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popculturebuffet · 4 years

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Ducktales Reviews: Escape from the Impossibin! or A Dark Night of the Soul

It’s a long dark night of the soul for everyone’s favorite family of ducks as our beloved family grapples with the revelations of last episodes. While Scrooge clearly smarts from the betrayal he pits his latest security system against Della and Louie, given the title it naturally goes wrong and forces all three to try to escape. Meanwhile Beakly sics Webby on Huey and Dewey, and Dewey gets a cool new sword he can’t use while Huey has a slow burn mental breakdown.. again. Someone get my poor boy some therapy. Suprises, Also an exaustingly deep dive into the life of Bentina Beakly. Disguises but sadly not pies of all sizes insue under the cut.

Well.. this one was fantastic. Obviously i’ll explain why as we go but holy shit I was not expecting a master class of an episode just one week after the already great Let’s Get Dangerous. And yes I had my complaints there but none of them, especially on the second watch, really detracted from what was honesty an amazing episode. And after slogging through “Catch as Cash Can” over the past few days, this was a welcome return to the version of the duck family I love best and a crisp reminder of why this series is so frigging amazing. I may criticize, i’m a critic comes with the territory, but I genuinely and wholly love this show, and this episode is encapsulates why. So enough lollygagging, let’s dew it to it!

We open with one of those scenes where two characters give a similar speech and it flashes back between both as they finish each other’s sentences. It’s a storytelling choice I never realized I always loved as it’s always a good way to amp up tension or comedy. It’s a good way to start. At the Mansion, Beakly is lecturing Donald, Huey and Dewey, because both families likely talked Launchpad into just sharing different days with each of them after the first inevitable sleep driving car crash so he’s with his boyfriend and child right now. It’s also really nice to both have almost the entire main cast given something to do for an episode AND have the one missing member have a thoroughly valid reason for not being there that was set up last week. It’s also really nice to see Donald and Della again. While it’s only been two weeks, both have only featured in one episode this block so far, and Della’s been kind of pushed to the side this season.. not unfairly mind as she was the focus for two solo episodes and a ton of episodes last season for obvious reasons but it dosen’t mean I can’t miss my disaster twins when they aren’t around. So anyways back on the episode, Beakly is naturally assuming theirs more traitors in their midst, and she and webby have narrowed it down.. this dosen’t really come up aside for a gag in a second for the rest of the episode, but is both funny and two of them are clearly setup for later. Have a look

My thoughts in order:

Little Bulb: He probably IS plotting to betray them, but for entirely unrelated reasons. Donald: .........................................................................................................

Look I get it on some level, as he was away from the family a long time, hated Scrooge, and had every reason to betray him. BUT, and it’s a bit but, besides the obvious of Bradford and his goons being the reason they gave up looking for his sister, if for good reason, Donald would’ve TOLD them all about that by now if he’d been spying, or if he’d had any dealings with the man. The man loves his family, uncle included, more than anyone and even at their lowest point I doubt he’d sell the man out for the boys sake unless FOWL threatened them. Donald is principaled, hardworking, loving, and has both dove directly into a nest of shadows and sent himself hurtling to earth in a possibly lethal rocket to protect this family, so even if this is a funny gag, it does bother me Beakly and ESPECIALLY Webby, his surrogate niece, would even consider this. That being said while I felt the need to rant because he’s my boy and I feel protective of him, it was damn funy as Donald naturally tries to wipe it off because.. yeah everything above, only to get caught in the flipping board and ending up as above with Beakly forced to admit it’s probably not him. Plus yeah.. he’s also way too clumsy and anger prone for wetwork so there’s also that.

Fenton: I’m TEMPTED to use the trunks picture twice in a row but besides that being obnoxious.. I get it MORE here. Donald has no motive anymore, would’ve told them by now if he had when he did, and has broken his back for all of them at one time or another. Probably literally in some cases. Fenton is sweet, loyal and another one of my boys.. but his obviousness has left him open to deception in three different episodes, not counting the tolkyolk one since that wasn’t BOYD”S choice: But he put blueprints out online for a mcduck industries project, got his armor taken by beaks luring him in to work for him, and had Gandra working for Beaks snuck into his lab.. and probably in the process also got any info on it Bradford couldn’t get through company files. He’s a good man, a kind man but he could easily be a leak without realizing it and also has a mother at home and could be threatened into doing stuff for them for her saftey.. and yes I know she can take care of herself but we’re talking a regular cop against secret agents who aren’t above murdering one. He might panic even if rationally he knows she’s fine.. or they could do the inverse and use her to get secrets from him since she’s a mother and Gandra could probably easily hack fenton’s armor, since Bradford probably has the full blueprints at this point. The point is while I don’t see him betraying them WILLINGLY, I get him being a possible leak. Donald could be, but again is too obvious and likely reguarly checked for bugs anyway long before fowl, as is Launchpad I assume.

Bluescreen Beagle: I don’t know this dude, but I’m betting he’ll be important soon enough since they brought him up at all and he is a beagle working for Scrooge so that alone is interesting.

Louie: Yeah unlike my boys I have no excuses for him here. While Louie is family, and has proven his own loyalty plenty... he’s also selfish, greedy and shortsighted so like Fenton he could be an easy accidental pawn at best or turn on them for money or an adventure free life at worst. I don’t think he would mind, i’m just more understanding of this given just last episode his response to a clearly suspicious thing making machine was to ignore any suspicion entirely and whine about it while Huey looking into it ended up saving the universe. He also nearly killed them all last season, so fair enough.

So yeah Beakly is going to train them to

WHich the boys are all for while Donald gets all spinny eyed ont he floor. Cue credits... though obviously we have to cover the scrooge side of things too...

Meanwhile at the bin, Scrooge has brought Louie and Della there because there the sharpest mind he knows, and their seeing all the angles means their the perfect test subjects for his new post-deeply cutting betrayal security system. He also obviously goes off on an alteration filled rant at Bradford that has to be cut before he can get to calling him shiteating. And given he’s a buzzard that’s probably not inaccurate. Point is they are genuinely the best ones for the job and both agree.. Louie’s not really enthuastic about any of this but hey it’s their money this is guarding so why not. So with that done since we have two full plots to deal with and they don’t intersect until the last few minutes, like with Forbidden Fountain of the Foreverglades, i’m going to be splitting this one and covering each bit separately since it’s also easier for me to recall and recap that way.

Beakly, Brah, Making Kids (and herself) Cry, Brah!:

A can of coke to whoever figures out that reference first. Or a free review comisson shipping Coke is expensive you know? But yeah as you can tell this bit is not going to go well for any of the kids, or the beakly or my heart. So this plot continues at breakfast, where Huey is meticulously going over both his guidebook and Finch’s Journal to see if there’s ANY signs of F.O.W.L. their connection anything.. it’s also very clear he’s panicking. Given his enitre life is built on logic and he’s now facing a threat he probably feels he SHOULD have seen coming.. I mean they clearly have access to the Missing Mysteries, there must be SOME tie to them SOMEHOW. He, in my opinon at least, feels blindsighted and scared, going up against a group using his own love of logic that blindsighted all of them INCLUDING Scrooge, the most clever and daring adventuerer of all time and Beakly, who was likely responsible for seemingly wiping out F.O.W.L. in the first place. If THEY can be blindsighted, what hope does he have? So he’s searching for it in his comfort texts, kind of like I did at his age: when theirs a crisis trying desperatley to solve it even if you really can’t, which he cannot, at leats not alone. Dewey of course being Dewey, has decided the solution is to get a massive sword he can’t lift and hit people with it and mock Huey for his reading. Huey gets what’s clearly the start of his episode long emotional breakdown, the worst he’s had of SEVERAL this series and over the biggest stakes thus far, seriously get this boy some therapy, while Dewey just thinks the key to beating their worst menace yet is a giant sword to hit things with. He does break a pot with it in an accidental spin attack in a later scene though so I do apricate that reference.

But when opening the serving tray they find an attacking Webby instead with Beakly explaining why she’s doing this to her surrogate brothers: Beakly is testing them by having Webby sneak attack them at some point and the’ll never know when, while Beakly herself works with Donald to secure the house.. sadly we don’t get to see any of that latter part, as it’s probably full of hilarious slapstick, but it’d also clash heavily with the rest of this plot which, while not lacking in jokes, is meant to be uncomfortable and have us on edge like the boys, so fair enough. Webby “Bringer of Death” hugs htem saying this is going to be fun.

