#also thinking about that one villain who hears the players name thousands of years before they're even born

[earl-grey-love]

I've been playing RnScpe again and I have such brainrot for the lore. I need to absolutely devour the quests.

Since I kind of plateud in terms of interest on my old account from 2015, I made a new one last year. This one on hardcore mode. It's been so much fun to replay quests I haven't done for the good sum of a decade. Its amazing to see how long plots have been brewing. Like how we saw the stone of Jas and time hopping elven scouts in a quest from 2008. Story threads that weren't brought to fruition til over a decade later.

Anyway this game I'm playing as a character named Casiana Elme who grew up in Seers Village. Except she isn't a Seer herself. She is, however, a massive history nerd and that is what compels her adventures. She wants to know everything there is to know about everything. I kind of want to go with the narrative that eventually she grows to know too much, and that warps who she is. It's my interpretation of canon for the wrld guard..ian anyway. Like at what point do they stop being strictly human? Is it when the Gods mark them as special? Or is it even before that? Is it at the ritual site? Who knows.

[gthreepio]

i’ve been thinking about the future of the mcu and realized there’s a LOT that i didn’t know/didn’t remember in terms of where things are going so i figured i’d sum it up incase anyone else was in the same boat!! 

quick recap of (unresolved) mid-credit scenes:

doctor strange: mordo (a sorcerer that is one of strange’s mentors, who by the end of the movie becomes disillusioned with magic/the ancient one and quits) confronts pangborn (the paraplegic who healed himself with the mystic arts, who tells strange about mystic arts in the first place) and steals his magic because according to mordo, there are “too many sorcerers." of note, this guy is typically a villain in the comics but hasn’t been thus far...

gotg2: ayesha (leader of the sovereign, a golden skinned alien race obsessed with genetic purity), after spending most of the movie chasing the guardians for stealing some stuff, is revealed to have created an artificial being named “adam” which is presumably, adam warlock. (other stuff that is less relevant: kraglin appears to take up yondu’s mantle; the ravagers regroup and several old and obscure comic book characters are introduced [charlie-27, aleta, martinex, mainframe]; the watchers are watching things.) 

far from home: j jonah jameson basically tells the whole world spider-man’s secret identity, and frames him for what happened with mysterio....making him public enemy #1. ALSO, turns out nick fury and maria hill in the movie were ACTUALLY the two skrulls from captain marvel (talos and soren) attempting to do their job, while the real fury (and presumably hill) is ... up in space on some spaceship!!!

wandavision: monica (who we can assume is photon) is called by “an old friend of [her] mother’s,” up in space, which presumably means fury, talos, or carol. ALSO, wanda sits in the middle of nowhere reading the darkhold and hears the voices of her children who.. by all accounts, should not exist. 

aaaaand what we know about future movies (i’m not even going into the tv series.....): 

black widow: 

takes place after civil war

nat confronts a “dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past,” likely has to do with taskmaster who has apparently taken over the red room where nat was trained as an assassin

prominent new characters: yelena belova, who will take over the mantle of black widow after this; alexei shostakov aka red guardian, an ollllld marvel hero analogous to captain america except for the soviet union.

tony stark will make an appearance... SOBS

shang-chi and the legend of the ten rings:

shang-chi has never been seen in the mcu before, but he is, essentially, a superhero that is a master martial artist, and in some adaptations can also create duplicate (fake) versions of himself to confuse opponents

main villain will be the the mandarin who we have *sort of* seen before... he is the leader of a terrorist organization called “ten rings” whose main goal is to destroy world peace. brief history -- in iron man 1: one ten rings cell kidnaps tony stark and tries to force him to make weapons (he of course, makes his suit instead). stark and ten rings become enemies and fight a bunch. nat and nick fury fight them too. in iron man 3, the villain aldrich killian hires a dude to pretend to be the mandarin and claim responsibility for a bunch of stuff, but its not the ten rings or the mandarin at all. this makes the mandarin v mad and he has a dude kidnap the faker to punish him. they also briefly show up in ant-man, when a ten rings agent tries to buy the yellowjacket suit that darren cross is selling. BUT IN SHANG-CHI....... looks like we are FINALLY going to see the real mandarin after over a decade!! 

the villain razor fist will also show up, he is lesser known... he has no superhuman powers but he has surgically replaced his hands (1 or 2, depending on the version) with a steel blade, and is highly skilled at hand to hand combat.

besides the presence of these characters, the only bit of plot we know is “shang-chi is drawn into the ten rings organization and forced to confront his past.” so... yeah. we don’t know much at all.

eternals: 

quick explanation: the eternals are an immortal alien race who have been secretly living on earth for thousands of years. they were created by the celestials, who are most prominently in gotg2. 

more entirely new characters!!! their names are: thena, who can form any weapon out of cosmic energy; gilgamesh, who can make a super strong exoskeleton out of cosmic energy; ikaris, who has superhuman strength, flies, and can project cosmic energy out his eyes; kingo, who can shoot cosmic energy projectiles from his hands; makkari, who creates sonic booms, has super speed, and is deaf; phastos, who has enhanced intelligence, and is also gay (and married with a kid!); ajak, who has healing powers; sprite, who can project illusions; sersi, who can manipulate matter; druig, who can mind control; and dane whitman (black knight), a human with a mystical sword. 

regarding the plot... it seems the eternals have kind of dispersed, but have to come together again to fight the deviants, who are their “evil counterparts” (also created by the celestials, though i’m unclear on why). thena and gilgamesh have apparently been in exile, unclear why; sersi, who is posing as a museum curator, has apparently been in love with ikaris for centuries and it seems as if their love story may be central to the film; and kingo is a bollywood film star in his spare time. aaaaand that’s pretty much all we know.

directed by chloé zhao of nomadland fame! 

spider-man no way home: 

based on the post-credits scene in far from home, peter parker will now be known as spider-man to everyone. unclear if he’s going to be seen as a bad guy due to mysterio framing him, but i guess we’ll see! 

jamie foxx is electro, and alfred molina is doctor octopus; which is VERY interesting considering they played these roles in other spider-man franchises, once again stirring up excitement for possible multiverse. 

there have been *multiple* reports that andrew garfield, kirsten dunst, tobey maguire, and emma stone will be in the movie but tom holland has repeatedly denied this... so... who knows. 

there are also rumors that matt murdock / daredevil (from netflix) will be in several scenes! not confirmed though. 

MJ is still his girlfriend and i hope it stays that way!! 

doctor strange will be featured in the movie, taking on the mentor role now that tony stark is gone :( this will be interesting as i.. haven’t really seen them interact much before. because of this inclusion some people speculate that the film may draw inspo from some comic storylines where peter’s secret identity is restored with magic. 

doctor strange in the multiverse of madness: 

scarlet witch is essentially co-starring!!! it’s going to be really interesting to see if they bring vision or the twins into this at all, though i’m not counting on it. 

seems like mordo will be the main villain -- recall the ds1 post credits scene where he is apparently running around trying to steal people’s magic.

america chavez will make her debut!!!!!! i have no idea how this plays into anything but i am so excited!! 

regarding the plot, all we really know is that strange has been researching the time stone, mordo messes with him, and this results in him accidentally unleashing “unspeakable evil.” presumably there will also be heavy involvement of the multiverse, and who knows what kind of craziness that will bring!! 

initially was going to be directed by scott derrickson who did ds1; however he stepped down to being just EP due to “creative differences.” i am presuming this is because derrickson really wanted to make this more gothic and horror than disney was comfortable with. i REALLY hope they keep some of those elements though and don’t erase the idea entirely! anyway, it will be directed by sam raimi now (of evil dead and spiderman 2002 fame). 

the film also reportedly ties in with the loki series (will loki show up!?) and spiderman 3 (which is obvious enough, given that strange is in that movie and those curious electro and doctor octopus castings...)

thor: love and thunder

directed by taika waititi again, hell yeah!!! and he has stated, the film will be “so over the top now in the very best way" and would make ragnarok look like a "run of the mill, very safe film" .... so.... oh god

so many great returning players!!! including.... valkyrie (now the king of new asgard), jane foster, lady sif, korg, star-lord, mantis, drax, nebula, and kraglin (takes up yondu’s mantle after he dies in gotg2)

in this movie, thor isn’t thor anymore.... it’s JANE!!! she gets cancer :( and is undergoing treatment while simultaneously being thor. i’m a little nervous how this will be handled, but i’m excited. (it’s based off an amazing comic series by jason aaron) 

the big bad: gorr the god butcher, played by christian bale! the gist of it is, this dude HATES gods because nobody helped when his family was dying and in need. his weapon is “all-black the necrosword,” forged from the head of a celestial, and allows the user to create wings and fly at extreme speeds. honestly, he sounds cool as fuck. 

valkyrie is going to be made canonically bisexual!!! 

it will explore more of korg’s backstory, and also include... space sharks!?!?! an alien race from the comics.

taika has called the script “very romantic” so take that as you will 

black panther 2

will again be directed by ryan coogler

not much is known at this point, does not have an official name

t’challa will NOT be recast (which i’m happy about) so..... honestly no idea what to expect for this one. i think we can probably expect shuri to have an expanded role. all we know so far is they will be “exploring the world of wakanda.” not clear to me how this is different from the upcoming wakanda D+ series. 

tenoch huerta has reportedly been cast as a villain, but no one has any idea who. there’s also rumors that donald glover is in “informal talks” to play a role. note all of this is unconfirmed.

captain marvel 2

will be directed by nia da costa (candyman!) and written by megan mcdonnell, who is one of wandavision’s best writers! 

will take place in the present day 

will feature kamala khan / ms. marvel, monica rambeau / photon!!! this will be so interesting.... kamala is a huge fan of carol’s in the comics, she is her mentor/idol. the ms. marvel series will also resportedly lead into cm2. and monica, well, monica knew her when she was a little kid. wandavision implies that there’s some bad blood between carol and monica though, not sure why. maybe because carol left and never came back? (until endgame) 

post-credits scene of wandavision appears to tie into this, having monica go up into space at the reqeust of her “mom’s old friend.” again, not clear who that is. this could also be a tie in to secret invasion though, so we’ll see. or both.

zawe ashton has been cast as an unknown villain... a lot of people are actually speculating that she may play rogue? which would be fascinating, as there’s a comic arc where rogue steals her powers and memories. BUT there’s still no confirmation that X-men exist in the MCU so for now i remain skeptical.

they are looking to cast a ‘john boyega’ or ‘michael b jordan’ type which makes me wonder if they are going to create a new character, a “younger” war machine to be her love interest? (note: carol and rhodey are a huge thing in comics!) carol obviously does not look her age but her and don cheadle.... that just doesn’t work. which is why i wonder.

ant-man and the wasp: quantumania 

in addition to scott and hope, pretty much all the major players are returning including: luis, hank pym, janet van dyne

cassie lang has been recast with an actress 5 years older, which is really making me wonder if they are going to make her stinger in this movie! (aka one of the main young avengers)

the villain: kang the conqueror! this dude time travels. original name nate richards. in the comics, kang travels back in time to rescue his younger self (nate) from an attack that would help shape him towards a life of villainy. kang also gives him some fancy armor. his younger self actually is like, what the fuck dude? and renounces his destiny, becoming a hero. and he makes his armor look like iron man, calling himself iron lad. who is a young avenger. which also makes me wonder about cassie lang.

otherwise not much is known! 

guardians of the galaxy vol. 3

james gunn is returning, i’m mixed about this...he really does *get* the guardians though. 

based on the gotg2 post credits scene, i think we can assume adam warlock will be a HUGE part of this. there are multiple versions of him, some villainous and some heroic, but no idea how this is gonna turn out.

no word yet on whether thor will be involved, or if those ravagers they introduced will be involved. 

fantastic four 

will be directed by the spiderman guy, john watts.

otherwise we know literally nothing.

aaaaand that’s the roundup! 

[genshin-djinn]

Sinae Unicornis Act 1

I went into Ganyu’s story quest with a low bar set for it to jump over. As long as it was better than Albedo’s, I wouldn’t be disappointed. And hey, I wasn’t. Not because the bar was low, but because this story quest was very fun.

Warning: this post contains major spoilers for the entirety of Ganyu’s story quest! If you haven’t played through the quest yet I would recommend not reading this post because there are lots of spoilers and some of it will not make any sense.

the characters

The characters were possibly my favorite part of Ganyu’s story quest. I absolutely love seeing playable characters and named NPCs during other characters’ story quests and Ganyu’s was full of them.

Firstly, we need to talk about the character who was unequivocally the most important NPC in Ganyu’s story quest... the Hydro Fatui Skirmisher. He was perfect and I love him. He just wanted to pick fresh berries on his morning off and ended up getting attacked by some randos who thought he was doing wrong just because of his loyalty to the Tsaritsa. The game’s been giving the Fatui NPCs a lot more personality as time goes on— they now have idle animations, voicelines, and some of them even have names— and I love it. This perfect hydro man was just the icing on the “sympathetic villains” cake.

Another awesome character featured in Ganyu’s story quest was my favor— uhhh, my second fa—- no, uhh.. one of my favorite adepti, Cloud Retainer. I want to see more of her. She’s fantastic. I’m really confused about her relationship with Ganyu in the past, because it sounds like she looked after Ganyu when the latter was a kid, but Zhongli says that Ganyu’s the Adeptus who’s been working for Rex Lapis for the longest. Maybe Cloud Retained knew Ganyu from before she made the contrast with Rex? I dunno. Her stories about Baby Ganyu were so fecking cute and revealed a little bit about Ganyu’s adorable past.

Another Adepti we saw in Sinae Unicornis was, in the words of Paimon, “that cold- hearted loner”, Xiao. It was nice to see a little corner of Xiao’s caring side— while he’s pretty blunt about it, he does want Ganyu to be happy and acknowledge both her Adepti and her human sides. It’s also pretty adorable to see Xiao caught off guard for a second— he isn’t quite sure what to do for Ganyu’s second trial, so he gets flustered and makes something up. It’s gonna be a real test not rolling for him during his banner, because the more I see of him the more attached I get.

The next character I desparately have to talk about was the real MVP of Sinae Unicornis, Uncle Tian! I was absolutely delighted to get backstory for the slightly sus fisherman who looks after Childish Jiang. It was so fun to hear an old man call Ganyu “onee- sama” in the Japanese dub,,,, and the idea that Tian’s known Ganyu since he was young enough to call her “older sister” is really cute. And kind of upsetting. More on that later. Now, *stares pointedly at Jiangxue*, if only we could get some backstory on another mysterious fisherman...

the combat

Ganyu’s story quest had a really nice balance of combat and story for me. The two trial run trials were well- designed to showcase Ganyu’s abilities.

Cloud Retainer’s trial was a lot harder than Xiao’s for me because I kinda suck at aiming, especially when my eyes kept drifting to the ticking timer above Ganyu’s head. But even though at one point I didn’t notice the correct path forwards for a solid 30 seconds, I still managed to finish the trial in one try. It was kinda difficult, but not too hard.

Xiao’s trial was a neat demo of Ganyu’s cryo abilities. Even though I refuse to roll on any banners until Hu Tao’s, she fit right into my team of Diluc, Xingqiu, Kaeya, and Zhongli. Ganyu in a team comp seems to reeeeally want Pyro and Hydro units with her, plus maybe a cryo user for the cryo damage boost inside her circle. She’s like Amber but way better.

Side note: I haven’t looked for any sort of meta info on Ganyu yet, but during her trial run her ult energy regeneration was really weird. It took her a long time to get her first ult up, but right after I used it her next ult was up off cooldown, and the ult after that was ready before her circle had even ended. Idk what’s going on there but her ult seems to do something with energy regen.

Ganyu

Sinae Unicornus showed us a lot about Ganyu.

Not that I knew anything about her before it.

Ganyu is a polite, kind, and respectful person. She overworks herself to the point of falling asleep standing up and likes eating Qingxin flowers. But her story quest shows another side of Ganyu— a side that’s learned a lot from being alive for thousands of years. Ganyu is incredibly good at her job and has picked up a lot of tricks over the millennia. She observes what those around her do and learns from them. She has a severe, cold side to her that makes her all the more efficient in her work. Ganyu’s is the second Adepti story quest we’ve gotten so far, and oh by the archons she and Zhongli are such great strategic players.

Ganyu is also lonely. She’s in between two worlds, and can’t be fully a part of either. When she’s with mortals, she’s an Adepti, and when she’s with Adepti, she’s a mortal. There’s nobody in the world that Ganyu knows of who is truly both and neither like she is. The mortals around her admire her, the Adepti around her seem to see her as young/ lower in rank than they are. So of course she would take solace in befriending Aether, someone who’s also not quite a mortal or a god.

In a way, Ganyu’s story quest almost ties into Albedo’s. They’re both “inhuman” in a way that isolates them from others and turns them into lonely individuals. This loneliness and isolation brings them, consciously or unconsciously, closer to Aether. This one similarity also brings attention to the differences between Albedo and Ganyu— Albedo is neither human nor god, while Ganyu is both.

I don’t know if it was intentional or not, but I think putting Ganyu’s story quest right after Albedo’s was a very nice touch.

ending thoughts

Sinae Unicornis was a very decent story quest. It was no Carmen Dei, but I’d say it was on the level of Jean’s and Mona’s. And,, ,,, it made me value Albedo’s story quest a tiny bit more. I love Ganyu, I think she’s adorable, and she seems like a pretty good versatile unit. She’s risen through the ranks of my favorite Genshin characters and is probably in the top 10. Despite all of these complements I will unfortunately not be rolling for her.

The next story quests we get shoooould be Xiao’s and Hu Tao’s (ofc I wouldn’t complain if Qiqi, Keqing, Fischl, Bennett, Barbara, Noelle, Sucrose, Chongyun, Diona, Xinyan, and Ningguang also got story quests...). I’m extremely excited to see Edgy Boy again and to finally meet my favorite funeral parlor owner. I’m also hyped for the events we’ll get before 1.3– hypostatic symphony and multiplayer Liben should be coming up soon. and then.... 1.3!

[maeve-of-winter]

I stopped reading omgcp a while ago, but Kent was always my favorite. Can you tell me what the update about him was? I don't want to slog through the rest of it to find it.

Sorry it took so long to respond to this anon, but I really appreciate the ask. I’m going to give a summary of what actually happens in canon in Kent’s ending, and then a short breakdown of why I dislike it.

This turned into a lengthy post and a collection of what I’m sure is only a fraction of the retcons surrounding Kent’s character, so I apologize for that.

