#LISTEN. i love her for representation and all that. but almost every other aspect of her character was Ruined as the show went on and on

[hlxc23]

I watched salt burn today, and it wasn’t even that bad; people are being so dramatic. My English nerd came out tho, cuz I could write a 5 page essay on the symbolism and metaphorical aspects of that movie. The bathtub scene, the vampire scene, and the grave scene all have such a deeper meaning to them THAT NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT.

⚠️SPOILERS⚠️

To sum this up and because I don’t wanna type so much lemme just do bullet points:

‼️it’s 3am and I am exhausted so if this makes no sense I apologize in advanced‼️

- the puppet thing was a literal symbol and connection to Oliver. HE WAS A PUPPET MASTER, HE WAS CONTROLLING THE WHOLE NARRATIVE. At the end when he’s dancing and the puppet thing is there with the rocks on top, each rock is representing a puppet that he controlled that he basically created.

-Oliver was an English major. HE WAS A WRITER AND READER. Being a writer and a puppet master are one of the same. He was writing his own story; his own narrative. He was controlling everything to go just as he planned it.

- to connect to the previous point: the bathtub, vampire, and grave scenes; the three main grotesque scenes of the movie. NOW THIS IS PROBABLY ME REACHING BUT LISTEN. Oliver was a writer he was creating a story one where he himself came out on top. Every story needs a beginning, middle, and end. I believe Oliver saw his body (not himself but his body iykwim) as the physical book. Consuming the cummy bath water I think could be interpreted as him consuming the beginning of life; we all know he gets off on the idea of holding life and death in his hands so to consume these aspects of his story they became sexual in a sense. The vampire scene: he was consuming life; blood is life and by consuming that directly from a living person he was consuming the middle of his story. NOW THE GRAVE SCENE: Death; he was consuming the end of his story; everything ends in death so by fucking the grave of the man who started him on his path he was ending the story in a sense. Obviously we know that wasn’t the end because more people died BUT THE SCENES HAPPENED IN ORDER AND THEY WERE THE MOST SEXUAL SCENE CONTAINING OLIVER HIMSELF.

-to connect to the puppet point: when he kills the mom (forgot her name) and she’s dead, he is trying to keep her arms up to hug him but they keep falling and he keeps trying to put them back. This was a literal scene of him acting as a puppet master, controlling the actions of a physical form physically. If that makes sense.

-the movie started with Oliver telling the story of how he may have been in love with Felix, you don’t know who he’s talking to until the end when you find out he’s basically admitting everything he did to the mother right before he kills her. He got away with everything. He’s a narcissist and he’s pretentious (as all artists are you have to be if you’re creating something because you’re creating it for others) he WANTS someone to know what he did. He WANTS the credit for his success. So by telling the mom everything beginning to end, he’s telling his story. In doing so he admits everything.

-him dancing naked: I don’t think this was meant as something sexual. I think this scene was meant to represent the freedom Oliver felt. He got everything he wanted. He achieved his goal. To further this point he looks longingly and almost admirably at the puppet box thing with the rocks on it. That was (to him) the representation of his story, of his success; it’s like when a writer finally finishes a story or an artist finally finishes a piece of art they’ve been working on for years; he’s feeling that euphoric freedom and accomplishment and it’s represented by him dancing naked in his prize; the house.

-Yes, he was sexual, and the movie in general was a sexual thing. However, I think that was to show his all consuming nature of his plan. Being one with his story.

-Smth I wish they went into detail about: his home life; why was he the way he was? Was he just born that way? Or did something traumatic happen to him for him to become what he did?

-do I think he was in love with Felix? No. I don’t think he can feel or understand the emotion of love. I think he had an obsession with Felix because he was the start of his story, he was the one that led Oliver to everything he was to achieve.

-it’s 3 am and I can’t think of anything else but I will add if I think of smth else cuz I’m definitely leaving things out 😩

[cressida-cowper]

character opinion bingo: alex danvers?

um. i will not be fielding questions at this time

[galecstatic]

just some byler thoughts i need to vent out so hear me out.

mike wheeler in the first two seasons was basically about him (s1) looking for will and (s2) looking out for will. in the first season, mike never stopped looking for will. the very moment he knew about will vanishing, he led a rescue mission with a party of three (+ el's introduction). just imagine being a 11 or 12 year old kid at that time, sneaking out at night when it's already past your bedtime and when it's not safe to go out, only to keep looking for your best friend. that's very telling of how much mike really cares and thinks about will. especially to the moment when he heard will's voice faintly singing the exact lyrics, "should i stay or should i go?" on the walkie-talkie, he immediately picked up and believed that it was will, still alive.

what mike went through in hoping will is alive was almost parallel to joyce believing her son was not dead but alive. joyce as a mother's (familial) love to will and mike as power of love in his friendship with will.

now, mike wheeler in s2, was one of the best things about him. he was constantly protective, sincere, honest, and supportive to will. he basically never left will's side. it was mostly will that all he can think about. plus don't even get me started on the particular scene when mike told will that the best thing he'd ever done was to ask him to be his friend. implying that they've been best of friends for so long, even longer than dustin and lucas, to which is beautiful in every aspect. both of them can be true to themselves when they're together. both of them understands and cares for one another. will and mike is figuratively a representation of a ying to one's yang.

no, i cannot elaborate more into finer details, so if the first two seasons are not enough for you to be convinced that will and mike are each other's comfort and safe space, i say you're probably watching it blindly and heedlessly. i thank you for listening.

[rumblelibrary]

The Diary of Doctor Laszlo Kreizler

Chapter 1

Synopsis: Alienist’s notes are private, sometimes gruesome, secrets of others and of himself.Those pages belongs to secrecy and decadence, have a glimpse to this world made of drafts, notes, accidents and reflections. Or maybe it is you the only person that should ever reach for it.

While you read this imagine Laszlo mostly at the end of his day, scraping the ideas and the thoughts, adjusting previous notes with additions, closing the day behind himself with a couple of sentences while sitting in his evening robe, a good glass of whiskey and his glasses bridged almost at the tip of his nose. Or maybe imagine yourself, you sneaky thing, reach for it from a far shelf.

Word count: 3k

Warnings: listen, this is the set of ideas and confessions of a man living in the 1890’s. Most of them will be outdated, rough, even deprecating in some analysis of the roles of men, women and social status, religion, etc.So be prepared, my point is to make Laszlo reflect upon those topics, but to be as faithful as I can to his time. Mention of death, mutilation, self harm and a minor depiction of a fight. Psychologically troubled young children ahead! Author’s note: I am a nerd for a good Victorian novel and a sexy Alienist.I have always been charmed by Laszlo’s mind and inner conflicts. So I took the chance and tried to have a run into that rollercoaster.  The story is placed between season 1 and season 2.

Diary belonging to Dr. Laszlo Kreizler.  This is a professional book of annotations over medical treatments of an alienist toward his patients. Do not disclose and send it back to the address if found: Kreizler’s Institute, xxxxxx, New York City (NY) L.K.

Samuel Griswold Goodrich, Illustrated Natural History of the Animal Kingdom (c1859). Contributed for digitization by University Library, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Schiller in his “Die Weltweisen” wrote: So long as philosophy keeps together the structure of the Universe so long does it maintain the world’s machinery by hunger and love. From the philosopher point of view sexual life takes a subordinate position in human’s life, from recent studies pushed by European philosophers, everything is about sexuality and its development. I like to think of the experience of being an alienist as the process of Queen Penelope that, while waiting for her husband Ulysses return, undoes her craftwork every night. I undo the fabulous constructs of people’s beliefs to go back to the rough sketch that stands at the beginning of their loss, their complex, their pain. Maybe that’s why working with children is so motivating and fascinating. They can be saved and yet, I am well aware, some of those sketches already traced in their young lives equal to scars that not even the most advanced theories could cure. But I can sooth them. I can prevent them the torment, the anguish, the recollection at night of those monsters. I feel like a poet would be a better alienist than a philosopher, but I have got no poetry nor philosophy in my veins, but the cold experience of the razor blade judgment of Life itself.

Today I observed a fight among the children at the Institute. Age range between 10 and 12. Boys. The fight was over the possession of a side of the playground, the territory of a pack  of youngsters formed under the name of Steven. Peculiar lad, coming from a military background finds comfort in replicating the schemes he lived in his family. He takes the role of the Father/Captain of the team and subjects children that come from a similar background story, but do not posses his same attitude to the command. All quiet on the front, until the space he declared is own spot got affected by the presence of others.  Intruders. I knowingly let the events unfold to see how Steven would react to his challenged authority. His reaction was, at first, worded, a sketch, a stage-play of an action he witnessed over and over, and he knew the part so well that some of the contending kids lowered their stance against him. Among considering to mildly intervene into this pyramid scheme of authority, another boy, Jan, calls himself on the role of the educator and hero of the masses and proceeds to unfold a wild and well assessed punch on the newly declared dictator face. Balance is established again. No need for me to arbitrate, once more the laws of nature seem to apply to children as in a state of nature.

Meet John Moore over lunch. His job at the newspaper is picking up, he is charmed by the spirits and the wits that he finds in his shared office with all the other writers. He mentions many, goes on and on over qualities and troubles, gossips and tendencies, and even little scandals here and there. To be aware of all those details gives me no interest, but to see a dear friend so invested clearly gives me something to pick up. To consider also the amount of details and the way he describes this or that member of the journal, I can do a small exercise of analysis. It is almost too easy because John is painfully genuine, even some of the kids at the institute would beat him hands down in a battle of lies. The more he likes somebody, the more he goes on about all the details and the characteristics, often letting aside the physical appearance. When he doesn’t like somebody he has a couple of adjectives for the wits and around four or five for the physical aspects that usually indulge on some repulsive idiosyncrasies.  John is a man that painfully fits in the storyline of The Picture of Dorian Gray: to him physical beauty is spiritual beauty and, of course, the other way around. This part of him surely intrigues me, makes me want to tease more from him. But, as a friend, it concerns me as John is way too prone to purposelessly decide that somebody with good eyes is also a good human being, which is a very romantic and admirably naive way of judging matters. I noticed some names that keep repeating in his narration. I dread that it is synonymous of a soon encounter from my side with the objects of his admiration. Fetiches, I dare to say, that I will have to annihilate before they sediment into his mind, perpetuating a narration that soon sees John being mislead by others.

Reserved: Tickets for the Eroica, Symphony n. 3 by Ludwig van Beethoven. Thursday evening.

Note on the show: the first movement lacked the pathos needed to begin with, I am not sure that the guest orchestra really managed to portray the wider emotional ground needed to withstand the whole representation. As the evening progressed there were some outstanding performances by the cellists. Still not approving the choice of reprising the early quick finale movement against the lengthy set of variations and fugue that we are used to in presence of the Eroica. Underwhelming the performance of the horn and oboe, vital in the comprehension of the genius of Beethoven. 

Niki is a new addition of the Institute, quite old for the standards. He is already 16, he will leave when summer ends to some expensive college his family meant him to stay. His parents expect me to make him “normal” in the time we are allowed together.  He is Austrian and I let him act it out like I don’t understand German for the first week of hist stay until today. I believe I hit his pride, which is good, in the moment I answered back to one of his sneaky comments. Now he knows. He is not safe from me, he doesn’t like it. The young man has a tendency to danger, risky tasks and edgy situations. In his mother’s own words “Niki is not afraid of anything”. The phrase didn’t raise any excitement in the father, rather some sort of painful acceptance that is role as the alpha male of the house is probably not only being challenged, but  already diminished, if not abolished. I have taken in consideration that Niki will break himself a bone or two in the process of the therapy, probably out of the spite of boredom or rebellion. It took him less than few days to turn himself into an outcast among the outcasts, which only drives me closer to analyse the complexity of his narcissistic wall of self defence. I gave him a physical challenge to lift a certain weight, he is a pretty skinny one, he didn’t like the challenge, but I am sure he will take it. He is a brainy guy, he hates to be questioned on unfamiliar ground. He won’t sleep at night thinking about it.  A challenge, in this first phase, can only bring me closer to the ease of his pains. To continue the observation.

It is a sad privilege of medicine, in particular the one I practice, to be able to witness the weaknesses of the human nature and the reverse side of life. Nevertheless, I oblige this same privilege of the study as life moves into shades of darkness. To be aware of it gives more solace to my soul than to be victim of patiently waiting for the inevitable unfolding of the events. To be able to understand more about psychology would bring more comfort and elevation to any human being, the times might not be there yet, but eventually something will move into the direction of a more wholesome approach.

Dinner meeting with Sara Howard, at the restaurant Jardin Des Cygnes, 7 pm sharp.  Do not expect to reach the dessert. Do not know if John will be participating due to undeniable tension among the two and the fatal despise of John over French cuisine.

The case that Sara unfolded tonight to my ears feels more and more like pulled out from some gothic book or from the mind of a Roman historian that needed to justify the godly origins of an Emperor. One killing, apparently random, a very constructed iconography over the body. Signs and insults, shapes and drawings. Is this a work of art? Does the killer wants his victim to be his Mona Lisa? His David? I am charmed and destabilised. If this was a murder like any other, then why to spend so much time into it? Based on the description the act of killing itself was quick: a sharp cut over the throat, almost like not wanting to ruin too much the surface to use as base for, what? I keep rerunning those symbols over and over as Sara described them to me, my mind is flooded with the designs of greek philosophers that needed to explain themselves why the sky is above our head and never collapses on us. Hilarious how, no matter the science advancement, in the mind of many the sky stands inevitably overt their shoulders, suffocates them, brings them to a death of the soul and not of the body. Is all this graphic charade indeed only a form to scream for attention?  To stress the eyes of an unaware viewer? It seems ridiculously elaborate, a scream for attention would be quick, it would be like guided by instinct, not reasoning, craftwork. Any man with a knife can paint in blood red the walls of a room and that’s asking for attention. That is the primal howl: look at me! I am here! But this one.  I don’t know yet.

Spent the early morning reading anew my copy of The Metamorphosis by Ovid. Didn’t touch it in a long time and I got bedazzled by the world of terrible sensuality, anger and selfishness of those gods and mortals. I think back at all the deviances and weaknesses of human kind and I try to relate it to all of those humanoid figures. Niki would be a minotaur, the lonesome son left in the labyrinth and his strive for success is his bull’s head. Or maybe a centaur, because of his wits and strategic thinking. I might keep up the process, maybe this is the way to understand my patients better, to understand the killer better. Must remember not to romanticise it. Greek gods were probably the first form of self indulging of a society that needed gods to be forgiving and allowing favours and punishments, but only in exchange of sacrifices. But the sacrifice never comes from the God’s will, but from the will of the man that perpetuates the act of killing. To sacrifice someone or something is the sadistic response to a lack of love deeply inherited in human mind that becomes neurotic. Is the killer giving the God of his own neurosis a body to feast upon? 

I talked with Jan this morning. The young boy is about 10, but he acts like a full grown adult. I could easily asses that’s the reason why he could challenge Steven in that fight. Two children mimicking adults situations they know too well. Jan is son of an industrial man, but he is also son of the dialectics of the industrial revolution. He sounds like he swallowed some of those books about working class rights and communism, probably pushed by a resentful surrounding (mother?uncle? the midwife?) over the social role of his father. As much as incredibly smart and lectured, Jan lost most of his early occasions in life by spending a considerable amount of time using his fists. The anger ever present in the young boy always surprises me, he seems to be holding a power, a strength of a full grown man in those tiny arms. Nevertheless, he is already the tallest of the group. He is surely an idealist, which makes him also tragically fragile. His strength mixed with his heart of gold can make him the best of the heroes or the worst of the villains. He apologised for the fight, he specified how he didn’t like the sound of Steven’s voice, more than the sound, the level of pitch.  I can’t stand somebody shouting orders, I just don’t listen anymore. He is so mature even about his own feelings, almost a gentleman in his chivalry toward the weaker children, honest with his open heart and resentful against any form of injustice.  I am not spared by his ways, he would come at me whenever he feels like I was being partial over some of the kids, his sense of justice blinds him and transform a perfectly balanced boy into a ranging animal.

Ordered book, to be delivered around tomorrow evening: Introduction à la méthode de Léonard de Vinci by Paul Valéry. Suddenly feeling myself as a gross ignorant in art themes. I always regarded myself aware of the artistic personalities and tendencies of present and past, but this new amount of perceptions over the human figure and the human body leads me to document myself more. I could ask John for advice, but he wouldn’t take things at matter that seriously. I can almost hear him say how I can make gruesome a pleasant topic such as art. I should probably wait to see the body to push any further aesthetic study, but I find myself not being able to stop. I reckon, I can allow myself a vice or two.

Today I saw the body of the killed man, courtesy of the Isaacson's. To be fair, I had underestimated it. In Sara’s descriptions, probably due to her more analytic mind, all the charm of the representation got lost in favour of a less cryptic and reasonable understanding of the act. Sara got what some alienists will call a masculine mind, which I don’t perfectly agree on. If I apply that same approach John would be a very feminine mind, all wrapped up in romanticising even the ugliest. I guess that dividing the world in “fragile and gentle” and “strong and powerful” is just easier to explain the fluctuation of something that doesn’t need a real name or a category like human inclinations on thoughts.  I got a feverish sense of patience by looking at the body. Each symbol traced with sapient slowness, dense of the time that the killer spent with the body. That is a work of hours, he had time and meaning. He had resources and was able to spend not less than the time he needed to reach, a vision? An ideal? A message? Is it the message meant to be understood? Am I supposed to unravel it or it is maybe just the way the killer communicates within himself? And if I do decifrate the code, will that bring me closer to him? Or to his next victim?

Reminder: ask John to replicate all the symbols on the bodies in the correct measure and order. It might be needed some hard convincing. Addition: scheduled meeting, his house, 3 pm.

