t believe he walked all the way here with a tiny baby in his suit. He presses the logo and carefully extracts her, immediately bundling her in the blanket he’d found her under. He realizes in the light that she’s only wearing a dirty white onesie, and he feels tears spring to his eyes. 

“Don’t worry, Bella.” Peter coos softly, his voice breaking as he really looks over her scrunched up face for the first time. “You’re safe now.” 

Before he can think, he places a featherlight kiss on her little forehead, and his heart flutters. He clenches his eyes against the tears welling there as she whimpers in his arms, exhausted from crying for who knows how long. The boy stares at the baby for a few more moments before sighing deeply and pulling his mask back over his tired features.

Peter keeps the baby cradled to him with one arm and carries the car seat with the other; he carefully opens the bathroom door and inches out into the employee area behind the reception desk. A young woman with a brown ponytail and soft hazel eyes catches his gaze and gives him a small wave; she pushes off of the table she’s leaned against and meets him halfway.

“Hi, Spider-Man.” Her voice is like tinkling bells. “Pat says you have a visitor for me?”

“Yeah....I don’t know her name, so I’ve been calling her Bella.”

“That works for now.” Katie smiles and reaches out. “Mind if I take her off your hands?”

“Oh, yeah, of course.” Peter hesitates and looks down at Bella, his eyes filling again, and he feels himself blush. He looks back up at Katie but subconsciously pulls the baby closer.

“You can hug her good-bye if you want,” Katie offers softly, gently pulling the carrier from his arm. “I’ll be right out front with Pat when you’re ready.”

“Okay. Thank you, Katie.”

The young nurse smiles and leaves quietly.

Peter looks down at Bella, his view of her distorted through tears. “You’re gonna be okay now, Bella. Katie and Pat will take good care of you.” Peter swallows thickly and places her laterally against his chest, bouncing her gently to comfort both of them, if he’s honest. He squeezes her against him and brings his head to rest on top of hers. “This is so weird. I only met you like an hour ago, but...I love you so much, Bella.” Peter sighs and sniffs before straightening up; he continues slightly rocking Bella as he walks toward Katie and Pat, the former continually smiling at him as he hands the tiny bundle over.

“She’ll be okay. Thank you for bringing her to us.” Katie pats his shoulder and holds an arm out. Peter is taken aback for a second until he really looks at her, sees the lines in her face and bags under her eyes. She suddenly reminds him of May, the desire to help and love so evident in every part of her, and he steps into her embrace. Katie squeezes him lightly and rubs a hand over his back. Peter breathes shakily, and she squeezes again before pulling away. “You’ll both be okay,” Katie promises.

“Why...was she abandoned?”

Katie’s eyes turn down at the corners. “Any number of scenarios for why, but Pat told me you found her in an alley.”

“In...a dumpster.” Peter chokes out.

“Sadly, not the first time we’ve heard of that, but she’s definitely better off now that she’s here. Our social worker specializes in infant care, so she’ll find a good foster family for her.” Katie pats his back one more time before holding Bella close to her; she runs a finger over her forehead.

“She was so cold when I found her,” Peter whispers. “But I think I helped warm her.”

“I’d say so; she doesn’t feel too cold at all. You did good, Spider-Man.” Katie turns back toward the door he came through, and Peter holds it open for her.  “You’re welcome to stay here until we’re done looking her over and getting her settled, if you want.”

“I...I want to...” Peter sighs and rubs his arm. “But I already said good-bye. I should go home. Someone is waiting for me. Plus, I trust you guys.”

“Well, thanks.” Pat laughs and rubs his arm. “This is what we do, baby. She’ll be just fine. You did good.”

Peter nods, puts a hand on Pat’s shoulder as he passes, and heads out of the emergency room before he can break down.

-

It’s after 3am when Peter finally climbs in his window. He shouldn’t be surprised to find May asleep on his bed, but his vision, physical and otherwise, is a little hazy thanks to his senses being on alert ever since he left the hospital. It wasn’t like the normal shriek of danger but a buzz at the base of his neck, like the area there has somehow fallen asleep.

Peter shakes his head when he finds himself still sitting on the windowsill. He crosses to May silently and gently rubs her shoulder. “May?”

May stirs and squints up at him; her eyes widen before she sighs and laughs, slightly delirious. “Oh, shit, Peter. I always forget about you under there.” She sits up and stretches. “Why didn’t you call me? Way past curfew.” She yawns into her hand.

Peter hits the spider logo and strips out of the suit, exhaustion flooding his bones and tears in his eyes at her comment. “I’m sorry, May. Crazy night.”

“Yeah?”

Peter slips into a t-shirt and sweatpants and turns to face his aunt.

May’s expression falls when she really sees Peter’s face.

“Oh, baby, what happened?”

Peter bites his lip and blinks, releasing a few of the tears he wouldn’t let fall in the hospital. “That’s exactly it. I...I found a baby.”

“Oh my god.” She’s across the room and hugging him before he can blink again. She pulls him back toward the bed and hugs him close as he begins trembling.

May hugs him against her cups the back of his head; she looks down at him and murmurs, “Why didn’t you call me? I could’ve helped you, sweetheart.”

