#anyway not to make another parallel between him and Johnny but they are both Believing so hard it gives them brain worms

[merge-conflict]

thinking about Goro ever leaving Arasaka is such a fun but heartbreaking thing to think about because like– what would truly make him leave? what would destroy his faith and his loyalty so utterly that he'd walk away from his identity? because it's not just a job, being a soldier is who he is, and he's specifically an Arasaka soldier. when he expresses any doubt about the life he's had or what he really wants it's always with an air of inevitability that Arasaka will exist and continue to exist. what's the alternative? he asks V, because he truly doesn't believe there can be one. he can't believe it, or if he does he has to believe it's not worth the cost, because otherwise what has his life been in service of?

but while he's stubborn and loyal, he isn't stupid. he'll deflect v or get angry when they dismiss corporations entirely not because he thinks they're shining forces of good but because he sees fighting against them as naivety. the world is hard, but that's how it is, and fighting against it will only cause more suffering.

and yet. and yet. he is blind in a particular way, that I think comes from his success and the reward for his hard work. certainly there are plenty of people like him, who were smart and worked hard and came from nothing but were never rewarded for that because they didn't do it in quite the right way, or they weren't liked, or they were simply one among hundreds and thousands, just a number on a spreadsheet– they were never someone noticed personally by Saburo Arasaka. he's absolutely conditioned to believe that the system works because it worked for him.

so to come back around to the question– what could shake his faith in that so entirely that he can start to see the lie he's pledged himself to? that this empire, this corporation is truly no better than any other, and is just as disgustingly hypocritical and pathetic when threatened as any other power?

I can see a lot of possible answers to the question, and though I'm a romantic I can't say the answer is just love– he could deny himself that, I'm sure, and any personal sort of happiness. he could tell himself anyone he loved deserves someone who can give their full attention (and how could he ever give Arasaka less than everything he has? even for his suicidal revenge he means it as a warning, a rallying cry, for Arasaka to save itself from those who would destroy it).

but! the thing about corporations is that they will tell you the rules, and their ideals, and they will enforce them. and you at some point will become a representative of that corp and make promises according to those ideals, and the corp will make a liar of you. whatever trust you've built, whatever standards you hold yourself to in order to maintain your reputation? meaningless. and that more than anything is something I think that Goro would be unable to accept, that something that was his responsibility and his promise was broken without remorse or even consultation. perhaps he could counsel himself through that doubt, and remain in the fold, but it would be one of those moments where he is truly vulnerable to break away, and certainly a reason to shake his faith.

even then– even then I don't think he could see it all at once. he's in too deep, and he wants to believe that Arasaka can work so badly, that he's blind to the reality of its existence. so even if he does break free, then what? and I think the answer to that is that he will always want to believe that if juuust a few things were fixed Arasaka would be on the right path, or would be redeemed.

and that deprogramming will take forever to undo, if he ever lived long enough to try it.

anyway I started writing this post because I'm writing that initial break from his pov where he's struggling with it and internally he's just thinking: Maybe if I kill myself righting this wrong Saburo will understand and Arasaka will go back to being something I can feel proud of! and I want to chew through the drywall why doesn't he get it (I know why)

[bidisaster-peanut-romano]

soo hi everyone!! i'm back on my bully essay/meta/something writing!! sort of. i did this.

anyways anyone who's been on this page for some time know how from time to time i have insistently mentioned the parallels between lola and peanut, right?

welp! that was a joke but the time has finally come!! a super-pretentious essay just for the fun of it!! (and also bc i haven't been writing actually argumentative texts in like months perhaps a year, so. yikes, i really need to practice again)

word count: 2.2k WOAH. IM SORRY

i, in my corner, with my monstrous needs. — susan sontag, as consciousness is harnessed to flesh

take this quote both as a title and an anticipation of what is to come. the essay will be distributed analyzing first the dependence of each of them on johnny, to then draw comparisons. i'll make sure to steer as away from headcanons as possible, sticking closely to the source text. obviously, some things' interpretation might be ambiguous, but, you know. your usual occupation hazard.

also, a disclaimer before we start: while they are psychologically complex and there is always a mimetic intention in developing them, these are fictional characters, and, as such, their primary function is to be vessels for different themes, questions and so forth. therefore, i will prioritize meaning and themes over moral implications and similar elements.

i. peanut

for how much i can adore talking about him, the way peanut depends on johnny is very much on the nose; worn on his sleeve, even. in 11:11 minutes of voice lines, he mentions johnny 30 times.

many interpret this as the caricature of a boy crush, but i have reasons to believe it is much less cute than that.

the problem is that, really, more than trying to identify specific situations... peanut seems to rely on johnny for a significant part of what he does. when he does good at dodgeball:

Look at me, Johnny, look at me!

almost like a child calling for his parent's attention to be praised. he calls johnny's name when he's going through hardships, when he's scared or when he's sad.

more than someone he just loves, johnny is a point of reference. whenever there's something going on, whenever he does or has to do something, his first thought goes to johnny; vice versa, what johnny asks of him is his priority.

I gotta tell Johnny! No time. I gotta see Johnny now. Gotta help Johnny. What can I do next to please Johnny? I mean Lola! I mean…

(this also goes in a "negative" direction, envy being the other side of the medal to adoration. especially because, in some way, this reliance on johnny might be felt by him as emasculating, and, being johnny his model of masculinity, adding it to the napoleon complex thing, it's not hard to guess why it can be so unpleasant. we can see this manifest through some of the things he expresses in regards to lola- not as much an interest he has towards her, but the interest he wishes to have from her- which are a bit more different than it might seem at a first glance. but this is a mouseketool we'll need later. still:

Last time I saw her, Lola made eyes at me, not Johnny!

do we really need this part? heh. i'm not sure, but it's always good to point out)

(also, just because, for the purpose of this analysis, it might be useful to specify: while these sentiments are very much implied in peanut's canon quotes, we have no evidence in canon in what measure they are reciprocated by johnny. the fandom has universally agreed that johnny also views peanut as his Best Friend In The World; while in some measure, they must be at least a bit close, i think it is even safe to say, given the caricaturist nature of bully's characterizations, that johnny holds peanut in less consideration that peanut deludes himself into believing. quoting another post of mine, the kids who show some level of obsession towards their leader mention him on average ten or less times (gord mentions derby eight times, parker six times, kirby mentions ted five times). the leaders don't usually make names at all, that much is true; however, peanut mentions johnny 30 times, and, even in front of this proportion, johnny mentions peanut 0 times. just to make that clear)

overall, what undeniably shines through his voice lines is a feeling of general inadequacy, whether about his height, or his strength in front of a bigger adversary. the audios in which he tries to show off range from being disingenuous, to straight up improbable.

crossing what we have until now said, it is not hard to come to the conclusion that he really tries to make up, to fill this empty feeling of inadequacy by taking pride in his role as johnny's second in command.

while i am a big fan of bully's characteristic of having left much content out of the main game, leaving the gamers to dig it up for themselves, i do believe that scrapping some of the stuff that was prepared for peanut is a loss. we have a number of voice lines coming from chapter 3, in which it was heavily implied how important peanut's role as johnny's right hand man was.

for example, much like... all other seconds in command, really, he was to be followed and then fought in the rumble, before you could get to johnny, with the specific duty to cover his back. even his very first scene, the opening cutscene of chapter 3, i believe, is not to be underestimated. most of the other people, as far as i recall, call you when they need it in person; johnny, however, sends peanut. making him, de facto, an extension of himself, almost.

again, you choose the motivation. what is important, from a narrative point of view, is that peanut clings to johnny through these acts of service, almost making it the foundation of his personhood.

basically, he makes it so that, if he can't be of help to johnny, his whole self is fundamentally annihilated, giving himself completely to johnny.

ii. lola

with lola, reading between the lines gets a bit more difficult; first of all, because lola is much less transparent than peanut, her insincerity being a supporting beam of the whole chapter 3. secondly, whether she was done dirty by the creators or not, it is undoubted that being the perspective that of a teenage boy (namely, jimmy, but we certainly, as viewers, are brought to sympathize more with johnny than with lola) with all the prejudices it can bring with itself.

however, it doesn't mean that there isn't anything to work with- quite the contrary, actually. the issue with lola is that there is a certain amount of layers to get through before gaining a satisfying perception of her as a character. still, we're here to try our best, aren't we!

even behind the muddiness of her intentions and the manipulation she shows herself a master at, it is clear from the second we first meet her that what she does is in function of johnny.

to get through this mess with order, we'll start from an easy, measurable numeric information: lola mentions johnny in her audio files 19 times. which, we're assessed, IS a considerable amount.

we have extensively talked about the way her cheating patterns are a strategy not to succumb to the passive role of the girl in the heteronormative, patriarchal prototypical couple (there's a post here breaking down a lot of this stuff, if any of you is interested!!), so, instead of this, i want to focus on what lies beneath that behavior.

ultimately, the whole point is that lola expects and wants johnny to fight for her. whether is it because she feels taken for granted, or just because he can't perceive it if not through grandiose gestures like the rumble- your interpretation will work; she wants to see johnny fighting nail and teeth not to lose her, she wants him to show her that he wants her.

she's all about that attention, and she knows exactly what and how to do to get it. and i think this is especially clear when you compare the moments in which she knows there's no advantage she could go for; when she has understood that jimmy won't fall for her manipulation, when algie and chad leave her unsatisfied, when norton openly accuses her and antagonizes her - she loses her temper, lets go of that sweetened and/or flirtatious voice tone, abandons that specific kind of gesturing. she doesn't care anymore about obtaining something. she was actually angry, and she was actually upset that johnny had disappeared.

in some of her audios, she references johnny with some amount of fondness, as well:

Johnny and I were on the best date ever.

(there is also a voice line in which she says "He told me he likes me because of my personality. Isn't that sweet?"; due to it being a general chatter and not exclusive to one chapter, i assume it is relatively safe to assume she is quoting johnny. however, as i said at the beginning, we're trying to stay as close to canon material as possible, so, do your thing- and i'm open to arguments!!)

a considerable amount of audio files, however (which will lead us to our final point) is about her... calling for help for johnny, or stating, confidently, that he will come save her, or avenge her later.

Someone get Johnny! Johnny's gonna get you for this. Johnny is gonna kill you!

but wait... i have some sense of déjà vu...

You're gonna be sorry when Johnny finds out!

iii. two faces of the same medal

if i had to pick an effective image for a metaphor, i'd say that the thing about lola and peanut is that they are both dogs looking for someone to take their leash; we’re talking here about an exclusive relationship with someone they can rely totally on, someone we’ll call the Other (with a capital o, distinguished from just other. yes it is unnecessarily complicated i’m sorry).

for what my professor would call accidents of history, it happened that both of them found that Other in johnny.

each of them attempts at creating an exclusive relationship with the Other, one foolproof and fundamentally… perfect. perfect in the way that everything works like oiled gears, in the way that every next move is predictable, in the way that any accident will not break the created equilibrium. (even if, in the general sense of the term, lola and johnny's relationship is everything but perfect, it is in the connotation that we have established here. lola is aware that, no matter what she does, johnny will come back around. hell, the very thing that she does is aimed at keeping that balance; specifically, keeping him a bit on the edge, pushing him into a corner where he has to actively make an effort to keep her close.)

they both hide something they are ashamed of, regulating not only their actions and reactions but their very way of existing in the world, in order to keep that gear working, in order to remain in johnny's hand. lola hides that craving for a genuine and stable affection, dissimulating it with the cheating and the fatuous physical demonstrations of closeness; peanut hides his sense of inadequacy and complex of inferiority, by being the tough and reliable second in command.

basically, what they mean to achieve is a sense of security, the safety of not really being the one to lead but, at the same time, finding a purpose, other than a shield from the outside world that they are not willing to concede themselves to. like a... symbiotic relationship?? i was going to say parasitic, but, yknow. the Other does get some advantages, which are, respectively, peanut's acts of service and lola's capacity to boost johnny's pride.

now, of course, johnny is not aware of either of their play. which makes it even better, since, as we already said, both of their approach to the relationship needs some degree of insincerity.

like, i don't deny that johnny might be a good friend, or a loyal one. but he is an oblivious, prideful fuck who can't see past his own nose; he's got a tendency to make it all about himself - which of course goes perfectly with what we said about both peanut and lola making the Other their center, taking up, in a certain way, a passive role in the relationship.

this way, both of them aim at creating with johnny a relationship that is, in a way, codependant and conditional, in which the do ut des (their respective "service" ↔ johnny's guarantee of stability) creates the foundation of the very relationship.

this, of course, brings up the problem of exclusivity; on which, however, i prefer not to delve into too much, as this would bring us to the topic of their antagonism which... isn't really what i wanted to go for, at least not here. (it would risk bringing us a bit too close to my subjective interpretation and too far away from the canon, which i PROMISED i wouldn't do. however, someday i might elaborate on that??? idk , please do lmk if someone's interested around here)

i will, however, show you a diagram (it looks like a triangle- i guess it is, but it is VERY important that it is a pyramid, with a top and a larger foundation) and a quote, to wrap this up bc i think it is already WAY too long and ramble-y lmao. let me know what you think anyway, my ask box is always open <3

it almost feels like a joke to play out a part when you are not the starring role in someone else's heart you know i'd rather walk alone (i'd rather walk alone) than play a supporting role if i can't get the starring role -- starring role, marina and the diamonds

[landslided]

Hi!

So Daniel and Tory, how would that go? What does Tory think of Daniel since she barely interacted with him? And on the other hand, would Daniel have to navigate some discomfort over knowing how much trauma she inflicted on Sam? (I think he has a better grasp on that than Amanda)

Would they ever have a sensei/student relationship? I'd like to see that explored to some degree in the show. (I say to some degree because I'm banking on Chozen to fill that role)

They obviously have very similar backgrounds, but how would Tory learn about it? From him? From Robby or Miguel? FrOm SaM?? Anyway, sorry for the rant and the million questions, feel free to cherry pick. :)

hi anon! thank you so much for all your questions and no i will absolutely not cherry pick them because they're all absolute gold! let's get into it:

how would i think a daniel and tory conversation go? funny thing is that i've written a chapter of two steps on the water (that hasn't been published yet) where i kind of answer that exact question.

i think daniel would be very on edge with tory at first. there is obviously a lot of history between tory and sam and i think daniel would never be able to entirely forgive tory for what she has done to sam, or at least not in a near future. i see daniel maybe forgiving her, let's say, ten years in the future when he's at the samtory wedding.... okay no let me get serious.

i think, like you said, daniel has a better understanding of the whole debacle between sam and tory than amanda but i also think daniel can sometimes be very blindsided by his own experiences and emotions and i feel like he would project a lot of himself into sam's situation, which would make sense since she's his daughter and she was the one attacked, only to get fucking kicked in the head with the realization that he understands tory very well.

i've talked about this with another person before and we both fully believe that in the concept of samtory is lawrusso 2.0, sam is johnny and tory is daniel in many ways. obviously the characters do not perfectly fit in each other's shoes but the similarities between them are obvious enough.

sam is a privileged young woman with a lot of ambition who finds herself trapped in her role as heir to her father's expectations and dreams. she's full of anger and other complicated feelings that she doesn't know how to express. she has had the chance of growing with her parents who are involved in her life, love her and want what is best for her and with a sensei/father who would NEVER harness her anger as a weapon. but sam wants to be a winner, she wants to be a fighter, she finds true meaning in leading the fight and that is something daniel doesn't understand because even if he'd shown an interest in karate back in jersey and before what happened with johnny, his desire was never to win competitions or be the best (around lol), he wanted to protect himself and learn a new skill because daniel is somehow who is fascinated by knowledge. meanwhile, johnny understands sam's need to prove herself and he understands her desire to fight and win. he gets that. we had a glimpse of that particular relationship in season 4 and im really sad we didn't get more of it.

as for tory, she does share a lot of similarities with johnny in terms of her relationship with kreese for example but there is an edge to her that is so very daniel. like i said in another post, i fully believe tory is raw and whole and honest to the point where it gets her into trouble which is something daniel shares. she is a fighter because of necessity but i don't think she finds the same joy in it sam does. not to say that i don't think tory likes karate or isn't good at it, but i think she would find a lot more of herself in miyagi-do philosophy than in cobra kai. she needs that balance, she needs to be able to fall back on someone and trust others and also herself and miyagi-do (an daniel) fill that category.

there is also a really interesting parallel to make between tory, daniel and their relationship with silver. both daniel and tory place a certain amount of trust in silver only to have that trust spit back into their faces. worse than that, silver twists the meaning of that trust, twists the meaning of tory and daniel's struggle into something ugly and dishonest. he manipulates them both into becoming and doing things they are intrinsically against in a way that is a lot more cruel than whatever kreese could have done to them both. (the cruelty of kreese is... much more apparent with johnny and with robby but that is anooooother discussion and if i start talking about the cobra fatherhood cycle again im gonna scream). i don't know if i really need to explain how tory and daniel's financial situation and how they both dealt with it is at the core of the matter here but just to kind of put it out there: daniel would totally understand tory's struggles and tory would hate his guts for it but she would probably accept his help and support more than amanda's.

i think, if daniel managed to make tory open up enough to him, either because she joined miyagi-fang and/or because she needed someone's help and she was directed to daniel, there would be a lot of self-discovery for the both of them because they are really really similar and i think daniel would probably be a little shaken by it but tory would be sooooo mad. she would be so angry that this dude who lives in the hills and drives an audi actually understands her because he's the father of the karate princess and that would! piss her off! so bad! but she would be understood by an adult maybe for the first time in her life and there would be a certain comfort in that.

i don't know that daniel would be tory's sensei, not that i think he wouldn't do a fine job of it but i think maybe that would make sam lose her mind. even post-season 5, i think the peace between sam and tory is fragile and if sam saw her father teach tory any sort of karate she would bite through her hand. but! kind of in the same way that even now i think daniel CANNOT witness johnny really teach sam karate because there is just something in that particular concept that triggers in him a fight or flight response (which for daniel is always fight). chozen would be the perfect sensei for tory because i think he would understand her on some level to and know how to channel her emotions in a positive and safe way.

as for the kids. i think robby and tory could totally bond over the fact that hey, actually we kind of dig that guy he kinda gets it meanwhile miguel and sam are throwing tornado kicks with johnny and don't really need to expand on the subject because they like johnny for really different reasons. sam and tory? god, i think sam would be relieved that tory is working through her things with her dad but she would also be extremely jealous and tory would tease her about it. like i said, their peace is fragile but i believe in them <33

i don't know if this was in any way what you were expecting when you send me this anon but i hope i somehow answered your questions and that i made sense!

thank you again!!

