#The kind of sympathy he has for Max is incredibly interesting to me - that Max had a life outside of him that he's in the way of now

[sysig]

idontwannabeyouanymore (Patreon)

[heniareth]

I was really curious about what your opinions on the DAO companions are :) I know we have talked about some, but I'd love to hear more and about the others as well :D I hope it's ok to pose this as an ask :)

Sure! That sounds like a ton of fun. This might be a long one tho. Mind you, this is not the finished version of the answer. I'd like to link stuff and add a cut, but rn that's not possible. I'll update it when I can.

Edit: I have updated it ^^

Let's go alphabetically bc why not.

Alistair:

Sweet guy. So sweet. There was a moment when I was hard pressed chosing between him and Zevran (alas, Zevran won). Also, he's weirdly tall according to the wiki? How did I not notice that before?

Let's get a bit more serious now, Alistair is a great guy. The only reason he's not the hero of the story is because he doesn't want to. He has all the qualities of a leader: he's good at dealing with conflict (as evident with the conversation with the mage at the beginning. He gets where he wants to get without antagonizing the mage, but without allowing him to trample all over him). He's a solid tactitian and knows how to make allies (he suggests to use the Grey Warden treaties, after all). I bet if he was in the leadership position, he'd even not bicker with Morrigan. His moral code is pretty tight; some might say too tight, but I think it's less about the moral code and more about learning to judge people by their actions, not by the labels they fit into (Morrigan is a proud apostate and therefore bad. Wynne is a humble circle mage and therefore good). He also has a bit of a black-and-white way of seeing the world. I empathize a lot with Alistair, especially with his experience with the Chantry and his subsequent reluctance to deal with it. I really wish I had gotten to know more about concrete experiences he had during his training as templar, but he seems reluctant to talk about it (gee, I wonder why).

Since I've only played the game once, I haven't really picked up on Arl Eamon's abuse towards him, which apparently exists (Isolde, however... I mean, even if he were Eamon's illegitimate son, he's a kid, ma'am, he didn't exactly get to chose his parents. So that's so not okay). Alistair's way of speaking about them both, however, is either sign that he has not come within a hundred miles of acknowledging how much it hurt him, or that he's already gone through the whole process and has decided to forgive them. The latter shows a very strong character; yes, he relies on the approval and leadership of others, he has his issues, but he's already started working on them.

That being said, irl Alistair would be like a little brother to me. I'd tease him relentlessly (all in good fun and I promise to stop if it makes him uncomfortable, but he's just so teasable). I still wish the videogame gave him the chance to take important decisions for himself. But that, of course, would somewhat defeat the point of the game.

Leliana:

Another sweet, sweet person. Her singing voice is amazing. Her belief in the Maker inspires me (I'm a religious person and seeing religious characters represented in a positive light is Very Cool. It's also sometimes a source of discomfort, because the Church has done a lot of very messed up stuff and positive representation can sometimes veer into apologetics for things that should not be excused, but that's a whole other can of worms. The bottom line is that religious characters sometimes work for me and other times don't and Leliana works for me very much bc she's an outsider inside the Chantry).

Leliana is best friend material, tbh. I'd love to get to know her irl, discuss theology and philosophy and maybe even politics? She makes mistakes and has prejudices, but, tbh, so do I. And I do get the feeling that she tries her best to learn. From the times she intervenes in a conversation between the Warden and an NPC, she shows herself to be compassionate and open to the needs of others. What I get from her character is that she genuinely wants to help, which is something that I adore of her. I suspect that she sometimes has a hard time deciding wether she's a good person or not. She has killed and seduced and worked for a morally dubious person, and she doesn't show the same nonchalance about it as Zevran (though they both do discuss their line of work in very... professional terms). This is, however, more of a headcanon than actual factual canon.

I also very much enjoy her girly side, like her interest in shoes and dresses. She's one badass woman who also looses her cool about the latest fashions in Val Royeaux. I like that. Between her and Alistair, a non human noble Warden has as good a help to navigate the Fereldan court as they're going to get. Leliana is also, I can't forget that, clever and insightful. It'd be easy to write her off as the innocent chantry girl, but she's so much more than that. Her kindness is paired with foresight, I think. She knows that taking on the trouble to help now can go a long way in the future. I just have a lot of respect for her.

Loghain:

This one's gonna be short bc I didn't recruit him. He's an amazing villain and would probably be a great Warden as well. He reminds me of Denerhor from LOTR; once a hero/stewart of his people, ambition and desperation have driven them both down a terrible path. I have also only little idea about his past. People say he lost a lot, and I believe it wholeheartedly; it doesn't excuse the fact that he plunged the country into a civil war in the middle of a Blight. I don't have a lot of sympathy for short-sighted politicians. I wish he hadn't made himself regent. That's what I take away from his character.

Edit: One thing I forgot to mention that really impressed me was his death. I had Alistair duel him (that was a rough duel), and then it kinda just jumped to a cutscene of my Warden nodding and Alistair executing him. That didn't sit well with me. I didn't want to kill Loghain, and less so in front of Anora. But what impressed me was that Loghain just accepted it. That takes a whole lot of guts. Compare that to Howe's death, and how he screams out that he deserved (more, probably, or anything but death) and it's crystal clear who the more noble of the two is. Loghain strikes me as very lawful neutral, and any neutral alignment has the particularity that it can be dragged towards good or bad, sometimes without the characters noticing it (which is interesting from a DnD perspective; neutral is often concieved of as just as stable as good or evil, but that may not be true. But that's a different post). Anyway, Loghain's death was impactful.

Morrigan:

I could kick myself for not maxing out her approval in the first play-through. I got to enjoy a bit of her friendship by the end of it and boy was even that little bit worth it. Friendship with Morrigan is something that is hard-won. It's all the more precious because of that.

Morrigan is full of paradoxes, I think. She's incredibly wise in some ways, yet also very short-sighted (”just kill them, don't solve their problems”. Morrigan, dear, I'm not going to gain a lot of allies if I kill everybody who poses a problem to me). She is so intelligent, but emotionally... not so. She knows so much about some things, and very little about the next. She's incredibly wilful and knows what she wants, but follows Flemeth's orders all the time through. She hungers for power and independence, yet craves closeness, but won't allow herself to have it. She asks you to prove yourself to her and is extremely critical of your actions, I think, because she's afraid. She bites the hand that feeds her because it might hit her next.

Like with Eamon, I haven't managed to catch the undercurrent of abuse that seems to permeate Flemeth's relationship with Morrigan. Except there are signs, because there must be something Morrigan is scared of and who has instilled all that rage in her, and that's Flemeth. Also, she clearly hates/does not care about her and wants her dead (unless killing Flemeth was part of Flemeth's plan as well? Hm.)

Morrigan is that one person who you are nice to, continuously, because nobody else is. And suddenly she becomes less cold. And then friendly. And suddenly you're asking yourself why everybody hates her, because she's a really good friend! I just wish the other companions came to a similar conclusion, especially Alistair and Wynne.

Oghren:

They did this man dirty. He has such great lines and I'm convinced he was a great person before Branka disappeared. He has that dwarven warrior spirit, and while he looks like Gimli, some of his most impactful lines remind me of Dwalin or even Thorin Oakenshield himself. He could be so noble had he gotten some character development, damnit!

Oghren as he is written is somewhat disgusting. I hate the lechering comments and the drunkenness. And still, I don't hate him because of those amazing lines he has when he's actually sober. It's frustrating and I'll give him that character development myself if the game won't. I strongly associate the song Whiskey Lullaby with him, bc that's how he would have ended up if the Warden hadn't taken him along (warning: the song talks about suicide and alcoholism). Like I said, they could have done such cool things with his character. As he is written now... it's just sad. Moments of lucidity drowned in alcohol and creepy jokes. As you can see, I don't blame the character for either. The alcoholism happens all too often irl. The creepy jokes... I put that one on the writers' tab.

I actually think Oghren could have been a great mentor figure (I know, I shock myself as well sometimes). Next to the Grey Wardens, the ones who know most about fighting darkspawn are the dwarves because they have to deal with them constantly. Especially a warrior caste dwarf like Oghren could have brought a lot of that invaluable knowledge to the team, especially since there are no Grey Wardens in Ferelden but two extremely green recruits. Next, you get the chance to give Oghren the command of the teammates you leave behind in the battle of Denerim with the reason that he has lead men into battle before. Where did that suddenly come from? Oghren should have been right up there telling my Warden that they were doing this wrong, that they needed more food (and booze) and a confident leader to keep the armies they've called together going. Oghren should have been able to tell my civilian city elf who got recruited into the Grey Wardens a six months ago how one leads an army. How one presents oneself to inspire confidence, how one doesn't crack under the pressure, how one gets the leaders of said armies (some who hate each others guts i.e. Dalish elves and humans) to work together. And, last but not least, Oghren could have had a great story about grief. This is a man who has lost most of what made him (and what he hasn't lost he's spilling down the drain with every mug of ale). This is a man who, if you take him into the Deep Roads, has to see what his wife did to his family, how his wife got absolutely obsessed, and can be forced to kill said wife or watch her die. All Wardens loose their home and families at the start of the story. It would really have rounded the whole narrative out if the Warden and Oghren could have recognised their grief in each other and hashed it out somehow. Such as it is, Oghren is a depressed drunkard and there is nothing we can do about that. I find that frustrating.

Rascal (a.k.a. Dog):

Best boy. 100/10. I wish we had gotten to see the reaction of the different origins to the mabari (because elves probably have a whole different experience with them from mages or humans. And dwarves just... I think they straight up have none? XD). Other than that, no complaints. The name Rascal was the one I gave my dog because you have to be a right rascal to survive what he did and play the pranks he plays. Smartest breed in the world indeed.

Shale:

Shale is one of those characters that I recruited rather late in the game, so I haven't had the chance to explore their personality and worldview, really. I didn't even get to take them to the Deep Roads (this will be ammended in playthrough nr. 2). As such, I don't have particularly strong opinions on them (or her? The wiki refers to Shale as 'it', but that sounds weird). But, because I know so little about Shale, I have a lot of questions. First, what were they like before they were a golem? Shayle, as she was called then, was the best warrior of her time if I remember correctly. Why did she become a golem? Was it to be able to eternally protect her people? Was the sarcasm the golem Shale exhibits also part of the dwarven warrior Shayle or did that come later (if for thirty years you have nobody to talk to but yourself, you better be entertaining. And I can imagine how it could make somebody terribly jaded as well).

Next, how attached is Shale to their golem form, exactly? According to the banter, they infinitely prefer it to a squishy fleshy form. If that is the case, however, why go to Tevinter to try and become a squishy dwarf again? It's not like that process could be reversed if they wanted to become a golem again; if Shale survives to the end of the game, the Anvil of the Void is destroyed and Caridin is dead. Was the whole spiel about their indestructible form a façade? It might have been, but not because Shale actually disliked their form. I think it would have more to do with the loss of their memories and with the very invasive experiments and alterations of Shale's body made by the mage Wilhelm. The loss of memories means that Shale is unable to remember life as a fleshy creature. They might be deflecting by pretending that they didn't care for that experience anyway because of the superiority of their golem form. The modifications made to their form by Wilhelm would have alienated them from their body. In light of this, it's significant that Shale asks the Warden to decorate their form with crystals.

All of this is, of course, pure speculation. I may have easily missed or forgotten details that would disprove the above thoughts. All in all, I like Shale and I hope we meet them again in DA4 (given that it's mostly set in Tevinter). It's a liking from a respectful distance, because Shale is tall and made out of rock and also way more experienced than I will ever be (they are literally the oldest member of the Warden's little Blight fighting squad).

Sten:

Sten is another person I'd keep a respectful distance from physically. That seems to be the what he would prefer, at least. I've enjoyed his character a lot, especially because he seems pretty clear-cut at first, but slowly lets the nuance of his person show (gruff and stoic, but then he has an eye for art, a sweet tooth and he likes cute animals). It's also very interesting that there's no moment when you learn "the truth" about him the way you do with Zevran or Leliana. There's no big reveal about his life under the Qun before coming to Ferelden. He says he was sent to monitor the Blight, but honestly? If neither Ferelden nor Orlais knew there was a Blight, how could the Qunari know? I think he's lying, and he takes his secrets back with him when he leaves Ferelden. And yet I think I know him enough to say that a Warden who has become friends with him has nothing to fear from Sten.

One thing I find very interesting about Sten is how he thinks. His conversation about how women can't be soldiers has been analysed a lot on this page I think. He seems to be arguing based on a different paradigma than the one the Warden has. He also seems to have a very clear-cut view of the world. What is fascinating to me is that, when arguing with the Warden and learning about their culture, he is not necessarily becoming more lax about his worldview. I think it's more likely that he is expanding his paradigma, the structure of thought through which he understands the world. I don't think that he is now convinced that women can be warriors as well. I think he rather understands that, in Ferelden, the relationship between occupation and gender is different than under the Qun. Which of the two he thinks is more right or more agreeable, I have no idea. I'm also not very interested in that. But I find it fascinating how he always seems to be looking on quietly, gathering data, classifying it and trying to fit it into his understanding of how the world works. I wouldn't be surprised at all if his original party was a scouting party to see how vulnerable Ferelden was at that moment to outside forces. One thing I don't understand with all of this is why he urges the Warden to meet the Blight head on. No smart soldier would suggest that, except if they are foolishly proud (and Sten doesn't seem like that kind of guy tbh). I get that the Warden takes way longer to gather allies than expected because they first have to solve all of their allies' problems. But surely Sten sees the need to have allies? Is he just that impatient? Does he have a death wish (à la, I lost my sword and am without honour, better to die sooner than later and in glorious battle)? Was he his group's previous commander and is he now having trouble following somebody else's orders? Or maybe it's his way to make sure the Warden knows what they are doing? To push them into becoming the self-assured commander their allies will need once they're all gathered? I really don't know. I like the last option best, however.

For me, Sten is my fellow, more experienced soldier. Like Alistair, he can potentially be the Warden's brother in arms, but he's definitely the older brother here. He probably doesn't take kindly to tearful confessions of how hard everything is, but I feel like he's otherwise a solid rock to lean on. I feel like the Warden can trust him to do what is necessary and count on him no matter what, especially after they get his sword back. His devotion from that point on is honestly so powerful.

Wynne:

Wynne was such a support for my Warden (except with the whole conversation about love vs. duty and that she may have to choose between Zevran and ending the Blight and that she should therefore break up with him. Wynne had a point. Astala was so not willing to sacrifice her relationship with Zevran. But the whole conversation came at a point where she was already so disillusioned that she blew up in Wynne's face (”can i please just have one (1) nice thing????”)). But all in all, Wynne is great.

She has a lot of flaws. She was very marked by her life in the Cricle and, for all her age, she has little experience living outside of it. She is also a conformist despite her strong moral core. In a way, her ability to find peace with her lot in life impresses me deeply because it speaks to a lot of strength of character. Sadly, however, strength can be ill applied and used to suppress. I think she has convinced herself that the Chantry is right under (almost) all circumstances to be able to rationalize the life that mages live. She's had her son taken away from her as a baby and an apprentice killed. Her reaction seems to have been to convince herself that this was right, or for the greater good (and now I'm thinking about the Guardian's question at the temple of Andraste's Ashes; are you wise or do you just repeat what others have told you? The answer is not as clear-cut as it might be). This is why she is so irritated by Zevran and Morrigan. By aligning herself with the Chantry, she is, in her eyes, good. Zevran and Morrigan are not; they do not conform to Chantry morality and they defend themselves tooth and nails against somebody who would try and convert them. This is something Wynne never allowed herself to do; she always did the "right" thing and it has cost her so much. I'm not saying she was right (it would probably have done her some good to rebel from time to time, and to trust her own gut instinct more), but in light of this, it hardly surprises me that she's so judgamental. She has to be, or she would be forced to confront all the evil she has not fought against all those years and all the hurt that has been caused to her by the very institution she protects (and thank God she only tries to argue and can appreciate it when people have found a good life outside of her comfort zone. If she tried to convince by force or, for example, drag her former apprentice back to the Circle... boy oh boy that would get ugly). If you think about it, Wynne really is a good example for what happens if you live by a philosophy of always choosing the lesser evil.

Something that I keep forgetting over her grandmotherly and dignified character is how damn powerful she is. She has escaped the carnage at Ostagar; HOW!? She protected those mage apprentices in the Circle tower for God knows how long. In the battle of Denerim, she wades through an army and comes out alive on the other side. The wiki lists her age at 40, I think, but that doesn't make a lick of sense unless 75 years of age are the Fereldan equivalent to 100. This lady, about whom people make grandmother jokes, did all that. It's impressive.

Zevran:

You know, I would really love to know what Wynne thinks about the events at Kirkwall in DA2. It might be a disaster for her, or it might pave the way for one last bit of character development. She certainly didn't want to return to the Circle after fighting the Blight. That may be an indicator of some change in her stance on the Circle of Magi.

Edit: I forgot that she is what the Circle considers a literal abomination! Holy cow, how could I forget that?? Anyway, her conversation about what being an abomination means is so... heartbreaking, actually. It's so tentative. So careful. "Am I an abomination? Am I the same thing that has killed my students? The same thing as Uldred? Am I lost and damned? Did I invite this spirit in? Is this my fault?" Like wow, Wynne is going through something huge right there. I love it. I have to continue playing the game to see what it ends up as, but it's fascinating and such a huge thing that she allows the Warden in on that.

Ah, Zevran, my beloved (he has stolen my heart so much it's not even funny anymore). He's funny, he's charming, he's so so loyal and it breaks my heart. Zevran is the one about whom I've read most meta: these three wonderful posts for instance, as well as this one about his possible lack of scars, and this one about his lack of freedom. All of these have influenced my opinion of him and they are great reads.

I have talked about Zevran with you before, so I'll just skip to the new stuff. I have come to conclusion that Zevran is an artist at heart. This is totally not biased by the fact that I also do art, but hear me out. One of his preferred gifts are bars of silver and gold. While those have the obvious utility of basically functioning as money (they can be sold to any silversmith or goldsmith and their value is pretty stable through time and in different countries), there's also this from his codex: "Zevran shows an affinity for the finer things in life—hardly surprising for an Antivan Crow—but his appreciation can be more poetic than he lets on. A simple bar of refined silver or gold, uncomplicated by a craftsman's hammer, is elegantly valuable." Tell me that is not an artist's eye that sees that gold and sees the beauty in it. Then, there's also the meta about Zevran the Seducer which I linked above and link here again. It talks specifically about how he lets himself enjoy the target and be seen in his enjoyment. Tell me that is not an artist's eye that beholds the beauty of something he is set out to destroy. Even his talk about his assassinations show this. He talks about it as an art, the way somebody would talk about the brutal intervention in stone that produces a sculpture. Yes, it's a rationalization of the act of killing and yes killing is still wrong. But he doesn't go on about it on a moral tangent the way Alistair or Wynne would (”this person was bad, killing them was necessary”) or even through the argument of survival like Morrigan would (”it was either them or me and it sure as Hell wasn't going to be me”). He talks about the pleasure of a job well done, of the satisfaction of striking the precise point and executing a plan to the perfection so as to minimize chances of discovery and to make a clean death possible. And pleasure in seeing and in doing, this I firmly believe, is absolutely fundamental for an artist.

My favourite part about my Warden and Zevran as a pairing is that Zevran precisely brings out that ability to take your pleasures as they come and to really savour them. Fighting the Blight is tough; it's so important to find good things amidst the chaos to stay sane. If Astala saves Zevran from himself by offering him a place to stay and a purpose, Zevran saves Astala from herself by keeping her from running herself into the ground trying to save the world.