“You’ve never had a baby, May.” Peter says between shuddering breaths. “And I was six when you got me.”

“Touché.” May brushes some bunched up hair form his forehead. “But I had cousins growing up. I know how to deal with babies.”

“I just....didn’t think to. I took care of her, though. Took her to an emergency room. I had it handled.”

“Good thinking, kiddo.”

“It was Karen’s idea.”

“Well good on Karen, then.”

Peter nods mutely, staring blankly at the floor.

May wipes the stray tears from his cheeks and just lets them sit in silence for a few minutes, letting Peter get himself together before a yawn shudders through her. They both laugh a bit, and May asks, “Good?”

Peter nods.

“Good.” May carefully detaches herself and picks up his bedside water glass. “I’ll fill this for you, then bed time.” She goes and returns swiftly, kissing him tenderly on the brow while whispering, “I’m so proud of you, sweetheart. The hero with a heart of gold.”

Peter’s smile is wobbly, but he forces it up for her.

When she leaves, he lays on top of his covers for a little while, staring at his ceiling. Even with his windows and doors closed and locked tight, Peter can’t seem to shake that buzz in his senses.

It’s a little after 5am when his eyes finally fall closed, though the threat was long gone.

Stories below him and hours before, a hooded figure had slipped off into the night, having been at the right place at the right time for his own gain.

[cervidaedalus]

I've lived a bunch of places and nowhere has it been this bad. I'm in the Blizzcon and Disney city, which isn't even visibly comparable to the more impoverished and "bad" parts of Philly, Allentown, Baltimore, Camden... I don't know if it's just different on the west coast and the "bad parts" look like the safe suburbs of the east coast. -Car alarms are going off CONSTANTLY because there's been a growing epidemic of people surfing for unlocked doors or unsecured stuff in flatbeds, stealing catalytic converters, and more recently siphoning gas including drilling the undercarriage. -I had one week where I was sexually harassed thrice: a guy slowing down to catcall me, a homeless guy who was either addled or ill asking my name and saying he would "hit it from the back" right outside the bank, and an incident here at work with a guy who tried to harass me via the front desk phone and the incident ended up being escalated to corporate. -I don't know what non-slur word we use for them here, I'm not sure if Rromani is still contextually correct, but they call them by the slur here and they're people who stay in the motels at intersections but have fancy cars and dress well and constantly run scams like trying to get "gas money" for seemingly expensive jewelry or electronics that are fake or broken. -They're not kidding about the homeless in CA, but the city does fuck all to actually help them before they get caught up in meth due to the cartel hold and become beyond help. I've had a case of a woman screaming about "You all are criminals and should be locked up!" and "They have helicopters that can see what drugs are in your system" on the bus last month. -Had a registered sex offender repeatedly try to harass the hotel for several days, attempting to use maintenance scams to try and get into a room or lure female-appearing employees out of the building. -Had a car pull up JUST before my Lyft tonight and when I approached asking if it was my Lyft, I noticed it was filthy and backed up and the guy said in a slow, creepy voice, "I'll take you anywhere" and then didn't get the fucking hint when I turned and walked away so I flipped him off over my shoulder.

[mlqcconfessions]

I hope you're doing well, love! Since requests are open (yay!) how about headcannons for how the boys would react to MC's ex trying to get back together with her? 😏 Assuming the boys and MC are already in an established relationship. No rush to complete my request okay? Take all the time you need! 💕💕

This is so CUTE UWU

Let’s bring back Tony

MLQC Headcanon - Sorry, she’s with me

Victor

You were out on a date because he said you get an award for doing well in the recent segment

So you decided to go to Disney World together (this wasn’t the award he was thinking about, but okay)

VICTOR. IN. MOUSE. EARS. (he couldn’t win against your pleads)

Yes. Thank you.

You were having so much fun taking pictures of him that you didn’t realize your feet were becoming scraped

It looked worse than it actually did and you tried explaining that to Victor (of course, he wasn’t having any of that)

“You dummy....how could you NOT notice something this bad?” 

Despite his words, his eyes were full of worry as he looked around for a store

“Stay here, I’ll be right back” 

You sit at the bench, waiting for him to come back

You suddenly hear a voice calling your name (It’s not Victor’s voice!)

“MC? Is that you?”

You turn around to see him, TONY, your ex-boyfriend (just my luck)

“Um..yeah. What’re you doing here?” (you can’t meet his eyes)

“I’m here with my family. Lizzy wanted to come. You remember my sister, right?”

“....of course. How could I not?”

That was how you met him in the first place (you were Lizzy’s babysitter before he asked you out)

It’s not like you two broke up for bad reasons (it was just a natural reason), but you can’t help this awkwardness

“Um..MC. I know that things happened between us, but I still really like you”

“....what?” (he’s actually saying this to me right now?)