Naturally it really REALLY isn’t as Huey is still very shaken by this. And it cleverly ties into what’s been shown from day one and especially this season to be his greatest weakness, and very likely the crux of his character arc: Huey can’t improvise. It’s a nice contrast to Louie last season: Louie’s very talent is thinking on his feet, seeing every angle and making them bend the way he wants. I’ts how he schemes as well as he does, how he fits into the family and what makes him himself. What he needed was to think of others and think through the consequences of his actions. That’s what he gained from his arc last season: perspective, the ablility to improvise while also not shooting himself in the foot for later and to have empathy for people. Huey is the oppoisite: Instead his ablility to think IS his skill. He’s a genuis, able to understand super science on the level of fully grown adult genuises, able to puzzle through confounding mysteries, to solve any problem. He and huey both are gifted with anyalsis, but Louie sees the small picture, the people, the moving parts at the moment, while Huey sees the big picture and how everything connects to lead to one thing and loves learning more and more. I REALLY relate to him that way. But this season has brillinatly drilled in where he needs to improve: He’s not ready for suprises or deviations from his plans or all the things that could go wrong. He can’t improvise, he just panics. It’s something again I relate to and something that each of his episodes has set up leading to this moment hammering it home and me realizing what his arc was:

Challenge of the Senior-Junior Woodchucks had Huey utterly lost without his Guide Book for a while and unprepared for a sudden challenge in Violet. Quack Pack had him unravel when he couldn’t figure out what was wrong with the world, yet he was perfectly fine once he knew what was going on, Astro B.O.Y.D. was entirely about his intellgence and need for structure leaves him bullied and alone a lot of the time even among in his element with the woodchucks and how he finds friendship in someone like himself who gets him. Rumble for Ragnarok showed that while he can comment find for sports like golf where there’s rigid structure, rules and history, he fails as bad as Launchpad at calling wrestling because wrestling is just as much about sponteaniety as planning, with run ins, reff discrations and other chaos being part and parcel and even in real life matches often have to be changed on the fly due to injuries or someone simply coming up with a better finish at the last minute. At the same time the season’s shown how it is vital to him, as the next two, The trickening and forbidden fountain showed WHY his structure works and that it can in the right format, and that he usually has reason for it. And the final one showed that too, with him being the one to find out what Bulba’s up to simply by research, and while he didn’t stop it, his pulling at the threads of why Bradford was there and his hate of them forced FOWL out into the open which, while now putting him on edge, forced their enmies into the open where while their more dangerous, they can now at least strike back. Huey’s arc is , hopefully if i’m right about this, about him having to learn to use his strengths with his weakneses, much like Louie last season: To adpat, to grow while not forgetting who he is and that not everything can be put in a box, as the creators put their interpretation of him. Not everything can be quanitfied or planned for and sometimes you just have to try and hope for hte best. It’s a damn compelling arc, my relating to it helps of course but it paints Huey as a fascinating character and tying it heavily into the main plot fixes how Louie was largely removed from the moonlander plot aside from one episode, as was glomgold’s quest. While the season has three main plots: A focus on Huey, the missing mysteries and FOWL, all three intertwine perfectly and are interconnected. The creators learned well from where they slipped up last time and the result is phenomenal, and they’ve clearly proven this is Huey’s season afterall: Even when he’s not been the a-plot who huey is, how he functions and being forced to grapple with the downsides of it are front and center and I am here for it.

But yeah he’s breaking down, not helped by trying to go to beakly only to find out about the hidden bin and Dewey tries to help him calm down.. only for Dewey to walk in and unsuprsingly the one who can actually offer deep encouraging support was Webby who threatens this isn’t the attack. Nor is her dummy she leaves for them. The boys are left terrified hoping they won’t be attacked and holding Dewey’s sword, but Huey ends up convinced it’s just a test and that it’s the classic paranoia gambit: by telling them something will attack, the real lesson is to be prepared. But Nerp, Webby attacks them with arrows and easily snares Dewey while Huey has a panic attack that’s genuinely hard to watch as he ends up running into the wall and breaking his ankle. This very real pain along with his clear trauma when he flinches at her genuinely trying to help him snap Webby out of it: She realizes she’s gone way too far and utterly terrified her own brothers, sending one into a full on mental breakdown, just to prepare them. Up till now it was probably normal for Webby: Beakly trained her rigorously, if understandably, kept her from the world, probably did this to her, and Webby just thought it was normal and it made her what she is. But it also came at the cost of any normalcy. To me Webby’s always been like a lighter, since she can at least speak, has toys and Beakly you know treats her like a human being rather than a weapon, of the second Batgirl, Cassandra Cain. Cassandra was raised from birth as an experiment to make the ultimate weapon, someone who rather than speak spoke in phsyical motion and could kill effortlessly.. but actually doing so shocked her and she escaped and Bruce took her in. Cass is as badass as Batman at a fraction of the age but dosen’t understand simple life things and can’t speak. Hence the parallel: While Beakly isn’t a monster like David Cain, she still took a small child and turned them into a weapon strugging to adapt to society, and only isn’t a monster because as said she clearly cares about webby and dosen’t want to loose her like she lost her child and in-law to whatever presumibly fowl related nightmare took them from her and left Webby an Orphan. What i’m getting at with this is this feels like Webby realizing while this is her normal.. the boys can’t take it with Dewey terrified and again, Huey nearly broken by all of this and whimpering in a corner. This isn’t bonding between master and student, grandmother and granddaughter, partners in fighting.. this is just .. wrong. So when Beakly, not noticing how badly she’s damaged either boy, demands Webby continue attacking them, Webby refuses, stands firm.. and prepares to take on the person she loves most in the world, yes more than Lena she’s only 12 for christ’s sake, and Beakly gladly accepts. Webby’s training is in session. When we next see them the fight is in full force, and it is awesome to see. After 3 seasons we not only see Beakly’s darkest aspects come out we see her granddaughter in the path. Though at first it seems like what their training sessions normally are, a friendly if lively and full force spar between two trusting combatants. But it becomes clear over the fight from Webby’s reaction that Beakly is going harder than usual, and doesn’t stop when asked. Thankfully her kind gesture paid off as Huey and Dewey whisk her up to the attic. Webby is genuinely SCARED, never having seen her like this but also worried for her: Acting like a monster or not.. Beakly is still her granny and it’s clear FOWL coming back has rattled her. The fist through the attick doors, barred with the sword proves that. The kids head up to the roof with Beakly in persuit like some sort of slasher villian, again fist through a door, determined to still fight while Webby clearly just wants this to stop and so does the audience. This hurts.. intentionally so but I haven’t been cut this deep by two family members literally coming to blows since Amethyst fought Pearl in the first season of steven universe. It’s tough to watch but in a very good way. The boys break up the tension for half a second by rushing her and she just tosses them aside... where their caught by Donald, who didn’t realize ANY of this was going on and is rigthfully pissed.. though dosen’t do the angry dance thing because then he’d kill his children but he’s sure thinking it loud enough.

As Webby reluctantly readies for round 2, Donald calls at her to fucking stop already. While she counters with they have to be ready, which is true... Donald shuts her down. “Not like this”. She’s broken Huey and Webby and Dewey.. is traumatized but fine but this episode really isn’t about him. What it is about is Bentina Beakly and her Dark Night of the soul. I brought up the term for dumb reasons admitely: Because it sounded neat and because Douglas Adams had spoofed it with the dirk gently novel “Dark Tea-Time of the Soul” a title that’s stuck with me and a book I own and still need to read. But I looked it up to make sure I wasn’t badly misusing it and it turned out to fit this episode: A Dark Night of the Soul, as defined by spirtual guru and thankfuly not scumbag Eckheart Tolle whose article explained the old expression better than wikipedia could. While he naturally pitches his book there, it was still helpful so thanks man for your spirtual advice helping me analyize ducks. I owe you one.