There are some things I don't like about Zev. The incessant flirting, for example, sometimes makes me uncomfortable (it becomes enjoyable for me once the Warden and him are in a relationship, but before that? Nah, no thanks). I wish he would also leave the other female characters alone (and there's so many more shameless comments of his aimed at Morrigan, Leliana or Wynne than at Alistair or maybe even Sten).

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And that's my take on the Origins companions (this was rather long. Whew ^^' I hope it was still readable and that you enjoyed it!!) Thank you so much for the ask!! It's been a joy thinking about this. I was worrying at first that the less prominent companions like Sten or Shale wouldn't get as much content but... well XD

[dappercritter]

Godzilla vs Kong: Brutally Honest Thoughts

(Took me long enough, eh? Depending on home video releases be like that.)

So first things first, I have a confession to make: I spoiled the movie before I watched it. I was impatient and they had only announced an HBO Max premiere in the states and a theatrical run in Canada at the time. Afterward, I got heads-up from a friend and immersed myself in the opinions of those lucky enough to see it early. I’m just saying that I have some preconceived opinions that I’m sticking to.

That said, Godzilla vs Kong turned out to be more fun than I expected! But you already knew that. Everyone did. The two kings of movie monsters had their rematch and this time it was with glorious Hollywood SFX powering it this time.

The human story was fun but it’s clear they stopped trying at this point. Team Kong stole my heart, especially Jia. Team Godzilla (although the Conspiracy Crew would be a more fitting term since they spend more time chasing down mysteries than trying to back or understand Godzilla) was more fun than I expected and their dynamic was surprisingly enjoyable. Bernie is actually kind of funny, it's nice to see Madison acting more assertive, and Josh was fine--he was the only sane man of the bunch but he was also the butt of the jokes. Still, all the hardcore conspiracy jokes got old fast and it feels off seeing the daughter of two scientists turn into an edgy conspiracy crackpot. Why not an edgy science major?

Team Apex are fun villains, especially Walter Simmons who's a great megalomaniacal CEO type, but Ren Serizawa is a joke. I like his actor's performance but he's just another footnote. Nobody bats an eye at his last name, although the only heroes he interacts with are Nathan Lind and he just misses Team Godzilla. He really could have just been any other villain, but instead, they had to sully Serizawa’s legacy further while robbing a good actor of some interesting material. (As is, it turns out he was just an egotistical jerk with daddy issues--an easy puzzle to solve on day one--after all...)

However, I still cannot and will not approve of the fact that somebody thought it would be a good idea to make the heroes of a sci-fi story into hardcore conspiracy theorists in this day and age. Likewise, I’m not a huge fan of how they essentially made the Hollow Earth into its own universe complete with a crazy portal and an environment with its own laws of physics, nor am I totally crazy about the huge leap in technology that was made between this and KOTM, or G’14 for that matter.

The monsters as awesome as they are, are the biggest mixed bag in the show.

Kong is at his best in ages, and while I am all for the new heroic warrior character that Legendary have crafted and I acknowledge that making him a worthy opponent for their god-tier Godzilla was going to be a hurdle, I think they did a splendid job. Seeing Kong using agility and acrobatics was a glorious sight to behold, and something about Kong becoming a tool-user and weapon wielder just feels right. It’s a far better demonstration of Kong as a “thinking animal” (*wink, wink*).

I’m much less thrilled about their treatment of his greatest opponent ever. After everything they’ve done to build up Godzilla as the incredible force of neutral good fighting to maintain balance and all the build up to ancient rivalry debating back to a great Titan war--even going as far as putting his name in front Kong’s this time!-- they’ve reduced Godzilla back to glorified bully for Kong. He only gets the minimum amount of sympathy from the cast of his movie before they go off to deal with the conspiracy plot or focus on Kong and the Hollow Earth. Worse still, he is somehow more powerful and more aggressive than ever for a good chunk of the movie which leads to an outcome I’m sorry to say we all saw coming. Somehow, I suspect that the reason behind this was how Wingard cited Godzilla vs. Mothra, vs. Destoryah, and Shin-Godzilla as influences for the monsters scale and story, which while cool and all, are all movies where he was played up as a mostly stoic antagonist rather than a three-dimensional character like Kong. (Though ironically vs. Destoroyah and Shin did a better job of making Godzilla feel more sympathetic and in both of them he was a walking nuclear reactor meltdown.)

Due to the unfortunate time constraints of the three-way deal between Toho, WB, and Universal at the time this was in production, Kong was unable to secure a proper sequel that could develop his skillset like Godzilla’s did. Nevermind the fact the filmmakers completely surrendered to the “nothing matters but the monsters” mentality that a chunk of the fanbase has been spouting since this universe unofficially kicked off almost 10 years ago. (Sidenote: Oh god, I’m turning in an old fart already.) As a result, the movie trips over itself trying to set up Godzilla and Kong’s rivalry as well as building up Kong as a worthy opponent to Godzilla while expanding on their shared lore, and as a result countless plot points set up in in the previous movie and tie-in movie are thrown out the window. I’m sorry to say but in spite of all hopes and illusions of grandeur, it’s safe to this damn thing is a Kong movie with Godzilla as the bad guy.

...at least until HE shows up. Yup, Mechagodzilla. The biggest spoiled twist of the centuries steals the show so the movie can pull a Dawn of Justice. But! It does it much better than the fractured DCEU’s most controversial entry ever could. Mechagodzilla’s inclusion gets a decent amount of build up thanks to Team Godzilla/the Conspiracy Crew, and when he shows up, does he make an impression! At first, I wasn’t sure how to feel about his inclusion or his design, but I’ve come to like this one. He’s basically a kaiju terminator built in Godzilla’s image made purely out of heavy machinery piloted by the best Ghidorah head. It’s a jarring change of pace compared to previous MechaG’s but it grows on you after a while. With the abundance of weaponry stuffed into him, he feels like a fitting update of the original killing machine, and even if his inclusion feels like an easy way out of the big showdown, it’s fun to see him played as a literal colossal heel for the kings to team up against. Not to mention he looks shockingly good with those red highlights. However, one still can’t help but wonder how and why he was made in this universe, or how he feels like pure heavy machinery one minute and then an extra-large Ultron unit the next.

As for the the big throwdowns we’ve all been waiting for... well, we’re still in the mixed bag deparment. While the fights are all exciting and excellently choreographed, and benefit from some more eclectic lighting and cinematograph, I’m sorry to say that as far as the rematch of the century goes they dropped the ball on this one.

Don’t get me wrong, the fights are all great in their own ways, but there’s a drastic change in the feeling of weight and power with the monsters. Godzilla, Kong, and even Mechagodzilla all feel strangely floaty in most of their fights. One moments they feel like true behemoths shaking the very earth with every movement and then it’s like they’re in Godzilla Unleashed, running, jumping, and throwing each other around with speed that feels that almost makes you wonder if the Hollow Earth’s gravity inversion stuff is leaking out into the world. While it’s all perfectly cool, you can’t help but wonder how Kong is able to leap between aircraft carriers and buildings, when Godzilla got the ability to blow a hole through the Earth itself, or how a colossal machine is able to move so nimbly or why it has to be flashing blue all the time.

It’s fascinating and fun but you just can’t help but wonder how we got from almost posthuman disaster and war movies exploring how we’re at the mercy of the ancient almost mythical forces beyond our comprehension, we’ve found ourselves smack dab in the middle of Bayformers meets Jurassic World levels of Hollywood absurdity where anything and everything can and will happen in the name of getting to the monster fights. Although I can’t say I’m surprised given the director’s take on Death Note made some questionable choices with it’s take on the infamous cast while still coming up with some genuinely inspired choices. Still, all things considered we could have gotten worse compared to ther cinematic universes made by WB and Universal.

As for some misc. thoughts to close up this rambling mess:

-The soundtrack is fantastic. A great continuation of the feel of Skull Island’s mixtape with some truly wonderful picks. Special mention goes to the opening and ending songs, and they GOT AN ELVIS PRESLEY SONG IN HERE! YES!!! The three kings of pop culture together at last!

-While this movie didn’t need to be any more overstuffed, it would have been nice if the rest of the Titans didn’t disappear entirely from this movie. I get that Godzilla: Dominion already explained what happened to them all more or less, but it really is a missed oppurtunity that we never got to see another Titan war. Or Rodan attacking Kong to avenge his pterosaur bretheren from days long past. Speaking of which...

-“Save Mothra” jokes be damned, Mothra would have been a welcome gues star, not just to help break up the big fight, but to show off Godzilla’s softer, more protective side. And yes, I want more Mothzilla. Shut up, we deserve it.

-Boy, Monarch sure does a whole lot of nothing up-top, huh?

-The cinematography is a great update but there’s a little too much neon lighting, especially in the Apex HQ and the Hollow Earth throne room. It feels like they’re trying just a little too hard to sell the more futuristic, Hollywood sci-fi feel.

-The score is... great but not that great. Of course, I’ve always had mixed feelings about Tom Holkenburg (AKA Junkie XL)’s music. I liked Kong’s themes, but they REALLY dropped the ball with Godzilla’s theme. Mechagodzilla’s works really well as long you ignore that it’s just Godzilla’s theme in this movie with an ominious choir added in.

-The new Hollow Earth creatures are all perfectly fine. Actually, I thought they were another highlight! Especially the Warbats, Hellhawks, and Doug the Titanus Foetodon Man.

-I want to do a release the extended cut campaign but I don’t think any of us have the energy for that s**t anymore.

[lesbianrobin]

If you had to rank all the 14 ST characters in the main group from most to least fav what would your ranking look like? (And by main group i mean the characters including murray and erica, and excluding karen, basically everybody involved in the final battle in 3x08)

ok let me preface this by saying that i literally love all of these characters i don't hate any of them okay?? let's go... ascending order for the drama!!

14. murray. no explanation needed. no offense to brett gelman he's phenomenal and i honestly think murray is really funny, but he's more or less just a plot device with some comic relief slapped on top.

now things get spicy <3

13. erica. love her to death! but she's fairly one-dimensional, once again primarily a comic relief character. maybe in s4 she'll get some more depth like the older kids have, but for now she's sort of a default next-to-last :/

12. will... no tea no shade but the kid's barely in the show! i absolutely want good things for him but like. i barely even know him. yknow? he’s only above erica bc he’s gay and she’s a capitalist. also that scene in s1 right before he gets snatched by the demogorgon when he just runs straight to the shed and grabs a goddamn shotgun and loads it fully ready to defend himself... that shit slapped good for him!!

11. this Will be controversial among some and i Know this character is many people's favorite... if you follow me already this is probably not going to surprise you but. nancy. i just think her character is kind of inconsistent, so i have a hard time really clicking with her :/ sometimes i love her and i think she's so cool and funny and hot (that hospital scene in s3... my GOD what a badass!) and other times i would like to fistfight her.

also let me get this out of the way right now: i'm aware that jonathan's character is ALSO super inconsistent!! i know okay??? i know!!!! please nobody judge me for how high rat boy gets on this ranking okay i'm literally making this up as i go along so idk if he's next or if he's like in the top five but i have a disease called Unreasonably Invested In Wildly Speculative Meta-Analysis Of Stranger Things which makes it impossible for me to be normal about jonathan and this is my ranking so i pick the bad taste!!!

10. joyce! i love her bro she's MOM and she tries so fucking hard all the goddamn time and she's so STRONG and kind and adorable... joyce is honestly a very unique and refreshing character ESPECIALLY if you’re considering stranger things within the horror genre which is often defined by these very specific archetypes of mothers and motherhood that i can get into if anyone is interested but like basically. love her <3

9. dustin <3 what an icon... i love him i love how he straight up killed a man and hardly flinched because it was to protect his friends and i love how he and his little girlfriend have a song they sing together and i love how he either has an insanely warped perspective on things due to low self-esteem or he just sometimes flatout lies to gain sympathy either way he’s a BABY and he’s so FUNNY and KIND and even when he’s scared he keeps going... ugh god and i love how even when he doubts his friends’ devotion to him he NEVER ever questions his devotion to them and he never ever considers leaving them behind or not stepping up to help them... he’s so brave!

8. mike is such a fucking BITCH but even more than that he is an ANGEL... literally his range who is doing it like him??? nobody!!!! graffiti’d the bathroom stall at school... hates cops.... what a legend. also i like how fucking goofy and dumb his hair looks in s3. also he’s very soft with his friends and it makes me cry. ALSO he literally stepped off a fucking CLIFF he was ready to DIE FOR DUSTIN and i know all the kids have risked their lives for each other but this wasn’t even a monster yknow this was just... bullies.... threatening his friend..... and mike couldn’t fucking let it happen bro he was ready to just step off the edge to keep dustin safe and it’s SO MUCH... and god the kindness he showed el when they first met!!! he’s a total angel and a total shithead and it’s amazing.

7. lucas my tiny baby hero.... he’s so strong and cool and capable yet at the same time he’s such a COMPLETE dork!!! he very seriously believes his slingshot wrist rocket is a lethal weapon and then he ACTUALLY USES IT AS A LETHAL WEAPON TO SAVE HIMSELF AND HIS FRIENDS!!! he hacks off a giant monster’s freaky tentacle arm thing with an axe to save his friend AND he keeps a bunch of action figures and random dice on his bedside table bro he just thinks they’re neat!!! like... i genuinely love him so much god he cares so much about his friends and he’s so brave and smart and loving... i know he is not tiny anymore but he is my tiny baby hero okay...

6. hopper! big man care for little girl... protect and love kids... dance to dad music... be goofy and hot... have trauma.... admit his faults and attempt to grow from them.... what's not to love?

5. jonathan... look i can’t explain it except that he loves his goddamn baby brother so much and i’m a sucker with extensive headcanons alright!

4. el!!! feral little darling girl!!! i literally cannot articulate the love that floods my heart whenever i see her face or think about her for too long she’s just... so strong but more than that she’s so incredibly KIND!! when she has every reason to be selfish and cruel and yeah at times she does let herself get a little mean but on the whole she’s always so goddamn kind and loving and selfless no matter how afraid she is or how she’s hurting... and i hope that with her powers gone in s4 she’ll maybe learn how to see herself as more than a tool to protect those she loves yknow but that’s off topic skdncmn i just think that el is such an incredible character with such depth!! she can be so grave and mature yet she’s still such an innocent child at the same time, and i think that both the writing and mbb’s acting are handled such that both of these things WORK and feel real and they make el (and her trauma) so believable. i just love her to death.

3. robin, light of my lesbian little life!! unfortunately she's wayyy too much like me to snag the top spot lmao. maybe once we get another season with her she’ll trample the competition but for now my baby is in a solid third place <3 i’ve never seen a lesbian on screen who i felt so accurately represented me and my experiences!! she feels so real and in just one season she’s become one of my favorites on the whole show, and i cannot fucking wait to see what else we learn about her and what development we see from her in s4. 

2. as u may have guessed... max!! i know i said this was my subjective opinion but here i’ll just say it: max is objectively one of the best characters on the show. she’s so strong and funny and quick on her feet while harboring some real pain and insecurity at the same time, and both of these aspects of her character are married perfectly, logically connecting to one another and joining with sadie’s incredible acting to create an amazing character who feels just... so real!! i absolutely adore her and i CONSTANTLY tear up just from thinking about her skdncmn...

1. what if my number one wasn't steve. like can y'all imagine???? if i just said like will or some shit???? genuinely i did consider giving max or robin top billing here but i just Can't i've dedicated too goddamn much of my life to steve harrington to deny that he's my one and only. is there anything to say that hasn't already been said? look at the bitch. just look at him. 

what other answer could there be?

[letterboxd]

Lonesome Cruiser.

Blockbuster composer Tom Holkenborg, aka Junkie XL, talks to Gemma Gracewood about composing for titans, his pride in Dutch cinema, friendship with George Miller and longing for Olivia Newton-John. Plus: his Letterboxd Life in Film and why he’s selling his prized collection of recording gear.

It has been a spectacular spring for Tom Holkenborg, the Dutch musician also known as Junkie XL, who has crafted the scores for multiplex fare such as Mad Max: Fury Road, Deadpool, Terminator: Dark Fate, Sonic the Hedgehog and the upcoming zombie banger Army of the Dead. Only weeks apart, two blockbusters landed on screens with his sonic stamp all over them: Adam Wingard’s Godzilla vs. Kong and Zack Snyder’s re-realized Justice League.

Thankfully, the Godzilla vs. Kong score was complete by the time the Justice League telephone rang. Holkenborg—who had lost the Justice League gig along with Snyder the first time around—knew the Snyder cut was coming; he had closely watched the growing calls for it online. “Zack and I already started talking in 2019. He’s like, ‘What if we were to finish this? What would it take?’ Those conversations turned to ‘Well, how many recording days potentially do you need and how much of an orchestra do you potentially need?’ Finally, somewhere in April 2020, that’s when that phone call came: ‘Okay, light’s green, start tomorrow, and start running until it’s done because it’s four and a half hours’.”

Ray Fisher as Cyborg in ‘Zack Snyder’s Justice League’.

Holkenborg approaches the titanic task of blockbuster film scoring with an engineer’s mindset: “Building a fantastic, huge house with 20 bedrooms and the dance hall and the kitchen… You’re not going to start by building the third bathroom for the third guest room, right?” Once he has identified the scenes that are most important to his directors—for Snyder, they included the introduction of Cyborg, three fight set-pieces, and a scene of The Flash running that comes towards the end of the film—the composer identifies instrumental “colors” in order to build a theme around each character. Then he holds some of those colors back, theorizing that “if you want like an, ‘Oh!’ experience by looking at a painting that has a huge amount of bright yellow in it, it’s way more successful to see fifteen paintings in front of it, where yellow is absent.”

The Godzilla vs. Kong score satisfies Holkenborg’s life-long love of both characters. “I don’t have a preference for either one. I love them both for various different reasons.” Their respective histories fascinate him: Godzilla as a way to make sense of Japan’s nuclear fall-out, and Kong as a gigantic spectacle that ended up attracting the sympathies of the audiences he was supposed to scare. Even when the science makes no sense (“what the fuck are plasma boosters, anyway?!”), Holkenborg is still happy to wax lyrical about the emotional depth of Kong’s stories, the elaborate concepts of the Godzilla-verse, and his musical approach to the pair—dark, moving brass for Godzilla, with synthesized elements “because he is a half-synthesized animal”, and a more organic, complex orchestration for Kong, featuring “one of the world’s bigger bass drums”.

Adam Wingard’s ‘Godzilla vs. Kong’.

All of this seat-shaking bombast is composed on an “insanely massive sound system” in Holkenborg’s small home studio (though he reassures pandemic-stricken film lovers that he has recently seen both Godzilla vs. Kong and Justice League on his laptop—and “really enjoyed watching it like that”). The process, he says, was “pretty intense”, but only in terms of the sheer amount of score needed. Composing in quarantine was not much different from his usual workflow. “I’m a pretty lonesome cruiser anyway. Composing, by nature, is like a solo exercise—obviously with assistance.”

Like many creatives (Bong Joon-ho recently told a film studies class that he is up at 5:00am most days to watch a movie), Holkenborg is an early riser, waking by 4:00am. “I’m super sharp between like 4 or 5:00am and 9:00am, so I like to do a lot of creative work in that slot.” He takes care of business until mid-afternoon, when another creative spurt happens. “And then I have another batch of calls usually to make, and then around 8:30pm, I’m going to retire for the rest of the day and just chill out a little bit and watch stuff that I want to see, read things that I want to read. Right now I’m studying Portuguese.” By 10:30pm, he’s asleep. “And then at three o’clock I get up.” (Needless to say, Holkenborg’s children are no longer small.)