“If you’re not seeing anyone, then I want to ask you out again” (this time, you’re looking at him straight in the eyes)

“I’m sorry, but—”

“But she’s already married” (you shoot your head around to find Victor, who now has his hand around your waist)

“Victor! Um..this is—” (he extends his hand before you can explain)

“Victor Li. Pleasure” (the air is so cold)

“Oh..nice meeting you...” (he reads the business card Victor gave him, his face dropping in fear)

Tony just nods goodbye to you, and he runs off in the other direction

You look up at Victor, who simply scoffs before swooping down to put on the shoes he bought for you

You do not mess with the alpha male’s bride

Kiro

You were at his house to discuss the plans for next week’s show (he was appearing as a guest)

He can’t contain his excitement while you’re in his house (it’s not a sleepover, Kiro) 

Savin is here too

There’s actually nothing to eat at his house except for snacks (so the 3 of you decide to go to a nearby restaurant for dinner)

After you’re seated at the table, the waiter comes up to take your drinks

“MC?”

“....Tony?” (you can’t believe your eyes)

Your waiter is your ex-boyfriend that you dated for 3 years

Kiro doesn’t like this

“MC, introduce us to him! Any friend of MC is my friend, too!” (he’s smiling but his eyes aren’t)

“Um...this is Tony...my...” (how do I explain this???)

“Boyfriend” (excuse me?)

Kiro DOES NOT LIKE THIS

“What? No! EX-boyfriend. He’s my EX” (you glare at Tony, but he’s just looking at you)

“Haha! I thought so! You almost had me there, Tony!” (Savin is hiding behind the menu)

No one says anything for a while

Kiro breaks the silence first

“Shouldn’t you get back to work?” (Kiro, NO)

“Um...right. Can I take your order?”

After Kiro pays for the meal (he literally snatches the bill away from your hands), he tells you and Savin to wait outside while he goes to the bathroom

Savin is terrified

Kiro looks around the restaurant, spots Tony in front of the kitchen, and takes off his disguise

“...Tony”

Tony looks up, realizing who it is

“You...you’re....you’re Ki—”

Kiro���s eyes glow a brilliant golden color, nearly making Tony fall to the ground

“I almost forgot to give you this before I left” (he hands him a piece of paper)

“Thank. You. For taking care of my FIANCEE until now. See you in 2 weeks.” (he leaves with a quite literally killer smile)

Tony opens the paper he received (.....a wedding invitation?)

Lucien

For some reason, your relationship with Lucien isn’t public yet

There was really no reason go tell everyone

But a supposedly-single Lucien did attract the attentions of others (much to your annoyance)

He treats all his students the same, regardless if they confess to him or not

But he lives for the moments you get jealous when a female student lightly taps his arm (you’re so obvious with your expressions, and he LOVES it)

He didn’t think the same would happen to him (never saw it coming)

You run into a student while heading over to Lucien’s office (you text him to tell him you’re on your way)

“Oh! I’m so sorry!” (you apologize as he helps you pick up your books)

“No worries, I wasn’t watching myself eith—” (both of you look up simultaneously)

“Tony?”

“MC!” (you’re actually speechless)

“You..you’re a student here, Tony?”

“Yeah, I didn’t know you were, too”

Meanwhile Lucien’s sitting at his desk, waiting for you to arrive

He’s lightly tapping his fingers on the chair, concerned that you haven’t shown up yet (It’s been 10 minutes since her text message....)

He decides to look for you instead

“How have you been, MC?”

“Everything’s been fine. Actually, I’m getting prepared for a big event in my life” (you can’t help but smile at the thought of Lucien)

LUCIEN! How could you have forgotten?!

You quickly take your books from Tony and stand up (Lucien must be so worried!)

“Wait!” (Tony grabs your arm just before you leave)

“....Tony? I’m sorry but I have to be somewhere”

“Do you want to go out with me again?” (his words make you almost drop your belongings again)

“So this is where you were” (Lucien’s voice brings you back to reality)

“Lucien! I was just on my way to your office!” (he comes up to you, takes your books from you, and grabs your now-empty hand)

“Great timing, I need to talk to you about our wedding reservations” (he nods slightly to Tony, who just stands there dumbfounded)

You’re lucky my hands are full

Gavin

You were thinking which flowers to give to Gavin for your 1st anniversary (Birdcop’s just as nervous!)

You visit a flower shop to look at what options you have

You enter through the door (the bell softly dings)

“Welcome!” (you turn towards the shop employee, and all reason leaves you)

“To-Tony? You’re a worker here?” 

“MC! It’s my family’s store. I help out occasionally” (he can’t keep his eyes off of you)

“Um...well. I’m here to buy flowers” (of course you were! Why else would you be in a flower shop?)

“Is there anything specific you’re looking for?”

“I don’t know much about flowers...just something nice enough to give to someone?”

“In that case, these will be good. I’ll wrap it for you right now” (he goes to the back of the store)

Just then the bell dings again, and Gavin walks in the store

“Gavin?!”

He’s just as surprised to see you

“Oh, MC....I’m....here to buy some flowers”

“Me...me too” (both of you can’t hide your blushing faces)

Tony comes back after wrapping the flowers, noticing a new customer has arrived

“Welcome! Is there anything I can help you with?”

“Um..it’s okay. Thanks” (Gavin awkwardly shifts to the other side of the shop)

“Well, here’s your bouquet. I’ll ring it up for you now.”