If there’s one takeaway to understand from this ending, it’s that this ending really isn’t about Kent or for Kent’s fans, and I’ll explain below.

The canon ending:

—Bitty is taking out the trash at the Haus one night after a kegster when Kent unexpectedly pops up, dressed like every one-off drug addict character ever seen on any crime drama ever. He says he didn’t know how to contact Bitty (I guess Bitty’s Twitter and Facebook must still be on lockdown at this point? Can anyone confirm?), hence why he appears out of the blue. He says he wants to talk.

Note: Kent mentions here that he’s been getting kegster invites from Ransom for years now. It’s unclear why he didn’t try to contact Ransom to get Bitty’s contact info, but that’s really just a nitpick.

—Kent says he wants to wish Bitty good luck in the playoffs (which I guess he’s been following?) and to wish him good luck with Jack. Bitty responds by inviting him in for pie.

—Kent proceeds to try Bitty’s pie and gush about it at length, like every character in the comic has at this point. Actual quote: “Oh my God. Oh my fucking God. This is. Wow. Jesus. Thank you.”

—Kent mentions again he really does want to wish Bitty good luck, and then mentions Jack and wanting to tell him something.

—Bitty asks if Kent would apologize to Jack. Kent seems surprised and says no, but then he says maybe. He brings up the last time they talked, and specifically points out the last time he and Jack spoke and comments, “Not like I said anything terrible.”

—Bitty informs Kent that he was there and confronts Kent about how he treated Jack. At this point, there’s yet another retcon, this time more subtle, about what Kent said.

4.19 version:

Parse Part III (2.09) version:

Note: No mention is made in 4.19 about anything the could be interpreted positively or sympathetically about Kent’s conversation with Jack, including his offer to Jack about freeing up cap space on the Aces so that Jack can be a part of the team [basically that means trading away current Aces players to make room for Jack’s salary], telling Jack repeatedly that he misses him, expressing frustration that Jack shut him out, or telling Jack that he and others still care about him even if Jack thinks of himself as worthless. More on that last part here.

—Kent looks defeated and responds that there was no excuse for what he said, and follows up by saying he’s sorry that Bitty had to hear what he said and also expresses that he’s sorry for saying it at all.

—In the next part, Kent explains his thoughts. Actual quote: “When Jack left hockey, it sucked. And...yeah, he shut me out of his life. But he was taking care of himself. The shit I was doing at eighteen, as a rookie, in the league...wasn't good for him. And if he thinks he owes me an apology for that, he doesn't. I made it about me. But at this point, trying to say all that to him, yeah, that'd still be more for me than for him, you know? He's way, way past...Zimms has done so much for himself...It might sound weird, but I'm proud of Zimms. Even though I was shit to him. I'm proud he's moved on in a big way. He's a great player and Jesus....I'm twenty-six and our shit was forever ago."

Note: Kent unequivocally stating that Jack doesn’t owe him any apologies is a direct narrative retcon of this panel from 2.10.

Second note: Many fans speculated Jack completely cut off all contact with Kent after his overdose when Kent went ahead into the NHL as Jack took time to recover. Kent’s statement in 4.19 is explicit canon confirmation.

—Bitty responds that they were both kids at the time. Kent dismisses that notion in regard to himself. Actual quote: “"Yeah, but Jack grew up. And seeing you guys together? That center ice kiss? Holding the cup? Listen, when I said I came here to tell you good luck, I meant it. That's why I came here, because the more things work out for you, being out and stuff...you know? The more things could work out for everyone else. You guys are doing good stuff. So thank you for that."  

—Kent follows this up by effusively complimenting Bitty’s pie again and telling him he should open a bakery.

—Kent goes to leave and finds Scraps (the one other named Aces player besides Carl) hanging out with Ford and Tango. Scraps was helping them both clean up. It’s unclear if Kent is actually out to Scraps at this point.

—Kent thanks Bitty for the pie again, wishes him luck, and then leaves.

—Also, as an extra, Ngozi responded to an ask about “What’s Kent been up to?” with another drawing of Kent with Bitty’s pie and paying thousands of dollars for it because he loves it so much.

Link here.

My thoughts:

     1. It’s been said before, but this scene taking place between Kent and Bitty is utterly bizarre. These two characters have no history together to make this conversation compelling or meaningful. They’ve never even spoken a word to each other on page before. Additionally, Kent is a closeted NHL player whose career could be destroyed with this information, and so he’s used to keeping his emotions in check. His decision to have this conversation with a stranger at all severely stretches the willing suspension of disbelief and makes it clear that this conversation isn’t occurring because it’s a natural decision for the characters, but for narrative convenience. 

And when you factor in the part about Kent being Jack’s ex-boyfriend who was seemingly in love with him for years after their relationship ended painfully for them both, and that he’s having this heart-to-heart with Jack’s new boyfriend, it shatters the willing suspension of disbelief into a million tiny pieces. Why would Kent want to talk about his baggage with Jack to Jack’s new BF who he’s never spoken to before? There’s no real reason for it. It only happens because Ngozi wanted to have Kent apologize to Bitty regardless of how weird or illogical the scenario for them to talk. And so that’s what happens, even if it’s utterly absurd.

     2. This ending really goes out of its way to paint Kent in a negative light as possible while still having Bitty be the righteous but charitable arbitrator of what’s Good and Decent behavior.

Notice that Bitty offers up an excuse for Kent’s behavior: “Y’all were kids.”

But the narrative makes it clear that the audience is not meant to excuse Kent’s behavior, as Kent then rejects that excuse and shoulders responsibility: “Yeah, but Jack grew up.” (Implying here that Kent did not.) “And seeing you guys together? That center ice kiss, holding the Cup? . . . Listen, when I said I came here to tell you good luck, I meant it. Because the more things work out for you, being out and stuff . . . you know? The more things could work out for everyone else. So thank you for that.”

And I know that as an audience, we’re meant to nod our heads in agreement with Kent and be like, “Yes, what he said was beyond the pale, good for him for admitting it, and good for him for admitting that it was perfectly fine for Jack to spend years refusing all contact with him.” But I’m definitely not nodding in agreement, and the narrative’s refusal to allow this justification really bothers me, because Bitty is right: they were kids. Jack and Kent were kids of the same age and in almost identical situations. So why is it that Jack gets a free pass for his bad decisions while Kent doesn’t?

The answer is, of course, to pacify the section of fandom that really, really wanted to see Kent come crawling back and beg for forgiveness or “get called out”, but that really isn’t any kind of satisfying answer within the story itself.

Simply put, everything about the situation and the dialogue goes to great lengths to paint Kent as the one in the wrong who’s now doing the right thing at long last by shouldering responsibility, all while simultaneously playing down any culpability Jack might hold for the tensions between the two of them.  It is the “Kent Was Wrong” show, and it’s being aired because a certain portion of the fanbase thinks that Kent is villain who needs to repent for all of all of the terrible crimes against Jack and Bitty that he has committed, while Jack is an innocent smol bean who has never done anything wrong in his life.

From 1.05.

However, I will point out that while the 4.19 accomplishes that specific goal, it also fails in the area of character development. Because the narrative works so hard to make it known that Jack is completely blameless, Kent, a minor character whose appearance here in 4.19 marks only the fourth time he appears in canon proper, ultimately winds up growing more as a person than Jack. As much as I dislike his ending, Kent is someone who can admit when he’s done wrong and apologize for it. Jack, to date, has never apologized for how he treated Bitty during the latter’s freshman years. At the end of the day, Kent’s refusal to accept any excuses for his behavior, even the ones that are reasonable and justified, paints him as a more mature individual than Jack.

     3. It’s impossible to ignore the equivalency of Jack and Bitty publicly kissing and coming out with “growing up” and implying that Kent’s decision to remain closeted is therefore immature. This bugs me for several reasons, which I’ll explain below.

The NHL is a highly homophobic environment, as is juniors hockey, where Kent and Jack met and became romantically involved. There’s recently been a lot of discussion on these points from former NHL players Akim Aliu and Dan Carcillo. Conformity is perceived as commitment to the team, and being different or even showing off too much is frowned upon and criticized. RL NHL players like Alex Ovechkin have been criticized for celebrating too much after scoring a goal, and just to show you how extreme it can get, player PK Subban faced ongoing tensions within his then-team the Canadiens because he opted to start his own personal charity for the Montreal Children’s Hospital rather than use the team’s established program. The incident is actually speculated to be a factor in the reasons for his trade to Nashville. That’s right; conformity is so valued that players are criticized for giving to charity the wrong way.  

So, yes, Kent’s growth is very likely to be stunted because he’s coping in such a highly pressurized homophobic environment, dealing with at least one homophobic teammate. Yes, he has chosen his environment insofar as joining and continuing with the NHL, but he didn’t specifically chose its homophobic and toxic culture. And it’s worth mentioning that he’s being contrasted with Jack, a character who took several years off from hockey following a drug overdose, attended an LGBTQ-friendly liberal arts school for four years where he could find himself and grow comfortable with his sexuality and build a strong support network, and then landed on an NHL team where every member was miraculously accepting and not homophobic.

Of course Kent is going to look immature in comparison to Jack if you compare them that way. Kent has been locked into a culture of toxic masculinity and homophobia since he was a teenager and forced to be closeted so he could have a career. And why should he have thought differently? He was being exposed to homophobia on his team, which would have cemented his fears of not belonging in hockey or having a place on his team if he came out as gay.

Meanwhile, with every Falc unfailingly supportive of Jack and Bitty, Jack really had nothing to fear. Honestly, from the way the story develops, it seems as though Bitty’s life was made more difficult by their post-Cup kiss, rather than Jack, who is the celebrity athlete, and, according to canon, the first gay athlete in the history of pro sports.

So while Kent (and canon) might continually praise Jack for growing up and coming out, Jack had far more time to become comfortable with himself and the idea of being openly gay, given that he’s had Samwell as a safe haven for years and multiple close friends he trusts. Kent hasn’t had either of those things. Of course he’s not ready to come out like Jack and Bitty—after all, he’s not out, and he ends up having to listen to Carl’s mockery of queer individuals. And yet, canon would have us think that this decision means he’s not “grown up” like Jack is. So Kent essentially ends up being implied to be immature for . . . being afraid of the homophobia that he already experiences.

From 3.16.

Also, I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: it’s never sat quite right with me that Jack and Bitty both gets teams that are unfailingly supportive of their sexualities and relationship, while Kent isn’t even out as gay but is stuck dealing with open homphobia from a teammate and has no known support system. Almost as if canon is okay with protecting its main gay couple from homophobia while pushing the struggle against homophobia onto a gay minor character, all while proceeding to put the main couple on a pedestal for “growing up”. I don’t care if Ngozi told us not to worry about it; it really annoys me that no one on the Falcs or SMH is homophobic, but at least one person on the Aces is, and we’re supposed to be okay with it. After all, Ngozi herself told us: “Okay, first of all, ignore Carl”, as if homophobia is something that queer people can totally dismiss and forget about.

Link here.

So, as far as the OMGCP narrative is concerned, homophobia is meant to be something that’s should be easily shrugged off and ignored, and being afraid of it and unwilling to deal with it means that you’re immature and not ready to “grow up” in the way that openly gay individuals have already chosen to. 

     4. The implication that Kent was wrong to be bitter or upset about Jack cutting him off.

This is a fairly simple one, and one where the characterization does an exceptional job at refusing to admit normal behavior. It is perfectly fine for Kent to be upset and hurt that Jack ghosted him. Canon has him accepting all of the blame and saying that he was wrong to not want to let Jack go, but let’s examine the scenario. 

You’re dating a guy for several months and then he abruptly overdoses in a deliberate suicide attempt right before the jump-start to both your futures. You’re forced to abruptly move away to begin your new life without any real closure from the incident, so you’re left hurt and traumatized and wondering if you could have done anything to stop him. You try to reach out to him so you can heal, only for every attempt to be rejected. This behavior and your attempts continue for years. Now, even if you decide to move on, are you going to think fondly of this guy going forward? Or are you going to be hurt and confused and questioning your entire relationship and what you could have done differently whenever you think back about him?

Jack did not overdose in a vacuum. This is not an incident that had zero effect on Kent. And yet, canon seems to want us to think that this highly emotional and traumatic event should have washed right over Kent and that he chose to bear a grudge against Jack due to, like, petty vindictiveness or something. When the real issue is that Jack deliberately refused to give Kent any closure over the incident. And if that’s the case, if Jack is just refusing to speak to Kent over and over, why shouldn’t Kent feel bitterness towards him? Maybe Kent honestly wants to give Jack up and get over him, but needs this resolution to move on, and can’t get anywhere without it. Maybe he’s still hurting from watching Jack almost die. Whatever the reason, Kent being upset with Jack is only human.

     5. Finally, the complete lack of acknowledgement from Bitty or Kent regarding Kent’s individual accomplishments. It’s less obvious than the rest of what’s on page, but I find that this omission speaks the most strongly out of everything that this ending is written by someone who doesn’t really like Kent, specifically for people who don’t like Kent.

Kent was introduced with a multitude of accomplishments. Thirty-one game point streak, one of the best players in the sport, a recent hat trick (three goals) during a game, which earns him congratulations from Holster for it. And he’s not arrogant about his accomplishments—Shitty refers to him as a “modest bro”. Additionally, even though Kent is only at the Haus to see Jack, he still takes the time to take pictures with various Samwell hockey team members.

From 2.08

From Notes on 2.08.

But glaringly, none of these positive qualities are found here. Instead, all Kent does is compliment Jack on growing up, compliment Bitty on his pie, wish them both luck, and apologize to Bitty (for his treatment of Jack). There’s no mention of what’s going on in Kent’s life, no compliments about his hockey or mentions of any recent milestones he’s reached. There’s no exchange of praise between him and Bitty, even though there easily could. Just as an example, one of the many lines where Kent is gushing over Bitty’s pie could have easily led to a response from Bitty congratulating Kent for reaching the five hundredth goal of his career or something similar. 

Or Bitty could have wished him luck at his next game—maybe the Aces are up against their division rivals, maybe they’re up against the top team of another conference. But there’s no mention of anything that has to do with Kent’s present or future, and that’s because this ending really isn’t about Kent or for Kent’s fans. It’s written for Jack/Bitty fans who think Kent is mean or abusive and really wanted this scene of Kent groveling to Jack and/or Bitty. Why else would Jack be absolved of all responsibility for treating Kent badly for years while Kent is left shouldering the blame?

Kent might appear in this chapter, but what we get isn’t actually Kent. This appearance is Kent being used as a device to state information to the audience instead of using interesting and emotional storytelling. We are being told via Kent yet again how Jack is a flawless cinnamon roll, that Jack is oh-so-noble, that Jack and Bitty are brave, that Jack and Bitty are special, and that Bitty’s pies are unnaturally wonderful. And that’s nothing we haven’t seen before.

We ostensibly got an ending for Kent Parson in this chapter. It was just an ending written with a certain audience in mind, and that audience wasn’t people who actually like the character or wanted better for him.

[avaantares]

FFVII:REMAKE - A Review

So I beat the game two weeks ago and started writing down my thoughts while they were fresh in my mind, but I didn’t post anything then because my one IRL friend who is also playing it hadn’t finished it yet and I didn’t want to risk posting anything spoiler-y. But the extra time has allowed me to play through the game again on Hard difficulty, which has allowed me to reconsider and elaborate on some of my thoughts. And frankly at this point I just need to dump my Very Big Opinions somewhere, so... here ya go.

I discuss visuals, gameplay, character and story below. I’ve tried to keep spoilers minimal up front, though obviously if you want to go into the game totally cold, don’t read this. All major spoilers are clearly tagged. All of it is below a cut to spare your dash.

Also, there are pretty pictures, because why not?

First, my background with this franchise: I played through the original FFVII multiple times; I’ve watched and rewatched Advent Children and Last Order, played Crisis Core, gave up on Dirge of Cerberus despite my deep love for Vincent Valentine (sorry, VV, but your game was just a mess), and lamented that Before Crisis wasn’t available in my country. I even played (and own!) Ehrgeiz, the obscure fighting game that featured the main cast. (Still bitter that they didn’t keep Miki Shinichirou as the voice of Sephiroth. He’s one of my faves.)

^ Ehrgeiz, a mediocre fighting game that forever endeared itself to me by including Turks!Vincent Valentine as a playable character. 💖

In short, I’ve been waiting for this game for DECADES.

So. Here we go. My thoughts on Final Fantasy VII: REMAKE.

The good:

The character models are very pretty. With individual pores, threads and scuffs visible, they’re so detailed that it’s almost impossible to reconcile them with the mouthless sprites from the original game – even more so than Advent Children (and dear goodness, that was over a decade ago now, wasn’t it?). Still, they’ve kept the costume details and absurd proportions largely intact (Barret’s fists are literally larger than Tifa’s entire head, yet somehow it works visually), so it’s not too much of a departure from the familiar.

They’ve kept the aesthetic. I was afraid the game would try to update the iconic world of Midgar, but by and large, it’s full of visually-arresting designs that preserve the gritty-industrial look and feel of the original.

Japanese version is included. BLESS YOU, Square Enix, for including the Japanese voices and character animations. Not only is it impossible for me to hear Cloud in anything other than Sakurai Takahiro’s voice, but the Japanese script is a bit nicer to the characters. I’m not really keen on the English dub… but more on that below.

They fixed the spelling of Aerith’s name. This may seem like a minor point, but considering it’s been 20 years and I’m still bitter that Devil May Cry still hasn’t corrected “Nelo Angelo,” it’s a small victory.

Improved combat. Admittedly, I wasn’t sold on the new combat system at first, but after playing through the game twice, I’ve come to really like it. It has a few rough edges and can get chaotic in some battles, but it does a decent job of blending the feel of an action game with turn-based strategy. The fact that you can switch to a more traditional turn-based system if you prefer is also nice. (I haven’t tried Classic mode yet, though.)

Weapon customization. The Skill Points system allows you to upgrade your loadout instead of acquiring new gear. The tutorial was somewhat lacking (I didn’t quite figure out the multiple-core-unlock thing right away), but I appreciated the ability to add materia slots or stat buffs rather than just cycling through a dozen swords that Cloud apparently keeps in his back pocket.

Background dialogue management. On the whole, the conversations as you run through town enhance the story without slogging down the gameplay; you don’t have to stop and talk to every single resident, because snatches of their conversation reach you (and your on-screen chatlog) as you pass. You can stop and listen for more detail if you want, or you can just keep moving. The extra worldbuilding is really nice.