It wasn’t a day like any other when I met you. Or maybe it was, and that’s why I got so struck by it and now I am here playing it over and over through what my memory clung on so desperately. In my own experience, life was often similar to swimming in a lake. Those rich, dense lakes in the north of (illegible cancelled word) were my father used to bring us during summer. I still feel the pull, the draw down toward the abyss. It ashamed me, in a way, the fear that such a simple feeling aroused in my young mind, unaware nevertheless, that such a feeling would follow me through all my existence. It was a prophecy and, like most of the prophecies, was a riddle. I cradle in my heart the charm of those days, the mindless happiness. The foolish feeling of freedom. Little I knew that freedom would be taken away from me that soon, that the body that used to navigate me over the dense waters, helping me to fight the haul toward the unknown, would become my own cage. That day. Today. The day where I met you, the day I was afloat.  The child gasping for air felt the wrench become a gentle push and now he is floating on his back over the scary waters of reality and malice. It gave me relief and it gave me terror, because since that very moment I knew that I would never be able to move on from the sight of you. From the feeling of your eyes lingering on me. From the smile you so easily shone upon me. From the whiff of imported perfume that hit me when you turned on side exploding that swan like neck. And nothing, not even my stern look, could dim that wave of hope that your sole presence washed over me. The abyss roars, calls me to a home of damnation and terror and curses my name and yet you repeated that hell-bound name of mine after me and I felt safe.

John told me so much about you, it feels like I have always known you.

The rope is gone from my neck, the guillotine won’t fall on me, I am spared, I am free.

I have read your latest article, I am thrilled to help with the case.

I am in disbelief.

Your voice.

Dr. Kreizler

How dare you? How dare you to come into my life, to appear, like a vision, mystical, in a way I despised at University when all those theology students talked about the divine. In this very moment I can’t recollect much of what you said, something about the case, about going with John at the obituary. It feels confusing, I feel overstimulated, my memory fails me, I am not sure anymore. I write these few lines and it is passed the hour of the witches and I wish, I demand, to never see you again, because life should never grant hope to a condemned man. 

[twh-news]

Interview: Makeup Artist Douglas Noe on Loki’s Looks Through the Years & Creating Anew for ‘Loki’ [EXCLUSIVE]

Douglas Noe has been in Hollywood for three decades. An award-winning makeup artist, he’s worked on projects such as World War Z, Planet of the Apes, Spider-Man 3, I Saw the Light, and Birth of a Nation. On top of these impressive credits, he’s also been Tom Hiddleston’s personal makeup artist since joining the MCU in The Avengers, designing all of the looks for Loki’s subsequent appearances.

Noe has been nominated for three Emmys with one win, and five Makeup Artist and Hairstylist (MUAHS) Awards resulting in two MUAHS awards. His skills include creating making natural and period looks, prosthetics, hair, and tattoos.

Along with being the head of the makeup department for the most recent Disney+ series Loki, Noe is also creating looks for the new Netflix comedy series True Story starring Kevin Hart and Wesley Snipes.

We had a chance to chat with Douglas Noe about his work on Loki, The Avengers, the incomparable value of teamwork on set, and most importantly, Richard E. Grant.

Nerds and Beyond: So you started your Marvel journey with The Avengers, but what drew you to your field in the first place? And how did you get your start?

Douglas Noe: Star Wars was a huge influence to me as a young boy, both sketching and drawing, and a little bit of sculpting but not much. Cut to 1983, Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” comes out and I find a magazine called Fangoria on the newsstands where I can order blood and wax and pencils and fake hair. So, I started playing with these things. I was also taken with the horror movie craze that was happening in the early 80s — Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th, and others, obviously.

In High School, in 1984, I joined choir thinking I would get an easy credit, but my voice had not changed. So the choral instructor had been waiting for a boy soprano to do a theatrical opera presentation. So with that I sang the lead, I quit choir after that, because my peers were merciless, but, I learned the world of theatrical makeup which I hadn’t been introduced to.

I did years of theater. I went to a performing arts high school — it’s called Fort Hayes School for the Performing Arts in Columbus, Ohio — graduated, went to beauty school, and continued working in Ohio doing industrial, commercial, theater, and opera [makeup]. Worked for Maybelline and Revlon, got restless, worked in Cincinnati on my first film in the summer of 1990, it was July so 31 years ago, A Rage in Harlem. And my boss said you come to Los Angeles, I’ll make sure you get on your feet.

Nerds and Beyond: So you mentioned that it’s been about 31 years since your career started, what’s changed over the course of those 30 years in your field?

Douglas: How much time do we have? I’d say the biggest, biggest change would probably be the way we make these things now. Although another large change, more specific, would be the materials that we use. There’s a constant evolution and reinvention of almost all aspects of the materials that a makeup artist uses. That said, I have to shine a light on the way we do things now with the onset of digital and digital cameras. Shooting on film now has almost completely fallen by the wayside. Film was very forgiving, quite frankly, and now it’s not so forgiving. And because of that, the bar has been raised. The wonderful thing about this journey is watching my peers just get better and better and better, my colleagues rising to meet the challenge of not having anything to hide from with this new way we make films.

Nerds and Beyond: So, sometimes you kind of throw prosthetics to the wayside in favor of a more traditional makeup. How do you make that decision on which one to go with?

Douglas: That’s an excellent question. The decision is based purely on what are we going to see. That’s where I start, what is the lighting? I have a conversation with the director of photography and I find out what is the dynamic. Obviously, I know from the script whether it’s an interior or exterior, or if we’re exterior but we’re going to be on a stage, if it’s day or night. These variables all play into my decision as to whether or not I should rely on my theatrical experience and ability to paint 2D to appear 3D, or go ahead and make small prosthetics and put them where I need to put them and use actual prosthetics in lieu of paint.

That has everything to do with lighting, locations, logistics, and because most of his [Loki’s] wounds appear on his arm and some on his face in the Void, it’s all very moody and very dark. And again, the theatrical quality of the paint is not going to be altered by the changing light, it’s just going to react the same way the rest of the face is going to react. It’s purple light, it’s going to make everything have a purple hue. There was no accounting for any correction that didn’t need to be done. There wasn’t anything wrong with that. It’s real.

Nerds and Beyond: So, you did make up for not only Tom on Loki, but you helped plan out the looks for everybody?

Douglas: Yes, what I do is I surround myself with strong talent. It’s all about team. I designed Wunmi Mosaku, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Sophia DiMartino, and Tom [Hiddleston]. Regarding the rest of it, Neil Ellis, both Dennis Liddiard and I, added to the elements of his scars and wounds, which you would only see in close-ups.

The rest of it, the parameters are set — Blade Runner to Mad Men — and stay in those confines. And obviously, I choose color palettes for the women and there are parameters set for the men, but then it’s about team. I’m a big one on a team and not putting my thumbprints on other people’s work, but rather build other people up so they feel like they own what they’re doing.

My team consists of artists that also have stronger resumes and quite frankly, skills that exceed mine. It’s the mutual trust that allows us to keep a high level of artistic integrity in every aspect of the job. It also means I get the very best from my team, and it shows on the screen.

So, I didn’t have every look in my hand. Dennis Liddiard designed the Mobius character and I had Ned Neidhardt run with Gugu and turn up the volume on some of the elements that she already possesses that we can play with. Her eyes and lips, I think Ned turned the volume on both. And because we’re shooting in order, it’s a progression in the makeup you did.

Nerds and Beyond: When it came to Sylvie and Loki, when you when you’re doing those, did you try to kind of plan them both to have any similar things to give them a Loki look?

Douglas: It’s a fair question, but the answer is no. So again, I think the characteristics and traits that were going to be similar among them, aside from wardrobe and costume hints, were all character driven. And I did nothing with the makeup and hair to try to make them look or even closely resemble each other.

Nerds and Beyond: I want to kind of back up a little bit to Tom in the first Avengers film. That was by far one of his most standout looks. Can you tell me anything about what went into the creation of that absolutely tormented, haunted look that he had throughout that entire movie?

Douglas: Yeah, and that’s probably one of the elements that, because the character has evolved, we kind of left with Avengers because by the end of Avengers, and we carried it into Endgame, he does have a bit of an edgier look in Avengers, and not many people pick up on it. But the reality is he’s a little sculpted in Avengers.

I remember sculpting his cheekbones and temples, and doing a little play on his forehead for when he’s in the cell on the Helicarrier carrier with all that overhead lighting. I did like a little devil horn shadow, which is so subtle. The only person who’s going to notice is anybody who looks back at it and having read this and knows what to look for, but it is so nuanced and so subtle. And that’s the only place I think we did that. But the rest of him is very much chiseled and sculpted, but it’s a light touch.

And I think, again, as he evolved through the Marvel Universe and into the other movies that was something that was easy to leave behind, because I think that look played directly into his evil desire to rule over Earth. We rested that design element with that storyline.

Nerds and Beyond: It’s very clear too and I’ve always loved looking at that, because I’m a huge fan of the character. I’ve always loved kind of comparing how he looked in that movie to the rest of them.

Douglas: You’re on to me!

Nerds and Beyond: I’m not! I swear [laughs] So, what’s your best method for making the actors comfortable in the makeup chair? And with the final outcome?

Douglas: It’s dialogue; listening, talking to them, talking to their representation, whether it be an agent or a manager, and doing my homework and doing my due diligence to find out what’s going to make them comfortable the moment they walk through the door. I do my homework on them. It’s not just IMDb, it’s an internet search. So, I spend some time on the web and find out who these folks are, and if I find out, for example, they’re not one that likes to talk a lot, well, the writing’s on the wall, we’re not going to talk a lot, we’ll cut to the chase and get to the point. But also, it’s about building a rapport and building a relationship. Also, knowing that, I’ve said this in previous discussions, knowing it’s necessary to get out of the way.

Like if, for example, I’m not a proper fit for somebody, I have to be plugged in, I have to be aware enough to understand that it may not be working before somebody says to me, “Hey, this isn’t gonna work.” So it’s just about being open, especially as Tom’s personal on these projects and running the department, knowing that I don’t get to do everybody. I don’t get to put my thumbprint on other people’s work. Because not only is that disrespectful, it’s very often unnecessary, because I hire good people. I hire contemporaries and peers. Truly, you’re only as good as your weakest crew member. I surround myself with good people.

So, take Owen Wilson, for example, it would have been wonderful to do Owen’s makeup, but there were times when he was not going to be shooting with Tom and I was going to need to be ready for Tom or available to Tom, so it didn’t make sense. So I never touched Owen, I had Dennis Liddiard design that look and run with it. And then Ned Neidhardt took over that look when Dennis had to depart. That’s just one example of not trying to do everything.

Another one was the Classic Loki. I wanted to do Richard E. Grant’s [makeup] so bad, I can’t even tell you. I’ve been a huge fan since 1987. I wanted so badly to bring that full circle, didn’t make sense. It just didn’t make sense. So again, I never touched him. It wasn’t necessary. Ned was always there. And I think the same thing happened to me on Ragnarok reshoots, which I ran in Atlanta again with Dennis Liddiard. I wanted so badly to do Sir Anthony Hopkins makeup, but it didn’t make sense. So I was happy to hand it off to Bill Myer.

Nerds and Beyond: Oh man, I loved Richard E. Grant in this show so much.

Douglas: He’s amazing.

Nerds and Beyond: He’s so good!

Douglas: He really is. And he’s that good in person. He’s just so fun and interesting and alluring and attractive. He’s such a wonderful, wonderful person and, of course, a phenomenal actor.

Nerds and Beyond: I was watching little videos that he posted and he just seems like the warmest person.

Douglas: You know, just one last tidbit about Richard Grant is he’s got wonderful stories and as he’s telling them he’ll often stop and pause and just laugh. Just laugh, not for the sake of the stories or for anybody that he’s telling the story to, but because recounting the story brings him true joy. So he’ll stop and embrace that joy. Oh, it’s so wonderful.

Nerds and Beyond: That’s so amazing to hear. What is the most memorable job that you’ve done?

Douglas: The most memorable … That’s a tough one because I have so many fond memories of so many projects. The first Avengers film was memorable because there was a buzz, there was a vibration, a frequency, that was in the air when we were shooting that. We kind of knew we were making something big and something special. I don’t think any of us knew how big or how special it would be, but that certainly is one of the most memorable and most special projects.

I’m pretty good about focusing on the positive aspects of all these things, regardless of how difficult the project may be for whatever reason. The pros always, always heavily outweigh the cons, but I have a lot of wonderful, memorable experiences. Another one, it’s the polar opposite only because of the conditions in which we shot, but Birth of the Nation was one of the most memorable and exceptional experiences of my career. I was on the wrong side of 40, had 25 years of experience, and had still never worked so hard in my entire life. We did a 50-day shoot in 27 days. So proud of the work we did.

It was 100 degrees with 99 percent humidity, we shot it in the summer in Georgia, in Savannah, so it was hot, humid, and just getting the makeup necessary to be on individuals to stay put was its own challenge. And then the other challenges only added to that. But Nate Parker, the director, writer, producer, and lead actor, he is a special human being. And he was inspiring from start to finish. Usually, the first people in are the teamsters, transport department, and usually I’m second. He beat me in almost every single day. He’s in three hours before he needs to be. That was a very special experience.

Nerds and Beyond: Finally, are you excited about the news of Loki Season 2?

Douglas: I’m beyond thrilled! I invite being in the dark a little bit, I kind of like surprises and I like not knowing, so I suspected, but hearing the news confirmed, I was thrilled, naturally. What are they going to dream up? This is amazing. How do you top season 1 of Loki? That’s the burning question.

[franki-lew-yo]

I really hate 2d purists. No, not 2d animation. Not 2d animators.

2d purists.

The sad thing is it’s gotten to the point that I really cringe hearing any pro-2D sentiment at all. I hate the arguments I agree with because how often they're misused and weaponized by idiots.

Let me make my stance here clear - 2d is NOT appreciated and 3d is used for everything! The layman Karen-mom who doesn’t have an artistic bone in her body looks at stupidsmooth 3D Grubhub ads and assumes quality cause it “looks more real” (aka ‘rendered’). I know as much is true because I literally have a member of my family who told my sister and I that she thinks 3d is better (and also that she “tolerated THOSE movies for us kids”. Touching words. My sister was taking an animation course by the way). Combined that with the studios either using 2D for cheap stuff or finding good 2d animation too “costly”, I get it and I’m not even any animator. I'm just a worm an illustrator.

but holy HELL -

There’s a backlash from the artistic community that's it's own kind of insufferable and deserve to be addressed.

“(insert2Danimatedfilm) is better BECAUSE it's 2D!”

followed by: "Animation is a visual medium and the quality of the art affects how much the story means !!!!”  

Yes. Totally. Animation is a visual medium and the look and style is important. Sadly, people use this excuse to really obnoxious ends, insisting that design being pretty is '' everything ''. When you treat a movie more as a special effects demo I get why you talk about the artistry at hand; but I’m sorry, visuals are not the only thing important and it’s why I’m also getting sick of the sameElsafacesyndrome rants too! There’s this attitude that's reads as "but it LOOKS better fromaproductionimage/teasertrailerwhichapparentlyisindicativeof all themovieactuallyis so it MUST BE better".

-“3D should only be used to make things look realistic!”

I think I know the logic this criticism is made in response to, and that’s the Sony + Illumination films which look just as good in 2D as they do in three dimensions. I know it feels like people are twisting this medium to try and make it like a classic cartoon when by all means people can and would love a classic cartoon being a classic cartoon. That I get- From the unsung 2D animator’s perspective, that’s more than valid !

But it’s a huuuuuuge slap in the face to 3d in saying it should only be used for "realistic animation" because

1: It’s not like realistic animation could age badly or look uncanny in the next few years. It's almost like technology is constantly improving, which I guess 2d animation never did and it was always the same technique and quality as every film that came after it.

2: The industry does treat 3d as a magic-moneymaker for this reason. Just listen to these people call the 2019 LION KING “live action” as if they’re embarrassed to call it animation. It IS animation! It would be impressive if you acknowledged that what it is, but like the CATS, you basically are treating it as just a neato tool to better your live action and not it's own artform - which it is!

3: By this “three-deeonly gud when real liek in da toystories” non-logic I guess 2d should ONLY be for flowyflowy SPACE JAM cartoons and maybe some Disney*. Just that though. You can’t do anything more with 2d. It’s never supposed to be realistic I guess. Good thing Richard Williams only did 'toons' and just toons that’s why we need 3d in the world I guess.

Wait no - that’s stupid.

"I HAVE to see the “Land Before Time 14″ when it comes out! I mean it’s a 2D animated film!"

Lost in the aether that is Youtube comment chains removed from kid's videos is a stream of this very VERY stupid argument supporting the buying of the 14th LAND BEFORE TIME film because it’s supporting 2D. My sister and I can be found on that chain arguing against this stupidity. All you have is my word, but trust me: it really did happen.

I’m sorry but...no.

Unless you have a friend or a family member who worked on these movies there’s no reason to see this and ESPECIALLY no reason to insist it’s a win for the 2D community if you buy up this crap - and I'm not judging if you do like it, but come on! LAND BEFORE TIME 14 isn't where your money should go if you really like this medium.

What’s so infuriating about this argument is you can tell it’s made by nonanimators. Real animators will tell you to support their movies cause they want some respect for their artform which is why there’s such a push from the PRINCESS AND THE FROGcrowd that you SEE and LOVE every 2d thing out there, regardless of how good it is because any recognition for it is k i n d o f what they're after!

Kiddy sequel schlock isn’t even in the same ballpark as KLAUS or WOLFWALKERS; these films DID have very limited theatrical runs (Klaus so it could be nominated; Wolfwalkers in places where theaters opened up after Covid) and should have been supported because they were labors of love made by people who love animation.

As other people have already pointed out, one of the reasons for the lack of interest in 2000sera2D animation is that the only films released alongside critical+financial 3D hits were cheaper 2D films that either coincided with daytime tv shows or should have been just direct-to-video. It’s not to say art couldn’t come out of these flicks, but dayum if it wasn’t abused as much as the texture software that era's CG used... Point being, should the world ever go back to normal: If you hear about an out-of-town showing an acclaimed 2D animated film, make time to trek out and see THAT!

Don’t give your money to see yet another made-for-tv movie on the big screen because all that tells the studio is: “yeah 2d IS cheap and only good for cheap stuff let’s just keep it cheap. Only 3d is important 8D 8D 8D !!!"

“I don’t understand how it works. So it sucks.”

This text is from an ANIMATOR btw.

“I don’t understand how it works” and “it’s just some computer rendering” is the exact same wave of logic the people who prefer cgi use.