“Thank you....” (you still can’t help but feel embarrassed)

Of all the flower shops in the city, REALLY? (Your ex AND your boyfriend in the same room?)

You pay for the flowers and reach out to grab the bouquet from Tony

He pulls back his hand and says your name

Gavin perks his ears (He knows your name?)

“Um, MC. I was wondering if I could have a bit of your time after this?”

A breeze stirs up inside the store (loose petals are floating around)

“Wh-what do you mean?”

“I want to ask you out again, if that’s okay” (you shouldn’t have said that)

Gavin suddenly appears behind you, and you catch a whiff of his scent

“I believe that’s mine?” (he’s extending his hand to grab the bouquet from Tony)

“I’m sorry?”

“I SAID. I believe. That. Is. MINE?” (Tony reluctantly hands it over to Gavin)

Gavin holds your hand as he leads you out the store, a strong gust closing the door behind you

He stops in his tracks, making you bump into his back

“Gavin?” (he doesn’t say anything, but hands you the bouquet instead)

You take it from him, but he just extends his hand out again

......hahaha. Just what am I going to do with him?

“Happy 1 year anniversary, Gavin” (you give him the flowers, AGAIN and he smiles back at you)

He takes something out of his pocket, a small case, and he opens it to reveal a beautiful ring (his face is so red right now?)

“....happy anniversary”

UGH

Jealous MLQC boys are the BEST

[spilledreality]

Value Clarity 2.0

So, people on the server (including myself) have gotten a lot of mileage out of C Thi Nguyen's "value clarity" concept. Basically, as I understand it, Nguyen thinks games work by creating an artificial value clarity for their players—that is, an artificially narrow set of priorities for the player to optimize, like points or kills. By contrast, real life is a welter of conflicting, complex goals and values.

The benefit to value clarity is that it's motivating—it feels good to know you're objectively maxing out character stats, whereas "being a good person" is harder, more subjective, permeated by self-doubt. The cost of value clarity is, well, its impoverishment—it forgets about or ignores important things we care about (but don't include in our calculus).

In ordinary life, we have to balance values. First, each of us must balance our own different and competing values, goals, and ends, which is already a difficult enough task. Then, even more torturously, we must balance our interests with the interests of others. But in games, we are permitted a brief respite from the pains of plurality. For a little while, we get to act as though only one thing matters—to lose ourselves in the pursuit of that things. Our values simplify. We need only chase our own goal, in all its simplicity and selfishness—and that goal is usually put in simple, clear, and utterly stark terms.

This isn't a problem if we're playing board games, which can be low-stakes, productive exercises in a occupying an alternate form of agency. (That is, an alternate set of affordances, desires, constraints, etc.) But Nguyen think value clarity becomes a problem when it imposes itself on the real world—say, Amazon gamifying warehouse employees, or Disney Resorts gamify housekeeping. Worker well-being, and a ton of other "holistic" values go out the window. (What these holistic values are, Nguyen doesn't really specify or explicate—at least in the writing of his I've read.) So, housekeepers lose their sense of dignity-in-labor, as they cease to take pride in work itself— with all the holistic, conflicting values that must be managed in performing such work—and start to care only about racking up points in the gamified system. Workers become cut-throat competitive and, turned against one another, each seek to gain diminishing marginal advantages with greater and greater self-sacrifices—creating a treadmill effect which all their colleagues must keep up with.

The first problem I have with this concept, and corresponding argument, I've already implied with my tone, which is a response, ultimately, to a distaste for Nguyen's tone. I'm not sure I believe there's some beautiful, rich, holistic set of values that the housekeepers used to walk around with, taking pride in their work, which was suddenly destroyed because Disney Resorts assigned points for how many towels they washed. I do think that gamification formalizes certain values, and that this formalization—this surrogation—is necessarily lossy, excluding values that the game designers (1) didn't think of (2) couldn't think how to quantitatively track, while also (by instituting quantitative surrogates for many qualitative assessments) impoverishing some of their evaluative capacities. At the same time, let's be clear, this is already how incentive structures work. When you step into a new job, you're walking into an incentive structure that already cares about certain things and not others. When you step into a new job, you're walking into an incentive structure which already diverges from your own priorities, and not just that, which diverges from the employer's priorities, because even though "being efficient" is a value the employer cares about, "looking efficient" is the only thing the employer can monitor.

Which brings me to the second bone to pick, which is that "value clarity," is less, in my book, a question of games, and more a matter of framing. A framework "just is" the reduction of complexity into a tractable set of priorities. An ideology "just is" a hammer that looks out and only sees nails: ontologically, the world has been transformed by its single-minded purpose. The entire point is simplification, because by simplifying priorities, you essentially reduce constraints, and can better max out the priorities included in the framework. In my response to "Stupid Leverage," I write:

it’s usually a bad idea to spend 10x as capital, energy, or time to be .001% less exploitable. Which is what optimizing for only one single trait virtually demands. If I want to make my house retain heat better, in winter, I can pretty easily and cheaply add insulation to the walls and ceilings. I can pretty easily and cheaply seal up window cracks. This is the low-hanging fruit. Once it’s gone, I have to take more drastic, expensive, time-consuming measures. I will have to sacrifice enormously on fronts like aesthetics, comfort, and affordability. And I will face diminishing returns for all my effort.