The music. The orchestrated versions of the original themes are excellent (and some of those music cues gave me goosebumps… Did I spend way too many hours immersed in the original game? Probably). I can take or leave some of the collectible jukebox tunes, but the background music in general is good. (But did I earn that Disc Jockey trophy? Yes, yes I did.)

Supporting character development. Jessie, Biggs and Wedge actually have characters! And personalities! Clichéd ones, admittedly, but it’s an improvement over the original game killing them all off within the first few minutes. The game also does justice to the Turks, and actually surprised me with how much depth of character it gave Reno and Rude in particular (perhaps setting them up for a mini redemption arc so players forgive them for dropping a plate on tens of thousands of slum residents?). Their moments of concern for each other and (brief) crises of conscience made them more than the stock villains they were in the original game, more in line with their temporarily good-aligned characters in Advent Children. Tseng, likewise, was on point. However, I do have to qualify all this with one irate question: Where the heck is Elena?! Seems like the female characters are always getting left out… /sigh/

Improved plot devices. REMAKE cleans up some of the more questionable and outdated content from the original. As you likely already know from the demo, the new game somewhat exonerates the protagonists by having Shinra blow up their own mako reactor to turn public opinion against AVALANCHE (possibly because someone finally realized that it’s hard to sympathize with characters who are willing to melt down an entire reactor and kill a bunch of innocent civilians). AVALANCHE are still eco-terrorists, but they’re… terrorists with a conscience? I dunno, at least they feel bad when people die now… Likewise, the weird and uncomfortable Honey Bee Inn segment of the original game has been reborn as an amazing dance extravaganza. Less voyeurism/prostitution, more Vegas floor show (complete with minigame choreography) and makeover. The whole Don Corneo scenario is still hella creepy, but frankly, there’s nothing that can fix that.

Series references. Fans of the original will appreciate all the inside jokes and direct references to the original game and other franchise entries: One-off comments about Chocobo racing; a broken console in Wall Market that shoots at you; a framed picture of the original 32-bit Seventh Heaven; ads for Banora apple juice; side mentions of characters and plot devices from spinoff games; PHS communication… The game definitely pays tribute to its history. They even recreate the original loading screen and several of Cloud’s iconic poses/animations throughout the game:

The neutral:

Recycled gags. Look, I know Advent Children was the ultimate evolution of FFVII for a while, and admittedly, it did some things very well. The running gag with Rude’s sunglasses and the victory fanfare being used as a ringtone are some of the best moments in the film, in part because they were so unexpected. But as much as I enjoyed the repeated nods to AC in this game, they felt a little desperate, like there were no new jokes to insert so they had to double down on the ones they’d used the last time this franchise had a renaissance. (See Rude’s broken sunglasses, below.) And fitting into the series as a whole, it feels a little weird. Why is Rude’s ringtone the same as the clones’ from Advent Children? Does Barret really need to sing the victory fanfare over and over when he defeats an enemy? Is there supposed to be some history behind that song that was left out of the worldbuilding? It just feels too meta.

Arbitrary localization of names. I don’t really grasp why it was necessary to rename so many items and characters for the English market. Some changes make sense for localization (e.g. Whack-a-Box certainly works better for an American audience than Crash Box), but others seem arbitrary, like changing Aniyan Kunyan to Andrea Rhodea or Mugi to Oates (a play on the meaning of his name in Japanese, but... does it matter?). And then… well, I don’t want to spoil A Major Plot Element, but there’s another thing that changes names from one English word (in the Japanese track) to a different English word. Why? No idea. It doesn’t affect gameplay, and it’s not really a problem, but listening to the Japanese track, I found it jarring to have the subtitles contradict what I was hearing.

Underutilized characters. While the whole gamut of original FFVII characters make appearances, several of them aren’t used to full effect, or aren’t used at all to advance the story. Rufus Shinra’s bossfight is a decent challenge, but while his character was vital to both the original FFVII and Advent Children, his presence in this game is little more than a cameo. His fight could be cut or swapped out with any other boss, and it would have zero effect on the plot. Similarly, while Hojo is a key player in the full story (which this game doesn’t cover, since it’s only a fraction of the original timeline), he’s largely wasted here, except as a means of extending play time by making you wander through corridors and fight a bunch of monsters for “research.” (I have no idea what his motivation is; you’d think he’d be more interested in recapturing Aerith or Cloud, but instead he just... opens an elevator and lets them leave? after they beat up some midbosses.) Reeve Tuesti actually has a solid presence in this game, but since he’s ONLY ever active as himself, there’s no explanation for the random Cait Sith cameo in one scene (players new to the franchise probably have no idea why a random cartoon cat showed up for a few seconds and was never mentioned again). Obviously the plot arcs have to change when the game is covering only a few days’ time in a much longer story, and the major players need to be introduced at some point if they’re going to feature in later games in the series, but from a narrative standpoint, there are an awful lot of superfluous characters doing things for no reason in this installment.

The bad:

THE PADDING. Dear goodness, there is so much padding to make this a standalone game instead of just the first chapter of a longer adventure. I got really, really sick of running literally from one end of the map to the other on side quests – and that’s me, an avowed trophy hunter who spends hours scouring dark corners for collectible items in other games, saying that. So much of this game felt like time fill that didn’t really advance the story. It’s also full of unnecessary new characters with improbable Squeenix hair, like Roche the super-annoying motorcycle SOLDIER (below), or Leslie, Don Corneo’s doorman who somehow merits his own backstory and side quest. (Though in fairness, every FFVII sequel has added superfluous characters, with Crisis Core possibly being the worst offender.) But it just felt really drawn-out and bloated for a game of this generation. If this game had been as compact and tightly-written as the other games I typically play, it probably only would have taken me 15 hours to beat instead of 50. (I don’t actually know how many hours I spent on it the first time through, as I didn’t check the play clock before restarting on Hard difficulty. I do know it took me over 110 hours total to complete the game on both modes, though much of the second run was spent dying repeatedly on a handful of nasty fights. Hard mode removes items and MP replenishment, and if you run out of MP at any point during a chapter, you’re going to die. A lot.)

The pacing. Related to the above... the Midgar portion of the original game was just the setup for a larger story. It wasn’t meant to have its own complete dramatic arc so much as to introduce you to the world and the major players. Consequently, there are some really odd beats in this story, as well as a total lack of urgency in your mission. There are no natural places to slot in the side quests and minigames, so they’re shoehorned awkwardly between plot sequences. “Quick, our friend is in mortal peril and needs our help!” "Okay, cool, we’ll go rescue her after we spend ten hours running around town doing random errands for townspeople and playing games with the local kids.” Uh... what?

The graphics just aren’t as good as they should be. While the character models are gorgeous, there are a lot of low-res background textures and weird polygons that don’t quite match up with other components. Most egregious are the Shinra logos, which frequently get close-ups as part of the fixed camera work and, frankly, look like lossy JPEGs. (See image below, screencapped from a PS4 Pro. Those jagged edges on the logo are present throughout the entire game.) There are weird clipping errors and artifacted images and reflective surfaces that don’t reflect, making the game look more like something from the PS3 era than a 4K late-gen PS4 game. (And it’s not that we don’t have the technology: Uncharted 4 was released back in 2016, and the rendering of its vast world was twice as pretty. Devil May Cry 5, released in early 2019, has far more realistic textures and object interaction. Granted, those are different types of games with fewer NPCs to render, but I feel like there’s no excuse for a game this big to look this mediocre.)

The HUD could be better. The lower-corners concept is okay, though it took me a while to train my eyes to travel between both sides of the screen and track the fight action. But for a long time, I didn’t even notice the commands in the upper left corner of the screen, and after playing through the game twice I still have no idea what they say because I couldn’t focus on the tiny text long enough to read them while trying not to die in combat. (I just looked it up; apparently they’re combat control shortcuts? Huh, that would have been useful to know.) It wasn’t until my second time through that I realized there even WERE separate controls on screen during the motorcycle minigames; I had resorted to panicked button mashing to figure it out the first time through because there was no tutorial (you’re just dropped into the action) and, having ignored the small text for the previous hundred combats, I had no reason to look for on-screen instructions there. Not that it would have helped, since on many backgrounds the text in the upper left is really difficult to read (see below). It’s worth noting that I have better than 20/20 vision and played this game on a large TV screen and still had trouble reading some things; on a smaller TV, or for someone with less acute vision (like my sister, who is blind in one eye), I think even the basic menu controls would be difficult to see. While you can resize the font for subtitles, my cursory glance through the menu did not uncover an option to increase the size of the HUD. 

Inter-fight menu mechanics. Specifically, the inability to save (or save loadout settings) between fights in a multi-part sequence. There are several back-to-back fights in which it is necessary to switch characters or change gear between bosses. The game treats them as one continuous fight, though it does allows you to access the equipment menu by holding square during key cutscenes. Which is good, if you only have one of a particular materia or accessory that you need to switch between characters, and in most cases when you die the game lets you restart just before your current fight instead of restarting the whole sequence -- also good, since some multi-stage bosses can easily take 20-30 minutes to beat, and if several of those are strung together in sequence, you’re in for a long play session to get past them. But since it’s treated as one fight, you can’t save between bosses (more than once, I had to leave my PS4 running in Rest Mode overnight and just hoped we didn’t have a power glitch), and if you happen to get killed and need to restart the fight, your loadouts reset. Which means if you’re, say, fighting the end boss on Hard difficulty and get killed in the first two minutes -- which happened to me a lot -- by the time you restart the fight, sit through the unskippable cutscene, access the menu and rearrange all the materia and accessories you need, you’re spending five or six minutes gearing up for two minutes of play, and then doing that over and over again every time you die. It gets really old.

The English dub script. *deep breath* Okay, look, I know I can be a bit elitist about translations, but I really do not like the English adaptation of this game. It makes Cloud come across as less socially-awkward and far more of a deliberate jerk, Aerith is mouthy and even swears (which is not accurate to her original character), and it downplays some of the symbolism that’s more obvious in the Japanese script. One quick example: When Aerith gives Cloud a flower, she says (in Japanese), “In the language of flowers, this means ‘reunion.’” It’s subbed/dubbed in English, “Lovers used to give these when they were reunited.” That’s a subtle difference, but since the concept of “reunion” is a freakin’ huge part of the FFVII plot, and since Sephiroth was on screen literally seconds before that line is delivered, my brain automatically went, “OMG REUNION!!!” while I’m guessing people listening in English only picked up on the romantic subtext. It’s a pretty minor thing, and of course translation is always a complex balancing act between literal meaning and local market understanding, but the English version just seemed to me to have a different vibe overall. (Unfortunately, the English subtitles are the same as the dub, so unless you can understand the Japanese audio you’re kind of stuck with that dialogue.)

-

-

[WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW THIS POINT]

-

- …And my #1 complaint about Final Fantasy VII: REMAKE is…

…it’s not actually a remake.

Sure, the game starts out the same way and covers a lot of the same events, but fundamentally, it’s a sequel, not a retelling. It’s evident from Cloud’s future-oriented visions throughout the game that something else is going on, and the ending MAKES NO SENSE if you don’t already know the story. Heck, even the rest of the game doesn’t really make sense if you don’t know the story -- Sephiroth’s presence is never explained; Zack isn’t even introduced, just shows up randomly at the end; Cloud’s flashbacks of Tifa and her dead father in Nibelheim are left as a complete mystery (and since she evidently remembers the burning of her town, judging by her dialogue outside Aerith’s house, why doesn’t she even react when Sephiroth shows up?).

The core elements of the plot – the Feelers (Whispers) preserving a specific fate; the three entities from the future (whose weapon types just happen to correspond to certain named characters) defending their timeline; the return of post-Advent Children Sephiroth (the only time we’ve seen him in human form with one black wing), who has inhabited the Lifestream since his death and promised that he would never truly disappear, who in the end appeals to Cloud directly for an alliance rather than attempting to control him, because he knows now that Cloud is strong enough to defy the Reunion instinct; the change in the outcome of story events in which Biggs (and, unconfirmed as to which timeline he’s actually in, but quite possibly Zack) now survives his intended death -- all point toward Sephiroth trying to manipulate destiny into an alternate outcome in which he is victorious, and using this naive version of Cloud to facilitate it. That means this game is taking place in an alternate or splinter universe, created at some point after the events of the original Final Fantasy VII, and possibly even after the events of Advent Children.

All of that is fine from an overall continuing-story perspective – it opens up a lot of interesting possibilities, like the fact that Aerith might survive now that Cloud has seen prescient flashes of her death (among other events), and there are opportunities for more story twists and changes from what players might expect. But touting this as a remake of the original game has the potential to confuse players who are new to the franchise. FFVII was groundbreaking back in 1997, and it defined JRPGs for an entire generation of Western gamers. But that was more than two decades ago, and a lot of current gamers weren’t even born then, so while they’ve probably heard of the classic game, they aren’t necessarily steeped in its lore. FFVII:R relies heavily on prior knowledge of the series to carry its twist ending, so it largely fails as a standalone game.

Also, speaking as a longtime fan of the franchise… I honestly found the ending rather lackluster. It was a twist, of sorts, but not the sort of shocking, mind-bending revelation that made the first game so iconic. Granted, it’s hard to follow an act like revealing that your protagonist’s entire identity is a lie, not to mention killing off one of your main characters a third of the way into the story! But when the surprise ending is just, Surprise! We’re going to change things up a bit this time around so you aren’t entirely sure what’s coming! Also, here’s a gratuitous Sephiroth fight because everyone expects that, even though it doesn’t serve the main story at all nor resolve any conflicts previously established within this game! it smacks of Different for the sake of Being Different, not for the sake of a really amazing storyline they’re hiding up their sleeve. It’s a bit of a let-down, and I find that I... just... don’t really care that much. Which, for someone who’s been a fan of the series for nearly a quarter of a century, means there’s a Big Freaking Problem somewhere. If you’re not keeping the attention of your die-hard fans, how do you hope to build a fanbase of players new to the franchise?

Given the pacing and story issues inherent in this game, I’m not convinced that the following game(s) in the franchise are going to be structured any better. Considering the amount of pure side-quest padding they did in Midgar, I have no idea how they’ll maintain that same tone on something the scale of the World Map portion of the original game, unless they just completely eliminate things like Fort Condor and the submarine and the spaceship side quests. I have a feeling the Gold Saucer is going to be reduced to a Jessie flashback, a Chocobo race (probably to win a key item), and a battle arena run like the coliseum in Wall Market in this game. If they include all the story elements and side characters from the original, this series is going to be a dozen games long.

Still, on the whole this game was enjoyable, and I’m glad I played it. It wasn’t as good as I’d hoped, but they haven’t completely killed off my interest, so I’ll probably continue with the series whenever the next game comes out. Though I’m not really sure if the higher-priced edition I pre-ordered was worth the extra money, so I may wait and see how the next game is shaping up before deciding which version to get...

But if they don’t give me a really pretty (playable) Vincent Valentine in the next installment, I may riot. I do have priorities.

[jaywrites101]

The City In FreeFall: Part one, Chapter One.

StreetTeam members: @ciestess @leave-her-a-tome If you want your name here, join my StreetTeam by signing up for my newsletter and be notified of all The City In FreeFall updates, giveaways and more! Also tagging: @bexminx @ednaraged @ahotpeaceofshit @nemothesurvivor @siarven  and @jaclynwashere If you want on this list you should try messaging or interacting with my stuff more ;P