The plebian Karen I mentioned earlier? She understands the basics of 2D animation as much as you did from one of those cruddy flash classes you took in middle-school. She 'understands' the basics cuz she watched how it was made on the DVD features or maybe back on the WONDERFUL WORLD OF DISNEY. To her, the illusion is broken and she’s not impressed by 'just some drawings on paper'. You, an animator, know the process is more complicated and is intrigued by knowing how it’s made - not bored or disinterested -

Neither you nor Aunt Karen have really good cg-animation software at your house and unless you ARE a 3D animator you probably DON’T know all the ins-and-outs of how these movies are modeled, rendered, and animated.

Aunt Karen is bedazzled by them cause she doesn’t know how it works and the technical aspect makes her brain hurt so it might as well be magic and she can feel like a cool kid sharing Minion-memes. Aunt Karen is the nonartistic type who just wants to feel safe. You're not. You want to feel challenged.

I get it: you’re pissed off cause you’re in a field no one, including Aunt Karen, appreciates; told to work in cg which it's an artform you didn’t devote your life to and told to learn it cause THIS style sells! 3D is everywhere and is starting to look like 'garbage' even if you don’t animate 3D models yourself you just KNOW, I guess. Besides, you know all there is to know about 2d!! You know all there is to possibly know about this artform and have to fight this 'war' against "r e a l" animation! And I mean even when 3d software is there to use, it's not like you can actually make anything worth while in it, especially not anything that transcends the medium. Right Worthikids?

TL;DR: This argument is basically just " BWAAAAH I’M NOT GONNA USE IT I HAVE STANDARDS (a chip on my shoulder cuz art should be what I deem it to be) "

“PRINCESS AND THE FROG is-”

There’s a reason I can’t say I truly like PRINCESS AND THE FROG even though it's not even a bad movie! Like, stop reading this and watch PATF if you haven't it's good. It's my 'FROZEN', in that; I see a lot of potential in it I just think it needs some serious rewriting and that bugs me. Always have felt that way, tbh.

I dislike this movie because the response from the animation community seems to be it was perfect and the Academy was just Pixar-crazy with UP ((ftr, the Academy IS Pixar’s bitch and I personally advocate a sequel be made to WAKING SLEEPING BEAUTY about Mike Eisner’s sabotage of the 2D department at Disney which is still in place now!- but that’s a story for another day)). I’m sorry but UP was just a better story. So was CORALINE. So was FANTASTIC MR. FOX. Honest to god it feels like poor PATF is brought up as just a talking point and never for it's own worth as a labor of love - which it was! I'd like to honestly know: had PRINCESS AND THE FROG come out now and been cg if it would have even half the defenders for it because now it doesn't "look" like how a Disney movie "should" look...

If you like PatF more than the currant Disney lineup because of it's culture, it's music, it's feminism, it's black representation? Awesome. Great. Those things should be appreciated and I never want that taken away from you. But if you seriously think PatF is better just for how it was animated and looks - I lowkey may hate you.

“ALL OF DISNEY’S LATEST MOVIES SHOULD HAVE BEEN 2D! THEY ALL LOOK AWFUL IN 3D!! ALL OF THEM!”

TANGLED, FROZEN, and MOANA? Yeah. Sure. But um, e x c u s e y o u- WRECK IT RALPH sooooo doesn’t work in 2d! It could have used different between the various worlds but it’s about hopping through different video games. I’m also of the opinion that ZOOTOPIA and BIG HERO 6 are fine the way they are. Their 3d is awesome.

The latest fairy tale Disney films are really big on their place alongside the 2D canon esp in marketing. They keep trying to mimic 2D to varying results though I don't think it works as well as the movie's I'd previously mentioned. Me personally, I would love a mix of 3D and 2D technology, like if the backgrounds in FROZEN still got to be 3D but the characters were handdrawn and shaded ala KLAUS ((sweet sigh)). But even then are they truly unwatchable just based on how they're animated to you?

MOANA would have been incredible in 2D but for the record - I don't think it feels out of place in it's style. It reminds me more of a Pixar movie with the heart of a Disney classic which is it's own just as good.

“2D is the oldest form of animation and it’s being replaced.”

Actually, if we’re talking animation in film, stop motion is the earliest form of animation. The stop motion animated THE ADVENTURES OF PRINCE ACHMED and TALE OF THE FOX predate Disney’s SNOW WHITE. And yes: stop-motion IS still a form of animation even if it’s a serious of pictures taken of real life things and not drawings, so don’t you dare come at me with the "but that's not animated"/"Technically it’s LIVE ACTION" crap or I’ll envoke the spirit of Sandman to get you at night.

“Every animated film would look better in 2D! Even PIXAR would look better in 2D!”

Again, Stop Motion.

No, I mean it.

Lemme ask: Would ISLE OF DOGS or FANTASTIC MR. FOX carry any of the same effect if they were generic 90s toons? I know NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS wouldn’t. Christ, don’t even get me started on Svankmajer!

Sometimes the problem is that a movie is envisioned with a specific artform in mind. Pixar started out with toys and bugs for a reason and that’s cuz they were always gonna be a 3d studio and they needed to first overcome the placisity of the models. Over the years they’ve gotten really good at effects and blending unrealistic proportions with real textures (and also not so much- ONWARD and THE GOOD DINOSAUR really needed some different character designs and yeah, I do think would have looked better with a 2d artstyle, but not the ones they had in their films. THE GOOD DINOSAUR needed more realistic-speculative looking dinos and ONWARD needed a grittier HEAVY METAL/BLACK CAULDRON appeal to its designs.) My point being that the problems with these movies aren’t even inherently the animation as much as it is a problem of style. As someone who runs a group speculating different styles and designs for movies and tv shows I’m all for envisioning a 2D ZOOTOPIA or Bluth-inspired FNAF. That’s amazing!

But that’s also the talk of fan artists and nerds and not the professional artists working on visualizing their stories!!

Since I ate, slept, and breathed NIGHTMARE in my youth I’ll use it as an example: All the concept art ever done for TNBC was on paper and 2D was used in the final film. However, even when Tim Burton was thinking of making it just a tv special it was always going to be stop-motion. NIGHTMARE’s puppet cast do work very well in two dimensions, believe me, but the film was made as a love letter to Rankin/Bass and the art form of stop-motion. Skipping to another Henry Selick-helmed project (haha), JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH was also always envisioned as a multimedia film to give it a truly dream-like atmosphere. If you know anything about Henry Selick you’ll know he’s 1) a perfectionist, and 2) loves mixed media and different types of animation and puppetry at once. That’s why he was the perfect pick to direct TNBC at the time, why JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH and CORALINE are so beautiful and why MOONGIRL, his only fully 3d film, doesn’t have the same appeal.

As for what films I couldn’t imagine NOT being 3D? Probably; 9, Padak, Next Gen, Soul, Finding Nemo, the Toy Story films, Wreck-it-Ralph (as previously mentioned), Wall.E, Waltz with Bashir, Robots, Inside Out, Arthur Christmas, The Painting, Happy Feet, Shrek, Enter the Spiderverse, Megamind… just naming a few here.

“I want a traditionally animated film [and by that I mean a 90s-Disney/Don Bluth looking movie] of ‘x'-popular live action/stage thing!”

Okay I’m cheating a bit but it’s my blog and so I’m gonna stick this one in because it’s related.

When I see musings about wanting live-action or CGI shiz to be in 2d again a lot of the time this argument actually boils down to " I want this to look like a 90s Didney movie ". Or, if it’s about animals - " I want it to look like a Don Bluth film! "

Like...there ARE other styles of animation out there...you know that right?

Frack, Disney themselves tried different styles throughout the 90s it’s just that the peak of the Disney renaissance films (LITTLE MERMAID, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, ALADDIN, THE LION KING) and the many imitators that followed tended to have the same look to them where only film/animation nerds kept watching into the era that was TARZAN, HERCULES, and ATLANTIS along with the kids. Aunt Karen wasn't singing Part of your World in the carride with you every day.

The Don Bluth argument is especially irritating because...what exact feeling do you WANT from a movie if it looked Bluthish? Each of the four ‘quintessential’ Bluth movies (NIMH, AMERICAN TAIL, LBT, and ALL DOGS) have such a different feel to them that’s complimented by that style; SECRET OF NIMH is a drama about wild animals trying to understand humans; LAND BEFORE TIME is even more squarely about an animal’s perspective as there’s literally no humans around; AMERICAN TAIL uses animals stowing away on the ship to tell a story about refugees; and ALL DOGS GO TO HEAVEN is ALL DOGS GO TO HEAVEN.

What the frack are you even asking for with that because I think there’s a certain flavor to the Bluth-styled oeuvre as well as the 90s Disney catalogue that would clash too much stylistically with some films.

Also come on! Like some Bluthian-style 2d would really fix THE SECRET LIFE OF PETS or SCOOB!, bite me.

I think this fixation solely on these two hand drawn styles and nothing else is based on nostalgia goggles, refusing to step outside the norm and discover different films and feelings than Disney and Bluth, and just preference. Goin back to NIGHTMARE there will always be a special place in my heart for Henry Selick’s stop motion, but I couldn’t imagine CHICKEN RUN or ANOMALISA in it's unique style.

Also I’m tired of every time there’s a "lets make an animatic to ‘x’ musical theater song" it’s reliably just Disneyesque or realistic. WHY envision an animated version of the show at all if it doesn’t have A STYLE to it??!?! I’m sorry but 90s-Disney does NOT fit CABARET!

“3D is so CHEAP now! Why can’t they just do 2D again?”

I think - on the cusp of the 2020s and the Grubhub hatedom, there ARE changing times ahead for 3d and 2d. The general public are starting to get tired of the same looking 3d films and wanting some 2d back, but they don’t have the best resources or opinions on animation to know what it is they want. Meanwhile, the animation community + industry is trying to figure out what to do and you have a lot of turmoil between the monopoly that is the industry, the high standards of the artists, and the mixed wants of the animation fanbase deciding what art needs to be.

It’s a tough business. And in the spirit of that tough business - maybe DON’T act like the means of a film’s production is solely your control, that you know best, and know definitively what the artists should have done....cuz you don't. Sorry my fellow criticalfanomanalysist-folks we DON'T and in an age of standom where fans and critics think it's okay to hackle indie animation studios about not getting their pitched cartoon out fast enough - we need to reserve these discussions to our circles and not treat them as gospel.

3d animation and 2d animation have to share this world. Stop acting like they’re either interchangeable in terms of budget, means of production, or artistry or that one has to be superior to the other.

The industry already says one art form is better (spoiler: it’s always live-action), we don’t need anymore of this purist garbage. Just stick to what you like while trying new things on the side. Be critical while also being compassionate. And remember:

[realbigpodcastslut]

Should You Listen to King Falls AM?

(Update at the bottom) 

Lately, I’ve seen a lot people looking to start KFAM and conflicting views on if you should listen. Being a fan for a long time, I’d like to put in my two-cents. I’m not going to tell you if you should listen or not, but I’ll present the facts so you can make your own choice.

Overall:

King Falls AM is a podcast, and out of the hundred+ I’ve listened to, it is definitely my favorite one and I always seem to be relistening to it. Taking place in the small town of King Falls, late-night radio hosts Sammy and Ben have to tackle the weird and whacky. It’s funny, the characters are amazing, and I just love the overall idea of love (platonic and romantic) conquering all. The music is also amazing. While the background music is to die for, this is really shown in their musical episode (which is done right).

Now, while it is my favorite podcast, there are a lot of faults. Representation is mishandled, there are problematic parts, and the creators and actors have had some not-so-great reactions to valid criticism. Also, the story is unfinished and there is no word if they’re coming back after COVID-19.

Characters:

I can’t deny, I love the characters (especially Lily Wright). The characters will worm their way into your heart until you fall in-love. Whether it’s the main characters of Sammy, Ben, (Emily, Troy, and Lily), or the townspeople, you’ll most likely end up loving them. And if you don’t love them, then you will hate them so much you love hating them. I’m going to avoid spoilers, but you will love these characters and feel for them. Even I, the stone-cold bitch that brags about not crying that much over media, ended up crying over them. 

On the other hand, the characters are not the stellar representation that a lot of podcasts have. There are plenty of LGBT characters later on, but a lot of them are stereotypes. Archie, a gay man, is overly camp, and Jacob, a bisexual man, is sex-crazed. Though, I should point out that almost every non-main character is a stereotype, but this can be off-putting to a lot of people. Women are also not represented great. They’re pretty one-dimensional and while they grow, they’re sort of looked-down upon and hated. This changes around episode 90 where it is specifically called out on and episodes 75+ start to change this poor representation somewhat. Though the representation of POC is just bad, with Walt being a stereotypical Native American man and Storm Sanders an alcoholic. There is also a racist witch, while hated by everyone, is still suspicious. 

Comedy:

King Falls AM is also extremely funny. There are several jokes they actually made me laugh out loud (hard to do) and in my relistens I still laugh. The character’s banter is hilarious and I just can’t state how funny some of the stuff is. While some stuff aren’t direct jokes, the absurdity of events are funny. For example, there is a vigilante named the Dirt who is basically a dimestore Batman in BDSM gear. Another thing is that there is a murderous Elf of the Shelf that says some things that are comedy gold. Even later on, they don’t sacrifice much of the comedy for arcs that will tear your heart out.

While the jokes are funny, there are many jokes that miss the mark and are not politically correct. One that sticks out is “Don’t assume my gender.” There are a lot of race jokes (ew) and quite a few on the holocaust. There are also a lot of gay jokes, which while sometimes done right, can make LGBT people uncomfortable. Especially when two characters (Archie and Lily) are made out to be too gay to function and make a lot of sexual jokes. This missing-the-mark is made clear as it is written by straight white men, which really can’t joke about stuff they don’t experience.

Themes:

The themes of KFAM are also good and you can’t ever go wrong with found-family. Love is the main aspect surrounding the show and whether platonic or romantic love, it’s embraced. I really enjoy how Sammy and Ben are able to say “I love you” to each other without it being seen as creepy or “gay.” Characters also grow for the better and are always pushing to be better. They even talk about mental health struggles and pushing each other up to be the best they can be. Lastly, the main storyline is compelling and it opens up for a lot of theorizing and trying to figure out what is going to happen (or what happened).

The themes of found family can be criticized over the fact that several characters already experienced found family due to being gay and already being a family, though I think this one is a little weak (but I included it). Some of the storylines may get boring and it can be a sort of slow-burn as things come to fruition. There are also plot holes (but not that noticeable).

Creators, Actors and Community:

This is the final point and the thing that has made many die-hard fans dislike KFAM and be ashamed for listening to it. Starting at episode 34, there was an episode on Helen Keller and it was essentially making fun of her. Obviously, fans did not like this episode and told the creators so. They did not apologize and basically said, “Sorry you didn’t like it.” Around April or March of 2020, one of the creators retweeted NSFW fan works and people told them how they needed to tag it, etc. They reacted poorly, only for a person to say “Death of the Author” (a literary idea where you ignore the author’s influence on a work), and then the creator freaked out, thinking this was a death threat. These were not the only events, so if you’d like to find out more, I have archived (with my friend) a decent amount on the blog @kfam-tea.

The community is also toxic. There have been a lot of times where die-hard fans will delete any criticism from the subreddit (though this has seemed to stop). These fans also started “attacking” WTNV after Cecil Baldwin (voice of Cecil) made a jab at other radio podcasts. The discord server is also closed off from everyone except those already on it, and they’ve deleted a lot of channels and such. Overall, the community is not the best and it’s quite divided.

Lastly, we don’t know if KFAM is coming back. While they said it was going to start after COVID-19, there’s reason to believe that isn’t the case. The creators unfollowed each other on Instagram and Twitter. There was a Reddit threat where people asked if it was coming back only for Kyle (co-creator) to call them entitled (yikes, I know). So far, there is another podcast made by everyone but Kyle and Trent (the actor for about half of the town).

Conclusion:

The choice to listen is up to you. You may or may not like it, but I’m not going to say this is strictly a terrible or amazing podcast. I think it is both. I fell in love with the story and while it has many, many, terrible warts, I think people should know what they are heading into. I see too many people either praising or hating KFAM completely, and it’s not fair. This story isn’t for everyone and has it’s bad moments, but it also has it’s wonderful moments. To listen, that is a personal decision for you to make.

UPDATE:

KFAM isn’t coming back and it left on a big cliffhanger so maybe don’t listen.

[bloodraven55]

“But Bumbleby was rushed/forced to pander to the gays—”

There are a number of glaring flaws in this argument, most of all the fact that no straight relationship is ever called “forced” or “pandering” even if people don’t like it, let alone “rushed” when it’s only on the verge of officially happening seven seasons into the show, but I want to break down all of the many levels on which it’s wrong in order to hopefully kill it once and for all.

“It came out of nowhere—”

Jaune was crushing on Weiss the second he saw her, Sun was crushing on Blake the moment he saw her, Pyrrha developed feelings for Jaune in just one Volume and showed some interest from the moment she saw him, and Blake goes from being consistently annoyed at Sun throughout Volumes 1 and 2 to suddenly having a crush on him in Volume 3.

If Bumbleby supposedly “came out of nowhere,” then so did W/hite Knight, A/rkos, and B/lacksun. But no one ever has an issue with the speed at which those characters started having romantic interest in each other. And I’m not even saying they should—they’re all very valid ships and whether they came out of nowhere or not isn’t the point of this—but there’s a clear double standard applied to same sex ships as opposed to heterosexual ships here and it invalidates this point right out of the gate.

“It was rushed—”

Blake and Yang are only just now close to becoming an official couple after more than six whole Volumes of knowing each other. There is no possible universe where this would qualify as “rushed.” Again, W/hite Knight and B/lacksun albeit both one-sided at least to begin with both became obvious things within literal episodes of the characters meeting, and Jaune and Pyrrha were showing blatant romantic interest in each other by Volume 2 before kissing in Volume 3.

In the last case you can argue that it went at a faster pace because Pyrrha was going to die, but that doesn't change the fact that no one complained that it went too quickly—or about the other two ships I mentioned which were both initially based solely on one (1) instance of a guy showing interest in a girl—and yet people say it’s too soon for Blake and Yang to get together when they’ve had over twice as long for their relationship to develop.