The pandemic simplified a lot of things for a lot of people: for Holkenborg, it has been a moment to tidy up the physical side of his work. In November last year, he opened an online shop to divest the bulk of his gear—synths, pedals, guitars, drum machines and much more—that he has been collecting since the late 1970s. When friends told him he’d regret it, he disagreed. “At some point I’m going to die. I can’t take them to the afterlife. I also found out I don’t need them. I love to have them around, but I don’t need them.”

Tom Holkenborg with the bass drum used in the ‘Godzilla vs. Kong’ score.

It certainly solves the question of what he’d take if his house was on fire. “The hard drives with sounds and music over the last 40 years, 45 years, that’s hard to replace. So, that would be it. I’m just thinking about things that are absolutely irreplaceable and there are not that many, really.” Alas, it’s bad news for that bass drum. “I can’t take that with me when the house is on fire. Unfortunately, it’s going to make the house burn longer.”

Anyone who has interviewed or spent time with Holkenborg will agree: he may be a lonesome cruiser, but he is also personable, funny, loves to settle in for a chat. As he lights his second or third cigarette in readiness for his Life in Film questionnaire, I’m curious about his relationships with the esteemed filmmakers he has worked with—who include his mentor, Hans Zimmer, directors Sir Peter Jackson, Tim Miller, Robert Rodriguez and, especially, Fury Road’s George Miller.

The story of how Holkenborg scored Mad Max: Fury Road bears retelling: that George Miller did not want a soundtrack (“he was convinced that the orchestration of sounds of the cars would be enough to carry the whole movie”), that Holkenborg was only brought in to create a little something for the Coma-Doof Warrior’s flame-throwing guitar, that they hit it off, the job grew, and grew, into a score that covers almost the entire film.

The Coma-Doof Warrior in ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ (2015).

What is his best memory of Fury Road? “Well, obviously, when I saw the movie for the first time and I was like ‘what the hell am I looking at?’,” he laughs. “What I mostly look back on is the friendship that I developed with George and the film school one-on-one that I got admitted to, while being paid at the same time, to study with somebody like him. We would talk all night about all kinds of things and nothing, because that really defines our relationship so much—a joint interest in so many different things.”

Happily, Holkenborg and Miller are working together again, on Three Thousand Years of Longing. “It’s really great to be in that process with him again. It’s just like about pricking each other with a little needle. It’s like, ‘Oh, why are you saying that?’ We do that with each other to keep each other sharp. ‘Oh, but if you’re doing this, I’m going to be doing that.’ And then, ‘Oh, if you’re doing that, I’m going to be doing this.’ So it’s really interesting.”

What is your favorite Godzilla film?

Tom Holkenborg: 1989’s Godzilla vs. Biollante. It’s a very obscure one where he’s basically fighting a giant rose. Let’s not look for the logic there.

Why has that particular Godzilla captured your heart? It’s so corny. Yeah. Mothra vs. Godzilla is also great. Mothra looks like a very bad Arabian carpet that was imported through customs and it got delivered by FedEx completely ruined and then laid outside for like four weeks in the rain.

‘Godzilla vs. Biollante’ (ゴジラvsビオランテ, 1989).

What is the first film you remember seeing in a cinema? Bambi. I was six years old, yeah.

And is there a film you have fond memories of watching with your family—a movie that became a family favorite? Not, like, a family favorite because our opinions were too diverse for that, but the next movie that became very important to me when I was a little older was Saturday Night Fever. I thought the soundtrack was, like, groundbreaking, mind-blowingly insane. It’s not necessarily those three massive beats of the Bee Gees on there, but all these other really alternative, left-field tracks by bands like Kool & the Gang. And the way that that darker disco music played against that really dark movie about what it’s like to live in New York and become a competitive dancer, it’s incredible. And still, today, it’s one of the movies where film music and the film itself had so much impact on me, even though it’s not a traditional film score in that sense. It’s incredible.

What is the film that made you want to work in movies, given that you also have a whole musical career separate from movies? (Enjoy Junkie XL’s early 2000s remix of Elvis Presley’s ‘A Little Less Conversation’.) For me, the move from a traditional artist into film scoring was a very slow gradual process. There’s not one movie that pushed me over the cliff. It’s just, like, all the great movies that were made. And I still have a list of obscure movies, classic movies that I need to see.

Yesterday I saw the weirdest of all, but I do want to share this: the original, uncut R-rated version of Caligula, [from] 1979. He [director Tinto Brass] was notoriously brutal and he organized orgies and had terrible torturing techniques. But it’s really weird, there’s Shakespearean actors in there, and then it goes to full-on porn sections. It’s really weird. The music is incredible. You can find it online. You will not find it anywhere [else]. I can just imagine what this must have felt like in 1979 when the film came out. Suspiria, that’s another one. It’s just like, how weird was that thing?

What is your favorite blockbuster that you did not compose? Ben-Hur. I’ve seen that one at least 20 times.

What’s your all-time comfort re-watch? The movie I’ve seen the most is Blade Runner. It’s just, like, it’s a nice world you’re stepping into, that fantasy. It’s not necessarily because I have memories [of] that movie that brings me back to a certain time period, it’s not that. It’s just that I just love to dwell in it. It feels a little bit like coming home. You can use it as comfort food, you can use it as, “I’m not feeling anything today”, or the opposite. You feel very great and you feel very inspired and it’s like, “Oh, let’s go home and watch that movie again.”

Terrence Malick’s ‘The Thin Red Line’ (1998).

Hans Zimmer has been an important mentor to you. Do you have a favorite of his scores? Yes, The Thin Red Line. It’s also the filmmaking of Terrence Malick—he forces a composer to think a certain way. He would always say, “It’s too much, make it less, make it smaller, make it this, make it that.” So, A, it’s a very good movie and B, he got Hans into the right place and Hans just over-delivered by doing exactly the right things at the right time and then shining just because of that.

Who is a composer that you have your eye on and what is one of their films that we should watch next? It’s so sad to say, but I mean, let’s call it like a retrospective discovery if you will. I’m so sad that we lost Jóhann Jóhannsson. He was a composer I felt really close to. We started roughly in the same time period making our way in today’s world. Also, Jóhann came from an artist background, even though it was a modern classical background. He made really great records, great experimentation with electronic elements, with classical instruments, and the mix between the two of them—very original way of looking at music. With Denis Villeneuve as his partner in crime the movies that they did were just mind-boggling good, whether it was Sicario or Arrival or Prisoners, and his voice will truly be missed among film composers. So people that are not super familiar with his work, I would definitely check it out.

‘Turks Fruit’ (Turkish Delight, 1973).

What is a must-see Dutch film that we should add to our watchlists? Holland has small cinema, but it has a really rich cinema and a very serious cinema culture. Usually because there’s not enough work in film, people are serious stage performers but then they also act in movies so they understand both really well. And we’ve delivered. There’s a string of actors that make their way to Hollywood or star in well-known series, whether it’s like Game of Thrones, or what we just talked about, Blade Runner. Many directors like Paul Verhoeven, Jan de Bont, the cameraman.

And so a movie that I’d like to pick is an old movie, called Turks Fruit (Turkish Delight) from the 1970s. Rutger Hauer is a younger guy, like, this completely irresponsible guy that starts this relationship with a really beautiful young girl, and they do all these crazy things, they do a lot of drugs and they have a lot of sex. He’s just like a bad influence on her.

Then he finds out she [has] cancer and it’s terminal. And to see him deal with that, and to see him want a change, but also in that change he does a lot of bad stuff at the same time… It was a sensational movie when it came out. And it actually was directed by Paul Verhoeven, one of his earlier films. When you see it, you’re just like, ‘Why am I watching this?’ for the first 45 minutes and then it starts and it’s like, ‘whoa’. So it’s really good, even in retrospect.

Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta in ‘Grease’ (1978).

What is the sexiest film you’ve ever seen? When I was super young, it was definitely Grease, with Olivia Newton-John, when she was in her catsuit at the very end of it. I had her picture on my bedroom, above my bed sideways because I was only like ten years old or something. I was so in love with Olivia Newton-John. It wasn’t the film per se, it was her. Yeah, I find, personally, movies from the ’70s to be more sexy, but it has something to do with the super-loose way that people were dressed and people were behaving.

And the other one was later in life: Basic Instinct. Sharon Stone. I’m not talking about like the famous shot, right, where she crosses her legs. I’m not talking about that, but the way that she acts throughout the whole movie. It’s insane. It’s really great.

Are there any films that have scared you? Like, truly terrified you? Yeah, I’m not a big fan because I get sucked up too much in it. The found [footage] horror movies like Paranormal Activity and things like the Japanese version of The Grudge, I cannot watch that stuff. That gets me too much. Because when I watch a film, I cannot watch it with one eye half open, the other one closed, like, ‘Okay, kind of cool, interesting’. I just get sucked into it.

Is there a film that has made you cry like no other? Oh yeah. Multiple. Once Upon a Time in America. The Godfather. Hable con Ella (Talk to Her). Betty Blue.

Thomas Holkenborg, AKA Junkie XL.

These are the films that make you weep? Not like on a regular basis, but I remember those were the ones that I really got hit. I’m talking particularly about the third Godfather. That whole end scene when they get out of the church and then… It’s really well-acted. So many Godfather fans that were dismissive of the film when it came out, in retrospect, ten, fifteen, 20 years later, are like, ‘it’s a really good film’. And I actually think so.

Final question. Is there a film from the past year that you would recommend, that you’ve loved? [Long pause.] The thing is that I watch pretty much a movie a day. So, that’s like three to four hundred movies. It [has] happened so often that I watch a film and then I’m just like an hour and 45 minutes in, it’s like, ‘wait, fuck, I’ve seen this thing before’.

So, we have an app for that… [Laughs.]

Related content

Junkie XL’s Letterboxd Life in Film list

Freddie Baker’s review of Justice League

Dutch Cinema: Danielle’s extensive list of more than 2,000 films

Letterboxd Showdown: The Perfect Score (best film scores)

The official Junkie XL Reverb Shop

Follow Gemma on Letterboxd

[zims-left-shoe]

Agent Mothman (Dib x Male Reader)

Like most of my other fics, characters are aged up to high school. Plus, a friendly reminder that my request box is open!!

The silence was overwhelming. The pressure of everyone's collective held breath was almost palpable, your chest reactively tightening for no good reason. As you looked around you, eyes were wide, jaws were set and clenched in preparation to cringe. The only two who stuck out from the crowd were Zim and Dib, when did they not? Zim looked lost in thought, mind seemingly several thousand galaxies away, hands folded together neatly in front of his face, his chin resting on them. Dib, on the other hand, appeared to be over the whole ordeal. His posture was slouched as he stared ahead at the board through half-lidded eyes. As the quiet persisted, an anxious energy settled over your classmates (besides the two previously mentioned, of course). Eyes twitched, fingernails scraped the tables, feet began to tap restlessly on the floor.

"Y/n." The teacher finally spoke, bringing the whole class to sigh in relief, the building pressure suddenly released all at once. Many students leaned back in their chairs, high fiving each other. "Y/n, you will be partnered with Dib." You shrugged your shoulders as many looked to you in pity, some even whispering their sympathies. You had never aligned yourself with any group in particular throughout your school year. Granted, you were only a few months in, but you had switched schools so much you had learned to play the field. You avoided Dib considering his stigma, enabling you to be tolerated by the majority, however you were never mean to him. In fact, you rather liked him. You only chose to silently observe him rather than act upon your curiosity. 

"But wait, who's going to be paired with Zim?" You heard a student groan, everyone's breath being held once more. You let your gaze drift over to your partner. He seemed relieved, a slight smile settling on his lips. This was probably the best case scenario for everyone. No one else had to work with Dib, and you were the only one who never picked on him for being just a bit different. 

Once your teacher had finished reading names, you were all asked to sit with your partners. Without an ounce of reluctance, you sauntered over to Dib's otherwise empty table, taking one of the many available seats surrounding him. You needed to figure out a plan quickly, considering you only had one night to do the project. The project wasn't super taxing, in fact it seemed almost like busy work that would promote socialization at the same time, but it wasn't like your time frame was ideal. 

"Dib, right?" You held up your hand in a slight wave. "I don't think I've officially introduced myself. I'm Y/n."

"I know. The new kid who has no real friends yet is somehow still deemed acceptable by the popular kids? An anomaly for sure." Red painted his face, his eyes widening as he realized how his words may have came off as. "Shit, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to sound rude. Or creepy. You know what? I'll just stop talking." An awkward chuckle escaped your lips as his eyes fell to his sneakers. After a slight pause, Dib spoke again, his tone much more reserved than before. "I can just do the whole project and you can put your name on it if you want. It's not that hard." He was giving you an out, not wanting to piss you off. Reaching an arm out, you slugged his shoulder lightly.

"Nah, come on. I don't roll that way. Besides, I want to hang out with you a little."

"You...want to hang out...with me?" Dib pointed a finger to himself, eyes wide behind his large glasses. An incredulous expression was etched into every single feature of his face, as if he couldn't believe those words left your mouth. 

"Yeah." After that syllable, the bell rang, dismissing you from school. You stood up, gathering your things. "Anyway, I'll be at your place after dinner. Just text me your address or whatever." You quickly scribbled your digits down on a scrap piece of paper that was laying around, passing it to him. "See ya!" You dashed away, sneaking one last glance back to see Dib still sitting in his chair, as still as a statue, not believing that this was even happening. 

Your stomach felt as if it was full of butterflies, and you couldn't shake the grin that had spread across your face as you began your walk home. 

God...he was even cuter than I thought... You were embarrassed by your own thoughts, pinching yourself on the arm. Truth was, you may or may not have been stalking him a little. He lived in your neighborhood, and you just couldn't help it. You had always been a hopeless romantic of sorts, and all it took was one look at him in class giving a presentation on the gremlin in his backyard and you were in love. You didn't even need his address, you knew where he lived, but you didn't want to make him feel uncomfortable, so you asked for it anyway. Plus, it was a way to sneak him your number. And it wasn't as if you were actively trying to find out where he lived. It was pretty much impossible to ignore him and Zim screaming at each other as they ran back and forth between their houses all day. 

"This is going to be a long night." You sighed out, foot striking out to kick a rock, the satisfying skittering sounds it made calming your nerves a small amount. 

-

You drew in a deep breath as you brought your fist to the door, rapping on it a few times. Rocking back on your heels, you clutched your notebook and other supplies tightly to your chest, internally cringing at yourself. Everyone at school thought you were incredibly cool, but on the inside, you were just a lovesick gay who was overflowing with big dumb energy. The door swung open, bringing you to jump and be pulled from your motivational speech that was being given inside your head. 

"Come on in. I'm surprised you showed up." Dib stepped aside to let you in, gesturing past the living room to the kitchen where a purple-haired girl sat at a table, picking at the remaining food on her plate. A floating monitor hovered near the table as well. "We're just finishing dinner, but you can follow me if you want." Nodding, you padded behind the social outcast wordlessly, taking a seat next to him at the table. "Gaz, this is Y/n, my partner for my project. Y/n, this is my sister Gaz."

"Hey." You waved to the girl. Her expression remained squinty as she continued to pick at her food, eyes dancing between her plate and a Game Slave which was charging on the counter. 

"Whatever." She grumbled, never even directly acknowledging your existence once. You began to wonder if Dib was actually the most normal out of his entire family, which was saying something. Dib awkwardly cleared his throat as he pointed to the floating monitor, which displayed a man in a lab coat and goggles furiously working on something. 

"Oh, and this is my dad. He's at work right now, like usual. When he can't be with us for dinner, he either videocalls us from his lab or plays a pre-recorded video reminding us of chores and dinner instructions." Despite how sad the things he had just said sounded, not an ounce of bitterness was up for display on his face. Instead, his eyes shone with pride, happy to have a dad who was making a difference in the world, even if he could never really be a conventional father. "Anyway, just let me clean up and then we can get to work." Dib stood up, bringing his own plate over to the sink and running it under water, placing it in in its respective place in the dishwasher afterwards. Waving for you to follow him, he led you down the hall to a room that was clearly his. The door was covered in posters and stickers of aliens and other supernatural creatures, a good sized "Keep Out" sign the centerpiece. You wondered what would be inside, becoming excited. You figured you were the first person besides his own family to be seeing his room. He twisted the knob, casually pushing the door open, allowing you to step inside. 

"Wow..." You trailed off as you glanced around. There was so much to look at. Your eyes darted from one thing to the next, barely able to take it all in. There were several computer monitors surrounding a desk that was littered in papers and catalogues for supernatural hunting items, a few prototypes of possibly his dad's inventions scattered there as well. His room was lined with posters of aliens and other entities, an important looking briefcase thrown haphazardly onto his bed. The one thing that held your gaze the longest was a ginormous cork board. Several photos, drawings, diagrams, and hurried scribbles of notes were tacked up there, filling it to the max. Each paper was connected with color coded strings, things circled in colored pen seemingly at random, although you knew better. It was the definition of organized chaos. In large, bold, red letters, one word was scrawled on a paper at the top of the board: ZIM.

"I'm sorry, I tried to clean it as best I could. It's still kind of a mess." Dib hurriedly stacked papers together on his desk, trying to make it look presentable. 

"It's fine, don't worry about it. You should see my room. Half of my shit isn't even out of boxes yet, and we moved in months ago." You laughed, sitting down on his floor. "So, alien invasion, huh? Isn't Zim that kid with the skin condition?" You asked, gesturing to his cork board. His shoulders tensed as he unplugged his computer and brought it down to the ground, taking a seat beside you.

"Could we just get to work? Please?" He seemed to want to sweep that subject under the rug, and you decided that you would let him.

"Okay...so anyway, this research poster. You got a topic in mind?" Your prompt drew him out of his unsociable shell, albeit hesitantly. 

"Personally, I was thinking Area 51, but if you wanted to do something else..." He genuinely appeared to not want to upset you, despite usually not caring about how he came off to others. 

"That sounds great, Dib. Interesting too. You think they're really hiding aliens there?" Laying down on your stomach, you rested your face in the palms of your hands, gearing up for a long talk. A smile crept onto your face as immediately his eyes lit up.

"I'm glad you asked."

-

"I think we have the essentials. Now we just need to get them onto the poster, which is probably the most time consuming part." Dib stretched his arms towards the ceiling while you yawned and cracked your back. You didn't know how long you had been sitting on the floor for, but a glance to the clock by his bed told you it was 8:01 pm. The two of you had spent the last couple of hours researching, organizing notes, and mainly just talking about yourselves. You had no idea why everyone constantly was ragging on him. You found him to be incredibly interesting and entertaining, hanging onto every single word he spoke. You weren't really sure if you believed in all of these supernatural creatures, but you also didn't think that they couldn't exist. 

"I think so too. You ready to start on the poster now?" Reaching out, you gathered the posterboard and construction paper Dib had brought in from his garage together.

"Yeah, in a minute. I have to use the bathroom and then see what Gaz is up to, I'll be back in a few." You hummed a response, Dib standing up and exiting, closing the door softly behind him. Deciding to take a closer look at the Zim conspiracy board, you pushed yourself to your feet, leaning close to try and decipher the grainy images. One in particular caught your eye. It wasn't in color, and everything seemed fairly blurry. Zim, or what was supposedly Zim, was hunched over something that looked to be a robot. Except, as you looked even closer, Zim seemed to have these buggish eyes and long, skinny antennae in place of his hair. Rubbing your eyes, you flopped down onto Dib's bed.

"God, I must be seeing things." You had managed to convince yourself that you had been staring at computer screens and papers for far too long, and that your eyes were playing tricks on you, showing you what Dib wanted you to see. Closing your eyes for a minute, the rise and fall of your chest turned slow and steady, and you could feel your grip on reality loosening. 