The happiest day of my life was when I discovered my wings. But you should know upfront that's such a low bar limbo players use it as a standard. Most children dream of flying over the trees and touching the soft clouds. I never did… No, I've always been scared of heights. My name is Sam Farsight, and I need your help. Normally, if I need something done I'd just do it myself. That's the kind of man I am. It burns my gut to ask anyone for anything, but… well, I've got other things burning me at the moment--bigger things. You see, today is the day I'm going to die. Strangely enough, this isn't the first time I thought I was going to die. This time, I think it's gonna stick… You'll see what I mean. You don't know me from Adam, but if you'll hear me out I'll explain everything in its place. I can't promise you anything as compensation--I don't have anything of value to bequeath to anyone. All I have left is my story. My legacy. It'll have to be enough. You're my only hope of getting the truth to the world. You see, I have a confession. And a promise…. I won't say whose, but there are hundreds of thousands of lives that depend on the truth getting out. Maybe even yours. Because my life as Sam Farsight means nothing to nobody. I died at twenty-one, and there's nothing more to say. But I have a secret. A secret I'm leaving to you, whoever you are. And the soul of a massive megalopolis hangs in the balance. My name is Sam Farsight. And for the last twenty-three years, I have been living as the vigilante superhero known as the Wingman. ### You've probably heard of him. I have a… reputation in these parts. But you can't believe everything the papers have said about me! Not all of it was my fault. I didn't mean for those people to die--and I certainly wasn't involved with the Nuclear swap! No sir! I stayed the hell away from that fiasco. I've done a lot of things--some of them I'm more proud of than others. But I've always tried to save lives. I've always tried to be better than the villains I put away… It's just… sometimes things don't always work out. I've made terrible mistakes. But what I have to tell you today should make up for all of them! No doubt, by the time you read this, the rumors of my death will have spread like wildfire... They're probably true. But there's something else you should know. I've saved the city. And this time, it's saved for good. What I'm about to tell you is the truth of my time as the city's savior. Please--Please! My final request is that you help me set the record straight. Things cannot ever be allowed to get as bad as they did. It took me dying to fix them. You'll have to finish plugging the holes yourself. I just hope… but that's getting ahead of myself. As they say Everything in its place. It's better I start at the beginning. Before I got my wings… If I sound reluctant, it's because this wasn't one of my proudest moments. ### The year was 2114. Old America. Jakob McCorbin was just elected President. Spring had only just faded and Summer was at our doorstep. The cars were still powered by the old steam & solar hybrid tec. Eternal Plasma Drives hadn't been invented yet. Railways had just made a big comeback for cross-country travel. I remember sitting under an advertisement for the Atlas Air&Ground commercial cross-country liner. Jerry and I would look up at that billboard and promise each other that when we got rich with our law firm, we'd book a car all the way out of Briar City, past HollyTown, past DoggWood, and all the way out of this continent! Those were the days… Let's see… 2114… International crime was dropping all across the globe. We'd just come out of a big war against Grephsnia. Jobs were at an all-time high. The politicians called it a utopia. But those of us who lived in the ghetto just thought it was another day in the history books. From our perspective, things didn't look so cheery. Jobs down there were still hard when you had them, and impossible to find when you didn't. Drug dealers still sold their product to school children. Gangs still put kids in caskets… They put a lot of kids in caskets. That's why I, Sam Farsight, thought it would be a good idea to start a gang war. The plan was simple. Goad the two gangs in Briar city, the SmashStones and the BloodBlades, into attacking each other and force the cops to actually do something to end them both once and for all. Nothing is ever simple. I was about to find that out the hard way. To find the SmashStone gang and learn their plans, I had to join them. A tricky feat since I live in BloodBlade territory. If the BloodBlades ever found out I was with SmashStone, they'd kill me. Of course, if either of them found out what my real plan was, they'd both kill me anyway. I thought I was so damn smart back then. That was the year I turned twenty-one. It was the year I got a casket for a birthday present. Jerry, my best friend since grade school, found himself on the wrong end of a shooting. That's where the Wingman found his start. Newly adulted. Chip on my shoulder. And the weight of the world in my back pocket. I wanted to do something with my life. But I decided then and there being a lawyer wasn't good enough for me. I wanted to do something "important." God, I was so stupid. I even thought the city would erect a statue in my honor. I can't believe I was ever that dumb. The only thought on my mind was no more kids in caskets. I was going to end the gang wars forever. That's why I was sitting on a brick wall in the rain just outside the 14th precinct. That's why when the cold wind blew across my face, I didn't back down. I was shivering and hungry and… and… …    Lonely….    Yeah. That's the truth of it. I was so very lonely. I had a hole in my heart that was colder than the rain, and more painful than my stomach. That emptiness kept me moving. If I stopped… It would consume me. I wasn't ever going to back down. Not until I did what I came here to do. I checked my watch. 7:48 pm. He wasn't going to show tonight. I had to be back home before 9 O'clock or somebody would get suspicious. If not my family, then the gang. At the same time, sitting around in the rain waiting for a cop who might not even show wasn't the brightest idea I'd ever had. But the SmashStone goon I'd met with needed me to steal a cop car. And I had the perfect cop for the job. Officer Filbert Warren. A cop so dirty garbage washes him off. The man's a walking personification of the seven deadly sins. But… If you looked past all that. If you ignored the stink, the stains, the empty burger wrappers he leaves instead of footprints. If you looked into his soul. You'd find a second, even meaner cop living in his gullet that just wants the world to burn. Seriously! None of the other cops trusted him either. He earned himself the nickname "the Rat" back when he first joined the force, and he's done nothing but live up to his nickname since then. Rumor has it he's on both gang's payrolls. Witnesses against the gangs have a bad habit of going missing after this guy gets a look at their file. Nothing's ever proven, of course. Rumors go on to say that IA has a file on him the size of Texas, but it's all full of dead ends, missing evidence, and hearsay. Which would be surprising because Officer Warren isn't smart enough to pull any of that off. For example. Just as I was giving up hope that the fat rat masquerading as a cop would show up, he did. The cop car slinked up to the front of the precinct like a pissed-off cat. The headlights glaring angrily ahead. "Alright Berny, take this one in," I heard him say from across the road as he rolled down his window to throw out a sandwich wrapper. Littering is against the law, but Officer Warren didn't seem to mind as he dug into his burger with gusto. Berny glared at his partner in disgust but said nothing. He went around and marched some kid into the building. The girl spat at him, but the weary patrolman didn’t so much as flinch as he did his job. Apparently, he’d faced worse today. Warren chuckled after they'd gone. He gulped down the rest of his burger in one bite and waddled out after them in leisure. I swear, the car rose two feet when he got out of it. The fat lard even left the engine running. It was like he was begging for someone to steal it, but I hesitated. Not because I was having second thoughts. No, I hesitated because I knew I'd have to take a bath in acid after I'd sat anywhere Officer Warren had been. I could only hope the rain would offer me some protection. I didn't waste time driving around once I was in the car. Sure, I stamped the pedal as far down as it would go, flashed the lights and turned on the siren. I may have held my middle finger out the window like a good little delinquent, but I had a plan. The initiation required me to make some noise so people would know what I'd done, but I had to get away without getting caught. I drove the car as fast as I could to the graveyard just past the hill on the edge of the city. I expected there to at least be some kind of chase, but apparently, Warren's fellow cops didn't put too much priority on his misfortunes. I parked the car with the headlights flooding a row of gravestones. People who'd been killed by the gangs. I hoped it might remind someone they had a duty to fulfill. I opened the door and took off, being careful not to go around the front or the back where the cameras were. Step one was completed. Easy. I should've known it was too easy.

[dndplus]

In-Depth: Villains, Part 2

Again, if you’re hear to learn about making a villain for your adventure/campaign and you’re a newer, less experienced DM, I highly recommend you look at my posts titled ‘Getting Started’ first, specifically the ones about making an adventure.

They can be found here:

Getting Started: Making An Adventure, Part 1 Getting Started: Making An Adventure, Part 2

If you’re here and have not looked into Part 1 of my In-Depth on Villains, it can be found here:

In-Depth: Villains, Part 1

Hello again!

We’re picking up right where we left off with the steps I laid out in Part 1.  They are:

Motive, Station, Mentality, Ability (Essentially, all of Part 1)

Introducing the Villain to Your Party (We’ll start here)

The Villain’s Lackeys

Evolution

The Hill They Die On

Most of the actual “Creating” happened in part 1 with identifying a villain’s MSMA.  This is only a small part of a villain, though.  Having a good one made does little if they way they’re presented and used isn’t also done appropriately.  For some, simply being a menacing figure is at the end of your dungeon is enough.  That said, you can’t simply having one basic, menacing figure after the next over a twenty level campaign, can you?

Introducing the Villain to Your Party

This is important, make no mistake.  When the party first meets the villain is just as important as when they kill it (assuming the villain doesn’t win, of course).

There are several things to consider when you introduce the villain, but the MSMA of that villain go a long way in helping you determine the details.  Here’s a few basic introductions to start:

1. The Guy At the End

This is the most basic of all introductions.  Essentially, an NPC in need of help will describe the villain to the players, and the players will run into them at the end of their dungeon and fight to the death.  Believe it or not, as basic as this is, it can be compelling even for a campaign’s BBEG.  

I recall a specific example here of an Aboleth who worked so secretly that discovering his name was an event of enormous importance in the campaign.  He was never seen (or interacted with) until the very final confrontation.  Rather, the players dealt with a legion of spies (in the form of Deep Scions) that acted as the main source of their player-to-villain interaction.

For simpler villains, you really can just stick them at the end of the dungeon and call it a day.  The scale may go up as your players increase in level, such as in who gives them the task, and what they’re there to accomplish, but at the end of the day there’s always room for a simple “they’re the guy at the end” situation.

2. The Power That Be

A powerful politician.  A corrupt member of the military or guard.  The ruler of an evil kingdom.  This villain is best introduced to the players through their importance to the region, without any mention to the fact that they’re to be an enemy in the future.  This builds precedence, and creates drama when their involvement becomes that revelation to really kick things off down the line.  It fits will with the noble-as-a-thief trope I went into detail on in Part 1.

In some cases, this villain meets with the players directly before the two groups turn adversarial.  They could be someone the players report their heroic deeds to, and are thus congratulated and even rewarded.  They could be a person of importance they bump elbows with while at a gathering for the rich and powerful, whether it be for something completely unrelated or not.  Regardless of what you do, when this chance meeting happens, I advise finding a way to show the villain isn’t entirely genuine.  This could be as blunt as them being mean to a servant, or dismissive of plights of people they think of as ‘beneath them’, but it can also be more subtle than them.  The villain could be trying too hard to appear kind to the players, such as by offering favors and help should the players ever need this.  This approach is particularly devious, as your players will never turn down a favor from someone who seems powerful (especially if it seems like going to them is what you intend for them to do in teh future).  In this way, you create a situation where the players learn of a plot by the villain without knowing who it is yet, and thus delivering their involvement directly to the villain themselves.

3. The Old Evil

Some villains have a history of being a villain.  They enact schemes meant to disrupt life for good folk and cause disorder wherever they go.  They may also be a great, roaming beast that’s awoken from a thousand year slumber that the players will need to assemble help against.  Regardless of your particular brand of ‘ancient, terrible evil’, you can be certain to evoke an entirely different atmosphere when you introduce this villain through a story reminiscent of the Boogey Man.

Of course, how you reach the ‘ghost story introduction’ of your villain is important as well.  Show the players the effects of the villain first, such as a village in ruins at the hands of their methods, or if the villain isn’t meant to pay off until much later, put the players IN the event that terrorizes a village/city/kingdom.

In Conclusion...

Regardless of how you choose to introduce the villain, and there are obviously more than the three I gave you to get started with, remember that your villain is unique.  Two different villains with the same introduction should play out differently, sometimes even drastically so.  A cocky, arrogant noble is going to be blithely charismatic, whereas a cold, uncaring sociopath who cares nothing for his people will likewise be a stalwart and serious individual.

The Villain’s Lackeys

This applies to every villain, even ones without ‘actual’ lackeys.  I know that may seem strange, but we’ll get that particular type of villain in a moment...

For starters, consult your villain’s MSMA.  Their station as a crime lord is going to put the criminal element front and center as far as lackeys is concerned.  In contrast, a warlock may have deep sea monstrosities, wicked fae, or terrible fiends at their disposal.  A crime lord who’s also a warlock might have both.  

How do you handle that situation, though?  Typically, the beings of a patron’s background (in the case of a warlock) are of a higher power level than commonplace thugs.  In this scenario, your crime boss might employ a wide variety of thugs, bandits, and the like, and have a single, somewhat powerful fiend/fey/eldritch horror as a sort of ‘mid-boss’ to the adventure.

Some villains don’t really have minions, but may live in places that are simply fraught with danger.  A Behir lives in a secluded cave, one that’s particularly hard to reach, and could have any arrangement mountain monsters between the players and itself.  This could be a contingent of trolls, or a group of stone giants.  It’s important to understand these aren’t true lackeys, of course.  In the instance of a villain like this, the players will be able to sneak by whatever stands between them and their intended target, which can drastically alter the course and pacing of an adventure.

More significant villains are going to employ a greater variety of minions, including other villains!  Keep this in mind when you have two greater villains operating in a similar realm, as a ‘mid-boss’ type, lesser villain can be the thread that ties the two together.

Other villains have far less complicated lackey situations, but ones that should still be heavily considered.  Liches and necromancers, for instance, will employ the undead.  It’s important to know a lot about undead minions when you select what they command, though.  Some liches may have apprentices who weren’t quite up to the task of achieving lichdom themselves, which would create a Boneclaw.  Other liches might have a Cadaver Collector employed, which suggests that they are mechanically inclined, a fact that can be reflected in their lair and the traps they employ later.  Finally, a particularly sadistic and wicked lich may be host to a Devourer, suggesting a connection to the Demon Lord of Undeath Orcus himself!  

A villain’s lackeys tell a story about the villain themselves, as well as what they do and what they might become.  In that vein, we move on to...

Evolution

This section will be short, but it’s important.  It does not apply to minor villains, as they are meant to come and go in a short period of time.  Moderate and major villains, however, can be the focus of multiple adventures.  Their schemes, as well as their defeats, can shape how they present in the later segments of an adventure.

A villain who succeeds in stealing a powerful object may acquire new abilities, or perhaps that same villain kidnaps a renowned tinker and adds mechanical wonders to its list of lackeys.  

On the contrary, a villain who is defeated may set itself up to better counter the players’ own abilities, or retreat to a place where it is more powerful.

This can happen in reverse, as well.  Players may simply find a villain becomes more nuanced and dangerous as they grow closer.  The tactics used to achieve victory may prove less effective as time goes on, or they could reach a point where they need to evolve by finding outside help.

Whatever the case, always be mindful of how the successes and failures of your villain are going to shape their actions.  It keeps things from becoming stale, and empowers the notion that the players are fighting a specific character, and not just ‘whatever the DM throws at them that session’.

The Hill They Die On

Another short section, and the one we’ll conclude on.  There are scenarios where your players will kill a villain before you planned to have them die, and that’s fine.  

Applaud your players for pulling something like that off, whether it be because they were exceptionally clever, or your own inexperience made it possible.  It’s at this moment I’ll say something I may not have said yet: always be ready for the next adventure.  If your players pull off a surprise victory ahead of schedule, knowing what their next adventure is to be and letting them find their way to it will allow you time to finish the session without canceling too early.  This will then give you time to prepare assets and properly build the entirety of that next adventure.

Unexpected scenarios aside, your villain has a limit.  There is both a point in time when the villain must truly ‘lose’, and when your players will yearn for something new.  There are a few ways to do this, but what’s most important is to understand their motives.

A necromancer looking to learn about the undead will die on the hill of ‘backed into a corner with nowhere to go’.  It’s not significant, but a necromancer of that sort is not a significant villain.  A necromancer working tirelessly, maybe even selflessly, to use profane magics to resurrect a loved one will sooner die before let the players foil their plot, and that is the hill they die on.

Some villains will still try to escape after their plot is foiled, only to find they have nothing once truly beaten.  This villain may fade into obscurity, beaten but not dead, or that villain may develop a personal vendetta against the players.  That adventure finds the players as targets, with the villain pushed to their absolute limit as they attempt to assassinate the players in a murderous rage with no regard for their own well being.

Villains have an expiration date; a period of time where their involvement as the players’ main antagonist is interesting.  You can save them if you want, keep them alive to be used as a lackey to a greater villain, perhaps purely to strike at the players out of spite, but they are still no longer the main antagonist in that scenario.  

I end this post here, on this somewhat dour note, because you may feel particularly proud of a villain.  That’s great, be proud, and even keep that villain for later.  A villain in one campaign can come back in another as an undead, or a devil, or after some other grisly transformation, and when they do they’ll be interesting again.  What’s most important for now is that you say goodbye and congratulate your players when they triumph, and then get excited as you start the MSMA for the next villain they’ll love to hate.

[chlostertalks]

I Think I Know Who the Night King Is

It's Aegon the Conqueror. Here's why.

Background/A Reason to Fight for the Throne

Aegon I of House Targaryen, also known as Aegon the Conqueror, was first of his name and rode Balerion the Dread (the largest dragon skull shown in S7E2) to conquer all seven kingdoms. He was the first king of the Andals and the First Men, and Protector of the Realm. We hear more about him through the books Shireen used to read; he’s not to be confused with Grand Maester Aemon's brother, Aegon V. 

He also had a sword, Blackfyre, the most popular Targaryen sword and one of the most powerful made of Valyrian steel; Talk the Thrones brought up that the Golden Company (the sellsword army working with Cersei) may still have this sword in their possession.

According to the books, Aegon I married both his sisters (ew, but it is known that House Targaryen traditionally committed incest to keep their bloodline going) and had a child with each: Aenys (pronounced like Enes Kanter) and Maegor. Aenys was a sickly boy, and ruled in a way similar to King Tommen on the show. Maegor's reign was cruel, and he rode Balerion to continue his tyranny. 

These three kings were the first to rule Westeros, so they have claims to the throne. Especially in Aegon I's case, the ability to conquer lands means that he could do what he want with them, including the possibility of cutting down sacred trees. This action would anger the Children and give them reason to stab a man with dragonglass.

Fun facts: Aegon's sister-wives' names are Rhaenys and Visenya. Lots of repeating of prefixes through the years. Also, Balerion had four riders before his death at age 200 (how many dragon years is that?). 

Qyburn and Cersei in front of the skull of Balerion the Dread.

Only Targaryen can ride dragons

Dragons are smart. They know Targaryen blood when they sense it. That's why in last night's season premiere, Jon Snow was able to ride Rhegal (named for his father, coincidentally enough). This is also why Rhegal and Drogon sneered at the sight of Danaerys and Jon kissing at the waterfall, even though incest was common practice in House Targaryen. Even though the Night King had to shoot down Viserion in order to make the dragon part of the Army of the Undead, it would still take some sort of blood bond to ride the mysterious animal.

 The Night King can temporarily extinguish fire as he walks–a more OP power than Danaerys

This reminds me of a scene in Naruto: Shippuden when Madara Uchiha points out that Lady Tsunade is not as powerful as her grandfather. For those unaware, Madara was a major villain in the series, and Lady Tsunade was the leader of her village, the title being hokage. Tsunade had the power to heal herself after suffering critical wounds, but she wasn't as powerful as her grandfather, Hashirama Senju, First Hokage. He could transform landscapes, fight nonstop for a day and still be fresh to continue, and heal quickly. In fact, his cells were used for amputations and mutations in the series.

Danaerys can walk through fire, an incredible feat within itself. However, the Night King can extinguish fire temporarily with a single step; moreover, his clothes do not burn as he walks over fire. Could Danaerys' power be a strand of a greater power of her enemy?

The White Walker army is not immune to dragonglass and Valyrian steel–the two weapons of the Targaryen family

We know that dragonglass can kill White Walkers, for that is why Jon and Danaerys are mining it for the war. I also believe the Children stabbed through their target with a dragonglass dagger to create the Night King in the first place. Jon has also killed a White Walker with Longclaw, his blade of Valyrian steel. Being that the Old Valyria is extinct and full of grayscale sufferers, there are but few Valyrian steel weapons left in the world. In addition to Jon Snow, Arya Stark, Brienne of Tarth, Jaime Lannister, and Sam Tarly have such weapons.

Based on the below family tree, Aegon I was the son of Aerion Targaryen, Lord of Dragonstone, and Velaena Velaryon of the Old Valyria. House Velaryon and House Targaryen have married each other several times throughout the course of history, and Valyrian steel soon became closely associated with House Targaryen. Could it be that the White Walkers are not immune to these two weapons because their leader's house used them?

Targaryen family tree. Reddit. Also, lol at Robert Baratheon hating Targaryens when he has the same great-grandfather as Danaerys. 

Aegon I parallels to William the Conqueror, just like the show parallels the War of the Roses

Obviously, England and France didn't fight a thousand-year-old villain like the Night King, but this parallel may be important. William the Conqueror conquered and united England in 1066, just as Aegon I conquered and united the England-shaped Westeros. William's reign led to interlinking dynasties and wars between England and France, just as Aegon's reign led to the same results with Westeros and France-shaped Essos. Of all the major players in the War of Roses and Game of Thrones, one of the only major players in the former that has yet to have a place in the latter is William the Conqueror. Now would be a perfect time to introduce him to give us a backstory on how Westeros came to be. Not only does it set up a motive for a villain to return to his throne, but it also sets up the future Game of Thrones prequel.

