#accurate representation of me an hour after season 2

[lilodendron]

[geekkatsblog]

Reviewing Grey's Anatomy Episodes but this time its Season 17

(To those people on my page who don't watch Grey's Anatomy but are being subjected to this I'm so sorry but I really just like to vent about this show.)

Its season 17 now Yay.

They're dealing with the covid 19 pandemic and I'm sure the writers probably did lots of research to make sure that they had the most accurate representation of the situation in the hospitals and otherwise.

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First we're going to start with the love triangle that is Teddy, Tom and Owen.

Owen

Now this is in no way excusing what he's done in the past for the longest while I've loathed Owen Hunt but..... now I feel sorry for him. He saw he had a problem he went to therapy to get himself right, he was actually a good partner for once and communicated in his relationship, he took his time and didn't jump into marriage spontaneously and then Teddy cheated on him over but dial to be heard by everyone in the operating theater with Owen on their wedding day. (I don't want to sound bad but this might also be karma coming to but him in the ass.) I felt so much 2nd hand embarrassment for him and the pain he had in his face the whole time he pretended not to know about her cheating was just oof. I loved though the end where he drove away for the mean time I really do agree with him taking some time and space before he makes a decision. Most of the times he made a lot of sudden decisions that later came back to bite him.

Teddy

Oh Teddy, she used to be one of my favorite characters from a little after she came to the time she left but now they just carried her character so far down hill that it's hard to keep the same energy I had before, now. Everyone at Grey Sloan is on Owen's side and giving her the cold shoulder and she really wants everyone to mind their own business (I honestly agree though, you're in the middle of a pandemic mind your business and do your job now isn't the time to be shunning coworkers because they cheated.) However when she did explain her side I kinda understood it a bit better. It's still an awful thing to do but I know plenty of people who sabotage their own happiness because they aren't used to it. Hell I do it myself sometimes. But then I was also pissed when she just pretended she did nothing wrong at first. First thing first she acted kinda offended when Owen explained why he hadn't called to cancel the wedding to her. Was it kinda sus? The answer is yes but you literally cheated on him that same day, you needed the extra time sis. Not to mention the several time he hinted to her that he knew and gave her the chance to confess yet she lied through her teeth whenever he hinted at it and flat out lied again when he asked if she had anything to confess. I get the whole sabotage route but God was I happy when Owen got in his truck, drove off and left her.

Tom

I was honestly rooting for Tom in the beginning, despite him being a douche I knew deep down he had a heart somewhere, but I actually started to feel less sorry for him last season when he continued to sleep with Teddy despite knowing her situation which he pointed out to her several times and she still ignored it. I know he loves her but let's be honest, she's going to pick Owen as long as he decides to actually take her back and Tom will be left alone and heart broken with his $100000 worth of boxes in booties and a golf club to measure 6 ft distance between him and everyone else. Honestly I kinda saw a panic attack coming, if they're treating Teddy bad then they're probably treating him even more like crap based on the fact that no one besides Teddy, Catherine and maybe Amelia liked him to begin with. This may also be an unpopular opinion but I actually agree with Catherine for making him resign of chief of all chiefs his head hasn't and probably won't be in the game for a while. At least he still gets to be head of neuro. He bought a whole $100000 dollars in booties alone by mistake during an already tough pandemic between that and everything else going on around him I'm not surprised he broke. What did surprise me was that no one even went near him to help even after the attack was finished. Dislike him or not at least ask him how he's doing geeze.

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Jo and Jackson (Never thought I'd have to put the two of them together in a title.)

Truly the biggest shock of the night besides the trailer for next week which I will freak out about later.

Jo

So Jo has decided that in order for her to feel herself again she has to do the devils tango with someone and because they're in a pandemic and she trusts him she chose Jackson. The night of the appointment to do the deed Jo ends up crying in his mouth. The way she treated him afterwards at first was a little uncalled for in my opinion, I mean she was the one who asked for the favor. But later they talked and it was all cool again. Jo didn't really have that big of a plot this episode so not too much to talk about.

Jackson

Agreed way to quickly to doing the devils tango with Jo if you ask me. Seems a little sus. I really hope they aren't rushing him and Jo into anything give the girl some room to breath and also give Jackson a proper plot he seems to be a plot filler for everyone right now like they have no real purpose for him on the show at the moment. I'm beginning to really think that he was the one who was supposed to die last season. I really do love his and Richard's relationship. Jackson never really had a good father and Webber seems to be filling that spot quite nicely. Him pushing Webber to fight to get better and convince him that his career can be saved was heartwarming. And can we take a moment to talk about Harriet finally appearing from the world of Narnia to bless us with her presence? And boy was she a blessing. That baby that plays Harriet was awesome from her repeating Vic saying she can't be a step mom all to her facial expressions. I hope to see baby Harriet again very soon. But speaking of Vic, did she not know that Jackson was a father? How the hell did she expect to never run into her at some point? Then there's the whole question of what did she even expect of the relationship with Jackson if she never intended to even try to accept being around his daughter? also if she really want to be Robbie Rotten from Lazy town and avoid being around kids, maybe she should call or text first instead of showing up in just a fluffy jacket and nothing else.

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Deluca

Glad to see he finally got the help he needed and is back put tho work. I felt so upset last season when everyone just treated him like crap without trying to help him, but they made up for it a little by trying to help him with the intervention. He was also right about the sex trafficking case and I was so glad to see that he was able to be there as her doctor. Plus he's now also finally in dark blue scrubs it has felt like forever before he got those but I digress. He is now on his way once again to be a kick ass surgeon with the awesome skills hes already showcasing. I just hope he continues to look after himself. Deluca shine like the star you are babe.

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Maggie

Has finally found a man who understands her, he is so nice and kind and caring the whole episode I was mentally yelling go get it hun to the screen. She deserves someone who can take her seriously and understand her awkwardness as well as her tendencies finally she has stepped out of the role of cheerleader and support character and is branching out to something else and I'm here for it. And her yelling at Catherine, to share her piece of mind. I was so proud. Go get it sis.

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Richard

Richard Webber is back in the building, finally the king has returned to himself and already solving problems in day one. At the beginning when he publicly called Catherine a pain in the ass I was so stoked I finally thought that he was done being pushed around by her but then he took her back in the end it also kinda felt like she bought him in order to get him back with the hiring him as the new chief of chiefs but I wish them the best of luck, Webber deserves to be happy. I was also happy to see him and Bailey interacting like friends again. For a while it was awkward between them but now it's like the balance has been restored. Side note, him laughing at Teddy and Owen made me laugh so loudly especially when he asked Teddy if her name was still Altman despite the fact he clearly knew about the phonecall drama, not gonna lie I'd do the same.

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Catherine

Not much there, just her being angry at the pandemic and loss of money, lack of power to save lives as well as trying to win Webber back which she successfully did after firing Koracick and giving Richard his job and finally giving him a heartfelt apology without being petty.

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Bailey

It might just be me but so far despite the fact that it's only been 2 episodes. Bailey seems somewhat better this season. Her guilt over Deluca was definitely warranted but at least she tried to make up for it (and just like Harriet her OCD has decided to rejoin us for a visit from Narnia.) For the past few seasons she's been a slight pain but now she seems more like herself.

Her and Ben are adorable as usual, coming every 12 hours to clap for the doctors just to see her then the cute hand signals they made for each other, between Ben, Link and recently added to the group of awesome partners Winston, I'm beginning to wonder where I can find me one of these super thoughtful understanding handsome men. The two guys that knocked her over as well spraining her ankle really should have to pay or something or at least apologize, they literally just knocked a doctor off her feet and made her wheel chair bound, the chief ro be exact. Her and Webber are on talking terms and well again but she really needs to know how to express concern better. She once told Ben that when she's scared she yells but a lot of things would have gone a lot more smoothly if she'd just reminded him he was a high risk for covid and state her concern for him to begin with instead of barking out orders.

I'm also wondering if shes going to be able to handle the whole Covid situation so well for the whole time, with all the chaos and disorganization with the whole ordeal not to mention the whole fit she had with the germs in the episode. I think it'll be a good storyline now that Grey's seems to be bringing mental awareness back up.

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Link and Amelia

They have now officially reached my list along with Ben and Bailey and a few others that are no longer on the show that have reached the stage of killing the couple goals on this show.

Despite the fact that they're not only raising their own baby but also Bailey, Ellis and Zola yet their relationship is still solid. I'm so proud of my baby Amelia she has come a long way from the woman who didn't even want kids to begin with.

I loved the fact that he wasn't upset over her forgetting his birthday and acted like nothing was wrong, just so she wouldn't feel bad about forgetting. I would have been livid set a reminder on your phone babes. Either way she definitely made up for it later with the whole redoing his birthday thing. Also welcome to the world Scout. Looking forward to seeing them more often.

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Levi

How did it all turn so bad, Nico has turned into such a jerk at this point I'm not even sure I'd be to upset if he left if it wasn't for the fact that I ship the person he was before and Levi so much I'm still hoping that they'll go back to how they were before Nico became a lying hypocrite. At the end I was practically begging Levi to push him away, Nico doesn't deserve it not after the way he treated him and he hasn't even shown a hint of remorse to this day.

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Meredith

The biggest shock of the whole episode. I honestly knew something was going to happen to her from the time she fell asleep and started the dream on the beach. Dreaming of beaches have never been a good sign on Grey's I just thought she was going to collapse from stress because she really had been pushing herself all episode. The thing with Meredith is that she cares so much for her patients and does anything she can to save them, but based on the preview of the next episode and the tests they showed it doesn't seem to be test. And let's just talk about that huge bombshell they dropped by bringing back Derek I never thought I'd see Patrick Dempsey on the show again. By the end of the episode I was already literally shaking in anticipation for the next episode. I know they can't kill Meredith, without her there literally is no Grey's Anatomy. That being said I really hope they don't give her cancer, (I know Patrick is involved with helping a charity for cancer.) And I also really hope she isn't getting alzheimers I just hope it's nothing serious in general. She's been through enough man. I just want this to be a really touching moment where I get to see Merder have some touching moments and it doesn't end up to be Izzie and Denny all over again. I don't think anyone is ready to handle that. I read in a spoiler that there's supposed to be some more visitors arriving on the beach and I'm stoked for it so I really hope it's a real spoiler I'm tired of rewatching the newer seasons to experience some of the old joy.

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Imma need them to give that intern Perez an official recurring contract for the show because he is currently one of the best things to come on that show in years. He's a breath of fresh air.

[canonicallysoulmates]

Supernatural 15.02

I am so fucking angry. And so fucking done. And this episode doesn’t even deserve my anger because it’s so bad it’s not even worth it, I’m gonna tell you right now if you haven’t seen this episode yet don’t waste your time with it.

I wasn’t expecting a masterpiece from BuckLemming but goddamn! This is the last season and they wasted a whole entire episode, not a little bit, not half of it, all of it! Nothing happens! It’s a boring hour of nothingness!

I don’t even know what to talk about because nothing happens! It’s a boring hour of nothingness! It consists off:

1. Various uncomfortable scenes between Ketch and Rowena flirting wanting to hump each other - which is so out of left field it makes Gabriel-Rowena seem expected - because it’s not a BuckLemming episode if sex or something sexual doesn’t make an appearance.

2. An, I don’t give a flying fuck about, scene between Dean and Castiel, in which Castiel says that the choices they made are theirs and they made their own moves which, if true, technically means that they did have free will which is supposedly the thing they don’t actually have because Chuck is supposed to be this puppet master but whatever this episode is not worth me getting into this whole debate, but I will say this episode made me realize is that if Dabb had given this whole evil Chuck thing some thought he could have done a very complex exploration of God, one that isn’t a complete puppet master but that was more involved in the boys lives than they thought, a mix between wrathful manipulator and loving creator. [But if he had done that, Chuck wouldn’t be an accurate representation of Dabb cause there’s no loving creator in him.]

3. A couple of quick Kevin scenes. Yes, that Kevin. He makes an appearance, he was one of the souls in hell, why was he in hell? Because God lied about sending him to heaven, why did God lie about sending him to heaven (and how did nobody find out he was in hell this whole time even though at the time he was supposedly sent there Crowley had control of hell and why did these demons who somehow always seem to know of the famous Winchesters never used Kevin being in hell to their benefit, not even Lucifer)? Because the plot required it. And Dabb needed an excuse for bringing back a “fan favorite” that has already been brought back multiple times and thus has now lost any emotional impact his return might have had; Kevin does pretty much nothing and leaves at the end of the episode, his return was pointless. But that’s not gonna stop Dabb and friends from patting themselves on the back for bringing Kevin back on the show.

4. We get some sibling interaction! But before you get too excited it’s not between Sam and Dean cause they have basically zero interaction in the episode, it’s between Chuck and Amara and it’s nothing interesting it’s just a long pointless set up to planting the seed that Chuck is low on battery or some shit, it’s several scenes of him trying to convince her to go with him to another dimension until she realizes he can’t do anything at the moment and needs her, and then she’s all ‘you trapped me now i trap you’.

5. And the rest is filled in by: boring, pointless conversations, like the ghosts, who don’t really look like any other ghosts I had seen on this show before, making plans to get out of the barrier or the humans that plan to sneak back to their town/neighborhood for some meds, Dean shooting the ghosts that are trying to get out of the barrier except the budget wasn’t large enough for the whole ghost so it looks more like Dean is shooting at nothing, characters revealing that they’re possessed by bleeding from the eyes. There’s a soul catching tool that Rowena makes but I’m unsure as to whether the soul catching tool used in this episode is the same one that Dean wanted to use at the end of s11, the one that would have cost him his life, but what I am sure of is that every time she sucked one of the ghosts in it, it made me think of Pokemon. It looked so stupid I couldn’t take it seriously.

It’s boring! It’s pointless! It’s bad writing!

The things that happen in this episode can either be eliminated completely (like the Ketch/Rowena), incorporated into other episodes, or dealt with quickly (like introducing the whole Chuck being low on power thing) a lot of time was spend on things that really didn’t need to be dragged out. 