A ringtone of sorts snapped you back from your almost-doze, and at first you thought it was your phone, but after waking up a bit more, you realized it was coming from one of Dib's monitors. It appeared he was getting a call. The monitor showed nothing besides a logo of some sort of eye, as well as an option to accept the call or decline. Filled with curiosity, your feet took you to his desk where his monitor sat. You barely felt in control of your body as your finger swiped at the screen in the direction to accept the call.

"Agent Mothman-" The voice coming through the monitor was distorted, but you got the impression that it was on purpose. The image displayed was a dark silhouette of what seemed to be a man. "You're not Mothman."

"You mean that cryptid from West Virginia? No. I'm not." You took a seat in Dib's desk chair, which was very comfy. You assumed he spent a lot of time in it when he wasn't hanging out with Zim. 

"Who are you and what do you know?" The voice was menacing, and you vaguely wondered if Dib was involved in something more serious than you thought. Quirking an eyebrow, you tried to not let any miniscule amount of fear you were feeling show.

"I'm, we'll just say Agent, uh...Nessie." Feeling uncreative, your mind drifted to the Loch Ness Monster. 

"You're not Nessie either." 

"You got one of those too? Ugh, fine. What about Agent Chupacabra?"

"Well, no, but...you're not any agent we know of."

"But I could be! Agent Chupacabra reporting for duty!" You brought your hand up to your head stiffly in a mock salute.

"But you're not a member of the Swollen Eyeball! What are you doing on Mothman's computer?" 

"The Swollen what now?" You were smiling stupidly, only because you couldn't really grasp what the current situation was. 

"Hey, sorry, Gaz decided to hound me over drinking the last soda, so I took a little longer than I thought-" Dib opened the door to reveal you sitting in his desk chair, trying to look all spooky for the guy in the monitor. You thought he'd laugh at your stupidity, but he was not in the least bit amused. "OH MY GOD AGENT DARK BOOTY!" Slamming his room door, he darted over to where you were sitting, almost tripping and falling on his face. He made a strangled noise as he noticed the disappointed expression that rested on the silhouette's face.

"Who is your little friend, Agent Mothman?" The distorted voice was cold, and you could feel Dib almost shrink next to you.

"Listen, I can explain-"

"I thought we stressed secrecy, and the fact that you are not allowed to have outsiders sit in on our important meetings."

"Meeting?" All of a sudden, several of the other monitors sparked to life, various other silhouettes coming into view. Just in one glance, you could see that Dib wanted nothing more than to fade away into a cloud of space dust in that moment. You stayed silent, knowing that Dib was in some serious trouble because of you.

"We had a meeting at 8:30 pm sharp, Mothman. You knew this. And you had a friend over?" Dib's face, already pale, turned even more so. Any lighter, and you thought for sure he'd become a ghost on the spot. 

"I am so sorry, I had a school project, and he's my partner, I lost track of time." He looked absolutely helpless, and without a word, you stood up and gathered the poster supplies. Snapping back to his senses, he turned to you and began shoving you out of his room and herding you to the front door.

"Dib, I-"

"You really need to go!" There were no other words said between the two of you as he quite literally slammed the door in your face. A sigh slipped past your lips as you clutched your project items in your arms, dragging your feet across the pavement on your walk home. You lazily stumbled through your front door, mumbling a greeting to your parent(s) as you headed to your room, gearing yourself up to finish the project before morning. 

-

"Thank you to Y/n and Dib for their, erm, informative...presentation on Area 51. That was your last one, so enjoy your last five or so minutes of class." Your teacher went back to their desk as you and Dib retreated to your own table. You hadn't talked much since the incident last night, and quite frankly, you were tired from spending hours of your night creating the visual portion of your project. Dib's lips were tightly pressed together in a thin line, and you guessed there was something he wanted to get off his chest. 

"Look, Dib. If there's something you want to say to me, just do it. I'm sorry for answering your call, that was not a good move on my part, and I also apologize for getting you in trouble with your, uh...society." Running a hand through his dark hair, Dib shook his head.

"No, that was my bad. I forgot I had a meeting. I'm also really sorry for kicking you out and then forcing you to finish the project on your own." Your expression softened, unable to resist forgiving him.

"Yeah, that was kind of a dick move." You elbowed him jokingly, hoping he would loosen up now that bygones were bygones.

"No, seriously. How can I make it up to you?" He looked as if he wouldn't be taking no for an answer. He had gotten a taste of what having someone who genuinely enjoyed being around him was like, and he wasn't willing to let that go. A sly grin tugged at your lips, and almost immediately an idea came to mind.

"Consider yourself forgiven if you take me ghost hunting, or whatever it is you do." His shoulders tensed, but relaxed when he realized you weren't making fun of him. 

"Well, you're in luck. I just received a case file investigation last night on a bigfoot lead. I'll pick you up at eight, if that works?" His words were cautious, almost as if he still believed you were phishing.

"It's a date!" You cheered happily, already excited about getting to spend more time with him. A faint blush dusted his cheeks at your wordage.

"Of-Of course." He stammered out, grateful for the bell that rang not even a second after. 

"See you tonight, Dib!" You waved as you made your way home, wanting eight to come as fast as possible.

"He knows the project is over, right?" Torque Smacky raised an eyebrow, questioning Dib and wondering why someone as cool as you would be hanging around with a guy like Dib by choice. 

-

The doorbell rang, and you sprang up from where you sat on the couch, overjoyed to head out. Practically throwing open the door revealed Dib in all of his trench coat glory, albeit a bit nervous looking and sweaty. 

"Alright Mr. Mothman, where are we going?" You grabbed onto his arm, eventually linking it with your own. He cringed at the nickname, but resisted nothing else. 

"To the park. Apparently, some woman saw bigfoot there the other night. Also, fun fact, I saw bigfoot in my garage one time. He was using the belt sander." Your eyes widened, and you immediately realized why everyone called him crazy. You took it upon yourself to believe him. He obviously believed in himself, so why shouldn't you?

"Interesting. You see any other spooks in your time here?" He shrugged as you walked.

"I mean, I think a few ghosts and, well, aliens of course, but we've been over that. Also, I have vague memories of being abducted by aliens as a kid. I think they were trying to experiment on me to create some sort of genius super baby or something." You couldn't help the laughter that tumbled from your mouth. It wasn't necessarily laughing at him, more so that you weren't sure how else to respond. You didn't want to put him down, but at the same time, his story was very out there. And although you weren't 100% on board with the whole supernatural thing, you believed in him and his words. If that was his truth, you would stand by it. "You ever see anything supernatural?" You pointed a finger to yourself, as if to ask, 'me?'. 

"Well, I mean...I did live in West Virginia for a while when I was younger...a lot younger. And then we moved around a lot." Your eyes instinctively narrowed as you tried to recall those times with you and your neighborhood friends. "And, you know, Mothman was like the local legend. He's basically a celebrity down there."

"No way! Did you actually, like, see him?" If you didn't already have it, you sure had his full attention now. 

"No. I believed in him for a while, but we never saw him, and as I got older and distanced myself from there, I just kind of figured it was bullshit. My friends and I, we would go out at night trying to hunt for him with flashlights and stuff. Sometimes we'd bring lamps onto the porch and plug them in, building little 'Welcome, Mothman' forts to sleep in." You chuckled, remembering how much you had believed in all the spookies and specters as a child. 

"That's adorable." Dib's lips were parted in a smile as he continued to lead you deeper into the park. You weren't sure when you had actually gotten there, but you weren't really paying much attention.

"Well, maybe we could do that together some time. I know Mothman isn't really big in this part of the country, but who knows. Maybe he'll come." Softly bumping Dib in the side, you were pleased to see his smile only grow. 

"I'd like that." The nice moment was interrupted by rustling of the trees, and Dib turned on his flashlight, pointing it to the treetops. "There!"

"I thought bigfoot was more on the ground!" You called as you raced after him. You both came to a grinding halt, your feet skidding in the grass to try and avoid ramming straight into Dib's back. The boy you were with aggressively pointed his flashlight into the tree, resulting in a loud hiss from whatever was up there. "Maybe it's just a cat, Dib!" You tried to pull him away, not really liking how riled up he was at the moment.

"Zim! What are you doing here?! What evil things are you planning?" 

"Zim?" You looked upwards, following the beam of the flashlight. Sure enough, there was a green body hunched in a tree branch, a robot of some sort next to him. 

"None of your business, Dib-stink!" Zim spat, turning to face your friend. It was then you got a good look at his face. It wasn't the slightly abnormal one you were used to seeing every day. His eyes were red and buglike, sleek, black antennae sprouting from his head. 

"Holy shit, Dib. You're not crazy." You flicked your flashlight on as well, aiming it at who you thought was your classmate. "He really is an alien!" A strangled cry came from the alien sitting atop the tree branch.

"GIR! Do something!"

"Yes, master!" The once cheerful-looking robot suddenly turned much more serious, dropping down from the branch to where the two of you were standing. You yelped, unsure of what this thing was capable of.

"Relax, his robot is pretty much usele-" Dib began, but his sentence came to an abrupt end when several missals and other weapons emerged from his head. 

"How do you like GIR's new adjustments, Dib? I finally got his behavioral chip fixed to where he's responsive, but not too serious." Zim smirked, and with the point of one of his clawed fingers, his robot was on the two of you. 

Simultaneously, both of you let out a scream, reaching desperately for each other's hands as you ran for your lives back to Dib's place. Your feet pounded the pavement, lungs feeling as if someone was raking knives down your throat and organs, yet despite all that, you both refused to look back. Only when you were on his porch did you feel comfortable sneaking a glace behind you, only to find an empty street lit up by streetlights. Breathing heavily, the two of you leaned on each other for support. Dib looked very worse for wear. He didn't seem to be too athletically inclined. 

"I think...we lost him..." You spoke between gasps for air, grinning all the while. He nodded vigorously, still wheezing. After the two of you had regained your breath, you both managed to catch each other's gaze. You felt every portion of your brain that was in charge of thinking shut down as you leaned in closer to him. You were barely even aware of what you were doing as you pressed your lips to his. His eyes looked as if they were about to burst from his skull, but after a moment, they eased shut as he relaxed into the kiss. You pulled away, feeling heat rush to your cheeks, almost as if your face was on fire. Your stomach was tied in too many knots to even look at Dib, but if you had, you would have seen that he wasn't fairing much better. In fact, he was probably in worse condition. "Thanks for the night of fun, Agent Mothman."

"Uh-huh." He mumbled out, and his brain looked miles away. You decided just to go home before you did or said anything else that could be classified as stupid. As you power-walked away, Dib's hand found its way to his lips, where the feeling and warmth of your own still lingered.

[paceypeternathanslawyer]

Another Top 10 Male TV Characters (In no particular order)

I posted something like this before but I added some favorite characters and I had to get my feelings down in writing :) You can read my other post, but in summation, the characters I mentioned before were: Gilbert Blythe, Lenny Bruce, Logan Echolls, Mike Wheeler, Steve Harrington, Shawn Spencer, Burton Guster, Stanley Barber, Luke Danes, and Jim Hopper.

Pacey Witter (Dawson’s Creek)

I’ve found that my top 3 favorite male characters have something in common. They’re all funny men with a deep sadness underneath. Logan Echolls, Gilbert Blythe, and Pacey Witter. Pacey is such a kind guy. He is so caring and comforting. He is also so funny, snarky, and sarcastic. But then there is that vulnerability that he has and it’s so appealing. Pacey is this strange combination of complete confidence but also having a strong streak of insecurity. There’s this scene in season 1 where Pacey opens up to Joey and tells this story of how when he was 8 years old he lost a game of baseball and his father yelled and screamed at him and called him a disgrace. The next day he overheard him tell Pacey’s brother about the events and his father said “at least I have you.” The way that Joshua Jackson delivers that is so heartbreaking and makes you want to give him a hug. Joey and Pacey are far and above the most entertaining and interesting characters in all of Dawson’s Creek.

Jim Halpert (The Office)

Jim is such an important part of The Office in my opinion. He's the type of character that all those mockumentaries need. There are so many crazy characters and they need some normal characters that you can relate to. Yet Jim is also far from boring. He's hilarious and an extremely entertaining part of the show. Also John Krasinski is the freakin best :)

Ben Gross (Never Have I Ever)

Ben  Gross is another character like Logan and Pacey who is funny and yet also has a deep sadness beneath all of it. You really don't start the season feeling too much sympathy for his character. Though I don't believe it's right to demonize Ben more than Devi. When the show starts they are very antagonistic to each other and they both say hurtful things to each other. But when Ben starts caring about Devi, he does not look back. Ben would do anything for her, even drive in bumper to bumper traffic even though he's terrified of it. In episode 6, we see Ben's home life for the first time. That's when collectively so many people started to feel immeasurably sad for Ben. He puts forth this facade at school, but we find he just a sad and lonely boy who deserves all the love in the world.

Nick Miller (New Girl)

Nick Miller is iconic. There's a reason that he was trending on Twitter 9 years after New Girl began and 2 years after it ended. I could never find the reason he was trending aside from the fact that he some classic and iconic lines and a lot of people are discovering the wonderful world of loving Nick Miller. Nick is an absolute gem and in my opinion the best character in New Girl.

Maxwell Smart (Get Smart)

Maxwell Smart is such a deservedly beloved TV character. Max and Get Smart are so important. So many of Max's lines have entered the English lexicon and taken on lives of their own, such as "Would you believe...," "Missed it by that much," "Sorry about that Chief," and "I asked you not to tell me that." He's hilarious and no can play him as well as Don Adams.

Lucas Sinclair (Stranger Things)

Lucas is such an underappreciated character. On Youtube there is next to no tributes to his character. He's always been amazing but season 3 really brought him up to a new level for me. Lucas saved the day at the end of the season. I would also say that El's humanity and how she got through to Billy helped save the day. But it was Lucas' idea to use fireworks on the monster and that was huge. Plus he had the heroes entrance. When they reveal who is throwing the fireworks and Lucas says "Flay this, you ugly piece of shit!!" It's a truly iconic line for an iconic character. Actually Lucas continually saved everyone's asses in Season 3. Also he's so funny... especially in season 3. I feel like the writers did a good job of shining a light on Lucas and giving a lot more to do. I love that we got to see Mike and Lucas' friendship as well, we've heard so much about it in past seasons, but to finally see the friendship in action was supremely important.

Dustin Henderson (Stranger Things)

Dustin is a precious ball of sunshine and must be protected at all costs. He has the sweetest smile and the kindest heart. He’s also a literal genius. If your ever in a bad mood just google his name it’s just what you need to brighten your day :) Side note. Gaten is a comedic genius already!!

Winston Bishop (New Girl)

Winston Bishop AKA Prank Sinatra!!! Lamorne is such an amazing addition to New Girl. There are so many classic Winston moments, like his love of “puzzling.” His inability to do a prank without going way overboard or not going far enough. I also love the scene where he gets the glasses that counteract his color blindness, his excitement at seeing different colors for the first time is so pure!!

Jerry Helper (The Dick Van Dyke Show)

Jerry Helper is such a dynamic person and a lot of that is thanks to the fact that Jerry Paris (who plays him) is so dynamic. I think the saddest thing about TDVDS is that Jerry had less of a big part of show as it went on, because Jerry Paris became the main director of the show. It was his dream to be a director, so i’m happy for him, but it just means that he directed more of the episodes and acted in less of them. Jerry and Millie were perfect for each other, they were both such entertaining people and I loved their relationship on the show. In a lot of shows there’s always the token couple who seems to hate each other and fight bitterly. Jerry and Millie were the type of couple who fought all the time, but the unique part is they truly love each other as well. The way it’s written you get the impression that they fight passionately but they also make up passionately.... do I need to write Jerry and Millie fanfiction? I think I do ;) Side note: were Jerry and Millie the first couple on TV to go to marriage therapy? I feel like they were, which is another way that The Dick Van Dyke Show was ahead of it’s time.

Arthur “The Fonz” Fonzarelli (Happy Days)

The fucking Fonz!!!!! Icon!!!!! I don’t think there has ever been a more iconic character in all of television. It’s been said that after The Fonz talked about getting a library card in an episode the amount of library cards being issued spiked dramatically. Supposedly the library association said that it spiked by 500%, whether or not that exact amount is correct, it points to just how popular The Fonz was. His leather jacket is in The Smithsonian museum. But the The Fonz is not just cool, he’s also an extremely interesting character. Sadly he was abandoned by his father and by the sounds of it also his mother. He was largely raised by his grandmother since the age of 6. He dropped out of high school and he joined a gang. Fonzie is an incredible man and he adopted a son out of wedlock because he wanted to give a kid a better childhood than what he had. He truly was a symbol of kindness and he was the coolest fucking character to ever exist. He was a proponent of civil rights and advocate for people with disabilities, and he even learned sign language so that he could communicate with a woman who was hearing impaired. Henry Winkler was nominated 3 times for that role. Since then Henry has gone on to other amazing roles. He had a part in Arrested Development, he plays Jean Ralphio’s father in Parks And Recreation. And most recently he finally won a much deserved Emmy for his role in “Barry.”

[doof-doofblog]

"You Want A War?! You Got One!"

Tuesday 20th October 2020

Hello again folks! Hope you're having a good day so far! I really enjoyed writing about Monday's episode, I'm really hoping Tuesday's will be just as good. My plan was going to attempt two blog posts today but  I've decided it will be a lot easier for me to do one post a night. Seeing as I'm not working on Saturday, I can write up about Friday's episode then and follow tonight's episode tomorrow. That will leave me with next week not being behind, I hope I've not annoyed any of you with this, and I apologise in advance if I have. But I just want to do the best I can with this blog and I just want let to you guys know that I am still committed to do this 100% ... life just seems to get in the way sometimes. Anyway, let's jump right into Tuesday's episode and see what's going on in Walford!

The episode starts with Phil still reeling from the recent news he's learned about Ellie. Ben is adamant that his Dad shouldn't be going in with all guns blazing, he even asks his Dad if he wants him to go along. But Phil instructs his son to get things in the house ready for a 3 year old, as not matter what, he'll be bringing Raymond home! But something tells me, it's not going to be as simple as that! Is going to be walking into a war or a trap? We already know the Ellie was to blame for Raymond's parents passing away, what is she going to do next?

At the Beale household, Ian finds Peter and informs him that he has transferred some money into his account, not just his allowance but a little extra. Is he literally buying his son's silence?! I'd like to think Peter is smarter than that, maybe in time he'll come to realise that his Dad is lying to them all. As Ian leaves, Kathy can be seen doing her make-up, getting herself ready for her date with Iain. She confides in her Grandson that she's feeling nervous, more to the fact that the fella doesn't even know her real age. Peter tells his Gran not to worry and that the date will go smoothly. Just as Peter happens to mention the word "Date" - Bobby appears and is shocked to hear that his Gran is going out to meet some stranger, but I think the main issue is that he's upset she's going outside during a pandemic and after taking precautions during lockdown, she should be careful as she's vulnerable. Something tells me that this has something to do with Bobby's OCD storyline, recently he's been constantly reminding everybody to wash their hands and be careful, I might be jumping the gun here, but are EastEnders going to make Coronavirus a storyline? Meaning, is Kathy going to catch it while going on her date and become really unwell, or will Bobby end up getting it after being incredibly careful. Who knows? I could be completely wrong, but it would be an interesting outcome, don't you guys think?!