The Dark Night of the Soul is essentially a person coming to their lowest point after having lost themselves or feeling lost, rattled by one event and awakening with a new sense of spirtual purpose and a new direction and a sense of self again after it. Having everything you know upended and coming out the other side with a new self, usually in a religious sense. And it works here because really that’s what Huey, Beakly, Scrooge and to a Degree webby face here. Louie, Della, Dewey and Donald are all fine in the face of FOWl and it makes sense: Louie and Donald are often outside the adventure bubble in terms of enjoying it, seeing it’s dangers to them and in Donald’s case his kids, Webby included, and how much chaos it is. Both have accepted it as part of their lives so while this escalates things, both just see it as just more of the peril and chaos that’s a daily part of their lives. Dewey and Della being thrillseekers and loving a good challenge simply see this as taking on an epic challenge: fighting the worst villians of the world off and having a daring story to tell. Webby similarly isn’t that effected at first because she sees it the same way likely and only starts to get bothered by it when it starts tearing her family, the thing most precious to her, apart over it.

But for the other three it makes sense. Obviously we’ll come back to Scrooge during his part of the episode. But for Huey as we’ve seen this upends his world. There was a massive deadly secret just beneath him, an unknown beyond all unknowns, and it rattled him.. and having his own sister constantly terrorize him just made it worse. For Huey without consitencey his life falls apart as those prevoius episodes highlhted.l He can prepare for anything.. but he has to know it’s coming and having a villian group who strikes from the shadows is his worst fears manifest and preparing for that naturally breaks the poor boy. He gets through it though, as once it’s on someone else, his fear falls away and as we saw his focus is entirely on helping webby: Not on himself, not on the risk but on protecting his sister. It shows that Huey has the potenital for instinct, as seen with the woodchuck and wrestling episodes too, he just needs to get out of his own head and let it work with his gut instead of trying desperately to use only his head.

For Beakly though it’s far worse... and really gets to the core of who she is in this series. She was, and probably still is, a Secret Agent, who fought long and hard to utterly destroy FOWL, at the cost of everything else, constnatly having to keep her guard up with spies all around her and with Scrooge apparently being the only friend from those days who lasted the whole time. SHe probably lost countless partners in both sense of the word, time and youth she’ll never get back and everything she had to stop them. She gave S.H.U.S.H. everything as far as I can tell. And then she got her reward. FOWL was gone, she had a child, and possibly had a loving partner, provided they didn’t either leave her pregannt and alone or just grow apart from her eventually we don’t know at this point and i’m just spitballing. Point is she had a child, she had a happy ending.. except clearly.. she did not. According to the website, and it’s probably still accurate, Beakly was living in seclusion following her retirement, likely to keep anyone from harming her child.. but also because with her partner possibly gone, she had almost NOTHING left. A child that either kept her at arms length or she kept at arms length to keep their family safe, an old friend who was busy as is, and a safe world.. that’s all she had. Just her and alone. And that’s been clearly shown as Beakly’s biggest issue as we see: She has trouble letting others, even webby at times given how she lied at her, in and given all she’s lost it’s hard not to see why. After a life time of probably watching cold blooded killers kill people she loved and having people betray her and loosing the father of her child possibly, again it’s vauge, no wonder she is the way she is. And then it somehow gets worse and better: She looses her child, one of the three people she has left in the world.. yet she finds herself in charge of Webby. And with that.. she has a purpose again, to protect this child. This baby girl who needed her more than anything. So she did.. a little too well as discussed. To quote the excellent song “Dark, Sad, Lonely, Knight” from the musical “Holy Musical B@tman!” which yes really exists:

“I remember that horrible night that night you were split in two, and I swore I’d protect you. So I built a wall all around you, but the wall was too tall, it blocked out all the birds and the sun. I tried to raise you right! I tried to raise you proper! I tried to be a mentor and a friend and a mother and a brother too! I’d insulate you from any outside source of fright... i’d make bloody certain, you’d never see another, dark, sad, lonely night. “

And yes as you can imagine that was sung by Alfred.. but it fits perfectly. That’s how Beakly raised Webby, guarding her from the world, trying to protect her from the world the way she’d always guarded herself from it. She did hurt webby’s development.. but you can see WHY. She lost everything, she had two people left in her life at that point: One had given her home and the other had given her her soul back. She couldn’t loose Webby so she made sure she couldn’t and held her as tight as she could. It’s why she pushed Scrooge to let his young nephews into his life. She saw over her time with him he was doing what she did, pushing everyone out. She wanted him to avoid being alone like she was before Webby. And it worked.. and showed her Webby clearly wanted to see the world and that Bentina didn’t have to be afraid to show it to her anymore, and could let Scrooge share in doing so. She let her be free and opened up for the first time in likely a decade since she got a two year old dropped on her lap. And soon wither she’d admit it or not she found herself part of the family. She found herself the voice of reason, sometimes sharing it with Donald, and the one to put both Scrooge and the rest of the family in their place when they nearly tore apart again, helping Donald realize that for all scrooge hurt him.. Scrooge hurt from loosing della too, and helping the boys realize Scrooge, much like herself, tends to lash out at people. She prevented them from getting distance from their family, knowing from experince you may never get them back or mend that wound. She was part of the family and for the first time in her life even if again, given her emotoinal distance she wasn’t really close to any of the duck family but Scrooge and her newly inducted Grandaughter, she still clearly cares and looks after them and even her harsh treatment of Della was well meaning and understandable. And that’s why the F.O.W.L. revelation tears her apart to her very core, her very SOUL: Because not only is the enemy she thought dead, or may of known wasn’t dead we don’t know but this episode leans towards the former alive, not only is her worst enemy, one who nearly killed her grandaughter part of them once again, but their head was one of Scrooge’s most trusted advisors and associates, the man he trusted more than himself at times to do what the company needed and the only one who knew his deepest secrets besides Beakly herself. They now faced not only her worst nightmare reborn, but with vital info about them and everyone around them. And for all we Know F.O.W.L. took her family from her in the first place and now they easily could again and she NEVER saw it coming. It’s why she drives everyone including Webby so hard, because she can’t take loosing everyone she cares about again so they will be ready, they will be prepared even if it destroys them on the inside because she cannot take it again.. she can’t fail them AGAIN. I feel she puts a lot of the blame on herself because in this family it’s her job to be the suspicious one, to see things coming, to be ready, to be the one who knows EVERYTHING even more than scrooge.. and this apparently rattled her as much as he did and suprised her just as much. She failed and she can’t again even if Webby hates her for it. But in trying to continue the fight.. she slips, Webby dodges and she falls off the roof.. and everyone helps her up. Even if they all have EVERY REASON to be mad at her they help. And Webby points out this can’t go on. They won’t get stronger tearing themselves apart.. their a family. They don’t need to do it like fowl, they need to be themselves and work TOGETHER. The one thing they have, the one thing they can trust is each other. Beakly is touched like this and realizes their right.. their not the enemy.. and there the one people,, for once in her life she can fully and completely trust. She tries apologizing to webby, they hug..and then gets an alert. What’s all that about? Well to get that that we kinda have to finish the other story.. which I would’ve put first had I realized this was going to be as long as it was but hey.

Escape from the Impossibin

Thankfully this won’t be as long or as emotionally complex.. entirely. So back at this plot about 20 minutes ago, Scrooge breaks down the challenge and the risk as it was made by the most devious and deranged minds he knows: Gyro and Quackfaster with Louie getting a good laugh out of me by pointing out “Why are the most devious minds in Duckberg friends of ours” to which I say because only Scrooge let’s them go all out, and on the friend part, at least for you, Louie...

I mean maybe Quackfaster, but you stole from Gyro multiple times now. And he hated Fenton for far dumber and more petty reasons why wouldn’t you assume he hates you too.. I mean he did help with Louie’s Eleven but there was also a good chance your head would explode there so I don’t really count it.