Spiral patterns similar to the Targaryen crest

We've seen spiral patterns that the Army of the Dead leaves behind throughout the series. It didn't dawn on me that the spiral resembles the Targaryen crest until Beric sets Ned Umber and the pinned arms and hands on fire last night. 

THEORY: Either Aegon I or his sons, Aenys and Maegor, conquered too much and destroyed lands, causing the Children to interfere and stab one of them against the tree.

PROBLEM: 

Aegon I died of a stroke four years after his last trek throughout Westeros, according to the books. There also could be a continuity error in the series, as the Night King has posed a threat on Westeros for thousands of years. Plus, to me, the man tied to the tree resembles more of Aenys’ appearance than Aegon I. 

But why make a character secondary to his father the main villain of a series? Anyway....

HOW THIS COULD PLAY OUT: 

The Targaryen crest has three dragon heads. Each of the three dragons we've come to know and love has a rider of Targaryen blood. Plus, in the intro to every season of GoT, the last animal shown before the GoT logo is the animal of the family who is in power; for seven seasons, the last animals on the sundial were a lion and a stag for Houses Lannister and Baratheon, but season 8′s last animal is a dragon as a comet blazes by. The final battle is a fight to the death (possibly at this new location called Last Hearth), with one of the Targaryens coming out on top.

But who will it be? 

[im-gonna-liveforever]

ITS HECKIN TWISTED APPRECIATION WEEK SO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS (part 1/2)

“YEAH THAT’S RIGHT I’M GONNA YELL ABOUT THE SOUNDTRACK LIKE I DID LAST WEEK BC TWISTED IS A GOOD HECKING MUSICAL WITH A GOOD HECKING SOUNDTRACK

(Now with favorite lines! bc why not, right?) (favorite lines either there bc I like the lyrics in that part or I really like how it sounds within the song)

I’m not a professional music person (I’ve been in band for several years and I’m pretty good, but I don’t know anything about music theory or anything abt singing) but AH WELL, I LIKE RANTING ABT MY SPECIAL INTERESTS AND THE INTERNET IS A GOOD PLACE TO FEEL LIKE I’M TALKING TO SOMEONE, SO HERE WE GO

(also there’s definitely going to be Twisted spoilers under the cut (for act one, at least), so watch out if you haven't seen it)

(also also I split this into two parts bc it’s getting late and as you can see by how this progresses, I got sleep deprived quickly plus it got way too long. This is part one with all the first act songs, part two will have the second act songs and should be up by tomorrow.)

OK THE OPENING NUMBER RIGHT?? THE INSTRUMENTALS?? THE HARMONIES??? THE GENERAL SAJKFDASJKFHDSJK???!?!? Like, it literally sounds like a Disney song but they cuss! It’s amazing!! (And all the citizens?? Comedy gold, every one of them, I swear) (AND THE FUCKINGJDSJKJDSKL SOPRANO PART???!? I’M C R Y I N G I FORGOT WHAT HER NAME WAS BUT SHES SUCH A GOOD SINGER THANK YOU FOR YOUR VOICE)

Favorite lines: 

“May the Rats ejaculate upon you!” “Thank you, thank you very much!”

“Why is everyone in the kingdom white?” “Uhh... Jafar?” 

“But ugliness permits a man to use his wits, ‘cause pretty people never have to try”

“UGLY OLD JAFAR!!”

pretty much  the whole song past the line “Why am I the only one who sees things as they are?”

Specifically “I want to be a cat!” “Wha-” “FUCK YOU!”

But more specially “Whistle while you swallow a spoonful of sugar and your dreams will come true upon a star!!!!” bc OH MY GOD IT’S BEAUTIFUL

Everyone listing how they want Jafar to die

ALSO SPECIALLY THE LAST 30 SECONDS BC AHJSAHJKADS (everything at and past the lines “and if we dream a little harder/ our patience and our honor...” etc.)

OK I STEAL EVERYTHING TIME! ULTIMATE CHAOS SONG, AND I LOVE. BE THE EVIL GREMLIN YOU WANT TO SEE IN THE WORLD. Also: the jazziness?? the opening instrumentals??? it’s so good. To the people playing the instrumentals for this musical: ,,,thank you,,,.,. (Also I learned recently that most of Jeff’s songs are in my range so guess who’s gonna try and learn this song?)

Favorite lines:

“Fetch, ya fucks!”

Did I mention the instrumentals?? bc hfhhhjdklsajk They seem simple but they’re also going ham and I love it

“Monkey thought we should just kill you, but I said ‘No, monkey, that’s crazy’ but now I’m thinking, yeah, no more fucking raisins...’“

“Thanks but no, thanks, ‘The Man’“

Honestly every line in this is golden, but I can’t put them all in and that sucks

“You’re only in trouble if you get caught!” “Aladdin?” “I’m in trouble!”

“Just one question, why, man?” “’Cause you stole my daughter’s hymen!” “That’s completely fair, but, in my defense, dude, your daughter’s hot!”

EVERYTHING AND MOOREE!!! SHE WANTS IT ALL AND I’M CRYING BC SHE SOUNDS BEAUTIFUL WHILE DOING SO. (I just realized that there’s 14 songs on this soundtrack and I’m sorry in advance for how long this post A) already is and B) is going to get) This song is so dramatic and that somehow fits the mood of her character and I love it so much and just ahdshjkds. Also it’s just?? So pretty????

Favorite lines:

“But it’s just like, whatever”

“I just want to be free so badly! You slaves could never understand. :(”

“You’re probably thinking, she’s got everything. Well, it’s true, ‘cause I do, but so the fuck what?”

“I WANT THE MOON! I WANT TO LIVE ON THE MOON! And eat it in a pie! And keep it as a pet! and wear it like a gemstone in my hair!”

“As I laugh in their faces of moonbeam pie!!”

“It’s enough to make me with I were lowly and poor... But like... with money!”

THA GOLDEN FUCJKLCIODIGN RULE. LIKE HOLY SHIT I LOVE THIS SONG SO MUCH. AND THE DANCING THEY DO WITH IT IN THE SHOW ITSELF??? IT’S THE BEST. THE FIUCUING BEST. I’M CRYING. THE DANCING IS SO  GOOD. AND SO IS THIS SONG. Also, it’s the #1 Starkid song I’d be comfortable showing to my mom, which is a definite plus! (I could also show this to my church pastor and he’d?? definitely like it, so that’s also a definite plus) And everyone’s so nice to Jafar, espically compared to the opening number and it just makes me so sad and let me give Jafar a hug, goddammit. ALSO also please let me meet the saxophone player and shake his hand, I don’t play saxophone but what he’s doing here is amazing. WAIT ALSO ALSO ALSO MAY I MEET THAT FLUTE PLAYER BC I’M JUST NOW HEARING THE FLUTE (AND HOW DID I NOT NOTICE IT BEFORE, I PLAY THAT INSTRUMENT???) AND I’M FUCJKIGDFONG HOLY SHIT JSUT FUCKINGJDSJKL ;BOUNCE AROUND ON THOSE NOTES WHY DON’T YOU I’M SAJDSKCDSJS

Favorite lines:

“Why it’s as easy as a 1,2,3,4!”

“Always treat others like sisters and brothers!” 

all of the lines just sound so good, I can’t choose 

The way Dylan Saunders says “Man” that that first time, like holy shit

The whole conversation between Omar and the thief

[completely monotone] “My hunger blinded me and forced me to act like an animal.”

AND THEN OMAR AND THE THIEF SING THE PART AND IT SOUNDS SO GOOD

The “boop boop bop doop zeep do-wow!” in the background during that part

“Good luck Jafar! And! Re! Mem! Ber!”

And then the whole ensemble sings it and it sounds so good

oh good god we’re not even 5 songs in yet i’m so sorry 

GOLDEN RULE: EVIL REPRISE, OR, AS I CALL IT, “GOLDEN RULE WENT EMO BUT I STILL LOVE AND SUPPORT THEM”. Those dissonant sounds at the beginning? beautiful. All the random evil laughter? amazing. Whatever the heck the saxophonist is doing at the end? breathtaking, give me more. Joe Walker’s voice?? just fucking dhdsfjkfdlashjdsfklhfdsjkl

Favorite lines:

“Lets him rule the land WITH an iron fist!”

“The prize for winning? MORE GOLD, HAHA! And the game begins again!”

[sarcastically] “’Follow the golden rule’? Boy don’t be such a fool!”

“Follow the gold! Follow the gold! Follow the gold!” “AND RUUULE!!”

DID I MENTION THAT FUCKING SAXOPHONE PLAYER BC DUDE FUCKING AHSDJKDFS

the final “And Rule!”

Don’t be fooled bc this one is so short, it’s nearing midnight for me and also this song is really short. In reality, I fucking love this song and it’s one of my absolute favorite starkid villain songs and also one of my absolute favorites from this musical.

A THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS IS SOME FUCKINGNDSKLJ; GOOD SHIT I’M. Also, I don’t listen to it enough, so I’m giving y’all a running commentary as I listen to it for the first time outside of watching the whole musical 1) I love accidentals and key changes, and i’m,,, crying just the first verse is so good already, why haven’t I listened to this song enough 2) I’M CRYING I WANT TO KNOW THEIR STORY TOO THIS IS WHAT LOVE IS I’M CRYINGHJFDSJKSD 3) they keep using the word “’twist” and i’m ahsdhjkds bro 4) DYLAN YOUR VOICE. YOUR VOICE, IT’S TOO GOOD. IT MUST BE STOPPED, YOU’RE TOO GOOD, DYLAN 5) “LINGER OVER EVERY PART” OH MAN IT SOUDNS SO GOOD. SO GOOD. AHHHHHHDSHJDSFKLHJK 6) OK I’M LIKE ACTUALLY CRYINGN NOW THEY’RE IN LOVE. THIS IS WHAT LOVE IS. OH  GOD OH FUCK 7) AND THEY SOUND SO GOOD, TOO, WHY HAVEN’T I LISTENED TO THIS SONG ENOUGH AHDHJKLDAS

OK I haven’t listened to this song enough to have favorite lines just yet, also I want to at least get to the end of the first act before I go to bed and it’s already midnight rn, so we’re going ahead and moving on (so sorry!)

IF I BE-FUCKIN-LIEVED. OH GOD. THIS ONE. THIS ONE IS SO GOOD. I LOVE IT SO MUCH. THE FLUTE, THE WORDS, THE SINGING LIKE GODDAMN. This one is also kinda within my range so I’m also trying to learn to sing it bc it’s just that good (cons of being a contralto: you get no female songs in musicals, pros of being a contralto: you get all the cool higher tenor songs) The raw emotion in his voice??? I’m crying??? The strength and soul and beauty and just ashjdskl;jdsfkl; it’s so, so beautifully and wonderfully amazing

Favorite lines:

“Science says you’re dead and gone forever! Reason says I’m talking to the air! But something in my heart, some secret, hidden part, illogically insists that you are there! Somewhere!!”

“Perhaps it’s not too late, to change the course of fate?”

“‘Cause after all, I must be pretty great... if you believed in me...”

Again this song is really short and there’s not a lot of lines to choose from and also I love them all and dfhjskdskjl this is just such a good song

I’m still crying

ORPHANED AT 33!!! [insert Peggle 2 gif] CHAOS... T W O!!!! HE’S MR ORPHAN, AKA CHAOS MAN (NOW WITH A MUSICAL NUMBER!) (I’m also trying to learn this one bc let me splurge in trying to teach myself Twisted songs, ok?) He’s being tragic and over-dramatic and it’s a beautiful song! and I also love how in the studio version, he doesn’t mention that they died earlier that year, so it almost comes as a shock when he says “when I was orphaned at... thirty-three” and it just makes the song that much funnier, trust me

Favorite lines:

I know I said this abt most of the other songs up to this point, but can I say all the lines? because all the lines

“[My parents are] dead... that makes me an orphan :’(”

“‘Cause my story’s just too saaad!”

“They call me a jerk off! a burn-out! A punk! But I can’t let that stuff in my head!”

“All things considered, I think I turned out pretty good! I pulled myself up by my bootstraps and started s t e a l i n g  a l l  I  c o u l d!”

”I’ll make it through somehow, despite being so sadly and crushingly all alone...”

“I’ll BREAK THE CHAIN!! YOU’LL SEE!!! I’M GONNA L I V E  F O R E V E R!!!!1!111!”

The last “thirty-three” bc Jeff oh my god what is that voice

HAPPY ENDING TIME, HECK YEAH!!!!! THIS SONG,,,, SO, SO GOOD, I’M A FUCKING SUCKER FOR SONGS WITH MORE THAN ONE PART THAT ALL END TOGETHER IN A HARMONY. THAT IS PEAK MUSICIANSHIP AND JUSTHSDHJFKSAD Also someone pointed this out to me, but the way to goes from Aladdin’s weirdly horny lines straight to the princess going “oh Aladdin, you poor, innocent soul :(” is just the funniest thing to me. And how it calls back to thier own solos, I’m???!? OH AND INSTRUMENTALS AGAIN. THE BAND FUCKING KILLED IT WITH THIS MUSICAL, IT’S SO, SO GOOD JUST AHDSJKLAKKFAnd the energy in it?? The excitement for the next act??? I’m pumped!! Are you pumped?? WELL GET READY BC YOU WILL BE

Favorite lines:

Yet a-fucking-gain I love every goshdarn line in this song, it’s just too good

“They’ll throw a parade in my honor, with peacocks and monkeys galore!”

“The people will cheer!” [cool guitar bit]

[Jafar’s relatively calm part ends] [electric guitar starts back up and Aladdin jumps on stage] “I CaN’T wAiT tO bE A RicH DUdE!!!11!1!″

“Stealing is so much easier when you’ve already got tons of gold!”

“I’ve got my eye! On what money can’t buy! ‘cause that princess is OH! Hella tight! I’ll be the one who plunders her cave of wonders! I’ll get my happy ending tonight!”

“My innocent Aladdin!”

Yes i’m fully aware I put pretty much Aladdin’s full part in there, stop judging me, it’s a good part

“It puts a damper on our love if you don’t have a head” 

“So with with your permission, I’d like to bring back your bride!”

just. Jafar’s whole fantasy where he’s happy with his wife. I’m crying again, please just let him be happy

THE ENDING PART WHERE THEY ALL START UP AND BRING UP THIER OWN HOPES FOR THAT NIGHT AND THEY SING THE FINAL”TONIGHT!!!” ALL TOGETHER AND THEN THERE’S THAT COOL LITTLE 2 SECOND INSTRUMENTAL BIT AT THE VERY END IT’S JUST,.,, SO GOOD I’M DSJHDASHJKSDJK

Ok yeah that’s the end of the first act of songs! I should have the next part up by tomorrow, so get ready for more capslock and keysmashes and me generally being excited abt music bc MUSIC HECK YEAH DFFHADSJKHDAS

[twofifthsofmaria]

What They Don’t Tell You About the Future

summary: In a society where everyone has a predetermined role, people who don't fit into a category are considered Glitches. They can be fixed, of course, but after one fateful night Alabaster Craine realises that maybe he doesn't need to change himself; he just needs to find a place to fit in.

Dedication: While reading up on the infinite amount of fiction nowadays, and even old fiction, I realised something quite sad. In science fiction, all kinds of fiction really, there is a trend in which the men in the books have precisely three types of personality. They are either the stoic asshat (also known as the "Bad Boy"), the manipulative villain, or the goody two shoes.

That's it. There are no more personality types for boys.

Where are my soft boys? Where are my nerdy boys? My cute boys? Boys with weird interests and varying personalities? Why is it that there is this image on the media in which the only acceptable hero is the stoic man with a dark background?

I realised that there are also thousands of young women out there (like me!) writing fiction and representing us in the media with their head held high and ready to put up a fight in our name. And for them, I am very, very, grateful. However, I also feel that if we, as authors, want to change the representation of women in the media, we also have an obligation to revise the portrayal of men.

We owe it to the little boys with dreams of being a princess or a clothing designer. Who have been told that they can't dance ballet because they are boys, and who always have to put up with all the shit that the world throws at them through the media. Because, yeah Batman is cool, but we are forcing them to look at pieces of media with toxic masculinity and bland personalities, then trying to justify that character by giving them a dark past.

Our boys deserve better. Our boys deserve kind and caring heroes who are not afraid to back down from a fight because they have to take a break. Our boys deserve human beings as role models, who show them that crying is alright and that they don't have to take thirteen bullets and keep fighting to be a man. Our boys deserve characters that show them they don't have to hide and change to fit into a role in society.

So yes, my book doesn't have girls as the main characters. That is what my sisters are taking care off. For now, I'm giving you lot another type of underrepresented heroes. The boys who don't need to be macho men to win a war.

This goes for all of you, I hope you see yourself in these pages.

—Love, Maria.

                         Chapter I

Alabaster Craine always found that on the days were the world seemed to be caving in on him, his sister was the best way to get rid of all his worries. All it took was for him to haul her dainty form onto the roof of their house, place a guitar on her lap, and listen to her fingers strum out the chords of her latest composition for his mind to be completely at peace.

He didn’t need a long and luxurious bath like his mother did. Or a session at the gymnasium hitting a punching bag like his brother before him. He just needed his sister, her soft features, and her long and skilled fingers. On several occasions he joined her, when the mood was right and when he knew that there was no one around to make him sing if he didn’t wish to sing. But he tried to, knowing that Claire was always delighted seconds after he finished. Talking excitedly about how his voice was probably the loveliest voice in town. How his Gift was probably singing.

He tried to agree with her as much as he could, not trying to get on her bad side knowing that once the fight started she wouldn’t back down until he accepted his defeat. Which knowing him, and knowing her, was going to take a long time. He didn’t want to receive the silent treatment from his Angel, so he settled for agreeing with her instead.

But that night, as all stories usually start, was different than the others. He sat close to Claire, tracing patterns on her tight and hoping she wouldn’t get annoyed at the subconscious action, and listened to her play and sing. The city beyond them glittered like a thousand diamonds, the wind bringing in the sweet scent of the carnival that roared through the streets, and the weight bound to settle on Al’s chest.

People all over the city were rejoicing. He could see them. He could hear them. The tension and anticipation in the atmosphere was strong enough to make the hair’s on his arms stand up. Yet the feeling that filled him was not one of joy, but rather he felt like dread was weighing him down.