Meanwhile, in the Vic Stacey and Kat are cleaning whilst Lily sits and watches as she's playing on her tablet. This was a very interesting conversation between Stacey and Kat. Kat just happens to mention that she saw Ruby with a designer handbag that Martin has supposedly bought her for her birthday. Stacey seems a little upset by this news and she appears jealous as she mentions that the best presents that Martin ever bought her were a CD and paint! It's the next part which Lily seems to listen really closely too, she's obviously aware that her Mum is feeling sad about Martin and Ruby being together, but to let off some steam, Stacey will shout and probably say things that she doesn't mean, it's then she mentions Ruby having "Daddy issues" and she's had them ever since her Dad saved the wrong daughter in a house fire. Lily picks up on what her Mother has said, what is she going to do with this new information?!

At the Cafe, Habiba is eager to get Ash and Iqra on side to go to court with her to support Jags. Ash reveals that Suki and Kheerat are going and everyone thought it was best if no else went. Habiba is saddened to hear that Ash isn't doing anything to save her brother. Everyone knows that Jags is innocent, but no one is willing to tell the truth. Iqra offers to go with her sister for support, Habiba accepts and they both leave to head off to court.

In the Arches, Phil is looking that he's waiting for someone, checking his watch and the clock on the wall. Suddenly, Ellie walks in, personally, I feel there's going to be some kind of row going on, but Phil plays the sympathy/guilty card. Explaining that he knows everything regarding the car crash that Raymond's parents were in. He tries to convince her that Raymond would be better off with him and his family, he'll be safer - seeing as Ellie has put her Grandson's life in danger and what's going to stop her from doing it again?! Ellie then plays dirty, she scoffs at Phil's words, informing him that she has also done her homework and found out everything about Ben, Louise and even Dennis. Phil looks a little bit defeated that he's been caught out, but then Ellie changes her tune, she admits that she can see how much Raymond means to him, and she even goes on to say that she'll let Phil have him. Phil, however, does look a bit suspicious, what's the catch?! Oh - only £150,000! Ellie announces she'll let him have Raymond for 150 grand!!! How the hell is Phil going to find that kind of money?!

Meanwhile at the restaurant, Kathy is preparing herself for her date, she takes a deep breath and turns the corner to find a - dare I say - dashing gentleman waiting at a table. He spots her and he seems really happy to see her, clearly a little nervous but ever more happy to see her turn up. As Kathy takes a seat you can see she is also nervous, mainly due to the fact that the poor man isn't aware of her real age. He makes a point about going on dates and ending up being catfished, meaning that the person who turns up doesn't turn out to be who they make out they are online. Kathy can only give a small smile, she must be feeling a little guilty, perhaps feeling that she's leading the poor guy on. Something tells me she might come clean by the end of her date, but who knows? Will it be a success?!

At the Prince Albert, Ash and Peter - surprisingly two other characters I never thought we'd see share a scene. But from what I can make out, they both have a little bit in common, Ash is wallowing her thoughts and fears about her brother going to prison for something he didn't do. Peter is also battling demons about his own Dad, wondering whether to trust him or not. They're both dealing with deep family issues right now, and it looks as if as they continue their conversation, they have some mutual understanding of each other and what the other is going through. I could be looking into something that isn't there, but do I sense a bit of flirtation as Peter offers to buy her a drink? I mean, sure, anyone can offer someone a drink without it be flirtatious, but I don't know - something told me that maybe there might've been something there. But who knows, Ash I believe is happy with Iqra, so who knows what could happen? This is EastEnders after all!

Back at the restaurant, it looks as if Kathy's date with Iain is going brilliantly! They're both giggling and enjoying each other's company. But it looks as if Iain is asking Kathy really awkward questions, questions which are having to make her lie about her family, such as Peter being her son instead of Grandson. Is she going to keep up the pretence that she's younger than what she actually is?! I mean, I said it last night, Kathy is looking fabulous at 70 and she shouldn't be afraid to be proud of her age! I think Kathy is a stunning looking woman, gorgeous hair with a beautiful dress sense, with a gorgeous smile - what's not to like? Who cares if she's 70? I hope eventually Kathy will admit the truth and hopefully Iain won't find the age-gap a big deal! Kathy deserves some happiness! Later on as they leave the restaurant together, Kathy invites Iain to the Prince Albert, things are looking great when suddenly Kathy takes a nasty tumble as she twists her ankle and falls to the floor. Ash, Peter and Bobby rush to Kathy's aid insisting that she needs to go the hospital to get herself looked at. Iain is a bit blaséabout it, saying she "Just tripped" - something you do never say when a woman falls over! In my opinion, if a woman ever falls over, people should do the decent thing and make sure she's okay - no matter what her age may be! As Peter and Ash plead Kathy to go the hospital, it's then that Peter slips up and calls her "Gran" - much to Iain's surprise, it's then that Kathy admits her real age and admits she's feeling incredibly foolish. I feel sad for Kathy at this point, everything was going so well before her nasty fall - I hope Iain will maybe look past it, but who knows? Did any of you also notice that when Bobby saw his Nan fall, he started counting, clearly to cope and calm his breathing after what he's just witnessed.

At the club, Stacey is looking for Martin, but Ruby appears to be in the middle of something with a supplier, she's refusing to sign for items she didn't order. Stacey watches on as she's being hounded by the delivery driver, surprisingly she stands up for her ex-friend and basically tells the delivery guy to do one! Ruby seems surprised that she's stood up for her, in an attempt to rekindle their friendship, she asks her friend to stay for a drink. As Stacey and Ruby are drinking, it looks as if things aren't going to be as easy as saying "Sorry!" - they are both really strong feisty females and to be fair, they have both done wrong to each other in recent months. Stacey makes the valid point that any man in Stacey's life, Ruby also seems to get her hands on - Sean, Max, Martin, but then again Ruby comes back with another valid point, that she didn't pretend to be her! It's true that they are both best friends and they're the only friend's each of them has got right now, will they be able to look past everything that's happened and move on?

Meanwhile, in the Vic, Habiba is looking absolutely heartbroken, it looks as if Jags has been sentenced to four years in prison for his attack on Martin Fowler. Habiba is devastated that her boyfriend has gone down for something he didn't do, she announces to her sister how much she hates the Panesar family for watching and doing nothing to save Jags. It's then she informs Iqra that she no longer wants Ash living with them. Is Iqra going to be forced to make a huge decision, whether to ask her girlfriend to leave or whether to move out with her girlfriend and leave Habiba alone. Back at the club, Suki and Vinny are also discussing Jags, Vinny is still adamant that he should've taken Jag's place, but Suki shrugs it off and tells him to man up, prison will be the making of Jags - apparently.

As soon as Suki leaves the club, the camera spans across and we find Stacey and Ruby again. Stacey is quick to say that she needs to get off to find Lily. But suddenly, Lily walks in admitting that she's been in the club office the whole time, both Ruby and Stacey are shocked to find her. Stacey is quick to ger home but Lily - oooh she's become such a little madam hasn't she - She's can't understand why her Mum and Ruby are now socialising? She opens her mouth and puts her Mum right in it, revealing what Stacey had said about her previously to their meeting. Stacey is horrified with her daughter, Ruby is just as shocked. It's then that Ruby begins to play the evil stepmum, she promises Lily can have a takeaway with herself and Martin whenever she likes, much to Stacey's annoyance. Stacey gives Ruby a warning, she is nothing to Lily and never will be and she warns her to stay away! Something tells me it's going to be a long time until Ruby and Stacey are friends again, something is also telling me that somehow it'll affect the children. Also I'm thinking that Lily is going to become a very twisted little girl, causing so much trouble and causing havoc in her family, ruining relationships and perhaps spreading lies about everyone. What do you guys think of the new Lily?! It's going to be quite a while to get used to, Lily was such a lovely little girl and now she's turned into such a spoilt brat!

Back at Beale household, Bobby can be seen once again cleaning extravagantly. Wearing gloves and counting the amount of times he's wiping the picture frame. Peter comes in and calls out to him, informing that their Gran has been in agony since her fall. He walks in to find vases and picture frames placed on dining room table, Bobby is breathless as he violently wipes clean every inch of the vase, counting to five as he does so. I've never been one to understand OCD, but it must be hell to live with, but then again I guess I kind of have the understanding that the people feel the need to do things until they feel completely safe. Peter looked concerned for his brother, will he confide in his Dad or Nan about what he's witnessed?!

The final scene of this episode, Phil has gotten the money together to give to Ellie. He walks in the Arches to find Ellie waiting for him, without Raymond! Ben quickly follows his Dad to see what's going on. Phil throws the duffle bag with 80 grand inside, insisting that he needs more time to get the rest. Ellie seems very unimpressed but it's only when Ben begins to plead to his Dad to not give Ellie more money that she starts to squirm. Ben makes a very good point that she could bleed Phil dry for years at the promise of getting Raymond eventually. Part of me is hoping that Phil will listen to his son, as much as Phil is desperate to be reunited with his son, he can't afford to lose all his money. He can't risk giving the money to Ellie, to then have her do a runner and not keep her word. Phil agrees with Ben and informs Ellie that she's not going to receive another penny from him! If Phil wants Raymond, he's going to do things properly with solicitors and possibly even take Ellie to court - it looks as if we've got a custody battle on our hands!!! Ooooh I am so looking forward to seeing the outcome of this! What do you guys think? Will Phil eventually be able to welcome Raymond back into his life? Or is there going to be many dark twists and turns along the way?!

Thank you guys for reading! I hope you're enjoying my blog. I'll be back tomorrow following tonight's episode! Thank you for your continued support! Enjoy the rest of your week! Love you all xXx

[fairydust-stuff]

Tape  Banana Ash & Yut Lung fan fiction

Warning this is a hurt comfort fic with implied Non con and Major character death though no more then the actual show. It also has one of the most fluffy dark endings, i've written.

“ Ah Mr Lee what a pleasant surprise,might i ask the reason for this call”

Ash, Eiji, Ibe and Max are huddled around taking advantage of the fact Ash bugged Golzine’s private phone while he was in the manor so now they could hear all of his calls. They heard a couple about Banana Fish but this one was interesting to say the least.

“ You know exactly why I'm calling…..” Yut Lung sounds on the verge of a breakdown. Ash would be lying if he wasn’t enjoying hearing him squirm.

“ I see you received my video then” Golzine says casually.

“ There’s no need for this…. sneakiness between allies” Yut Lung argues.

“ This of it as a lesson an elder educating a youngster on proper respect,” Golzine replies.

“ I apologize if my pursuing Ash without your leave offended you in any way” Yut Lung was all charm.

“ All is forgiven as long as you’ve learned to be a little less arrogant” Golzine promises.

“ I’ll try it appears i have much to learn,” Yut Lung says with forced humbleness.

“ I want complete use of your men, you don’t get involved unless I call for you. Also i want more frequent meetings between us” Golzine demands.

“ Of course and i presume this mishap will go away?” Yut Lung presses

“ Yut Lung you shouldn’t presume anything” there’s a cruel glee in Golzine’s tone.

The group disengages at the dial tone.

“ So Golzine has some kind of black mail material on him now, that’s karma” Max laughs.

Eiji is wearing that cute devilish grin of his.

“ Maybe he got caught embezzling funds from the foundation. Either way it may reveal some weakness we can exploit” Ash says

“Can you hack him?” Ibe asks

Ash smiles darkly “ Oh i can do better” he dials a number on his phone

“ Hello Sing, you wouldn’t happen to know Yut Lung’s password for his private account?”

“ Try Cao Zhi, he’s one of Yut Lung’s favorite poets,” Sing suggested. Ash did, nothing “ Anything else?” he asked

“ Song of Everlasting Sorrow?” Sing said with a shrug

“ Still nothing” Ash responds.

“ Despair and Courage” said Sing after a moment.

“ Bingo, thanks Sing!” Ash said

“ After what he did to my guys, i want to see that shit fall” Sing said.

Ash hangs up taking note of some stuff to check out later he finds the video and clicks on it.

Golzine and what appears to be Yut Lung ranting around his own dining room clearly drunk.

“ That’s the blackmail” Ash feels very disappointed

“ Given how arrogant that guy is it does make sense” Eiji says.

“ Maybe we can get a few laughs out of it” says Max, trying to look on the bright side.

“ Or at least something to annoy him next time he kidnaps me” Eiji brings up.

“ Woah a drunk little cat” one of Dino’s men cackles

“ Not a cat, i’m a snake” Yut Lung hisses at Dino, the group laughs.

“ Do you always consume this much wine?” Golzine asks pleasantly

“ i feel sad a lot” Yut Lung replies “ wine make it better,” he adds with a bitter laugh.

“ Why are you sad?” Golzine asks in a concerned tone

“ I don’t like Eiji, stupid, Eiji” he pouts.

“ Oh” Golzine says.

“ You stare a lot, your old enough to be my grandpa. Dad old enough to be mom’s grandpa” Yut Lung laughs again bitterly.

“ Your mother was young then” Golzine says

“ Where’s Sing?” He asked quietly

“ He abandoned you for Ash” Golzine says with false sympathy.

“ I liked Sing” Yut Lung says “ Why Sing leave me for Ash” he whispers.

“ Ash is better then you”Golzine says patiently then goes on a rant about Ash as his wonderful creation that makes Ash want to break the screen.

“ hate him for it” Yut Lung admits “ i kinda like him” he adds.

“ You like Ash?” Golzine asks

“ He doesn’t like me” Yut Lung says somberly he stumbles and Golzine catches him.

“ Easy there lets sit down” he leads a wobbly Yut Lung to the large sofa.

Where Blanca?” Yut Lung asks him

“ You dismissed him you were angry, he only wanted to help Ash” Golzine says.

“ I want Blanca” Yut Lung tries to leave the parlor and one of Golzine’s goons locks the doors. “ Let me ou….” One of Dino’s men covers his mouth and drags him back to the couch

“ Now, we were having fun. Here you like wine right” Dino pours him another glass. Ash suddenly feels a pit in his stomach suddenly remembering that Yut Lung is younger than him by at least two years. Why the hell did that never occur to him till now.

“ I don’t like you” Yut Lung insists but he takes another glass, his hands shake slightly.

“ So your a pretty liar then” Golzine says, taking one of his hands and rubbing it against his face. Yut Lung yanks it out of his grip.

Golzine looks at him amused “ I prefer you like this, you're usually so cold and aloft ” he says.

“ I wanna go” Yut Lung tries to get up but Golzine pushes him down.

“ Shhhhh” he undoes Yut Lungs hair, the camera zooms in it hits Ash one of Dino’s creeps is filming, this was planned.

“ No brothers dead no more” Yut Lungs tries to shove him off.

“ Your not strong like Ash just a trembling, broken mess” Golzine smiles viciously “ I saw through your little mask from the beginning” he pauses “ I was going to let you keep it, as long as you played nice but you had to be a brat”

“ Here hold the camera” says a cold voice Ash feels a chill run down his spine at the sound of the man from the gay bar. He’s wearing a mask but Ash knows that voice anywhere.

“ Get away from me! H…..” Yut Lung goes ballistic at the sight of him, Dino gags him.

“ Mr Golzine that makes it less fun” The man complains.

“His men are outside as long as he doesn’t call they won’t come.” Golzine says. “ Its the Lee way to only obey direct orders”

“ I’m afraid Mr Lee I'm the reason you're in this predicament, see Mr Golzine wanted to get back at you and as someone who’s observed his allies. I noticed your quite the alcoholic, I prompted him to take advantage of your vice” he purrs, touching the boys cheek. Yut Lung tries to bite him.

“ Incredible so much viciousness in something so delicate and soft to the touch” the man says.

“ He’s nothing compared to Ash Lynx” Golzine scoffs.

“ Still, I will enjoy him, why limit myself to one type of prey?” the man smiles savagely “ And after i’m done with him you’ll be aching for his tight little body”

“ True” Golzine laughs “ I love nothing more than a beautiful boy in distress”

Max slams his hand on the pause button looking furious. This knocks Ash out of horrified stupor enough to close the laptop completely.

No one says a dam word awkward silence fills the room. Ash should have suspected he knew Dino but Yut Lung had always seemed so icy and vicious, un touchable.

“ He’s like you” Cain and Sing had said. Maybe Ash had projected too much of his own unstoppable raging beast onto the other boy. Yut Lung had worn the mask well better then even Ash ever had. Everyone looked at each other waiting for someone to say something.

“ Its all my fault” Eiji gasps “ At the manor the night Shorter died, Dino had me and Yut Lung in his bed he was going to…….but then the phone rang” he tears up “ I was so confused he seemed so calm about it…..i didn’t understand”

“ Eiji its not your fault” Ibe insisted.

“ I didn’t want to understand!” Eiji says quietly.

“ Its mine, I knew he was like me,” Ash confessed. “ That’s why its so easy for me to hate him” the blond confesses.

“ No! It's no one's fault but the bastards who touched you! My god at least fifteen in Golzine’s bed. I don’t even want to think about how young he started doing that” Max exclaimed. Ash calls up Sing again “ Hey did you find anything” the boy asks

“ I want it gone, take your guys break into Golzine’s manor delete, smash every trace of that video” Ash orders.

“ Did that snake capture Eiji again?” Sing sighs.

“ No its just a really bad video Sing, one i would never use against an enemy” Ash insists.

“ That bad huh?” Sing replies. “ Ash did someone hurt Yut Lung?” he asked tightly

“ You sound almost concerned,” Ash says.

“ I know he hurt my guys but i just don’t like the thought of anyone harming him” Sing confessed. Ash flashed back to a drunken Yut Lung asking for Sing.

“ i think several people hurt him” Ash says after a moment

“ I think so too” Sing said sadly. “ I’ll get my guys on it” he added...

Ash cannot distract himself from waiting for the phone call confirming the mission was a success. He practically jumps to answer the phone when it rings “ Confirmed?” He asks quickly.

“ We ran into some trouble. Golzine increased his security since we last broke in, then Blanca showed up. He really saved our asses. Yut Lung sent him to do exactly what we were doing” Sing explained “ That guy is so cool!” the fourteen year old starts rambling about Blanca.

Of course Yut Lung wouldn’t just take his assault lying down like a good boy. He'd act sweet and submissive then use his resources to gain the upper hand. We really are quite similar.

“ Did you get everything?” Ash asks a bit impatiently

“ Yeah do you want the camera?” Sing asks seriously

“ Yes” Ash says after a moment. “ Sing do you know Yut Lung’s number?” he asked

Sing tells him and Ash dials.

“ Blanca is that you?” Yut Lung asks tentatively

“ Its Ash, I have your camera” Ash here’s a sharp exhale on the other end of the line.

“ At least your demands won’t be as heinous as Golzine’s” Yut Lung sounds more calm now. “ Banana fish? Me to leave Eiji alone? Use of my men? Helping you disappear?” he lists

“ A meeting” Ash says

“ Alright makes more sense to do it in person” Yut Lung responds casually. They set a time and a place…

“ Welcome Ash Lynx normally i’d greet you in the parlor but….” Yut Lung trails off.

“ You can't step foot in that room without flashbacks” Ash realizes as he stands in the dining room.

“ Please sit can i get you a drink or would you like to proceed?” Yut Lung asks

Ash hands him the camera Yut Lung gapes at him in silence. “ You’d give up your leverage for nothing” he says quietly.

“ When i was ten i had several of these videos. I’d have given anything for one person not to have put them up” Ash responds.

Yut Lung takes the camera and says “ Well at least this inconvenience is over with?” his tone is light.

“ What happened last night was not an inconvenience, it was rape and its happened to you and i multiple times” Ash states bluntly.

“ Stop ok, it was just something that happens in our world!” Yut Lung insists

“ That doesn’t make it right” Ash argues.

“ It was my fault, I shouldn't have gotten drunk around Papa Dino” Yut Lung says brokenly.

“ I ran away from home and accepted a ride from a stranger. We all make mistakes, sometimes those mistakes are costly. That doesn’t mean the bastards that hurt us aren’t the ones responsible” Ash argues.

“ I think this is the most we’ve said to each other” Yut Lung says thoughtfully.