And if you’ve noticed a lack of mentions of Sam and Dean in this post, it’s because they don’t do much either! Sam is mostly with the people they evacuated trying to find a solution and Dean is mostly off patrolling the barrier with demon!Jack. They barely interact in the episode, and while last week’s epi had them apart for most of it that’s made up by the scene at the end, here there is no emotional, brother scene at the end to make up for their separation.

It’s shameful and sad, and it pisses me off that even though it’s the final season the writers decided to waste this whole episode instead of trying to make it good and memorable. Every epi this season should be done with care because after this there are no more, this is the end of the road.

There is no saving this episode, it’s forgettable, there are no highlights, and what may be memorable is memorable in a bad way; the ending of the s15 premiere reminded me why it was that I started and keep watching this show, this episode has reminded me why it is time for this show to end and made me once again feel thankful to j2 for having mercy on the show and us the fans, and deciding to end spn.

[themeatlife]

the Meat Life Stay-At-Home Watchlist

Chronicling what I have watched or rewatched through the pandemic so far

The world has changed around us the last few months, particularly in the United States since March 11.  With the lack of events to hit up, like most Americans I’ve been catching up on some watching through the various streaming services and my own digital copies of movies and shows.

I didn’t really think of keeping up with what I have been watching until just recently, but here is what I can remember hitting up so far since I’ve spent the majority of the time at home.  Some are favorites that I would have watched anyway.  Some were unfinished until I got a chance to get back to them.  And others just became available.

Here’s what I remember of the watchlist:

The Office (Netfilx) This is a favorite of me and the wife.  We watch this on the regular though.  My wife uses The Office as her lullaby of sorts, putting it on in the evening as she gets ready for bed and is in bed to fall asleep.  I did a post on the 15th anniversary, so I won’t really deep-dive.

Gossip Girl (Netflix) Another one that my wife rotates with The Office as her lullaby.  The series is not bad, it’s basically The OC in Manhattan (both are created and developed by Josh Schwartz).  It also takes on a new perspective when you think about star Penn Badgley is the creep in You.  So Dan Humphrey gets this weird creeper Joe Goldberg vibe at times.

Parks and Recreation (Netflix) I never got into Parks and Rec on its original run.  I was encouraged to check it out by some coworkers since I liked The Office.  It is a great show, very funny, and poignant in a way.  It feels like a throwback to when people could disagree politically and still get along.  There is a lot less of that nowadays.  We might need more Parks and Rec in real life.  I started this right before the pandemic and finished around the beginning of things getting locked down.

Frozen II (Disney+) The sequel debuted on Disney+ early on in the quarantine period.  My family enjoyed it.  I thought it was entertaining, but I felt like it was weighted down a bit by the mythology explaining.  It seemed too busy explaining a lot of things.  Still an enjoyable movie, but the first is better.

Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness (Netflix) Intriguing.  The series debuted early in the quarantine period and became a staple of stay-at-home viewing and a runaway hit.  Lots of WTF moments.  It was like the train wreck analogy to the Nth degree.  But you can tell it was made in a way that leans in favor of Joe Exotic, making him look like a victim in the last couple episodes.  Also gave way to memorable memes ever since.

The Rocketeer (Disney+) I haven’t watched this movie since I was a kid.  Looking back, you can see a lot of The Rocketeer in Captain America - The First Avenger.  Easy to see though, since they share the same director Joe Johnston.  Prior to America’s involvement in World War II, a movie star Nazi goes after an experimental rocket pack developed by Howard Hughes.  The rocket pack is retrieved by accident from a down on luck stunt pilot.  Fun movie.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (Disney+) I should have watched the entire Skywalker saga leading up to it, but I figured I have a ton of time to do that later.  This was a May the 4th watch.  I haven’t watched the Skywalker saga finale since it was in theaters.  It’s not a bad movie, I just feel it could have been a lot better with some modifications here and there.  Also, I believe this was going to be the Leia movie.  The Force Awakens was Han’s swan song, as was The Last Jedi for Luke.  I feel like this would have been great for Leia but obviously they were limited due to the untimely death of Carrie Fisher.  The scene where Ren/Ben speaks with Han after battling Rey would have hit harder with Leia instead of Han.

Trolls: World Tour (VOD) Cute kid movie.  Was nice to hear a lot of familiar music.  Sucks that rock was the villain in the first couple acts.  Seeing it once was enough, though.  Like the first Trolls, I am glad my kids enjoyed it but did not participate in excessive multiple viewings.

Onward (Disney+) Didn’t get a chance to catch this at the theater before they closed them down.  Great movie, but gosh.  Why does Pixar always pull at the heart strings like that?  I was quietly crying to myself at the end.  I’m glad we made our living room dark theater-style, otherwise my kids would have seen me all torn up.

Fast and Furious 5-7 (Fast Five - HBO, The Fast and the Furious 6/Furious 7 - Digital) I ended up not watching the entire series.  There is a great trilogy within the series, 5-7 was that trilogy.  Fast Five was the best of the FF franchise and where it perfected their movie formula.  It was like an action Ocean’s Eleven with cars.  6 and 7 expanded on that formula, upping the humor and ridiculousness factor.  6 had the exits of the Han and Gisele characters (they found a way to tie in Tokyo Drift to the rest of the series, Gal Gadot was on her way to becoming Wonder Woman for DC).  And 7 had that great ending with the tribute to Paul Walker to the sounds of Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth.

Toy Story 4 (Disney+) Another Pixar hit.  Didn’t hit me quite as hard as Onward or Toy Story 3 did emotionally, thank goodness.  I thought this story was over the way Toy Story 3 ended.  But Pixar did a good job adapting to prolong these characters stories.  It did feel like it was a bit of two and three combined looking back.  Still very good, Pixar knows what it’s doing.

The Marvel Infinity Saga (Disney+/Netflix/Digital) Leading up to the one-year anniversary of the release of Avengers: Endgame, I went through and rewatched all 23 MCU movies.  This time, I went in chronological story order by starting with Captain America - The First Avenger.  I chronicled the order I watched in my last post.  Even after viewing many of these movies multiple times, I’m still amazed at how much I enjoy them and the scope of what Marvel was able to achieve leading into the climax in Endgame.

Community (Netflix/Hulu) I loved Community on its initial run on NBC but never watched any of the episodes when it was on Yahoo for its sixth season.  It has been great to rewatch the meta-humor and sitcom trope parodies.  And since Ken Jeong and Joel McHale started their own podcast called The Darkest Timeline (half COVID-19, half Community pod), it has been a good companion viewing.

The Back to the Future Trilogy (Netflix) Recent add to Netflix for easy viewing, these movies have been a favorite of the Mitra boys since childhood.  Upon viewing as an adult, there is some humor that I didn’t recognize as a kid that is hilarious to me now.  It is also crazy how well this teen time-travel sci-fi comedy works.  Some of the effects in Part 2 are dated and 2015 didn’t quite end up the way it did in the movies.  But overall very enjoyable on the rewatch!

Extraction (Netflix) High budget action flick funded by Netflix?  Written by the Russo Brothers?  And staring Chris Hemsworth?  I’m in!  Directed by long-time stunt man and Russo Bros go-to stunt coordinator Sam Hargrave (you can tell the Russo influence).  It has an awesome 15ish minute one-shot action/chase sequence that is top notch.  Don’t think much about the plot or the controversy of cultural representation, just enjoy the action.

The Mighty Ducks Trilogy (HBO) Another childhood favorite of mine.  Nevermind that the hockey itself isn’t accurate.  This is about pure fun for an hour and a half at a time.  Come for the hi-jinx, stay for the heart.  Triple-deke, knuckle-puck, taking out the trash.  And leave it out on the ice!

The Harry Potter Series (Blu-Ray/Digital) This was not a go-to for me until Linda made me watch the entire series.  I guess when the first movie came out, it was too much of a kid movie for me (I was a high school senior at the time).  But from the second movie onward, it felt like the storytelling and movie making got better and better.  The Deathly Hallows was an epic ending, even if they did change the ending from the book.  I didn’t watch the newer Fantastic Beasts movies along with this though, my wife did.

Westworld - Season 3 (HBO) Recently got HBO back, so I caught up on Westworld Season 3.  I haven’t rewatched the previous seasons yet, but I may revisit it soon.  Season 1 was spectacular, Season 2 was confusing as hell but still entertaining.  Season 3 is somewhere in between, expanding on the ongoing storyline.  It was more straight-forward because its storyline is in the “real-world.”  For those of you that have watched, didn’t you think it was highly ironic that the Incite ball was basically the AT&T logo? (AT&T is the parent company for WarnerMedia and HBO)

The Last Dance (ESPN/ESPN+) The Michael Jordan docu-series has been a god-sent for sports fans devoid of live American sports for the past couple months.  Is it Jordan-biased?  Sure.  But it is full of drama and intrigue and full of nostalgia.  The NBA had commissioned a camera crew to follow the 1997-1998 Chicago Bulls on their run for their sixth NBA championship.  Jordan owned the controlling rights to the footage and unlocked it after the 2016 NBA Finals.  So this documentary was years in the making and with the pandemic the release date was moved up.  Although it featured a lot of unseen footage, it also chronicled the years leading up to the 1998 Bulls title.  The last 5 Sundays have been awesome.

The Princess Bride (Disney+) I haven’t watched this movie since I was a kid.  It wasn’t one of my recurring watches back then.  So this was actually my second viewing of this movie ever.  I found it quite enjoyable.  It was cheesy, but fun, and a good family watch.  One of the many older titles available on Disney+.

Scoob (VOD) My kids had some of the older Scooby Doo episodes on DVD and watched them when they were younger.  This was a fun revisit for them and for us as parents.  It was actually cool seeing a lot of the Hanna-Barbera characters in one movie.  We watched this shortly after finishing Community, and my kids recognized Ken Jeong’s voice as Dynomutt.  My daughter hilariously shouted “Senor Chang!” when she recognized him.

The Indiana Jones Series (Netflix) I introduced my son to Indiana Jones a few months ago watching Raiders of the Lost Ark.  He loved it.  He lost a little bit of interest during the Temple of Doom, I think the character Short Round lost it for him (character hasn’t aged well).  The Last Crusade reclaimed his interest.  Harrison Ford was at his natural apex playing Indiana Jones.  I did not watch the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.  I didn’t feel the need to revisit that installment, while it was enjoyable the alien ending ruined the lead up to it.

The Dark Knight Trilogy (Batman Begins/The Dark Knight - Hulu, The Dark Knight Rises - Digital) Every few years I try to revisit this series.  It is the best thing DC has ever put out cinematically.  While Begins and Rises is more comic book, TDK is a straight crime drama set in the world of Batman.  My favorite is Rises, but the absolute best comic book movie remains The Dark Knight, even with the advent of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Jurassic Park/Jurassic World Series (Jurassic Park/The Lost World: Jurassic Park - Blu-Ray, Jurassic World - Digital, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom - Cinemax) The original Jurassic Park is such a great movie.  Rewatching, it’s crazy how well the effects for the dinosaurs hold up.  Steven Spielberg, Stan Winston, and ILM did a great job mixing animatronic and CGI dino effects that stand the test of time.  The Lost World was enjoyable but not as good as the original.  I skipped JP III, such a bad movie.  Jurassic World was a good way to reboot the series, basically a remake of the original but incorporating a lot of references to it.  I just finished Fallen Kingdom today.  Although Fallen Kingdom was entertaining, it fails to recapture some of the magic of JP and JW.

I’m not sure what I will hit up next.  I might hit some Keanu Reeves movies like Speed, the Matrix Trilogy, and/or the John Wick Trilogy.  Maybe Top Gun.  Maybe rewatch Friends or How I Met Your Mother.  Maybe something on HBO Max when it comes out like The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.  Maybe Terminator.  Possibilities are endless, at least until some American sports return.