“The shippers forced it into the show—”

I don’t think I even need to add any more here when the words of CRWBY speak for themselves.

“Toxic shippers think everything is gay—”

I mean, I’m gay and I only truly ship a handful of the possible same sex pairings in the show—certainly far from the majority of them—and I also ship a number of straight ships, but go off I guess.

I already made a post on this here, but it’s insanely dismissive and ridiculous for heterosexual people i.e. the ones who usually use this “argument” to assume that they know better than actual LGBT+ people what is or isn’t good LGBT+ representation, and for them to assume that just because they missed build up that it therefore isn’t there.

I can’t take someone seriously when they go into a discussion determined to believe that they’re already right and don’t listen to a word you say to prove otherwise, especially when they’re debating on a topic which doesn’t directly affect them and which they don’t have the same level of firsthand knowledge of.

“The wasps only care about Blake and Yang getting in each other’s pants—”

Actually, it’s the people who are most aggressively against Blake and Yang being a couple that tend to reduce their relationship to being entirely about sex even though they haven’t had a single remotely sexual interaction in the show, but if this were true then surely Bumbleby shippers would be very unhappy with the show because Blake and Yang have still not “got in each other’s pants,” or “swapped clit juice” as I once saw someone tastefully describe it?

But that isn’t right. Because in general us Bee shippers are currently exceedingly happy with everything that’s happening in the show to do with Blake and Yang’s relationship. So how can that be if all we care about is whether they fuck or not?

The answer is of course that we don’t only care about whether they fuck or not—in fact most of us couldn’t care less whether it’s ever so much as hinted that they have sex, both because the show almost certainly won’t ever go there and because that isn’t our priority—we’re just enjoying watching them fall in love.

Honestly this argument is one of the most lazy because one look at RWBY will tell you that none of the romances are at all sexual thus far so any shippers who truly only care about that aspect wouldn’t stick around very long when they’ll just end up disappointed. And of course the way that these people inherently view same sex relationships as sexual is homophobic and disgusting too.

“CRWBY rushed it to give the rabid shippers what they want—”

Like the last two points, this is a “criticism” that I’ve only ever seen levelled at same sex ships and never straight ships, so it’s yet another example of double standards and hypocrisy, but that’s only the start of what’s wrong with it.

The most galling thing about this is that these people insist that all LGBT+ people because as I’ve already mentioned that is always the group which statements like this are aimed at just want to see two characters of the same gender make out as soon as possible, which is simply not true.

No one would ever claim that straight people just want to see a man and a woman get it on as soon as possible and dismiss the worth of a straight relationship because of it. So it’s ridiculous to try and force that logic onto shippers of same sex ships, who are primarily LGBT+ people themselves.

If anything, we care even more about the quality of our ships—how healthy they are, whether they’re well built up or not, etc.—because we hardly have any to begin with in comparison. If one straight ship is rushed or poorly written, then there are plenty of well-handled ones to choose from instead, but the same isn’t the case for same sex ships.

We want to be represented well, which means that we want healthy relationships with plenty of development where the characters actually have chemistry and complement each other. We might still support rushed or badly-written same sex ships sometimes because it’s still representation which we are overall sorely lacking, but we don’t want them.

“But they ship baited with Blake and Sun—”

First off, straight ships can’t be baited the same way that same sex ships can. It’s simply not a comparable situation. But of course B/lacksun shippers are entitled to feel disappointed that their ship didn’t become canon. That’s utterly valid and understandable. However, that doesn’t mean that the writers or the show in any way misled viewers regarding what was happening.

“But Sun winked at Blake—”

And Yang also winked at Blake in Volume 2 while asking her to the dance, just like Sun winked at Blake in Volume 1 and then asked Blake to the dance. And Blake turned Sun down when he asked initially, specifically told him that they were only “technically” going together when she ran into him outside, and told him definitively that she had chosen to give her first dance to Yang.

“But Blake blushed at Sun—”

And now she’s also blushed at Yang, in a far more intimate scene at that. Next point.

“But Sun met Blake’s parents—”

And? Simply meeting someone’s parents doesn’t on any level automatically imply romance. Ghira didn’t even like Sun, and while a lot of people like to claim that Kali “ships it” which would be extremely flimsy evidence to base the canonicity of a ship on anyway, she’s someone who would do the same with anyone Blake brought home so it means nothing. If Blake had actually chosen to take Sun home with her herself then this would be a valid point, but she didn’t, so it has no weight whatsoever overall.

“But Blake kissed Sun on the cheek—”

And I kiss my mother on the cheek the exact same way every time I say goodbye to her. If you think that type of kiss on the cheek has to be romantic then quite frankly I’m not sure what world you’re living in. If the camera had been close up, if there had been any shots at all of their reactions, any blushing or lingering looks, a more private setting— literally anything to give it some actual weight and make it feel significant, then this might mean something, but it’s framed as a totally platonic goodbye with zero romantic coding.

And that’s without even mentioning the fact that right after that moment Sun flat out states that his time with Blake was “never about [romance],” which sort of kills the idea that anything about that scene was supposed to be taken as romantic. There was no reason to include that line except to make it clear to the audience that Sun and Blake parted ways as friends who now have no intention of ever becoming anything more.

Seriously, if they wanted us to think that there was still something there, then Blake would have been shown to be thinking about or missing Sun even one since they separated, but he hasn’t been brought up for even a second. If they wanted to set up a continuation of anything romantic for them when the group reach Vacuo, say, then they would have started doing it by now.

Plus the reverse argument that Blake and Sun have never hugged or held hands—both of which Blake and Yang have done multiple times—works just as well, perhaps even better since handholding is a well-established romantic cue in the show already thanks to A/rkos, R/enora, and O/zma and Salem.

“But why was Sun even there in Volumes 4 and 5 then—”

Because Blake needed a friend who she could exposition to about her thought processes and personal problems so that the audience could understand what she was going through, and she wasn’t as likely to open up to her parents about that stuff right away when she was convinced they’d hate her for leaving.

Sun was there to support Blake as she developed and to tell her that running away hurt the very people she was trying to protect. That was his narrative role in that arc. There was nothing to indicate that a romance was being built in those more than twenty episodes they spent together and if it was going to happen that would have been the time to do it.

On the other hand Blake and Yang’s shared arc together is built on the fact that Blake’s romantic ex, who Blake had already directly contrasted with Yang and whose Semblance was already a foil to Yang’s, maimed Yang specifically because Blake loves her. The basis of that arc has romantic weight, which is what makes the difference here. Though the scene at the end of Volume 3 where Adam takes Yang’s arm isn’t romantic in and of itself, I should clarify, it just has romantic significance in that it makes it clear that Blake and Yang’s feelings go beyond mere friendship.

In short, the summary of this whole section pretty much boils down to: two characters spending time together doesn't inherently equal romantic development, and it isn’t in any way “baiting” if those two characters don’t then get together.

The characters’ feelings follow a fairly logical progression over the course of the show, with Blake showing interest in both Sun and Yang in V1-V3, then ceasing to show interest in Sun after that as their relationship becomes totally platonic by Volume 5/the beginning of Volume 6 at the very latest, while the events of the Fall of Beacon only solidified how strong her feelings for Yang were and once she reunites with Yang their relationship begins to head towards romance.

It’s a pretty realistic depiction of how human feelings work, and a far less messy situation than in a lot of other shows where there isn’t the same massive level of hatred and vitriol towards the “victorious” pairing, because this was never even really presented as a love triangle or rivalry.

To conclude, I just want to list some of the contradictions that I’ve seen within the arguments made against Bumbleby, because I think it’s very telling that the people who are against it can’t even settle on one coherent narrative on why it’s bad.

“Bumbleby has no development, but also the show focusses too much on Bumbleby.”

“Monty wouldn’t have wanted Bumbleby—it goes against his vision—even though I didn’t know him and have no idea what his vision actually was, and he explicitly stated that he wanted LGBT+ characters in the show who might already be in the main cast and that he wanted Blake and Yang to have a shared arc together, as well as being responsible for the set up of that arc with Blake and Yang being introduced as Beauty and the Beast while Adam canonically represents Gaston.”

“The Bumbleby shippers have so much influence that they forced the writers to make the ship canon, but they’re also just a vocal minority who don’t matter.”

“Blake and Yang hardly interact—they’re barely even friends—but they also interact too much and it’s making Bumbleby take over the show.”

“Arryn is a victim of the toxic wasps who harrassed her and sent her death threats for saying that the song Bmblb doesn't automatically make the ship canon, which there is zero evidence of,  but Arryn is also an unprofessional cunt for expressing her support of Bumbleby.”

“None of Blake and Yang’s scenes together are romantic so Bumbleby is forced, but even when they have undeniably romantic interactions I’ll ignore them or deny that they mean anything so I can still pretend it has no build up.”

“Bumbleby is bad because Team RWBY are a sisterhood, but all of the other straight relationships within teams—even those who’ve flat out called each other ”family”—are fine, and I’ll just pretend that there aren’t other definitions of the word sisterhood which have nothing to do with actual sisters and are the ones that actually apply in this case.”

“Blake and Yang’s relationship could be seen as romantic or platonic, but I personally think they’re just friends so Bumbleby is bad and came out of nowhere.”

I’ve seen all of these countless times with my own two eyes and it’s absolutely hilarious to be honest. Anyway that’s it. I have yet to see a single logical argument as to why Bumbleby is bad that isn’t made in bad faith, fallacious, or just doesn’t hold up when you actually look at the show. It’s about to be canon, and at this point to be honest anyone who doesn't like that can simply accept it or go and watch something else that will pander to their specific tastes instead.

[stevishabitat]

I have Opinions.

I was a linguistics student, so I'm a little more aware and opinionated on accents, dialects, etc than the average fan. I feel like from a representation standpoint, accents & dialects are trailing behind other aspects of representation. But I think the same dynamics can apply. There *are* marginalized accents and dialects. AAVE being one of the more obvious ones.

But there's also a TON of classism involved in which accents are normalized and which are used to "other" characters (used for comedy effect or emotional effect or to show that someone isn't normal).

I feel like when an actor takes on a lower-prestige accent than their own, I find that super uncomfortable. But I don't find it uncomfortable when it goes the other way - when an actor who naturally speaks a lower-prestige accent adopts a more normalized accent.

A lot of actors HAVE to speak a more normalized accent rather than their natural accent - in order to get work that doesn't pigeon-hole them as ethnic, rural, or lower class - or sometimes to get work at all.

One show that really got me thinking about this recently was Carnival Row. The whole show is about colonialism and oppression. Yet the main character representing the oppressed Fae is played Cara Delevingne… an English actor... using a fake Irish accent. Like... REALLY???

If you're going to use the Fae as a stand-in for the Irish, in a morality tale about the horrors of colonialism, how about you use an actual Irish actor to play the part? I mean, I love Cara Delevingne in this part, but it just grates on me that there could have been much more weight to it if the actor were Irish. It's almost like perpetrating erasure on a small scale to do otherwise.

Another one that really gave me the squiks recently was Suranne Jones in Unforgiven. I get that she wasn't as well known when she was cast as she is now, but it's obvious that accent is in no way natural. And once you've heard her natural accent, the idea of her playing a rural, working class person is just.... no.

Globalization of entertainment makes it possible now for actors of so many backgrounds to work on productions in every corner of the world. So why do we have people faking accents anyway?

If the script specifically identifies a character as, say, Welsh... get a freaking Welsh actor to do it! (ahem... RDJ in Dolittle). If the accent isn't really a big deal for the script, then let your actor use their own natural accent (Looking at you, Doctor Who, re: David Tennant). If that could just be the rule of thumb, then we wouldn't have to listen to all these crap accents all the time.

(And honestly, more natural Welsh accents on my TV? Yes PLEASE! What's Gareth David-Lloyd doing these days, anyway?)

Oh, and WTF is going on with all these British actors in American shows doing American accents? Do we not have actors in the U.S. anymore? Alternately, do we think Americans won't watch British actors using their own accent? Either write in a reason for the character to be British, or cast an American. Pick one, folks.

I've watched a few recently - Prodigal Son and Designated Survivor come to mind - and although the actors all did an admirable job handling the accents, I had to wonder if either an American in the role - OR if they'd been able to use their natural accent - would have played better.

I mean... Prodigal Son had a Welsh actor and an English actor playing father and son. For what reason could they not have used their own accents? The son even went away to boarding school, which is such an easy way to write in a justification for the accent, just say he'd been sent to England for school.

Do not get me started on the disaster that was Gracepoint. They should have spared David Tennant (and the audience) the pain, and allowed the character to be Scottish.

(Oh, and I definitely noticed in Forever, when they just pasted the word "Welsh" into the script when obviously it was written to be "English" to describe Henry Morgan's background. I mean, props to Ioan Gruffudd for at least fighting for that much (I'm gonna give him the credit for that, even though I have no proof) - but it's obvious the scriptwriters either didn't realize there's a cultural difference between England and Wales, or thought the American viewers wouldn't realize there's a difference. Sloppy.)

I will HAPPILY watch a Brit on an American show using their natural accent. And if we're going to import Brits, let's see a diverse sampling of British actors with a diverse sampling of accents. PLEASE??? Stop with the white guys. Stop with making them all either do an American accent or RP. Let's see something new.

Or... really radical thought here... let's see some diversity from here in America. Or other countries that aren't England or Canada. There are whole continents that are sadly under-represented in American and international TV/films.

As I said, I'm probably too attuned to accents for my own good, but when I'm pulling out IMBD to check on an actor's nationality because something about their accent or acting feels off, that's got me right out of the drama. And once I've noticed it, it's not gonna go away. I'll hear every slip, notice every slightly stiff delivery of a line.

Shoot, I'm gonna notice when their mouth does a weird thing to try to pull an awkward vowel out, or reach for that rhotic R. (Although, the intrusive R is more often a give-away than any rhotic R failure, especially if someone hasn't been specifically coached about it).

//end rant

[bonvoyagenoona]

Idol Hands (M) | 01: The Red Carpet

Word Count: 3,840 | read on ao3

Pairings: Namjoon x Reader 

Genres: Actress!Reader / Actress!You / Friends / F2L / Noona Romance / Fluff / Smut / Humor / ANGST 

Rating: 18+ / Explicit / Mature

Idol Hands | Masterpost

Idol Hands | Playlist

01: The Red Carpet

By now, red carpet events have lost all of their magic. You’ve seen most of the innerworkings. The PAs scattered in panic. The screaming matches in cars. All the headsets barking orders into peoples’ ears. The truly disgusting things that celebrities and their agents sneer at each other during the commercial breaks. You are finally disillusioned, and you feel the beginning of the descent.

You and Tessa, exchange a look. She smiles sadly, and you realize she’s thinking the same thing.

Tessa jumps out of the car on her side and runs around to open your door. You slide out perfectly to unleash every dramatic aspect of your gorgeous gown. The beaded bodice fits your waist and hips like a glove, and the handkerchief skirt ruffles daintily in the breeze. You look and feel like a princess. You’d never admit it, but you love it. 

As you hit the carpet, you and Tessa separate into your two lanes. Yours is to smile without looking too hungry for attention while trying not to break your ankles on these stilettos for the next five minutes. Tessa’s is to hold your purse and follow in the shadows. But neither of you mind it as much that night. You know this will be the second-to-last time you’ll ever do this. It’s best to enjoy as much as you can.

People snap your picture here and there. There are always some of your ever-present, die-hard fans, and you are always surprised to see anyone who gives a damn about your work at these things. Honestly, you’re here because of the size of the projects that you’re lucky to be attached to, not the size of the tiny parts that you play. Mostly, people are just trying to figure out who you are. You see a couple of people grin and exchange looks with who they’re with. They look so certain about the little industry factoid they’re about to drop about you, and the person who listens always looks impressed. You’re not really an actress. You’re a pub trivia night guess. You’re not even sure if they’re getting you right. 

You rejoin Tessa close to the major broadcast network stages. You take some time to look around and take it all in. The place is teeming with the industry. It feels stuffy and busy and unreal and insane, a weird mix of everyone you’ve ever seen on TV.

You notice Tessa’s eyes. They’re narrow. They’re working.

“What,” you say flatly. 

You follow her thoughtful gaze to the biggest stage, the one just a few steps away. The host is warming up the next group for their interviews. 

“Don’t make me go up there,” you plead, but you know Tessa is about to talk you into something.

“Do you realize what this could do for your career?” she reminds you. “All these years of playing the comic relief? The best friend?”

You see your credits roll before you. Some of them, especially most of the early ones, are real stinkers.

“And Asian-American actresses get almost no love in Hollywood. We could do with a little homegrown help to show what it’s missing,” Tessa continues. 

“You’re really going to do this in the guise of representation?” you ask, disappointed. “Are you going to miss this inane shit that much?” 

“I just can’t believe you’re retiring soon. I feel like you didn’t get to do the big things,” Tessa says, softening. “You’re so talented, Unnie.”

“Stop with the unnie business,” you chide, but you already feel your chest growing heavy. “We promised that we would save the sister cry session for tequila shots in our pajamas later. You’re here as my manager.”

“And as your manager, I’m saying it’s worth a shot,” Tessa points out, easily adapting to your tone. “You get some publicity from this, maybe it carries into the shoot next month. Maybe they’ll increase the budget. Maybe this isn’t one of the last times you’re here.”

You sincerely don’t know if you want that, but you mull it over. Tessa reads your stance, and to keep you from thinking too long, she yells, “Annyeonghaseyo!” loudly at the stage.

Your breath hitches, and you meet eyes with the very fake host, and with the very handsome, well-dressed, and fellow Korean superstars of BTS. The host smiles and gets an idea.

“I’m going to kill you,” you say to Tessa through a clenched jaw.

She lets out a laugh, and it sounds almost maniacal. She doesn’t care if she dies for it. She’s absolutely sure that it’s the right thing to do.

“Look who we have coming down the carpet now,” you hear, and you plaster on that dazzling smile of yours.

“Oh my god, hi, everyone!” you cheer, embracing Namjoon and pressing your cheek to his, even though you’ve never even been in the same room. Your lips next to his ear, you whisper in clumsy Korean, “Nice to meet you. How are you all holding up?”

“Just barely. Going off 3 hours of sleep,” Namjoon responds, repositioning your heads to press his other cheek against yours to complete the very Hollywood greeting. 