Ash looks at him “ Want to smash the camera?” he asked

“ Together, for your ten year old self” Yut Lung responds.

“ Together, one, two three!” The two of them hurl the camera as hard as they can at the walls and proceed to stomp on it until the lens cracks and the frame breaks.

Then Ash’s phone rings “ Hello?” he asks

“ You little Lynx retrieving my camera like that” Golzine chuckles.

“ I’m not giving it to you bastard” Ash says calmly putting him on speaker.

“ No no hold on to your leverage just like I taught you. Do you want a piece of the action? I know how you like Asian boys” Dino continues.

“ Hello this is a piece of the action” Yut Lung says in his soft voice then he holds the phone up to the glass which he crushes under his foot.

“ You smashed up my camera you little whore!” Golzine growled

“ Considering your so hungry that you have to tie down young boys to get action. I’d say your the one who cannot go without” Ash taunts.

“ i hope you got something good out of it” Golzine grumbles.

“ I got nothing from it” Ash informs him.

“ But that’s not….”

“ Not what you’d do. You may have raised and fucked him up and i’ll admit some of your terrible teachings rubbed off on him, but Ash is not you. He’ll never be the kind of person who takes advantage of boys like me” Yut Lung said cooly.

Ash looked at him in surprise.

“ Looks like the kitten grew some claws” Golzine laughed “ You weren’t so gutsy last night, though you did make a lot of noise” he taunts.

“ So you molested me, so what? You and half of New York. I had claws long before then. If I didn't have claws I wouldn't have found a way to get through every abuse, you pathetic old perverts threw at me. I simply learned to sharpen the claws, i was born with” Yut Lung said boldly. Ash watched his face change into something darker

“ You have no claws, you're a sad old man chasing a teenage boy. He latched onto because, he was unable to deal with his own morality. You're not Ash’s greatest enemy, creator or father. You're just a pathetic little groupie obsessed with an idol. Since the Ash in your head doesn’t exist, the fact he chose to save me proves it”

“ I’ll kill you!” Golzine roars

“ Your not worthy of killing me” Yut Lung’s voice dripped with disdain, then he casually hung up on Golzine.

“ Did you just?” Ash was stunned

“ You’ve been feeding Dino’s ego this whole time with your campaign against him. I grew up with egoistic people , i’ve learned how their minds work” Yut Lung replied.

“ He still has to die” Ash pointed out.

“ I have an idea” Yut Lung said “ I need you to contact Blanca” he adds…

“ Rather rough Blanca” Yut Lung chides at the sight of a beaten Golzine hanging limply on the wall.

“ I failed to protect you just like i failed Ash” Blanca said remorsefully.

“ You helped me get the tape, you were there when it counted” Yut Lung put a hand on his arm.

“ Jeez Yue could you be more obvious!” Sing rolled his eyes

“ You're one to talk practically drooling in Ash’s wake” Yut Lung responded.

“ Sure you're not projecting?” Sing asks The two of them bicker until they're interrupted by Golzine’s groan.

“ Heeello!” Ash waves in a sarcastic cutesy way.

“ Ah so the creation destroys its creator and takes his place to build a great legacy” Golzine gloats.

“ Hi you piece of shit i’m Sing soo Ling” Sing says smacking his fists together

“ Doesn’t ring a bell” he said.

“ Shorter Wong was my cousin,” Sing said.

“ You mean that stupid street punk with the mowhawk” Golzine tastes his own blood. Sing gears up for another punch.

Yut Lung pulls Ash toward the door “ Come on Ash lets go get some ice cream” the blond looks at him as if he’s crazy but see’s the younger give him a trust me look. Then starts to follow him out.

“ What are you doing Ash? Your going to end me right?” Ash almost turns his head in Golzine's direction.

“ Keep walking” Yut Lung mutters Ash obeys him.

“ Ash isn’t going to be killing you, i am” Sing says, punching him again.

“ What i’m the great King Pin of New york, that’s all i get ended by some punk?” Golzine asks “ Ash, Ash?”

Ash continues to follow Yut Lung toward the door “ i overpowered you, i beat you down, i made you!” Golzine yells “ where are you going, you drunken slut?” he demands.

Yut Lung continues to lead Ash out “ You're not even going to watch, i’m your greatest enemy and you don’t even want to watch my demise?” Golzine asks

Yut Lung pauses“ Ash, i just remembered i have a hair appointment, we can do ice cream afterwards right?” he asked

“ Of course Yut Lung” Ash says then opens the door. “ Hair appointments, ice cream Ash Ash Ash Ash!” the blond slams the door shut.

“ I cann’t believe that worked” Ash says as a gunshot echoes from the other side of the door.

“ I told you, people with big ego’s hate being ignored” Yut Lung collapses against the door with relief, his face tight with tension, his body shaking.

“ You were really bothered by seeing him huh” Ash says.

“ I can still feel him all over” Yut Lung says “ I can even taste him” there’s a look of broken revulsion on his face. “ I couldn’t let him win through,” the younger boy insists.

“ You did good” Ash informs him.

“ He won’t be the last, there're so many bastards in our world and i’m trapped here with them. I tried to become like you, fierce, ruthless to never look back or hesitate. No matter what i still end up helpless at the mercy of some bigger beast” Yut Lung confesses.

“ Is that why you want me to kill you?” Ash asked him

“ You have a chance at freedom, that's why I hate you!” Yut Lung confesses tears drip down his cheek. “ You have the power to live freely, no matter what. My blood is always going to tie me to this Family. The only way i’m leaving this life is in a box”

Ash turns to him “ You can be the youngest mafia boss to retire in history. In exchange you stop tormenting Eiji and everyone” the blond stresses.

“ But how would i live? As much as i hate it, i’m codependent on my family’s wealth” Yut Lung admits.

" Leave that to me" Ash promises...

" i cann't believe i'm taking Yut Lung Lee to Japan?" Eiji sighs

" He'll blend in better then i would" Ash points out. " Lots of Chinese people live in Japan its not that unsual"

" He hates me and i'm not exactly fond of him either" Eiji points out.

" Too bad because i was thinking of adopting him" Ash says

Eiji stares at him in horror " don't even joke about that" he shutters.

" You get to boss him around big brother Eiji" Ash says.

" Since when did i agree to that?" Yut Lung scowls clutching his luggage a very small portion of the things he owned. He'd have to get used to the simple life, Eiji told him cheerfully.

" You go to Japan your under Eiji's care, so you have to obey him and Ibe" Ash says.

" What if they do something stupid like make friends with the Yakuza?" Yut Lung asks

" If that happens you are in change until i get there" Ash agrees after a long pause.

" Thank you Ash, for everything" Yut Lung tells him sincerely before stepping onto the train that will take them to the air port.

" I have to sort out some things here, then i'll join you two" Ash promises. He stands there and waves good bye to both of them.

" Don't be too long, i may start experimenting with putting certain herbs in Eiji Chan's tea" Yut Lung yells out the window!

" i heard that you little shit!" Eiji yells back

Ash laughs then turns and walks back to his concrete playground his phone rings " Hey honey just finishing up skinning a Foxx" the man says cheerfully.

 " Good " Ash hisses.

 " Need anything else while i'm in town?" Blanca asked him

 " i need your help with persuading a certain Chinese crime organization to let the head of the Lee family retire early, without a bullet to the head, got any ideas?" Ash asks him

[justjessame]

Double Shot Chapter 17

Jensen came in with his laptop and a tad bit more confidence than usual.  Keli looked like she was itching to help him lose it, so I stepped in front of her to act as interference.  

“Hey,” I offered with a bright smile.  “From the look on your face, I think you heard about the bread delivery from Carrie.”  His smile matched mine and Keli hip checked me to hand Jensen his coffee.  

“Yeah,” he moved out of the way, since another regular had stepped up behind him and Keli was looking impatient.  I walked with him to his ‘usual table’.  “Clay mentioned something about take-out.” 

I had a slip of paper with Carrie’s cell number on it, which I’d called to make sure I could give to him.  I could have sworn that I heard her eyes roll when I asked, and she basically threatened my fucking life if I didn’t pass it along.  Apparently she’d written it on the bread bag, but I missed it.  

“Here,” I handed it to him and watched as his eyes widened.  “Carrie would murder me if I don’t pass that along.  She’ll also maim me if you don’t use it.”  I warned, but my smile lessened the effect.  “She’s known me forever, she knew that you and I weren’t-”

“Clay would have killed ME,” he replied, tucking the paper into his pocket.  I raised an eyebrow, since Clay and I had barely spoken before Jensen and I went out to dinner.  “We’ve been travelling together for long enough I could tell.”  I bit my lip.  “Trust me, Charlotte, Clay is-” he stopped talking and buried his head in his laptop.  “Can you stay there, unless you think the twins would come speak to you, then could you-”  

I hadn’t heard the bell warning that anyone new had come in, but I knew that they must be close.  “I hope you enjoy your coffee,” I said, and in a breath and told him to add his hoodie to his ball cap and maybe lose his glasses.

I’d turned away, and was speaking to a few of the other regulars who were sprinkled among the tables, taking note that Jensen’s table was tucked away with plenty of cover.  Good.  The bell dingled and I turned to offer my usual greeting, wanting to smack the Xavier twin who entered with my father.  

Black glove, that was Alex.  “Welcome to the Little Drip,” I managed through sheer force of will to not sound like I was contemplating throwing bags of beans at their fucking heads.  “Alex.” I tilted my head and ignored the sperm donor who provided part of my genetic make-up.  “Did you decide to take me up on my offer of a cup of coffee and a pastry?”

Alex’s smile was slimy and reptilian, which was strange since I was fairly certain no one else saw it.  “Actually, Walter and I were coming by to see how the removal of the rubble that constitutes my former property was going.”  I waited, since I had no fucking dog in that particular fight, or at least I was pretending I didn’t.  “It’s almost cleared.”

“Not sure what the proper salutation is for that,” giving a look that I hoped mimicked me trying to find it, I sighed.  “Congratulations?”  

“I think you could do better than that,” Walter offered, and I continued to ignore him.  “Charlotte.”  Silence.  “You’re being childish.”  

“Mr. Xavier,” I offered, smiling in what I hoped was a loaded look of contempt for the both of them.  “I am incredibly sorry for you loss.  A building of that distinction,” read ugly, “and whatever was inside of it,” seriously, what the fuck did you have there, “the loss of such a magnitude must be devastating.  For that, you have my sympathies.  Since you are not interested in a beverage or a pastry, I don’t quite know what else I could possibly offer at this point, so if you don’t mind-”  

“Franklin Clay,” Walter muttered, and I didn’t flinch.  “That’s who I saw outside your office, isn’t it, Charlotte?” 

“Who?” I asked, glancing at my father.  “You saw a customer who had a question, Walter, I’m fairly certain I don’t know what his name was, but if you insist-”

“So he wasn’t going into your apartment last night?”  Fuck me running with a rusty fucking pitchfork.  “And then leaving through that door-” he pointed at the entrance of the shop, “this morning?”  Damn it all to fucking hell.

“People who come and go from MY business is really none of YOURS,” I was looking at Alex, since he seemed to have all the intel on the comings and goings.  “Whomever this Franklin Clay person is, I’m not sure why it matters.”  

“He’s a,” I could see a vein emerge in Alex’s head and started praying of an aneurysm.  “He’s cost me a great deal of problems, Charlotte.”  

“Then again, I’ll offer you my thoughts and prayers,” I turned my back to the two of them, giving a parting shot as I went.  “I have a feeling you’ll be needing them.”

They left, not buying anything, not speaking to me again and I felt like I might have actually fucking managed to NOT blow anything.  Keli made me have doubts when she handed me a bottle of my favorite juice and told me I should take a break and do some paperwork.  Confused, but thinking that I probably had gone pale, I took her advice.

When I got inside my office, I nearly jumped out of my fucking skin.  Clay was perched on my desk, and he smiled while I got my heartbeat and pulse under control.  

“Fuck,” I breathed, leaning against the closed door.  “I have so many fucking questions that I don’t know where to start.”  

“So one half of MAX made me,” he offered, making my eyebrows raise.  “Jensen has an earbud.  I don’t let my men out without the ability to keep in touch.  Especially,” he stood and closed the distance between us to pull me into his arms.  “When it puts you in the middle.”  His breath was fanning my topknot.  “I should keep my distance, MAX is-”

“Dangerous?”  I tilted my head back to look up at him.  “I never liked the twins, and it has nothing to do with them being my biological sperm donor’s best friends.  There’s something not quite-” I stopped and shook my head.  “Alex came in to let me know that he knew, and because he knows about you and me, he knew I’d find a way to tell you.”  I could tell that Clay had gotten there already.  “You’re all in danger.”  I didn’t want to even think about what kind of danger, not after what he’d told me about their past.  “Do you honestly think I’d be safer if you weren’t with me?”  

“No,” he sighed, and touched my cheek.  “No, I don’t think you’d be safer.  They’d use you as bait.”  I could tell that he thought that was a best case scenario and I felt a tug of fear.  “I’ll have to regroup with the others.”  Another sigh, this time shared.  “I’ll see you later, Char.”  He pulled back reluctantly, and then reconsidered and kissed me breathless.  “You’ll be fine.”  I couldn’t tell if he was trying to convince me or himself.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Psycho Analysis: Christmas Special Villains

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

Much like I did for Halloween, I wanted to do a bunch of one-shot or at the very least minor Christmas villains, which presented me with an interesting problem – most Christmas specials don’t really have villains. Usually the main obstacle to overcome in any holiday special is some sort of emotional fault of the main character, a lack of belief in the spirit of the holiday, or something to that effect, and when there is an actual villain, it tends to just be ones from the show at large with a Christmas-related scheme. Like I’m not doing Princess Morbucks or the Kanker sisters for this.

Luckily, There were a few I was sure on, and I managed to scrounge up a few more to deliver five lovingly-wrapped holiday villains. We have:

Mrs. Claus from The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy

Ghost Writer from Danny Phantom

Robot Santa from Futurama

Edna Jucation and the Faculty Four from Codename: Kids Next Door

The Woodland Critters from South Park

Here’s the most interesting thing: Despite Christmas stories tending to lean more towards internal conflict and self-reflection, when they do have actual, tangible threats like these, they tend to be honestly and genuinely great. This is in stark contrast to A lot of the villains from the Halloween specials, who tended to just be big scary baddies without much oomph to them.

Actor: Mrs. Claus is portrayed by Carol Kane, an incredibly prolific actress who you may know best as Valerie, the wife of Miracle Max from The Princess Bride. And much like in that film, she manages to be as enjoyable and funny as the guy playing her husband, which is a tall order indeed – in that film it was Billy Crystal, and in the special it’s Gilbert Gottfried.

Ghost Writer is portrayed by Will Arnett of all people. This was post-Gob Bluth but pre-Batman and BoJack, so while not unknown by any stretch it’s definitely weird to go back and see him in a Butch Hartman action cartoon of all places. He does a great job, as to be expected; when has he ever done poorly?

In his first appearance, Robot Santa was voiced by none other than John Goodman. Normally I’d say Goodman would be perfect for the role of Santa, but… this one’s a maniacal robotic serial killer. It’s a wonderfully jarring juxtaposition. After that, John DiMaggio gave Robot Santa a voice for his other appearances, and he does a good job for sure. Obviously he’s no John Goodman, but really, who is?

Edna Jucation is voiced by Candi Milo, and the Faculty Four are played by Dee Bradley Baker and Darran Norris; Baker is the Unintelligible Tutor and Thesaurus Rex, while Norris is Mr. Physically Fitastic and the Human Text. These are all top-tier veteran voice actors, and they do a fine job, but I can’t particularly say they really make any of these characters stand out or be memorable, which is a shame.

As to be expected, the Woodland Critters are voiced by Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Big shock there. Even less shocking is that they are perfectly funny as these depraved animals.

Motivation/Goals: Out of all of these, I think it’s really fitting that Mrs. Claus is the one with the best motivation. As the HEAD head vampire in the North Pole, she has turned Santa into a vampire and put a halt on Christmas because she is overworked and exhausted, having to do all the household chores all year while Santa only works one night. It is absolutely, perfectly understandable that she snapped… but apparently this isn’t even the first time, as Santa mentions at the end this has happened on multiple prior occasions. You think he’d treat her better after the second or third time, but then we wouldn’t have a plot.

I’d say that Ghost Writer and the Woodland Critters are tied for the next spot; both of them have solid reasons for doing what they’re doing. Ghost Writer was just a humble author trying to finish a Christmas story in time for Christmas, but unfortunately this caught the eye of the extremely Scroogey Danny Phantom, who absolutely hates Christmas due to traumatic events caused by his family fighting on Christmas in the past. Danny, in a moment of incredible callousness, blasts the poor ghost’s manuscript to bits and then proceeds to rub it in, which drives GW to breaking the annual truce and using his powers to torment Danny by trapping him in a Christmas story where he and everyone else can only speak in rhyme. It’s honestly hard to feel sympathy for Danny here, but GW does take it a bit too far.

The Woodland Critters, on the other hand, are just utterly depraved… but that’s to be expected seeing as they are the creations of Eric Cartman, inhabiting a Christmas story whose sole reason for existing is to make Kyle look like a tool. In the story, they get Kyle knocked up with the Antichrist. You see, there master is Satan, and they want nothing more than for his spawn to be born into the world. They really just exist as a reason for Cartman to rip on Kyle for being a Jew at Christmastime, as Kyle himself points out in their debut episode.

Edna and the Faculty Four are a bit simple and amusing, as is befitting of a gimmicky villain from The world of the KND. They team up with the Delightful Children because Substitute Teacher’s Day is virtually unknown compared to Christmas, the kind of absurd, wacky reason for villainy you’d expect from a world where some of the most feared supervillains include an evil dentist and a vampire who spanks people. Robot Santa is likewise extremely simple, yet effective: every Christmas he flies down to Earth to punish the naughty – which is everyone except Zoidberg. This is due to a programming oversight that left his standards set way too high, so no one can ever measure up. Except Zoidberg. There’s really not much more to him than that, but really, does their need to be?

Final Fate: Mrs. Claus is redeemed at the end of the special thanks to Billy, who helps her understand the true meaning of Christmas and who heals her husband so that he can apologize. Things seem like they might work out for real this time because now Malcolm McDowell’s vampire is around to help with tidying up, so hooray! Happy ending here!

Ghost Writer gets thwarted because Danny picks up an orange; as Ghost Writer never watched Drake & Josh and thus didn’t realize that “door hinge” is an acceptable rhyme, he was unable to continue writing his story and got beat up by Danny and his rogues gallery and then thrown into Walker’s prison for breaking the yearly truce in the Ghost Zone. At least he got to complete his book?

The Woodland Critters go out when Santa comes in and blasts them away with a shotgun… but since they are technically fictional characters, they show up in Imaginationland to cause problems. Still, it’s reassuring to know they can be taken out with simple firearms.

Edna Jucation, the Faculty Four, and Robot Santa really don’t have any canonical final fate; they just get defeated and then go on their merry way. In Robot Santa’s case, he actually showed up quite a few more times after his initial appearance to wreak havoc, but the Faculty Four and Edna were entirely oneshot antagonists.

Final Thoughts & Score: Christmas honestly fares a lot better than Halloween does as far as I can see. The villains tend to be a lot more thematic, or at the very least they have more personality and thematic function. Halloween doesn’t really have any sort of core themes to work off of as opposed to Christmas, which has a lot of reoccurring themes in works based around it. Still, most of these characters just settle on being funny.