[n00dl3gal]

Like Old Times (Father-Son Bonding AU)

A direct sequel to the “Expiration Date” fic, which I’ll link in a reblog. I’ve also posted all my fics in this AU to AO3!! Thanks again to @thetriggeredhappy for their help and just generally being a cool dude, and the Scoutsune Discord server for indulging my brainrot

No warnings beyond family schmoop!

Less than an hour after the bread monster incident, the Administrator called for a ceasefire. “Only while your base is repaired,” she said over the TV screen. “BLU is quite disappointed in this negligence- as am I. Regardless, you may use these three days as you see fit. Go home, stay here- whatever you do, no more bread monsters.” The screen turned off with a click. 

Scout exhaled through his nose. He was thankful there was no mention of him or Miss Pauling’s woodchipper. 

Spy decloaked behind him. “Less time than I wanted, but c’est la vie.” Scout looked at him over his shoulder. “I’m meeting with an old contact during our break,” Spy said in Italian. “Would you like to come along? It’ll be like old times.” 

Scout’s brow furrowed, but he nodded. At least this way, he’d get out of helping Engie and Heavy with repairs. And possibly meeting Miss Pauling’s woodchipper. 

“Excellent. Our flight is at 7 AM tomorrow.” 

“We’re flying commercial?” Scout asked, also in (more hesitant) Italian. 

“Our destination is continental. We’ll leave the base by 5:30.” Scout groaned as Spy started to leave. But- wait, he hadn’t- 

“Oi, where are we going, anyway?” he called back in English. 

Spy paused to look at him and smile. “Boston.” 

“Why do we always get the ass-crack-of-dawn flights?” Jeremy asked groggily, reclining his seat.

“They are the ones with first-class seats available,” Raphael replied. He took a sip from his mimosa. 

“Yeah, cuz God forbid you fly coach for once.” Jeremy shifted, trying to get comfortable. “Hey. Have I ever been to Boston before?”

Raphael didn’t answer immediately. His lip sucked in, as if in thought. “Yes. When you were very, very young. You wouldn’t remember.” 

Jeremy nodded. He wanted to ask more, there was something Raphael wasn’t saying but… well, he was never a morning person. He fell asleep before the plane even took off. 

. . .

It was mid-afternoon by the time they landed in Boston. Jeremy was never fond of long flights; having his legs cramped like that for extended periods of time was murder. He was half tempted to take a jog around Logan International. Raphael, on the other hand, was ushering them both to the car rental. “Can’t even get a stretch in, huh?”

“Unfortunately, we are expected by 4, and I would hate to keep my contact waiting,” Raphael explained in French, accepting the keys from the girl at the counter. “She’s not a very patient woman, in some regards.” 

Jeremy huffed but didn’t argue. He just followed his father to the rental, tossing his suitcase in the backseat. “Y’know, the girl at the counter-” 

“We will not have time for you to go out on a date, Jeremy.” 

“No! No, it was- her accent’s kinda like mine, it’s weird,” Jeremy said. Raphael started the car. “Cuz I’ve only been here as a baby, and I got mine from TV and shit. It’s just… really strange, is all.” 

Raphael made a quiet noise of agreement. “Some of the shows you watched as a child were filmed here. It’s not as complex as you think it is.” 

“Yeah, probably not…” 

The pair lapsed into silence as Raphael drove. Storefronts and high rises morphed into houses. It had been a while since they were in a residential area. RED, for understandable reasons, kept away from civilians. 

Raphael took the roads with practiced experience. Sure, it had been implied he knew the area. If he had a contact here- one with a house, presumably- he must’ve spent time here. But this- this was far too familiar. A bit suspicious, actually. 

Eventually, Raphael slowed in front of a more rundown Brownstone. Still quite nice, just needed a little work. It felt… welcoming, in a way Jeremy couldn’t name.

“Lotta cars,” he observed as Raphael parallel parked. “Must be a party going on somewhere.” 

“Hmm, perhaps,” Raphael said, turning the car off. “Would you mind ringing the doorbell for me? I need to grab something from the trunk. Ask for Sara Jane.” 

OK, now Jeremy knew something was up. He was never the one to make the first contact, that was always Dad’s job. Jeremy might be a full-grown adult, but there were some things that didn’t change. This was one of them. 

Still, he nodded. He climbed up the front steps and ringed the doorbell. He heard- multiple voices from inside, predominantly male, but they quickly silenced themselves. A TV, perhaps? They really ought to get that flower box on the second story window fixed- 

The woman who opened the door was a bit shorter than him, though not by much. She was wearing a simple dress, hoop earrings, and flats. Her hair was dark, curved to her chin. But her nose and earlobes felt… achingly familiar. Like Jeremy saw them all the time. 

“Um, hi, I’m looking for Sara Jane? My name’s-” The rest of his speech was knocked out of him as the woman launched herself at him. Jeremy braced for an attack, but quickly realized she was… hugging him. 

She was hugging him, sobbing, and choked out the word “Jeremy.” 

Wait. He knew that voice. He had only heard it a few times in his life, few enough he could count them on one hand, but he knew it. “M-Ma?” he whispered. 

The woman- Sara Jane- Ma looked up at him, still crying. Her hands found his face as she observed him. “Y-yeah, sweetie, it’s me, it’s-it’s your ma,” she said. 

“Ma!” he laughed, tears of his own dancing down his cheeks. He hugged her back, practically lifting her off her feet. “Oh my God, Ma! I-I never thought I’d-” 

“Oh Jeremy, sweetie, look how tall you’ve gotten! Last I saw you, you fit in my arms! My baby, my handsome baby,” she spoke over him. She rubbed circles into his back as they embraced. It felt so, so right. 

Jeremy laughed even harder. “Are you kiddin’? I got it from you, you’re beautiful, Ma!” He stared at her, trying to commit every mole and wrinkle and perfect flaw to memory. “I can’t believe- oh my God, I’m actually meeting you!” 

“It was long overdue,” another voice said, as Raphael joined them on the front stoop. “I had put it off for safety reasons, but considering our current, ah, situation… I felt it was worth the risk.” 

Sara Jane squealed, pulling Raphael into the hug as well. “You’ve been taking good care of my boy, you promise me, Raphael?” 

“Don’t worry Ma, he’s the best dad I could ask for, considering,” Jeremy teased. 

“Oh, don’t I know it. Called me up last night and told me to get the whole motley crew together. Even managed to get Melvin to bring his twin daughters, bless his wife’s heart,” she explained. 

Jeremy blinked. “Uh- Melvin? Daughters?”

Sara Jane laughed. It sounded so much like Jeremy’s it practically hurt. This was his mother. Lord, he’s finally seeing her. “Melvin’s your older brother, sweetie. Eh, sixth oldest. Bobby’s the oldest.” 

“I have a brother?”

“Oh honey, you’re the youngest of eight,” Sara Jane said plainly. 

“...fuck,” Jeremy whispered. 

. . .

He didn’t just have seven brothers. He had seven brothers, four of which brought their wives, one who brought his boyfriend, and three who brought their kids. And the kids totaled to an additional six, counting the babies. 

It was… an admittedly tight squeeze in the living room. 

Sara Jane introduced Jeremy. Jeremy had been expecting to be treated like a stranger. He had vanished when he was a baby, after all, and his younger-older brothers probably wouldn’t remember him at all. 

And yet, it was like he knew them all his life. 

They teased him and punched him playfully and acted so friendly, so familial it nearly made Jeremy break down. He was still crying from meeting Ma, but being dogpiled with so much affection was suffocating. In a good way. He had seen on sitcoms the intrinsic bond between family, and while he felt it with Dad, they also risked their lives nearly daily. But it was real, it was here, and it was wrapping him in a warm blanket. 

Despite the chaos and the sheer number of people, Jeremy didn’t feel overwhelmed. He laughed and played along with their jokes, cracking some back when he could get a word in. Scott ragged on his dog tags, he countered by pointing out the hole in his pants. Michael told him he was still a shortass, he replied with “it takes one to know one.” Elliot and Ricky were the closest to actually getting hurt, and that was only because Jeremy elbowed them both so hard they nearly fell over. 

For the first time in 25 years, Jeremy understood what “home” meant. 

The kids were especially curious, eager to meet their uncle and step-grandfather. Within seconds, young Rebecca- only four years old- was challenging Jeremy to a race around the house. “I’m the fastest kid in the world,” she bragged, puffing out her chest. 

“Oh yeah?” Jeremy asked. “That a fact?”

“You wanna test me? I beat Johnny Three-Legs at running, and he’s got three legs!” Jeremy laughed and stood from the couch, letting her lead him outside. “On the count of three, OK?”

“You’re on, pipsqueak,” Jeremy teased.

“Onetwothree GO!” Rebecca yelled, taking off in a sprint. Jeremy knew that, by all accounts, he should beat her. His legs were longer, she didn’t have the proper running stance, and it was his job to be fast. That’s what he got paid to do. But some small voice was telling him to let her win, so he did. “Ha! I told ya!” 

“Ya sure did,” he replied, mock panting. “Look at you, a freaking blur on the green. You’re goin’ to the Olympics, kid.” 

Rebecca beamed and hugged his leg. “Promise, Uncle Jeremy?” He nodded because, after that display, there was no way he could speak without squeaking like a chew toy. 

Rebecca skipped back inside, past Raphael, who was watching on the stoop. “You’re a natural with children,” he observed. “I used to do the same thing when you were that age.” 

“Wait- wait, really? You sure fooled me,” Jeremy said. 

Raphael rolled his eyes. “What’s my job again, mon lapin?”

“Yeah, yeah…” Jeremy leaned against the railing, watching Raphael’s cigarette smoke in the wind. “Hey. Uh… thanks for arranging all of this. You really didn’t need to.”

“But I did. I meant it when I said this was overdue. I’ve been wanting to introduce you to the rest of the family for a while, but have been unable. Then that whole ordeal with the supposed tumors, and-” Raphael exhaled slowly. “It wouldn’t have been fair to you if you died without knowing them. I would’ve never forgiven myself.” 

Jeremy punched his shoulder lightly. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, pops. It all worked out, we’re still kicking, and that roast chicken Ma’s making smells incredible. Everything’s perfect.” 

Raphael finished his cigarette and smiled. “Oui. It is.” 

. . .

While Sara Jane had been able to get the rest of the family here, it was a school night. Kids needed to be tucked in by 9:30, so most of Jeremy’s brothers were gone by 8. Elliot was staying overnight, as was his boyfriend. Otherwise, the house quickly went from bustling to barren. 

It gave Jeremy a chance to explore his would-be childhood home.

He made his way upstairs, pushing open one of the doors. It led- to little surprise- to a bedroom. It was set up like a nursery, with a crib in one corner and a toddler bed in the other. Toys were scattered about across the floor. 

He heard Sara Jane sigh behind him. “This was your room, you know.” Jeremy turned to look at her as she flipped the light switch. “That crib… I had put you to bed the night your father planned to fake his death. I was in on the whole plan, naturally. He wanted to hold you one last time, so I said OK. When I woke up the next morning… you were both gone.” She exhaled slowly, grabbing onto his shoulder. “I wrote both of you off as dead, but I knew what had happened. Honestly, should’ve figured it out before then. You hadn’t woken me up crying,” she joked. Her eyes were watering. 

Jeremy hugged her, pulling her close. “You never took the crib down?” 

“By the time I was ready, Bobby’s wife was pregnant, so I kept it up for my grandbabies. I knew- I knew you were out there, sweetie. Both of you.” She kissed his cheek, squeezing him.

“I-I never got to be a normal kid, really,” he confessed. “I mean, Dad did his best, gave me comic books and board games and stuff, but-but I never went to school or made friends or anything like that. I-I didn’t even know I had a family. It took me forever to even realize I had a Ma. An-and everything I did-” The tears were flowing again, more freely than earlier. “Ya missed me losing my first tooth, and potty trainin’, and all that stuff parents should know about. I-I’m sorry,” he whispered. 

Sara Jane wiped his cheek dry. “Don’t apologize for what your father did, Jeremy. And definitely don’t apologize for me not potty training another kid. Besides… hold on, I’ll be right back.” She made her way down the hallway. Jeremy didn’t follow, instead deciding to examine the crib. This was where he grew up. It was a simple crib, obviously well-used. Not worn-down, mind, just… used. It had a history. A history that Jeremy wanted to decode, but unlike his dad’s ciphers, he didn’t have the key. 

“Took me a second to find it,” Sara Jane said. She handed him what appeared to be a scrapbook. “Raphael- he wrote when he can. Taught me some basic codes, would send out letters whenever you’d leave a town. Never left a return address, but…” Jeremy flipped through the pages, moving to sit on the small bed. The letters were all coded but appeared to be about how much Raphael missed Sara Jane. Updates on Jeremy’s growth. Letters from a father to his lover and son’s mother. 

One page jumped out to him, though. “I remember this,” he said, running his fingers against the paper. It was a simple drawing of a young boy, holding a catcher’s mitt, and a taller man next to him. “I drew this after Dad took me to my first baseball game, for my eighth birthday. I thought I lost the drawing after we skipped town, but- he sent them to you?”

Sara Jane nodded. “And I kept them all. Oh, honey, the day I first heard your voice on the phone- Mikey can tell you, I damn near fell over. You sounded so happy, and even if I couldn’t see you, that’s all a mother wants.” Jeremy leaned against her and she shut the book. “That’s all a mother wants, sweetie. To see her kids be safe and happy.” 

“I am, Ma,” he assured her. “I promise.” 

They sat like that for a while, with Sara Jane commenting on various letters and drawings in the scrapbook. Apparently, Raphael sent her money when he could- more frequently now that Mann Co. paid so well. She also had a rough idea of their current occupations. “I figure, if you and your father are working for the same company- with his skills, there’s gotta be a whole lot of nonsense going on out in that desert.” Jeremy laughed at that because she wasn’t wrong. “But I also figure since he raised you right, he’ll keep the both of you safe.” 

“I keep him safe too, don’t worry,” Jeremy added. “Uh- listen, it’s touching and all you kept the crib, but I don’t have to sleep in it, right?” 

They both had a good chuckle over that. Their laughs were in perfect harmony. 

. . .