With your head over his shoulder, you catch sight of the rest of the guys and give them a little wave. They all respond in kind with their professional hellos to you, but there’s an added shine of renewed eagerness in their eyes. Like most of Tessa’s ideas, this made sense, but you aren’t expecting to be so touched by such a peripheral connection.

“You can’t tell at all. You look amazing,” you say comfortingly as you pull away, and Namjoon visibly brightens. 

You cheat out to the camera, and you and Namjoon sandwich the host. He angles the mic toward you, and you say a quick, not completely grammatically correct greeting to your Korean fans. You know you’re probably greeting more of Namjoon and his gang’s fans than anything.

“We’ve got a little Korean corner going here!” the host exclaims happily. You can already see how he’s thinking of how this will help him stand out in the recaps tomorrow. You and Namjoon wince at the tone-deaf statement, but you both seem to agree to let it pass. The explanation would be too nuanced, and you doubt this host is the most culturally aware person. Yet another of countless small concessions you’ve had to make for the niceties necessary to put on a good show. 

The host turns to you. “This is great timing because RM and I were just talking about BTS’s return to Seoul tomorrow to start working on their next album, and you’re actually flying there in a couple of days to shoot your next project.” 

There’s no way he actually knows that, and you make a mental note to thank Tessa for fervidly whispering this information to the host’s producer from her place in the shadows.

“That’s right!” you say.

“Tell us about it,” the host goes on, and you see the light in his eyes dimming quickly. How many times must he have had to say that in the past couple of hours? You feel a twinge of sympathy. Everybody here just has stupid shit they don’t want to do tonight.

“It’s called Sunset, which translates into Ilmol in Korean,” you say into the mic, stressing the word to start familiarizing people with it now. “It’s a small K-drama, but it’s a great story, and it’s got a little bit of everything.” You hear Namjoon and the gang excitedly say “ilmol” to each other over and over again, clapping and nodding enthusiastically.

The host picks up on their energy. “Does that little bit of everything include any appearances from the guys?” he asks, gesturing back to them.

“Hmm, maybe!” you say playfully, and you flash a look at Namjoon, who wiggles his eyebrows. Your entire brain is laughing. You can do this in your sleep. It’s too easy, and it means nothing.

“Exclusive information for you all tuning in,” the host says to the camera. “Are you going to see BTS in your next favorite K-drama? Maybe!”

You wonder if Tessa is having a full on orgasm at the mastery being displayed. Not bad for the littlest Korean in this little Korean corner. 

The rest of the night is filled with the same, vapid crap.

Awards for people who are mostly better at campaigning than they are at their craft. 

You and Tessa become little girls again, hate-watching the entire show and texting each other inside jokes about the circus going on in front of you.

Your table represents the underdog project that finally made it to the big leagues. Your table always houses the underdogs. They’re your kindred spirits. The outcasts. The underestimated. When the star of your darling, indie movie breaks down in tears at the end of the night, you have to try really, really hard not to laugh. You were never here to win. You were here to get a bit of PR, get a lot of champagne, and eat free food. And the food wasn’t even good.

Eventually, your night of fake glamor ends, and you and Tessa climb back into your car.

You lay your head in her lap, and she strokes your hair. Your little sister is so much better than you at caring. Caring for others. Caring about this job. Caring about this career.

“Y’know, I think I will,” she mumbles, gazing out the window.

“Hmm?”

“You asked me earlier if I was going to miss this inane shit. I think I really will,” she says.

You roll onto your back and look up at her.

“You will?”

“I mean, it’s been our whole lives,” Tessa says. “All the kiddie shows that you were on.”

“The diversity hire,” you chuckle.

“C’mon, you were cute. And you really showed off your chops. Without that, you wouldn’t have had that really good run of young adult stuff.”

“The trashy teeny bopper movies?” you ask. “I actually had to say the sentence, Popsicles are way better than boys. It was drivel.”

“That one paid off the house,” Tessa reminds you. “And it does kind of ring true.”

“They’re just as cold, but at least they stay sweet, and they don’t break your heart,” you quote, pitching your voice up to something that sounded closer to 16 instead of 30.

Tessa cackles. “Oh man, it sounds so much worse.”

“Imagine having a line like that every episode.”

“You were the sage Asian stereotype before you could even drive.”

“Yeah, I was their little fortune cookie,” you spit out, sitting up only to reposition and lean back down to start taking off your stilettos. You don’t deny that you’re still bitter from all those doors that slammed in your face. Maybe you shouldn’t have leaned into it in those casting auditions. But what did you, your two professor parents, and your baby sister know? You thought that you had no other option.

“Ugh. Speaking of.” Tessa places a hand on her stomach.

“Yes, please!” you say, reading her mind.

“Burgers.”

You scrunch your nose up.

“Tacos?”

Usually, you’d jump all over a taco truck, but you’re not feeling it tonight.

“Pizza?”

“No, something more filling.”

“More filling than cheese and bread?”

“I think I’m missing Eomma’s cooking,” you sigh.

“We’re going to see her and Appa soon.”

“Still.”

Tessa’s eyes brighten. “It’s been forever since we’ve been to see Mr. Lee. We should pay him a visit.”

You are about to eat your next spoonful of haemul bap when Tessa reaches over the table and grasps your forearm, knocking over one of the banchan plates.

Furrowing your brow in confusion at her, you follow her crazy-looking eyes to the group that has just entered the restaurant. 

You tell yourself that you’re just tired. That you’re still drunk from all the champagne. That Mr. Lee has made the haemul bap so spicy that you aren’t thinking straight. But, still, you see Namjoon.

“No fucking way,” you mutter.

Mr. Lee’s restaurant is empty, only big enough for maybe 20 people max, and, most importantly, not in Koreatown. You’re at the edge of suburbia, just outside of your childhood neighborhood, in the nondescript and melting pot strip mall where your parents would take you and baby Tessa on Sundays. 

In your household, and so many households like yours, there was “going out”, and there was “grocery shopping”. 

“Going out” meant picking up everyday items (paper towels, lemons, floss) at the nearby retail chain store. 

“Grocery shopping” was reserved for Sundays. Grocery shopping meant being forced to go to church before being dragged to this strip mall to pick up a bevy of Asian ingredients that the owners of the nearby box store wouldn’t even recognize, much less sell. You’d pack them into the car and drive home to wait for Eomma to cook. Soon, the familiar smell of bibimbap or samgyeopsal would float up to your bedroom. You and Tessa would chase each other down the stairs to fight over the good chair at the table, whatever that meant at the time. And then, as Eomma brought the dishes to the table, everything would settle. Everything would be renewed. Everything would be washed clean. That was your real church.

This is why Namjoon, in his sparkly Prada suit and coiffed brown hair, doesn’t belong. It’s almost blasphemous. You’re almost offended.

Tessa stifles a laugh. “Mr. Lee has no idea who they are.”

“Of course he doesn’t,” you say, “he was already senile when were kids.”

Mr. Lee slowly makes his way to the table next to you, guiding the rowdy group. You notice Namjoon watching Mr. Lee’s gait, hands out just in case he wobbles.

“Do we run out the back?” you ask under your breath.

“You’re joking, right?” Tessa asks, using the forward-facing camera on her phone to check her makeup and hair.

She looks up right as the group sits down, and Mr. Lee hands them some menus.

There’s a sudden, refreshing flurry of Korean being spoken. You can’t speak it fluently, but you understand flawlessly. It rings through the room like a familiar song, and Mr. Lee looks so happy taking their orders. With the neighborhood changing so rapidly, you imagine that it has been a while since he’s had patrons that weren’t non-Korean, millennial parents chasing a foodie trend while they’ve got the babysitter.

Mr. Lee turns to you and Tessa and says, still in Korean, “Are you both still OK?”

“Yes, thank you, abeonim,” you say.

The group hears your voice, and when they pause their chaos long enough to notice that it is you, they cheer and greet you.

“Noona! This is crazy!” Namjoon says in English, switching from the far end of the table to the vacant seat between you and Jimin. He hangs his arm on the back of Jimin’s chair and leans back. You think you see Jimin and Taehyung exchange some sort of glance and laugh.

“You think this is crazy?” Tessa asks.

“This is my manager, Tessa,” you explain to the group. “She's also my sister.”

Everyone cheers their hellos, and at this point, it kind of becomes too crazy for Tessa to process. She smiles, but she turns beet red. For once, she’s speechless.

“How did you find this place?” you ask.

“We kinda wanted to disappear for a bit,” Namjoon says simply, and you smell the liquor on him. “And I was craving Korean food.”

You smile. You appreciate his shrewdness. “Well, you made a good choice,” you reply. 

“Yeah…” He looks you up and down, and it feels like he’s delicately dragging silk across your skin. “Seems like I did.”

Flattered in spite of yourself, you smile and raise your eyebrows at Tessa. The look on her face is confirming what you’re feeling. He’s looking at you. He’s talking about you. 

And he’s funnier than you would have guessed. They all are. You could stay there all night, laughing at their stories, appreciating how sweet and kind they are to each other, even tearing up at how they still can’t believe they’ve made it. 

Tessa shoots you nostalgic looks, her eyes glistening. You are doing exactly what you had planned to do. You’re just downing shots of soju instead of tequila.  

Mr. Lee keeps the restaurant open an extra hour just for your little impromptu post-awards show party. He even drinks some soju with you. When you, and only you, notice him fail to hide a small yawn, you place your hand on his shoulder and smile.

“I am so sorry, everyone. I’m so exhausted,” you say. “Tessa, time to go?”

The guys (except for Yoongi) start to whine, and their voices meld into choruses of “one more shot” and “let’s all go back to the hotel”. Even Tessa joins in. But Namjoon settles the group down. “It’s probably time for us to go, too,” he says. 

“Noona, is your car on the way?” Seokjin says kindly. “We’ll wait for you.”

“Actually, the driver texted us hours ago,” Tessa says, blinking effortfully to read her phone screen. “He had to leave.”

“Well, why don’t we just take you?” Namjoon asks, observing her. He looks back to you. “You’re heading back into the city, right?”

“Aw, that’s really nice of you, but that’s not---”

“Yes!” Tessa says, cutting you off. “That would be so great!”

“Let’s go then,” Namjoon says, standing and jutting out his elbow toward you.

Too soon, you’re sandwiched between Namjoon and Jungkook in the back seat of a stretch limo, pointing out your building. Your new doorman stands motionless at the front. 

“Do you live in one of those fancy lofts?” Hoseok asks, his mouth hanging open as he peers up at the tall edifice. 

Tessa wants to milk this moment for all it’s worth and moves to say something along the lines of “you should come up and see”. But Namjoon bails you out with a laugh and a lithe, “I bet it’s beautiful. We’ll have to come back to visit them.”

You feel Namjoon’s breath on your bare shoulder when you speak.

Jungkook gets out of the limo to let you and Tessa out. Your dress unfurls just as perfectly as it did earlier, but you wobble, your stilettos and soju finally betraying you like you knew they would at some point that night.

Luckily, he catches you and holds you close to keep you from falling. You lean into each other and laugh. His cologne smells amazing, and you make a mental note to ask him what kind it is. “Make sure you call us when you get to Seoul!” he reminds you. “We need to hang out the entire time you’re there!”

“Absolutely. Whenever you want, Jungkookie.”

Jungkook’s sparkling eyes widen. 

You move to leave, but his fingers slide down your arm and catch hold of your hand. 

“Wait.”

He twirls you around to face him. 

“I wanna do one of those celebrity greeting things,” he says eagerly, miming the movement with his cheeks. “It looks so classy.”

“Jungkook-ah, let Noona go,” Namjoon playfully scolds, and Yoongi shakes his head.

You laugh. “It is pretty classy, isn’t it?” 

Jungkook nods with an open smile spreading on his face. 

“Well, then, what are you waiting for?” you ask.

Jungkook pulls you in and presses his cheek against yours, just like he had seen Namjoon do earlier. You pull back and face each other. His drunken giggle is too, too cute. As he presses his other cheek to yours, he makes another kissing sound. Namjoon catches your eye, and judging by the fond look on his face, you’re all feeling a little sad that the night has to end.

You’ve underestimated Namjoon at every turn. He’s tenacious. He’s smarter than you anticipated him to be. He’s more passionate than his level-headed persona would suggest. And these traits couldn’t be more on display than right now, as Namjoon is fucking you senseless. 

He reads your every movement and can tell exactly what it is that you want. And he’s giving it to you. Freely. Happily. He leans down and kisses you deeply, tongues sloppy and lips swollen. 

Your body is on fire. As he pulls away, Namjoon’s sweat drips onto your bare chest, and you’re surprised that it doesn’t immediately sizzle and evaporate. 

“Fuck,” Namjon groans, and he slows his pace, filling you. He opens his eyes and watches your face contort while you try to understand what’s going on. Pain and so, so, so much pleasure. Tension building up to what you know is going to be a bone-rattling release. He strokes your face with his finger, slipping it into your mouth to see you latch onto him, to devour him in every way possible.

“You want more?” he asks, his voice low and dangerous.

You nod your head.

“Say it,” he commands.

You whimper as he quickens. 

He wraps his hands around your upper arms and pins them down at your sides. He uses you as leverage to push you even deeper into your sweat- and cum-soaked sheets. 

“Say it.” He’s going to fuck it out of you. “Say it.”

“Unnie!”

You bolt upright and scan the room. Aside from still being in your designer gown, you don’t notice anything out of the ordinary. You’re about to forget the dream that you were having, and as its last remnants float away, you close your eyes to revel in the feeling of Namjoon’s lips on yours.

“Yeah?” you call back dreamily.

Dressed in her robe and underwear, Tess stumbles into your room and shoves her phone in front of your face.

It’s a picture of you.

And Jungkook.

And the word CAUGHT! plastered diagonally across the center.

You blink, clearing your bleary eyes. The picture comes into sharper focus. Jungkook has his hand on your waist, and you’re leaning into each other. You’re both beaming.

The devil, though, is in the details. The untied bowtie. The gaze fixed to the nape of your neck. The thumb pressed softly into your belly. 

Your jaw drops, and you grab Tessa’s phone to scroll. There’s more. There’s so much more. It’s like someone captured your innocent goodnight, frame by frame. The faster you scroll, the pictures blend into some forbidden-looking movie.

“I’m getting that fucking doorman fired,” Tessa barks, grabbing her phone back.

You hate doing this, but you awkwardly search for your own name, along with Jungkook’s, and click the first link. Then the second. Then the third. They’re all filled with pictures of that night.

It’s been a while since you’ve gotten this much attention. 

“Has anyone from their team called?” you ask nervously. “How much trouble are we in?”

“Their manager set up a meeting with us when we get there,” Tessa says.

You’ve been in your share of PR team crisis meetings, but never at this scale. You’ve never been this close to that kind of star status. You wish you had stayed asleep just a little longer.

Read 02: The Black Town Car  →  

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[novicetypewriter]

Religion: what it is supposed to be and what we have made it

Religion is supposed to be an intimate guide of a person, extremely personal and beyond the reaches of anyone else than the person itself. This would’ve been my ideal judgment of the affair had it been similar to its definition in real world.

A religion expresses a person’s ideal code of conduct as an individual and a part of the society. It shapes the conscience, morality, conduct and lifestyle of any person. We have tons of religions in our world that means we have tons of codes of conduct which may be complacent or conflicting with one another. This also means that we as humans have an inalienable choice to make, of either choosing any religion or none at all. It should not be of anyone’s concern as to why a person is following that religion and not mine; hello…it’s none of your business because it is what that person feels is right for them.

My own opinion is that this whole complex tangle of religion is abhorrent. As mentioned earlier, there are so many religions that are out there, mostly with conflicting views, or so it seems pragmatically. This leads to hatred among the followers of somewhat “polar” religions (mind it, they may not be polar in their ideals but have been made so by most of the preachers) and then, follows a race of establishing superiority of one over the other. I think most of the conflicts in the world, particularly in the Middle East and South Asia, definitely have an attribute of religion too, that keeps the fire burning. This also brings me to my conjectural conclusion that conflicts over religion mostly occur in places where at least one religion has its origin at.

I absolutely have no interest in discussing religion because I consider myself an atheist. But it disturbs me listening to instances of violent, communal riots, especially in my country which is a fucking developing country and all people talk about is this smallest aspect of one’s fucking personal life. This has a lot of reasons such as illiteracy among the citizens (especially, men; I will justify this later), obsolete yet unconditional love towards the religious preachers (not the religion, but the preachers because as it turns out people assume that they connect with them and the preachers teach the ideals, which is mostly not the case), and the most powerful of all, ‘people in power struggling to make religion a public issue and shamelessly declaring their religious identity in space and slandering other religions’. There are a lot of other reasons too, but these are issues I consider are at the forefront of them.

In most of the cases, the conflicts are seen in the developing world that is struggling to develop using available resources. And since, these countries comprise a huge share of illiterate population, there are certain popular arguments which are used against minority groups. One of them is xenophobia. The minority groups are often of foreign origin or from regions in the peripheral areas. The majority (that, mostly, comprise the native religion) feels this unjustifiable superiority complex that they are the sole inheritors of the land they live in. This theory itself reflects roots of illiteracy because these are given by people who are struggling in the country, and who hence, may not be having access to better education. To further bring the perspective of feminism in this argument, we need to know the fact that the modern religions (and this time it is the ideal concept of almost all the religions, besides the accentuation by the preachers) have their origins in a society dominated by men. The modern religions are simply anti-paganistic; be it Christianity, Islam or Hinduism. Each and every religious epic was written by men, with men protagonists and addressing men solely. Women were just represented symbolically, and that too reinforcing the fucking ideas of fragility, subordinance, and for the pleasure of men protagonists. It is very rare to see strong women in these epics as compared to zillions of men counterparts and that too probably, just to satisfy feminists. But guess what: this is not helping feminism even a bit. Firstly, men think that the women gods are superior to real women in the world, thus having an unanticipated effect; those gods are majestic which women in real world are not, logically, yes fuckers, because this is real world and that’s why they are fantasies. Secondly, a more direct consequence of the representation of women as fragile and delicate creatures in these epics has made men to believe that women NEED men to protect them and that their honor is central to men’s honor and courage. This really pisses me off because again fuckers, those epics are fantasies, women in the modern world are not those women, you are really backward, women know how to protect their own honor, they do not give a fuck about your honor and you are the ones we need protection against, so won’t it be a simple task to control your testosterones and remain within your boundaries. If we compare men and women living in exactly the same conditions except for their genders, women are much more aware of this fact and they do not need men to interfere in their affairs; they are being toxic. For example, in India, honor killings are a widespread practice in some of the rural areas. It arises when a woman marries a man, consensually, but the family of woman thinks that the man trapped her. Unsurprisingly, this would not have been a problem if the man belonged to the same religion or caste as the woman. It becomes a problem if the man is of an alien religion, mostly a Muslim, or of a lower caste. Then the family, without asking the woman for her fucking conviction, goes on to kill the man through mob-lynching and surprisingly, the woman is killed too because she was being difficult and rebellious. And mind it that things never even reach to this point; even if the woman is seen with a man of the same kind as mentioned above, the man will be lynched and woman confined to the house. Rumors are spread that a woman of one religion was raped by the man of another religion and the man is lynched. In the backdrop of all of this, is the man’s political dream of being masculine as preached by their religion; but YOU ARE BEING FUCKING LEECHES ON WOMEN AND WE DON’T LIKE IT, SO FUCK OFF AND DIE SOMEWHERE FAR.