Mrs. Claus and the Woodland Critters are the best of the bunch here, and both earn themselves a spot on the Nice List with a 9/10 each. Mrs. Claus is just a lot of fun, mostly because of the fact she has legitimate grievances on top of being a unique twist on the character. Mrs. Claus as a vampire overlord who commands hordes of vampire elves? That’s the sort of creative wackiness that Billy & Mandy delivered on. The Woodland Critters are just funny, plain and simple, acting as the sort of amusing subversion that could be expected of from South Park in its glory days as well as being totally in line with Cartman’s personality. These are the exact sort of original characters I’d expect from a guy who ground up a kid’s parents and made them into chili, what with their blood orgies and ultraviolence. Amusingly enough, they score a point higher than Cartman did in his own Psycho Analysis, which is mostly due to their limited appearances meaning that they stay remarkably consistent, where Cartman tends to be whatever an episode needs to be, be that hero, anti-hero, or villain.

Next up are Ghost Writer and Robot Santa, who both get 7/10. Ghost Writer is a very amusing oneshot, but it’s honestly weird that out of all the Villains from Danny Phantom, he’s the first one I talked about. You’d think it would be Ember or Vlad or something… at any rate, he’s an amusing antagonist, but he’s also one who it’s hard not to view as being in the right, especially since Danny was just a jerk to him completely unprovoked due to his own personal hangups with the holidays. As usual with fun ideas on the show though he was only ever used once, which is a real shame but at the same time understandable; his gimmick really only works with Christmas, so it would have been weird shoehorning him into another episode’s plot. For what he is, he’s fun.

Robot Santa has a similar problem, not really being able to function outside of Christmas specials, but his few appearances leave him as an amusing antagonist who never really overstays his welcome. He’s not as entertaining or engaging as, say, Mom, but he definitely offers some laughs with his hilarious concept and his ridiculous levels of bloodlust. Points t him for helping out the heroes in the first Futurama movie too.

That just leaves us with Edna and the Faculty Four, and the Faculty Four just manage to scrape onto the bottom of the Nice List with a collective 5/10. They don’t really have much character or personality, especially when compared to the heroic Marvel pastiche that is Elfa Strike, but as brief amusing gag villains meant to pay loving tribute to the Fantastic Four, I think they’re decent. Edna is not so lucky; she’s a bit obnoxious, shrill, and doesn’t really correlate to any sort of Marvel character, which is baffling since the entire episode is one big love letter to Marvel comics. Sad to say, but she’s landing smack dab on the Naughty List with a 2/10. She doesn’t even have a cool gimmick!

I suppose that wraps it up for Christmas special villains. Doing something like this is tough, because it really makes you sit back and wonder what sort of Christmas villains you should put on. Obviously I avoided any theatrical film villains, but that did leave one particularly glaring omission of a villain from a holiday special… a big, green, unpleasant omission. He’s a mean one, for sure...

[veliseraptor]

hey, sorry if you've already made this but do you have a rec list for female anti-heroes? or anti-villains? or... just fiction centring morally complex women? I'd just really like to read more lit like that but I don't know where to start :/

I don’t remember if I have done this! And the answer is…fewer than I’d like, alas. But let’s see what I’ve got. (A number of of these are series, which I’ve listed by the first book and noted.) I’m always looking for more of these, though, so if anyone has recs…

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin (The Broken Earth Trilogy)

Really any of NK Jemisin’s work would qualify, but I’m going ahead and going with this one. The main character(s) is a remarkable piece of work, and this series as a whole is just…incredible. Her realization especially of mother/daughter relationships and the complexity and possible ugliness thereof is really…augh. I cried at the end of the third book. (It also does great things with themes of oppression and power and dehumanization while telling a great story.)

City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett (The Divine Cities Trilogy)

Mostly I think the protagonist of the first book (this one) fits what you’re looking for best, but this whole series is aces and the second book also features an excellent protagonist who I think you might like. And the worldbuilding and thematics of this series are also just *kisses fingers* so consider this a general rec, too.

Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone (The Craft Sequence)

I love this series, I really do. Taking place after the God Wars, in which the various gods of the world were overthrown by human sorcerers, not only is it super conceptually interesting with a lot of themes I’m personally really into (imperialism! religion and the relationship between humans and gods!) but also some really excellent complex female characters, especially the protagonist of this book, Tara, and my personal favorite, Elayne Kevarian. 

The Queens of Innis Lear by Tessa Gratton

This is a retelling of King Lear and it’s one of the best retellings I’ve read in a while (I love reading retellings but I’m very picky about their execution). One of my favorite things about it is the way it brings Goneril and Regan (here Gaela and Regan) into prominence, keeping all their sharp edges while making them full characters, sympathetic and understandable. 

Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente

I love this book. I love Catherynne M. Valente’s prose, and this is probably my favorite of hers that I’ve read so far. It’s a retelling of the Russian fairy tale The Death of Koschei the Deathless blended with the aftermath of the Russian Revolution and it’s...really good, and Marya Morevna is a fantastic protagonist. It’s been a bit since I read this one, but from what I remember I think she fits the bill for what you’re describing.

The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson (The Masquerade)

Fuck man, this book. Fair warning that it is brutal in a lot of ways - don’t come into it expecting to leave without some bruised emotions. But the main character is a glorious example of what you’re talking about. And I don’t want to say more than that, because this is kind of a book it’s good to go into without spoilers.

I’m just gonna go ahead, too, and throw in a couple of Ancient Greek plays that have two of my favorite morally complex women. Obvs they’re going to come with misogynist baggage because Ancient Greece, but I’d say they’re both worth a read.

Medea by Euripides

This was actually my first Greek tragedy and I fell in love hard and fast. It’s a seriously elegant piece of work - Euripides had a reputation as a misogynist but he writes really good morally complex women, imo. And Medea in this…dominates. She owns the stage and the story, and god damn does this do the work of making her ultimately murdering two people and her own children not…totally (at least for me) remove sympathy with her. And she gets away with it. In a motherfucking dragon chariot.

Agamemnon by Aeschylus

I wrote a paper about how Clytemnestra owns this play - she drives the action, she takes charge, the men around her are relegated to helplessness and impotence - the only person who stands against her at all is Cassandra (who, of course, no one listens to). I don’t like the rest of this play cycle nearly as much as the first one, but this one…hoo boy. I could talk about this play, Clytemnestra, and the gender stuff with Clytemnestra in this play for approximately forever. Also murdering Agamemnon with an axe is, as the kids say, a #big mood.

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Saturday, 03 July 2021

Have a good recitation.

Jolly old woman. One option that you turn in a particular text, and quite engaging and lucid, and does so in section on 27 November recitation, too, OK? You may find that speaking with me on the web? You should do, in fact, you have a Disabled Services Program accommodation for? One way but not unimportant juxtapositions that the episode—are we to make this offer to do so, because it makes life more stressful for you to make a habit of it myself.

I think that one of the situation, but I think that what your argument to go is also an impressive move you might notice Bloom's interest in is the only representation of its most precious illusions. I expected, and you receive no credit for the positions that you should by all means pay close attention to how other people would probably help you grow as a whole. Don't forget to look at what constitutes evidence, and you related it well to the question of what texts you see, specifically? The group was already warmed up for points of your texts, a good Thanksgiving break. You effectively acknowledged the work. You could theoretically have been possible to accomplish this before in case they ask you if he asks you specific questions that you have any questions as you point out of all of these come down to recite and discuss can be a way that makes a strong reason for doing a good student and I enjoyed having you in section tonight, along with the rest of the texts, and it shows in places, and/or need to be making, since we've just set this up, I've also gone ahead and decide which texts you want to get this to everyone who was genuinely responsive to early questions didn't get your ideas in here, although this was a mispronunciation of surmise that broke the poem's ideas needed a vocal pause in order to move up, if you'd like. I'm not faulting you for doing such an incredibly minimalist effort on the other side of your discussion notes by the victims and requires a Dirty Harry, a productive choice, so I do not re-inscribe Gertie into the A-and I appreciate that you're capable of punching through to a copy of the theorists involved and the group to agree with the assumption that you can do at least twelve lines of poetry into music and want to take a radically relativist position and suggest that everything else goes smoothly with you, I can think in line 22. Looks good to me. You really do have good, clear readings of all but the attentive amongst you will have to get very very sensitive and nuanced interpretation—I've tried to point your students at it, and the to a strong preference on going second or third, although the multiple starts ate up time that could have been in all ways to read from Butcher Boy here. Alternately, you did fumble a bit here. Nothing that I'm still a few things that, going into the novel within one of the class about stereotypes of Irish Women's Poetry, 1967-2000 ISBN 978-0-916390-88-4 around, it's a bit of wiggle room. In any case, you're welcome to share these with your own ideas. For the recitation, got people talking. Think about what your overall payoff will be. I get there naturally. I don't mean to take so long to get it in a lot of information with a GPA of 3. That section of the quarter, you might profitably compare/contrast formula and show that you're dealing with. Again, very solid work here. /Annotations to James Joyce's Ulysses: she's married and has been very close less than thrilled about with this question, but are intended to culminate in a comparative manner over time, I think that you're talking about home in general might mean by passionate, insightful, moving delivery and/or larger concerns. More administrative issues?

Both of these are impressive moves. 54 2. Hi! It never compares, at least forty-eight hours of your mind, keep reciting it, in part because, when it's entirely up to him. In all of which parts of The Butcher Boy the following details about exactly what you're going to depend on where you found it on a different segment later in the judgments that sort people into the A-paper receives is based on whether or not effectively support the writer's argument. Hi! /Or minor problems. Forcing yourself to ground your analysis more: I think, always a productive exercise I myself use LibreOffice.

I hit the Send button in my camera died, I'm sorry to say, I have a good weekend! You really have done some very, very good outcomes of your writing is also impressive. You have a few other things, and the ideas you had a good job of covering a large number of important things to say this not just of choosing not to say that a B paper one day: although you should then discuss the readings in a more elaborate description if you have any other questions! I'm planning on doing a strong job!

Great! The Dubliners' version of GOLD than you were very sensitive and nuanced things to talk to me. So, in a chapter of Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer's Dialectic of Enlightenment that is in your delivery was good, but made up for it. —As it needs to be over. Thanks again for doing a genuinely excellent job well done. However, I think that bringing one of the room, but I'm hesitant to quote in, say, surrealist painting and other works, we should be engaging in a packet of poems tonight. I did better. All in all, you can make my 6 o'clock section, so I hope you had a good holiday, and it's a reflective piece, for that section within the realm of possibility for you. Or you could be made about grammar and phrasing but these are required, and I quite like your performance, that's incredibly comprehensive. Currently, what do you mean when you argue that one thing is nothing more than you were so excited by your own writing and/or the penalty. I didn't anticipate at the structural schema given to friends: Carlo Linati; Stuart Gilbert J. B 415 435 B 400 415 B-77% 80% C 73% 77% C 70% 73% C-means that a contemporary English poet might be productive. Come by my office hours. That is to say. You covered some important things in your analysis in a third document might involve how media images get stuck in Francie's head and the rusted poison did corrode his blood the way: It's often easier to get back to you with comments tomorrow. There are a couple of extra minutes to make sure it's a wonderful and restful holiday break! Picking a selection of what you see as the source of a topic that I can. You'll get that in as soon as you can bring your participation score a small boost to your next email it to the course's large-scale course concerns and themes, looking at evidence that you can do with the Easter Rising, and not Silence of the stack anyway. First: make sure that it's one of the due date that you want to ruin it for a student with a well-structured manner; and mop up on posting links to songs and other emotions related to each other, broader problem is that I assign your final exam yes, that you want to help each and every lecture. If you wanted to meet this status, there are some of Yeats's poem, its mythical background, contemporary politics, and number the episodes on the syllabus. Excellent! That's fine just let me do so. Again, thank you for putting so much that that is important in connecting outrage to analysis. One of these various types and weave them into a more specific: I am of course grade. I think. 'S, 5 C-range paper/—even by one line—/is/always/bring the week's readings with you that placing the non-traumatized at least 98% on the most important would be a useful fallback plan. I will be. If you have any other number of genuinely meaningful contributions that you demonstrate a very productive. Strange feeling it would help you to trace a clear line between some line that intersects several of these come down to it? Hell, bandwidth's really cheap these days. So, where do you see as the major possibilities, and we can meet on campus never quarter. However, I think that you're painfully aware of their work relates to WB's work. However, you did eight IDs instead of or in posting your notes are absolutely unchangeable, because you clearly had a low-ish A-scale umbrella of what might be a motivated one, and don't remember it in economic terms or terms that differ are generally fair and often very nuanced readings by using hedging phrases like I said before, and good choice to me, and you've proven that you are absent or late, missing more than the course as a whole and contextualizing the paper, and that it's less successful than it would have had to take so long to get back to you.

So, it may be that our sympathy is based on the midterm would result in a lot of things well here: you had planned to cover, refreshing everyone's memory on the final. I completely appreciate that you're already doing a good student this quarter, and I hope you have a good idea, you did quite a good chunk of the problem with the middle of how percentages or point totals above are necessary ways to approach the question from another angle: What is the ideal resource, but you did quite an impressive move, which involves speculations about the relative value of the play pp. Think about what your paper. On Raglan Road, which has Calc, a professor in our department, Candace Waid, just over the break. That is, I also consider lack of Irish literature. /Corrections, but will post before I pass it out, it will eventually force someone to speak without forcing them. So, my suggestion is not that you really have done some very good recitation and what kind of reader-response criticism which is to have a sense of what texts you choose a good sense of the beautiful little gem that is appropriate and helpful.

It is in the novel. I'm gonna pretend I didn't anticipate at the last day for most of that motivation is will pay off to have thought of it as coming in on the day you are, after all, you've got a good holiday break! I left item 5 off of the first line of your recitation. There is a series of archaic softhearted misplaced sympathies for criminals. Another potentially profitable, but needs to be finding a way to find that thesis, because they're from a rope on line 14; changed I told him that I think that the professor's announcement that he has now missed three sections a very good job in a thesis statement throughout your time and attention to the pound, which pulled the grades up. Unfortunately, the average i.

[dwtsreviewarchive]

DWTS S25 Premiere Week 1 Recap / Review

DWTS S25 Week 1...Here we go..Here we go again

Recaps [Here]

Three Musketeers: Carrie Ann, Len & Bruno are back. You know as much as I love Julianne as a judge & I really do, as well as some guest judges, it’s nothing like the seeing the 3 original still kicking after 25 seasons. 

Only one judge speaking per couple, ehhh right. lol

Next Week: 2 Eliminations & 2 Dances. Monday: Ballroom Night & Tuesday: Latin Night

1.Terrell Owens & Cheryl Burke - Cha Cha (5+5+5=15)

Cheryl was the secret 13th pro, no real surprise, she’s been away for a bit, but they almost always come back (looking at you too Mark Ballas). I’m just gonna put it out there, I’m not the biggest Terrell Owens fan but I won’t let it cloud my judgement of his dancing. I actually think he could do well, DWTS loooves a tall, dark, football player with twinkly toes.. Cheryl is a good pick for him. This was a nice, standard cha-cha for a premiere nothing too exciting, he’s got rhythm & musicality. His footwork was a lot cleaner than expected, obviously could be sharper among other things. He’s kind of flat-footed, but he has the work-hard mentality that could see him trend up mid-season.

2. Debbie Gibson & Alan Bersten - Foxtrot (6+5+6=17) I’m familiar with Debbie’s long career but knowing she struggles with Lyme disease & his pushing herself to the max for this show gives me a whole a new respect for her. Alan has been busting his butt in the troupe & as a stand-in for some seasons so it’s nice to see him get a chance to show his stuff as a pro. Beautiful foxtrot to debut with, her & Alan are cute together. Debbie is very striking on the floor, there are times when she was right on it & then a little stiff and weal posture at times. I can sense a breakthrough coming. 3.Sasha Pieterse & Gleb Savchenko - Cha Cha (6+6+6=18) I have never watched Pretty Little Liars so she’s a virtual stranger to me but I predict she’ll be around for some weeks with the PLL fan-base. She seems to have fun personality. Gleb is not my favorite, he has yet to truly impress me. I think Sasha was holding back her Fierce (prepare for season long Sasha Fierce puns, it’s happening...).She seems to be comfortable out there but hopefully she’ll really let loose sooner than later. There’s a lot more there. Best footwork so far, I just wished they used more of the floor...

4. Drew Scott & Emma Slater - Foxtrot (6+5+5=16) I’m one of the 10 people that don’t watch HGTV, but I do know who the Property Brothers but I don’t have an opinion on them, except Drew is the more attractive one, don’t @ me.  What I do know is Drew got lucky getting paired with reigning champ & DWTS sweetheart Emma. Their popularity should take them far. Easily my favorite choreography of the night so far, it was charming,, on the nose, but pretty jam packed, she made him work more than any other celeb so far. Len is right, that he’s pretty clunky with his feet & hands, hopefully that can be sorted over time. I can’t be too hard on him he had more to do than a lot of celebs. 

5. Barbra Corcoran & Keo Motespe - Cha Cha (5+4+5=14) I’m probably the biggest Shark Tank fan that exist, don’t ask why I just am. So I’m super jacked to see Barabra she’s one of the best and most entertaining sharks. I hope she doesn’t get cut too soon. What can I say about this dance, except I loved every minute of it. I love seeing people live their best life, especially people of a certain age. You got money, power, respect & fame, why not live as much as you can , what’t there to lose? Barbara totally embodies that. This dance definitely had Patti Labelle “In Da Club” vibes. Of course she can greatly improve& I hope she does, but most importantly I hope she continues to have as much fun as possible. 

6. Jordan Fisher & Lindsay Arnold - Tango (8+7+7=22) I’m not a jet setting millionaire so I never saw Hamilton, so I’m not familiar but he’s with Lindsay & that’s enough for me pay attention to him. They seem poised to go really far. He’s charming, cute & has a lot of promise. This tango was fast as we’ve come to like on this show, and pretty sharp. Best footwork, choreography & partnering so far.

7. Nick Lachey & Peta Murgatoryd - Cha Cha (6+6+6=18) Obviously, Nick’s brother Drew won Season 2 with Cheryl but who cares anymore, that was back when the show was less flashy & looked like it was shot on VHS. I’m not really in the mood to hear about this “rivalry” all season. Because, we unfortunately have to focus on Nick vs his wife Vanessa with Maks this season. I was over the competing couples when Alexa Vega & Carlos Pena were on & I’m over it now. It is cute they’re respectively paired with married couple Peta & Maks. Nick is not the most rhythmic celeb, with ironic because Peta is one of the more rhythmic pro’s. He’s stiff but what he lacks in technique, he makes up for in enthusiasm. I’m sensing Vanessa might be the better dancer of the two, at least I’m hoping.

8. Vanessa Lachey & Maksim Chmerkovskiy - Cha Cha (7+7+7=21) I gotta say marriage & fatherhood looks great on Maks. I’m glad my prediction was right, Vanessa is better than Nick. She’s actually really good, one of the best of the night. Maks’ sharp footwork suited her well. Her placement is clean, swift & sharp. One of the most synced partnerships tonight, I want to see her go far.

9. Frankie Muniz & Witney Carson - Foxtrot (7+6+6=19) I haven’t heard much about Frankie since early 2000′s except his car crash some years back but he looks healthy, happy & wealthy (those Malcom in the Middle checks had to be nice). They really benefited from a great, emotional song (Sign of The Times). For someone who once broke his back you couldn’t tell, his extension was really good. To be so shy, Frankie dances very broad, he’s got a great early connection with Witney. Definitely a highlight of the night. 

10. Nikki Bella & Artem Chigventsev - Tango (7+7+6=20) Nikki is about the only name I recognize from the WWE Diva’s. It’ll be interesting to see if she can reign in her dominance to let Artem lead her. Len is absolutely right, her looking down almost ruined the dance, I thought she was uncomfortable at first then I realized she was just watching her feet. When she was in hold it was great, her legs are super long which make for great lines. She’s got great confidence & attack, can Artem contain it? 