The next two days were a mix of learning the family history and exploring Boston. It was the offseason, so there weren’t any games going on at Fenway, but Jeremy still got a picture in front of the park. Sara Jane took the pair to a restaurant that served “the best damn clam chowder in the contiguous United States.” Which, incidentally, led them to discover Jeremy was allergic to clams. Thankfully they didn’t have to go to the hospital- he just sort of immediately got sick before it passed- but it did suck.

It was damn good chowder, though. 

They went down to the harbor where the Boston Tea Party happened. It was crowded with people, resulting in them not staying long. Jeremy was a bit better with crowds than Raphael, but neither was great with them. Came with the job. Getting overpriced memorabilia from a nearby gift shop, though, went over much more smoothly. 

When not out on the town, Sara Jane dug out more scrapbooks and photo albums, catching Raphael up on what his stepsons had been up to. She showed Jeremy pictures from Ricky’s first school play to Scott opening up his butcher shop. Graduation pictures, wedding pictures, baby pictures- it was all there, and Jeremy devoured it. He wanted to know these people. He wanted to know his family. And he did. He learned about Michael’s stint in the Navy, Melvin meeting his wife, how Bobby’s son could dribble a basketball for twenty minutes straight. He learned about how his parents met. How Raphael loved each of Sara Jane’s children, even if they weren’t biologically his. How Jeremy wasn’t planned- few of the kids were - but they were both so, so happy to realize he was coming. 

He also learned that, while diner food would remain the undisputed king, homemade meatloaf came pretty close. 

. . .

The only problem came when it was time to leave. It wasn’t that Jeremy didn’t want to return to work, or leave his Ma behind. Sara Jane wasn’t even torn up over losing her son and lover again. It just felt like there was so much left to say, to do. There was uncertainty as to when they’d be able to return. “We get time off for Smissmas, I know that’s months away but I’ll be here, I promise,” Jeremy swore, hugging Sara Jane for the eighth time. 

“You better,” she said, squeezing him tightly. “You have 25 years worth of gifts to catch up on, not to mention birthday gifts-”

“Ma, you don’t have to go that far,” he whined. He was touched, sure, but the thought of that much luggage was truly frightening. Oh God, he was going to have to get gifts for everybody, wasn’t he? What do kids even want for Smissmas? 

“Hush, let me spoil my baby,” Sara Jane told him, kissing his cheek. “Oh, Jeremy…” 

Jeremy nodded. “I know, but I’ll call. I’ll write, too. Send pictures if I can.” 

“I’ll make sure he does,” Raphael assured her. Sara Jane stood to kiss his lips, with Jeremy looking away pointedly. “You have my word, ma petite chou-fleur.” 

“Alright, alright- now get going, I don’t want you two missing your flight. That boss of yours sounds like she’ll tear you both a new one if you’re late,” Sara Jane said, shooing them away. “Love you boys!” 

“I love you too, Ma!” Jeremy shouted back, for the very first time. 

The drive back to the airport was quiet. Jeremy stared out the window, watching his hometown- he had a hometown- pass by. “Hey, dad?” he asked, still looking outside. Raphael grunted to acknowledge he was listening. “One of these days, our contracts with Mann Co. are gonna expire. We’re gonna have to find new jobs.” 

“Yes, that’s correct,” Raphael said. He tapped a rhythm against the steering wheel. 

“And-and I was thinking when that time comes… maybe we could come back to Boston. Find some gigs out here,” Jeremy suggested. 

Raphael sighed. “Unfortunately, being a spy means that you don’t have the option of retiring, Jeremy. Not until you’re unable to complete your job. At that point, though, you’ve probably died a dozen times over,” he explained. “Even if I could retire, settling down somewhere so close to people I care about- I would still have enemies.” 

“Right. ‘Course,” Jeremy said. “It’s OK.” 

“That being said,” Raphael continued, “you have the luxury of youth and not being tied down to such a career. If you want to find a job in Boston after we finish with RED, there’s nothing stopping you.” 

“But people will still be after me, since I’m your son. And you wouldn’t be around.”

“Every child leaves their parents someday. And you’re strong, Jeremy. You can protect yourself and your family.” Raphael smiled. “I don’t believe Sara Jane needs much protecting, but I do worry.” 

Jeremy laughed. “I mean, did ya see the muscles on Scott and Michael? Guys can probably bench press a tractor!” 

They both chuckled before settling into quietude. Eventually, though, Jeremy had to break the silence. His voice was barely above a whisper. “I love you.” 

“I love you too, mon lapin.”

“...so your nickname for Ma is fucking ‘little cauliflower?’ What the hell, Dad?” 

[baldwinboy5ive]

My absolute aspirational, dream, reach scenario for Hawk in season 4 is not happening BUT that doesn’t seem to be stopping me from TALKING ABOUT IT A LOT ANYWAY! let’s gooooooooo

Warning: this is going to be a long walk to get to my point, I sure wasn’t kidding when I said “a lot.” SO much rambling about little bird over here. so much.

I would love to see Julie-san back, period, and I started to ramble to anyone who would listen about that, but then after I rewatched the episode where Miyagi-Do got trashed, I actually realized a few concrete reasons why I feel she’d be such a great addition to the show, if only for an episode or two! 

My heart was just so broken for Daniel-san when he saw what happened to the dojo. He doesn’t care about things, he only cared so much about the Medal of Honor and the car being graffitied because those things were from Mr. Miyagi, obviously. And that appeared to totally break him, and it just made me feel so sad because in that moment he seemed so alone. I don’t think anybody had the same kind of relationship with him that Daniel did, besides Julie-san. Of course, he was like a grandfather to Sam, and he knew the whole rest of Daniel’s family, but still that isn’t quite the same. I’m sure that all of Daniel’s family just loved him so much, because how could anyone not, but the father-son relationship Daniel had with him was so special and no one else in his family had that kind of relationship with him. But someone else did. 

I really wanted Julie-san to come and maybe bond with Daniel over how much they both loved Mr. Miyagi so much as a teacher and father figure after they had both lost their fathers - or in Julie’s case, both her parents. 

And then I realized that she would be so amazing as a mentor too. It wouldn’t be too far-fetched to think she comes to LA to check out all this karate drama she’s hearing about if it involves a dojo called “Miyagi-Do” - she has a huge connection to Mr. Miyagi, so maybe she wants to see what’s going on with her old mentor’s other student. 

It’d be kind of funny if Julie could share some stories with Daniel from her perspective of when she pissed off Mr. Miyagi so much, haha. In the same episode that Miyagi-Do got vandalized (this one episode seriously inspired so many thoughts in me), Daniel’s patience was wearing thin with Demetri. Daniel wants to emulate Mr. Miyagi so bad but what Daniel might not have realized is that once, even Mr. Miyagi came this close to losing it hahah. I didn’t even know he could get that mad, hahahaha.  When Julie-san was like “You’re mad at me, aren’t you?” and Mr. Miyagi was just like... “........” ahahaha oh man. It’s just... it would be so nice for Daniel to hear from her about all this, like reading the letters Mr. Miyagi had once written. 

Now, in addition to ALL of that... because I assume that Daniel would have heard and known of her from Mr. Miyagi, I do feel like it’d be amazing if, after meeting her and seeing how great she turned out, he said to her, “I know that you had to deal with a lot of anger when you were younger, and I was wondering if you might be willing to help me out with something about that. See, there’s this Hawk...” 

“I love hawks.” 

“not like that” and I swear to God this isn’t just that dumb hawk joke that I was dying to make, though, I promise ahahaha. 

I mean there definitely is room there for that joke but Hawk and Julie would fit together so well. Even if the source of their anger was very different, she still could relate to him because she had no way of channeling her anger until Mr. Miyagi came along and guided her, and she just found so much peace after.

And I see such a parallel to when she became more self-assured and had that “If I’m ever going to respect myself, I have to do this” moment - it’s clear that Hawk has VERY little respect for himself. There is a lot of denial and self-loathing going on with this poor guy and he needs to learn how to get past that and learn to love himself. 

I think the movie doesn’t go into it a whole lot but Julie definitely seemed to deal with that self-loathing a bit too with like, the expectation that her grandma would tell her “Oh you messed up, you made another mistake, you screwed up.” 

Hawk still has no one to help him do these things - yeah, he changed sides at the very last minute - dude had us in the 4th quarter with 5 seconds left on the clock and we got ball - but that of course in no way means all of his other anger issues are resolved, right? He needs someone. 

I actually got kind of infuriated at Amanda saying that if Robby doesn't want to come back, "You're going to have to let him go," like it's one of those "If you love something let it go" type of situations, and thank GOD Daniel pushed back on it! Thank God he did, and said "I can't just let him go," and then he said, "He has no one." Man, that part was gut-wrenching. I absolutely love Robby, I really do, but I'm actually less worried for him now. He does have someone now - I think Johnny really is going to try for Robby, and even if he does massively fuck up - which he might, or he might not - I think Daniel will still be there for Robby because he cares about him so much. Robby will, hopefully, be all right. But Hawk I truly do worry about, and Hawk I really do think actually does have no one right now. Except for Demetri, who I still hope after all this will be willing to throw down for him, but he’s his best friend, not a sensei or mentor. 

I hate so much how Johnny treats Hawk and hate how he's failed him, like in multiple ways, and legitimately get mad about it sometimes, hahaha - I will NEVER get over how harshly he treated Hawk and Miguel and made them clean mats, and then ONLY MIGUEL got that honest heart-to-heart after. And this was in response to the both of them calmly asking Johnny about something instead of being accusatory, angry, or anything really, they were simply trying to have a talk with him, and then he just told them to GTFO. (Man, my HEART hurts at the way Hawk still bows to his sensei even then, before he GTFOs.) But anyway - what I'm getting at here is, it really does seem to me that Johnny just does not like even interacting with Hawk. Every single time he interacts with him, save for the one time that he gave him his new name, it's always just so hostile. It's probably at least partially due to Hawk reminding him so much of his younger self, and Johnny likely does not want to deal with or face that self-reflection at all. So to me it feels like a really tall order to ask Johnny to have any sort of real talk with this one particular student who needs him so much. And if he were to even try - would it even be productive, or would it just be more yelling? 

It makes me think of how, in the beginning of The Next Karate Kid, when Mr. Miyagi sends Julie's grandma off to take a break, it's really to give Julie and her grandma some forced time apart. Everyone knew it was needed, it just couldn't happen until Mr. Miyagi could take care of Julie. Julie and her grandma were both dealing with too much - Julie lost her parents, Julie's grandma lost her child - and all they could ever do is get angry with each other. "Talking doesn't seem to help. It just makes things worse," Julie's grandma said.

And right before they part ways, Julie tearfully says to her grandma, "I've tried sometimes to just talk to you, and not get angry, but everything gets messed up and I don't know why." God, that just got to me so much. She's just a kid, and she had this moment of actually trying, and it's not her fault that she doesn't know how to fix things, and it’s okay that she doesn’t know why! Then her grandma admitted her own shortcoming by saying "Things get messed up for me, too." It was a good moment between them.

Hawk is still a good kid, I'm never going to not believe that, probably, hahaha. He was going to step up and confess to vandalizing the Miyagi-Do dojo until Kreese stopped him. (Speaking of that, Johnny had basically given all these students permission to view Kreese as a sensei just as much as they do him - and Kreese hadn't given any of them any reason yet to think he was actually Bad News. Maybe Hawk even thought that Kreese would talk to Johnny first and soften the blow, when he said he would "handle it." But, well - we saw how he handled it!!!)  So, I do not put it past him to be able to admit at least a little bit of fault, or admit to feeling lost, or reaching out for some kind of help. I don't see him doing it in any dramatic fashion or anything like that, or being sorrowfully apologetic and the like, but just... you know, the way Julie said it, I could see him doing something like that. But unfortunately for him, I don't know who is there to hear that from him and then give him that help.

I really don't see Johnny ever owning up to how his negligence and hostility and favoritism contributed to how violent Hawk became... which is sad, cause even just that one small admission of "Things get messed up for me, too" was probably the first step in repairing the damage between Julie and her grandma (even if we don't get to see them afterwards). And they likely would not have been able to get there, or they would have had a lot more trouble getting there, if not for Mr. Miyagi intervening. Julie needed to hear that.

Maybe Hawk just needs someone external to come and shake things up a little bit and be a mentor, someone who isn't so tied up in this karate soap opera already. I think Daniel genuinely does want to help these kids, but I don't know if I really see him having that much sympathy for Hawk, either, and I don't know if he would understand the depths of his anger. Sure, Daniel was absolutely bullied back when he was younger, and I'm not downplaying that at all, but it wasn't to the degree that Eli went through, which resulted in a shit ton more anger than it ever did in Daniel. And then, of course, Daniel had Mr. Miyagi step in early enough to make sure Daniel's anger and need for revenge never got so out of hand. Johnny's simply not going to be able to be that person for Hawk, at least not now. But maybe, maybe one day he could get there if someone came along to jump-start it, the way Ali had to come in and knock his head loose a little about his rivalry with Daniel, and I'd really love for that to be Julie-san. 

there’s definitely also room for several hawk jokes in there somewhere too

[indecisive-behaviors]

Okay so I just reblogged a thing talking about season 2 and 3 of Cobra Kai and I have some Thoughts about what they did to everyone’s character arcs in this so if you’d like a rant it’s under the cut with spoilers from all 3 seasons plus spoilers for all 3 Karate Kid movies

Okay so my issues start with one very key scene that I personally think fucked up the whole rest of the narrative, and by extension everyone else’s character arcs: which is from Different but Same. And no not that scene- not yet at least.

The first scene that I think fucked over the narrative and killed several character arcs was the beach scene. Miguel, reasonably distraught over the idea that Sam is hiding him from her dad(which she is actually doing to be fair), gets completely drunk and when Sam and Robby arrive together he loses it, pushes Sam and subsequently gets dumped. Now why do I think this ruined everything? It completely goes against Miguel’s character up to this point. Miguel is absolutely trying to mimic Johnny in a lot of key ways but also up to this point Miguel has also been Johnny’s conscience; he’s smart and kind and had not at all shown to be anything even close to what Johnny was in KK1. He’s stood up for his friends, defended the girl he likes from bullies, he’s a huge mama’s boy and a bit of a hopeless romantic. In no episode up until that point does he ever display any tendency towards unnecessary violence, despite Johnny’s “strike first” motto. Miguel getting wasted and violent does not add up in my mind. Miguel is supposed to be a narrative parallel to Daniel for fuck sake. Also, and this is my main complaint, there is no fucking reason for Miguel to immediately jump to the conclusion that Sam is seeing Robby- literally none. They look very much alike, hell Robby looks a little like Amanda honestly, he could very well be her cousin for all Miguel knows. Robby and Sam don’t even act like a couple in the shot- they’re literally just sitting next to each other at family dinner. None of this subplot makes any fucking sense.

And then, obviously, there’s the very next scene- Johnny goes with Daniel back to his place, tipsy and happy and seemingly in a very good place with each other. Then Robby shows up, Johnny loses his shit and Daniel proceeds to get pissed and kick Robby out. Now there is one thing I point out about this scene whenever I talk about it that doesn’t add up: no where in this scene is it ever even implied that either Johnny or Daniel know about Robby’s original intentions. (Also nothing up till that point ever even establishes why Robby knows about Daniel and Johnny’s rivalry in the first fucking place for the record). There is no reason for Johnny to suspect that Daniel knew and was hiding it, or even that Robby was doing it on purpose, and there is no reason for Daniel to get mad or even suspect that Robby knew what he was doing or was lying about it; and the fact of the matter is that Robby never actually lied(also Daniel never fucking asked) about his home situation. His mom was neglectful and an addict, and his father wasn’t in the picture. That’s it, and none of that was a lie. Now I’m not sitting here and denying that what Robby did was wrong because it absolutely was-- it was manipulative and unfair to Daniel and he had a right to be angry when he found out it was the case but there is nothing to suggest that he didn’t just jump to conclusions. And also, personally, I don’t think any of that justifies kicking a teenager to the curb, and one that Daniel explicitly knows has no one and nothing to fall back on. Be angry, be furious with Robby, but leaving a teenager to fend for themselves is cruel and completely unjustifiable behavior from a grown ass adult(also there’s a whole can of worms involved in Daniel never trying to figure out where the fuck Robby’s parents are and letting him live there without an explanation but that’s for a different rant).