The second important issue is the personality cult around the priests and preachers of different religions. People are illusioned in front of these “mystical” leaders who know this fact and use this to facilitate hatred among religions. When I wrote about the feministic problems earlier, it must be noted that the men with those toxic beliefs are disciples of these preachers. So, ultimately, the preachers are the overlords. They just need to speak a word slandering any other religion and this rat race of disciples start to run behind it. These preachers are in no way propagating religion and they have absolutely no idea what a religion is. They are bestowed upon the responsibility of interpreting the religious texts in accordance to present context and try to accommodate different religious ideologies so as to attain overall peace and harmony. This is exactly what a religion should do- peace and harmony. But this may come as a surprise to almost everybody, as this is not what religion in the real world means. It more likely to be a phenonmenon upheld by a group of fanatics, radicals, bloody orthodox terrorists. That’s what a religion is today. (again this is a general idea; there are many people within these religions who are against this mainstream approach, including some priests too)

Any sensible person will not believe wholly in any one religion; rather they would consolidate the good virtues of all religions and create their own personal religion. Every other insane person will be wholly devoted to a particular religion and act as a robot in the hands of fanatic overlords.

The last yet the most worrying issue is the knowledge of the religion of people in power and their open declaration about it. Democracy is supposed to be a consolidating force and the people in power should be symbols of this consolidation. This means that they need to suppress their personal opinions and act as an absolutely neutral person. But guess what threatens this argument: the people in power being more personal than public and in the worst case, BLOODY PREACHERS BEING BROUGHT TO POWER. Can you believe this? The fundamentals of secularism, fraternity, liberty, freedom, equality, and every other political principle being endangered by giving the power in the hands of these people. This scenario is an extensive combination of all the other issues I have mentioned in this article; think about it. And this is the only reason my country is observing so many riots, communal clashes, police brutality, women objectification, and loss of hundreds of thousands of innocents lives every fucking year.

This is my take on religion and again, I personally do not give a fuck about religion. But those who do, please know what a religion is supposed to be and what we have made it. (and for those leeches, get your act straight otherwise you are the ones who’ll need protection; FUCK YOU AND YOUR FUCKING DIRTY LIVES.)

[mediaeval-muse]

Book Review

The Wolf in the Whale. By Jordanna Max Brodsky. New York: Redhook, 2019.

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

Genre: historical fiction, magical realism

Part of a Series? No

Summary: A sweeping tale of clashing cultures, warring gods, and forbidden love: In 1000 AD, a young Inuit shaman and a Viking warrior become unwilling allies as war breaks out between their peoples and their gods-one that will determine the fate of them all. "There is a very old story, rarely told, of a wolf that runs into the ocean and becomes a whale." Born with the soul of a hunter and the spirit of the Wolf, Omat is destined to follow in her grandfather's footsteps-invoking the spirits of the land, sea, and sky to protect her people. But the gods have stopped listening and Omat's family is starving. Alone at the edge of the world, hope is all they have left. Desperate to save them, Omat journeys across the icy wastes, fighting for survival with every step. When she meets a Viking warrior and his strange new gods, they set in motion a conflict that could shatter her world...or save it.

***Full review under the cut.***

***Mild spoilers in the plot section.***

Content/Trigger Warnings: rape, sexual assault, racism, misogyny, blood, violence, infanticide, slavery

Overview: I’m not an expert on Inuit culture, so if there are any Inuit, Indigenous, or scholarly reviewers out there who can speak more about the representation in this book, I highly recommend listening to them over me. (I am, however, a medievalist, so I can speak to the Norse elements in this book, if desired.)

The Wolf in the Whale is the kind of book that I have wanted for years; one that pushes back against the colonial gaze and gives us a perspective on Vikings from a non-European point of view. Unfortunately, I’m not entirely sure if this book did that for me. Brodsky (from her own research note) is not Inuit herself, though she does detail her research process and seems knowledgeable about some aspects of Inuit culture. Combined with some storytelling elements that she included in her tale (such as rape and misogyny), I feel somewhat conflicted about how to rate this book, even as I appreciate what it was trying to do. I think for me, personally, The Wolf in the Whale didn’t do as much interrogation into gender identity as it could have, nor do I think making Inuit spirituality/religion fit into Norse mythology entirely rejects a colonial point of view. I did, however, appreciate the premise and the writing, so I’m giving this book a 3.5 star rating.

Writing: Brodsky’s prose is very literary in tone, and I thought that Brodsky wrote with an easy balance between telling and showing. She uses neither flowery language nor sparse descriptions, and it was easy to visualize what was going on without feeling like everything was being spoon-fed to me. I also think the sentences flowed well and the pace was generally appropriate, and I found it easy to keep reading, even though this book was around 500 pages long.

This book is, however, written in first person, which I personally don’t care for because first person can make some descriptions seem awkward. Brodsky manages to sidestep a lot of awkwardness by using a more literary style, reigning in some emotion to make it feel as if the POV character is retelling their story from a future, detached kind of mental state. So props to her for that.

Plot: The Wolf in the Whale follows Omat, an Inuit girl who is raised as a boy, as they struggle to ensure their family’s survival. Over the course of the novel, Omat encounters food shortages, divine conflicts, and strangers (including other Inuit, Indigenous peoples, and Norsemen), and the majority of the latter half of the book is spent following Omat as they search for their cousin, Kiasik, who has been kidnapped by Norsemen.

In general, I think the structure of the plot worked well. Brodsky divides her book into sections that reflect different conflicts in Omat’s life, and I think the events unfolded in a logical way. I also really enjoyed the valuation of stories (especially when Omat and Brandr, a Viking, bond over storytelling) and the magical realism that gave Omat a connection to the spirit world. I furthermore appreciated that Omat’s story was one of Inuit contact with Vikings; as a medievalist, I’ve studied sagas that this book is loosely based on, and I appreciate the fact that Brodsky represented the Vikings not as heroic explorers, but colonizers and slavers.

I did not, however, enjoy the fact that so much of this book seemed to revolve around misogyny, and I got a weird sense that even though Omat is our POV character, Norse mythology seemed to take center stage when the Vikings showed up. First, the misogyny: I can’t speak to the accuracy of the Inuit stories about their gods and goddesses, nor can I say for certain if Inuit peoples have strict prohibitions against women doing men’s work and vice versa; thus, I can’t say whether the numerous stories about rape or the taboos that Omat is punished for violating are accurate or exaggerated. However, I think I can say that Omat needed to have a much more defined personal journey that didn’t revolve around her disdaining women’s work or being sexually assaulted. As a girl raised as a boy, Omat is incredibly anxious about being perceived as a hunter and a man - to the point where they express a lot of disgust or shame at being seen wearing women’s clothes or doing women’s work. I think there’s a way to explore Omat’s gender anxiety without denigrating the role women play in Inuit culture, as without women’s work, everyone would die. To be fair, Omat does learn to appreciate women’s roles over time, but I think that process needed to be more gradual and punctuated with plot points where a woman’s skill or knowledge proved to be valuable.

I also do not think there needed to be so much sexual assault (or threat of sexual assault). While I do think Brodsky showed Omat to be affected by her rape, and there’s a nice moment towards the end where Omat addresses all the rape that their goddesses have endured in their stories, I also think the constant threat of sexual assault was a little much. Again, I can’t speak to whether Inuit culture expects women to essentially be sexually available for their husbands at all times and able to be “loaned out” to other men, but I think I can say that as a female reader, I was tired of Omat being threatened to be raped all the time, by Inuit and Viking alike. I would have preferred that Omat come to view their stories in a new light after their assault, and that Omat form bonds with other women who straddle the line between male and female (such as Freydis and Loki, despite their antagonism) in order to grow as a person without a concrete binary gender identity.

Now for the Norse mythology stuff.

***HERE BE SPOILERS.***

While I did like the magical realism that made Omat’s spirituality feel real, I think actually speaking to Norse gods themselves pushed this book from historical fiction to fantasy for me in a way that felt jarring. Also, I think that Brodsky put a little too much value on Norse mythology to the point where it became validated over Inuit spirituality towards the end. To explain: Omat learns in the book that Inuit gods are actually the Frost Giants from Norse culture, and while I get that Brodsky was trying to make all religions fit into one cosmic system, it felt like she wasn’t so much rejecting colonialism as much as she was imposing it. I didn’t like the fact that Inuit gods being Frost Giants meant that Norse myths are real and Inuits have to fit into Norse cosmology, not the other way around. Moreover, Omat is responsible for bringing about Ragnarok, which means that the big mythological battle is between Inuit and Norse gods. While all the gods are reborn, so to speak, after the battle, only the Norse ones speak to Omat, which felt a little unfair.

Characters: Omat, our POV protagonist, is a compelling character in that they have interesting strengths, flaws, and personal challenges. As a girl raised as a boy, Omat struggles to find an accepted identity within their culture, while also getting in trouble for pride (especially when they try to “prove” that they are a man). I liked that Omat was so interested in stories and connected so strongly with the spirit world, and I found their courage to be admirable. I did have some problems with Omat’s utter shame at all things feminine; as mentioned above, I think the acceptance of women’s work and a female body could have been a good character arc, but I think everything was too mired in misogyny to be powerful.

Brandr, a Viking and Omat’s ally-turned-lover, was admirable in that he rejected a lot of the violence of Norse culture and learned to see Omat as a capable, formidable leader. It was a little strange to me, however, that Brandr seemed to offer Omat what their people could not: acceptance of their gender-fluidity. It seemed like almost a critique of Inuit society, though to be fair, Norse people also expressed a lot of misogyny and homophobia in this book. I hated the fact that Brandr was revealed to have raped 3 women prior to meeting Omat, and while it’s good that Brandr realizes how wrong he was to do that (even though his culture told him that it was expected of a Viking), I think he got off far too easy.

Supporting characters were interesting in that they were heavily flawed. Kiasik, Omat’s cousin, struggles with his affection for Omat and his envy of them, leading him to make some decisions that open a rift between the two. Freydis, the legendary leader of the Viking expedition, is determined and harsh, which is fine since she is a major antagonist, but I would have preferred more commentary on gender roles when Omat saw her inhabiting male and female roles. Various Inuit characters were also interesting, such as Omat’s grandfather and adoptive mother, who support Omat in their personal journey. Issuk and his family were hard to like, since Issuk is a braggart and a rapist and his band does little to stick up for Omat.

TL;DR: The Wolf in the Whale has an exciting premise and does well with its magical realism. Moreover, it is well written and clearly has good intentions; however, misogyny and Euro-centric/colonial biases still creep up and detract from the valuation of the main character’s Inuit culture.

[yurimother]

Our Dreams at Dusk: Shimanami Tasogare - LGBTQ Review

Writing reviews is generally pretty simple for me. I set up the story of the work, discuss the characters and their dynamics, talk about the art, overuse the word “adorable” and then analyze about whatever romance or LGBT elements are present in it. However, Our Dreams at Dusk: Shimanami Tasogare deserves more than that. This is not some fluffy schoolyard romance, it is an honest, powerful, and stupendous work of queer literature. I spent almost a full day slowly working my way through the original volumes in preparation for the English adaptation’s release and words can hardly capture the sheer power and raw emotion contained in this series. I feel perfectly comfortable in saying that Shimanami Tasogare is the greatest manga I have ever read.

WARNING: this review contains spoilers for all four volumes of the manga

Our Dreams at Dusk: Shimanami Tasogare is written and illustrated by Yuhki Kamatani, who is a member of the LGBTQ+ community themselves and identifies as X-gender and asexual. Their illustrations are breathtaking. All the characters designs are distinct and the environments are detailed. But careful use of visual storytelling and employment of gorgeous surreal imagery is nothing short of artistic genius. These striking moments (literally) illustrate the characters’ emotions in ways far more complex and powerful than words ever could.

For example, the four pages which close the third chapter begin very minimally, with no background and only close-ups of character’s faces without words. Suddenly, it explodes into a visual representation of the protagonist's feelings, his realization, his fear, his overwhelming panic, and his confusion. Excerpts such as this are visceral, brutally effective, and hauntingly beautiful.

No matter how much praise I have to offer the remarkable illustrations, it is nothing compared to the commendations I give the story. It begins just as protagonist Tasuku Kaname stands over a bridge, contemplating jumping. People are making fun of Tasuku at school because of a rumor that he is gay and he believes his life might be over. However, he does not jump after he sees a strange girl in the distance leap from the window of a drop-in center.

Rushing over, he finds that this girl, called Someone, is the mysterious owner of the drop-in center. She tells him that the center is a gathering place for LGBTQ+ and that he can tell her anything, but that she will not listen. Soon Tasuku begins spending his summer at the center, working to fix up an old house with some of it other patrons, and learning everyone’s story. Each of the people at the center has an LGBTQ+ identity. In small arcs, which naturally cross and interweave with each other, Tasuku comes to better understand them and their identity as they work to navigate the world as a queer person.

One of the first stories told is that of Haruko Daichi and her wife Saki. Although they have not been able to get hold a ceremony, they consider themselves married. Haruko used to be guarded and quiet, lying to herself about being happy. When she finally came out and told her parents that she was a relationship, their relationship fell apart, a story far too common in the LGBT community. However, it is in this community that Haruko found solace and acceptation, thanks to participating in online forums and circles she accepted herself.

In one of these online groups she meets Saki, and they fell in love. Haruko’s greatest wish it to have a real wedding celebration so that everyone who knows her and Saki can celebrate them and their love together. Saki, however, feels differently. Although she is very much in love with Haruko, she does not want to risk starting fires by publicly coming out to her parents and relatives or holding such a brazen display of their love. This fear is held by many queer people, “how will I be seen if I come out? No one will accept me.”

Volume two of the manga follows the story of Shuufi Misora, a young child questioning their gender identity. At the center, Misora dresses as a girl, wearing dresses, makeup, and wigs, but outside they present as a boy (the gender they were assigned as at birth). They are initially somewhat hostile towards Tasuku, who is kind and compliments Misora regularly on their clothing while at the center, but one day asks to go to his house.

While there, Misora asks Tasuku some questions about being male and expresses their fear of their voice changing and getting body hair. Tasuku asks them, “do you want to be a girl?” Misora tells him that they do not know, but more than anything they feel so isolated and misunderstood. Before they can leave, Tasuku takes their hand.

After this, Tasuku encourages Misora to live as a transgender woman and eventually pushes them to go outside while presenting as feminine. The two go to a festival together and enjoy themselves. However, when someone gropes Misora’s butt, Tasuku remarks in an offhand comment that they did it because Misora looked cute. Misora, feeling angry, confused, and pushed by Tasuku explodes into a homophobic tirade, shouting at him before running away. After that, they do not return to the drop-in center.

Tasuku pushed Misora too much to come out, to take on the identity of being transgender. But, nobody can force a queer person to accept their identity or come out before they are ready and sure of their identity. Misora was still questioning themselves and Tasuku’s attempts to put them into a box and have them live a certain way was happening too quickly. I think that this is the chapter during which I broke down crying at the end, it resonated with me so deeply (it was two in the morning at this point and I had been up all day translating the Japanese text). I remember how much I struggled with my sexuality before coming out as queer. I think that the words a colleague once told me years later apply best, “ everyone comes out at the perfect time for them, there is no 'too early' or 'too late', just ‘ready’ and ‘not yet.’”

Volume three tells the story of Utsumi. He is extraordinarily kind, gentle, and charismatic. One day, while working the renovating the house with several volunteers, a woman comments that she knew him in high school, but that he presented as female back then, revealing him to be a transgender man. She asks him to attend a high school reunion, which he does and encourages him to speak at her daughter’s school. It becomes clear that she is a problematic ally, seeing queerness as a sort of illness and believes that he should work to teach everyone else about his identity.

Utsumi responds that she is reducing him to being only a trans man and that this is only one part of his identity, that he is so much more than that. Often allies want queer people to act as the voice and teacher of their identity and reduce that person to only being the token gay or token transgender person. They are not given the freedom to be their own person. This is what she is trying to do to Utsumi. However, he refuses and after that, she no longer interacts with the group.

In the fourth and final volume, the story of Tchaiko is told. He is the elderly visitor of the center and enjoys playing compositions by Tchaikovsky for everyone to listen to. He is gay, and his partner of thirty years, Agawa, is passing away. Agawa left his family, including his son to live as a gay man and be with Tchaiko. Unfortunately, he was not able to have both a child and live as who he was, and was forced to make a decision between the two.

Fortunately, Agawa’s son has begun to visit him in the hospital room, but while he is there Tchaiko stays away, as the son is not aware of their relationship. Tchaiko however, does not resent this, and loves texting Agawa and visiting while the son is not there. However, he acknowledges that, as he is not legally a member of his family, he cannot be there while Agawa dies. The legal rights of gay couples is a long source of grief for many.