Anyways Scrooge offers lunch if they make it, which Louie notes means he must REALLY not think they will. And the first test proves his overconfdience correct as we enter the most dangerous, devious and deadly trap Gyro could manage.. which given who we’re dealing with, i’d be very afraid. The ultra violent ultra violet trap seems at first to just be a bunch of purple, if really cool buzzsaws and sawblades, your standard super villian death course.. but Gyro being beyond your average super villian, I mean the only reason he’s not is he has a steady job that lets him build a clone army with company resources so why would he give that up, jazzed it up with an ultraviolet bit of bulbtech.. and due to the violet light it hides the traps ,meaning their invisible. And while Louie and Della try navigating them, they cannot get through as Louie runs out of PEP to spray them with and Della using her metal leg as a guide, which itself is awesome for her as she clearly and wisely made the thing nigh indestructible and we haven’t seen it tear or get destroyed once all series so good going, really should market that to other people in need of prostetics della and Scrooge. Scrooge is of course delighted as that’s the entire point even if his child and grandchild are understandably not as happy about it. But naturally, as I hinted at in the teaser, it goes wrong as Scrooge’s password dosen’t work and he tries it too many times, been there, sucks. Granted Louie asks hilariously “Your the oldest man in the world why isn’t your password just 1234″.. and though the why is obvious, it’s still a good line. Point is their locked out and now have to escape it for real! Weirdly Scrooge dosen’t catch onto the fact of whose behind it, but we’ll get to that. He does have more pressing matters. Luckily Louie figures it out after an insult at the Bulbtech causes it to flash read, like most Bulbs do.. but since this Bulb’s entire purpose is to flash Purple, that means pissing it off makes the blades visable and while Scrooge is understandably sore that his 3 million dollar security system has such a big flaw in it, they escape. Though I get Scrooge’s frustration: Their going up against someone who knows how Gyro’s tech’s works, if Louie can figure it out so can Bradford and he wouldnt send FOWL in without a full briefing on Scrooge.

We don’t see the next one as it’s a time loop room, it’s a time loop room, it’s a time loop room okay i’ll stop and so does Dell after Louie well meaningly smacks his mom. Next puzzle’s quackfaster and I like scrooge pulling a Dumbledore and having some of his most trusted advisors devise the traps for him. I may hate JK Rowling for good reason but I did always love that bit of the Sorcerer’s (Or phillosphers in the uk because the publisher’s weren’t as stupid) Stone. Death of the author and all that. Point is I like it here too even if i’ts truncated for time. But Emily’s trap is a bunch of tiles that fuck with gravity because apparently she’s magical now... who knew. I’m not questioning it though: She runs a giant library full of dangerous, and probably magical in some cases, literature.. if she didn’t know spells she probably woudn’t be able to sort some of them. It’s a new fact out of nowhere but it makes perfect sense.

Point is they have to figure it out though Louie once again succeeds with some books and, in a really cool bit, using scrooge as a platform with the two walking in time and della grabbing on as they hit the master rune to shut them all off. It’s a damn cool sequence even if Scrooge is agrviated. We then come, after they apparently fought a Squid Monster off screen, because Quackfaster can also apparently summon demons.. or gyro made a tentacle monster which dosen’t suprise me at all. Either way it’s the final challenge in the main room leading ot the bin and in the way of deactivating security: A Scrooge Robot! Because as we all know by video game logic, the Robot Version is always stronger. Of course Louie’s annoyed both at the spending of his inhertince and at Scrooge’s egotisim but he has a good point there and the thing looks hilarious clunky with 8-bit eyes.. till it morphs, to scrooge’s delight, into a giant purple robot with a cane and scrooge’s face on the front j jonah jameson style. I never see that spider-slayer refrenced but i’mg lad this one did. Granted it could be to arim zola or something but I feel the Spider-Slayer refrence fits here.. take a look if your curious.

See? Anyways a fight insues with Scrooge, in a great bit, riling up Della when she fishes for him to admit she would’ve’ been a better base by bringing up Donald first instead. The trio get their asses kicked, and a pep can drops out, as naturally Louie was lying but it’s a rare flavor so I get it. I do. Thankfully his lies do save them however as the Cherry PEP he fires at the machine stuns it while Scrooge USES THE POGO CANE MOVE ON IT. Hell.. fucking yes. It’s about time we saw that again and in fully glory here too. I really want that game on the switch by the way.. where’s my disney afternoon collection.. WHERE CAPCOM WHERE. But yeah they won.. and Scrooge is upset. Because this was SUPPOSED to keep FOWL out but if his family can beat it so can they. And now we get to Scrooge’s far less horrifying dark night of the soul as we get a sense of just how much this whole ordeal has rattled him: As he mentioned at the top of hte episode he TRUSTED Bradford. It was clear he never liked him as a person, but Scrooge is a paranoid guy, he hardly trusts anyone and for someone to earn that it had to take a lot.. and it naturally stings. We see that while he may of been a necessary evil, SCrooge still liked the guy on some level and to have someone he trusts and respects betray him naturally shook Scrooge. He trusted someone.. and they knifed him in the back going against all he stands for. Instead of earning money, Bradford stole what Scrooge and others worked for while working to destroy him as soon as he feasably could and take his legacy for himself. To Scrooge, Bradford was revealed to be the worst kind of parasite and one that leeched off him for probably decades. But what’s worse is the risk that creates: Bradford was one of his top guys and the only other one running the company: He knows EVERYTHING about Scrooge, every secret, every investment, where every treasure is stored, and everywhere he’s been. He knows about his friends, family, some of his darkest and most guarded for a reason secrets, secrets he’d never give away freely.. and can now use ALL of it to destroy his family and everyone they care about. That sheer level of betryal would rock anyone but someone like Scrooge, who BARELY trusts anyone and can even be paranoid of his own family from time to time? LIke beakly it’s easy to see why he spiraled and why he put so much into this: Because like Beakly, he was blindsided, and his buisness, his crown jewel, the thing he put his heart and soul into and worked hard to build up and CONTINUES to work hard on to this day.. was being slowly corrupted and he has no idea what parts or where or just what all Bradford did with his money and resources and what nasty suprises he has hidden in them. The one thing he could trust as almost entirely his is tainted, his sense of security tainted.. and his sense of self tainted. If Scrooge freaking mcduck can get blindsighted like this, just how powerful is his former friend?

And we soon see Scrooge’s own fears manifest as Bradford hyjacks the robot, revealing this was, naturally him.. as of COURSE it was the guy who was revealed to be an evil mastermind who hates your guts. And because Scrooge didn’t change his password, which cleverly is the sum total of his money hence why it was a mass of numbers, which.. really dude? I don’t like doing it either and don’t change mine up if I can help it but even I did when someone tried hyjacking my spotify account. Yes that happened, I thought it was just a wifi thing, it was not. So yeah turns out Bradford was STILL one step ahead, and thus knew about the defenses and thus trapped Scrooge in them for reasons that will dramatically be revealed at the end of the episode. He also naturally attacks because just like JJ, he’s a crotchety old man whose yelling at our loveable rascals to in a sense, get off his lawn. Granted unlike JJ he’s clearly never came around, but the parallels are there. Point is it’s time for another fight this time using the gravity runes, with Scrooge hitting his despiar event horizon as if FOWL can outhink him on this what hope does he have. But like the rest of his family sans launchpad did for Beakly, Louie helps him through the other side and points out there are things they have they don’t.. and demonstrates as naturally the bulb tech used for the robot is just as irate so Louie tricks it into going after him then does a bin dive, with the massive amount of money destroying the thing and Bradford unable to get Gandra to stop it, so our heroes win... oh and Bradford left the company.. for some reason, because as his investors Scrooge can’t really remove him and I was curious how they’d get him out.. then again Scrooge probably, even as cheap as he is, had security cameras showing Bradford’s little talk with Bulba or any of his various rants as evidence. I mean Scrooge is stingy but he’s not STUPIDLY stingy. it’s the best I got, point is he’s to the wind now and our heroes have one! Except yeah.. the ending of the last segment.

Lost the Battle, Time to Win the War

In an utterly amazing swerve we find out just what kind of alert Beakly got as the rest of this episodes cast have arrived at the bin and Beakly asks why Scrooge hasn’t answered his phone.. and when Scrooge does Bradford’s plan comes into view: Turns out he locked scrooge in as a DISTRACTION, keeping him in the one place no one could reach him. It also explains why he attacked Scrooge: Besides having the perfect weapon for it and getting to gloat, someone needed to keep him busy while the rest of his operatives finished his master stroke. Turns out EVERYONE involved with one of the missing mysteries called: Goldie called to gripe about the fountain being gone and Scrooge taking it before she could, the Mervanans called to tell him the harp was swindelded by some eggheads and their good vibes did nothing to save her, we also get to see the pink one in full view which is nice but unimportant, and we get Drake back for a cameo!