Now assume none of that weird subplot happens, there is another way to have the Robby and Miguel rivalry that would have made so much more fucking sense and it only hinges on one fucking thing- Robby enters the tournament. It could be with or without Daniel’s approval(maybe even with a KK3 parallel, but Daniel honestly seems pretty into the tournament these days so he’d probably be down for Robby joining and reping Miyagi-do), but all we need is for him to do it.  Robby gets there, and Johnny sees him, potentially rocking a Miyagi-do gi and can have his surprised/hurt moment with him and Daniel, even potentially a confrontation between them. We can also still have Miguel beating Robby in the tournament and having Johnny be conflicted about his son losing. Hawk can even still hurt him and give Johnny his “holy shit this is wrong” epiphany and Miguel not understanding why Johnny wants him to go easy on Robby. Robby can still be hurt and upset by thinking Johnny cares more about Miguel after he loses.

Okay now as for season 2? Assuming everything stays the same in season 1, I have one MAJOR complaint. Robby becoming Sam’s love interest; and no it’s not because I think Miguel and Sam should be an endgame couple when the show is over(I do but that’s beside the point) but because it turns Sam into a plot device. This carries over into season 3 where she starts dating Miguel again and apparently just never breaks it off with Robby which is such a dick move I can not for the life of me imagine Sam of all fucking people doing it. She isn’t perfect by any means but she’s also outspoken and and much more confident by that point and should not have had a problem breaking up with someone in an email. But I digress, back to season 2- the moment I saw that Sam and Robby were going to be a couple I immediately knew the writers fucked up. There was no build up for it, nothing in season 1 to foreshadow this as a possibility(Different but Same doesn’t count because that was a whiplash of an episode) and they just decided offhandedly to put her in the middle of Robby’s and Miguel’s rivalry. There was no reason to make them a couple other than to fuck with Miguel and set up the Tory & Sam rivalry which could have happened fucking anyway with the shit at the country club, the rift between Sam and Aisha, and Miguel’s ongoing feelings for Sam even after he’s dating Tory(also a dick move what the fuck Miguel??). Adding Robby as fuel to the fire was super unnecessary and all it did was set up the clusterfuck that was the season 2 finale.

And OH BOY was that finale a clusterfuck. First of all, as a prelude- Fuck. Daniel. He pulled the exact same shit as in season 1 with dumping Robby the second he does anything even a little bit wrong. But also, as a gut punch, Robby didn’t actually do anything wrong. What was he supposed to do at the party? He couldn’t stop Sam from drinking even though he wanted to, it was her (very poor) choice. But he did what he could, he kept an eye on her, and when the cops showed up, he didn’t just leave her, he put her in the car and drove her somewhere he thought she’d be safe without having to immediately face her father(who super fucking overreacted btw) while she was recovering. This scene, which could have been an excellent bonding moment for Johnny and Robby, and an introduction to Sam getting to know Johnny outside of her father’s influence, was turned into a brawl for no fucking reason. 

Which leads me to the school fight. And right off the bat I’ve got to say this; even as, and maybe especially as, a person who has written post season 3 fix it fics, there is no way for Robby and Miguel to convincingly fix what happened in the season 2 finale. Yes, what Robby did was absolutely an accident and he has already done his time for it. But the elephant in the room is this: Miguel could have died. Or at the very least, been totally paralyzed. There is not a good way to come back from that. They will always have that hanging over their heads, even if they somehow reach an understanding. And I know someone is going to try and make the argument about that being a parallel to Johnny and Daniel in KK1, but if it is that it’s a terrible parallel. What Johnny did was supremely fucked up and I won’t deny that, especially with the Halloween scene and Daniel’s knee in the tournament(which actually was technically more Bobby’s doing, but I digress), but it was never “almost permanently disable/kill someone” bad. (Again there’s a whole can of worms to open about the shit with Chozen and Daniel’s seemingly pretty easy forgiveness of a man who tried to kill him because what the fuck?? But again that’s another rant.) But the writers wanted to push the envelope so now Johnny will always have the tug of war of choosing Robby, who he loves but who also really fucked up, and Miguel, who was the original reason for the rivalry in the first place but who was also the one who, again, almost died because of his son, even if he somehow fixes his relationship with both. It will always be “why did you pick him over me?” and Johnny will never have a good enough answer for either of them. And finally the big complaint- Johnny completely regressing in season 3. Season 3 honestly felt like a rehashing of season 1 because we literally had to see him progress in his arc all over again from square fucking one. He still isn’t there for Robby, he’s still fucking up things with Miguel and his family, he’s still fucking up his relationship with Daniel, he still chooses to miss his appointment with Robby to see Miguel(who would have been there after the appointment and he could have seen him then), he abandons half of his fucking students to fend for themselves and leaves the other half with a man he knows is a dangerous psychopath. And yes we get the cool scene at the end of December 19, but is it worth it?? I’m genuinely asking because, as much as I love that scene, I really don’t believe it is.(edit: Also fuck that whole subplot with Eli and Demetri- you don’t get to just break the arm of the boy who was your best friend and just have that go away with no repercussions. Fuck. That. I hope Demetri gets at minimum an actual on screen apology, and hopefully Eli actually trying to make amends.)

We could have still had the big team up- have Johnny admit to Daniel that he’s fucked up and tell him everything that’s happening with Kreese. Have them join forces to defeat Kreese in the tournament. Have the dumb fucking bet. Introduce Terry Silver in season 4. Have Johnny’s and Daniel’s tenuous truce strained at every turn because they’re idiots. Do all of it. But y’know what? We could have had all of that- all of it- without it being at the expense of at least 2 character arcs; Johnny’s and also Robby’s.

Also before I end this I just have to add- nothing and I mean nothing will ever redeem Kreese or Silver for me. I do not give a singular shit about either of their tragic backstories, I just don’t. I get why and how Chozen got his redemption- he was a teenager when that shit happened, and while the shit he pulled is personally unforgivable in my opinion, he has actively been trying to redeem himself by spending the last however many decades making it up to his community. I’d even understand a Barnes redemption to an extent, even though I wouldn’t accept it, because he was also very young and being manipulated by, again, a dangerous psychopath. But Kreese and Silver? Abso-fucking-lutely not. They were two grown ass adults who purposefully targeted an 18 year old and put him through emotional and physical for weeks, paid someone to intimidate him through both threats of physical violence but also through vandalism, and gaslighted him and isolated him from the only family he had at the time because he beat them in a children’s karate competition. Look, I’m not sorry, I don’t give a fuck about Kreese’s tragic backstory, nothing about what Kreese has done can be rationalized by just saying “oh his mom and girlfriend died and he was in ‘Nam”. And any good thing he does for Tory, or even Robby, does not balance out all the harm he has caused. Silver is even less redeemable- I don’t care that he almost died in war, I’m an army brat I know plenty of people who almost died and don’t act like this. In canon we have evidence of him being completely, unrepentantly evil- the first scene with him in it has him basically confirmed as the BP of nuclear waste, he pays people so he can beat them up, he’s been personally funding Kreese’s child indoctrination classes. They could pull out the saddest backstory for him possible and I would not give a shit. And that’s fine. We don’t need every bad guy to have a tragic backstory- sometimes an evil villain can just be an evil villain for no reason, not all of them need a traumatic turning point that the authors shove in to make the audience sympathize with them. So please, writers, stop trying to make me feel sorry for them because I really don’t and I don’t understand anyone who does.

Okay rant over.

[maniclemons]

Yolanda, Camp Sensibility and the "Oscar Wilde Of The Camera"

Okay, so I was minding my business reading stuff for my work on dream narratives in popular culture and suddenly I was attacked at the footnotes section of one of the academic papers (which happens all the time tbh). The author mentioned in passing that, well, there is a musical called YOLANDA AND THE THIEF (1945) which just happens to be one of three Vincente Minnelli musicals that have been characterized as a self-conscious camp style of visual excess. The author argued that the camp style in musicals, especially those made by the Arthur Freed unit at MGM, was particularly appropriate to the even greater visual excess of the dream sequences. 

So yeah, of course I did a double-take and immediately thought of Donde estás Yolanda (Sherlock and John reunion theme) - thanks for the opportunity to refresh the hell out of it @thepineapplering !

FEATURES OF INTEREST of “Yolanda and the Thief” in no particular order:

• The "dream ballet" dream sequence (inspired by Dali); • Repressed homosexuality manifesting itself through nightmares and fear of entrapment in a heterosexual marriage; • Integration of straight romance (plot) and gay-inflected visual codes; • Critique of a capitalist culture industry from the point of view of a queer professional embedded in it (writer/director/set designer/crew member etc.) • Something else?

Also of interest: Holmesosexuality: On Mark Gatiss’s Camp 

As I am not, academically speaking, a specialist in queer theory, all the references can be found below.

I haven’t seen anyone writing about this particular musical in connection with Sherlock yet, but I might be wrong, because my tumblr search skills still suck a bit. Anyways, it was fun and added more contextual layers to my own understanding of the show!

“YOLANDA AND THE THIEF” is a 1945 American Technicolor Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer “Arthur Freed Unit” musical-comedy film set in a fictional Latin American country called Patria. It stars Fred Astaire, Lucille Bremer, Frank Morgan, and Mildred Natwick, with music by Harry Warren and lyrics by Arthur Freed. The film was directed by Vincente Minnelli and produced by Arthur Freed. The “Freed Unit” refers to the “unit” (studio team within the larger studio production house that was MGM) headed by lyricist and producer Arthur Freed. 

"Yolanda and the Thief" is one of three Vincente Minnelli musicals that have been characterized as a self-conscious camp style of visual excess, the other two being " Ziegfeld Follies " (1946) and…….. "The Pirate" (1947). As Jane Feuer suggests, "a gay subcultural reading would elevate these Minnelli masterpieces of the 1940s above the currently more esteemed Freed Unit musicals of the 1950s – "Singin' in the Rain" and "The Band Wagon", whose sophistication stems more from their smart Comden and Green scripts than from elements of excess in their mise-en-scene."

CAST:

Fred Astaire as Johnny Parkson Riggs Lucille Bremer as Yolanda Aquaviva (aqua-viva? as in Latin vivere/vita? as in "aqua vita(e)" which is "an archaic name for a concentrated aqueous solution of ethanol" and at the same time a type of magical water which brings people (mostly heroes) back to life in Slavic mythology?) Frank Morgan as Victor Budlow Trout (a friend of Johnny's and literally his partner in crime)

FEATURES OF INTEREST (in no particular order):

• The "dream ballet" dream sequence (inspired by Dali); • Repressed homosexuality manifesting itself through nightmares and fear of entrapment in a heterosexual marriage; • Integration of straight romance (plot) and gay-inflected visual codes; • Critique of a capitalist culture industry from the point of view of a queer professional embedded in it (writer/director/set designer/crew member etc.) • Something else?

The narrative of Yolanda offers a romance between a naive and wealthy young woman, Yolanda Aquaviva (Lucille Bremer), who is tricked by a con man, Johnny Riggs (Fred Astaire), into believing that he is her guardian angel. Johnny plays upon Yolanda's gullibility in order to convince her to confer her power of attorney on him, but just as he is ready to depart with the goods, he finds himself romantically and erotically drawn to her. His attraction to her surprises Johnny, because he ostensibly does not expect to find Yolanda a figure of erotic contemplation, and his jaded sensibilities lose out to his romantic impulses. But moments of camp playfulness in the film offer another reading of Johnny's surprise at discovering himself in a seduction beyond his overarching greed and cynicism, for there are strong possibilities for seeing him as gay.

DREAM SEQUENCE BALLET

The "dream ballet" sequence is an extended (approximately 15 minute) routine for Astaire, Bremer, and various others, which Minnelli has described as, "the first surrealistic ballet in film". Its Dali-esque scenery sort of mirrors "real-life" Patria which Yolanda’s Aunt Amarilla called “an out of the world place” elsewhere. That’s really what Minnelli was going for here. He seeks to evoke a feeling that Johnny have left behind what he knows and entered a world of mysticism and dreams.

This dream sequence ballet opens with Astaire dressed in a remarkable dandy outfit with a pair of off-white satin pajamas. Becoming restless in his bed, Johnny dresses and walks through the streets of Patria's unnamed capital, where he moves into increasingly surreal landscapes in which various women trap him in symmetrical dance steps: washerwomen unfold furls of different-colored fabric in stark geometric patterns that form a prison out of which he cannot escape. Yolanda’s entrance into the dream is grandly spooky. Against the backdrop of a Dali-esque desert landscape, Yolanda rises from a pool of water wrapped head-to-toe in pale scarves that float all around her. Her face is obscured, a look reminiscent of René Magritte’s 1928 painting The Lovers, and more suggestive of alienation than romance. Once Johnny unwraps Yolanda from her scarves, the spookiness of the sequence dissipates a little, but the mood has been set, and when the unwrapped Yolanda puts her arms around Johnny and sings, “Will You Marry Me?,” the effect is mildly sinister. The sequence concludes as Yolanda dons a set of outrageously long bridal veils and Johnny gets one of them wrapped around his neck like a noose when he attempts to flee.

In the "Will You Marry Me?" number Johnny wrestles with the trauma of potentially being trapped in a marriage to Yolanda for her money. Yolanda appears throwing off a series of veils trimmed in coins, and sirens in short dresses and high heels entice him with a cask into which Yolanda has dispensed her gold. The number effectively links Johnny's fear of marriage with his greed, or, more properly according to the dream-logic of the "Will You Marry Me?" sequence, his greed is the film's alibi for not stating more directly his desire not to bond with a woman, no matter what her beauty or wealth. The film temporarily addresses the question of whether Johnny will accede to the demands of marriage through the camp art direction's treatment of him as gay.

So this is more specifically a nightmare ballet, one that takes marriage—the typical happy ending of many an MGM musical (including—spoiler alert—this one)—and transforms it into a thing of anxiety and horror.

While the dramatic function of the dream ballet is questionable, its adventurous spirit and execution should not be ignored. Bear in mind that Agnes de Mille’s dream ballet for the original stage production of Oklahoma! first appeared on Broadway in 1943, just two years before Yolanda and the Thief hit movie screens. Yolanda and the Thief also predates The Red Shoes by three years and An American in Paris by six. Minnelli was staking out new territory here, trying out a storytelling technique that he and other filmmakers would employ with greater success in the future.

STYLE

What is labeled as the integration of straight romance and gay-inflected visual codes is more generally within the camp sensibility what we might call "style," or more particularly, a style of excess. James Naremore describes this differentiated style as Minnelli bringing “a rarefied sense of camp to musical numbers, making…[him] ‘an Oscar Wilde of the camera.’” To be an “Oscar Wilde of the camera” would of course conjure images not only of queer sexuality, but a simultaneous devotion to the aesthetics: one who would converse, write, lecture on subjects ranging from poetry to interior design. This parallels Sunsan Sontag’s assertion that “Clothes, furniture, all the elements of visual décor, for instance, make up a large part of camp. For camp art is often decorative art, emphasizing texture, sensuous surface, and style [sometimes] at the expense of content.” Indeed, Sontag begins her “notes on camp” by quoting Oscar Wilde’s famous aphorism, “one should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art.” However, camp is not simply an adoration of colour and texture, but a certain critical – comical, even – perspective on heterosexist and gender normative culture, both male and female. 

And beyond discussion of pure aesthetics of delight, camp within the Freed Unit is also indicative of a process of labour as method of negotiation between queer identity and heteropatriarchal capitalist hegemony (critique of a culture industry from the point of view of a queer professional embedded in it).

AUDIENCE REACTION

Campy style within Freed films circulated to noncamp audiences under the more general idea of their being “stylized” or “witty". The comments of film-goers who attended previews of, for example, Minnelli's "The Pirate" confirm that the studio knew that the film tended to emphasize its own spectacular art direction while sometimes disregarding streamlined storyline and clear characterization. In the cards, where anonymous viewers offered praise and disparagement, a repeated emphasis on the art direction arises: "the sets detracted from the people and the music was too loud," "not realistic enough," "entirely too surrealistic," "the beautiful background settings were exceptional," "plot rather thin," "truly one of the most exciting pictures from every standpoint, direction, artwork, color, dancing, scoring," "beautiful coloring," "slightly fantastic plot not developed in as natural and realistic a way as it could have been," and perhaps the most telling, "Minnelli back to the small minority who really appreciate him." The above comments would suggest that these viewers had screened a film by Dali or Bunuel, not the product of MGM after twenty years of corporate film-production experience.

Which takes us to the next (and very familiar) aspect…

MISE-EN-SCENE VS. STORYLINE

Musicals have largely been understood as primarily narrative films at the expense of other features. The plotline that structures many musicals is that of straight romance and marriage. The world in which a man and a woman meet and find initial attraction, in which their union is frustrated, and where ultimately the prohibitions to heterosexual bonding are overcome through the mediation of the song and dance number is typically the world of the musical. But there is more to the making of musicals beyond the plotline and its ancillary subplots, all of which are said to be brought to happy closure at the film's completion.