[trainwreck-in-glitter]

WHAT EUPHORIA GETS RIGHT ABOUT MENTAL ILLNESS:

the high fucking highs: EG (“when I feel good I think it’ll last forever, but it doesn’t” at the Halloween party when rues attempted to kiss jules who rejects her again) I can’t relate to rues manic episode, since I don’t have bipolar but her jittery display of chain-smoking, obsessive thoughts, sleep deprivation, numbing the pain with coffee and taking more steps than she needs to captured the obsessive side of OCD very well, as well as the: COUNTING. I’ve had to repeat numbers in my head over and over and watching rue just start hysterically crying as a child during trying to complete that compulsion fucken’ sent me because I’d never seen an accurate nuanced way of this shown on television. I loved that her OCD wasn’t reduced to cleaning obsessively (EX’ Emma from Glee) even though many people struggle with OCD compulsions of that kind it’s a bit of an overused trope almost like a laughing track in sitcoms, and usually doesn’t serve the characters development in any purpose having their OCD solely exist for neurotypical characters to make sarcastic jokes about.

the l-o-w fucking lows: EX’ rue being glued to her bed for two days unable to engage with anyone or even get up to fucking piss resulting in a painful difficult to watch ¿UTI¿ scene. At a time I experienced severe intrusive thoughts I neglected taking care of myself so much that my hair formed dreadlocks and took hours to brush knots all out.

pushing everyone away: EX’ (I mean just look at the first gif, as well as how rue loses it at Lexi when she tries to check in on her.) while people struggling with any kind of mental illness have a tendency to isolate (espesh in cases of severe depression/mood disorders) however it’s not always aggressive sometimes it’s quiet silence in your room for a week and a half feeling completely immobilised (like with Jules during rues own depressive, she unknowningky sinks into one herself to the extent where her dad is concerned).

feeling like a burden: whether it’s because of your mental illness, low self image or like rue your addiction issues impacting those around you, rue confesses this to Lexi who in true Howard fashion holds her and tries to affirm that she’s nothing like that. Often feeling like your own problems are too heavy for anyone to bear or understand adds to the hopelessness and potentially it could be one of the biggest roadblocks to anyone’s recovery particularly Rue’s

being heavily affected by external factors, more so than normal: like social aspects of your life EX’ (Rue’s codependency on Jules, and Jules’ search for affirmation in sexual relationships, Rue’s nerves upon returning to school particularly hit me (I had a three week hospitalisation and received treatment that kept me off school frequently, and the responses from peers was right on). when noticed again Maddy tells Rue herself she thought she was dead and another friend in her car shouts for rue to “get in Casper!”. Things like school, relationships, daily tasks and functioning can feel a million time harder when you’re battling your own head, the way Euphoria demonstrates this is so raw and realistic it really hit home for me. This becomes even more heightened when people are dealing with trauma/grief ex’ (rue still carrying the grief of her dad and wearing his hoodie frequently and maddy going on a bender taking molly at the carnival forgetting to eat for two days after nate assaults her resulting in her having to be rushed into emergency where they find the marks).

addiction and the feeling of needing to escape your own head: rue will take around about any drug just to temporarily forget her own anxieties, she’s willing to lie (in drug tests by using her sober friends pee), and fight tooth and nail even if it’s against the people she loves/cares about eg: her family, fezco, etc). her addictive personality is made apparent by her obsessive behaviours, codependency with Jules, hyperfixations (watching 22 hours of love island straight) and then again in her drug use. zendaya does an amazing job at selling this all, the way her face slowly sinks from the depths of depression into what looks like she’s gotten a relieving breath of air conveys what exactly she’s getting out of this. with any addiction whether it’s substance abuse, sex addiction, eating disorders, skin picking disorders, etc there’s a need to escape but there’s also a sense of safety/reprieve from what’s making you need that escape. for Rue who is heavily characterised by her own self-blame eg: being scared of people she loves being mad at her like in that scene with Jules, the way she cried when she saw her mother and sister sleeping beside her in hospital when she woke up from her overdose, and in one of earliest narrations where she states “if I could be a different person I would, not because I want it but because they want it” and even asks Jules after she admits to being in love with her if she wishes she was different and Jules responded in the negative. she seems to want to dissociate herself because she feels the weight of her as a whole is too much for anyone and will only be disappointing. it’s sordidly relatable for anyone with low self esteem and as a rue stan the candidness can make the scenes hard to watch.

to recover or sink: rue says herself in narration that after rehab she had no intention of staying clean and for the first few episodes or so she was using to the point where she almost had an overdose in front of very traumatised Jules who then sets an ultimatum that in order for them to maintain their “friendship” rue needs to stop using and rue agrees almost immediately. the look of guilt and shame on her face as she cuddles into Jules who is still shocked and upset saying to rue “I’ve had enough traumatic shit in my life, I’m not trying to be best friends with someone who’s trying to kill themselves”. rue remains sober but clings to Jules almost in replacement, most of rues innocent crush was well innocent and very high school realistic in the way that everything feels heightened. and for a while rue is at her happiest, her best friend since childhood even saying to Jules “it’s because of you” which fairly overwhelms her because being somebody’s sole reason for recovery isn’t long term manageable OR healthy for either party. expanding on this the blame Jules gets for Rue’s relapse is a way we’re perpetuating that their codependent dynamic wasn’t detrimental to either of them, which is wrong. Jules felt immense pressure which in turn tainted her relationship with Rue, and Rue was readily giving more to a relationship where the other person wasn’t ready to reciprocate. Jules and Rue ultimately have a beautiful dynamic together and I’d love to see more of them in season 2 but I’d like it to be in some time when they’ve both explored and identified what they’re both wanting. Because I refusE to settle for anything less than #Kethan after the finale. anywho this all meant Rues hinted relapse in the finale had an inevitable quality to it, because she wasn’t changing because she wanted it but because they did. I feel that one line perfectly captures exactly what would have led to that relapse, from personal experience I tried to actively recover from an eating disorder to please my family but quickly relapsed because ultimately challenging thoughts that have been in your head for so long JUST FOR other people stops being rewarding too quickly because as much as they may want to be an active support system they don’t have the access to rewire your brain. I challenged my meal plan but not the thoughts telling me I was disgusting. Rue still felt like a burden, she never challenged that only the drug use. it would be amazing to see Rue in therapy or even just actively attempting self care and explaining how and why that might feel so hard to someone struggling. I think Euphoria this season has set up a perfect segway for the second season, and so far they have managed to portray the complexities of being a teenager with a mental illness in glitter while keeping it relatable and not being exploitative. I think after seeing Rues chronic struggle it would be really cool to see a character representing what recovery actually looks like when it comes from the right place, having that positive representation of trying to be proactive while struggling and still having questions would be a new arc for Rue and it would really show her growth however after the city incident only time will tell 😪

[tidesreach]

if you could rewrite skam italia season 2 to more accurately represent bpd and its symptoms, what would you change?

The short answer is I wouldn’t really change anything. But the reasons for that require explanation, so buckle in, this is going to be a long one.

I think accuracy is a subjective term when applied to portrayals of mental illness. Because people have very varied experiences. So what would be an accurate portrayal of BPD for me might not necessarily be accurate for someone else. Since the revelation of Nico’s diagnosis and my various posts on the subject, I have had messages from numerous other borderlines. A lot of them – like myself – related to Nico in many aspects. But there are also some who didn’t – or who did in some aspects but not others. The fact of the matter is that it’s not possible to portray a disorder like BPD in a way that is wholly accurate and relatable to everyone in all aspects because people have such varied experiences. If you’re interested in another portrayal of BPD, I recommend watching Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. For me, some aspects are incredibly relatable – sometimes uncomfortably so – but others are not. But that doesn’t mean those aspects are inaccurate. Another portrayal of BPD is the film Girl, Interrupted (one of my absolute favourite films) – however, some people with BPD (myself included) relate less to Winona Ryder’s character, who is the character diagnosed with BPD, and much more to Angelina Jolie’s character. Like I said, it’s subjective.

It’s also important to note that though there are nine diagnostic criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder only five are required for diagnosis. So one person could have almost completely different experiences to another. And even if you do meet all of the same criteria as someone else with BPD your symptoms may manifest in different ways. For this reason people’s experiences with BPD can be incredibly varied. I meet all nine of the diagnostic criteria (it’s like winning a really shit lottery) – so I have experience dealing with all of them, but how I experience them may be very different to the way someone else experiences them. As an example: people deal with fear of abandonment in different ways. Some people self-isolate as a way to avoid abandonment. Some people may appear “clingy” e.g. they will send constant texts and make frequent phonecalls. Some people experience what we call “splitting”. Some people experience all three. Basically, we all have our own individual experiences and there’s no one way to be borderline. Symptoms can manifest in so many different ways.

I’m putting this under a read more to save everyone’s dashboards because it’s quite lengthy. But if it interests you, I’ve listed the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for BPD and how Nico’s symptoms accurately fit into that.

The nine diagnostic criteria for BPD are quite broad and are as follows:

Frantic efforts to avoid real and imagined abandonment.

A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships, often characterised by extremes between idealisation and devaluation (also known as “splitting”).

Identity disturbance: Persistently unstable self-image or sense of self.

Impulsive behaviour that is reckless and potentially self-damaging (e.g. overspending, excessive alcohol or drug use, reckless driving, unsafe sex, binge eating, spontaneous decision-making, the list goes on).

Recurrent suicidal behaviour or ideation and/or self-harm.

Emotional instability (intense mood swings) e.g. intense episodic dysphoria, euphoria, irritability, or anxiety that can last from hours to days

Chronic feelings of emptiness and loneliness

Intense anger or difficulty controlling anger

Stress-related paranoia or severe dissociative symptoms (feeling disconnected from the world, or your own body, feelings, thoughts and behaviours)

It’s difficult to know how many of the criteria Nico meets as we have very limited background information to go on. After all, this is Martino’s season. Everything we see of Nico is in relation to Martino. Which makes it even more difficult to portray something like BPD. We have no inside knowledge of Nico’s thought processes, his past behaviours or what led to his diagnosis (hey, Ludo, can we uhhhhh get a Nico season please?). But he has to meet at least five of the above criteria to have been diagnosed. From what we have seen, the five he definitely meets are:

Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment (the back-and-forth with Marti, ignoring his texts then telling him he wants to be with him, freezing Marti out after his ill-advised comment on mental illness, going back to Maddi, the flipbook and the antidote, suggesting that he leave and his refusal to let Marti look at him when he was in a depressive state).

Impulsive/reckless behaviour (breaking into the pool at Halloween. Taking his mum’s car and driving to Bracciano. Milan in general.)

Emotional instability (I don’t think I need to give you specific instances here because his emotional instability becomes quite evident in general).

Chronic feelings of emptiness and loneliness (his speech about solitude in Nel Mio Letto explains this feeling perfectly).

Stress-related paranoia or severe dissociative symptoms (Milan, again).

He also shows clear signs of:

A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships (his parents, Maddalena, probably his friends/the boy he liked from his previous school. But we have limited information on his interpersonal relationships outside of Marti – though that’s unstable for most of the season thus is a sign in itself – so whether there is a distinct pattern of unstable relationships is unclear at this point, but it’s very likely given what information we do have. Whether he experiences splitting or not is unclear, too).

Identity disturbance (when he asks Marti if he should get a haircut and a tux to meet his dad, when he proposes à la Love Actually, when he’s staring at his reflection in the hotel room window, when he’s rapping Earl Sweatshirt and boxing in the bathroom – these could all be signs of an unstable identity, but I wouldn’t categorically define him as having persistent identity disturbance since we don’t know if it is in fact a persistent symptom).

So, Nico meets at least five but very likely seven out of the nine diagnostic criteria. The only two he hasn’t shown any signs of are:

Recurrent suicidal behaviour or ideation and/or self-harm.

Intense anger or difficulty controlling anger

So, to reiterate, accuracy is subjective. Nico’s symptoms were incredibly relatable for me personally. They’re just not the only symptoms and not the only way symptoms can manifest. Like I said, I experience all nine of the diagnostic criteria. So it wasn’t even a 100% accurate portrayal for me because I experience other symptoms too (splitting, anger/rage, suicidal behaviour and self-harm, among others). But I did relate a hell of a lot to the symptoms Nico did experience and the way he experienced them. I’m also incredibly grateful they didn’t focus on the suicidal aspect because there’s a lot of stigma surrounding BPD in regards to suicidal behaviour being manipulative, and if not handled well it might have been counterproductive. It was so important to me to have such a hopeful portrayal for that reason, because we are often portrayed in a terrible light.

I think the main thing that confused people regarding accuracy was Nico’s episode in Milan. Because it looked similar to Even’s manic episode in the OG. Which I understand. But it wasn’t the same thing. Many people with BPD, myself included, experience psychotic symptoms. Psychotic symptoms such as severe paranoia, hallucinations, depersonalisation, derealisation or distortion of beliefs and perceptions aren’t uncommon (there are a bunch of studies on this if you’re really interested, because health professionals are still trying to determine the cause and frequency of psychotic symptoms in BPD patients). They’re generally triggered by stress. I’ve experienced brief episodes of psychosis on and off for years. This is what Nico experienced in Milan (triggered by the stress of his parents and Maddalena trying to control him) – Nico truly believed that he and Marti were the last two people on Earth. To me, his episode looked like severe dissociation leading into brief psychosis – or psychotic symptoms, if you will (episodes of psychosis in BPD tend to be brief). So while I understand that it was confusing, it was, in fact, a fairly accurate portrayal of psychotic symptoms in BPD. I had a far more severe reaction to Nico’s episode than I did to Even’s because I saw so much of myself in him. Would it have been helpful to portray Nico’s psychotic symptoms in a way that wasn’t so similar to Even’s manic episode? Absolutely. But the fact remains that it was accurate and it made sense in the context of the season and the metaphor that Nico got caught up in of him and Marti being the last men on earth. It wasn’t random, it was cleverly interwoven.

Sorry for how long this got, but I felt like to answer this question required some explanation. To summarise, I actually don’t think I would change anything. There’s a reason I relate so much to Niccolò. But I don’t contest that others with BPD might not have found it as accurate a representation as I and others do. That’s absolutely their right. Because symptoms are incredibly varied and we all have our own individual experiences.

[scripttorture]

Torture in Fiction: The Dragon Prince

The Dragon Prince is a wonderfully written and beautifully animated cartoon. I don’t usually take on a whole series but I was interested in the pitch and have fond memories of Avatar: The Last Airbender. I was curious to see what the creators had come up with since.

And overall I really enjoyed it. The characters are engaging and the plot is an interesting twist on a lot of typical fantasy tropes. (It also helped that this is the first time I’ve seen an animated character sign.)

The review contains spoilers for the entire season (1) of this cartoon.

After humans started using dark magic, magic drawn from destroying naturally magical creatures, an alliance of elves and dragons drove them to the western side of the continent. In the war that follows humans killed the dragon king and destroyed his egg.

Years later a group of elves sneak into the human kingdom, determined to assassinate the king and his son in revenge. Rayla, the youngest of the assassins, discovers that the egg is intact and alive. With the human princes, Ezran and Callum, she sets out to return the egg, the titular Dragon Prince, to his home.

But once again I’m rating the depiction and use of torture, not the story itself. I’m trying to take into account realism (regardless of fantasy or sci fi elements), presence of any apologist arguments, stereotypes and the narrative treatment of victims and torturers.

Which means I’m not focusing on the main characters or their plot line here. Instead this review is going to focus mostly on three side characters: Runaan, the leader of the elven assassins who kills the human king, Viren, a dark mage and the king’s advisor who takes over the country on the king’s death and Gren a guardsman loyal to Ezran and Callum’s Aunt.

Viren chooses to have Runaan kept alive and imprisons him in a stone cell. He’s chained in a seated position with his hands raised above his head. Viren attempts to bribe and threaten Runaan into revealing information about a magical artifact. Runaan refuses and in retaliation Viren casts a spell imprisoning Runaan’s essence in a coin.