The strings on his sister’s guitar faltered just as a loud cheer came from the street behind them, and she gave a long sigh, “Okay, I’m done. What’s up with you?”

Al avoided looking at her, “Nothing. I’m fine.”

“Yeah,” she grumbled, “and I’m a terrible guitar player. Come on, Al. I know something is wrong with you.”

“Very humble of you to acknowledge you are crap at playing guitar.”

“Thank you, Allie,” she replied, as she placed the guitar behind her back, “Now spill. What’s got your panties in a twist? Are you scared about tomorrow?”

When Al decided not to answer, more out of self preservation than out of not actually knowing what to say, Claire turned her body to face him.

“Are you scared they’re going to tell you you are going to be an accountant?”

The comment made him look at his sister with a frown on his face, “What? Why would I be scared of that?”

She shrugged, “You’re often scared of silly things, Allie. I wouldn’t be surprised.”

He rolled his eyes, placing his elbows over his knees and resting his head on the palms of his hands. For a few seconds he watched as the city rejoiced. He could see the parade going on down at Main Street, were all of the other people with parents that were a little less strict than his were dancing along to the music. Parading around in ridiculous outfits and getting ready to receive Naming Day in full swing.

“You know that you’ll make Mom and Dad proud regardless of what they tell you tomorrow, right?”

He turned to look at her, in the warm city lights his sister looked like one of the Persian princesses from his mother’s old books. Long, black, hair, plump lips, marble like skin and deep brown eyes. The only thing she seemed to be missing was a crown. “You know that’s not what I’m scared of, Moon.”

“You’ll have a Gift,” she was sure of it.

“And what if I don’t?” He asked, “What will we do if I don’t have a Gift.”

“Then we will help you get one.”

At that he scoffed. The party moved up one street from where it had been a few minutes ago. The procession of carnival carts, dancers, and drunk teenagers advancing from the outskirts of town into the Center. As it did every year when the time came around. Al reckoned that all of the people down there were probably having a blast, even if there were bound to be a few, like him, who knew their destiny before they even took the godawful test.

They, unlike Alabaster, weren’t going to let a Glitch stop them from partying.

“We can get other jobs, you know?” Claire tried again, “We have the qualifications. We could just— I don’t know. Work on the clothing store down the street. Or help Miss Hannigan with the bakery.”

“Oh yes, wonderful idea,” he spat out bitterly, “Get the girl in a wheelchair to sweep the floor.”

There was a second of silence in which Al instantly regretted ever opening his mouth. Then Claire sighed, “I’m going to allow that, just because I know you are very stressed and probably didn’t mean it.”

“I swear, I didn’t.”

“I know,” Claire shifted her body so that their shoulders were touching, “that’s why I’m allowing it.”

There was another beat of silence in which he allowed for the sound of the party all around them to drift into his ears. There were squeals of laughter, screams of people who were incredibly drunk, and the cheers of people who knew they were safe. Either because they had a Gift that was very strong, or because they had been working their ass off to get somewhere. Neither of those cases were his.

“I’m scared, Moon.”

She placed her calloused hand on his cheek, and he leaned into it, “I know you are.”

“What are we going to do if I Glitch?”

He watched attentively as she sighed, and scanned every inch of his face with her kind eyes. As if he contained the answers, “I don’t know.”

He felt the panic rising from the pit of his stomach, clawing its way out through his throat in the form of a small sob. But the cry was stopped short by the sound of the door to their house slamming open and their mother walking over to a spot in which she could see them both, “Dinner is ready. Get down here before it goes cold.”

Claire dropped her hand, and Al cleared his throat before his mother could hear the sound he was about to make. Conversation forgotten, he climbed down the boxes and reached for the guitar. Making sure to place it inside the house before climbing back up to get Claire. She wrapped her hands around his neck, and he tangled her legs around his waist, then slowly lowered them to the ground. Once down he was able to place her back on her wheelchair and push her inside of the house.

The house’s radio was turned on and soft Jazz music was flowing through the air. The table was set, the food was steaming in piles at the center, and the only thing that was missing were the three people destined to eat it. He placed his sister on her open spot, and walked over to the kitchen to help his mother with the last of their meal.

“Oh no, I’m almost done,” she said as she placed some the rice on a serving plate, “just make sure the table is ready.”

“Perfect, as always, Mae.”  

She hummed in satisfaction, “Is your sister there?”

“Yep,” he grabbed the plate from her hands, making way to the other room, “she’s waiting for us.”

His mother followed, looking around the room for someone she knew wasn’t going to be there, “Do you think I should—?”

He looked in the direction of his father’s study room, and shook his head, “I tried this afternoon. He shooed me away.”

“He needs to eat.”

Claire waved her fork, trying to call his mother’s attention, “He will, someday.”

His mother sighed, sitting down in the head of the table and beckoning her child to sit down beside her. She gave a quick prayer, to what or who Al didn’t know. His mother was a religious woman, always thanking the thousand and one spirits that she swore walked the earth and protected all of her children.

Then she gave them the thumbs up, and Al watched as his sister thanked their mother for praying in their name. Then they started to eat.

Okay! This is Chapter 1 of my Original Work. I have it planned out, it’s ready toi go and ready to be written. I hope you like it. If any of you are interested in getting tagged for updates, don’t hesitate to ask me! 

Kudos, Reblogs, and Feedback are more than apreciated. 

This is Crossposted on AO3, Wattpad, and NaNoWriMo! Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy this as much as I do! 

[wellplacedrocket]

I Visited the Mormon Temple Square and it Really Reminded Me of BioShock Infinite

I don’t go on a lot of (read: any) religious touristy sort of adventures, so maybe the Mormon Temple Square isn’t all that weird in the grand scheme of things. But I’ll be damned if it didn’t give me hints of Columbia, the city in BioShock Infinite. Hear me out on this.

I want to caveat before I go further that it’s probably gonna seem like I’m really picking on Mormons here. I’m not. Mormonism is absolutely no weirder than any other religion, and there are plenty of Mormons (probably most of them) who are much smarter, more hardworking, successful, and better to their fellow man than I am. If you roll your eyes at scripture of Moroni, but turn around and worship Jesus or Vishnu or Odin or Buddha, and follow the World of God as explained to you by Muhammad, then your cognitive dissonance is so thick, so dense, that it must throw off compasses. I don’t think religious or spiritual people are stupid for being that way.

Anyway.

I was in Salt Lake City with a few hours to kill, and figured the Mormon Temple Square would be the one thing I couldn’t get anywhere else, so why the hell not? Let’s get my Mormon on. Many of the buildings in the Temple Square are made with this gorgeous white granite that pops up nearby, and so to the eye a lot of it looked like the White City of Gondor.

The visitors centers are small museums that lay out the history, scripture highlights, and current tenants of Mormon theology.

As a kid, I was raised Catholic-lite, but I’ve never been to the Vatican, and I wonder if there’s similar stuff anywhere else among worldwide Christian churches. That Noah’s Ark museum in Kentucky, maybe? The tone of much of this stuff seems to be to reassure outsiders that hey, Jesus is still just the best! He’s the best, you guys. We’re not any different from your local bake sale-having church people at all! In fact, there doesn’t seem to be much that explicitly tries to contrast with other Christian sects whatsoever, until you get to the Book of Mormon (the actual Book of Mormon) stuff that takes place in the Western Hemisphere.

A lot of this stuff came across to me as a “here’s how to be” kind of children’s book in museum form. It’s not really propaganda, I guess, because conduct prescriptions are what religions are supposed to do. However, the exhibits and artwork they had showing important people in Mormon scripture and the paramount religious events in their lives started giving me weird, familiar vibes.

A 19th century New Yorker who has some sort of religious awakening, begins to preach, gathers a cadre of like minded true believers, establishes a hyper-ardent offshoot Christian sect in the U.S., insists upon racism as one of the pillars of this new theology, is revered as a prophet to his people, gains power and respect (which he abuses), and begins an exodus of his followers out of American society to found their own civilization which will eventually prove hostile to the U.S.? Oh, you thought I was describing Joseph Smith or Brigham Young? Well, surprise, it’s (also) Zachary Hale Comstock, villain of Bioshock Infinite.

I’m not the first to draw this comparison. Here’s a much better article than I could hope to write from an anonymous blogger who claims to be an ex Mormon. And Bioshock creative head Ken Levine mentioned in a Mother Jones article:

There’s a bit of Joseph Smith in [Comstock], a bit of Teddy Roosevelt…Roosevelt was a very progressive figure in many ways. But he was also what you’d probably call a neoconservative in his view of America’s role in the world. So I have trouble comparing Comstock to him directly. Also, I’d have trouble just comparing Comstock to Joseph Smith or Brigham Young. I mean, the American-centric nature of the religion that he forms has some similarities to Mormonism, but there’s nothing in the Mormon church that approached the level of sinisterness you’d find in a Comstock.

In the game (where the next bunch of linked images are from), Comstock is a religious figure with a hyper-nationalism for his own vociferously racist vision of America, which never actually existed and is more twisted than even our own real history. There’s a part of the game where you play through a museum dedicated to the history of Columbia, the city-state Comstock founded, and it puts a very religious sort of spin on the founding of the United States and points in its history. Abraham Lincoln is called “The Apostate” and is remembered as an insidious Satan figure, while John Wilkes Booth is a saint. The Confederate Army, being the true soul of America to these zealots, is led by the angelic spirit of George Washington. The locals are generally hostile.

All of this stuff is understandably batshit, because they were trying to write a villain in Comstock. I’m not saying Mormons are or were evil like this guy. I’m saying it seems pretty likely that the devs took Mormon lore, cranked the evil and steampunky sci-fi up to 11, and out came Comstock and Columbia.

The American founding fathers appear in Mormon religious works, notably in writings by Wilford Woodruff, fourth president of the LDS Church, describing religious visions:

The spirits of the dead gathered around me, wanting to know why we did not redeem them ... These were the signers of the Declaration of Independence ... I thought it very singular, that notwithstanding so much work had been done, and yet nothing had been done for them ... I straightway went into the baptismal font and called upon brother McCallister [sic] to baptize me for the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

The LDS Church is extremely PR conscious and has left doctrinal, institutional racism behind, but it’s a poorly kept secret that the early days didn’t look too good. Unlike the populations of other Western Territories (Colorado and California in particular), the Mormons mostly took a pass on the Civil War, though to their credit, there isn’t much evidence to suggest explicit sympathy for the Confederacy. However, here’s Brigham Young:

Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so. The nations of the earth have transgressed every law that God has given, they have changed the ordinances and broken every covenant made with the fathers, and they are like a hungry man that dreameth that he eateth, and he awaketh and behold he is empty.

And now here’s Comstock:

What exactly was the Great Emancipator emancipating the Negro from? From his daily bread? From the nobility of honest work? From wealthy patrons who sponsored them from cradle to grave? From clothing and shelter? And what have they done with their freedom? Why, go to Finkton, and you shall find out. No animal is born free, except the white man. And it is our burden to care for the rest of creation.

The Mormons flirted with armed rebellion but eventually backed down when the United States and local native nations made it clear they were not fucking around. Joseph Smith, a 100% legit, honest to God prophet to his people, had some pretty dark things to say about the U.S., especially the godless northeast cities:

Nevertheless, let the bishop go unto the city of New York, also to the city of Albany, and also to the city of Boston, and warn the people of those cities with the sound of the gospel, with a loud voice, of the desolation and utter abolishment which await them if they do reject these things. For if they do reject these things the hour of their judgment is nigh, and their house shall be left unto them desolate.

And here’s Woodruff again, in a prophesy “confirmed” by Young:

While you stand in the towers of the Temple and your eyes survey this glorious valley filled with cities and villages, occupied by tens of thousands of Latter-day Saints, you will then call to mind this visitation of President Young and his company. You will say: That was in the days when Presidents Benson and Maughan presided over us; that was before New York was destroyed by an earthquake. It was before Boston was swept into the sea, by the sea heaving itself beyond its bounds; it was before Albany was destroyed by fire; yea, at that time you will remember the scenes of this day.

Well, here’s a scene in Bioshock Infinite that shows a time-travel flash forward to the future year 1984, what Comstock will do if not stopped. He floats Columbia right over New York and starts bombing:

How the hell do they not get shot down? Sci-fi weapons or shields, I’m guessing. Columbia imagines if a civilization of religious secessionists hadn’t decided to chill out in the end, the way the Mormons did.

If you need any more convincing of the connection here, in BioShock Infinite, one of the protagonists who the player spends a lot of time with and who drives the story is Comstock’s daughter Elizabeth. She is kept a gilded-cage prisoner and wants out of Columbia, and much of the action is about helping her to escape. SPOILER ALERT FOR A 5-YEAR OLD GAME: Elizabeth’s parentage isn’t what it seems, she was actually given the name Anna at birth. Well, there was a famous ex-wife of Brigham Young, one of 55, who decided she wasn’t about that life, alleged domestic abuse against Young and filed for divorce (both a huge deal for their time), and ultimately wrote an autobiographical account called Wife No. 19. This woman’s name? Ann Eliza Webb.

No doubt you could substitute any other religion and find similar parallels to BioShock Infinite in art and lore, but the Americanness of the LDS Church is what sells this idea to me, how both the real life Mormon church and the fictional characters and civilization draw from the cultural fundamentals of this country, as well as our absolute worst elements. The obvious difference is the Mormons wrestle with the racism and violence in their church’s past, and for sure try to do good works in the world today. Not so for Comstock and Columbia. But that’s part of what made them such compelling villains.

[eleiszon-blog]

Extradimensional Chess (3/3)

The following is an analysis of the various players and moves made throughout Part 18, the final episode of The Return. It is the third entry in a trilogy, the prior entries covering Lodge-relevant events from Parts 1, 2 and 17. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We open on Mr. C seated in the Waiting Room. His eyes have partially reverted to their earliest cloudy state. He is in flames. I believe this fire is the ultimate, primordial state of a doppelganger and, indeed, all negative energy. A long-troubled David Lynch script, Ronnie Rocket, has had many of its ideas recycled into The Return. One of these ideas makes no explicit appearance but I believe it exists within Twin Peaks. “The entire stage is filled with a wall of fire 200 feet high.  Within the fire are thousands of souls screaming out silently . . . only the roaring of the fire.” - The first line of the script of Ronnie Rocket. I believe this fire of voicelessly wailing souls is what Mr. C shall join. Windom is there too. Chet Desmond, I believe, is also there. And I believe that fire is the metaphysical core of JUDY, the purest formation of negative energy. 

Mr. C is gone. We see MIKE salvage his gold core and, with a spark of e-lec-tri-city, join it to a bit of Dale’s hair to forge a new Dougie tulpa. This was at Dale’s request to satisfy Janey. Nice guy.

We cut to Jackrabbit’s Palace. Dark, empty. Dale was escorting Laura. She vanished. He is alone now - but not for long.

The Waiting Room. MIKE and The Arm. “Is it the story of the little girl who lived down the lane?” -- Audrey said something similar to this earlier. This post isn’t about Audrey but I think that line has to do with her. Another entry, that. 

Dale moves into a hall and beckons a gateway open. He has grown powerful in the Waiting Room. And with the scheming doppelgangers and BOB gone, he finally can go out.

Here in Glastonbury Grove, he meets up with a relieved Diane. This is the ‘curtain call’ at which he promised to meet her. I also believe this moment echoes across time: The appearance of the curtains at this moment is what Hawk witnessed back in Part 2. “Someone is here.”, MIKE said. It was Hawk.

“Almost exactly 430 miles.” -- 430 miles out is where Dale will cross. The Fireman told him this in a dream back in Part 1.

Diane is uncertain and urges pause to consider their options. Everything could change. Dale knows this. He is resolute. They kiss. They continue onward.

At a hotel, Diane witnesses a duplicate of herself. At this point, I must diverge briefly into The Secret History of Twin Peaks and more particularly the life and Work of Jack Parsons. Per the text, I believe Jack Parsons was destroyed by the fires of JUDY via the Black Lodge. He is in the howling wall with Windom, Mr. C. and others. Now, Jack Parsons once initiated a ritual he believed would summon an ‘elemental’. Immediately afterward, he met a red-haired woman whom he regarded to be this entity. For Twin Peaks’ purposes, I believe Diane to be such an entity, her hair deliberately reminiscent of the Waiting Room’s red drapery. I do not believe that this was always the case but that she became ‘touched’ by otherworldly influences throughout her ordeal shelled up as Naido. I believe that while Diane herself remains human Diane -- is it future or is it past -- this duplicate is a ’yet-to-come’ entity, wholly of the Other Place. As Jack Parsons did, we may call her the Scarlet Woman.

Cooper invites Diane to join him in the motel. The door is marked 7. As I’ve noted previously in an entry about Jeffries’ path through FWWM and The Return, 7 symbolizes seeking, searching for truth...In that entry about Jeffries, I offer that the numbers associated with Jeffries increase as his ‘rank’ in Twin Peaks’ world increases. He is ever more enlightened and knowing. This same applies here: What Dale does in this room will elevate him to a higher space than where he was before.

Dale and Diane lay together. He lies largely still while she seems to be desperate to obscure his face. Some believe this to be residual trauma about Mr. C violating her. I think it is simply the ever-encroaching memory shift. Diane is beginning to forget the ‘unofficial version’ and so what was a consensual matter with a man she loves is slipping into a strange and much darker territory as those memories fall apart.

The distress plain on her face is her realization of this slipping remembrance, her desperation to try to remember despite it, her shaky determination to continue despite the mounting fear of this ‘stranger’ taking her and the fear itself. Yes, this is a bad scene for Diane. Why does it occur? As noted previously, she has been marked by the energies of Another Place.  What is the end result of intercourse, generally speaking? Sperm shot into a womb which births new life. Diane’s ‘marking’ by those energies occurred during her stay in the Generator, a negative-creative space which (at least at first) bordered the positive-creative space of the Eternal Ocean. Metaphorically and also metaphysically, Diane is a womb comprised of pure creative energies. Add DNA (courtesy of Dale) to that and you get one hell of a conception.  “When will the new universes be born?” “Soon...” - That’s the ending dialogue of Ronnie Rocket. I find that idea fits exactly well here. 