What seem to have been the memorable features of Freed unit musicals for contemporaneous viewers were their dazzling sets, costumes, use of color (in terms of film stock, set painting, and lighting) and choreography. These specific elements of film production are perhaps most likely what the various viewers are locating as the Freed unit's distinguishing style, or, to remember the viewer who commented on the "small minority" who might be interested in Minnelli films, that this style was idiosyncratic enough to have both fans and detractors. This style distinguished the unit's films from those of its rivals.

Minnelli's work habit of plotting a film's numbers by creating a series of paper dolls and scaled-down sound stages in which to place these figures suggests that his first impulses were to conceive of a film through its mise-en-scene rather than its storyline. Within the limits of the system, Minnelli was able to say a good deal about sets and costumes, and he usually influenced the overall visual conception of his films.

Dance (and singing) performance disrupts the narrative by momentarily disregarding the force of the story for the power of the spectacular dance routine. Likewise, the backdrops and costumes perform a similar function but that we tend not to notice their potential to antagonize narrative because, of course, most often the disjunctive features of the mise-en-scene are maintained in the film's movement back to the storyline.

Just as Johnny emerges from his dream shaken but unsure of what it means, the historian of camp production can perhaps trace the presence of a masked homosexual narrative only by remembering the strange details which seem to have been so easily forgotten.

REFERENCE:

Tinkcom, Matthew. Working like a Homosexual: Camp Visual Codes and the Labor of Gay Subjects in the MGM Freed Unit. Cinema Journal, Vol. 35, No. 2 (Winter, 1996), pp. 24-42.

Turner,  Lexi C M K. A Queer Translation: “Camp” Sensibilities of the Classical Hollywood Musical Era, vs. the 1970s Desertion of Narrative Utopia.

Cohan, Steven. Incongruous Entertainment: Camp, Cultural Value, and the MGM Musical (Durham N.C.: Duke University Press, 2005).

Dunne, Michael. American Film Musical Themes and Forms (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, 2004).

Cohan, Steven. “Introduction: Musicals of the Studio Era.” In Hollywood Musicals, the Film Reader. Edited by Steven Cohan. 1-15 (London and New York: Routledge, 2002).

Feuer, Jane. The Hollywood Musical, 2d ed. (London: BFI Books, 1993).

Sontag, Susan. “Notes On ‘Camp.’” In Against Interpretation and Other Essays. 275-292 (London: Penguin, 2009).

https://www.brightwalldarkroom.com/2018/10/24/yolanda-and-the-thief-1945/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yolanda_and_the_Thief

[sanoiro]

Lucifer 5x04 - The Mega Meta

This episode, the one all the cast and writers praised turned out to be the most challenging for the audience. Several hated it mainly for interrupting the flow of S5P1 whilst introducing a ‘weak’ story for Lucifer’s ring. Others loved it for all the meta, the concealed trivia and details that exist in that episode. 

In my opinion 5x04 took it’s time to warm up to my heart and therefore today it’s time to write a meta on it. I’ll try to cover all the bases and if I miss something I apologise! 

This meta will analyse, lines, settings, songs hopefully with the order they appear in the episode, as well as hints that it gives us for P2, the end of the series and many more things. 

The credits open to Lucifer whistling as per Netflix’s subtitles ‘Chattanooga Choo Choo’

A song of about a man waiting for his train as he gets a shoe shine. The lyrics reveal at the end that a girl is waiting him at his destination and that he intents to marry her and settle... A good foreshadowing about Lucifer no? Especially after the S3 game night fiasco...  

There's gonna be a certain party at the station Satin and lace, I used to call funny face She's gonna cry until I tell her that I'll never roam

By the way what’s this obsession over daggers and them killing people? Didn’t we have enough with the Flaming Sword in S2? 

Trixie: Has it ever killed anyone?

Let’s keep it that way kid... Although I doubt it. 

Now take a moment to realise that Lucifer was in Hell for thousands of years. He hasn’t had sex since his relationship with Eve and for his last night on Earth he prefers to play a game of Monopoly with Trixie and only when she turns him down Lucifer suggests getting a drink at LUX always in her company. That’s progress...

It also busts all claims of Lucifer being a sex obsessed maniac. 

The year is 1946...

WW2 is over and we find Lucifer in a new setting, a familiar one where through the episode we see that he has not just visited again but he is frequent visitor around that time. Just a few years later after all he was seen through Kinley’s photos in Nazi Germany. Now we know it was because apparently he owns a castle there, in the Austrian Alps... Not exactly in mint condition after the war though... 

By the way the castle that corresponds to that 22 bedroom description Lucifer gives is Schloss Ernegg Castle which belongs to the same family since the 17th century and it’s in great condition. Actually it operates as a hotel! 

The Hurry plays as we see Ellis strolling the WB New York area of the lot. Great old ones were shot there.. Like The Big Sleep (1946) staring Bogart and Bacall which was shot in 1944, reshot some parts in 1945 but was released after all the ‘proper’ war time movies were released first. 

A bit like this episode The Big Sleep carries ‘process of a criminal investigation, not its results’. Also around that time we have The Killers coming out, The Killers is important to mention as aside from being based on a story by Hemingway who was in Cuba in 1946 not in New York as Lucifer claims, it was directed by Robert :. Siodmak made most of the Hollywood’s noir classics and was always faithful to the doomed attraction which would always resolve to a nihilistic conclusion... (Thank you wiki! :P)

The connection to Lucifer, between the lines and the off hand comments like Hemingway is that noir films were based on the German Expressionism in cinema, and one of the most prominent figure for the US was that one German director Robert Siodmak. 

The purpose of the above information is in order to tell you that a black & whte effect and a crime story is not what makes a noir episode. The writers were faithful to the core of noir. Entrapment, flashbacks, narration. The tropes of murder, jealousy, backstabbing and crime is also there, easy to replicate after all for sure. A dead man walking and ‘selective’ amnesia is also convenient... 

Triumph and tragedy can be found and lost in the maze of the cities and in questionable establishments... Like in bars... 

Moving on!

The credits open and we listen to The Hurry Up played by The Heath And His Orchestra. Dear Heath was British not an American. A subtle nod to Ellis probably as the leading man. But here is the thing Heath was the performer not the composer of that piece. The composer was Kenny Graham (Again British) and probably that piece was written after 1958 but anyways it’s an inconsistency we (-I-) can certainly live with!

Lucifer and Lilith last meeting was at around 1770 (Marie Antoinette was born in 1755) now whether in Austria or France who knows....  I would assume that Lucifer stayed in Austria until WW2 as aside from the wars and other issues it had a great cultural field for him to explore such as literature, music and lacked the brashness of the new-founded then US (1776). 

Tiny issue here... Moctezuma (The 2nd) who Lilith claims to have met died in 1520, a bit after Cortés arrived in what we know today as Mexico so we can assume that Lilith travelled between the New World and Europe until Lucifer found her in New York in 1946. 

Lilith in a relationship with Tommy Stomponato who owned the club, she probably influenced him enough to name it ‘The Garden’ as se admits to Gertie later in the episode, she really loved that Garden hence why she took a small part of it with her. 

Now the name Tommy Stomponato is directly influenced by Johnny Stomponato part and bodyguard of the Cohen Mafia boss Mickey Cohen. Now funny thing he was stabbed by Lana Turner’s (Hollywood star) daughter Cheryl Crane... That remind us a bit of Gertie as she yes both were stabbed by a woman but both were not prosecuted. The first as Lilith didn’t want Gertie to lose the limited time she had with her husband and Cheryl because she claimed self-defense. 

The first time we see Lesley Ann as Lilith she sings ‘I want to be evil’ originally performed at the debut of Eartha Kitt and first released in 1953. It is considered brilliant for it’s feminism and ‘video clip’ starring Kitt... 

It’s a song that carries Lilith’s agony which even Eve carried. The need for freedom, the need to break the chains of what they should be and what we see that even Maze carries throughout the series. It’s a song that reaffirms that betrayal towards God, Adam and Lucifer in Maze’s case is not an act of evilness but the need of these women to re-sculpture themselves without aid or instructions. In Kitt’s case it was social conformity. Also Johnnie Ray was the ‘guy who cries’ aside from his hit song in 1951 ‘Cry’ him crying after his wedding was received with mixed feelings I believe from the press and his fans. 

Now we see that crime for Lucifer was fun and again he wanted to Laugh with Hemingway who again in 1946 was not in New York but had just starting to write his novel ‘Garden of Eden (published posthumously in 1986) and it explored the reversal of gender roles a bit like this Lucifer episode does. 

So Lucifer accepts the case of finding the ring but needs help. Jack Monroe is the one that can help him and the name is inspired probably by Iowa’s born Jack Monroe Marvel character who lived in New York, fought the Nazi (See Jack talking about the Battle of the Bulge), sidekick to Captain America - in a way - and ended up shot and killed. The character had many cliche detective phrases. But that’s mostly a likely speculation :P 

Now as Jack goes to talk to the ‘rat’ Lucifer comments on Gertie serving him a drink ‘Just what the doctor ordered’ an obvious connection to Harris playing Dr Linda. 

A nice prop is the machine gun over the bar an alleged gift from Al Capone who had been arrested 17 years earlier and died in 1947.

Thanks for listening, XOXO A. Capone

Now Lucky Larry who ends up dead is wearing an eyepatch probably a nod to another great director of noir films and of german expressionism in cinematography Fritz Lang. 

At that point we have the talk between Lucifer and Jack concerning the laters problem with his wife.  The story as everyone has noticed is a parallel with the issue that Lucifer and Chloe never begun on an equal ground. Someone had manipulated them and in both cases both parties suffered. Both men were manipulated by someone over them in hierarchy and both stood on a dilemma on how to proceed. It took Lucifer over 60 years to realise how difficult it was to leave and even then in 2x14 he returned. 

 As Jack and Lucifer get to Willy’s mansion all the paintings depict him as a great warrior in all possible eras. As Napoleon, Fritz of Austro-Hungarian Empire, Henry the 8th, Ivan, and that armour I believe it was from Carlomagne?

Also Hannibal crossing the Alps? 

The little sausages are self-explenatory for the character and perhaps the lilies in his house a connection to the episode and the P1′s plot. 

Lucifer checking the armour’s genital protector? Priceless :P As was Willy’s connection to Dan. 

Now something that always make me wonder is why Lilith calls God Adam’s father as if she never considered him her own. At the same time she gives us a big hint there. She never walked away she was ‘sent’ away. 

Gertie reveals there that her husband was wounded at the Guadalcanal campaign which ended in 1943 meaning that Bill was unresponsive for about three years at that point. The good news is that Bill seems to have been inspired by Bill Lentsch. Lentsch wrote a memoir called My Story and then adapted under the Title Hope For Wounded Warriors.

As a wounded warrior, Bill Lentsch knows the frustrating feelings of apparent helplessness and hopelessness. A sea-going Marine on the cruiser USS Vincennes at the beginning of World War II, he was a "hot shell catcher". The story of Bill's survival when the Vincennes sank is a story of miracles. In contrast, the story of his post-war rehabilitation and readjustment to civilian life, including a bad marriage {Sanoiro: At this point we have a differentiation but you never know}, contains more than its share of dark pages and the consequences of poor choices. Contemplating the option of murder, then suicide, was a vivid reality. Thankfully, the story of his later years brings hope and inspiration as Bill shares his personal journey of discovery.

Meanwhile the investigation continues.  In the apartment we see pigeon cages a rather popular hobby back then in New York and not just for the messages they transported. Also do notice the WB water tower in the back. Iconic!

Lucifer finds a cuban cigar. Romeo y Juliet. The meta here obvious bit nonetheless important to our main love story. 

With Stomponato dead we have a chance to delve a bit to Egyptian mythology. 

First the missing heart. The main organ that according to ancient Egyptians held the answer of how well you had done while you lived and what you deserved after death. It was measured and a conclusion sent you to afterlife or to damnation. 

Second the Anubis mask. He was the God of Death who oversaw the heart weighting process. The colour black symbolised the Nile’s sand and thus regeneration as the river was a symbol of life. Anubis was adopted by Isis

Third the Eye of Horus. The Eye of Horus was used as a sign of prosperity and protection, derived from the myth of Isis and Osiris. This symbol has an astonishing connection between neuroanatomical structure and function.  

That’s the basics but you can go further from there if you want to just remember that Egyptian deities hold an Ankh the symbol and work of life. 

In 504 we learn that death is final, there is no eternal life. It cannot be given as a commodity, the ring cannot help so I would focus more on the stone itself and if Lilith’s immortality is used then it will not be used as it is in my opinion but more about that later on. 

The shop sacred eye and the high priest take us back to two episodes of S1. First in 1x07 - Wingman where the high priest parallels the auctioner who was ready to sell everything of ‘supernatural’ worth knowing they were mostly garbage to make money. Second 1x12 - #TeamLucifer the satanic high priest who had said ‘-the Devil ain't gonna buy me an Aston Martin’. In 504 the High Priest wanted a Pontiac. 

Lucifer comment on Tutankhamun loving the pre-sacrificed bloody heart might have to do with the Egyptian mythology that  If a heart during the scaling was judged to be not pure, Ammit (female demon/god) would devour it, and the person undergoing judgment would not allowed to continue their afterlife journey.

One of the best lines delivered in this episode is also foreshadowing P2 in my opinion and why not some bts but not clear or definite ones. 

In the modern age, we are taught to fear death. But the ancients understood that death... is power. - High Priest (Lucifer 5x04)

It is why I always say that death is not the last frontier in our series and as such it should be taken neither as the final chapter to an individual’s story nor as irreversible (with the right collaterals always) somehow. Although you cannot cheat death forever, this is the beauty of our story. Death is valued just as much as life. 

As such as we are in the High Priest ‘office’ it is not accidental we see the Tree of Life (See my Tree of Life Meta *Here*). The designs are Celtic around the mirroring tree of Life in what we can assume is in Life and Death is as vibrant and ‘alive’ in both sides. 

1) triskelion: meaning the three legs, is an ancient pre-celtic symbol that can be traced to the bronze era. It symbolises the holy trinity in Christianism but also the inner and outer world of spirits. As you can tell it holds a variety of meanings and even if it is just there, picked in random from the WB prop house we should note that it also symbolises the trinity of life, death and rebirth as well as the trinity of the transition of womanhood. The Triple Goddess: maiden, mother and the (older?) wise woman. 

For this meta we will take the trinity of life, death and rebirth as well as elevate it to the transition of our lead characters. Chloe as a young woman, a mother and now a ‘wise’ older and more mature woman. Lucifer as the young rebel, a struggling with maturity and responsibility man and what he may become by the end of S5 without shedding any of his prior roles and identities. Only this time his identities no longer ‘stain’ him. 

2) Knotted symbol - Eternal knot: We see them in many cultures and religions in Buddhism they represent birth, death and rebirth. In the inside we see Solmon’s Knot a symbol of immortality and eternity but some also parallel it to Lover’s Knot (See True Lover’s Knot), an ancient symbol of commitment and love. From this keep the eternal part of the symbolism which is often depicted in jewish cemeteries. 

3) Celtic Cross: They are said to be based on some cases to the Egyptian Ankh (See Coptic Crosses), some also allege the design in the combination of the Christian cross and the pagan sun disk. 

4) The Celtic Tree of Life: For this I take what is written in this site

The tree represents rebirth. Trees were said to guard the land and acted as a doorway into the spirit world.

The Tree of Life connects the lower and upper worlds as its roots grow far down while its branches reach high. The tree trunk connects both of these worlds to the Earth’s plane. It was with this connection of worlds, that it was said that people are able communicate with the gods in the heavens using the Tree of Life.

Tree of Life knots symbolize the branches and roots of a tree which are woven together with no end to show how the cycle of life is continuous.

Through the second part of the episode I was always looking at Lucifer’s tie. I might be wrong but it reminded me a lot of gears, with a heart and clocks on it. Essentially the clock is ticking... in more ways that one as well as for Lilith but give me some more lines before I return to this meta point.

As Lucifer asks how humans believe her ring makes her immortal she ends her story with the line:

“I survive, and... somebody writes it on a stone tablet. You know how these things start.”