I recall my friends getting ready to move to England with their two young children. They were married legally in the State that we live in (Massachusetts) but they had no federal rights and one of them was soon to be deported. Luckily for them, same-sex marriage was legalized across the country just weeks before they were to be evicted, and they were allowed to stay. The story I tell is a victorious one, but for so many people and their partners, they have so much tale. The law and discrimination keep them from experiencing every aspect of their life together.

Through Tchaiko, Tasuku learns of Someone’s past. He describes her as a person who wanted to live in isolation. In the past, before adopting the name “Someone” she tells Tchaiko and Agaway that she is most likely asexual, but that she is unable to find a place where she belongs, that whatever she does she cannot explain her identity.

The two men comment how strange it is that nobody is allowed to just live their lives in solitude, to live without having to explain, educate, and identify oneself, to just be “somebody.” It is at this moment that Somebody realizes that this is exactly what she wants. She takes the name Somebody and chooses to let go of labels and lives the way that she wants to.

I can hardly explain how much I identified with Somebody. I am not asexual, but I never found that labels worked for me, that I needed to be able to identify myself as straight or gay or fit into any of those boxes. For that reason, I do not identify my sexuality. I am queer, as a person who falls under the LGBTQ+ umbrella, but no more than that.

This final volume begins to bring about resolution to many of the conflicts and issues introduced in previous chapters but I will not go into detail about those here. Just know that I found each solution to be believable, well written, and satisfying. What I really want to talk about, is Tasuku’s journey and his relationship with Tsubaki.

Tsubaki is Tasuku’s classmate, whom he has a crush on. Tasuku struggles so greatly with coming to terms with these feelings and is helped greatly by his friends at the center. But these difficulties are exacerbated when he and Tsubaki become friends. His situation quickly takes a turn for the worse as Tsubaki starts to toy with Tasuku. Soon he begins making homophobic and transphobic remarks about the frequenters of the center. Tasuku stays silent, standing there tortured and wounded by his friend's hurtful remarks.

Things only get worse when Someone starts talking to Tsubaki about his sexuality, acknowledging that he is repressed and lashing out. Tsubaki angrily dismisses the idea. Finally, he confronts Tasuku, acknowledging that obvious fact that Tasuku is gay and verbally assaulting him and the center. And then, in what is absolutely my favorite moment from the wonderful manga, Tasuku stands up to him! He confesses his sexuality and affection for Tsubaki, tells him how much the center means to him and how much good it has done, and that what Tsubaki is doing is wrong. “I want you to know that what you’ve said has hurt me. It’s not like I want your sympathy or apology! I just don’t want you to hurt anyone else!”

My. God. YESSS!!

This is such an incredibly powerful moment, to see the struggling Tasuku stand up and tell off his friend, the person that he loves. To tell him that his actions are hurtful and wrong. This was such a triumphant moment for the character. The sheer number of people that I, that every queer person encounters in their lives that hurts us and that we want to tell off. Seeing this was cathartic and affirming for me in so many ways. Not only do we see Tasuku take this stand, but Tsubaki listens. He understands and realizes that his actions were ignorant, and hurtful, and cruel. After this, he begins to hang around the center more and become more accepting of the others and himself.

Our Dreams at Dusk: Shimanami Tasogare expresses so many realistic and relatable stories of LGBTQ+ people that are told so beautifully and fully. If you are a queer person you need to read this manga, if you are questioning you need to read this manga, if you are an ally you need to read this manga, if you are a parent you need to read this manga, if you have no idea what LGBT life is like you need to read this manga.

Yuhki Kamatani has created the most honest, emotional, and affirming portrayal of living as an LGBTQ+ person that I have ever read in a manga. My feeble attempts to analyze it and express my appreciation here are laughable. My advice, get your hands on a copy right away!

To try and quantify this work with categorical scores would be nothing but insulting so I will end with only the overall rating: 10/10

Our Dreams at Dusk: Shimanami Tasogare Volume 1 is available now in at major North American retailers digitally and in print and volumes 2-4 are available for pre-order

Support yuri and LGBTQ+ content, news, and reviews by funding YuriMother on Patreon

All images are used for review purposes only and are owned by Yuhki KAMATANi, Shogakukan, and Seven Sea’s Entertainment. Please support the manga’s official release

[thisselflovecamebacktome]

All the little reasons (so far) why The 1 is my tied favourite off of Folklore

Continuation of 'classic Taylor’ patterns:

The 1 helps to carry on the tradition Taylor has put into her albums since RED where the beginning of the stories actually starts with song three. The first two songs are instead used to heavily allude to the story and themes about to be told but aren’t directly part of them and especially not the beginning of them. 

In RED, we get State of Grace which alludes to the intense love and positive side of “red” emotions with hints of ignoring red flags whereas Red shows the painful and negative “red” emotions and alludes to the themes of heartbreak. 

In 1989 we get Welcome To New York, alluding to trying to get past someone and new beginnings before transitioning into Blank Space indicating that the opinions of others, particularly surrounding her dating, is something that was going to cause issues.

In Reputation we got ...Ready For It, where the verses again show a somewhat satirical take of how people see the both of them in a dark, “edgy” beat that is often used for “angry” tracks mixed with a “softer” tune more used for happier music for the chorus where she talks about being alone with him and doing what she actually wants to. Then we get End Game which serves as a contrast and connecting piece to the “angry/unhealthy” and “happy/healthy” sides of the album. We get the big declaration of love and showy attitude with hints of insecurity because that’s ultimately what Taylor saw as love in the past which contrasts with the quieter moments of love in the later half of the album such as squeezing hands in a cab or building metaphorical fires in locked up houses to keep each other warm.

In Lover we get I Forgot That You Existed to indicate the theme of figuring out who and what’s truly important in life before moving onto Cruel Summer which not only shows the theme of holding onto each other when things are rough, but the importance of communication in a relationship.

And what about Folklore? The 1 and Cardigan brings us into the fantasy world of Folklore by first asking “What If?” and reminding us that life is full of choices and those choices matter in the grand scheme of things. While the rest of the album tells seemingly unquestionable stories relying on how the characters actually felt, The 1 and Cardigan both rely on nostalgia before reminding us right at the end of each song that that wasn’t how the story went and that certain choices were the reason for that... Which leads me to my next point:

One thing being different would not have made everything different today:

As I previously mentioned, one of the major themes of Folklore is that choices matter. Another interlocking theme is that things just don’t happen out of the blue. The choices we make add up and can cause a perfect storm. 

Looking at this through the lens of the love triangle, in order for James to be in the position he’s in in “Betty”, it wasn’t enough that August happened to be there. The guy Betty was dancing with had to ask her to dance, James had to feel insecure about it AND be immature enough to sulk and leave rather than telling Betty how he felt, August had to show up when she did, James had to make the continuous choice to spend the Summer with August, Inez had to tell Betty what happened and finally Betty had to be offended enough to break up with James. The situation the three of them found themselves in could have been prevented at several different points, making it impossible to say if one thing had been different, it all would have been. 

Despite the lyric, The 1 also shows that one thing being different wasn’t likely to have the desired effect of the pair ending up together through several lyrics throughout the song.

In my defence I have none for never leaving well enough alone - This gives the implication that the narrator was prone to starting arguments over topics that didn’t need to be fought over.

If you wanted me you really should have shown it - The narrator shows that the other person didn’t make it seem like a serious long term relationship was an option. Though this could have been a miscommunication, it also implied to me that the other person wasn’t ready to settle down and acted as such meaning that a long term relationship probably wasn’t on the cards.

Rose flowing with your chosen family.... In my defence I have none - So I’m going to go into this a bit later because it relates to a couple of the reasons I love this song, but in short, the narrator impliedly did not make an effort with aspects of the other person’s life, in this case loved ones, that meant a lot to them nor did the narrator have those aspects for themselves.

But it would have been fun if you would have been the one - Connecting this reason with the theme of nostalgia, I find the word ‘fun’ an interesting choice from a songwriter who tends to use intense words like ‘magical’, ‘fearless’, ‘permanent’, ‘wild’ and even ‘really something’ to describe the loves of her life. In comparison, ‘fun’ feels very casual. While not a choice of the relationship, the use of the word along with lack of hard moments shown in the song does imply to me that the narrator has based this ‘what if’ on pure nostalgia and makes me assume that there several reasons things turned out like they did.

Its links with other songs on the album:

Anyone who knows me knows that my favourite aspect of an album is feeling like I got something out of listening to those songs in that order together that I couldn’t have gotten from listening to the songs alone. Often this comes from contrasts in songs like how I mentioned End Game’s production and lyrics contrast the back end of Reputation, relatability like how 22 is in between All Too Well and I Almost Do because that time with her friends is merely distracting her from her pain or hearing how the same things can be seen differently like how WANEGBT, Stayx3 and The Last Time come one after another to show the relationship was on and off, why she stayed in said relationship and those same traits that kept her staying were now why she was at the end of her rope with said relationship. Really in general RED as an album is a brilliant example because while a lot of people don’t get it, the whiplash of positive and negative songs really does represent what it’s like to be in that kind of toxic relationship.

But I’m not here to talk about RED or Reputation, I’m here to to talk about Folklore. While many people would probably say that the love triangle songs are the best representation of what I’m talking about, I honestly think The 1 and Peace are the two songs that most benefit from the context of the other songs in the album. Specifically, The 1 benefits in the following ways in my honest opinion:

The 1 serves as the other side of the same coin to Invisible String. The 1 discusses a relationship where circumstances didn’t line up to make it work whereas Invisible String describes a relationship where the stars aligned and it all did work out. Further, The 1 asks the question ‘what if things were different and this one relationship worked out?’ and Invisible String answers with ‘well thank goodness it didn’t’.

You know the greatest films of all time were never made versus I think I’ve seen this film before: the automatic assumption and link that the love in Exile was not either of their greatest loves.

If you never bleed you’re never going to grow links so well with But now I’m bleeding and Peter losing Wendy from Cardigan.

Though it’s not connected with other Folklore lyrics, the little links of things like never leaving well enough alone being in The 1 and past songs (in this case ME!) and the Sad Beautiful Tragic vibe that the second prechorus of The 1 gives always brings a smile to my face.

And finally, my favourite parallel of this whole album:

In my defence I have [no chosen family] and its link with Family that I chose now that I see your brother as my brother from Peace. To me, this parallel brings together everything I have said so far. It brings the album together and once again reinforces that a theme in Folklore is how choices dictate our lives. The fact that somewhere along the lines the narrator realised that there didn’t have to be a ‘his loved ones’ and ‘her loved ones’ and made the effort and choice to incorporate themselves into their partner’s life and found that to be an important part of why they are working out in a way they didn’t with their past partners lives rent free in my mind, heart and soul everyday, not going to lie. Like I don’t know how to explain it, but that link alone just added so much to both of those songs for me personally.

Other little things:

This song is beyond relatable. Like I could not tell you one person who doesn’t have that one past thing or relationship, romantic or otherwise, they wish could have been different and fantasise/romanticise what that would have looked like.

The 1 and August are the two funnest songs to sing to from Folklore and even though both are relatively sad lyrically, always give me a good boost of serotonin when I sing them.

Relating to the two points above, singing “In my defence I have none” loudly when you don’t have family and feel like none of your wishes like me ever came true feels like free therapy lmao.

While I know Taylor didn’t write The 1 from a fully autobiographical point of view, the idea of her seeing one of her multimillionaire exes at the bus stop makes me laugh every time.

It’s a grower. While it was always in my top six, as I mentioned in the title, it’s in a three way tie with August and Exile as my favourite song from Folklore right now.

All in all I just really love this song and all the tiny little details that make it amazing and honestly think it’s a very underrated song in Taylor’s discography.

[kellyvela]

Love your blog💕 what would you say to the ppl who think GRRM didn’t write Fire and Blood as a precaution/warning about the Targaryens? IMHO it’s pretty blatant that he’s anti-Targ restoration but I see Targ fans saying the contrary and using quotes he’s said about relating to Dany in the aspects of not having a home, etc. Plus the fact that he’s made a whole book about them and they’re having their own prequel show (😩🙄).

Hi! Thanks Anon :D

About Targaryen restoration, I always wondered WHY and HOW so many people in the fandom firmly believe that ASOIAF is mainly about House Targaryen and its restoration. And because of that belief I had to read words like these: “The notion that Daenerys Targaryen and her House are not the collective heroes of this saga is ignorant to the point of idiocy.” Or I had to watch and listen to certain very popular spoiler youtuber saying that “if GOT doesn’t end in Targaryen restoration, the story has no sense”.  This person even claimed several times in his videos that GRRM himself has affirmed that ASOIAF is in fact about House Targaryen and its restoration. And I always was like: HOW? WHERE?

Apparently GRRM once said that ASOIAF was about “the return to glory of a great family”, so people immediately thought that that great family was House Targaryen…     

I don’t have the original source for that, but if GRRM has specifically said that ASOIAF is about “the return to glory of a great family”, that family is no other than HOUSE STARK; because even if he doesn’t use the exact same words, GRRM has actually said several times over the years that THE STARKS are the heart/center/main characters/heroes of the story. And this affirmation has been supported by Bryan Cogman and even D&D in several interviews/events. 

About GRRM relating to Dany and House Targaryen, let’s read those quotes:  

From an early age George was aware of a lost fortune on his mother’s side of the family, the Brady family, who once owned a successful construction business, a dock and a grand house, all lost in the Great Depression of 1929. “I had a walk past that house every day on my way from the projects on 1st Street to 5th Street, and it’s like, well, that used to be our dock, that used to be our house. Now we don’t have a house, we don’t have a yard, but I had always had the sense of, yeah I’m poor, but I come from royalty, or I come from greatness that somehow was destroyed by the depression, by corrupt politicians, by things like that. So maybe that gives me a little of the emotional temperament to understand somebody like Daenerys Targaryen.

Sources: [x] [x] [x]

More recently, while promoting Fire & Blood Vol. I, he repeated this part of his personal story with these words:

“From my mother’s stories, I always had this kind of sense that I was like disinherited royalty. Here was this dock that my great-grandfather built, it wasn’t ours anymore. Here was this house that my mother had been born in, we didn’t own this house anymore. We didn’t own any house, we had an apartment. So it was like, ugh, I came from greatness, like Dany! And (talking with a voice and tone similar to one of Dany’s outburst and banging the table) ‘I will take back what is mine with Fire and Blood!’ HAHAHAHAHA. So I think on some level, that must’ve gotten to me.”

—In conversation: George R. R. Martin with John Hodgman

But when he wasn’t promoting Fire & Blood Vol. I, this is what he said:

The house where my mother had grown up … the house her father Thomas had built (…) the Brady house. But of course it wasn’t. Someone else lived there now, someone we did not know.

I walked past that house twice a day, five days a week, for nine years. And every time I stepped outside my front door, I saw the dock across the street. The dock was surrounded by a chain link fence, but sometimes my friends and I would climb it. From the dock it was easier to reach the oily rocks along the shore when the tide was out. There was a watchman on the dock, though, and if he saw us he’d come out of his shed and shout at us. “Get out of here, you kids,” he’d yell. “You got no business here.” Yes, I do, part of me always wanted to shout back, you’re the one who’s got no business, my great-grandfather BUILT this dock. I was a shy kid, though, so I never said a word.

Sources: [x] [x]

And then I would walk to school; we lived in First Street, my school was on Fifth Street, I would walk to school and I would pass the house that the Bradys had owned. I would pass it twice a day going and coming from school. This big house my mother had been born in and her family had grown up in, but had lost. And other people lived in what had been our house. And I think it always gave me this, this sense of a lost golden age of, you know, now we were poor and we lived in the projects and we lived in an apartment. We didn’t even have a car, but God we were… once we were royalty! It gave me a certain attraction to those kinds of stories of I don’t know, fallen civilizations and lost empires and all of that.

Source: [x]

As you can see, GRRM took inspiration from that part of his personal story and applied it to Dany and House Targaryen. Thanks to that part of his personal story, GRRM can understand Dany to a certain extend (So maybe that gives me a little of the emotional temperament to understand somebody like Daenerys Targaryen); but he is not Dany, he hasn’t dedicate his entire life to re-take his family lost properties with fire and blood. 

And at this point I think is relevant to state that a house is not a home.  

Now, about Fire & Blood Vol. I. After finished reading it I said this:

*GRRM WROTE AN ANTI TARG BOOK*

As if the ASOIAF Books weren’t enough, GRRM gave us Fire and Blood.

He warned us all. He always did. It’s a good day to remember it.

GRRM said it himself: 

Esquire: How will Fire & Blood deepen our understanding of Daenerys and her dragons?

GRRM: This is a book that Daenerys might actually benefit from reading, but she has no access to Archermaester Gyldayn’s crumbling manuscripts. So she’s operating on her own there. Maybe if she understood a few things more about dragons and her own history in Essos, things would have gone a little differently.

—Esquire - 2018

Even though he was promoting Fire & Blood Vol. I, and his interviewers were very enthusiastic about dragons, he wasn’t sharing their enthusiasm: 

GRRM: “People read fantasy to see the colours again,” he says. “We live our lives and I think there’s something in us that yearns for something more, more intense experiences. There are men and women out there who live their lives seeking those intense experiences, who go to the bottom of the sea and climb the highest mountains or get shot into space. Only a few people are privileged to live those experiences but I think all of us want to, somewhere in our heart of hearts we don’t want to live the lives of quiet desperation Thoreau spoke about, and fantasy allows us to do those things. Fantasy takes us to amazing places and shows us wonders, and that fulfils a need in the human heart.”

THEM: And the dragons?

GRRM: “Oh sure, dragons are cool too,” he chuckles. “But maybe not on our doorstep”

—The Guardian - 2018

I mean, he is proud to be named after Saint George The Dragon Slayer: 

John Hodgman: That’s how I can’t sue you, If you steal from history and add a dragon. I can’t sue you.

GRRM: I’m working off my own, you know, karma here, because I’m George, and what’s he known for? He killed the dragon, you know, come on. Come on, I was almost abolished at one point when the Catholic Church was reviewing all the saints, I was terrified that George would be abolished, because they abolish a lot of fiction, I said George is only known for killing a dragon, how can they keep him in, but they did so, that was, that was good.

John Hodgman: I’m glad you stayed anointed.

GRRM: That’s right.