Which is to say that I agree with Nguyen, that value clarity is both tempting and dangerous. I just think it's a much bigger phenomenon, more complicated phenomenon than he presents.

In Moral Blindness: The Loss of Sensitivity, Leonidas Donskis and Zygmunt Bauman reflect on relativism and ambiguity. "Happy are those epochs that had clear dramas, dreams, and doers of good or evil," Donskis writes. And yet our lives are "permeated by ambivalence; there is no longer any unambiguous social situation, just as there are no more uncompromised actors on the stage of world history." Bauman responds: "How safe and comfortable, cosy and friendly the world would feel if it were monsters and only monsters who perpetrated monstrous deeds."

How amusing—that to Donskis and Bauman, we used to have value clarity, but now we have a complex welter. Whereas to Nguyen, the threat is almost the opposite. Or rather, we've come back around and reinvented ideology via the incentive structure. Which is what ideology always was, to begin with. Certain behaviors are seen as advancing group interests, and certain behaviors are seen to set them back, and ideology guides you to choose the former, even though this is at best, a rough heuristic for what actually advances group interests.

Value clarity is also a huge draw of narrative fiction. In Simpolism's "A Dialogue about Evangelion," the interlocutor I, frustrated by the lack of determinacy and resolution in Neon Genesis Evangelion, writes:

I: If I were to own up to it, I'd call it "escapism". I want the show to feel like a different world of its own, where things make sense. And I guess that's because, to some extent, the rest of my life might not make sense.

A: What does it mean when you say that the rest of your life doesn't make sense?

I: Oh, it's just that, I deal with a lot of unexpected events at work, and the world seems like it's in such a crazy place right now, with all sorts of political and cultural events happening every day. It feels like a relief to enter into a world where things do make sense, and I think that's what I expect to receive from TV when I watch it.

We can also argue a kind of quantified value clarity underlies the appeal of money-oriented values systems: optimizing your life around accumulating money is a real thing people do. Ditto with symbolic capital and body-building. Which is to say that quantification and gamification aren't actually necessary for value clarity—they help, because they create an objective, and thus legible and/or socially agreed-upon measurement. (Leading to round-number fetish.) But people give themselves over to obsession constantly—to art, to craft, to reputation—at the cost of family, happiness, and ethics. Single-mindedness is somewhat unusual, but selection effects guarantee that the single-minded dominate and outcompete those with a "holistic" welter of priorities. Sam Fussell, on his lifting days: "I became a bodybuilder as a means of becoming a caricature. The inflated cartoon I became relieved me from the responsibility of being human."

There's a different level of value clarity—not from the perspective of an individual, balancing parts of his life, but from the perspective of a task—where certain aspects of "doing a good job" are pulled out an incentivized, while others are not. But this, in my book, is a problem of incentive structures and coordination broadly—of underspecification, letter vs. spirit, opticratics, of free-riders and monitoring and oversight. It is not a matter of "games," or the pernicious "gamification," which strikes me more as a political and aesthetic critique than a coherent philosophical one.

[dimitrescus-bitch]

Getaway (Alexa Bliss x Reader)

“So long as I’m here, the next era of WWE will be known as the Era of Greatness.” You smirked as you finished your promo. You walked out of the ring to a mix of boos and cheers. When you had been discovered on the indies, you were a great babyface that everybody had loved. Eventually, you got a winning streak that got you a WWE contract without the audition. That got out and suddenly, you were an entitled brat who got lucky with bookings. Those who had worked with you at the PC or in the ring knew better than that, but it had gotten you a good rep as a heel. You played off of that, with the occasionally humbling loss, to build up a fanbase in the WWE, quickly becoming a fan favorite. 

“Era of Greatness, huh?” Alexa, your girlfriend, questioned. “Was that one creative or you?” 

“Yours truly. At this point, they give me a direction and Steph lets me go at it.” Your eyes widened comically at “go at it” and Alexa rolled her eyes at you. “It’s working pretty well. Well enough for both of us to have the next week and a half off. I have an NXT appearance. Possible tag team and reassignment.” 

“Hey, don’t sweat it,” Alexa told you. “Something tells me that you’ve got plans for that week and a half.” 

“Oh hell yeah babe!” you excitedly exclaimed. Alexa gave you a look and you calmed down a bit. “Sorry, I got excited. So, um, I have a little getaway planned. No, it isn’t Disney-related.” 

“You could have easily gotten laid if it was,” Alexa teased you. You shrugged and leaned down to kiss her. “I mean, anything you wanted for like, the entirety of our stay.” 

“Don’t be so sure that I won’t be getting laid after this getaway. I’ve taken the liberty of packing you a bag so that we can just jet on out when you’re ready,” you told her and Alexa rolled her eyes at you. 