As Viren tries to consolidate power he clashes with the princes’ aunt, a military commander who insists the boys are alive and should be searched for. Viren manipulates her into returning to the front lines but not before she leaves Gren in charge of searching for the missing princes.

Viren has Gren imprisoned. He’s chained in a standing position with his hands kept level with his head.

I’m giving it 2/10

The Good

1) Torture and the threat of torture is used in the context of interrogation but the story shows it failing. Runaan rejects every request for information Viren makes. He also rejects every 'olive branch' Viren extends.

2) Torture isn’t shown changing or even mildly influencing Runaan’s strongly held beliefs. If anything the story shows Runaan’s anti-human stance becoming more entrenched in response to torture.

3) Viren’s motivation for imprisoning and torturing both Runaan and Gren is quite in keeping with reality. Runaan is an enemy soldier. Gren is loyal to the old regime that Viren is actively trying to replace. This makes both of them political enemies, treated as threats to the new regime’s security. That’s incredibly true to life.

4) The timing of Viren’s bribes also felt like a good point to me. Runaan is captured and abused and then Viren attempts to bribe him into cooperation. First he uses food and drink, then he uses the offer of freedom. I don’t know whether it was intentional or not but I liked this element because it supports the notion of Runaan’s opposition becoming firmer as he’s mistreated.

5) I enjoyed Viren’s general characterisation throughout this and the way he justifies his actions. He presents himself as a ‘pragmatist’. He says he’s willing to make the ‘tough choices’ for the good of others and the Kingdom. That’s the kind of torture apologia torturers often parrot.

6) And that view doesn’t go unchallenged in the story. Other characters point out that Viren’s actions mostly benefit himself. His cruelty and his so-called ‘pragmatic’ lack of morals are presented as causing bigger problems than they solve. Together it creates a really good, succinct and understandable portrait of a torturer. It shows him parroting typical torture apologia and it shows why those views are wrong.

The Bad

Both Runaan and Gren should be dead several times over.

The portrayal of stress positions here is frankly appalling. It's difficult to be exactly sure about the passage of time in the story but Runaan is kept with his hands chained above his head for at least a week. Gren is kept standing for days.

Stress positions kill after about 48 hours.

In this case, neither character is depicting as suffering due to the way they're restrained.

Runaan is shown suffering but this is visually and narrative linked to other things. He's bruised because he was beaten when he was captured. His arm is withering due to a curse. He's weak because he's refusing to eat and drink (which should also have killed him, however I’m willing to give that more leeway in a non-human character). But the stress position he's kept in isn't depicted as fundamentally harmful.

This is more or less repeated with Gren. He isn't shown refusing food or drink and he wasn't beaten when captured. His posture in his chains is relaxed. He shows no signs of pain or discomfort. He leans against the wall and whistles. His movement, colouration, coherency and memory all seem to be completely unaffected.

Stress positions are incredibly harmful. They are painful. They cause wide scale break down of muscles in the victim’s body. This initially leads to a build up of fluid in the extremities. Which causes painful, discoloured swelling in the limbs, sometimes to the point that the skin ruptures into blisters. As more muscles are destroyed the protein released into the bloodstream becomes too much for the kidneys to handle and they fail. One description I read described the kidney’s being turned into ‘swiss cheese’.

The result is a protracted, painful death that can occur a significant period of time after the victim is released from the stress position.

The fact that it’s a stress position singled out as a ‘harmless’ torture is extremely significant here.

This is a torture that generally doesn’t leave lasting marks. It’s a torture that’s common in the modern world. And we unfortunately live in a world where torture trials often hinge on the presence or absence of ‘physical proof’.

Scars.

Survivors are regularly dismissed and belittled because they were tortured in ways that didn’t leave obvious marks on their skin. Because their torturers used techniques like stress positions.

Showing these tortures as harmless backs up the societal view that these tortures don’t ‘count’. That the pain these victims experienced was not real and they don’t deserve our help or compassion.

It backs up the notion that these particular victims are to blame for what they suffered.

These aren’t obscure philosophical notions or debates. These tropes, these patterns, these arguments affect our treatment of torture and torture survivors now.

They are part of the social structures that deny torture survivors asylum. They are part of the reason it takes survivors an average of ten years to access specialist treatment.

Presenting these apologist views uncritically to young children isn’t neutral either.

Because even without taking into account parental blockers on internet searches accurate information on torture is incredibly difficult to find. Any curious viewer, of any age, who watches these scenes and searches for more information would come across more torture apologia long before they find research on torture.

Especially as they may not even link what they saw to torture.

A casual viewer would first need to make that link. Then be aware of the term ‘stress position’. Then be aware of the academic journals or niche authors who publish on these topics. And then have access to enough money to pay for those sources.

Some of the sources are not available in translation.

The result is that the overwhelming majority of viewers are likely to accept what they see: that stress positions cause no harm.

These details are small. They don’t get a lot of screen time. They’re unimportant to the plot.

But they are not neutral. They matter.

The way the different ideas at play here interact matters. As does their impact on the real world.

And as a result, despite many good points in the portrayal of torture, I feel like I have to give The Dragon Prince a low score.

Overall

Part of the reason I wanted to review this was to highlight how prevalent torture is in children’s media and how cartoons are often sending out the same misinformation as adult action movies.

The Dragon Prince doesn’t suggest that torture works and it doesn’t justify brutality. But at the same time it’s downplaying the damage torture causes by treating some tortures as essentially harmless. It’s telling that the tortures singled out this way are clean tortures common in the modern day.

The tortures that victims are commonly subject to now, the ones that don’t leave lasting marks, are the ones being singled out as harmless. As not ‘proper’ torture.

The message that only some tortures and only some victims ‘count’ starts young. And the sad thing is the people creating this, writing it and drawing it probably had no idea they were portraying torture when they chose to have characters chained to the wall.

The background knowledge most people have on torture is poor, made up of apologist tropes and rumours and misinformation. But it is so widely accepted that it probably doesn't even occur to most creators to fact-check what they write.

And the result in this case is a wonderfully made cartoon, which includes fantastic representation of disability, of racial diversity and women. While parroting tropes about torture that are actively harmful to victims.

Edit: If creators are not prepared to show the effects of torture then they should not use torture. If those effects are unsuitable for a children’s show then I’m left wondering why they included torture.

Personally, given the level of research these particular creators lavished on other areas, I suspect this was ignorance not malice. 

Disclaimer

[twdmusicboxmystery]

9x11: Details Part 2 + My Wacky Carzekiel Theory

Okay, welcome to Details, part 2. I’ll mostly talk about Carol and Ezekiel stuff in this post, but trust me there are a lot of Beth ties. For I’ll talk about the details I saw in the episode. Then I’m gonna throw out kind of wacky theory I’ve had swirling around my head lately. Let's get started.

So Ezekiel and the Kingdom go on an elk hunt. Obviously, the deer reference is important because of the Deer Theory.

I noticed that when he's first talking to Diane, she says there's about 100 elk in the herd. That stuck out to me because 100 is a number we've heard before. I don't think we've heard it for a while, but I concluded some time ago that it represented the path home to TF. So, one hundred elk is kind of interesting. Diane says that there are 200 walkers coming in. They have about six hours to get to the elk before the walkers do. Both the elk and the walkers were headed to a place called Falls Church. I don't know if Falls Church is important, but they give the name, so I figured it was worth noting.

We don't see the hunt but we do see that they get some elk. Now, having dead deer in the shot suggests someone getting hurt but surviving (Deer Theory). It could be Beth, but I have a theory about what else this might be about. I'll come back to it.

It also occurred to me that this is the second time Carol has been heavily associated with deer. Back in in S4, she was associated with them because of Lizzie and Mica. But also remember that she told Tyreese's Ed’s stupid hunting joke. The one about beer nuts vs. deer nuts. The punchline was, "deer nuts are just under a buck." So, she was specifically associated with large, male deer (bucks) in that episode. I suppose seeing the big antlers just made me think of that.

I never realized it before, but there weren't any bucks around Lizzie and Mica. The deer she tried to get Mica to shoot, which is standing there after she shoots Lizzie, is either a baby deer or small female. 

It would make sense for it to be a baby, since Lizzie and Mica were children. So again, just pointing out that Carol has been associated with this before, and I think that's important. Again, I’ll come back to them.

Let's have a comedy appreciation moment for Zeke and Jerry in this episode. Zeke tries to trick Carol out of going to the theater. Guy has no poker face. And of course there was Jerry. Between his goofy grin and his lip-synching, he kept me very entertained this episode. 😉

They’re after a projector bulb, which is a light bulb. It occurred to me it's it really is a type of lamp. Often the bulbs in projectors are referred to as lamps. So, we can connect this to the Lamp Theory.

They also say the phrase “cobra strike” over and over again. Snake reference, which we always relate back to Still.

Ezekiel also talks about “bringing cinema back from the dead." Sounds like a resurrection reference to me.

The movie theater reminded me very much of the Big Spot. There was the lighting, of course, but we see that lighting in many places. Just the dim interior with the much brighter exterior. Still, any place to go with those lighting reminds me of Grady and I relate it back to Beth.

Diane mentions a whole bunch of tubs of butter-flavored coconut oil. That stuck out as odd to me because it was unnecessary. Yeah, maybe you'd find something like that in a movie theater, but it wasn't like they needed that detail to establish this is a movie theater. She’s very specific about what it was, heavily drawing attention to it. 

Besides, in my experience, butter flavored coconut oil is not what’s a general used in movie theaters. They used a synthetic form of butter for the popcorn to be sure, but coconut oil is actually an expensive product. A movie theater probably wouldn't have it stockpiled. So, I’m not even sure this is particularly accurate. Maybe some theaters do it, and it’s possible, but most wouldn’t. They’d want to be more cost effective than that.

I looked up symbolism for it, and I don't see any symbolism specifically for coconut oil, just for coconuts. But I figure it's all the same since the oil comes from the coconuts. Coconuts have symbolism in many different cultures and places, but it almost always represents healing and regeneration. So again, this could be a Beth/resurrection thing, but also might just point to the fair and how they're hoping it will heal the communities.

Okay, let's get to the good stuff.

We see a walker with three deep gouges in its head. Jerry kills it. He does so by sticking his sword upward through its chin and face. 

That really jumped out at me because at the Big Spot, Sasha killed a walker in exactly the same way. 

The only reason I remember that is because Sonequa really liked that kill. She said it was the coolest kill Sasha had ever had, and she really enjoyed doing it. So, when I saw Jerry doing that, I knew they were paralleling this with the Big Spot.

And why do that? Again, I’ll go into it with my theory, but if nothing else, it’s yet another callback to S4 among many this season, and there must be a reason for it. The Big Spot was in 4x01, after all, which also includes the Bethyl hug and was the beginning of Beth’s arc.

There's a huge wheel on the popcorn cart. 

It just caught my attention because we see wheels a lot on bikes and such. Whenever I see a big wheel like that, the thing it reminds me most of is this wheel that we saw in 6x02, when the wolves showed up. Just saying.

We later find out scratches on the head of the walker Jerry killed came from crawling underneath the popcorn cart. In a very disgusting sequence, we see another walker do it. It took me a couple of times of looking at it to realize there's a pitchfork sticking down through the popcorn cart. 

So, it's not the cart itself they’re being cut on. It's the pitchfork that's leaving with three gouges in the four head.

We're not sure what the pitchfork represents, but it's important to note that we do see a pitchfork in the opening credits, now that they’ve changed this season. 

It's probably an important symbol. The biggest thing is that it can represent farming and that always leads us back to Herschel's ranch. It can also represent the devil, or a mob mentality (think walkers in general).

More importantly, we see a light-haired walker crawl under the popcorn cart. It looks female, with long, light hair, so sort of like one of the blond, Beth walkers. In a thoroughly disgusting sequence, it not only gets the gouges we saw in the earlier walker, it actually loses the top of its head. 

That’s really interesting because the part of its head that it losses is the very tip top, the crown. In other words, right where Beth was shot.

So I was thinking that the pitch fork representing something negative (the devil, evil, mob mentality, etc.) could work as well because S5, when Beth disappeared is the bad stuff, and we think she disappeared in a horde of walkers. Just really interesting the way they do this symbolism.

I had to laugh when Jerry took the bulb out, talking about how he had to be careful. He actually used the line, "this is going to be surgery." What you mean, Jerry? Surgery like…Grady? Like Dr. Edwards? Like Beth is coming back? Like you know she's gonna be here soon? 😆😉

Okay, next one’s huge. When Zeke gets his poster box and Carol goes to help them, I noticed a poster hanging on the wall in the background. It's very difficult to see because it's washed out. I did my best to mess with the lighting so that it's easier to see what's on the poster. 

I’m fairly sure there's a woman getting piggyback from a man. We don't see the full-body picture of it, but if you look at the white streak on the left side, that's her arm and it looks like she's slightly above him and has her arms wrapped around him from behind. 

I was still a little unsure about what I was seeing when I noticed that Carol said something interesting to Ezekiel. She says, "You were serious before..." Yeah, guys, this is the representation of a “serious” piggyback.

Now, the interesting thing is that we've seen this before with Carol. Back in S7, she read the book that had the piggyback on the cover. 

This is super interesting to me because it proves that this wasn't just about her meeting Ezekiel. Back then, I don't know if anyone did, but people could theoretically have argued that maybe it just showed that she was going to meet her soulmate, just as Beth and Daryl were soulmates. If that's all it meant, then we couldn't really point to it in a way that suggested Beth was returning.

Now, none of us serious (Sirius) TDers actually bought into that argument. Because it's a serious (Sirius) piggyback and Sirius is the dog star that always returns, we knew there was more to it. This proves that it couldn't have just been about Carol meeting Ezekiel because at this point (in S9) they’re already together. It's unnecessary to show the symbol again. So why is it showing it? Again, bear with me. I have a theory.