But sadly it’s because he just met Steelbeak for the first time.. again, and Beaky clearly beat the every loving shit out of him as he’s heavily bruised, and took the papers on Solgelo’s Circuit with him

And Gene called to tell them he was being kidnapped as the Blot, now with a fully functioning gauntlet got to him. So to sum it up F.O.W.L. in one night, took all the missing mysteries they’d gathered or found, beat one of their most trusted allies and made their new security system worthless.

It was an utterly masterful story move: Firmly tying both plots together and confirming FOWL has SOMETHING bigger they want out of them. Some bigger plan, and as the last two weeks proved already knew where they were. Now it’s open war F.O.W.L.’s taken the first shot and hit hard.

But Scrooge, now with his confidence restored thanks to Louie, instead of backing down, is galvanized: They’ve lost the mysteries they have but if F.O.W.L. wants the rest, their going to have to beat the greatest family of adventurers the world, and probably the multiverse if we’re being honest and yes that includes other versions of this family, has ever known to them first. Sneaking in the shadows, attacking them from behind, striking them while they were at their most vunerable? FOWL was in their element and won this round because of it. But now adventuring, traveling the world, finding rare artifacts lost to time? Now their in the ducks wheelhouse. As Beakly, finally accepting her place in the family and that she’s not alone, proudly states their not ready for them. And so we close on one badass group shot as Dewey tries to lift the sword again only for his siblings to help, minus Louie naturally who still looks on determined. Our heroes have been through their dark night of the soul, they’ve lost a lot and the villians are miles ahead.. but they’ve also come out of it together, determined, their doubts behind them for now, and FOWL firmly in their sights. They won the battle.. but the war’s far from over. Game on.

Final Thoughts.

God this was a good one, as you could probably tell from the way I went on and on about it but this was one of the series best.. and while I say that a lot, mostly because Season 3 has consistently been about them topping themselves again and again, this time it’s etched in stone. I thought this would be a good one but forgetable.. instead it’s easily one of the best dives into the cast, and one of the best bottle episodes i’ve seen, limiting the cast to just our heroes, a handful of cameos and our big bad and letting our heroes be their own worst enemies for most of it. IT’s a great character piece, with plenty of great fluid action set pieces, absolutely heartbreaking character stuff, and a hell of an ending that sets the tone for the final half of the season and possibly the series. It also shut my mouth about the pacing, because as I hoped, much like season 2 it was slow on purpose: The first half, while also providing vital setup here and there, was also about telling stories they really COULDN’T once the FOWL plot kicked into gear for act 2. Getting trapped in a sitcom, a casual breakin of a gala where Donald meets the love of his life, a trip to tokyolk.. none of this would’ve really worked with Fowl at their heels. By taking their time they simply had more time to set the stage so when things kicked up with this act, things could stay intense.. minus the christmas episode but that takes place before these episodes so I don’t really count it. Point is the tone is firmly set, the stakes are high and things are at a level they’ve never been. This is one of the show’s finest and I expect i’ts only going to go higher and higher from here. Also one last note Bradford, bud.. why did you out Gandra as an agent? You had to have known about the whole Fenton thing, you seem to know everything and a break in to Gyro’s lab would’ve been something Scrooge had to tell you about or you could learn about yourself. They didn’t know she was still evil or working for you or that she was even on their radar. Also related while Steelbeak and Blot’s missions were obvious it was easy to figure out who went where besides them: Heron went under the sea both because she was the odd one out and because Bradford was presumably still mad about the helicopter thing, while Rockerduck obviously took the fountain since he’d been there and knew where it was now it was properly restored. Next Week: Kidcentric episode and the sabrewing sisters are back! Also while I don’t hate it, Lena’s blueform is simply a super mode.. phew. I mean I don’t dislike it but i’ts not a walk around in public thing. Point is kids teaming up for shenanigans, a mystic sword in the middle of x of swords AND the return of my two faviorite fowl agents. I’m pumped.

Until then if you like this review there’s more reviews on the pages on my blog including a just finished this weekend review of the original Ducktales 4-parter, Catch as Cash Can. It was a trip. You can find that collected into a handy series of links HEREEEEEEEEEE. Or if you prefer this series, as I do, you can find last week’s review of Let’s Get Dangerous HERE. If you like this review and want to here my thoughts on say an episode from the first two seasons (which I mostly haven’t covered yet), or another disney show, you can pm me on this very blog to comission an episode, just like one of my fans commissioned me to review catch as cash can. Or you can follow me on my patreon HERE. Until next week stay safe, vote if your old enough and check your house for Gary Busey!

#ducktales #escape from the impossibin #scrooge mcduck #bentina beakly #webby vanderquack #huey duck #louie duck #della duck #dewey duck #donald duck #bradford buzzard #gandra dee #darkwing duck #drake mallard #ducktales spoilers #reviews #revew

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drshojo · 4 years

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The World, My Childhood And My Hero Academia: Vigilantes

Hello friends!

Its Dr. Shojo coming at you with a post that will be divided into three parts!

Part One: The world as we know it!

The world has changed a lot since we last connected. For starters, TOILET BOUND HANAKO KUN HAS NOT ONLY A PHYSICAL RELEASE BUT A GORGEOUS ANIME! And not only that, but MY NEXT LIFE AS A VILLAINESS: ALL ROUTES LEAD TO DOOM! IS GETTING AN ANIME AS WELL! The last time I wrote about Katerina there wasn’t even an official English translation of that long-ass light-novel-title. And now?

A WHOLE ANIME. A BISEXUAL HAREM AWAITS! I am JAZZED!

Do you think it’s my fault? No matter, I’ll take all the credit. All the manga I talk about are getting anime adaptations. I’LL DO MY DUTY AND TALK ABOUT SOME MORE!

But first. Let us address the Covid-19 shaped elephant in the room

I deeply regret that it took a whole-ass pandemic to get me back to writing. In my defense, I bought an iPad and started drawing like 900 kokichi oumas. I was really busy with that. And then I started reading fanfiction. Then that got me thinking about how fanfiction such an interesting look into how people interpret fandom, use it for wish fulfillment and escapism, and good god is everyone OK cause that bulimia fan fic was super detailed....and I am officially on a tangent. Off track. Ahem.

We are all staying inside a whole lot more which means y’all probably need some reading material and Dr. Shojo has your back! Go read “Horimiya”! It’s amazing! Ahhhh, my work here is done! I'm serious, if you’re here for a Shojo rec, that’s it! There's also like 8 million more Otome Isekais to check out now. It’s like they’re multiplying like rabbits..............

As a Doctor, I must advise you to stay inside and read some manga and practice social distancing. Embrace your inner hikikomori.

Allright? All good? Okay now one final disclaimer:

This post is going to be talking about something a little different than usual and I want to start by giving you some context about who Dr. Shojo is in real life.

Part Two: Dr. Shojo Exposed

You see, when I was little I was obsessed with Japanese media. This doesn't surprise you at all I can tell. Probably because I walk around calling myself Dr. Shojo and shout about manga that you should read.

Anyways, the reason why I was obsessed wasn’t because of the big eyes or the spikey hair or the interesting new culture. It was because it tended to have more character development and overarching plotlines than the media I was used to in Canada. Dexter’s Lab, Magic School Bus, pretty much everything I saw on TV was episodic in nature, so imagine how much my mind was blown when I saw Naruto and Card Captor Sakura, heck, even Pokémon had the Indigo Plateau! Here were kids that were learning more and more each day and got to see enemies become friends and vice versa. They lived and grew older just like me. Except they were cooler than me. And had more interesting lives than me. I gotta tell you, I was so sad when I was 12 and Kero didn’t tell me I had latent magical powers. But there was magic in my life and it was the magic of a complex narrative story. And not only that, it had a sense of movement and had cool costumes. I was hooked immediately.

Also, fun fact, at that age I happened to be a complete and utter tomboy! I loved pretending to fight my friends in the playground and was really worried that puberty would ruin my life because being a girl sounded so CUMBERSOME.