For me that was always a direct reference to the Favourite Son deal we had with the book in episode 2x17. As Lucifer said in 2x18 when Chloe asked whether his Dad said that Amenadiel was His favourite, Lucifer replies: 

In so many Sumerian words. 

Later on in S3 (3x14) Lucifer tells to Cain that Amenadiel is the favourite when he asks him as: 

But the quick version: a book said it, so it must be true.

To be honest this re-occurring mentioning makes me hold to my belief that something was translated wrong there...

As the 5x04 sceheme to get the ring back is underway Lilith looks at Jack & Shirley’s interaction which is interesting not because it’s when Lilith starts to perhaps thinking of retiring her immortality but because a very special question comes to mind. 

Michael knew the ring’s story. He claimed that he was the one who manipulated Lucifer into having his vacation, but his vacation just ‘happened’ to be at the same time Chloe was on Earth? 

Here is a speculative meta. 

Lilith asks Lucifer if he ever connected with anyone emotionally to which he replies: 

Absolutely not. It would take a literal miracle for me to want something like that, and I'm fairly certain my father's not handing those out anymore.

It makes you wonder whether Michael was around listening, planning carefully his next moves. That that’s how he knew the ring’s story, or how he may have plotted Chloe’s miraculous birth by manipulating God. 

At this point everything is possible but we should never forget that God at that point is still powerful and omniscience so Michael might be only alf of the explanation why Chloe is on Earth as a key for Michael to take down his brother and materialise his other plans. The other half is only known by God but will he be willing to share in P2 or even in S6 if he appears there? 

Lesley-Ann as Lilith starts to sing ‘Someone to Watch Over Me’ a song written over the songwritter’s (Ira Gershwin) wedding anniversary, a true love song on many levels written in 1926 and featured in the Brodway Musical ‘Hey, Kay!’. 

The musical’s plot is about an engaged womaniser falls in love with Kay and the song after lots of thought was placed to reveal to the audience of Kay’s realising that she is in love with the male lead, womaniser Jimmy. 

We will never perhaps know if by imminence to Lilith’s first song lyrics, Lilith to a point was in love with Lucifer and held on to hope until she surrendered everything for a normal life not wanting to wait for the impossible. Of course that’s just one interpretation not a hard conviction of mine. 

An analysis of the song writes: 

When first composing this piece, the Gershwin brothers tried to capture the feeling of safety (and love) that everybody longs to have. The addition of the doll (a doll was added as the listener of the song in the rehearsals and stayed in the show) only enhanced the childlike, vulnerable side of the song that was being hinted at in lyrics such as, “I’m a little lamb who’s lost in the woods.”

Although many artists sing this like a love song, its first performance, directed at a doll, gave the piece an aura of safety not usually present in romantic songs.

Perhaps that safety should be also attributed here. Lilith still has her safety still holding on to her immortality knowing though that she will surrender it. Lucifer is unaware he one day will surrender his willingly because he fell in love. 

In the end they both carry the vulnerability of needing someone to understand and love them. No matter how cynical we find both Lilith and Lucifer with his brutal Caligula orgy comments, they both crave about someone. Both have lost hope to their Shepard aka God/Dad.

 Perhaps I’m wrong on my first impression with Lilith and her affection towards Lucifer. Perhaps they both are the prodigal children, lost in the woods wishing for someone to finally take care of them but no longer hoping for one, until Lilith takes the leap. Lucifer will need almost 80 more years and Chloe Decker to let someone take care of him. 

Perhaps that’s why they do a duet on the lyrics:

Someone who'll watch over me

I'm a little lamb who's lost in the wood I know I could, always be good To one who'll watch over me

And the case is back to move the episode forward and enter the present Lucifer Trixie interlude and ‘Forget it Trix. It’s Chinatown!’

That line was the most obvious one as it comes from the more recent noir movie with Bogart and Chinatown (1974).  In the movie aside from the mystery plot Evelyn - the mother eventually dies, the twist is that of an abuse which led to her daughter/sister’s birth and although that does not fit our serie’s plot the death of the main lady might. All a speculation so do not be dishearten remember all the above and this is not an S&S it’s a meta :P 

After all Lucifer’s line goes back to the complex dealings in Chinatown and how understanding something fully is not always feasible. 

Interesting is also how Lucifer shots, albeit the foot not the leg, of willy to prove Willy is not immortal. Like Chloe did to him in 1x04 and to Michael in 5x02. Jewelry is not going to save anyone. Big words but you know me. I believe in other provisions or actions even if they include the ring. 

We all die, Lily. And that's okay. Truth is... I'd rather die today trying to save the man I love... than live forever without him.

The past, the present and perhaps the future?

The case is resolved and Jack follows Shirley to Des Moines (Capital of Iowa). That’s an inner joke as Joe Henderson is from Iowa and graduated from the University of Iowa. 

Before Jack follows her remember that Shirley had asked more from him when he told her to be careful. A bit like Chloe in the evidence room in 5x08. If some have watched unconditional love then you might remember the scene where Kathy Bates tells to her husband played by Dan Aykroyd that him telling her ‘I love you was never a condition but at that point it now was. Similar to what we saw Chloe asking from Lucifer. A foreshadowing perhaps that eventually Lucifer will follow Chloe. 

Now two things. Lucifer in episode 504 prepares their game night. He is now comfortable and even enjoying their game nights, he find himself right where he wants to be without being fearful of being dull. He is a shoe and that’s fine. 

When Trixie asks Lucifer whether Jack and Shirley had a happy ending he tells her probably not as they moved to Des Moines meaning it was a boring move between New York and Iowa in general. Iowa and Des Moines have been used several times in jokes by the way due to Henderson. 

Now back to Lucifer, at that point he does not see that sometimes sacrifices that lead to ‘boring’ lives are the best outcome and happiness is not equal to excitement but he is a slowly maturing Devil... 

That part can help us to analyse the end of the story from 1946. 

Lucifer says: Once you do this, there's no going back.

This implies that whether you surrender your immortality or gain it -for the second I’m quite doubtful it can be done on the same terms - it is forever. No going back. 

Lilith’s next words reveal a broken woman who gets her Hail Mary and hopes for the best. As a parent she offered her children the best place to never realise they are lacking but Lucifer by bringing Maze to earth undid that as Maze slowly reaches her potential, learning there is a different way. God’s words echo since 3x26.

So was Lucifer a kindergarten guardian for Lilith? In a way yes but Lucifer in 5x04 understood Lilith’s logic. In their distorted image of how you can break an individual, the Lilims seemed safe from Lucifer’s and Lilith’s fates. Cast out, punished, unloved, lonely and in an unspoken despair to connect but too afraid to try again until Lilith tried again. The end of 504 showed she didn’t succeed o find what she was looking for. We have no way of knowing if we will see her again in P2 but it’s probable. 

Lilith kisses Lucifer goodbye, making me once again wonder if a part of her did had feelings for him and wishes him back to enjoy the rest of his life as if somehow she knew, although she couldn’t. 

The story ends here and perhaps the clock starts ticking for Lucifer through Michael. Perhaps the planning started with Penelope and John that were meant to be born, get married but not have children and then Chloe came along. But that’s just a theory...

And before the screen fades to dark, Lilith walks away with Lucifer standing in the middle of the street and we listen to ‘This Is Ours’ by Peter Sivo’s Band (1946-1961).

This is Ours lyrics are the words of a man which mystify me. For me it is a song that gives us a couple together after a very long time that reconnects. It was a meant to be couple but the past had to happen. He had to get married, for both of them to live apart their own lives until one day they get back together and now they can be together. There is no sadness, there is relief, contentment. 

Several say that How I Met Your Mother had an awful ending. If you have not watched it and want to please stop here but know that I believe that the ending was just right. 

In How I Met Your Mother, the lead (father) marries the mother of his children but it is revealed that she eventually dies and some years later he starts telling them a story that lasts ten years as all aspects of it in his belief is about how he met their mother. His daughter interrupts him saying that no it’s about how he met the woman he wants to be together now. They all know that the Mother was loved and was the One but in this life there is more, there are second chances because life happens and it’s not a bad thing and the time in between is as joyful as the future despite of the tragedies in between. 

So a part of me wonders if Deckerstar will go a bit through that to a point. 

Forget the past, for this is ours...

The thing is that a bittersweet ending gives as a possibility and then we are left wondering past that. 

Trixie: I bet Jack and Shirley talked the whole bus ride and fixed everything. Lucifer: Yes. Yes, perhaps they did.

After all they did move to Des Moines... After that we can only guess. 

[not-a-space-alien]

hey its me again wall of text sorry not sorry

k i saw your little treatise justifying zadr and yknow its a cartoon its not the worst thing ever of course nobody is gonna sue you for reblogging fanart or burn you at the stake or w/e and im glad you decided to open yourself up to a differing opinion but zim IS portrayed as an adult. there was even an unfinished episode where zim’s childhood and growing up training from start to finish would be shown so by the time of the pilot he is definitely a full grown developed adult by irken standards especially if hes a former member of an elite military force like the invaders. jhonen has said that the irony and sad comedy of zims character is that hes a grown ass man and a war veteran to boot who VOLUNTARILY goes to an elementary school every day and throws hands with an 11 year old boy who should be well below his notice because he’s that pathetic and desperate for validation that he’ll stoop to seeking it from a child. it also sets up a dynamic between them where dib is CHALLENGED by having to go up against an adult with way more experience than him while dib is just a child, so when he wins its more meaningful, which is a common trope in childrens fiction that an underdog young hero has to take down a powerful adult villain.

jhonen might joke a lot but he’s serious about this part of the characterization of zim and dib and he even went to great lengths to make dib look and act more like a kid in ETF (more emotional and naive, designed to look smaller/softer, going in depth with his relationship to his dad and sister and needing his dad to protect him at the end when he’s too overrun to fight alone) just to drive home the point of how young he is. it was a very deliberate move and jhonen knows what hes doing ESPECIALLY since he also left zim pretty much unchanged and also includes gags about zim’s relative maturity like animating him briefly grimacing because his joints are sore and the part where he pretty much gestures to his crotch and goes “theyre afraid to look at ALL-A THIS”. like you would not see jhonen do that sort of joke with an underage character ok. dont confuse his social awkwardness and self deprecating/trolling humor for not knowing the difference between right and wrong and not acknowledge when he means something sincerely because he doesn’t just clown on people and troll ALL THE TIME 24/7 hes a human, and times have changed with more awareness on issues such as the grooming of minors so he can go back on things he may have said in the past that he doesn’t agree with now or said by mistake. he has said enough times that zim is older than any human alive that its safe to take his word for it by now. judging by the one strip he did in JTHM about johnny murdering a pedophile who was about to prey on squee i think his stance on protecting kids is pretty clear. also i wouldnt put it past jhonen to have redesigned membrane to be more chaddy looking to divert the adult fandom’s attention away from dib and throw the fangirls a bone but thats a whole nother can of worms lol.

and the justification that zim is immature so hes essentially on dib’s level is a reversal of something lots of kids hear from either creepy or ignorant adults who tell them theyre “so mature for their age”. no matter how emotionally mature you are it wont ever compensate for the number of years youve been alive so that’s not very sound logic, and even in fic where theyre both adults it’s still pretty weird because it doesn’t erase their history where zim knew dib as a kid. that’s sort of like a grownup waiting with bated breath until a kid is “legal” so they can start dating. kinda like when jacob imprints on bella’s newborn daughter in twilight then having it handwaved away by saying he’ll wait till she’s grown up, which understandably drew a huge amount of criticism. it’s a loophole that might be mildly acceptable in some cases but the context leaves it colored with a residual ickiness that sets off some red flags for me and a lot of other people.

also you said zim is an alien and therefore the situation itself is unrealistic, but the reason invader zim’s writing resonates with people is because zim is written with very HUMAN emotions and motivations and part of the humor again is how irkens despite being aliens from another planet mirror some of humanity’s worst flaws such as being petty, gluttonous, willfully ignorant, arrogantly believing they are special and better than everyone else, easily manipulated by propaganda, all too eager to greedily colonize other societies etc making them not so different from us at all. so the premise out of context might not seem realistic but the idea of a sad burnout adult who doesn’t realize how humiliating it is to be consistently outsmarted by a kid less than half their age IS realistic and applicable to human interaction since we’ve likely all met someone like this before at one point in our lives for example a schoolteacher who has a personal vendetta against one or more of their students and has nothing better to do than antagonize them, or a really dumb parent that you fight with a lot.

another thing, i know you and other fans probably have a lot of sentimental value and nostalgia attached to zadr because you probably shipped it back when you were a kid yourself and you cant be blamed for something you liked as a kid, but youre an adult now, and you have to listen to the portion of kids in the fandom who dont like zadr and say without question that the age gap makes them uncomfortable. those kids ARE the priority. we’re grown up now and we have to put our feelings aside for them because that’s part of being responsible and mature. i feel like zim himself is a pretty good example of how not to act at our age [shrug emoji]

and anyway a lot of the same elements of zadr can be explored with zadf just as well with just as much potential for cute moments and as a bonus is it’s not creepy

You do bring up some good points, and I’m not saying you’re wrong...  But honestly I’m still not convinced.  I mean, stuff that Jhonen said, the thing is even if it’s the author saying it it’s still outside of canon, that’s the reason why Neil Gaiman got flack for Good Omens because they didn’t write an actual kiss or hug or hand-hold between Aziraphale and Crowley yet Neil Gaiman went on Twitter saying they were queer representation.  I still don’t really put much stock into what he says because the unfinished episodes and Jhonen’s commentary don’t really change the dynamic that’s actually in the show.  And again...Jhonen said if there were going to be romance in the show it would be Zim/Gaz, so he’s either a huge hypocrite or doesn’t view Zim as being incompatible with Gaz.

I do think it’s much better when Dib is an adult and it just makes more sense, and I actually do prefer zadf to zadr and if i were going to ever write fanfiction or make fanart it would probably just be zadf, just because i know this does have some stuff to think about and I totally respect that you have a different view of it, but i honestly just don’t see it that way.  The analogy with Jacob imprinting on Bella’s child in Twilight isn’t really the same thing honestly.  The author in that situation tried to make it not......that....by saying that imprinting isn’t always a romantic relationship thing, and that Jacob would be more of an older brother, but honestly that doesn’t really negate the impact of grooming that kid would have with Jacob around.  The idea that Zim would somehow be grooming Dib seems really silly to me although you’re right, I think his characterization in Into the Florpus has evolved somewhat especially with regard to Dib wanting to get his father’s approval, but again Zim has parallels with that in trying to please the Tallest.  the world-building and characterizations are inconsistent and scattershot at best.  Like no, zim isn’t waiting for him to turn legal, that’s absurd, they’re nemeses coming at each other then learning to be friends.  You’re right that that doesn’t have to be zadr but I still tag it as zadr so people can block it if they want to.

Like, I’ve seen people ship Zim with Professor Membrane instead of Dib.  That seems very weird to me.  that professor membrane would have a relationship with someone who literally goes to his son’s elementary school and who doesn’t know anything at all about human behavior and emotions.

I feel like with this discussion people don’t really understand the problem with age gaps. With age gaps, it’s not a matter of mature/immature, it’s about development.  A ten year age gap sounds like a lot right?  a 25-year-old and a 15-year old would absolutely have a predatory “relationship.”  But a 35- and a 45-year old, that’s perfectly fine.  Having a difference in age doesn’t automatically make the relationship unhealthy.  so if Dib is 25 and Zim is [whatever the hell aliens years i still don’t really take Jhonen’s word for it bc he’s not consistent], that’s doesn’t mean it has to be bad.  The thing about telling minors they’re “so mature for their age” to try and convince them that a person interested in them isn’t a pedophile is that we know a human being who is 15 isn’t developmentally at the same level as a 25-year-old regardless of their behavior.  What is Zim?  All we have to go on is how he acts, and he acts like Dib is an equal match, it’s not “he’s immature for his age,” it’s very unclear.  Raw number of years isn’t the ultimate decider, for example in DnD lore elves reach maturity at, like, 100 years old so a 25-yo human trying to get with a 50-year-old elf would be predatory to the young elf even though the “younger” one is technically twice as old as the human.  Do you see what I’m saying?

I also don’t really buy the idea that Invader Zim’s writing resonates with people because Zim is ~~so human~~.  The guy steals a bunch of kid’s organs in one episode and flies into a tantrum over the slightest inconvenience.  You have to be reading really deeply into it and dig into some old internet archives of things Jhonen Vasquez has said to paint it as realistic.  You can do some interesting things with it wrt like, Zim being defective and starting to experience human emotions but that’s mostly fanon.