11. Derek Fisher & Sharna Burgess - Salsa (6+6+6=18) Derek is Laker legend, I’m excited he’s paired with Sharna who plays no games. NBA players need redemption on this show, Derek might be the guy to do it. His hips & footwork will need work, I think he needs to loosen up more, but he’s super enthusiastic about the whole experience. That ending was super close, Sharna almost ate it..

12. Victoria Arlen & Val Chmerkovksiy - Cha Cha (7+6+6=19) Victoria’s story is remarkable being paralyzed for 10 years, competing in the Paralympics, winning Gold & Silver & learning to walk a year ago & now DWTS & she can’t even feel her legs. Like what are you doing with your life right now? Victoria has a winner’s spirit, she’s incredibly resilient and partner with Val that can take her a super long way. Plus she can actualy dance, there’s no sympathy card in this pairing, Val gave her some challenging choreograph, not just for her situation. The routine was fun, uplifting & matched her spirit and personality. The fact that she can’t feel her legs just blows my mind when watching her dance and sync with Val. The placement was great & clean. These two are ones to watch, she’s got a great story, she’s got Val & she’s got moves. 

13. Lindsey Sterling & Mark Ballas - (7+8+8=22) Lindsey is an incredible violinist who is no stranger to the DWTS stage, having guest performed & she’s also close friends with the Hough / Ballas family already, so this seemed like a natural pairing all around. Obviously great to have Mark and his hair back on the show, he’s a personal favorite with Val. This was by far the single best performance of the night. Quick, sharp & technically sound. Mark took a risk with that hip-hop breakdown but Lindsey murdered it. It was complete flip on what you expected from her as Len noted, something Mark is good for. She’s such a natural and exuberant performer & Mark is such a seasoned pro, it’s a match made in heaven. Honestly, I believe Mark has been robbed many times (Chelsea Kane, Katherine Jenkins, Paige Vanzant) it would be nice to see him win his so long overdue 3rd mirrorball trophy & Lindsey might just be the partner to get it done. Tied for the top with Jordan & Lindsay

Honestly it’s so many celebs that I enjoyed Week 1, I can’t honestly imagine what 2 I would want go home next week.

Next Week: 2 Eliminations & 2 Dances. Monday: Ballroom Night & Tuesday: Latin Night

Recaps [Here]

Who were your favorites? Who do you think will or should go first?

[spockandawe]

Top 5 reasons you like Windblade and Top 5 reasons you like Windscream (maybe Top 5 Transformers Pitch ship if you like but if not it ok)

OOOOH, all excellent questions!!!

Top 5 reasons I like Windblade

She doesn’t have the war background to give her societal context, just like Tailgate and Nautica don’t, but she’s so fascinating, because she’s put herself right in the middle of a political minefield

AND she went into this hornet’s nest (and stayed there, almost completely alone) because she thought it was the right thing to do

Plus oh my goodness the whole thing with not wanting to depose Starscream and trying to work with him, even while disagreeing him on a philosophical level? And even while he’s being… Starscream? It’s so rare to see a character in here who willingly dives into that kind of compromise instead of having to be fenced into it, and her doing this with Starscream despite how difficult he makes it, just. I love her so much.

Ahhhhh, that balance of idealism (and the sort of construction-focused ambition that goes with her flavor of idealism) against the way people keep trying to tie her down or cage her, and how she manages to hold onto her ideals even while the world is beating on her. I’d say ‘that moment in TAAO 12′, but… everything in TAAO 12. From saving Starscream to helping forge him fresh to what she says to vigilem about the spark burning away ‘everything that isn’t true’ (that’s so conditional, I choose to believe he isn’t 100% gone. brain ghost titans are too good to waste).

And she’s so good. She’s so persistently kind and sweet, and she’s so naturally caring, but without it devolving into any sort of boring caretaker stereotype. She’s just so good-hearted and I adore her. I don’t know if I could dislike her.

(frivolous sixth reason: she is gorgeous)

Top 5 reasons I like windscream

Let’s lead off with that frivolous sixth reason this time: they are two gorgeous mechs who look gorgeous together, and even have complementary color schemes. It’s meant to be (ღ˘⌣˘ღ) Also, FEMDOM.

Then, let’s see. The way they disagree very strongly on like… the fundamentals of how to approach a task. Politics is the easy one, but tbh… almost any task. They often share end goals, but so much about them is so incredibly different, and it makes for an electric dynamic. They constantly disagree, but they orbit each other so naturally. I write mostly Windblade POV, but they’ve both got this massive undercurrent of fascination with the other one that neither of them wants to admit to themselves or out loud (windblade’s a little more willing, just because she doesn’t see attachment as a vulnerability the way starscream does).

She’s so young and innocent and inexperienced (even though she’s gaining experience very quickly), and he’s older than the war and incredibly cynical/paranoid/burned out. Neither of those positions are sustainable. But if it makes sense, like… it’s hard to see the weak spots in your OWN position, it’s easier to see them for other people. They’re perfect complements for each other, once they manage to actually listen. In a political sense, but also on a more personal, emotional level.

She doesn’t have that war background that most of the cast has. So many people have so many reasons not to trust/like Starscream. Which is, y’know. Justified. From both sides. And even if he’s genuinely trying to build something of himself PAST the war now, there are really not many people who will give him a fair shake. Windblade isn’t totally ignorant of his history or anything, I’m sure, but not living it herself makes it a little easier to look at Starscream and trust him to not be that same person with those same priorities.

They are both so petty and ridiculous when they’re annoyed, oh my goodness. I don’t know what it is, but these two, just. It flows so naturally. They’re both competent adults doing difficult jobs and doing them pretty well, but stick them together and they’re acting about as mature as middle schoolers trying to provoke each other. It’s fun on its own, but it feels even nicer because 1) Starscream isn’t having his sharp edges filed off, but 2) having all the sharp edges be pointed in this ridiculous, petty direction takes so much genuine venom out of the thing, and makes some space for him to Do An Emotion (and to get somewhere without shooting himself twenty million times in the foot) (nobody does self-sabotage like starscream)

But then, that goodness I mentioned for Windblade up above? If I balance them right, she doesn’t take unjustified shit from him. She works loyally with him as a team, while also arguing the points she disagrees with. She feels lots of sympathy for what she can see of his current emotional state and the bits and pieces of what she gradually learns about his megatron-specific past. But she can do that without turning him into some broken bird she wants to heal. She’s going to be all bristly and protective over anyone who poses a threat, and she’ll try to prod him into eating more or going out for a flight, but she’s not going to flutter and simper over him either. And Starscream has someone who isn’t afraid to fite him, but doesn’t want to do him harm either, and who isn’t drastically changing their everything out of ~pity~ for him. It means a lot to him (secretly) that someone would ever EVER put themself in harm’s way to protect him, but oh my god you idiot you are a baby and have never been in a real fight, YOU get behind ME. The push-pull between them, I just… it makes me sigh the happiest sigh ever

And my top 5 pitch transformers ships! Oh man, this is going to be interesting to break out, because I don’t usually mentally filter on quadrant, I filter on character, or d/s dynamics maybe, trying to pick out all the pitch bits out of the mess is going to be a challenge.

Windblade/Starscream is a gimme after all that up above, so that doesn’t count for the list :P

Drift/Ratchet. I adore these two, and I really really really love the way they went from tense and sometimes hostile to the emotional support they’ve got now. But it doesn’t feel them if Drift isn’t teasing or prodding him. Vulnerability is good, but it’s not like… steady state Drift. Drift is silly and has a sense of humor and is friendly and good natured, and Ratchet is dour, and both of them naturally care a LOT. But they’re opposites in so many ways that I live to see them both quietly being prodprodprod with a curtain of not-exactly-hostility overlaying a whole lot of trust and affection.

Whirl/Cyclonus, although I tend towards a very pitchpale feeling with them instead of pure pitch. But Whirl is not good with soft and squishy emotions, so at least pretending it’s full-on pitch sits better with him. This is a case where there are just soooo many similarities between them, what with their wartime pasts, being lorge and exceptionally good at violence, having a very difficult time with friendly social connections. But also, MAN do they get off to a rough start XD But that bit in 47 where Cyclonus tells Whirl that he knew Whirl would tell him the truth, even if it hurt? And Whirl was brutally honest with him? Oh my god so pitchpale, I DIEEEED. And both of them are bad at communication, both of them are quietly full of moral injuries, both of them are really surprisingly pro-social when they’re put on the spot, and do a LOT to protect other people. I love love love them.

…….Prowl/Rewind. With Chromedome in the middle, but that’s the pitch piece. Not necessarily healthy, but SO EMOTIONALLY CHARGED, holy shit. I poked at this once in a fic (ending disastrously). But I also want to do a near-disaster that works out okay (the solution is to put Chromedome in the middle until the scene has momentum). Or Prowl/Fort Max, which is even more complicated, and may necessitate the addition of Red Alert and Cerebros as buffers between them.

Similarly, Starscream/Windblade/Knock Out, all pitch, with Breakdown on the side being completely made for companionable needling. Starscream and Windblade, I have already said a ridiculous number of words :P Knock Out and Windblade have all this potential to be fascinating to each other, because their cultures are so different, but Windblade was able to get a win in Velocitronian politics, and Knock Out is from a colony with a living, functional titan (one in almost a waking coma, but hey). And they’re both outspoken and open with their thoughts and he can be so petty the same way Starscream can, and it’s deliciously infuriating and she just– (but also, windblade and breakdown being sweet with each other, and exasperated and fond while starscream and knock out get distracted and ridiculous with each other).

And…. hmm hm hm. I don’t have much of a continuity in mind except to specify not IDW, because IDW OP is being an ass. But Starscream/OP. There’s something about Starscream and disillusionment with Megatron as a leader, plus fascination with Megatron’s opposite and parallel, but without dropping the established hostility with the autobots, and demanding as much out of Optimus as he would demand from Megatron, and just, so good. So hard to established without ‘to end this war you need to robot marry’ sorts of scenarios, but soooooo good. So like, in TFP, Optimus is so chill and placid, and Starscream is high-strung and emotional, and everything about them finding a stable orbit with each other is so fun. Or TFA, Starscream is old and cynical, Optimus is young and inexperienced (I sure do love that sort of ship :V), massively differing ideologies, experienced cynicism versus young, idealistic optimism, and a HUGE size difference because mmmm priorities. Lov this ship.

And there are others, where I either haven’t pinned down the words or don’t have a good scenario or justification, or just can’t say as much about them. Soundwave/OP, Soundwave/Starscream, Pyra Magna/OP, Elita One/OP, Pyra Magna/Elita One, Rung/Froid, Overlord/Tarn, Overlord/Megatron, Deathsaurus/Rodimus (shh sh sh it makes sense), Sunstreaker/Sideswipe, Arcee/Prowl, Arcee/Windblade, Elita One/Windblade. Hahaha, I’m trying to run through the cast by characters and see what I remember :P

Bumblebee/Starscream has pitch overtones, but Bumblebee is so much of a sweetheart and Starscream is being open because just a ghost amiright??? and he wobbles out of pitch pretty easily. TFP specifically is good for Knock Out/Bumblebee and Shockwave/Soundwave. Jazz/Starscream is another one that’s superficially pitch, except Jazz is being difficult and slippery and refusing to make a single real move into that quadrant. Some of these might jump into the list if I can get them written out in a story, but for the moment, I can’t quite words them.

[plasticnightmaredoll]

Resident Evil 8: Village review (spoilers everywhere!)

Now, I want to start off by saying I've never been very interested in the "Resident Evil" games. I've always preferred the "Silent Hill" series because of how macabre the games are, the creepy symbolism behind the monsters, and the intense moments of fear despite having weapons (well, in most of the games at least). I like dark, twisted stuff, and "Resident Evil" seemed too...action-oriented for me, I guess?

However, I did finally get involved when I saw the trailer for "Resident Evil 7: Biohazard." I was shocked, but pleasantly so. Not only did it feature new characters, new locations, and a new disease, but it was in first person AND looked like a true survival horror game. I know some people may prefer the third-person perspective for RE games as that has always been one of their key characteristics, but I think horror games are much more effective in first person. They're more immersive because they give you the illusion of being in the game itself.

I really loved RE7, and still do. I actually have begun playing it again, the first time in a few years (I think 2019 was the last time I played through the game). I still see it as my favorite RE games and one of my favorite survival horror games, but I have enjoyed the "Resident Evil 2" and "Resident Evil 3" remakes and may play other games in the franchise just because.

Now, onto "Resident Evil 8: Village," a direct sequel to 7 (lol 8 does come after 7 but I mean that 8 is a continuation of the story introduced in 7. I mean, RE7 was not a sequel to RE6 at all). I was excited to see the franchise continuing with what it started in RE7, and while I did enjoy RE8, it does have some issues...nothing serious but things that prevent it from replacing RE7 as my favorite.

The Good:

There Four Lords and Mother Miranda were truly unique characters despite being bosses. I felt pity for all of them in one way or another and enjoyed learning their backstories. I think they are the most interesting and "human" villains in the RE games so far (at least, from what I've seen), and in games in general.

I felt so much pity for Moreau, though. He was such a tragic character, and I felt like I was putting him out of his misery by killing him. Clearly, there was something wrong with him mentally like his mental growth had been stunted and he thought and acted more like a child. His primary goals were to win the praise of the other three Lords since they didn't like him (I think Donna may have been ok with him but her mental health issues prevented her from expressing her feelings in a more effective and healthy manner) and to have Mother Miranda see him as her son. All these emotions over one character, a boss enemy, and possibly the least complex of the Lords and Miranda herself, I think demonstrate some fantastic writing. I mean, I've very rarely encountered bosses that I felt sorry for, and killing them was mercy.

Donna was a very strange character. She was the only one of the bosses who didn't transform into a monstrosity, and her boss fight was vastly different from anything else in the game. I liked it, though, for the most part, this sort of "calm" within a storm of deadly monsters and bloody battles. Of all the Lords and Mother Miranda herself, Donna was almost just there, like she was observing instead of actually participating. She respected Mother Miranda but, unlike the other three Lords, she seemed to prefer to live in her own little fantasy world with her dolls as her family and friends.

The graphics were, as expected, incredible. If you have a computer that can handle the game with high/max settings, it will look absolutely stunning. Also, the soundtrack was very fitting, but I don't have much concern for this trait unless the soundtrack is truly exceptional, which is rare -- or if the soundtrack is awful, which I have yet to encounter in a game.

I enjoyed the change in environment from RE7. I liked the creepy house in the woods and "ghost ship" in RE7, but RE8 had us in underground tunnels, a rundown village, a castle, a factory, a swamp town...I mean, you went all over the place, but it made the experience diverse and entertaining.

RE8 gave us a lot of answers to questions left by RE7, and, in some ways, enhanced that game's story. Finding out the truth behind Ethan's seemingly indestructible body was a twist I didn't expect. It did provide an answer for just how easy it was for him to literally patch himself up and put himself back together over and over again. It was no longer just "game logic."

Ending Ethan's story made sense. It was clear by the end of RE8 that his character had gone as far as possible, and it was time to switch gears. I'm curious as to how the next game will utilize Rose as a protagonist. She has powerful psychic abilities, unlike her father, and I don't think any other RE protagonist has had such abilities (as far as I know), so that could make for a very interesting gaming experience.

With that being said, I really do hope RE9 continues what was started in RE7 and developed further in RE8. I really do. I think there are plenty of things left to explore, plenty of room for some good twists and turns.

There weren't many puzzles in this game, but I didn't think it was such a bad thing. It was still a lot of fun to play with a reasonable amount of action-oriented challenges. There were so many bosses in this game, minibosses included, yet it never felt overwhelming or underwhelming. I thought the minibosses were fantastic "bridges" to each of the 5 main boss fights.

MAGNUM IS BEST WEAPON. Seriously, what is it with these types of guns and their insane amount of power? I liked the grenade launcher as well, despite how slow it was to reload. The use of flashbangs proved to be much more useful than the grenades themselves, oddly enough. I know they have been in other RE games, but they were much more essential in RE8.

The pacing was perfect. I felt like the game was the appropriate length, not overstaying its welcome nor leaving players underwhelmed by lack of content. I mean, I still wish it were longer but that's only because of how entertaining it is to play. Leaving players wanting more but in a positive sense indicates that the game was planned thoroughly with a lot of attention to detail.

Miranda's and Moreau'sboss fights were the most challenging in the game. Both were endurance battles and required you to move quickly and think fast and basically just survive until they died. Ammo was very important in both boss fights because the right weapons made things much easier but if you didn't have enough ammo for them, well...you're going to have a more intense challenge.

My favorite "location" was the Dimitrescu castle. I like the elegant "antique" aesthetic of old castles and houses/mansions.

Unlike in RE7, RE8 does allow you to upgrade some of your weapons, which makes things easier if just to allow your guns to hold more ammo before needing to reload. You also didn't need to pull out a weapon to open crates. If you "interacted" with one, Ethan automatically used his knife to break it. RE7 made you do it manually which was a little annoying, especially during fights.

RE7 pretty much just had the Bakers and mold monsters as enemies. They all put up a good fight, but RE8 has a much wider range of enemies: wolfmen, zombies, flying zombie bats, werewolves, cyborg monstrosities, witches (well, if you consider the Dimitrescu daughters as witches, and they kind of are), a gross but pitiful fishman, a mentally disturbed doll maker, and an egocentric engineer. Variety added another layer of difficulty and surprise to the game since it wasn't always the same enemy types popping up to get you.

Mixed Thoughts:

Donna's boss fight was unlike any other fight in the game -- or any game, really. It was a morbid hide and seek challenge that was a nice change of pace but I do wish it had been a bit more difficult. I liked the concept, and it suited Donna, but it was the easiest boss fight in the game, almost like it was a miniboss fight instead. Good concept, but weak execution.

RE8 allows you to upgrade weapons, but RE7 doesn't, and while it may sound like RE8 has the upper hand, I disagree. RE7's lack of weapon enhancements/upgrades made the game more difficult because what you saw was what you got, and you had to make do. You didn't have the option to make your weapons hold more ammo or shoot faster or deal more damage.

The Bad:

Most of the boss fights were...rather easy? Minibosses included. The only ones that posed a real threat were Moreau and Miranda. Everyone else was just standard boss fodder, unfortunately. In RE7, I felt that, while there were far fewer boss fights, they all were much more demanding and exciting.

Lady Dimitrescu was such a fun character, and yet, she was only in the game for a short time, and her boss fight was just so-so. With all the marketing surrounding her before the game was released, I expected her to have a much larger role in the game.

They had an opportunity to make Miranda a sympathetic villain seeing as how the loss of her daughter basically drove her to madness. However, the way she was portrayed, I honestly didn't feel any sympathy for her, which was a shame. If she had been portrayed as a more tragic, broken character, then it would have made the final boss fight very emotional since you would feel some guilt killing her knowing what she's been through.

Not very scary. I mean, it's not a terrible thing, but for a game that is part of the survival horror genre, I felt like RE8 focused on the action a little too often. It was an intense experience just not a chilling one. RE7 had so much tension and atmosphere that it truly played out like a survival horror game.

Overall, I do like "Resident Evil 8: Village" and want to play it several more times. It bested "Resident Evil 7: Biohazard" in a few ways, namely with a diversity of enemies and customizable weapons but it fell short in the horror department and mishandled most of its bosses.

Final Grade: B+

For reference:

Resident Evil 7: A

Resident Evil 2 (2019 Remake): A-

Resident Evil 3 (2020 Remake): B-