Which leads me up to my confession. Before I became Dr. Shojo, I was in fact......Dr. Shonen.

Bleach? Naruto? One Piece? I've read every single chapter there is.

Hundreds of hours of watching fight sequences. Another fun fact, I only got into shojo because my aunt bought me volume 7 and 8 of Fruits Basket thinking “all mangas like the same right? Kids love comics?” It’s a tribute to how episodic western media was back then that she thought buying volume SEVEN and EIGHT was a REASONABLE PLACE TO START READING.

Now you might also say, Hey! Dr Shojo! Cardcaptors was a shojo! And you are right! but back then the anime was marketed to boys over here in the west and they actualy like, edited out episodes that they thought wouldn't interest boys?! Second fun fact, Once when I was in Grade 3 I was told I was not allowed to join a club under the stairs cause I was a girl and it was BOYS ONLY. The point of the club? To talk about how great Cardcaptors was! I Kid you not!

So anyways, your pall Dr. Shojo loves Shonen manga to this day!

The only reason I made this Dr. Shojo blog specifically about shojo is because, being a tomboy with no female friends, reading shojo manga was the first time I really thought about what it meant to be a girl and fall in love. And y i k e s. Shojo manga, like most media, fails miserably most of the time in displaying real world relationships. Or at least, it doesn't prepare you for how disappointing everything can be. When I had my first kiss, I was thinking about how it didn’t feel at all like how I felt reading Zen and Shirayukis kiss in Akagame No Shirayuki Hime. Those were formative years, and shojo was one of the only places I saw romance being talked about for younger audiences. I liked reading romances where no one had any sexual experiences and were figuring out what love meant to them. But let’s shelve this topic for now.

The point is that gender roles are dumb and if you have an open mind there's a world of stories out there for you. Take this time inside to read something you wouldn’t normally. Critically think about the ways that the worlds you see in stories and how you experience the world differ. What are the messages a story is trying to tell you? And why do you like the stories you do? Reflect on how the stories you tell yourself color your view of the world. Even mindless entertainment leaves an impression on us. Anyways.

Whilst you're doing that, I'm going to absolutely lose my hecking mind over the Shonen Jump series MY HERO ACADEMIA: Vigilantes!

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!

Part Three: I downloaded the one month free trial of the Shonen Jump app and made you read all that, so I can tell you that today Dr. Shojo is going to rant about a spin-off of a shonen manga

THAT’S RIGHT, OF COURSE I READ HERO ACA AND YES I DID PICK UP THE SPIN OFF SERIES. SHONEN JUMP LETS YOU READ ALL THE NEW CHAPTERS FOR FREE ON THEIR APP. KIDS, IF YOU LIKE SHONEN AND YOU’RE PIRATING ON A SCANLATION SITE STILL GET OUT BECAUSE YOU DON’T NEED TO SEE THOSE WEIRD PLASTIC SURGERY AND DENTISTRY ADDS ANY MORE.

SHONEN IS HERE AND ITS LEGAL AND ITS FREE FOR YOU. GET OFF MANGA FOX OR MANGA ROCK OR WHATEVER THE KIDS ARE USING THESE DAYS.

OK, so by this point in the article you have learned two very important things about me: 1) I love Shonen manga and 2) I read a lot of fanfiction.

Specifically, I read an absolutely biblical amount of My Hero Academia fan fiction and let me tell you, A solid chunk of it is vigilante/ Deadpool / criminal with a heart of gold themed.

So when I saw Hero Aca had a spin off, and it was about vigilantes, I was NOT SURPRISED IN THE SLIGHTEST. Ao3 sure is powerful.

Now, if you will permit me a tangent in a post full of tangents—HOLY CRAP, THERE ARE TOO MANY VIGILANTE AUS. I CAN'T KEEP TRACK OF EM. IT’S THE ISEKAI PROBLEM ALL OVER AGAIN. I GET AN EMAIL A FIC HAS UPDATED AND I’M LIKE IS THIS THE FIC WHERE DEKU HAS AN ABUSIVE MOM OR THE ONE WHERE HE HAS SPLIT PERSONALITY DISORDER OR THE ONE WHERE HE’S VIGILANTES WITH HITOSHI. OH WAIT, nvm, it’s the one where deku has a healing quirk.

OH WAIT WHICH OF THE 6 DEKU WITH HEALING QUIRK VIGILATE AU FICS IS THIS ONE?! ARGH WHY DIDN’T I WRITE A DESCRIPTION IN THE BOOKMARK FOR THIS!

My gripes aside, there's a reason why there's such an abundance of vigilante story telling—

Deadpool made like an absolute buttload of money and people love sass and memes.

People have a desire for a story in which they see themselves. Or, how they think of themselves.They like a story about someone who maybe came from nothing. Someone who has less money, maybe someone who is unlucky and had some bad breaks. Someone who never learned they had magic, never got their Hogwarts letter, never saw Kero, someone who never got that God-level quirk from All Might. And if your on Ao3 They want someone who also has seen a lot of memes and kind of wants taco bell and is also questioning their sexuality a bit?

Enter our new hero VIGILANTE DEKU.

But the cannon can't do this, cause hey, Deku is the chosen one. Albeit, chosen by All Might, He’s got his own thing to do. But how can we still cash in on a vigilante story?

And thus enter our New-New hero KOICHI HAIMAWARI—code name Nice Guy and then later The Crawler. True to his relatable roots. He’s just a dude in an hoodie who can go about as fast as a bike.

First off, I love Koichi. He wants to be a hero and fight crime, but most of the time he has to run away because at the end of the day he's just a dude.

He’s cute but not wildly good-looking, A bit of a nerd but not like an extreme okaku. He’s got a part time job and hates violence.

And this is where Koichi really shines—in every day stuff. He helps out wherever he can. Often, that just means listening to people complain and maybe helping his friends out with whatever they’re going through. He’s the kind of guy who smiles, not because he's especially brave, but because he just takes things one at a time and doesn't sweat the past. I think it’s really telling that he missed getting into hero high-school because he skipped the entrance exam to help someone. He’s the kind of person who lets us experience the superpower of human decency and empathy. And you know what? That’s something the world need desperately.

This theme of human decency is really the driving force of Vigilantes—it’s a manga about how the laws are there for a reason but sometimes they unfairly impact the poor and vulnerable. It's about how a lot of criminals are just people who fell into bad social circles or on bad times. People have the capacity for cruelty and violence but that’s never all they are.

Now, speaking of crime, the entirety of Hero Aca falls into some murky water when it comes to its evil doers. Much of the fandom has a huuuuuge problem with how much the franchise is willing to sweep under the rug in the name of redeeming their baddies. RE: people getting mad about forgiving Endeavor’s child abuse, or Bakugo’s suicide baiting. Or Mineta’s blatant sexual harassment.

But this theme is in Vigilantes even more than it ever was in the main series. To start off with, there’s this guy who tries to rape Pop Step early on, and the later he later winds up befriending everybody. It becomes a running gag that each new villain winds up befriending the other villain guys and then they all open a cat café together.

Using jobs as a way to lift people out of lives of crime is great and all but in the story there is no nuance or consequences for past wrong and well.....it feels very weird. It's like Vigilantes plays at having an opinion about moral ambiguity and the complexity of human existence and then just.......lets everyone get along because who has time to get into all that. Make of that what you will but it sits weird for me personally.

Anyway, let's move on and talk about POP STEP our main girl!

I love pop stars and I love vigilantes and a guerrilla performer is defiantly a character I could get behind. And I think they do a good job with Pop. She is actually kind of shy, but has this secret edgy persona she puts on when she performs. She is every girl on tumbler in the early 2000s. I also looooove that they make her not that great a singer. SHE’S GOT PASSION AND CHARISMA and maybe not born talent but like why should that stop you! Talent can be earned through practice and this is a great lesson to show people.

Unfortunately, Pop is also a great example of everything wrong with romance in Shonen.

It’s established early on that Pop loves Koichi because she is the girl he rescued all those years ago and yada yada yikes we’ve heard this one before. Many times before.

Sure, it's fine that they’ve met before, but gosh am I sick of damsels in distress. It's like she can't love him just because she respects what a great guy he is in her life and in the community at large, no no, she just needs to be rescued on top of that. And LOLOLOL isn't it funny he never noticed she was a girl because she was a child with short hair?! Once he realizes she has boobs now they will for sure fall in love! That’s how love works!