Well, you’ve given me some things to think about, thanks for explaining your side to me.  I’m still going to tag things as #zadr so people can block if it can’t plausibly be categorized as zadf.  I’m not actually making any fan content for Invader Zim so the point is kind of moot, but if I ever do I’ll definitely take this into consideration.

[kinnsporsche]

SHOW eastenders SHIP ballum CHARACTER callum

EASTENDERS

Favorite character: 

callum highway baby

Least Favorite character: 

ian beale die already

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon):

ben and callum

jay and lola

ash and iqra

kush and martin

chantelle and whitney

Character I find most attractive:

you really expect me to pick just one when ben, callum, whitney, chantelle, mick, ash, iqra, all the panesar brothers, and jay all exist???? i refuse

Character I would marry:

marriages dont tend to work out on this show damn, but whitney im love her

Character I would be best friends with:

callum highway

A random thought:

i want keanu to shoot callum so we get some gorgeous ben x callum angst and an angsty i love you and i want lexi to draw him pictures whilst he’s in the hospital ee get on this thanks

An unpopular opinion:

i really enjoyed ben’s “you make me want to be better” line, i know a lot of people disliked it but with it being a direct parallel to how he was talking to phil about how paul made him better and want to be better i really loved it

My canon OTP:

ben and callum baby!!!!!

Non-canon OTP:

chantelle and whitney deserve to be together let them kiss

Most badass character:

callum highway no doubt about it boyyyyyyyyyy

Pairing I am not a fan of:

mick and linda

Character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another):

linda. i used to really like her but especially with how she reacted with johnny first came out i grew to hate her so quickly, and i really don’t think they’re handling her alcoholism sl well

Favourite friendship:

jay, lola, ben, callum, and lexi!!!! give me more of this family right the fuck now!!!!!

BALLUM

when or if I started shipping it.

i was so vehemently against shipping it at first because i didn’t want to get sucked back into the ee-verse, but seeing gifs of ben when he came back convinced me. he’s a character i’ve always wanted to see on screen, he’s unapologetically gay and always makes gay jokes about it like me and so many other queer people do and i finally got him and had to let myself get sucked back into it and then shipping ben and callum was almost like a natural progession from there. their dynamic is so chefs kiss and i love them sm 

my thoughts:

i have so many thoughts about them all the time lauren can attest to that we literally send each other paragraphs and paragraphs about them. the main thing about them that i love so much is their eye contact. it’s something thats so important and vital in their dynamic, they’re always looking at each other or looking for each other and even before they were a thing they were always making eye contact. it all comes right back to ben saying that he see’s callum but callum see’s him too and its something both of them haven’t had in so long?? nobody’s been able to just look at them and really SEE for so long and now they cant seem to ever look away from each other and they dont want to look away. the other thing thats so important in their dynamic is physical contact. they’re always touching each other like holding hands in the street or ben has his hand on callum’s thigh or callum is touching ben’s arm and shoulders because it’s such a reassuring gesture to both of them and they know they both need it. like, they both must be so touch starved?? ben has had physical touch, he’s super open about his sex life so we know that, but we know its canon that before callum he hadn’t just touched and been held in non-sexual ways since paul and callum has been pretending to be straight for 28 years and yeah he’s been touched too, but never in the way he really needed. when they meet in the park for the first time callum’s almost drawn to ben like a magnet and cant help but lean into him when he reaches out to touch him and the dam just BREAKS because he’s so starved of touch. and then when they get together its like constant touching because they both know that and its such a physical reassurance for the both of them and they’re not ashamed to admit that they both need it. ben isn’t tactile with many people, but he really is with people he cares about like lexi, jay, kathy, and now callum and i think that’s really important for their dynamic. anyway this got long and i could talk about this all day but i wont

What makes me happy about them:

we love representation baby!!!! and i love how devoted they are to each other, even if they show it in wildly different ways. callum is there for ben no matter what and chooses to defend him even when everybody else is against him, he sees all the good in ben where people would only ever see bad and chooses to stand by him through it all. and ben shows it so obviously whenever he tries to protect callum, like when he broke up with him because he thought he would ruin him and when he asked him if he wanted him to take care of leo. they both are so open and honest with each other and they really come into their own skin around each other. callum has become more confident and assured since they started dating and ben has become a lot softer and he isn’t afraid to be vulnerable now and everybody can see it. they both are two sides of the same coin and they bring out the best in each other!!

What makes me sad about them

oh don’t even get me started, ben is so fucking self-sacrificial. he pushed callum away to protect him even if it meant breaking his heart and callum pushed back and really challenged him even if it meant getting hurt more in the process. they both have had real difficult pasts and they’re so riddled with trauma and they could have so easily become closed off and cold but they didn’t, they both choose to love each other so deeply and fiercly 

Things done in fanfic that annoys me

it’s not so much of an annoyance but people making them sound super slangy or cockney makes me squirm

Things I look for in fanfic

the characterisation baby!!!! @sunsetsover has the best ben and callum characterisations in fics everything she writes is so flawless. 

My kinks:

i’ll never get over the fact that as soon as callum got back they stared at each other for a solid 30 seconds and then had desk sex in an unlocked office in the middle of the day on jay’s desk. also i would very much love to see one or both of them (particularly callum!!!!) get flustered over someone on the square noticing a hickey on their neck thank u very much

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other:

dont ask me this question the answer is nobody. they’ve set them up so deeply and their relationship is something thats so important and vital for each other that its hard for me to picture them with anybody else so seriously because of the established connection. 

My happily ever after for them:

ben, lola, jay, callum, and lexi all move away from the square together and live somewhere else as a happy little familly because its what they deserve. literally any ending where they end up together alive and happy

CALLUM HIGHWAY

How I feel about this character:

i love him with my whole ass heart i would die for him!!! i really want him to get his own sl soon, particularly the ptsd sl.

All the people I ship romantically with this character:

ben mitchell

My non-romantic OTP for this character:

i love his friendship with lola and jay!!!!! 

My unpopular opinion about this character:

let him be dark already, mans is dating a mitchell and actively keeping a murder a secret and the writers still expect me to believe that he’s a cookie-cutter butter wouldn’t melt guy?? no. give me more of the callum who beat the shit out of leo and knows how to defend himself. let him overhear someone on the square threatening ben or lexi and just decking them in the face.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon:

with the kidnapping sl i really want him to get shot, it would be an amazing parallel to ben getting shot in the vic and we’d get an angsty i love you from ben and some soft hospital scenes. BUT!!!!! i also want him to kick the shit out of keanu beforehand. he’s strong as fuck theres no way keanu would get the drop on him. maybe keanu threatens lexi or ben and callum threatens him and says if he even tries he won’t have to outsource his murder because he’ll kill him himself. i want ben, stuart, and jay to turn up and keanu’s got bruises and blood on him and callum’s just like “i wondered how long it would take for you to show up” just let him be the badass morally grey character that he’s growing into

My OTP:

ben and callum baby!!!!!!!

My OT3:

i don’t have an ot3 for them but i think the dynamic between ben x callum x tubbs could have been super interesting if they’d gone there

ask me things

[writersriot]

The Outsiders Queer Subtext ft. Jally - Part 16

Sunday, March 19, 2017

So this is an interesting moment that happens after Pony recaps Johnny’s attack by the Socs. Pony tells us about one of the only instances of Johnny’s interaction with girls. I find it fascinating, hence my long ass rambling.

We went back and watched the movie through again. Marcia and Two-Bit were hitting it off fine. Both had the same scatterbrained sense of humor. But Cherry and Johnny and I just sat there, looking at the movie and not talking. I quit worrying about everything and thought about how nice it was to sit with a girl without having to listen to her swear or to beat her off with a club. I knew Johnny liked it, too. He didn’t talk to girls much. Once, while Dallas was in reform school, Sylvia had started hanging on to Johnny and sweet-talking him and Steve got hold of her and told her if she tried any of her tricks with Johnny he’d personally beat the tar out of her. Then he gave Johnny a lecture on girls and how a sneaky little broad like Sylvia would get him into a lot of trouble. As a result, Johnny never spoke to girls much, but whether that was because he was scared of Steve or because he was shy, I couldn’t tell. (Pg 35)

Okay, so I still ship Two-Bit and Marcia, lol. Pony also says that after this incident Two-Bit gave Pony the same lecture about girls, telling him stories that made him want to crawl under the floor, which I find hilarious and totally fitting of a thirteen/fourteen-year-old boy. Two-Bit and Steve looking out for the younger guys in the gang is everything.

Anyway, onto the main part that I adore. We know Johnny is shy, and especially shy of girls because Pony tells us so. He thinks this behavior could be due to his nature or due to Steve’s lecture that basically scared him off of most girls. I think it’s due to Johnny’s shy nature in general despite the fact that he doesn’t seem all that shy during the whole drive-in movie scene, which I’ve mentioned. He’s more than willing to make conversation with the girls, especially after he and Pony know it won’t be about hooking up with them. Like, that’s just so telling to me.

I’m more willing to chalk up all of this avoiding girls to a shy nature than Steve’s lecture, as intimidating as that might have been. Though in my subtext reading as I’ve said before, I would say that’s likely indicative of Johnny’s disinterest in girls in general, even if he didn’t know what that could mean at the time, for being homosexual. Since in the 60s it would not have been discussed enough to necessarily be an obvious conclusion for him to come to regarding his own feelings.

But you know what? Johnny is 16, only a year younger than Dally at 17, whose girlfriend was hitting on him. The way everyone in the gang treats Johnny like he’s so much younger than them that he needs to be taken care of is interesting. I know it’s due to Johnny’s abusive home life, and the gang wanting to protect him. And they would accordingly want him to be careful with girls because he might not know better if he’s so inexperienced. But he’s older than Pony at 14 yet he’s almost treated on the same level as a kid by everyone else in the gang.

And yet, Sylvia, who is likely to be about 16-17 as well is said to run out on Dally constantly, pretty much any time Dally is in jail or reform school or wherever. I find it fascinating that out of all the boys in the gang, though, Sylvia would try something on Johnny. Like, he is such the polar opposite of Dally, why did she choose Johnny? I mean, Soda and Steve are near the same age but they both have girls. Two-Bit and Darry are the oldest, and Two-Bit usually has a girl or picks up one, while Darry strikes me as too fucking busy holding his life together. So it’s entirely possible that Johnny is the only single one to make a pass at.

But was Johnny even interested in Sylvia? Or did he just let her hang onto him because she was Dally’s girl at the time? Because the way it’s presented, I’m assuming it’s the latter. Johnny admires Dally, so he would probably respect Sylvia simply for being his girl. He might not even think anything of it when Sylvia hangs out with him. Johnny probably wouldn’t even understand why a girl would run out on someone like Dally because Johnny’s sweet like that.

I mean, even in a situation like this with another guy’s girlfriend flirting with him, where Johnny would probably usually be blamed, Steve immediately knows Sylvia’s trying to take advantage of his good nature. I don’t even know if Dally would have blamed Johnny if he found out. Did Dally ever find out?? Probably not. I wouldn’t want to be Steve telling Dally about Sylvia’s escapades lol. I doubt he would have gotten back with her if he knew what she tried on Johnny.

So anyway, I don’t believe Johnny was genuinely interested in Sylvia as more than being Dally’s girlfriend at the time. But it gets me that Sylvia would choose Johnny especially when he is physically and temperamentally the opposite of Dally. This aspect has a lot to do with my theory of Johnny and Dally being counterpoints and mirror foils, who though fundamentally opposite run parallel to each other.

Sylvia is a point of contact between Dally and Johnny. Her place in the story is something I see a lot, and I’m not sure what it would be called as a literary device. Or if it even has a name, or if I’m just making up shit again haha. But usually I see it in love triangles or something similar, where two characters are parallels and opposites with a potential to be together, and a third character comes that connects them both in a different way. I don’t know how to explain it better, and I’ll see if I can find examples of this in other media in the future. If someone knows what I’m talking about, help me out lol.

But when someone like Sylvia is interested in Johnny, the mirror to Dally, it only increases the comparison and connection between the two boys. The way Sylvia shows an interest in both Dally and Johnny (no matter what her motivations may have been) she becomes a kind of parallel or representation of their own feelings toward each other. Like a romantic go-between, if you will. Dally is dating Sylvia, who then shows interest in Johnny despite not being at all like her boyfriend and actually probably valuing her boyfriend more than she does. Sylvia becomes this interesting point of connection for Dally and Johnny’s feelings regarding each other.

It’s similar in the way that Cherry becomes a parallel of Johnny’s feelings for Dally, Sylvia becomes a parallel of Dally’s feelings for Johnny. Not to disregard Cherry and Sylvia as characters, which I know often happens to women characters when two men are paired together. That’s not my intention at all because I love Cherry and we really don’t know anything about Sylvia, so I can’t hate on her (other than her apparently being a cheater). These character parallels are simply something I often see in media, especially when the subtext is queer in nature.

That opposing gender characters end up being romantic parallels for the queer characters, who are often mirrors/foils to each other. I don’t know that many creators realize they are doing this, but I see it. And it happens with many relationship types whether m/m, f/f, or m/f or whatever. Again, I’ll try to remember other examples of this, and if anyone else knows what I’m talking about here, feel free to chime in because sometimes I think I’m the only one who sees this type of stuff without having a name for it. Someone help me lol.

So what do you guys think of Johnny’s almost non-existent interest in girls (who aren’t dating Dally lol)? Just him being shy? And what about Sylvia being a potential romantic parallel for Dally and Johnny?

Until the next part~

[sorayahigashikata]

Chapter 87: "Spin spin spin spin spin Spinspinspinspin Spinspinspin AAAAAUGGHH!"

[patrickbowienewman]

My Uncut Love for “Blade Runner: 2049″ Hasn’t Diminished (And Probably Never Will)

It’s been months since Denis (Sicario, Prisoners, Arrival) Villenueve’s sequel to Blade Runner was unveiled to American audiences, and in an unfortunately surprising twist of fate, many of us Yanks didn’t show up to watch it. 

As soon as those first exhilarating trailers struck social media, I fully expected Blade Runner 2049 to be the instant cultural phenomenon Ridley Scott’s original film never was - vindicating Blade Runner’s decades-long crawl from cult curio to global ubiquity, and reviving the moviegoing public’s obsession with replicants, spinners, origami, steaming food truck noodles, and Johnnie Walker sipped from those gorgeously sculpted tumblers.

If you’ll indulge me while I do a little bean counting, Blade Runner 2049 cost in the ballpark of $150 million to make. In those first few weeks of release, audiences eventually bought enough tickets to raise the domestic total to $83 million. This disparity lead many to construe Blade Runner 2049 as a box office bomb and all-around disappointment, even though foreign box office handily netted producing partners Warner Bros., Alcon Entertainment, and Columbia Pictures an additional $142 million. I haven’t a doubt that it’ll break even when the dust finally settles.

At the risk of sounding trite, I’ll assert that matters of business and budget have zero to do with Blade Runner 2049′s cinematic merit, no matter what trades like The Hollywood Reporter might suggest. The essence and quality of any movie need only be valued by the sound and picture flickering from within the big bright rectangle. Everything else is just noise.

When the nerd holiday of Blade Runner 2049′s opening weekend finally arrived, I watched it on the best and largest screen I could, joined by a little fellowship of family, friends and coworkers. The verdict? 

Few would deny that 2017′s timeline has been a non-stop deluge of terror and portent. Everything from politics and national tragedy after national tragedy to my own personal quagmires had left me craving the escape of Blade Runner’s unmistakable brand of sci-fi super-noir. Villenueve’s lavish sequel couldn’t have come along at a better time.

Once a certain father met his long-lost daughter and the movie cut to black and credits, the lights went up. My party went their separate ways, and I sullenly returned to a life bearing little resemblance to the vivid landscapes in which I had swam for three blissful hours of lucid dreaming. 

The best films establish permanent residency in our creative imaginations. We long to inhabit them, even after the theater is empty and the ushers are sweeping stale popcorn away from our feet. 2049 was one such experience for me.

Despite the enormous volume of criticism already generated, I thought I’d offer my detailed take on it anyway.

In an effort to keep this essay wide-ranging and interesting, I’m going to have to spoil much of the narrative. Please watch the movie already, so we can diffuse any risk of ruining the movie’s many delightful surprises...

The advertising campaign for 2049 was brilliant at both enticing hardcore Blade Runner fans with throwbacks to the many things that made that film so iconic and unforgettable, while also giving the curious uninitiated a comprehensive tour of the countless appealing visual and thematic qualities that could be enjoyed separate any primer or context.