“If people heard the way you talk away from cameras, nobody would think you’re cool. Absolutely nobody,” Alexa said and you pouted at her. She kissed the pout off and then followed you out of the building. You signed a couple autographs on your walk to the car, which wasn’t in employee parking because it was closer to the street vendor where you had gotten breakfast that morning. “Why do you always park all the way out here?” 

“Because there’s always something over here. Sometimes it’s Javier or Melody,” you told her. Alexa muttered something about of course you know the people who own the food trucks where you constantly eat. Despite having a good amount of money, you didn’t really know how to spend it, so you didn’t. You might splurge on getting a nicer shirt than you would have, but you lived your life the exact same way that you had before. 

“So, what are we doing?” Alexa asked you. 

“Going on a getaway,” you said and Alexa huffed. You drove while she slept and then you told her to follow the GPS while you took a nap for a few hours. When you woke up again, Alexa was parked outside of a hotel. “What are you doing?” 

“You can’t drive to Ohio without getting some real rest,” Alexa told you. You slept in the bed and then woke up extra early in an attempt to make up whatever time you had lost at the hotel. Alexa had you stop a couple times to look at something or get a souvenir. You turned the GPS off when you got to Ohio and started driving towards where her parents lived. You visited with them for the first day of your vacation and she talked you into staying the night. 

“Man, your room makes me sorta want to vomit,” you said as you laid back on her bed. “It’s like you were emo and preppy at the same time.” 

“What do you have against emo kids and preps?” Alexa ran her finger along your sternum. 

“Neither crowds were friendly with me in school babe,” you admitted and Alexa frowned. “I wasn’t popular, which is why it blows my mind when people cheer for me. Even if it isn’t me, me.” 

“Sometimes you say things that are really sad, but it’s okay. You need to say them, this is a getaway for you too. We’re in Ohio, why don’t you take me to meet your family?” Alexa batted her eyelashes and you sighed. 

“Family moved to California like five years ago. It’s why I do Christmas in Mexico every year. I was planning on taking you up to my family’s cabin. If that interests you, super secluded and possibly romantic,” you suggested and Alexa nodded. The two of you went to bed after that and then in the morning, you went up to the cabin. Alexa wasn’t super outdoorsy, but she seemed to like the seclusion. The two of you went on a hike up the side of a little mountain, had a picnic, and then camped out there. The next week was a mix of relaxing and outdoorsy things before you went back home to enjoy some quality time there as well. 

“Thank you for this,” Alexa said to you as the two of you laid down in your apartment. “It was nice. I liked being able to spend that much time with you like that.” 

“You could always move in or something,” you suggested. 

“How about you move in. I wouldn’t want to uproot Larry.” Alexa smiled at you hopefully and you nodded. “Really, you want to move in?” 

“I’d love to. If our trip taught me anything, it’s that we’re ready for it.” You smiled and the rest of your time off was spent moving yourself into Alexa’s house and letting the pig adjust to you being there more often. 

[aion-rsa]

What We Do in the Shadows Season 3: Harvey Guillén Wants Buffy to Train Guillermo

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This article contains spoilers for What We Do in the Shadows season 3 episode 3.

Things have changed for the Staten Island vampires on What We Do in the Shadows season 3 as they step into positions of power. This may not make much of a difference for Colin Robinson (Mark Proksch), whose new job as secretary of the Vampiric Council, is much like his fake job, at a cubicle in an office. But Laszlo (Matt Berry) may spend a little more in the potting shed. His love Nadja (Natasia Demetriou), is running the council, along with Nandor (Kayvan Novak), who’s familiar, Guillermo (Harvey Guillén), has been promoted to the position of bodyguard. It was easier than killing him.

Based on the 2014 feature film by Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi, What We Do in the Shadows follows four vampires, who have been roommates for longer than anyone cares to remember, as they cope with life in the modern world. Which is not held up on the shoulders of four horses.

Nandor the Relentless was a fierce and terrible Ottoman warrior, known for pillaging villages and turning the Euphrates red with blood. Guillermo worked at Panera Bread. The bond that ties vampire to familiar is a strange one. The pay isn’t great, the hours are daunting, and they don’t get employee-of-the-month plaques. The only real incentive is the promise of everlasting life as a ravenous bloodsucking fiend, and there is something of a hiring freeze at the moment.

British Iranian actor and voice artist Kayvan Novak co-created and starred in the British prank show, Fonejacker, and also can be seen alongside Matt Damon and George Clooney in Syriana, as well as the films Cuban Fury and the Walt Disney live action remake of Cruella. He plays three different characters in Men in Black: International. Harvey Guillén acted in the movies The Internship and in Netflix’s Truth or Dare, and his TV works include The Magicians, and Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist. He earned a GLAAD Media Award his role in the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Me What to Do” episode of Raising Hope, and made LGBTQ+ Latinx history by becoming the first queer Latinx actor to be nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the Critics’ Choice Award for his role as Guillermo de la Cruz. Starting Sept. 2, Guillén will also host After the Shadows, a new talk show following and discussing What We Do in the Shadows.

Novak and Guillén hovered over Den of Geek to speak about Nandor and Guillermo’s new job descriptions, as well as old habits, cloaks of many voices, and Van Helsing DNA.