—In conversation: George R. R. Martin with John Hodgman

Here a graphic representation:

And about the Targaryen having their own books (Fire & Blood Vol. I and II) and their own prequel show based on Fire & Blood, let me tell you a couple of things:

Last month GRRM attended an event in London #GRRMLive organized by Harper Voyager UK, and Adam Whitehead, a friend of GRRM, was present in the event and reported this:

Confirmation that Fire & Blood was written by accident: originally it was sidebar material for World of Ice & Fire that got out of control. He wrote hundreds of thousands of words in a few weeks and scared his publishers and had to stop so Elio & Linda could compress it down.

And the first prequel show actually ordered by HBO, that is already in post-production, is not about Targaryens and it has no dragons:

What’s it about? Taking place thousands of years before the events of Game of Thrones, the series chronicles the world’s descent from the golden Age of Heroes into its darkest hour. From the horrifying secrets of Westeros’s history to the true origin of the White Walkers, the mysteries of the East to the Starks of legend, only one thing is for sure: It’s not the story we think we know. [x]

Also, after the news of the “Targaryen prequel”, GRRM himself said this: I do want to point out that “moving closer to a pilot order” is NOT the same thing as “getting a pilot order.” 

So that’s it Anon. GRRM is writing a series of SEVEN BOOKS and THE STARKS are the heart/center/main characters/heroes of the story. Meanwhile Fire and Blood was apparently an accident made of sidebar material…

And to finish this answer, I will leave you with one of my fave GRRM quotes:

Source [x]

[kaptainandy]

My Complete In-depth TLOU 2 Thoughts:

Yeah I know, y’all have already read through countless reviews and thoughts, but I gotta get my thoughts out there. So, continue under the cut for some somewhat coherent, essay-ish style ramblings. There will be a TL;DR at the end because this is going to be long. (Spoilers ahead).

Okay so my overall perception of this game is that it’s average and I’m slightly disappointed. I’m going to start with the things I really liked and enjoyed before I get into what I didn’t like.

The visuals and gameplay were solid and enjoyable with small improvements upon the first game’s already fun and interesting, gameplay. The NPCs felt less like they were following a track in terms of their movements and felt more natural. The dialogue between enemies felt more varied than the first game, and the addition of giving everyone a name made me feel more immersed and the reaction from other characters to their fallen friends felt more believable. I feel that overall, the development of gameplay from the first to the second game felt “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it,” and I think it worked out because it’s one of the aspects I liked about the first game. The addition of craftable silencers, varied stealth takedowns, ability to go prone, tall grass to hide in, cars to hide under, larger infected (bloaters and shamblers) now being able to destroy weak walls, etc. were fun editions that helped the combat feel less repetitive. And lastly, the areas of combat that included both human enemies and infected, (and later WLF soldiers vs Seraphite soldiers)  was really cool and felt more realistic for the world of the Last of Us. It was something I think the first game lacked and it was really interesting to choose who to take down first and let the enemies fight each other.

The level design was also great. I felt it gave the player a lot of options of how they wanted to traverse the area to takedown enemies and look for supplies. Everything felt huge and worth exploring. The player was rewarded appropriately for checking every nook and cranny, and the addition of going prone to fit under small spaces or breaking glass to get into locked buildings was a lot of fun. The first day in Seattle as Ellie was especially enjoyable as you got to explore the city and mark things on your map while engaging in dialogue with Dina. Every building held something new and acted as an opportunity for Dina and Ellie to banter.

The art direction was incredible and I don’t think I’ve seen a more stunning looking game. It felt like a lot of time and care went into the design of each item and every corner of every environment. My favorite environments were definitely the homesteads of the major characters/factions (Jackson, the stadium transformed into a village by the WLF, the Seraphite island, etc.) because it told the player more about what everyday life is like for these characters and how they’re similar and different. Also, the weather, time of day, lighting, and use of space (or lack there of) added tension and changed the tone in scenes and levels appropriately. I felt engaged in each moment. I think the best use of visuals and atmosphere to set tone and really immerse the player was in the lower level of the hospital during the Abby playthrough. It was claustrophobic, damp, dark, ominous, and it always felt like danger and despair were right around the corner. And the massive clicker cluster fight in the small hospital corner was one of my favorite parts in the entire game. What would have felt like a silly and dumb concept if encountered elsewhere, was actually legitimately terrifying and really cool due to the tone set from the scene. Seeing the effects of a ground zero site for infection 25 years later was really cool to see.

The music? A masterpiece. We have to stan Gustavo Santaolalla. What more can I say? He did a great job. If nothing else, give the soundtrack a listen.

The acting was incredible, as to be expected. The emotional moments were really sold and carried by the actors and the music together. Ashley Johnson, Troy Baker, Shannon Woodward, and Laura Bailey I expected to be phenomenal and they were, but I’d like to give a shoutout to the newcomers and more minor actors as well. I felt no one had a bad performance, or even an average one. Every performance felt genuine and made me more connected to the characters.

As for new characters, I felt Yara and Lev were the ones I felt the most for and were the best written. The inclusion of Lev being trans was really cool to see as a trans person, and I felt it was executed well within the story. Lev being exiled from the Seraphites for questioning their ways and attempting to transition while Yara fought to remain by his side and protect him, made them both interesting and likable characters. They had depth to their characters. Despite coming from an environment that seemed ruthless and unforgiving they both acted as voice of reasons and wanted to help others, which was their strength and their weakness in the end, adding to their complexity.

The story had it’s moments. I found myself being impacted more during light and happy moments more so than the traumatic and sad ones. I felt a lot of time was put into showing the love and care between Ellie and Dina, and I found myself smiling like a goober when they were being goofy or together or cuddling. This also ties into the LGBTQ representation, which I personally thought was well done as I briefly touched on with Lev. I understand and respect those who felt there was too much trauma forced upon the LGBTQ characters, and I agree with that when it comes to Ellie because the whole game was essentially torturing her. I’ll at least give Naughty Dog credit for avoiding the “bury your gays” trope when they very easily could’ve done that given the constant death in the world of the Last of Us. Treatment aside, as a gay trans man, the overall presentation of these characters I felt was realistic, respectful, and gave me hope for future LGBTQ representation in triple A titles. I know this is literally doing the bare minimum but we gotta start somewhere.

Now, as for things I disliked about the game, there was a lot and I felt the weight of things I disliked outweighed those that I like since the overall experience depended on them more heavily.

I’ll start with the small things that irked me, that could be somewhat excused and are more a personal preference. For starters, I felt the game was too long. After awhile it got repetitive and having nearly the entire game take place in one city (as opposed to the first game that took place across the country), the scenery got old pretty quickly. I feel like a lot of the traveling could have been cut. For example, instead of showing a cut scene where characters say “we have to get to x” and having to basically travel the entire way, it would’ve worked better had it cut to them being at or close to their destination, thus cutting back on repetitive combat. It didn’t feel super rewarding and it only sometimes resulted in something added to the story. In the end, I felt it should be exempt for a similar reason you don’t need to show a character’s entire traveling in a movie, it’s just unnecessary.

Another minor detail that bothered me was the shamblers. Not as a concept, because I thought they were really fun new enemies and added something to combat, but the fact that they felt thrown in with no explanation. Where did they come from? Are they only in the northeast of the US? What caused them? It’s mentioned briefly by one character (I forget who) that it could be a result of excessive rain, but it was just a guess and not further elaborated on.

The fact that events and characters of the first game that were influential to Ellie and Joel’s character seemed to be inappropriately forgotten about. I understand the game is meant to be enjoyed by people who haven’t played the first game as well as fans of the first one, but it could still be done in a way to cater to both audiences. It would also help people who didn’t play the first one learn and connect more to Ellie and Joel. Why was there no Riley-related dialogue for Ellie upon seeing “The Turning” arcade machine? Hell, Riley was never mentioned at all. Same with Tess. Bill was briefly mentioned, but not by name. Ellie’s mom still remained a mystery, and I don’t recall her being mentioned. Henry and Sam? Also never mentioned. Upon seeing Sam’s robot toy in Ellie’s room (which I thought was a nice touch) I would’ve thought he might’ve been brought up in discussion with Dina about past friends. I get that it could be implied Ellie has discussed her past with Dina and others before the events of the game took place, but you have an audience to think about. Essentially you have to think that if the audience didn’t see it or hear about it, it didn’t happen. I feel the omission of past characters and events was a disservice to the first game and was really disappointing.

This relates to something else I disliked: It felt like too much time was spent on characters solo traveling and being in combat and not enough on story and relationship building. I felt the time spent traveling alone as Ellie or Abby was far greater than traveling with a companion. The dialogue and interactions between Ellie and Joel in the first game was crucial to the story and relationship, and when the characters were apart, it made the player that more eager for them to be reunited. They were only ever apart when one was missing/injured or they were unintentionally separated and it made sense to the story. In terms of missed opportunity, I especially thought Jesse’s character was mishandled and wasted. Just as the player was really beginning to know his past and connect with him, he dies a seemingly (in my opinion) stupid death. Not only that, but there’s almost no mention of him or his death after it happens, and Ellie and Dina seem relatively unaffected. I felt like Dina’s character also could’ve been fleshed out better. She was one of my favorite characters, but the things we knew about her didn’t seem to impact the story or her character that much, especially the loss she’s suffered. Her thoughts about her sister’s death and Jesse’s death are barely touched on, and I just felt like I was left wanting more.

Jesse and Dina could’ve definitely been handled better, but at least I cared about them. I didn’t have those feelings towards anyone in Abby’s story (except Yara and Lev). This relates to the bigger problem with the timeline of events and the and the order they were shown in the game, but I’ll touch on this in a bit. Before beginning to know these characters, the only thing you know is that they were involved in killing Joel, and happy about doing so. Now the challenge was to get the player to like them, which the writers failed abysmally. I couldn’t even remember half of their names when they were brought back up. The most influential of Abby’s friends, aside from Owen, seems to be Manny and the only things we get to know about him is that he’s horny, likes to get drunk, and - much like the writers - tries to force other characters to like each other (i.e. Mel and Abby). He only exists to establish Mel and Abby’s relationship and to save and help Abby when they encounter Tommy trying to snipe them. Mel and Abby (who I will touch on extensively in her own paragraph because yikes) both seemed like miserable people to be around and their relationship seemed catty and to simply revolve around Owen. I’m kinda sick of having women characters’ relationships revolve around the fact that one of them used to date the guy that the other is now currently dating. It’s stupid and I couldn’t give less of a fuck if that’s the biggest roadblock in their relationship. Also Mel calling Abby a piece of shit seemed unwarranted based on what we knew. Like we knew Mel was against the brutality of Joel’s death, but the way she spoke to and of Abby seemed like there was something else that the writers forgot to tell/show the audience. Abby never did anything personal to Mel (that Mel knew of) yet Mel decides to hate her guts and be unreasonable? Nora was kind of okay and seemed like an actual decent person (aside from wanting Joel dead and them making that shitty comment to Ellie) in her relationship with Abby. She was willing to risk getting in trouble to help Abby, but we weren’t given enough time with her to make me give a shit, especially after what she said to Ellie. Owen had potential to be likable; he was charming, funny, a bit of a fuckboy, but nonetheless was optimistic and hopeful. But for some reason the writers decided to throw out any ounce of care we had for him by having him cheat on Mel with Abby in a shitty sex scene. 

Now for my thoughts on Abby. My thoughts about her also relate to my thoughts on the order of events, and a few other aspects I haven’t mentioned yet, so forgive me if my thoughts are a bit all over the place. I really really tried to sympathize and like Abby, but holy shit they fucked up every possible opportunity to create some sort of likability. For starters, it boggles my mind that they had her commit the atrocity that was Joel’s death as basically the introduction to her character. Not only that, but just mere minutes beforehand Joel had saved her life and shown her nothing but kindness and she goes on to torture him and continue to do so while his surrogate daughter begs and screams for her to stop. She shows no guilt both in the moment or afterwards. It doesn’t eat her up inside at all. Every time Joel is brought up by Abby and her friends, she wastes no time expressing how elated she is that she not only killed him, but did so in such a gruesome way. You really expect fans to even WANT to like this character after she tortures and kills the only other character (besides Ellie) that fans LOVED. And I’m not upset that Joel died, because I expected he would and there were a million ways it could’ve been done appropriately to both the story and fans. But the way he died and how early he died at the hands of essentially some nobody really rubbed me the wrong way, they essentially threw him away without any honor to the experience we had with him in the first game. So, that’s our introduction to Abby and her friends. Again, the writers had the challenge of trying to make us like her, but it felt like they didn’t even try. Every attempt to make her likable fell flat either due to an action that happened right before or after. Abby’s only expression of sorrow is after the death of her father and Owen. Manny’s death is never mentioned after it happens and she seems to act like it never really happened. There is no remorse when she kills Jesse and Tommy, or anyone for that matter. She and (seemingly most of the WLF) condone and even get off on torturing Seraphites (they’re terrible people but if you’re trying to make me like a character, I don’t think you should have them condone the torturing of anyone). Abby is quick to kill Dina even after learning she’s pregnant, to which she comments, “good” and only stops because Lev is an actual decent human being and gets her to stop. And the writers have the gall to try and compare her to Ellie; trying to be like, “see she and Ellie aren’t so different uwu.” Meanwhile, Ellie is crying each time she hits Nora; she just wants Abby, she didn’t want to have to torture Nora like that. Ellie is traumatized after finding out that Mel is pregnant after killing her. Ellie is constantly shown to be grappling with the consequences and feelings of her actions. She experiences guilt and shame while Abby is shown time and time again to not regret her wrongdoings. The writers really tried to push us to like Abby by having her care for Yara and Lev, but I felt she did it out of selfishness and needing to feel good about herself not because she truly cared for these kids.

Going back to Joel’s death, the gruesomeness wasn’t even warranted based on Abby’s reasoning. Abby’s dad didn’t get murdered in front of her and he was killed because he stood in Joel’s way, holding a scalpel to Ellie. Jerry’s death was quick and painless too. And I know people will be like, “but Abby was also mad because now there’s no cure because of what Joel did!!!” However, she had no problem wanting to kill, or leave Ellie alone despite knowing she was immune. Abby was never on a quest to capture Ellie or talk her into finding the Fireflies with her (which would have made for an interesting storyline actually), she wanted her dead too. Joel’s death was the most tasteless death of a beloved character I think I’ve ever experienced.

Also the order of events was really detrimental to the story and especially Abby’s character. The way that flashbacks were thrown in throughout the story after Joel’s death fell flat and made Joel’s death feel even worse. The Joel and Ellie flashbacks were honestly the highlight of the game because we got to spend time with the only 2 fleshed out and likable characters. Had they been placed at the beginning of the game and also showed more of their relationship after Joel tells Ellie the truth about the Fireflies, I would’ve felt his death would have been more okay (still shitty, but slightly better than what they gave us) because it would feel more unexpected and it would hit better emotionally after these moments we had with Ellie and Joel. Hell, the majority of the game should have been as it was advertised (which is another issue I’m gonna touch on shortly): the rocky relationship between Joel and Ellie after Ellie learns the truth and the two of them going on a revenge quest together, as Joel tried to earn Ellie’s forgiveness. The events presented in the order in the game also made it impossible for anyone to try to like Abby. We learn she commits the biggest atrocity and we know all her friends are going to end up dead, so there’s no emotional impact when we see how they die because we’ve known the whole time they were gonna be killed by Ellie. Both Abby’s character and the story they were trying to tell could’ve have been really great and interesting but it was just so poorly executed. 

The story itself seemed so amateur as well. It just boiled down to “revenge and violence are bad uwu” while giving the player no choice but to engage in said violence. They tried to create a gray area between good and evil like they did in the first game, especially with Abby’s story but they ended up doing the opposite. Also the weak use of animals and pregnancy to create emotional impact is just so easy. They couldn’t think of any other way to make us connect to the characters except “hey look they love this animal” or “this is someone who is going to have a baby under these rough circumstances” and it’s just sloppy writing especially because they use both tactics MORE THAN ONCE. 

The intersecting stories, themes of “what really is good/evil,” redemption of a thought to be unlikable character, and the death of a beloved character would have been so interesting and emotionally impactful if done right, but it felt like Naughty Dog chose every terrible option and outcome, resulting in the wet fart that we got. It felt sloppy with no honoring of the previous game or characters. We all cared, but apparently the writer’s didn’t. The ending with Ellie essentially being left with what she feared most, being alone, would’ve been way more appropriate had anything prior warranted this consequence. Not only is she alone, but Ellie loses the ability to play guitar, a way in which she remembered and felt connected to Joel. Like she goes through hell, and 99% of her actions are justified, yet she gets punished.

Lastly, I want to touch on the false advertising for the game. Normally, I wouldn’t be upset because movie trailers do it all the time where there will be subtle differences or added scenes that don’t occur in the movie, but this was a whole other level of fuckery. I get trying to mislead people to think something is going to happen only to steer them in a different direction, in fact I think this is really cool and fun when done well. However, this was straight up lying and essentially selling an entirely different game. Not only were these lies perpetuated in trailers and ads, but even in events such as E3. Neil Druckmann constantly harped on the idea that the game was going to be about Ellie and Joel having a falling out after Ellie learns the truth and how they navigate their relationship through their next adventure together. Yet the game was never about that, instead it was just a story about drawing shitty parallels between a beloved character and a new character who was destined to be unlikable from the start.

In the end, I think it’s still worth playing because I’ve seen so many mixed reviews floating around so I feel it’s best to make your own opinion. And if nothing else, it’s a fun experience if you’re just looking at a fun game to play if you don’t really care too much about the series or characters as a whole. Will I return to this game? Not anytime soon likely. But just being the fan that I am of the series I think I’ll try to get most of the achievements eventually, and to experiment with photomode because the visuals are so good. Even with how much of a disservice this game is to the series, I don’t think it ruins it for me. It just makes me love and appreciate the first game even more and I think they could bounce back from this, but they’d need to put in a shit ton of work to earn their core audience back.

TL;DR: As an addition to the Last of Us as a series, the game is a huge disappointment and disservice, but as a standalone game it’s slightly above average. The gameplay, music, and visuals slap but the story, characters, and relationship building (or lack thereof) suck. Naughty Dog lied in a highly scummy way to fans via advertisements and trailers. Fuck Abby. Stan Lev and Yara.