Dale awakes in a different bed. He is alone. He finds a letter addressed to ‘Richard’ from ‘Linda’. She does not recognize him anymore. He should not look for her. Indeed, Diane’s memory faltered fully in the end and she has no recognition of this man anymore nor even who she was -- she’s “Linda” now. Or is she? Truthfully, I believe as Diane’s memories of the ‘unofficial version’ gave out, she lost the names she knew for herself and Dale, merely writing whichever ones came to her mind instead. Hm? Yes, my interpretation of this sequence is kinda seriously dark, thanks for noticing. I didn’t go looking for it to be though!

Dale exits his room. The hotel at large has changed as well. It bears some slight similarity to the hotel area of The Dutchman’s but I checked. They are not alike. 

Dale goes for a drive. He passes a diner which invites ‘Eat at JUDY’S!’ Many view this as a sign that this is a pocket dimension devised by JUDY to trap Dale. I do not follow. However, it may well be a sign that this space is innately nearer to JUDY. (Remember, the Fireman-JUDY conflict is one of balance VS. lack thereof.)

In the diner, Cooper deals with some antagonistic fellows in a decidedly un-Zen manner. Much has been made of this. I consider it only a personality-shift of some degrees. I once equated this change to processes of alchemy, the final stage of which is a balancing of opposites. He is more aggressive as Mr. C yet he operates slowly and repetitively as Droolcoop. The balanced result is a no-nonsense character of highly deliberated method. He’s still a good guy but he has much less patience fucking around with the bad guys. THIS Dale would’ve slapped Albert in the face for his uppity attitude back in season one.

After taking care of business, he obtains the address of an absentee waitress and goes on his way. Also he fried a gun which is pretty cool.

He heads toward Odessa. Texas. Yes, apparently, his new motel was also wildly relocated because he’s not too far from Texas now. Outside the waitress’ house, a familiar pole. I’ve detailed the meaning of ‘6′ before as relating to base, Earthly affairs. Carnal, animal. Black Lodge. The other numbers - with the 6 included - also match coordinates to the former site of the Trinity test from Part 8.

Now we meet Carrie Page. She doesn’t know a Laura or a Leland but “Your mother’s name is Sarah” gives her pause. Dale wants to take her to her mother’s house and, hey, she needs a ride out of town anyway.

Many note a golden ball of some sort in Carrie’s lawn. Dale’s latest pin is a golden circle as well. Perhaps a clue, perhaps not. As I’ve said before, I believe Cooper is becoming “the magician” of MIKE’s poem but perhaps in time he’ll also become one of the Dreamers living up in the Theatre.

A man dead on the couch. Headshot. A mantel with an animal statuette. “Woe to the ones who behold the pale horse.”

“I tried to keep a clean house...” This line plus her frazzled state, the ‘pale horse’ symbolism, the dead man... It reeks of a domestic abuse scene. The dead man was her husband. He was another BOB too, I’d wager. Carrie copes with bullets instead of cocaine.

The ‘Palmer’ house. And here, I’d like to note the number on the house. 708. Let’s travel back to Part 1. For a moment.

The sound of this device is the sound of Laura vanishing from the woods. Once upon a time, a particular breed of these machines was built to operate at 78 revolutions per minute. They were even called 78s. 708...0 is often a mathematical placeholder. Drop it. 78. Put it back in. 708. The Fireman’s line planted this connection: If you hear that sound, “find Laura” (per not-Leland’s instruction), go to 7-8(708). He even had a contingency plan if Laura were to be snatched - which she was.

Alice Tremond lives at 708. Sarah Palmer who? She bought the place from a Chalfont. We know Tremond to be a name borrowed from humans, as per the actual Mrs. Tremond living in that trailer Donna visited in season one. ‘Chalfont’ though is purely referential to that grandma-grandson Lodge couple. JUDY sent them to stall up whatever the Fireman had Dale set to do here.

“What year is this?” - Dale’s own memory of the ‘unofficial version’ may be slipping a bit here, or he may just be getting...Fuzzy. To reference Ronnie Rocket again, if I may, the key conflict of that script is reaching the villain at the center of a great city. The closer one got, the more difficult it became and the more ‘bad electricity’ would disorient and deter them. I consider this exactly the nature of what is troubling Dale in this scene. His ‘current’ is picking up static. Interference because yes, he is closer to JUDY.

Carrie gazes up at the Chalfont house. An echo from within: ‘Laura?’, Sarah Palmer calls upstairs to her absent daughter, from a world which no longer is but is still taking its sweet time to fade entirely. Carrie screams.

The lights go out. Inside the house but also, it seems, in the very world. It resembles, to me, the state of The Dutchman’s in The Return. And indeed, it is exactly that. From the Chalfont presence, the temporal anomaly (’Laura?’, straight out of the pilot), the darkened visual...It all connects. Indeed, we see the Dutchman flee from the store as Dale goes to meet Jeffries. If the Dutchman has taken hold of Sarah, the old Palmer house would fit for a new domain. After all, Sarah was overseer there as the Dutchman oversaw the store.The monsters set up shop here now and they clutched the fading strings of the ‘previous’ world to flood the old horrors back into Carrie’s head. But...Is it a bad ending? Well. Not really. I believe that Dale successfully peeled back another layer of this world’s cosmology. He is one ‘universe’ closer to a true face-to-face with JUDY. I think I used an onion metaphor earlier? Still counts. One more layer done. In accomplishing that, he won a battle --- but JUDY and her servants made their own moves and kept the war ongoing. 

We end on a slowed repeat of the Blonde Girl whispering to Dale. I believe the whisper is different again. An unfortunately scrapped line from the store meeting in FWWM has the Little Man proclaim “Any everything will proceed cyclically”. That is what she whispers now because, yes, there must be more cycles -- but, eventually and with perseverance, he will locate JUDY. Every cycle will bring him closer -- Jeffries’ “This is where you’ll find JUDY” is accompanied by an 8, suggesting that Dale requires one more cycle (his hotel room was marked by a 7, being the place where he would transition to that level) to achieve the Blue Rose’s aim of locating JUDY -- and thus every cycle will meet fiercer and more desperate resistance and offense...But he has made progress and can continue to do so. And so, it is a “victorious” ending in a small, optimistic-for-the-future way. Yet he must continue to fight, to struggle, to endure until he finds JUDY at the center of all. Until then, as the Fireman tells him...

[barcastat]

Madrid. Tuesday, April 26, 2011. Champions League press-conference.

Real Madrid went first, holding their press conference at 2.45pm in their training centre, Valdebebas, out near Barajas airport. Barcelona were to train at the Santiago Bernabéu (helpful given the huge debate raging about the playing surface) following which, at 8pm, Javier Mascherano (now widely called the“Little Boss”) and Guardiola would give their press conference. It was the third of four Clásicos in 16 days – football fans and media around the World were losing it. By the time Guardiola sat down to talk, he was ready to hit us with a 2 minutes and 27 seconds thunderbolt of controlled aggression and indignation which was at least as well planned as any tactic his team enforced during the following night’s game. Earlier that afternoon, the Real Madrid manager had made a mistake. Mourinho’s sardonic press conference diatribe against Guardiola was, in turns, snide, extravagant, colourful and dripping with sarcasm. It was all about Guardiola’s tame ‘Two-centimetre decision’ comment regarding Pedro’s disallowed goal in the Copa del Rey final. “Until now, managers could be divided into two groups, the small one comprises those who don’t talk about referees at all and the other, huge one, in which I figure, is made up of those who only criticise refs if they make important errors. We can’t control our frustration when they get it wrong, but congratulate them when they get it right. But, now, there’s a third group with only one member – Pep! It’s a new era – never seen in world football – someone who criticises referee for getting it right! The explanation is that in Guardiola’s first season coaching Barça, he experienced the scandalous refereeing at Stamford Bridge during the Champions League semi-final and, since then, he’s never happy when a referee gets it right.” No reference to how Guardiola gave a compliment to Madrid on a merited win, no admission that Guardiola had not criticised the referees or even suggested that he thought the goal was onside. The mere mention of an offside goal and a linesman, by Pep Guardiola, was enough to send the Portuguese spinning off into his own dark universe. Mourinho believes: “The game starts in the press room the day before kick-off” and he has had some success with his calculated statements. So, having left the world’s media drooling at his performance, he was no doubt reaching round to pat himself on the back as he left the press conference. He’d have grinned to himself. Job well done. However, it turned out he’d misjudged Guardiola. That evening, in the Santiago Bernabéu stadium press room, was a thousand times more riveting. Guardiola, and the majority of his squad, had watched Mourinho’s mid-afternoon press conference live on television. Andoni Zubizarreta, Barça’s director of football and nominally the coach’s line manager, was also his team-mate during the Cruyff era. “More Than ever, this is when we have to stick to talking about the football.” Zubi cautioned Guardiola after Mourinho’s pantomime villain performance. The former Barcelona and Spain’s goalkeeper knew a line had been crossed. Following the previous two bruising Clásicos, this was the time when his manager might cut loose. Guardiola made the right noises to placate his former team-mate, but he had decided that enough was enough. Mascherano spoke first in the press conference and was typically eloquent, trying to focus on the football, getting away from the debate about the playing surface in Madrid. Guardiola gave him an appreciative nod and a pat on the back: “Nice work fella.” The Barça manager didn’t need anybody doing his work for him. He was ready to pull the trigger on his own. Then, everything began to build towards ramming speed. Barça’s senior press officer, Chemi Teres, selected the aptly named David Bernabéu for the first question. Barça is a Catalan club, yet instead of the dozens of print, radio and television Catalans who had travelled through, the first question was given to a Spanish speaker from a Madrid television station. David had an early deadline and had asked for that to be considered, but this suited Guardiola, also. The performance he had prepared was aimed at a Spanish-speaking audience: maximum voltage, maximum exposure.  The journalist asked: “I don’t know whether anyone has notified you what Señor Mourinho said in his press conference this afternoon, but I’ve noted some parts of it down for you. It surprised him that you criticized the referee for getting something right, in relation to the offside decision against Pedro in the cup final last week. He even asked how you lived with the scandal of the semi-final at Stamford Bridge two years ago and whether, because of it, you are accustomed to referees favouring Barça? So, 24 hours ahead of the big game, is there something you’d like to answer Mourinho with?”The following lasted precisely 2 minutes and 27 seconds: “Well, first of all, good evening everyone. Given that Señor Mourinho has chosen to use ‘tú’ [the less respectful form of ‘you’] and call me ‘Pep’ all through his conference, I’ll be referring to him as José tonight. I don’t know which is his camera here [Guardiola looks down the barrel of the television cameras at the back of the room, rather than at the journalists], probably all of them. Tomorrow at quarter to nine, we are going to play a game of football out on that pitch. Off the pitch, he has already won, he’s been winning all year, all season and he’ll continue to do so in the future. I’m happy to award him his personal Champions League trophy off the pitch. He can take that home with him and enjoy it with his other stuffs. As for us, we just play. Maybe we win, maybe we lose. Normally he wins, as his CV shows. We will settle for our ‘smaller’ victories which seem to inspire admiration all round the world, and which make us very proud. I could produce a list of comparable complaints for you all, but then we’d never get finished. He talked about Stamford Bridge and I guess we could drag up 250,000 complaints of ours, but we don’t have secretaries and ex-referees or managing directors on our staff to note those kind of grievances down for us, so we are only left with going out there at 8.45pm tomorrow and trying to win by playing the best football we know how. In this particular press room,he’s the fucking boss, the big fucking chief. He knows the ways of the world better than anyone else. I don’t want to compete with him in this arena for one instant. I’d only remind him that we were together, him and I, for four years [at FC Barcelona in the late 1990s]. He knows me and I know him. That’s enough for me. If he prefers to ‘go’ with statements and claims of newspaper journalist friends of Florentino [Pérez] about the Copa del Rey and prefers to put more weight on what they write than on the friendship, well, no, not quite friendship, but working relationship him and I had then, that’s his right. He can continue reading Albert [Einstein, who Mourinho claimed to quote in speeches to his players]. Let him do all that with total freedom, or let him read the thoughts of the journalists who suckle on the teat of Florentino Pérezand then draw the conclusions he wishes to. I am not going to justify my words for one second. I said that we were defeated by a minute detail because of the smart vision of a linesman who got it right. That night, I simply congratulated Real Madrid for winning the Cup, deservedly, on the pitch, against a good team on the pitch – the team which I am proud to coach. So José, I don’t know which is your camera [scans the back of the room] but here we go. This had been a long time coming.” I worked alongside the Spain team at the 2010 World Cup and by the time they brought the trophy home, the Barcelona Contingent were already sick of fielding questions about Mourinho’s arrival in Spain. All Mourinho had to do was cough and raise an eyebrow for the Catalan media, never mind the rest of Spain, to pester Barça’s players about the ‘Special One’. My first interview of the new season was with Gerard Piqué and I simply asked whether he was already tired of hearing the man’s name. Piqué replied: “It’s really difficult to go to every interview, every press conference and they ask you about ‘him’. I understand he’s new here and he’s the coach of Real Madrid, but that’s it. I think we have to talk about us – about Barcelona! About how we can play this year and to forget about Real Madrid and Mourinho. We won a lot of respect and titles showing the world how we play we will try to play the same way this year.” Throughout the year, the Barcelona players felt more and more disrespected by Mourinho, even after their comprehensive 5–0 win in November. He stated that other clubs ‘handed’ Barcelona the league by not trying to win at the Camp Nou but, instead, playing to minimize their defeat. Mourinho consistently stated that Barcelona were heavily favoured by refereeing decisions and then, the day before the semi-final, added that Guardiola couldn’t live with referees not giving them an advantage. Though the Barça players largely followed the club’s orders in not sniping at Madrid, not entering into the traps Mourinho was laying for them, these are warriors, not shrinking violets. They had long wanted to bite back and, finally, when Guardiola felt personally disrespected, he chose that night to unleash some of the anger and frustration which had been gnawing at him, his squad and his staff. The players loved it. Guardiola had lanced the boil. It set their minds on simply playing football the next night, not entering into more polemic about kicking, diving and angry confrontations. Estiarte lifts the lid for us: “The team were travelling back from training to the hotel when mobile phones started bleeping – mostly SMS messages like: ‘The boss has really started something this time.’ As soon as we got back to the hotel ourselves, the players gave him a massive ovation. It was one of the most special nights of the last three years.” However the ‘night before Christmas’ feeling didn’t end there. After dinner, the team salon had the lights dimmed. The majority of the players immediately expected another of Pep’s inspirational motivational videos, although they were usually part of the game day preparation. Instead, they had a treat – Víctor Valdés had prepared a DVD of himself imitating a wide range of characters both within the Barça squad and more widely in Spanish football. His team-mates loved it, Messi, Mascherano and Milito in particular split themselves laughing and took their ‘imitations’ in great spirit. However, it wasn’t all about rabble rousing – there was a defined game plan. I’m not saying Pep is actually a genius, but in football terms he is extremely talented. I go to all the tactical meetings and at the beginning I didn’t know that much about football. There he is, with a huge screen showing 25 minutes of footage. He says to his players: ‘Gentlemen, we’re going to win because you are all here.’ By the end, they feel as if they have already played the match because his instructions are so clear cut. Pep shows them their opponents’ weaknesses and says: ‘This is what’s going to happen here and here.’ He doesn’t say: ‘You have to score a goal in such and such a way’. It’s more like: ‘If we can open up this space, we can get through easily.’” Publicly, Guardiola still betrayed the fact that he saw no connection between losing the cup final and Barça having diminished chances when returning to the hostile Bernabéu. “We are going into the semi-final knowing that things are tight. Everything is against us and very few people are backing us. Public opinion seems to think they’ll win, but we are looking forward to it immensely, all of us are fired up and enthusiastic.” Meanwhile Barça’s captain, Carles Puyol, was winning the race to be fit. It felt significant. Until that point, Piqué and Puyol had played 18 matches together that campaign, with 15 wins, three draws and no defeats. In fact, their last defeat starting together had been the previous season’s semi-final of the Champions League against Mourinho’s Inter. However, the 32-year-old was going to have to draw on all his vast experience and competitive hunger. He would end the season playing only four times in 30 matches, managing 90 minutes just twice. Each time it was in the heat of battle against Madrid. It was amazing commitment and bravery. He wasn’t fully fit and had it been anything other than a Clásico, he’d likely not have played. Vilanova: “It’s true. Probably no one else could achieve what Puyol does. He deserves enormous recognition because he went through a very difficult time and then played the semi-final against Madrid having hardly trained at all. We weren’t sure if he would make it or whether the injury would cause him problems. What Puyol did last year is one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen in football. For that reason, we all felt so bad that he couldn’t start the final.” Word emerged that the match official would be Wolfgang Stark. Initially, those at FC Barcelona who analyse such things were underwhelmed.The German had sent of the Barcelona players Thiago Motta and Javier Saviola against Celtic in the 2003–04 UEFA Cup. And in the home leg of the 2009 Champions League semi-final against Chelsea, Guardiola’s players had found him to be referee who allowed ‘northern European’ levels of physical contact. Barça had won one of their five matches with Stark. So the match cast would include Puyol and Stark, plus a healthy 3,590 Barça fans – probably 10 times more than for a Liga Clásico – but Andrés Iniesta would not take the stage. Injury robbed him of the moment, just as it had, crucially, in the previous season’s semi-final, when Mourinho and Inter knocked Barça out. Omens, omens. Wembley seemed like a long way away. In the end, it was a stunning night.

[Barça, the making of the greatest team in the World by Graham Hunter.]

[circular-time]

Spare Parts Liveblog 6 - Disc 2 

Dinner break! Okay, the Doctor and Nyssa leave after the ep 1 cliffhanger, and they never get into any trouble at all. JUST KIDDING.....

Track 2.1 “Necessary Force”

Part Two opens with something that’s a stock scene in new Who, but rare in classic Who, especially with Nyssa of all people:  the companion and Doctor in a shouting match. I remember when Tegan was dissed by many fans because bossy/outspoken women were not popular. Then again, she did it all the time; Nyssa saves it for special occasions.

“And if you won’t get involved, then I must stay behind and do it by myself” —Nyssa

Every time I hear this bit, I cheer and wince all at once.

Never forget that Nyssa. Has. GUTS. The moment she realizes it’s the homeworld of the Cybermen, after she’s seen just how miserable and horrible and hopeless life is there, and knows she’ll probably die of starvation or consumption or be carved up for spare parts— that is where she, child of privilege who grew up in an idyllic paradise, decides to end her days. To help. Which is the sort of thing she does: she did it on Terminus. Big Finish keeps hammering home this basic aspect of her character.