Den of Geek: I wanted to congratulate you on your characters’ new duties. Is it more fun running vampires or running from them?

Kayvan Novak: Has Nandor run from a vampire? I guess I have. I think they’re equally as exhilarating and frightening.

Harvey Guillén: I would say fighting the vampires is exciting with all the combat when that opportunity comes up. Yeah.

Guillermo took out the entire local vampire command, but couldn’t stake a vampire council docent. Is Guillermo getting soft?

Guillén: I don’t think he’s getting soft. I think the only reason that he even put himself in that scenario is because he knew that his old housemates, because remember he moved out of the house, his old housemates were in danger. I think at the end of the day we forget that he had mostly only humans in the house. And you know, what separates us from everything else in the world is that humans are driven by emotion and have a conscience and have a heart. So he couldn’t live with himself, if he knew that they were set up by the Vampiric Council to be eliminated at this theater. That’s the only reason he goes and saves his chosen family. Even though they’re total assholes to him, he is still loyal at the end of the day. He’s still loyal to these four vampires, especially Nandor. I think that he’s not getting soft. He’s just starting to see what’s important to him and what’s worth fighting for.

Did the “Cloak of Duplication” episode come up because you were already doing the impressions?

Novak: I guess the writers had an idea. They had a sense that I was a bit of a mimic and I liked doing impersonations. And I think they decided to kind of craft an episode around that. I was slightly apprehensive of the number of impressions that they thought I could do considering I had to do all of my castmates who, although I could do impressions of some of them, I’d never done it to their faces. So it was a new challenge. Not only to learn very quickly how to impersonate them with their help, because they helped me along the way, and they told me how to deliver some of the lines. But then having to do that in front of them, it took some concentration.

Whose voice was the easiest?

Novak: I guess the easiest, or the one that I had done was Colin Robinson. Because he’s got a very specific [voice]. It’s kind of the closest to mine in a way. And the rhythms of it, very specific. Nadja’s voice and Kristen [Schaal]’s voice, I couldn’t actually do. I can only kind of do their physicality. So, the voices you hear are not my voice. They’re the voices of the actual actors. Guillermo’s voice, Guillermo’s delivery, that took a minute to kind of get into that groove. And then Matt Berry, Laszlo’s character, I’d never really tried an impression of him. And it was really more the physicality that I got into to deliver those lines in that rhythm, that really was the key in. Because you’re always trying to find the key in.

Harvey, what was it like hearing Guillermo come out of Novak’s throat?

Guillén: It was great. Because I’ve seen Kayvan do impersonations of everyone, he’s a master. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him do me in a full scene. Like he would make a good joke or mimic me and say, “Yeah, yeah, now my friend,” and he does like a caricature of my voice, which is always fun, but yeah, “you’re my best buddy,” that’s like an ongoing joke on set that he always does. But to really kind of do it and kind of really capture Guillermo’s inflections and the volume where he placed him. I was like, oh my gosh, this is great. I was in awe. Like I was like, this is great. I had to do a double take, like that’s not me. That’s wait. That’s not me. Okay.

Blade, Buffy, the Frog brothers, and now Guillermo. Guillermo is the descendant of the greatest Slayer of all slayers. Is this nepotism?

Guillén: I don’t know if it’s nepotism because I don’t think he’s gotten anything handed to him. And he’s worked really hard for everything he has, and even now being the descendant of Van Helsing, it’s still not easy. Now, it comes with another wagon full of problems and choices to be made and predicaments that he now has with his housemates. But I would love to see some of those legendary slayers and chosen ones make an appearance and guide him, maybe help him out. Maybe Buffy pops in and says, I’ll show you how it’s done. That’d be great. Or Blade comes back, Wesley Snipes comes back. We’ve already had him. Who knows? But yeah, I would love to see someone show him the ropes or take them under their wing or, he’s learning by trial and error. And I think so far he’s doing okay. So maybe he’s a self-made Slayer in his own way.

When Nandor and Nadja were introducing themselves to the rogue vampires, you are each soloing, but hitting the beats at the same time. Can you just walk me through the rehearsal of the timing?

Novak: I think to really nail a scene like that, we’re both kind of focused on the direction of, I think Yana Gorskaya directed that scene. And that was just a case of us kind of working together, but also allowing her to kind of pull us through the scene to make sure that we hit those marks perfectly. It took some practice, took a few takes, took rehearsal, but you always know you’re going to get it. And you know that if you’ve got to get something that’s a bit of a challenge to get to, you want to be in the right company. And, and thankfully, we are because we’re in each other’s company.

Harvey, when you interject objections and you break and you look at the camera, they’re like hi-hat taps, are these scripted or are you doing it strictly on an intuitive basis?