The other interesting thing to me, as far as the plot of the show goes, was that Carol suggested asking Hilltop to take them in if things got worse. 

I know about you guys, but I didn't realize things were that bad the Kingdom. We saw that things were kind of falling apart in 9x06 when Jerry and Henry were trying to tape up a water pipe, but it sounds like their home is really falling apart and they are going to need to find a new place to live. Not sure what that's leading to, but it's interesting.

One of the Kingdom guys comes in to tell Ezekiel the boombox has died. Really? As in the music just died?

And then when Jerry drops the light, he dropped down some sort of chute. We don't get a very clear view of it, but it reminded us a lot of the elevator shaft at Grady. 

And remember, if Beth is the lamp, we had it being dropped down an elevator-shaft-like chute, just as Beth went down the elevator shaft, and then one of the Kingdomers comes to tell Zeke the music has died. Just saying.

At one point, Ezekiel suggests, "maybe were done losing for a while."

*Shakes head* Zeke, Zeke. Haven't you learned yet? You on TWD. You’re never done losing stuff.

Okay I think that's all the stuff that I noticed. 

Now for my wacky theory.

Okay, so here's the thing. One thing I didn't mention was that the very first shot we get of this episode is a 10:10 clock. 

(Okay, technically, it's a 9:10 clock, but the shape of it is the same as the one that hung on the wall in Beth’s room at Grady.) And remember per THIS POST, watch manufacturers often set their watches to that time because it represents something specific.

According to legend, it's the exact time at which various historical figures and leaders were assassinated. Whether that's true or not is up for debate, but that's the legend of it. In other words, having that clock on Beth's wall isn't actually a resurrection symbol. It was just a foreshadow of her getting shot and TF believing she’s dead.

Then there’s the 8:20 clocks, which are a perfect mirror of the 10:10 clock represent the opposite thing. So, if the 10:10 clock represents death, then the 8:20 clock represents resurrection.

I think one of the best proofs we have of this theory is the fact that we saw the 8:20 clock around Rick in Carl's vision of the future. 

As far as Michonne, Carol, Daryl, and Judith are concerned, that vision can't possibly come to pass in the way Carl wanted, because Rick is dead. Or so they think. I think the 8:20 clock was there to show that, in TF’s eyes, Rick will be resurrected, and that future will come to pass.

And now, we have this 10:10 clock in the first scene with Ezekiel. My first thought was that it represented that someone's going to die. I'd love to believe that it's just Jesus, since we know we already lost him, but honestly probably not. It would be an unnecessarily symbol, which TWD never does. And remember that callbacks always double as foreshadows. So, it must apply to someone else. I started wondering who it could be, and went through everyone in the scene before realizing the answer was right in front of me. It's Ezekiel's watch. It's on his wrist. So, it probably applies to him.

Now here's the thing. (Bringing together a whole bunch of variables, here.) About a week ago, a bunch of articles came out implying that Ezekiel was going to die soon. Probably not until season 10, but we’ll still be losing him soon. I was disappointed to hear that. I maintain that he probably won't get his comic book, death, and that someone else (you know who if you’ve read spoilers) will be getting his comic book death. Of course, just because he doesn't get his comic book death doesn't mean he's not going to die. That hasn't been the case for any of the characters. But I'd simply hoped that we could keep Zeke around for a little longer.

But the more I think about it, the more suspicious I am with how they're dealing with this. This idea of Ezekiel’s impending death wasn’t leaked by the spoiler site. It's being said by the clickbait sites, which many of us believe are informed by AMC. Of course this isn’t something AMC has officially confirmed or anything, and they won’t, but these sites get info from “sources close to the show,” so it feels like AMC is preparing us for Ezekiel’s death.

Why would they release something about Ezekiel's death? Putting the spoiler site aside, this isn’t something AMC ever does.

There been several times that we've been able to guess the character was going to die (again, outside of spoilers). For example, with Sonequa Martin-Greene and Chad Coleman, they both got jobs at other networks that were announced. AMC can't do anything about that, and so because they were leaving the show, it was obvious that they would be dying on TWD. (A similar thing is happening with Sydney Park right now.) But those are outside influences. AMC does their best to hide character deaths, not talk about them a year before they happen.

So here’s what I’m getting at. They have released information about official character deaths exactly 2 times: with Beth and Rick. One of those characters we know is alive because he left them a helicopter with Jadis, and the other one was believed and have been saying is alive for five seasons and the powers that be have never actually looked us in the eye and denied it.

With Beth, AMC tried to say their “leak” of her death was accidental, but we’ve never believed that. With Rick, it turned out to be a bald-faced lie. SO many articles (same sites now talking about Zeke) talked about Rick’s death because Andrew wanted to leave. It was mostly true, but he didn’t actually die at all, now did he?

Furthermore, even though this clock represents death, it's not like we've seen it around every character who’s died. In fact, the only one I can think of (please correct me if I’ve forgotten an instance) is around Beth. 

So, Ezekiel is being paralleled with Beth here. Then we have Carol and the serious piggyback ride, which is obviously parallel to Beth and Daryl. And we have the fact that in 9x01, Ezekiel fell through the floor, looking exactly like the walker from 4x01, and nearly died. He was saved, of course, and Carol was relieved. That’s an awful lot like what happened with Richonne in 7x12, which foreshadowed Rick’s death fake out.

I think Ezekiel's "death," whatever it ends up being is going to be a fake out. I think that's what this is leading to. When Carol first met Ezekiel, we saw the serious piggyback ride because at that point, the relationship really could be heavily paralleled with Beth and Daryl’s. At that point, they weren’t actually in a romantic relationship yet. Carol and Ezekiel were just getting to know one another, like Bethyl when their serious piggyback happened. 

Now were seeing it again, as though to remind us, and it's coming in the same episode in which we saw a death omen for Ezekiel in his watch. 

Think back over everything else I said above: the serious piggyback, the snake references, the parallels to the light falling down the chute, the music dying, him falling through the floor in 9x06, even the deer. It could be there to represent that, like Beth, Ezekiel will be presumed dead and yet be alive. And I don't know if this will be a death fake out for us, the audience, like Beth was, or more of a Rick thing, but at the very least I believe Carol will think he's dead.

Even the Big Spot parallels work here. Big Spot happened in S4 and Beth disappeared in S5. This happening now in S9, and they’re suggesting we’ll “lose” Ezekiel in S10. 

Also remember that, between Carol and Ezekiel, Ezekiel represents Beth (the dreamer, the optimist, has faith, etc) while Carol is just like Daryl (more prone to negativity and practicality). So paralleling Zeke with Beth and repeating this arc in exactly this way makes perfect sense.

Now, I also want to add that, while saying all this may make it seem like all the symbols I named in this episode don’t actually point to Beth. Please know that I don’t think that at all. While I DO think they point at a coming arc for Carzekiel, remember, once again, that Rick is alive. Seeing these symbols, even just as foreshadows of this arc being repeated with another character, makes me believe more than ever that Beth will be returning, and soon. These symbols are alive and well because these resurrection arcs are still very much in play.

So that's my first wacky Ezekiel Theory. That Ezekiel isn't actually going to die, but that it will be another fake out of some kind. A repeat of Beth and Daryl’s arc.

The thing is guys, my theory is really a lot bigger than this. I need to talk about Carol vs. Alpha, because things are coming together over many seasons for me, and I’m seeing some interesting patterns. I feel strongly that the Carol/Alpha dynamic is and always was going to lead to Beth’s emergence, and I can tie it in to what I’ve said here about Ezekiel, but it’s a sprawling theory and I need to look over some previous episodes and check a few things, so I’m not sure when this theory will be finished. I’ll try to get it out to you by the weekend. No promises, though. ;D 

Thoughts on Zeke?

[youreallyshouldtalkmore]

Wakandan OutReach Center_HalloweenSpecial_ Part 2

This is a Halloween special that is part of the Lion and his Lamb series!

I also think this can double as black cosplay/cosplayer fan fiction as well!! 

Tags: @chaneajoyyy​

Part 2

It was finally Halloween Night and the center was flooded.

Flooded, do you hear me!

People pouring every which a way.  You couldn’t remember a time when this many people were at the center at one time. Everyone from the young to the old were there. Many were in costumes but some were not. For this Halloween party, a costume was not mandatory to join. None of you wanted anyone to feel left out so you didn’t make it an requirement. However for the less fortunate younger children, you had a rack of some basic costumes so they could feel the joy in dressing up.

You were dressed as a fairy and was in charge of face painting. You didn’t realize just how popular the face painting session would be. Especially for the younger children so at the beginning of the party you spent most of your time with them painting the little faces.

The younger children were in awe of your costume, especially since you were not a black Tinkerbell. Instead you decided it would be cool to be an aziza, which was an African fairy of the Dahomey tribes.  So many people were shocked to know that Africa even had their version of fairies.

You had just finished a little boy’s face and gave him a hug before sending him on his way.  The party had only been going for a half an hour so far. You hadn’t seen either T’Challa or Nakia so you wondered when they’d make their entrance. You hadn’t seen their final costume either so you were looking forward to it.

You stood with a small stretch and almost jumped when you heard the suddenly grotesque laughter coming from the haunted house that was on the parking lot.

From your basic understanding, apparently Shuri had invented some space condrium thing that allowed the haunted house to be bigger on the inside than the space it took up on the parking lot. It also generated some heat allowing it to not be so cold around the center. Killed two birds with one stone, she said.  

You hadn’t been in the haunted house and if you had your way you’d stay out. You weren’t particularly fond of haunted houses or being scared in general. Something that Erik had teased you about since he found out.

Speaking of Erik, you heard the familiar group of giggles from the female teenagers before you saw him.  You giggled when he came into view, surrounded by the teenagers. 

Ahh, you had to say, this was your best work.

You didn’t think your boyfriend counted on the fact that dressing as an African vampire would go over so well. As such he had garnered a little following for the night. You looked him over.

You thought he was handsome anyway but as a vampire…...

He wore Nigerian outfit and fangs. 

You made him outline his eyes which he gripped about. 

He apparently had his fangs custom made because they were gold fangs. (And he kept telling everyone else who’d listen that they were way too into the Halloween thing...) 

He was even wearing golden earrings. 

And he carried an apple around as a prop.

You can see why when the girls saw him they went absolutely insane. They had never seen a vampire like this before.

“Aight, Imma go see my girl….” Erik stressed as he spotted you across the room.

“Okay!” the girls chorus all giggling again.

You saw them tittering as he walked over you, dragging you into the corner without pause in his step. He looked over his shoulders once and the girls tittered again before looking at you.

He gave you a hard stare, “Imma blame you for this.”

“You’re welcome!” you chirped.

Erik forked and eyebrow, “Ain’t you jealous?”

You waved your hands, “Of them 18-20 year olds? Naahhh….in the interest of education and fun this season, I can share my boyfriend for a few hours.”

Erik gazed down at you and you couldn’t help the shiver in your heart. His gaze seemed especially piercing as his eyes were outlined. Finally he grinning showing off his golden fangs, “Aight….”

You suddenly became suspicious, “Alright?”

Erik nodded, “ Yeah, I can do no other than what my woman wants. If she wants to share her boyfriend with some underage girls in the spirit of the season, who am I to argue?”

You twitched once. How the devil was this man twisting your words?

Erik shrugged an turned around to give a nod to the girls who suddenly started flitting all over themselves, “As a vampire, I do have a reputation to uphold. We know that vampires like young blood….”

He went to walk away but you reached out and grabbed his wrist. He didn’t turn around though there was a mad grin on his face. Slowly he turned his head and looked at you before looking pointedly at your grip. His dark eyes went back to yours.

You looked at him coolly, “Try it and this fairy will come out of her ant hill to stab you.”

Erik cackled then before turned to you and gripping both sides of your face with his hands. He leaned down until his lips was next to your ear, “Ain’t you cute….?”

You pushed him back with a roll of your eyes.

Suddenly the lights in the center flickered making you look around worriedly until you heard Shuri on an speaker.

When and how she did that, you won’t ask.

“Can I have everyone’s attention please? I need everyone to come out to the parking lot as we have a special surprise for you. One that cannot be missed. This is your 2 minute warning. Thank you!”

Both eyebrows went up and you looked up at Erik, “Know something about this?”

Erik shrugged, “It’s Shuri….do we need a reason?”

You nodded and both of your filed out with the rest of the group. Shuri was standing in front of the haunted house, holding her tablet and when she saw you both, she waved. Erik and you made your way to her side.

Shuri decided to be a mad scientist, with goggles on top of her head. When you heard her idea, you thought it was perfect. She added her own flair which made her doctor’s coat, have African prints instead of being a pure white lab coat. 

“Sister Y/N….Cousin!!” she greeted with a huge smile.

“So, what’s going on?” you asked looking around.

Shuri gave a secretive smirk, “You’ll know when you see it.”

Without another word she stepped up to address the crowd who quieted down,

“Ladies and Gentlemen!!” Shuri cried, “I present to you….the King and Queen of the Nile…..”

Shuri pressed something on her tablet and stepped to the side. Everyone looked around waiting to see what would happen. After a second you along with everyone else saw a light in the sky and looked up. 

You saw T’Challa ship slowly float down to the ground across the way. The ship hovered before the the hatch open. 

Suddenly, music began to filter out into the parking lot.

Your eyes widen as you watched in anticipation. After a moment, eight Dora filled out in two lines. What caught you off guard was that they were dressed in Egyptian style armor instead of their normal uniforms.  They marched perfectly in sync down the platform before they turned so they were facing each other.

A hush fell of the crowd, even as the music continued and although Shuri wasn’t saying anything you could hear the cackle in her smirk.

After a moment, two identical looking Egyptian thrones came floating out side by side. Suddenly you were getting Stargate SG-1 feels….

Your mouth fell open as you saw T’Challa and Nakia dressed to the gills as the Pharaoh and Queen of Egypt. They looked looked regal and solemn though you could see the mirth in their eyes from where they sat. They even were holding scepters that the Egyptian royalty held.