While fighting, she and the Doctor run smack dab into the recurring dilemma of Doctor Who: you want to help, and you have a time machine, but you can’t alter history. Nyssa: I want to give these people some hope! I want to stop the Cybermen from coming into existence! Doctor: Yes, very laudable, but you can’t do it on your own! You’re not an army! You can’t turn the whole of history around on a sixpence! Nyssa: I’ve seen you do it!

(Again, Nyssa has guts, and  also, long before Clara was doing it, Nyssa had a very dangerous habit of trying to be Just Like the Doctor). 

The whole scene is so well-acted by Peter and Sarah. Chills down spine.

Also we get a chance to hear them face their pain about Adric’s death at the hands of the Cybermen, something Earthshock and Time-Flight really didn’t address. 

[Doctor talks about running after disasters with a stretcher.]

“A pity that didn’t occur to you before when it came to sacrificing Adric!” Ouch, Nyssa. Ouch. [she’s still mad they didn’t run after Adric with a stretcher.]

Which gives her an additional motive for wanting to stop the Cybermen from coming into existence: it will save Adric’s life.  Oh, Nyssa. 

Doctor, after she finally lashes out: “So much that never gets said. Bound to boil over sooner or later.” Yeah, with scriptwriters who actually think about the story’s impact on the characters.

However, they are very dear friends and rational people, and by the time Nyssa’s collected her belongings to leave, they’ve both cooled down; Nyssa apologises for that barb. 

And the Doctor honors her wishes and lets her go. 

Or would have done, if she hadn’t mentioned bringing a cybermat into the TARDIS. At which point he goes all angry-squeaky-Five:

YOU BROUGHT A CYBERMAT INTO MY TARDIS!!!!!!

oops. 

Track 2.2 “The Thousand Natural Shocks”

Oh FINALLY. I had a huge crush on this badass lady when she played a space pirate and crack pilot on Blake’s 7: 

(hooray for farrah fawcett hair) 

So I’m stoked that Sally Knyvette playing Doctorman Allan, the morally-grey-area scientist developing the Cybermen.

She’s cynical. She defies the Committee and laughs when she hears about the Doctor’s troublemaking— she’s about the only person with enough privilege/power to risk thinking for herself.  She’s alcoholic (because Mondas is too horrible to deal with sober— and so is her conscience). She really is trying to save her people, but she’s got a brutal way of doing it: turning the weak and sick into a cyber-workforce to serve the strong. Eugenics ahoy. And she’s too damn proud of her creations, a standard Ethically Challenged Scientist trope. 

She teases Sisterman Constant at every opportunity, making fun of her hypocrisy, (e.g. calling the Hartleys her “patients” when they’re just terrorized citizens). Sisterman Constant is a religious type, but actually she’s just another version of the secret police.

So anyway, we get Allan’s first scene treating “crewmen” from the surface and arguing with the Sisterman.

When I first listened, I had trouble with of “-man” used as a suffix to denote profession. A Sisterman is a nun (Constant prays to the “sky above” at one point, their heaven), a Doctorman is a doctor, an Electriman is an electrician, and so on. Sounds odd, but then so does the universal “he.” 

I also appreciate how many female characters are major players in this story, typical of Big Finish especially when Gary Russell was director. They don’t fall into stereotypical villain/victim female roles. (While Yvonne is a victim, she has a rather atypical part to play too.)

Got to meet Sally Knyvette a few years ago at a signing in Barking, but alas I took the worst picture AND stuck my foot right down my throat. Ah well. Good thing is that actors meet so many fans they’ll forget your foolishness.

(still with the great hair, damn her) 

Track 2.3 “Onto the Carpet”

Back in the TARDIS, testy!Doctor is frantic about the cyber-pest loose in his TARDIS. Just as bitterness about Adric’s death made Nyssa lash out at the Doctor, Nyssa endangering his TARDIS makes him lash out at her.

And go all squeaky. Of course.

He blows up at her, but once the Cybermat shorts out and she’s apologized again, he apologizes as well. Typical deflection: he rather awkwardly asks her to see what she can do to fix the damage: “Please, take a look. You’re good at this sort of thing. I’m going out for some fresh air.” 

Exactly as he used to do when Tegan got under his skin and he needed to calm down. Have I mentioned how good Platt is at capturing the nuances my favorite TARDIS team? 

Except this is the moment when the Doctor makes a FATAL mistake: HE GETS INVOLVED and leaves Nyssa, who is not going to stay safely put for very long. (And I note that it is partly Nyssa’s fault he gets involved, and/or her compassion makes things more difficult. See also: Creatures of Beauty, Emerald Tiger, trying to rescue the Doctor in Masquerade and screwing up the interface, etc.) 

Scene jump to Doctorman Allan arguing with the ominously robotic voice of the Committee. She wants to slow down their Cybermen program and try to improve the process to save lives. The Committee, ignoring her pleas, decide the city is consuming too many resources and must be shut down. Why look after the interests of the people you represent when you could just eliminate them? 

A parable of Tories shutting down UK social services over the past 20 odd years? Not sure, but the GOP is voting on Trumpcare in the US this week.

Allan: “What could possibly be more important than saving people?!”  Committee: “We. must. survive.” 

Every time i hear a new Who Cyberman say “delete” or “upgrade,” I shake my head. They just don’t have the Scary Motto down like their predecessors. 

Outside the TARDIS, the Doctor finds a Cyberman, Allan’s drone. I think it was Platt’s idea to make them used for surveillance.

Frank shows up at the TARDIS to inform Nyssa that Dad Hartley is all sad; his daughter’s been called up for the work crews. Again, tying into Nyssa’s backstory; she knows what it’s like to lose a family member (and she guesses Yvonne’s being cyber-converted). Whereas Frank’s oblivious and angry he didn’t get what he thinks is a glamorous, well-paying job.

He’s been pretty angry and self-centered through the story so far. Then again he lost his mom pretty recently, so he’s suppressing grief. 

Track 2.4  - “Bones to Pick” 

Act II means taking action, although not necessarily effective. The Doctor is upset that the riot he started last night seems to have died off. 

He wants to stir up the resistance some more. (Not realizing the cost they’ll pay, or else knowing the cost will be 100% fatal if they don’t do something soon.) This time he’s trying to draw attention to the graverobbing by hijacking a lorry and scattering its shipment of bones all over the street. I love his pre-smart-device kettle and ball of string approach to grave danger, although it doesn’t always work. 

Meanwhile the Committee’s decided to cyber-convert the remaining population. Or at least that’s what Allan guesses. She’s drinking to keep from thinking. Sisterman Constant, selfish git, says the Selectors (the nuns) should be exempt; they’re the ones who choose “recruits” to be processed, making them elite. Whereas Allan can read the writing on the wall.

Track 2.5 - “Processing Credit”

Poor Yvonne. Constant blesses her while sending her to the slaughter. The victims being taken for Cyber-processing have their clothes stripped, exactly like prisoners in Nazi interment camps. Deny them their humanity before taking it away, whee.

Scene switches to the Committee (one thing I don’t like about BF -- too many modulated weird voices I have trouble understanding). Moment of doom (if it wasn’t before): They’re recalling Commander Jeng from the surface to take over. Military coup in progress.

But bringing Jeng down endangers the project on the surface, which has hit a critical juncture: radiation’s really high; laborers die off quickly, They’re caught on the horns of an impossible dilemma, and unfortunately a soulless Committee with no compassion is in charge of choosing. Sound familiar?

At LAST. Back to Dodd, disreputable rogue, being mean to Mr. Hartley who’s signing away his own organs just so he can feed his son.. Mondas is so horrible.

Mr. hartley passes the Doctor on the way out. Tells him Nyssa will make a good doctor, considering how she helped him. 

“Oh, really?” the Doctor says, a bit dubious. But she will, in both senses: as a doctor on Terminus and, once she’s older, she starts behaving more and more like him. (Jupiter Conjunction, Mistfall, Entropy Plague to name a few examples.) 

But that’s to come. Now the Doctor is pestering Dodd again.

Track 2.6 - “Taking Stock” (the track names on this audio are great) 

The Doctor wants Dodd to help him break into the Committee’s central HQ. Dodd has other ideas, involving locking him in a freezer with the other spare parts.

Meanwhile Nyssa handily beats off a swarm of Cybermats with her nerdy smarts, electrocuting them.

Frank: It worked! Amazing! Nyssa: Not really. But worryingly satisfying. 

She’s a gentle soul. Usually.

Sure enough, the Doctor’s been gone too long, so Nyssa grabs some food to go help Mr. Hartley. 

Doom. Doom. Doom. JUST STAY IN THE TARDIS.

___________

Poor Yvonne. We get to hear her final moments as a human, begging for her Dad. Heartbreaking. Ugh: sound of a dentist’s drill just to trip all the horror nerves.

“You will join us. We are the future.”

Again, the Cybermen in this story are so much scarier than shiny robots saying “delete” and “upgrade.”

Because they are like the Borg— long before the Borg— people being assimilated into walking corpses. No wonder Death in Heaven tried to bring back this aspect of them, remind us what’s inside the armor. 

____________

Doctor escapes Dodd and a random Cyber-policeman, and promptly tries to steal the guy’s horse. Using his Tristan credentials, the Doctor tries talk to the beastie.

Shades of Black Beauty in this bit, I think, although I haven’t read it in so long I’m not sure. “the whips are hard, the feed stale....” 

Alas he doesn’t succeed in escaping; Allan rescues him from being executed, but requisitions him.

Track 2.7 “A Cracking Holiday”

Poor Mr. Hartley is in shock after losing Yvonne a second time, watching her last shreds erased before his eyes.

I love the way Big Finish often uses the sound of a teakettle going off as a sort of shorthand alarm: it’s warning of imminent danger, but the heroes are being too British and Keeping Calm and Carrying on 

And now everything goes to hell. The power cuts out, the Cyber recruits escape in the confusion, the roof cracks, the lights go out, the cyber-police are trying to herd everyone into the Committee Palace for processing, and rioting breaks out— it’s apocalyptic.

Amazing how an audio with just a few voices and sound effects can suggest the death throes of an entire world... this  hollow, terrifying world, the claustrophobic city in a cavern. It’s epic. 

Because our imaginations are still a damnsight scarier than CGI.

DOO WEE OO.

[junker-town]

‘Game of Thrones’ Scorecard: Episode 7.01, ‘Dragonstone’

In the show’s long-awaited return, one queen returns home while another looks to make new alliances. Also featured: a short feast with a big body count, a sexy insane pirate king, and a poop montage.

This "Game of Thrones" discussion is written by someone who has read George R.R. Martin's books (as well as the occasional fan theory on message boards), but the column will usually only discuss events that have happened on HBO's televised version. Please respect these boundaries should you choose to participate in the comments section.

Episode 7.01, ‘Dragonstone’

FINAL SCORE: Violence 35, Sex 1

(Scoring is typically one point per killing or instance of nudity, though the reviewer reserves the right to award bonus points for style.)

Violence

BRIEF nudity? MILD violence? BOOOOOOOOO

Totals: Dozens of Frey heirs poisoned in the room that held the Red Wedding; some light sparring in Winterfell.

Notes: It’s unclear exactly how many Freys died at Arya Stark’s wine mixer; no camera angle shows a definitive shot of all the men in the room. But there appear to be eight tables with approximately five men per table. (I rounded down in my scoring because I prefer to be conservative in my death estimates. I’m a blogger, not a staff officer in Vietnam.)

As for whether Arya killed ALL of the Freys, we may just have to take the show’s word for it. According to nerd databases, Walder Frey had 29 children and over 100 descendants, many of whom are still children (here’s a dizzying list of them). I won’t speculate about what’s canon from George R.R. Martin and what’s creative liberty exercised by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, because that’s a waste of perfectly good time we should use fist-pumping to Arya’s revenge tour.

Sex

Totals: One cadaver’s limp penis. You may have missed it if your attention was on the scarred and inflamed liver that the archmaester was pulling out of the open abdominal cavity. SEXY.

Notes: My scoring system is flawed, okay? But what am I gonna do, freak out and change the rules because of one fluke occurrence? No thanks, this isn’t the NFL.

More Like Draggin’ Stone

HBO

Five minutes, thirty-three seconds. That’s how much time elapses from the moment we see Dany’s face until she speaks her lone line, and the final one of the episode: “Shall we begin?”

The scarcity of dialogue highlights the import of the moment: Varys smuggled Daenerys overseas at a young age to avoid King Robert’s assassins; over the course of six seasons, she has been married and widowed, witnessed the murder of her brother, hatched three dragons, crossed the Red Waste on foot, freed thousands of slaves, gotten marooned in the Great Grass Sea, and immolated just about every enemy who seemed to have her dead to rights. And throughout it all, she just wanted to come home to a land she barely remembered.

Even without context, it’s a pleasure to watch: dragons flap over the black-sailed armada; Dany makes an unopposed landing in sensibly heeled boots; dramatic wide shots show a gorgeous slab of rocky wilds that will soon experience a ten thousand percent increase in nerd tourism.

But — and yes, I know that everything before the word “but” is horseshit — why is the castle empty? Stannis left with his family and his army, but did he not leave behind a castellan to lead general upkeep of the building and grounds? Or, assuming that the castellan deserted after learning of Stannis’s loss in the North, why wouldn’t other residents of the island move into the stronghold? I don’t pretend to understand the mind of a medieval fantasy commoner, but it seems like unlocked, unoccupied castles would invite squatters.

Also: Tyrion is just following Dany silently through the castle? Six seasons of relentless quips, and suddenly he’s mute for the long trek from boat to beachhead to throne room? I get it: he’s being respectful to his queen. But I’m allowed some disappointment when the show presents Dinklage without any of the dinkling we’ve come to know and love.

Subtweet of the Week

Longtime readers of the Scorecard will remember Euron Greyjoy as Joshua Jackson on the Russell Crowe diet, but the only thing he’s chewing in this episode is scenery. In a visit to King’s Landing, Euron moves to take everything that Jaime has made his own: Cersei, one-liners, a penchant for kinslaying, even the hottest motorcycle jacket in Westeros (from Episode 5.02, “The House of Black and White”).

I’ve gotten so used to Game of Thrones villains being merciless, sadistic, jerk-faced sociopaths (King Joffrey, Ramsay Bolton) that I’d almost forgotten how enjoyable a charming antagonist can be. Go get Cersei that priceless present, you swaggering, seagoing psychopath.

Ed Sheeran Cooked a Rabbit For You, Girl

Ed Sheeran and Maisie Williams, seen here making the “looking at Ed Sheeran” face

I’m sorry, Internet: I do not have a hot Ed Sheeran take for you. His music is his music, and you either like it or you don’t. We can squabble about his acting (not great, but not a complete distraction) or his looks (more Hobbit than Lannister), but roasting him for the mere sin of being Ed Sheeran feels like an enervating and pointless detour, especially given Game of Thrones’ long history of incorporating (more interesting) musicians into the show.

However you feel about Ed Sheeran is fine. Your opinion is good.

Worst. Montage. Ever.

(hears Ed Sheeran singing to afrobeats)

As long stretches of wordless action go, the 90-plus seconds of Sam carrying books, emptying bedpans, and serving slop at the Citadel packed more storytelling punch than Dany arriving at Dragonstone. Stomach-turning drudgery: EFFECTIVELY CONVEYED.

It was also an excellent time to turn on closed captioning. A sampling:

(farts, groans)

(flies buzzing)

(coughs)

‘Think you’re fooling anyone with that top knot?’

I could quibble with the unlikelihood that “top knot” would be in the Westerosi parlance, but seeing as how I was making fun of Thoros of Myr’s medieval combover as recently as Episode 6.08, I’ll merely offer the Hound a respectful fist-bump.

Other lines in the running for top Sandor Clegane-ism:

“Why are you always in such a foul mood?” “Experience.”

“You’re not bad. I don’t hate you. I don’t like you, but you’re not bad.”

Can you beautiful idiots talk before a meeting JUST ONCE?

There’s not much this column can do with scenes of political intrigue. There’s no violence, there’s no sex, there’s not even plunging cleavage or the hint of sexual tension (although when the players are siblings, that’s a pleasant change of pace).

So what does the North have to offer this week?

Lady Mormont stuntin’ on old chumps.

Tormund Giantsbane, still lusting openly for Brienne. I’d happily watch a one-off episode that was only them going on their first date (heavy sparring).

“No need to seize the last word, Lord Baelish. I’ll assume it was something clever.”

Alternate One-Liners for Emerging Action Stars

“The North remembers.” “Winter has come for House Frey.” Like, okay, those are fine. They’re on-brand for House Stark. But they’re not one-liners that will establish Arya alongside the greats of 1980s action movies. Here are some ideas:

(last body topples over) “That’s the end of the line.”

“Walder? I hardly knew her.”

(Steps over dead body) “I guess you could say I’m ... above the Freys.”

(after the Freys drink, to the tune of “Poison”) “That wine was poisonnnnnnnnned!”

(still singing) “Can’t get revenge out of my heaaaaad, that’s why you’re all going to be dead. Can’t get it out of my minnnnnd, your deaths I’ve carefully designed.”

(extended dance break where Arya does the Running Man over the bodies) “Poisoned! P-p-p-poisoned! Poisoned!”

Learn a Tertiary Character’s Name: Edd

Oh hey, it’s Jon’s friend. No, not Sam, the other guy. You know, he’s always around when stuff happens but never says anything memorable? I think he maybe took over the Night’s Watch? Yeah, him. Did you know he was at Hardhome? I didn’t remember him being in that episode, either. But Bran says he was, and that sledge-bound warg sees everything.

Anyway, his name is Edd. May we all learn his name before he inevitably gets killed by White Walkers.

Miscellaneous

Zombie giants in the army of the undead: 3

Bodies buried in a coda to a forgotten plot point: 2

Length of the “previously on” primer following more than a year without a new episode: 2 minutes, 21 seconds

Dead Starks Jon needs to be smarter than: 2 (at least 2)

“Rocks, bird shit, and a lot of unattractive people.” But enough about Maine!

Shots of maps depicting Dragonstone before Dany returns to Dragonstone (including credits): 3

Pay attention, there are only so many chances to slip maps into exposition.

DNP, Coach’s Decision

Future smoochers Yara Greyjoy and Ellaria Sand; Olenna Tyrell and the sick burns of Highgarden; direwolves; Tyrion’s voice; Lord Robin the Breastfed; Theon Greyjoy; Daario Naharis, ruling Meereen to the sounds of emo; the parts of Jorah Mormont that don’t have greyscale.