Guillén: No, I don’t think I’ve ever seen it scripted for Guillermo that he looks at the camera. I think we do, as we do a rehearsal and we have our DP and our director follow us through rehearsal and whatever feels organic in the moment, there has to be an organic beat. Right? So, if it’s, most of the time it is Guillermo, because he’s the only human in the room, aside from the camera crew. And so, when he looks at the camera crew, it’s like, oh God, you’re going to film this, aren’t you? And the camera catches that moment. And it zooms into it. It’s like, you’re not, oh no, it’s incriminating. And so, as you connect with another human. Did you hear what he said? Or did you, I can’t believe they’re talking like this because who are you going to connect with the vampires who live in their own world of lust and pleasure and feeding. They don’t care, they’re immortal, but the humans in the room are like, we can go to jail at any moment for a lot of these things. I can get in trouble myself.

So, most of the time, when Guillermo looks at the camera, it’s either out of fear or it’s either like I’m smarter than them and you see that, right? So it’s like you saw that, right? But he can never say it. So he can’t verbally say what he’s feeling. So, their face does it all for you to the camera.

Did Guillermo and Nandor meet at Panera Bread?

Guillén: We talked about this. I think the idea that, if he was working at Panera Bread, it must have been shortly after high school or something. And somewhere along the lines, he must’ve met Nandor, he must’ve come in when Panera was closing and maybe tried to feast on him? Maybe, I don’t know. The backstory I gave myself was, he convinced Nandor not to feast on him and kill him, but to service him in return to become a vampire. That’s the backstory I gave myself. But Kayvan, what do you think?

Novak: I think whatever happened there’s CCTV footage of it-

Guillén: Somewhere. Yeah.

Novak: And I think that would be the best way of revisiting that because, if they didn’t have a documentary crew following them, then they’re relying on kind of just, incidental cameras, capturing stuff. I think it would be cool.

Guillén: I think that’s cool. Yeah.

Nandor is 758 years old, and going through an eternal life crisis. Is he becoming too Americanized or does Nadja have a point about there not being anything more to existence than just slaughter?

Novak: It’s a funny one because he’s been around so long, you’re supposed to eventually just blend into your environment and be taken over by and become an American or become a Staten Islander. And for some reason they live in such an insular world that they resisted this. But now for some reason, whether it be an emotional light that’s gone off in his head, he’s decided that no, he wants to humanize himself more and, yeah, be more like the people that he kills, almost. The world that he feeds off. He wants to be part of that. And I think, Nadja, she’s the cynic she’s like, stop dreaming. Stop. You know, there’s always that person that’s like, yeah, you could do that. But there’s lots of people that want to do that too, you know? And you’re like, oh, you’re right. I better not waste my time chasing pipe dreams. There’s always that person in the room and that person, for Nandor, is Nadja.

What’s it like to act against Nadja’s doll?

Guillén: Such a diva. Yeah. Difficult. Late to set. She always has to be carried. I don’t know if it’s in her rider, but the doll has to be carried by two, like men-

Novak: Dressed in green.

Guillén: Dressed in green. Yeah.

Novak: I actually did have to do a couple of scenes where there’s a montage sequence with me and the doll and we actually got onto some really funny stuff. I was teaching her sword fighting, a bit of a spoiler, but it’s very quick. I don’t know if it made it in but I was teaching her sword fighting and then I was like, well, we might as well have a sword fight. And then she disarms me and then she chases after me and I run. But I don’t know if that made it in the cut. I just decided that would have been a funny thing to do. To be disarmed by this doll. I think Nandor has a soft spot for the doll. Obviously, it’s a cool bit of special effects that’s for sure. It’s awesome.

What will you be getting Colin Robinson for his hundredth birthday?

Novak: A new contract. You know, his management team has been slacking.

I was talking with Mark Proksch about the physical comedy and Harvey, yours is particularly perilous. What’s the choreography prep like and making those fight scenes hit their funny marks?

Guillén: Well, I think physical comedy is just as good as you know, anything we do, so I mean, a lot of us do physical comedy in the show, but you never see Guillermo really in motion to do physical comedy most of the time it’s because he’s always so put together. So even with the combat and fighting, the note that Jermaine gave me for the finale was, Harvey doesn’t know he’s been at this. All right. So he doesn’t know what’s happening. So it was more of an idea that his face is like “what’s happening?,” But his hands were coordinated and bad-ass, and that’s the way I’ve been playing him. And now that he’s coming into his own, now he’s more relaxed into his own power of Van Helsing. But it’s also funny. It’s just funny to see someone who’s like a baby duck, like learning to walk for the first time. It’s like he’s trying. And you know, so that physical comedy comes in hand.

Kayvan, can you tell me what it was like working against Aida Turturro and learning to love after, after 37 wives?

Novak: Aida was a riot, from day one. She was a fan of the show, which is always wonderful and incredibly flattering. She was so into the show, she was so into the world and into us as performers. And I think that just, she had so much fun when she was there and we had some intimate scenes. The first time you see us, she’s on her back and I’m on top of her. And that’s quite an introduction. But she just went with it, you know? And it was just a lot of fun, a lot of fun with her and yeah, we just spoke to her today actually, and she was singing the show’s praises again. And she’s genuinely so excited. She’s not keeping her cool or trying not to be a fangirl about it. She was just super enthusiastic to be there. And you feed off that. You love that.

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What We Do in the Shadows airs Thursdays at 10:00 p.m. on FX.

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