The audience began to titter as excitement flowed through. You barely gave the audience an glance so enthralled with this production. You could heard and saw a few phone cameras going off though.

The chairs floated to front of the crowd and landed. T’Challa gracefully stood up and held out his hand to Nakia who took it and stood. The chairs then, seemingly on their own, turned and floated back to the ship which at sometime floated back up to the sky and disappeared, but you certainly didn’t notice as you were taken with the couple.

T’Challa step forward to draw attention to himself. He must have been wearing some kind of microphone you couldn’t see as his voice was amplified.

“Welcome, my children!”  he intone, “I hope that you are enjoying this Halloween party. We the King and Queen of Egypt have come from the Nile to join you this evening.”  

You were floored. You never thought that they would take your idea and run this far with it. You gazed around finally looking at some of the reactions of the crowd. Even the older people seemed in stunned awe just at the younger ones. You blinked. Why the devil did you feel a little misty all of a sudden?   

It takes a lot for Erik to become speechless but this was one moment it managed to be accomplished. In all his life, he had never seen a more accurate representation of the Nile and even at his age it stunned him. Although he would not tell them, he was suddenly filled with a sense of pride watching T’Challa and Nakia enter the building followed by a large portion of the crowd. He heard Shuri telling that that there was going to a selfie station if anyone wanted photos with the Pharaoh and his Queen.

Swallowing the lump in his throat, Erik gave a laugh as he slipped his arms around your shoulder without taking his eyes off of the people around them, “You did good, ma.”

He frowned when he heard a sniff and looked down to see you were fanning yourself and blinking rapidly.

“Are you crying?” Erik asked incredulously.

“I ain’t crying….my sinuses acting up.” you said. Erik thought it might be prudent to not mention that your voice wobbled once.  

Instead he said with a roll of his eyes, “You better watch that makeup.”

You waved your hand at him, “Don't’ worry about it. It’s waterproof.”

Erik looked down at your incredulously, “Waterproof? You planned for this didn’t you? What did you spend another $100 on makeup like you did last time?”

“Nope! I kept it shy of $50!!” answered with a chirp before walking toward the building.

Erik rolled his eyes and followed. As expected Erik could see a line of the people waiting to get photos with T’Challa and Nakia.

Neither of you could figure out, since it wasn’t there before, there were a section of the gym that had became a selfie station with the throne of the Pharaoh and Queen with a smaller throne between them for the person to sit in on a dais. 

To come up the four stairs you had to pass two Dora Milaje facing each other. The other Dora were lined around the gym. You giggled to see a few kids running up to them to get a better look at them in their costumes. 

Behind T’Challa and Nakia was a digital representation of a throne room.  

Shuri was monitoring taking the photos. 

You shook your head and giggled, “Your family is so extra!!”

Erik sighed, “I notice.”

The two of you watched a moment longer before Erik suddenly through his arm around your shoulder. You looked at him warily as he grinned, golden fangs and kohl making him look downright devilish, “Now what I got to do to get you into that haunted house, ma?”

You glared at him, “You trying to die tonight?”

Erik cackled.

A.N: I just want to put it out there. If we can get someone to do Chadwick Boseman as an Pharaoh drawing the way we have Lupita as Nefertiti.....I’m just saying.... 

Pass the word.... 

[cromulentbookreview]

Quoth the Raven

Hee.

Uh, and by that I mean: The Ravens Tale by Cat Winters! ‘

Can you imagine how awful it’d be if your creative muse took the form of an actual human who followed you around, that other people could see? If that were the case, two of my muses would probably take the forms of Malcolm Tucker and Kimmy Schmidt. They’d be constantly fighting one another while the third muse, Mr. Spock, stands by with a raised eyebrow, just saying “fascinating” over and over again.

The others, of course, would be a badass gospel choir singing about Hercules.

I promise my ramblings about personified muses will become relevant at some point.

I’m a bit of a Poe freak. A Poevian? Poe-head? Do Poe fans have a fan cult nickname? (I’ll have to ask the Poe museum...). Anyway, Poe was, and is, my favorite American writer. Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau and Herman Melville can eat dicks, because Poe is the best. Though I do like some of Hawthorne’s stuff. Melville was OK, too. Thoreau can go eat dicks and pay his fucking taxes.

Goddamn Frogpondians...

(The Gif above is an accurate representation of how Poe treated the transcendentalists in his criticisms. Also a reason why you should watch Altered Carbon. Season 2 better have more Poe, damn it!)

Anyway, I’d always had a love for Poe and his works ever since I was very young, the reason being the first ever Treehouse of Horror. I was just a wee little beeb when that episode premiered, but I was raised on The Simpsons and on Simpsons reruns. Their 1990 adaptation of The Raven, narrated by none other than the amazing James Earl Jones (!!!!), stuck with me throughout my childhood. In fact, I’ve got the whole of The Raven memorized probably because I’ve seen that Treehouse of Horror so many times. Also I read The Raven a bunch, too.

Also, I, too, hated the transcendentalists. Transcendentalism = the worst.

Plus, there’s just something so very relatable to me about the author who writes things that people enjoy but is unfairly maligned by the literary establishment and who has vicious, untrue rumors spread about him that people actually believed. I mean, that never happened to me or anything…

Anyway - for some reason, people still believe a lot of the bullshit spread about Poe both during his lifetime and after his death. (Word of advice, don’t let your bitter enemy be your literary executor). Poe was not an opium addict or a drug addict of any kind, or a crazy-ass drunk. Though he did drink a bit. He did marry his 13-year-old first cousin when he was 26, but no one knows the exact details of the nature of that relationship. He was kind of a dick, though, that much is definitely true. I mean, once you’ve read one, or two, or eight different Poe biographies, you start to figure that yeah, he could be a bit of an asshole. I can be a bit of an asshole, too, so I figure when I die, Poe and I can hang out and be assholes together. Also, lob insults at Thoreau.

Basically, fuck yeah Edgar Allan Poe. God, I spent so many hours of my college life picking The Masque of the Red Death apart instead of, you know, having friends. Or a life. Also, Poe invented the whole detective genre. Seriously, we wouldn’t have Sherlock Holmes and all the great detectives who came after without the stories of Auguste Dupin.

Just don’t mention the orangutan.

Anyway! The Raven’s Tale!

Since he’s such a huge figure in American literature, there’s plenty of fiction about Poe. But pretty much all fictional portrayals of Poe depict him as an adult. There’s virtually nothing about his youth - and Poe’s youth was absolutely fascinating. His parents were actors: his father ran off, then his mom died, leaving Edgar, his older brother Henry and younger sister Rosalie, orphans. The three were split up: Henry went to his grandparents, Rosalie was taken in by the Mackenzie family, while Edgar went to live with the wealthy Allan family of Richmond, Virginia. The Allans never formally adopted him, but he got their name anyway. The Allans took Edgar along with them to England, where he went to boarding school for a while before they went back to Richmond. Poe was very much a poor kid among the superrich - there was no forgetting that he wasn’t an Allan, but the child of, euch, actors. In the 19th century, you have to spit the word “actor.” Everybody loved seeing plays, but actors were massive slutwhores not worthy of being around decent people. In his youth, Poe was quite the athlete (he swam six miles in the James River without stopping once. I, meanwhile, don’t believe in swimming, because if humans were meant to swim, we would have been born with gills and an ability to breathe water). In October of 1824, Poe even got to meet the Marquis de Lafayette during Lafayette’s Grand Tour of the US.  Also, he hated John Allan, who was the worst.

All of that is primo YA Fic material. So how come nobody's used it? I’ve read plenty of not-so-great novels about Poe as an adult, where’s the fun YA origin story? So, needless to say, I was so very, very, very pumped when I learned of the existence of The Raven’s Tale. A novel about young Poe? By a fellow Oregonian? Oh hell yes.

Cat Winters seriously did her research, and as a future librarian/someone with a MLIS, I 1000% appreciate anyone who does their research. In the world of The Raven’s Tale, an artist’s muse can take a visible form (I promised it’d be relevant, didn’t I?!), but Poe’s muse, when she appears, isn’t exactly normal: she’s dressed in mourning, looks like a victim of the 1811 Richmond Theater Fire and wears a necklace made of teeth. Not the best muse for a kid who is just trying to survive one last week under his awful foster father’s roof before he can escape to the University of Virginia. John Allan, who is seriously the worst, has demanded that Poe suppress his urge to write poetry, because art = bad, money = good. If Allan catches Edgar writing, Allan will yank him out of the University of Virginia and force him to work for the family tobacco company. As much as Poe hates John Allan, he loves his foster mother, Frances, currently super sick and frail. Frances just wants Edgar and John Allan to get along, so, as you can imagine, the teenage Poe is currently stuck between forcing himself to be civil to his shitty foster father for his foster mom’s sake, and his desire to write. So when Poe’s macabre muse - who he, of course, names Lenore - appears in his room in human form and demands that Poe let people see her, he has to choose - embrace his muse and sacrifice his future, or abandon his muse and obey John Allan.

I was so hyped by the mere thought of The Raven’s Tale that I was afraid I’d end up in one of those situations where your expectations for something were so high that, no matter how good the final product is, you’re still disappointed. Yeah, that didn’t happen here. With her eerie, surreal writing style combined with meticulous research, Winters has created a story that is both a captivating Gothic tale and a fantastic tribute to a great American author. Winters perfectly captured Poe’s teenage angst and anxiety in a way that felt both accurate and real. Anyone who has ever been a poor kid among the rich, or who has ever struggled to pay for college will find Poe’s struggles at the University of Virginia all too real. His struggles with his school fees in 1826 will make anyone in 2018 who has gone to college cringe.

To make a very, very long story short: The Raven’s Tale was everything the Poe nerd in me wanted. I cannot wait for this book to come out - hopefully it will inspire more people, especially young people, to study Poe.  

Hopefully today’s young people won’t have to threaten to complain to the department head to get their American Lit professor to include Poe in the curriculum the way I did. It worked and I have no regrets.  

Thank you, and bravo, Ms. Winters, fellow Oregonian and Poe Nerd (Poevian? Poe-head? The Poe museum never responded to my tweet). This book made the lit geek in me very, very happy.

RECOMMENDED FOR: Anyone who has ever enjoyed anything by Edgar Allan Poe

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR: Frogpondians

RATING: 5/5

TOTALLY UNBIASED POE FANGIRL RATING: 5,000,000,000,000,000/5

RAVEN RATING 

SOMEONE ON THE SIMPSONS STAFF IS A POE FAN:

[hvcy]

Thoughts on Season 2 of Thirteen Reasons Why

I totally respect other people’s opinions. Here’s mine:

Thirteen Reasons Why is definitely not an ideal media representation of social and mental health issues and is really triggering at many points. I indulged myself to this bandwagon by watching the first season one week after it was released. This season, however, tended to be painfully graphic and harmful for all viewers. Before watching it, I had considered the production’s warning. It will be ‘unsuitable’ and ‘sensitive’ for all of us, and I totally agree. Me, I’m not very proud of my own thoughts when I went into this dark and horrible stage of mine before, and I’m not comfortable talking about it with anyone, but many of my schoolmates know some about it. My parents? No. School administration? No. I have redeemed myself and it took years to be in this peaceful mindset, but I’ve got to admit that I’m still emotionally damaged, and I learned that after watching this season. So, people have been asking me why am I still watching this show? 

Let’s talk about the characters. Hannah Baker wasn’t the narrator of this whole season, and it’s a breath of fresh air. Clay Jensen, on the other hand, took a lot of screen time. He was being necessarily dramatic, but all over the place. The real reason I continued watching this season after Episode 1 is that of the other characters’ great character development; seemingly Jessica Davis, Zach Dempsey and Mr. Kevin Porter (Sheri Holland and Justin Foley started to appear in Episodes 2 and 3, respectively). There I was thinking: I sometimes relate to Clay, other times I see myself in Zach, and oh I relate to Justin on this one. This season focused on the aftermath of a serious tragedy, and also the prevalent issue of sexual assault and bullying (also adding substance abuse and gun violence). They tackled Jessica’s situation and recovery realistically because other girls feel the same way and maybe going through the same recovery process. Hers, Alex Standall’s and Olivia Baker’s journey needed to be acknowledged this season because it’s a way; their way to recover from their own pain, and we can’t take that away from them. The scenes: There are some graphic scenes, of course. I liked the scene where Courtney told the truth and accepting her identity. I liked Zach’s friendship with Alex, and Clay’s big brother aura to Justin. It’s surprising to say that I’m not surprised with the trial’s result because again, real life. I liked the season’s quiet moments. I liked how the characters are aware that they themselves are flawed in their own way. 

You see, I haven’t experienced rape, physical violence, and substance abuse. I was molested once when I was a kid, many people called me names I didn’t like, and other horrible things that contribute to who I am right now. Despite other people’s toll on the show, I still appreciate the whole thing. I’ve got to admit that half of the time I was watching those scenes, I really felt uncomfortable. Specifically, that scene from the last episode made me speechless. After I’m finished with that episode, I cried for hours because of that scene with Tyler. I was catching my breath the whole time, crying and crying until I felt numb and fell asleep because of the weariness. “It’s too much! It’s too much,” I keep on saying it. “Oh, God, please stop.“ There are other scenes that made me feel sick, but this one, I can‘t even.

It was definitely not an ideal for a show, but it needed to be accurate as possible. I totally agree with the “too graphic” issue going on, but it needed to be. Because somewhere out there in the real world, it’s happening to some kids. That’s the real life! In this world, there are girls that try to forget the past because they feel powerless (like Jessica). There are kids who are confused with their own identity and having a hard time acknowledging it (like Courtney) and also being pressured to act a certain way because they’re scared of losing something (like Zach and Tyler). There are kids who cope with their individual losses and own life damages the hard way because the world doesn’t seem to fully understand (like Clay and Alex) and there are these kids with no remorse like Bryce and Monty, who will keep on being insensitive and shitty because they like things going their way for their personal satisfaction. That’s the painful reality. Those scenes involving them needed to be accurate. It’s happening in the real world, and it’s the truth and we can’t just sweep it under the rug. 