Each trailer seamlessly obfuscated practically every aspect of the plot that had the potential to be a narrative surprise - Except, of course, for the presence/return of a grizzled-as-hell Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford).

I was thrilled to discover upon first viewing that Ryan Gosling’s “Officer K” is himself a replicant - a cop working for icy LAPD Lieutenant Joshi (Robin Wright, unsurprisingly perfect) to snuff out certain older model replicants who managed to slip into lives of anonymity before their corporate overseers put out a product recall.

It’s easy to draw parallels between Gosling’s Officer K and today’s American ICE stormtroopers. 2049′s first onscreen replicant (played with gentle grace by human redwood trunk Dave Bautista) is brutally “retired” by Gosling while a pot of garlic boils on a range top nearby. This jolt of an opening scene deftly introduces us to a robot humbly trying to adopt a simple human life, eking out a peaceful existence in solitude, living off the grid as a protein farmer.

Using Gosling’s K as the button man, Bautista’s character Sapper Morton is brutally gunned down by the technical arm of 2049′s despicable government, crystallizing the black-hearted fascism of this future vision of LA. By the end of the sequence, 2049 manages to both brilliantly depart from and add to Ridley Scott’s established world of monolithic corporations and their mutinous android labor force. 

As a movie obsessive who has always believed Rutger Hauer’s Roy Batty (the antagonist from the first film) had Blade Runner’s most charismatic screen presence AND emotionally involving story arc, the decision made by Villenueve and Ridley Scott to tell 2049′s story through the eyes of a replicant instead of a human is an inspired one.

Gosling’s Agent K is a Good German whose only extra-professional pastime is the oddly touching Stepford-meets-Siri romance he carries out with “Joi,” a holographic fellow AI. Joi adds compelling new layers to 2049′s preoccupation with the line (if we decide there even is one) separating humans from replicants.

According to blind zillionaire industrialist Niander Wallace (Jared Leto, adding another tic-filled personality to his growing gallery of loathsome weirdos), the continued and assured inability of replicants to conceive children is essential to keeping his legions of android slaves subservient. In the world of 2049, Wallace is a sort of God (or Pharaoh, as his incredible pyramidal fortress seems to signify), and replicants who reproduce of their own free will would be a mortal threat to this Pharaoh’s monopoly on slavery and world expansion.

The ideas surrounding Wallace are articulated in a violent and disturbing scene that completely repelled me upon first viewing (men’s prodigious violence towards women is a subject I’m frankly exhausted to see dramatized during these dark days), in which Leto pontificates about his ambitions while sterilizing a newborn replicant by taking a knife to her uterus. 

Wallace has built - and continues to expand - an empire to rival Alexander’s, and that God complex seems to have allowed his absurdly grandiose ego to eclipse any considerations of morality or human compassion. He’s a creep.

As Wallace leaves his chattel bleeding and naked in the same spot she was minutes-ago conceived (presumably to be shuttled to some salt mine or brothel "off-world”), Wallace’s personal secretary Luv (an advanced model replicant played by Sylvia Hoeks), sympathetically regards the brutalized woman from a sentry position nearby, tears streaking across her otherwise stoic, painted face. So much is already happening beneath the surface in this film.

Through Luv, Villenueve continues contrasting human characters with scant empathy and monstrous cruelty with replicant characters who have deep reverence for life’s creation and preservation, be that human life or the lives of other replicants.

Luv's attitudes lie somewhere in the middle of that spectrum. A scene-stealer from minute one, Luv is first introduced as an HR cipher sent forth to meet K as his investigation takes him deeper into the halls of power. When she needs to be, Luv is a polite charmer and the world’s most attentive and fastidious secretary, but she can also be an asset when a coroner's head needs to be squashed like a melon, or when the chief of police requires violent interrogation at knifepoint or with shattered glass. 

Luv’s finest moment of effortless aggression might just be her casual drone-bombing of a junkyard Gosling’s K investigates during a crucial sequence - she has a manicurist do her nails on one hand while she fires a volley of mortars via iPad with the other.

The crux of the film is the gradual unveiling of K’s identity, followed by an interesting subversion of what I initially assumed was a fairly predictable twist. K’s chief assignment is to kill the hidden offspring of Rachael (the replicant played by Sean Young in Blade Runner) and the long-absent Rick Deckard (Ford). 

K finally deduces that he may very well be Deckard’s son, which throws his entire code of ethics and sense of purpose into disarray. He goes on the lam from his oppressive LAPD handlers to find Deckard and determine whether this whole “being half human with actual, non-implanted memories” bombshell revelation has genuine merit.

There are several amusing scenes seeded throughout the movie in which Officer K has to take a psychological evaluation or “baseline test” (conducted by an asshole robot, of course). In the early part of the film, K suffers zero identity crisis, so he passes the test with flying colors. But as his case begins to unravel the assumptions he had long held about himself and the system he serves, K’s answers to the robot’s questions become more erratic and threatening to his handlers. 

A transcript of the first test might be worth printing verbatim here...

Interrogator: "Recite your baseline."

K: "And blood-black nothingness began to spin... A system of cells interlinked within cells interlinked within cells interlinked within one stem... And dreadfully distinct against the dark, a tall white fountain played."

Interrogator: "Cells."

K: "Cells."

Interrogator: "Have you ever been in an institution? Cells."

K: "Cells."

Interrogator: "Do they keep you in a cell? Cells."

K: "Cells."

Interrogator: "When you're not performing your duties do they keep you in a little box? Cells."

K: "Cells."

Interrogator: "Interlinked."

K: "Interlinked."

Interrogator: "What's it like to hold the hand of someone you love? Interlinked."

K: "Interlinked."

Interrogator: "Did they teach you how to feel finger to finger? Interlinked."

K: "Interlinked."

Interrogator: "Do you long for having your heart interlinked? Interlinked."

K: "Interlinked."

Interrogator: "Do you dream about being interlinked... ?"

K: "Interlinked."

Interrogator: "What's it like to hold your child in your arms? Interlinked."

K: "Interlinked."

Interrogator: "Do you feel that there's a part of you that's missing? Interlinked."

K: "Interlinked."

Interrogator: "Within cells interlinked."

K: "Within cells interlinked."

Interrogator: "Why don't you say that three times: Within cells interlinked."

K: "Within cells interlinked. Within cells interlinked. Within cells interlinked."

Interrogator: "We're done... Constant K, you can pick up your bonus.”

- - 

Such is the cross the obedient replicants of 2049 need to bear.

The movie is long and weighty, but never a chore to watch or difficult to follow. If memory serves, top-billed Harrison Ford (as iconic replicant killer Rick Deckard) doesn’t even appear onscreen until two hours in, but his applause-worthy arrival enhances the movie without drawing any interest away from Officer K. Once Gosling’s investigation brings him to the doorstep of Deckard’s booby-trapped casino hideaway (itself contained in a stunningly radioactive, vacant and dust-caked future vision of Las Vegas), the movie’s costars initially face off as adversaries before finally forming an uneasy partnership to speak truth to power, and - on a more human level - reunite Deckard with his long-lost progeny.

I suppose it’s in this last stretch of the film that director Denis Villenueve’s soul bares itself in a way that distinguishes this new film from its famous predecessor. Instead of culminating in any kind of epic conflict affecting global change, or placing the replicant vs. tycoon class war center stage, the movie narrows its focus on what Gosling chooses to do as he contemplates whether he is human or not, and what the distinction really means to him.

The finale’s centerpiece is a vicious physical contest between replicants K and Luv on the shores of future LA’s “Sepulveda Wall,” where a spinner/prison transport vehicle has crash landed and sinks gradually into an onslaught of crashing waves. As the warriors clash nearby, a handcuffed Deckard watches patiently and waits for what could just as easily be his demise rather than his salvation. 

By rescuing Deckard from certain death, K liberates himself from his previously programmed destiny, as well as any selfish baggage we can agree is very key to the human condition. Lying in the snow, bleeding out in 2049′s poignant final moments, K finds peace in having healed the only part of the world he could.

I couldn’t end a review like this without tipping my hat to the genius DP Roger Deakins, who I would insist is as much an author of 2049 as Villenueve or Ridley Scott. It was wise to select a cinematographer whose visual ambition matches the subject and content of a movie so epic and complex, and the result - hyperbole be damned - is one of the most gorgeous movies I’ve ever seen. 

In a movie designed from the ground up to convincingly plunge us into an endless procession of jaw-droppingly unique and visually stunning environments, Deakins never fails to precisely, carefully discover inspired new ways of capturing the work of his similarly gifted production designers, costumers and effects artists. If there’s one aspect of 2049 that would be obvious to anybody from frame one, it’s the confident belief that the visual experience of the movie ahead is going to be unmatched and unprecedented.

“Blockbusters,” which I suppose describe any kind of film made with a large budget, featuring movie stars and wielding all of the trappings necessary for worldwide distribution, can be a tiresome proposition for those of us that consume movies frequently and ask a little more from the cinema experience than some of our less-discerning peers.

Blade Runner: 2049 accomplishes everything movies of this scale and pedigree tend to attempt, does so with perfection, and then reaches for (and attains) even higher levels of technical, narrative, and performance ambition. This truly is a tentpole Harrison Ford action movie that is also without question an “art film,” entertaining from the surface to the core, and dense with subtext, intriguingly unanswered questions and hauntingly iconic images. It will stand the test of time as all great movies do, and impressively earns its proud place alongside the revered sci-fi film that inspired it.

[kcaruth]

Most Anticipated Films of 2017

Can you believe that we are already in the second month of 2017? What better time is there to talk about my most anticipated films for this year? I thought I would take a break from the rankings on this one and simply go through the films in the order of their release dates. Let’s get started!

The LEGO Batman Movie

2014′s The LEGO Movie was a surprising hit, and Batman was a big part of that success. As a result, he now gets to star in his own LEGO movie. Is it sad that this has a higher chance of being the better Batman movie than DC’s Batman flick at this point?

Logan

If Oscars could be awarded for trailers alone, Logan would be a front-runner with that Johnny Cash masterpiece. Logan has a very distinctive feel to it that is quite separate from the X-Men film universe, which might turn out to be a really good thing. Let’s be honest: Who is actually able to keep track of that all over the place timeline from the main films anyway? This Last of Us inspired solo film looks like it will do justice to the character of Wolverine and be a fitting sendoff for actor Hugh Jackman.

Beauty and the Beast

Beauty and the Beast was not one of my favorite Disney movies when I was growing up, but this live-action film looks gorgeous. Emma Watson, beautiful as always, is the perfect fit for Belle, and the voice acting for the servants sounds like it is going to be spot-on. The music sounds great too. All signs seem to point to Disney having another hit on its hands.

The Circle

Let’s follow up Beauty and the Beast with another Emma Watson film, The Circle. Based on Dave Eggers’ 2013 novel of the same name, The Circle imagines what the world would be like if a powerful and influential technology company like Google took control and created a surveillance society, leaving no room for privacy in the digital age. The book was written well enough that it was hard to put down, so I hope the film is just as good, if not better.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

The first Guardians of the Galaxy film was an overwhelming success for Marvel. With C-list characters that casual fans had never even heard of, the first Guardians paved the way for other characters like Ant-Man to have their own films. The chemistry between the actors looks even better than before, and the Soul Stone might make an appearance and be the connecting tissue between the Guardians and the Avengers. I doubt this Guardians sequel will buck the trend of Marvel’s less than memorable villains, but it should be a hilarious, entertaining ride with another stellar soundtrack nonetheless.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales

In the fifth film of the series, Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow searches for the trident of Poseidon while Javier Bardem’s Captain Salazar hunts him down. Geoffrey Rush’s Captain Barbossa will also turn up again, and Orlando Bloom’s Will Turner will make his return after being absent from the fourth installment. Who knows? Kiera Knightley’s Elizabeth Swan may also make a surprise appearance. I will be the first to admit that I was not a fan of On Stranger Tides. It was so forgettable that the only details I remember were mermaids were in it and Penelope Cruz was a new addition to the cast. I wish the series would go back to what made it so enjoyable in the first film, but the trailer for Dead Men Tell No Tales indicates that it would prefer to spiral further into mysticism and supernatural ghost crews. To be honest, I am only anticipating this film because of three reasons: (1) I want to see if it turns out to be any better than On Stranger Tides, (2) I miss the character of Captain Jack Sparrow, and (3) I am interested to see how Will Turner is doing in his stint as captain of the Flying Dutchman.

Wonder Woman

DC desperately needs this film to do well. Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad were both a mess. Wonder Woman gives DC the opportunity to scale things down a bit and focus on one single superhero. With Patty Jenkins at the helm as director, I am optimistic that Wonder Woman can follow in the footsteps of the first Captain America movie and turn out to be a fun blockbuster film with World War I as its setting. Now who else has Wonder Woman’s theme stuck in their head?

Spider-Man: Homecoming

One qualm before we move ahead: the above scene is a ripoff of the train scene in Spider-Man 2. Now that we have gotten that out of the way, it is nice to see Marvel gain control of Spider-Man again. Was I asking for yet another reboot of the classic comic book hero? No. Personally, I liked Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone in the last series. There is no hiding the Amazing Spider-Man movies’ flaws, but they had their tremendously well executed moments too, most memorably this spoiler. However, this new reboot already has some good things going for it. Tom Holland killed it in Captain America: Civil War, and it is going to be great to see Robert Downey, Jr. come in as Tony Stark/ Iron Man as Peter Parker’s mentor. Let’s just hope that Michael Keaton’s Vulture is not Electro-level goofy as a villain.

Dunkirk

Slap Christopher Nolan’s name on a film, and tons of people are going to wait in line to see it. Nolan is the kind of director that can make the audience feel immersed in the world, and Dunkirk looks to be no different. The cinematography should be amazing, and Hans Zimmer should bring an epic score to the film. The fact that filming took place at the same location as the real historical evacuation during World War II only adds to the excitement for this war thriller.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle

Matthew Vaughn′s Kingsman: The Secret Service was one of my favorite films of 2015. The action was thrilling, the humor was hilarious, the soundtrack was amazing, and the acting was excellent but over the top when it needed to be to fit the film’s tone. Did I want a sequel? No, but I won’t be complaining so long as it does not tarnish the first film.

Blade Runner 2049

I did not see the original Blade Runner until my sophomore year of college. I did not come away loving it, but I appreciated it for what it was, especially for its notable moments like Roy Batty’s “Tears in Rain” monologue. Yet again, I have to ask: Did I want a sequel? No, but Denis Villeneuve, the masterful director of Prisoners, Sicario, and Arrival, has been turning everything he touches into gold lately. Plus, Roger Deakins is handling cinematography responsibilities, Harrison Ford is returning, and Johann Johannsson is teaming up with Villeneuve once again to compose the score.

Thor: Ragnarok

Thor’s films can be utterly dull at some points, but the addition of the Hulk and Doctor Strange should add a much needed kick to Thor’s third solo film.

Justice League

DC has been rushing toward this film, and its track record so far does not leave much room for optimism. Fans can only hope that Zack Snyder can pull it all together and do justice to the comic book characters we grew up loving. I am most interested to see how he will introduce franchise newbies Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg.

Star Wars: Episode VIII — The Last Jedi

You didn’t think I would finish this list without mentioning Star Wars, did you? Disney and Lucasfilm recently revealed the title for Episode VIII: The Last Jedi. That sent off a wave of speculation. Why is the font red instead of the traditional yellow? Who is the last Jedi? Is it Luke? Will Luke die leaving Rey to be the last Jedi? Jedi can be singular or plural, so does that mean they will both survive? After the somewhat disappointing Rogue One, I am just ready to return to the main episodic storyline where we last left our beloved characters. Both the Resistance and the First Order will be scrambling, with Hosnian Prime decimated and Starkiller Base destroyed. Poe and Finn will probably go off on a mission together while Luke trains Rey, paralleling Snoke’s training of Kylo Ren. Hopefully, we will learn more about the mysterious Snoke and get to see some of the other Knights of Ren. I also hope we will get to see Luke in action as a central character of the film after we only got to see him for the last minute of The Force Awakens, and I have to wonder how they will handle Leia after the saddening, unexpected passing of Carrie Fisher. Tears will undoubtedly be shed when she first appears in the film. In the end, I trust that Disney and Lucasfilm will handle the character with respect for Fisher’s legacy. These 300-odd days will fly by before we know it, and we will all be back in that galaxy far, far away once again.