She's just with him all the time—nothing romantic ever happens she just gets a little tsundere.

I am never ever going to believe Koichi likes Pop because he spends like sooooo much time with her and they never have like, a moment. The first time he considers her is when Makoto is like, ‘hey I would love to get together with you, but have you thought about if you are crushing on Pop’. (Also this entire plot point is suspect—she's arbitrarily falling for Koichi cause he.......is the protagonist?)

Say what you will about shojo, they give you the emotional conversations, the moments where you think.....ahhh I can see why she is falling for him. They give you context! Shonen likes to just say HERE’S A GIRL YOUR AGE. YOU CAN DATE LATER WHEN THE ADVENTURE IS DONE.

Just when they might get together, Pop suddenly turns evilllllll. The evilllll beeeees made her eeeevilllll (and more sexy).

*Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiighhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh*

Because why on earth would they get together if Koichi didn’t get to rescue Pop one more time?

I’m tired. These troupes are tired. I’m sure you are too. HOWEVER! If your still with me, Let’s move into why I'm really writing this post. Let’s get to the part that got me screaming to my friends, who by the way, don’t even care bout Hero Aca….but listened anyways. May you all find nakama like these my friends.

Anyways,

HOLY FUCK ERASERHEAD’S ENTIRE BACK STORY IS IN THIS AROUND CHAPTER 60 AND IT IS WONDERFUL AND ABSOLUTLY HEARTBREAKING AND IS ONE OF THE BEST CHARACTER BACKSTORIES I HAVE EVER SEEN AND IS THE REASON WHY THIS SERIES IS A MUST-READ FOR MAIN SERIES FANS.

AND BY ALMIGHT.

WHY. IS. IT HERE.

I present to you my late night text messages to my friends

ALSO, AIZAWAS TEACHER IS PRINCE?!?!?!

AHEM, so as you can see, I kinda lost my shit.

And now, I would like to formally defend my claim that DESPITE HOW AMAZING IT WAS, ERASERHEAD’S BACKSTORY HAD NO BUISSNESS BEING IN THE VIGILANTES SPIN-OFF MANGA.

Eraserhead, aka Aizawa Shouta, is a side character who is working with the police on some crime stuff. He is not a main cast member in this spin off. He’s a guest character that fans of the main series will be like OH COOL. GRUMPY CAT MAN LIKES CATS ON HIS OFF HOURS TOO. LOVE THAT FOR HIM.

So, my imagine my absolute surprise when Aizawa runs into Koichi and the following happens:

It starts to rain, so, like in any good manga, this means some great FORCED BONDING TIME

Except no. It doesn't because rather than start talking, Aizawa JUST STARTS REMEMBERING—ABSOLUTLY SILENTLY TO HIS OWN PRIVETE SELF—HIS ENTIRE TRAGIC BACKSTORY.

AND THIS GOES ON FOR CHAPTERS.

THIS GOES ON LONGER THEN ARC ONE IT FEELS LIKE.

I LOVE IT, BUT KOICHI IS ABOUT TO JOIN ATSUSHI NAKAJIMA IN THE DUBIOUS CATEGORY OF “PROTAGONISTS THE SERIES FORGOT ABOUT IN LIEU OF COOLER SIDE CHARACTERS”.

AND LO IT HAS NO BEARING ON THE REST OF THE PLOT, CHARACTERS, OR STORY

What the ever-loving-just WHY?

WHY?

WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?

SURE, IT’S A COOL TIE-IN.

YES, OF COURSE I LOVED IT. I SHIP ERASER MIC, I DREW THIS FOR HECK’S SAKE:

AND YET I AM ANGRY.

I AM ANGRY BECAUSE MY FRIDAY WAS RUINED BECAUSE VIGILATES SUCKER PUNCHED ME WITH AN AMAZING STORY THAT REALLY WASN’T PLOT RELEVANT AND PROBABLY SHOULDN’T HAVE BEEN THERE.

IS THIS WHY THEY TOOK LIKE NEXT-TO-NO CARE WITH POPS ARC?!?

I mean its ongoing, so it’s too early to say but—

In conclusion—

Excuse me one more,

AIZAWA WAS TAUGHT BY PRINCE!?!??!?!?!?!? PURPLE RAIN PRINCE!?!??!?!?!? WHAT!??!?!?!

It’s so ABSURD that I HAD TO WRITE SOMETHING ABOUT IT. I HAD TO WRITE PARAGRAPHS TO JUSTIFY YELLING ABOUT THIS ONE THING. WHAT THE ABSOLUTE—

Ahem,

Anyways, I hope you liked this weird rant/personal-story/random-diatribe in three parts.

If you’re reading this, thank you, stay safe, and I’ll be back with more shojo manga next time.

Ciao!

Dr. Shojo

(aka Dr. Shonen)

#my hero academia vigilantes #koichi haimawari #pop step #my hero academia #erasermic #Cardcaptors #Shojo manga #Shonen Manga #Dr Shojo #read Horimiya

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lachlann-macnab · 4 years

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BDRP 2020 QUESTIONNAIRE

Your Name: Jean

Characters: Lachlann “Launchpad” MacNab

Pick one of your characters and talk about their growth. What about their story has surprised you? What are you proud of? How have they changed from their original inception to now?

Well, Launchpad is relatively new so he’s still pretty much the same as I envisioned him from the start-

-though I’ll admit that the idea of him having an enormous crush on Seamus/Scrooge was a surprise. I think it only took a couple of little chats with Sav and familiarizing myself with Seamus’ story for him to go “yes!! that’s the one I love!! let me at him!!”.

The funny thing is that it just kind of happened but also has a degree of canonicity to it; Granted, Ducktales ‘17 (the canon that got me into the Duckverse) didn’t delve a whole lot on the relationship those two have...but Ducktales ‘87 does and it’s fucking beautiful.

But I didn’t know that! I was just familiar with the newest canon -exploring the relationship led me to the older canon and I absolutely love it! I love the way the older version of LP is equal parts silly and capable and I try my best to express that nice balance on my interpretation.

And I wouldn’t have found that sweet spot if it hadn’t been for Sav and Seamus!

Pick another character (or the same character if you only have one) and talk a little about where you WANT them to go. What are your plans for them going into the new year?

Oooh man, this is probably going to sound rude of me, but I want someone to call Launchpad out on his shit.

He is a happy-go-lucky man, he is positive, he does think the best of everyone right from the start, he is honest with that, but there’s also a degree of performativity to the way he interacts with people: he is a people pleaser and he’s also someone who avoids problems/confrotation when possible.

That leads to him having a hard time actually voicing what he thinks when things were serious. Launchpad will default to what he thinks is the most noble/the best option even if he actually hates it. He tries his best to be a reliable dude, but that pushes him to his limits every now and then -and he hates it, but will do it anyways.

I’d love for someone to notice that and point out his marthyr complex to him, or how hypocritical he can actually be when noone is looking.

Jun did an amazing job at that, with the whole Moon Market incident and that is part of why I love his characterization and- I could rant about how Jun and LP are actually similar, yet different, but I won’t.

Someone please bitchslap my idiot son and tell him to be honest with his feelings, maybe get him to confront his feelings of inadequacy, maybe get him to actually face his problems instead of running away from them, kthanxs.

Pick a thread or a plot that you’re proud of and talk about why you loved it.

I have three threads I absolutely love, each for different reasons:

*Cleanliness is next to... with Jun: Jun called my idiot son out on his ‘noble man’ act. Jun was not impressed with his efforts and pushed him to an actual mini-meltdown because Launchpad didn’t know what to do or say to try and make things better: Launchpad is so used to having his way around people that the moment someone was inmune to all his tricks he...lost it. Big time. And I loved it.

*Untitled with Eilonwy: Both of them clicked instantly and- oh, man, I can’t really express what I feel about it, but:

Launchpad feels an actual, honest, connection to Eilonwy in various ways: both of them are a little bit weird, both of them are learning, both of them were kind of kicked out their comfort zones, both of them love adventure, both of them are fearless (in different ways), but there’s also a curious father-daughter dynamic to them. Eilonwy lacked not only a father figure but also a general actual caring adult one and I guess that’s part of what draws her to LP, while LP is a naturally caring man who also, (betweem the two of us), loves feeling like a good-ish role model instead of the dude people tell you to avoid because he’s an idiot, he loves looking out for people, he loves being understood -and Eilonwy, surprisingly, understands him without even trying.