If you can’t accept it, that’s on you. I know because it has been very harmful to me and everyone else who feels the same way, but other people needed to know these situations. This show is not for us hurting. This show is for people to open their eyes and see the painful truth of social issues and adolescence to others, it brings insight and perspective. I’ve seen shows and movies that didn’t represent mental illnesses accurately. The first season of 13RW, it helped me to not think about my horrible experiences that don’t define me. It strengthened me instead. And more importantly, it made me think that suicide is not an option for me anymore.

I’m not forcing it out on anyone. Everyone handles things differently, and I’m so sorry if it affected you negatively. Please be always careful. x

[disaestres-blog]

university  is  kicking  my  lily - white  ass  and  i’ve  only  just  now  finished  this  and  i’m  actually  that  ashamed     --- ---      but  hello     !!       i’m  sasha,  i’m  nineteen  and  my  space  bar  hasn’t  known  peace  since  ‘99.  i’m  from  australia,  which  puts  me  in  the  aest  timezone     /      shithole  of  the  internet,  and  i  can’t  wait  to  get  writing  with  y’all      !!

COLETTE  JOANNA  ROSE.    twenty - one.   bisexual  cisfemale.   currently  plays  violet  simmons  on  jinx.

the  thing  about  colette  is,  she’s  never  really  meant  to  fall  into  acting.  she’s  meant  to  follow  her  father’s  footsteps,  join  the  military,  fight  for  her  country,  obtain  an  injury,  be  honourably  discharged  and  then  come  home  to  praise  and  admiration  for  the  next  fifteen  years.  the   thing  is,  she  has  no  desire  to  do  that.

the  day  that  colette  starts  taking  theatre  classes  after  school,  her  dad  practically  breaks  down  in  tears.  he  just  wants  his  little  girl  to  be  secure,  and  she  can’t  have  that  when  she’s  working  in  the  film  industry     ---     but  when  he  sees  the  way  she  performs  at  her  first  show,  his  attitude  spins  around.  from  that  day  on,  james  rose  drives  his  only  daughter  round  to  all  of  her  classes  and  buys  front - row  tickets  to  every  single  one  of  her  performances.  he’s  never  been  more  proud  of  his  little  girl.

the  film  industry  is  hard.  colette  learns  that  very  quickly,  and  it  almost  crushes  her.  no  one  wants  to  hire  the  tall,  lanky,  soft - spoken  girl,  and  she  cries  on  her  dad  in  the  car  after  almost  every  audition.  i  dropped  out  of  college  for  this,  she  thinks,  and  it’s  not  going  to  pay  off.

it  pays  off.  she  gets  her  first  big  break  in  a  shitty  little  sitcom,  but  it’s  something  and  halfway  through  the  airing  of  the  first  season,  she’s  called  in  for  an  audition  for  jinx  and  god,  she’s  never  been  happier  than  when  she  gets  the  call  that  she’s  hired.  she  and  her  dad  throw  a  fucking  party,  and  it’s  just  the   two  of  them     (     like  it’s  always  been     )    but  it’s  the  best  she’s  felt  in  years.

she’s  soft - spoken,  and  she’s  a  bit  of  a  wallflower  tbh.  she  prefers  a  quiet  night  in  with  takeaway,  a  book  and  a  two - hour  call  to  her  dad  to  going  out  partying.  i  love  her  so  much     ????

DANTE  EPSTEIN  HIRSCH.     twenty - six.   pansexual  demiboy.   currently  head  director  of  sheltered.

it  was  inevitable  that  dante  epstein  hirsch  was  going  to  fall  into  showbiz.  with  two  of  hollywood’s  most  influential  independent  directors  for  parents,  there  was  no  doubt  that  he’d  end  up  following  in  their  footsteps.   adopted  by  deanna  and  rosaline  hirsch  from  a  small  orphanage  in  queens,  new  york,  he  was  given  all  the  love  a  child  could  ask  for.  growing  up,  he  was  often  taken  to  see  his  birth  mother     ;     they  don’t  have  much  of  a  relationship,  but  at  least  he  understands  why.  his  moms  raised  him  jewish,  and  taught  him  heaps  about  their  religion  and  culture  and  he’s  incredibly  attached  to  it  now.  he  still  heads  home  every  friday  for  shabbat,  and  seeing  his  moms’  delight  is  worth  the  entire  world  to  him.

not  only  does  dante  grow  up  jewish,  he  also  grows  up  as  bisexual  and  unclear  about  his  gender  identity.  he’s  semi - comfortable  identifying  as  male,  but  there’s  something  else  that  identifies  as  something  else  and  after  a  whole  lot  of  research  and  2  am  cups  of  tea  with  his  moms,  he  stumbles  across  the  term  demi - boy  and  it  fits,  it  works  to  describe  what  he’s  feeling.  

somewhere  along  the  line,  he  comes  to  a  rather  shocking  realisation  that  the  representation  for  the  lgbtq+  in  film  and  television  is  appalling,  which  it  is.  his  mothers  are  big  on  promoting  diversity  in  film,  and  encourage  him  in  any  way  they  possibly  can     ---     at  eighteen,  dante  enrols  at  nyu  and  studies  film  and  media.  it’s  about  this  time  that  he  starts  making  shitty  short  films  with  his  friends,  and  something  clicks.

the  minute  he  graduates  from  nyu,  he’s  writing  and  directing  short  films,  and  it’s  a  whirlwind  and  a  fucking  half  but  he  loves  it.  for  his  22nd  birthday,  his  moms  buy  him  a  loft  in  manhattan  and  things  just  start  getting  better  and  better.  when  he’s  contacted  by  angeltale,  after  seeing  a  collection  of  his  films  centering  around  the  lives  of  lgbtq+  youth  in  new  york,  he’s  hired  as  a  director  and  the  first  thing  he  does  is,  naturally,  to  call  his  moms  and  just  about  cry  on  them.

sheltered  is  his  fucking  baby.  it’s  an  adaptation  of  an  early  idea  he’s  had,  and  he  loves  it  with  every  ounce  of  his  being  because  it’s  good  representation.  no  one  dies,  it’s  accurate  and  yet  it’s  uplifting  and  joyful  and  heartbreaking  and  wonderful.  he  still  cries  at  certain  episode  when  he’s  drunk.

personality - wise     ???     he’s  almost  too  laidback.  he’s  incredibly  intelligent,  progressive  and  thoughtful  and  the  thing  is,  when  he’s  not  joking  around  and  being  a  fucking  weirdo,  he’s  insanely  clever  and  comes  out  with  these  pearls  of  wisdom.  he  does  have  a  habit  of  falling  back  on  his  sense  of  humour,  though,  and  likes  making  people  laugh  and  have  a  good  time.  he’s  a  fucking  idiot  and  i  love  him.

[truthbeetoldmedia]

The Good Place 2x10 “Best Self" Review: What Does It Mean To Be Human?

By Sam Makowski

After the frenetic events of last episode, this episode opens upon a unique premise: the fake Good Place is entirely empty except for the four humans, a demon, and an artificial intelligence (not a robot). This allows the full half hour to focus entirely on the six main characters and their relationships with each other as they strive to reach the real Good Place.

“Best Self” serves as both an ending and a beginning, closing the chapter on this neighbourhood that the characters have occupied since the pilot, and thrusting them into the unknown. As it does so, it reflects on how far they’ve come since that beginning. As they have no way to get into the Good Place, Shawn (the Demon Boss) will soon return and send them to the Bad Place (and Michael into early retirement).

It’s Tahani who figures out the only possible way out of this sticky mess: to go “speak to the manager,” AKA the judge who presides over disputes between the Good Place and the Bad Place. Unfortunately, the only way to get there is to make it through the actual Bad Place unseen, and even then the chances of them winning their case and being allowed into the Good Place are vanishing small.

But Eleanor displays yet another endearing human tendency (to attempt something futile with a ton of unearned confidence, ready to fail spectacularly) and declares, “What have we got to lose?”

What It Means To Be Human

My favourite aspect of this episode was the questions it raised (and facetiously answered) about being human. The gate to the hot air balloon, which someone must be the best version of themselves in order to pass through, provides opportunity for the humans—specifically Eleanor and Chidi—to reflect upon how much they have changed since their time on Earth.

Chidi, unsurprisingly, gets caught up in the semantics of “best version”: after all, he asks, if this is the 802nd time Michael has rebooted them and they have no memory of the first 801 times, how can they possibly know that this version of themselves is the best?

It’s Eleanor who steps in, with her wisdom that is becoming less surprising as the show wears on, to tell Chidi that as he is the one who enabled the rest of them to become their best selves, he is already the best version of himself. As Chidi realizes, “So, in a way, it doesn’t matter if I was better in version 492 or whatever, because the best version of me is just as much about my effect on the world around me as it is about my own egocentric self-image.”

Having convinced himself that Eleanor is correct, Chidi is able to pass through the gate without a problem. But now it’s Eleanor who gets turned back, as she’s remembered the video of her and Chidi at Mindy’s house (something that has been weighing on her with increasing heaviness since Mindy revealed it to her) and how vulnerable and emotional and honest she had been with him, in a way this version of herself wasn’t. So doesn’t that mean that Version 119 of Eleanor was better than Version 802?

Which leads to the question: is what you believe about yourself the most accurate representation of your character? Must you believe yourself to be a good person to actually be a good person, or is it how others perceive you that’s more important?

(The main question it raised for me was one not addressed by the show: if one is the best version of one’s self, does that mean there is no longer any room for improvement? As—and this is something the show has impressed upon us frequently—humans can constantly strive to better themselves, is it even possible to become a best version?)

Of course, in the end Michael reveals that the hot air balloon was a sham because he doesn’t actually know how to get into the Good Place, although he has tried over a billion possible solutions.

Michael’s development from a cold-hearted demon into a demon with emotions has been by far one of the best things about Season 2 (here we see him feeling “What’s it called, where you did a thing and you’re sad after it?”) and he is always the one who provides the most astute observations about humankind.

Those observations range from disparaging—“You humans have so many emotions! You only need two: anger and confusion”-—to genuine pleasure at the inanities of human nature: “A stress ball with a dumb corporate logo. Oh, I can’t wait to keep finding this and then almost throw it away and then think, ‘No, I’ll use it!’”

Michael has always exhibited these dualities, as far back as Season 1. He’ll ridicule humans in the same sentence as longing to be more like them. It’s unclear whether this is a common attribute among demons, or whether it left Michael uniquely susceptible to Chidi and Eleanor’s attempts to humanize him.

While there is little doubt that Michael is currently the best version of himself, the same cannot be said of Janet, who—torn between her nature as a computer whose operating system is constantly being updated and her unresolved feelings for Jason, made more complicated by her own increasing humanity after each progressive reboot—breaks the scale when it can’t determine whether she is or isn’t the best version or herself. Janet is no longer just a computer program, she’s something else entirely.

Which leads us to one of the probable themes of these season. Neither demons nor computers are human, and yet both Michael and Janet are shown becoming more and more so. This begs the question:

What does it mean to be human?

Chidi and Eleanor: Soulmates?

Eleanor’s feelings for Chidi are in full force this episode, from the numerous longing looks she gave him while convincing him he was the best version of himself, to laying her head on his shoulder while they danced, to outright telling him that she has feelings for him, since they’ll all be sent to the Bad Place come morning.

Unfortunately for Eleanor, Chidi doesn’t yet appear to return those feelings, even going so far as to hope that soulmates actually do exist—”I mean, you know, for all of us,” he hastily corrects when noticing the glum expression on Eleanor’s face.

It seems hard to believe that the show won’t eventually put these two together, as they have been written that way ever since Season 1, when they both believed they were each other’s soulmates. In many of the reboots since, they were not purposefully made to be each other’s soulmates, and yet in every single version they came back to each other. Which, to me, is one of the most classic definitions of “soulmate”.

Do soulmates exist? I suspect in the way the show originally introduced them, the answer is no. A soulmate is not someone you’re given, it’s someone you choose. Eleanor and Chidi choose each other, over and over, in every version of their reality Michael can think to throw at them. If that’s not a soulmate, then what is?

I think Eleanor is perhaps closer to these realizations than Chidi is (because Chidi, who gets trapped between the smallest of choices, would much rather have a soulmate assigned than have to choose one himself) but the journey these two will continue to go on will hopefully have them both actively realizing that choosing to be with each other is all that it takes to be “meant to be.”

Chidi’s admission that he wishes he and Eleanor had met under more normal circumstances (although he has no realistic idea of what those might be) as well as bringing her hand up to his heart while they danced are hopeful indications that he may have feelings for her, too, they’re just inaccessible at the moment.

Highway to Hell

The episode ends with the gang on a train, willfully bound for the Bad Place. With them, the show transitions out of its established setting (with the neighbourhood literally dissolving behind them as they leave) and thrusts both the protagonists and the audience into the unknown.

This is uncharted territory, so what can we expect to come next?

Season 1 was about Michael’s mini-experiment of creating a Bad Place that mimics the Good Place, and torturing human beings for eternity with their most persistent fears and anxieties. The fact that every single attempt he made failed is a testament to the tenacity of humans and the lengths that we will go to solve problems, as well as the everlasting hope we have that things will get better. This persistence and hope was ultimately the undoing of Michael’s plot, each of the 802 times he tried.

Season 2 was a mini-experiment in itself, as Chidi, Eleanor, Tahani, and Jason attempted to improve their own as well as Michael’s moral standing in order to be accepted into the Good Place. This experiment—one which had a positive goal in mind, rather than a negative one—is ultimately successful, as Michael declares himself fully on the humans’ side despite being previously offered his dream job by Shawn, and in this episode is awarded the title of “Honorary Human”.

Both of these experiments took place in this neighbourhood that is a Bad Place dressed as a Good Place: first actively trying to live up to its first name, and then actively trying to live up to its second. As it’s the second experiment that succeeded as they leave this neighbourhood behind, I’m hoping that we’ll get to see it on a bigger scale as the characters transit through the real Bad Place.

After all, if they were able to turn a demon like Michael into an honorary human, what’s to stop them from doing the same to other demons?

If these people who were destined for the Bad Place managed to improve themselves enough to be allowed into the Good Place, then shouldn’t those currently in the Bad Place be offered the same chance?

I think this ethical question will weigh particularly hard on Chidi—although the others have been learning from him and will likely wonder the same—once they’re inside the Bad Place and seeing firsthand what tortures humans like them are undergoing. It will no longer be hypothetical, it will be bone-chillingly real.

So how can we expect humans who have only strengthened their moral compass to witness the torture of people like them and at the end ask only for salvation for themselves? We can’t.

My ultimate hope for this series is that we see a complete upset of this system that has been in place since the beginning of time, and this episode took us one step closer to getting there.

Footnotes:

“I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed.” “Oh, come on, everyone knows that’s worse!”

Considering last week Shawn deadpanned “Can’t you tell? I’m squealing like a little girl,” the texts that he sent to Michael this week had me rolling. “so random 😂”

I didn’t get the chance to talk about it in my main post, but I really appreciated the character work put into Tahani this week. Her realization that she’s the only one who can fix the situation for herself is an important one and one a lot of real people have to come to terms with at some point.

Michael’s elation at receiving a box full of human things (“Bandaids! For your stupid, fragile bodies!”) was both pure and endearing.

“I’m pretty good at turning every place I go into my personal hell, so I think they’ll have a lot of options for me.” Oh, Chidi. I truly hope he finds a way to ease his anxieties at some point.

Jason continues to fall flat for me. Outside of being the fulcrum in the bizarre Tahani-Jason-Janet love triangle, his only purpose seems to be to provide comic relief. As it’s the type of humour that generally falls flat for me, I could do without most of his contributions.

“In a way, the Good Place was inside the Bad Place all along.” Besides being a good line, I wonder if this aphorism will be something that still holds true as they enter the real Bad Place.

[movedto-peachydeacy]

11 questions tag~

i was tagged by the lovely @moonseff to answer 11 questions about myself, so here we go!

1. Do you agree with what is said about your astrological sign a lot of the time?

i’m a scorpio, so people assume that, “i like to have sex and kill people,” which isn’t entirely accurate. However, overall, i do agree with my sign most of the time.

 2. If you could have any mythological creature as a pet (and lets say it would be safe for you, the creature, and the people around you to have it as a pet, and you would have all the right knowledge and resources for it) what would it be?

if i’m gonna be honest with myself i’m gonna say the fish monster from the shape of water and doN’T @ ME I LIKE HIM 

 3. What’s your favorite book? 

that’s a loaded question holy crap

my favorite children's book is stellaluna. it’s been my favorite since i was about three, and it will always have a special place in my heart. my favorite book now would have to be fried green tomatoes. i love my early 20th century lesbians. 

4. What album could you listen to for 24 hours straight and not be tired of it?

W I N G S

every single song on that album is a bop and it has all their solo songs and the whole album is just genius and i love it to pieces!!

5. What’s your favorite flower and why?

my favorite flowers are peonies and lilies. to me, they’re just beautiful and there’s something oddly comforting about them. they’re just so sweet smelling and so pretty. i love them.

6. What’s your favorite season and why?

my favorite season is autumn/fall. it’s so beautiful when the leaves change, and the weather is warm but also not too cold. it’s the beginning of arm and cozy season and i love fall. i always have and i always will.  

7. Guilty pleasure tag on tumblr, like the one you can’t believe you find yourself strolling through? 

jay park scenarios...i mean i like seein’ softie jay park and this tag fulfills my needs (love me some soft jay park).

8. What is the best advice someone has given you directly? 

this has to come from my old therapist, linda. after my first suicide attempt, she used to tell me for every bad thing i thought about myself, i needed to write down ten good things about myself. it’s something i still do (even though it’s really hard right now), and it makes you think about how you are worthwhile.  

9. Favorite drink and why (non-alcoholic)? 

any kinda float (root beer float, fanta floats, etc.). i really like ice cream and they’re just really tasty. i’m currently having one right now :’)

10. What’s your favorite tv show and why? 

my favorite tv show is one day at a time. this just reminds me of my family and seeing my family on tv. representation matters! and it makes me happy to see some powerful latinx characters on tv. that means a lot to me.  

11. What is something you can do that a lot of people don’t know you can do?

i know how to knit! i can knit hats and scarves, and it’s the most therapeutic thing for me. 

here are my eleven questions and the people i’m tagging!

1. what’s your happiest memory? // 2. favorite food? why? // 3. what’s the best thing you’ve ever bought/purchased? what about the worst? // 4. what person has had the greatest impact on your life? // 5. what achievement are you most proud of and why? // 6. what’s a memory/moment in your life you keep going back to, either good or bad? // 7. what are you most passionate about? why? // 8. what’s something you want to learn more about? // 9. what makes you happy? // 10. where would you go if you could travel anywhere in the world? // 11. what do you wish you had more time for? //

you don’t have to do this, but here’s all the people i’m tagging! 

@carb-poweredfeminist @istg-save-me @dom-joonie @my-other-blogs-an-honors-student @hiddendreamer67 @clarence-is-my-pizzaman @ohhailookitsallie @artistaehyung @kimsamjoon @guccihsuit

[thecaptainlautner-blog]

LONDON CALLING

A post shared by LINKD (@linkd.co) on Feb 23, 2017 at 9:00am PST

What I’ve always loved most about London, aside from the people I consider family who live here, is the vibe. More than anywhere else I’ve ever been in my eleven years of throwing myself into other cultures, no one is more proud to be who and where they are than a Londoner. Catch an old gaffer coming out of the old Lamb and Flag in Covent Garden if there’s anywhere else he’d rather be and he’ll stand there, blinking, as though he’s just realized he must be way too pissed to understand what you just asked. Whenever I’m in London, one thing I’ve always noticed is that the city presents itself to every demographic the same way a working girl presents herself to her clients. There isn’t one person that wants to be here that can’t find something to fall in love with. The narrow road of old timey Fleet Street echoes the songs of Sweeney Todd to the imagination while Big Ben chimes loudly to remind us that it’s been one hundred and fourteen years since Peter Pan led the Darlings towards the second star to the right. If you’ve never been to London but you heard the food may be a bit different from what you’re used to, don’t worry, it is, but only in the best way possible. A western inspired roadhouse serves deep-fried pickles and chili-cheese fries. Or you might come across a Parsi café straight out of old Bombay. I even once found a semi-secret chef’s table, tucked behind a hot dog joint, giving Copenhagen a run for its money. If you haven’t eaten in London, get there as soon as you can- and don’t mind the rain. It makes for some pretty epic rainbows. 

These five amazing people I’m surrounded by in this picture are the main reason I ever come to London. In 2013 while working in New York City, I got a call from my friend Andy (not pictured here) who had been spending some time in London doing a BBC series for television called Cuckoo. He spoke extremely highly of the show, praised it for its dry British humor, and had nothing but wonderful things to say about the entire cast and crew. Unfortunately for him, he knew he wasn’t going to be able to play a recurring character because of scheduling conflicts; hence the phone call. He wasn’t quite sure in what direction the writers would go in order to not only squeeze me in but make sure I had a principle role, but he was one hundred percent certain it was a perfect fit. Over half a year later, I was flying to London, not so ready to play a man raised in a cult, yet willing to forget about every experience I’d ever learned from because none of it was about to do me any good. Tyger, Esther, Helen, Kenneth, Greg, and Matt made me feel so welcome and so at home; all my anxieties and insecurities were very soon forgotten. 

This is my fiancé. She’s a model for IMG and just very recently started acting. We actually just got back from London (which is what this post is about) while I was filming the fourth season of Cuckoo. Her name is Paris. Fitting, right? We met through mutual friends a long time ago and by some extraordinary measure, ended up so ridiculously in love that my own family thinks I’m a nymphomaniac now and probably pretty annoyed that we can’t even stop making love long enough to leave their house and go do it at our own. Because of this quiet but at the same time, really loud fact about us, I was a little weary about Paris’ best friend Baylee coming to visit us without headphones. No, I really did stress that she needed to bring headphones. Irritating my parents was bad enough; I didn’t want to scar the maid of honor as well. After we’d exhausted Baylee’s appetite for London by visiting places like Banya No. 1 and Westfield Stratford City, eating at places like Bar 61 and The Ledbury, and partying at clubs like Fabric and Ministry of Sound, it turns out she was too tired to give much of a shit about the headphones. Unfortunately, my parents had just arrived and weren’t ready to retire at all. Not even in the slightest. In fact, they were so excited to get their British adventure started, they suggested I just let the front desk know they’d like an extra key to the room I was in so that no one would have to worry about coming or going. After a ten hour day on set, I came back to our suite overlooking Hyde Park to find my parents still out on the town and Paris in the living room doing yoga on the floor. Remember how I mentioned her and I are no better than animals in heat? I can’t even recall if this has been my general behavior in any relationship but I do recall what happened when I watched her stretch her body into a downward dog position, teasing me by lifting herself perkily up on her tiptoes, her yoga pants stretching across her ass like a glove, an amused smile playing around her lips as she smiled at me, upside down, between her legs. I also recall what happened as soon as we got to it, completely naked on the living room couch. It was the sound of a key card sliding into the slot. What I do not recall was the key ever sounding that loud and ominous as it did in that moment. We froze, knowing we could run, but what would be the point? The door was already halfway open. In came my parents, pleased as punch about the day they’d had, smiles as clear as a rare day in London...until they spotted Paris and I on the couch, staring horrified at them, two deer in headlights. In case you’re wondering, everyone’s fine now. 

This is the most accurate representation any website has on Greg Davies’ personality. Greg is a six foot eight, forty-nine year old, ninety-two percent alcohol drinking, twenty-five year old girlfriend cradle robbing, pillock and one of my best friends. When I first met him in 2014, I was for some reason pretty confident that the first words out of his mouth were going to be something sarcastic and hilarious. Not because I’d been watching him in Cuckoo and his character actually is sarcastic and hilarious but because sometimes you just know something about someone. Their vibe hits you before they do and let me say, I couldn’t have been less disappointed. Greg is a twenty-one year old trapped in the body of a forty-nine year old. He’s always been the Jack of the group (you remember that movie with Robin Williams where he was a young boy trapped in the body of a much older individual? Yeah, that’s Greg). I was visiting him in 2016 with my friends Emma and Kylie, and my younger sister Makena. Before things got out of control, the way they always do when Greg is involved, we sat around the table playing Texas Hold Em with his married friends who lived next door and he insisted on betting oral sex instead of money. Did I mention he’s one of my best friends? We just wrapped the fourth season of our show and I’d be a little bummed in returning to Los Angeles while he stays behind in London, as I always am, if it weren’t for the fact that he’s a groomsman in my upcoming wedding and he’s coming to Vegas for my bachelor party. Having explained Greg fairly well, I’m sure you understand what that means. His long term girlfriend Jonnice will not be coming. He swears up and down she’ll hate American food. 

A post shared by Taylor Lautner (@taylorlautner) on Feb 2, 2018 at 9:37am PST

LOVE that this is something I can now do. Thanks Cuckoo. 

Now, my lady and I are back home in Los Angeles, looking forward to spring break with my sister in Miami this April. Amongst other things ;)

[hollyhomburg]

get to know the blogger

Rules: answer 20 questions, then tag 20 bloggers that you want to get to know better.

so I'm finally doing one of these things- at this point, i think I've been tagged in three of these??? (I've come to realize that in general, I'm really really bad at doing things) I was tagged by @b-angst-tan !!!

1) name: ughhhhhhhh you can call me M! or Mar!

2) nicknames: my mom calls me Rosie, my big bro calls me mar,  I had another one briefly that was “@#$#@$% the gnarly”, some people also call me Harley after Harley Quin (this was after I dressed up as her for Halloween and went around kicking things and stealing shit blackout wasted)

3) height: 5’3

4) orientation: ughhhhhhhhh

5) nationality: white- as in American girl doll white, (though I'm eastern European if you trace it back, we got witchey blood from Germany and chez too.

6) favorite fruit: strawberries and pomegranates, though a good apple will also sway me. 

7) favorite season: spring! but the spring that happens just before summer!

8) favorite flower: roses! 

9) favorite scent:  Orange blossoms- my mom has a collection of citrus trees so it always reminds me of home, I also really like pretty much anything from the nest fragrance line. 

10) favorite color:  blue

11) favorite animal:  cats! though I find myself really liking snakes recently

12) coffee, tea, or hot chocolate:  coffee! I have a cup every morning. 

13) average sleep hours:  it varies heavily. 10 hours some days, 6-8 if I can, occasionally 3, and around 2-3 times a month i. cant. sleep. for. no. reason. 

14) dog or cat person:  Cat!

15) favorite fictional character:  Neil Josten from all for the game, id never read a character that more closely resembled me or read a more accurate representation of what it’s like to be a teenager with PTSD. 

16) number of blankets you sleep with:  2-3, I have this star and moon duvet that I’ve had for ages, and this other white duvet that I've had since I was 5. never throwing that shit out. 

17) dream trip:  back in time probably 

18) blog created: hollyhomburg

19) number of followers:  1915 (only 95 away from 2,000 :D :D :D :D)

20) random fact: I have a webbed toe on one foot.  

I tag @army-author @peeachypop @amelie-wolfbane @majestic-kookie @psiphidragon @gimmesumsuga @kumamno @highvoltage26 @cute-loops @torasshu-sama @12aotfanatic21 @mkimas @moodysmilesbitch @daddyjiminn @jiminicious honestly that's all I got- i know that's only 15 but im beat