They are so very sweet, they just clicked and both of them learn new things with the other: both about themselves and the world. And I love it.

*Dressed to the nines with Seamus: a.k.a “the one in which Sav let me go absolutely fucking ham”: It began with a chat about the need of gratious fanservice involving Seamus wearing (and getting out of) a suit -but soon became something else thanks to the Halloween task.

We soon got the ball rolling and Black Annis happened in a stupidly organic way (her very modus operandi, I discovered kind of late during the creation, ties way too well with the thread’s title itself and I’ll never get over it), and the mix of terror and action just naturally pushed the rest of the plot into the catharsis Seamus needed after all the stuff he’s been through.

The thread gave us the opportunity to write some mindless comedy, some yearning, some tenderness, plenty of gore, blood, trauma, legit PTSD, then back to tenderness and silliness -while also mentioning and showing a good deal of the things that have made Seamus the man he currently is, with the pretty and the ugly of it.

I just think it was an amazing character exploration for both Seamus and Lachlann, and I enjoyed every bit of it. I love Sav’s writing, I love Seamus’ characterization, I love how naturally it all evolved, I love how Sav can casually bring something up while plotting and the thing just clicks into place, I love how we just kind of understand where things are going or where we want them to go. Sav’s just amazing at brainstorming and general writing and I feel really, really lucky to have the chance to write with her.

I have no choice but to stan, really.

And I could go on and on about how the thread pushed both Seamus and Lachlann towards some big character development, but I really don’t want to rant -so I’ll leave it like this.

In terms of your own writing, identify 1-3 strengths and talk about why you think it’s one of your strengths.

Gee, that’s a difficult one. I guess my strongest suit as of now would be Launchpad’s voice as a character -and I’m not only talking about dialogue.

I think everyone that has read any of my threads has noticed by now that the flow of the narration is an extension of how Launchpad himself feels and thinks: it’s chaotic and emotional, it can get self-conscious and snarky when he, himself, can’t, it brings some exposition while not breaking the simple, chaotic rythm of Launchpad per-se.

In terms of your own writing, identify 1-3 areas of improvement.

This is way easier for me to pinpoint, hah! I definitely need to work on the length of my posts: I know seeing paragraphs upon paragraphs upon paragraphs can make people tired or make them feel intimidated to interact.

I also need to work on organizing Launchpad’s chaotic thoughts. The narration does get long-winded and sometimes the progression from point A to point B is way too chaotic -so much so that actually erasing it all would make no impact on the overall narration.

Pick one of your plots, or even just a character, and come up with a list of 3-5 “mentor texts” where you can look for inspiration or research, then write a short (2-4 sentences) why you picked those texts.

Not texts per-se, but I think a good way to get a feel of Launchpad’s general vibe is to watch “Top Duck” from Ducktales ‘87 and/or “The Duck Knight Returns” and “Double-o-duck in: You only crash twice”; Those episodes do an amazing job in expressing his insecurities and passions.

Now, leaving the source material behind, I think a book he resonates with is “Oh, the Places You'll Go!” by Dr. Seuss -it’s fun, it’s simple and it has an overall heartwarming message: It kind of captures that sense of wonder, discovery and positivity Launchpad both has and wishes to offer other people.

Another inspiration of sorts for Launchpad is Ferry’s “Parties are for losers” series: First of all, I’ll admit I’m a sucker for the Strugatsky brothers and СТАЛКЕР, so it’s no surprise I’m in love with Ferry’s interpretation of the story; I see a little bit of LP in KT’s story, but also in Yura’s and, surprisingly, in Olga’s.

PAFL’s setting is different, yet similar, to the Soviet sci-fi original: it deals with some disenchantment, it’s far from idealistic, it’s rough, but it’s also full of wonder and adventure: there’s big risks, but there’s also a good deal of things that make things, if not better, a little bit less miserable for the characters -and sometimes that something that keeps them going is other’s presence. PAFL is, for me, the inspiration for adventures that aren’t always glamourous, simple, or happy, taken by characters that are far from perfect, that have the odds against them, that carry a whole lot of baggage and, yet, prevail.

And, finally, a last inspiration for Launchpad, my lovable idiot son, comes from probably the place one would expect the least: God of War (2018).

I’m also a sucker for God of War, sue me.

I know it may seem bizare, but the message of the game just clicks with LP -and before you start wondering how in hell Kratos could possibly inspire Launchpad just let me tell you: he doesn’t. Because it’s not about Kratos I’m refering to when I talk about that story! I’m actually thinking of Mimir!

I love him so much.

Mimir’s role on the game is multifacetic: he brings exposition and ocasional comedic relief, sure, but I see him as the heart of the interactions between Kratos and Atreus (Kratos’ son, for those who may not know). Kratos is emotionally repressed and keeps to himself a lot while Atreus is a bundle of joy, energy, curiosity and someone that doesn’t think ‘because I say so’ is a valid answer to things; Kratos and Atreus clash during the first part of the game even when they love one another in their very particular ways.

In comes Mimir.

Mimir(’s head) joins the party and takes upon himself to act as a bridge between emotional distant father and young naive fearless son and...things start working for the three of them! Kratos starts understanding Atreus! Atreus slowly understands his father’s worries and needs! They begin the story as (almost) complete strangers but by the end they have an actual bond thanks to Mimir’s constant pushing and interventions: Mimir is soft with Atreus but bold with Kratos, the man knows when to joke and throw some riské comments for the chaos of it, but he’s also the first to offer words of comfort and understanding.

The man becomes part of the family even when he isn’t related to them by blood, even going so far as to give a ‘no, take me instead!’ when presented with the opportunity by a pair of enemies, even when his whole story tells us that he thinks of the idea of dealing with those people (won’t say who, because spoilers) as worse than death -the man hates the mere idea of going back but doesn’t hesitate a second to offer himself as a sacrifice for his new family.

And, damn, that’s what I base my interpretation of Launchpad on. He’s not a part of the family per-se but he constantly acts as a bridge between the youngest and more idealistic parts of it and the jaded, older, tired one; He’s happy to be comedic relief but will also sit and give anyone a pep talk when absolutely necessary -he knows his limitations but keeps trying and offering his best for those he cares about. He tries to be the heart.

I’m emotional about a disembodied head, don’t touch me. Play God of War (2018), it’s fucking amazing.

And now, a wishlist!:

I’m...actually up for everything and anything, really. I’d love some adventures, but I also love the more mundane interactions, I love the heavier topics but also the silly moments.

I guess, as I said before, the one thing I’d really love is for someone to push Launchpad to be honest about his feelings. Also a plot about him either considering to or actually flying again -those, however, will happen in due time and I have no rush to make ‘em.

Why do you RP?

Short explanation?: I love writing and reading.

Longer explanation?: I love writing and reading, I love complex characterizations, I love exploring new ideas and seeing how little plot bunnies become full fledged plots and/or character explorations or bring some character development, I love how that creates a domino effect with the rest of the cast. I love to see things happen: I love watching from afar as other’s characters learn lessons, create and conect-

-also, I write and read all day, everyday: that’s my job. I do script revisionism and organizational comunication. During work hours I have to check the flow of words, tones, and overall intentions; I have to do my best to make sure someone’s idea fits the box, but RPing gives me the opportunity to take the box and toss it out of the window. RPing gives me the chance to write freely, to write silly, to be imperfect and not worry about going from A to B or dealing with a checklist or tones, intentions or other’s ideas.

It’s just freeing. And that’s why I do (and love) it.

#bdrptask #/warning: long read ahead #/80% of this is me fanboying about other's writing; tbh

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ambidextrousarcher · 4 years

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Sarcastic StarBharat Reviews: Episode 14- In which a (completely non-canon) coronation is stopped.

Tagging @butchcaroldanvers, @mayavanavihariniharini, @medhasree, @chaanv @shaonharryandpannisim @allegoriesinmediasres @hermioneaubreymiachase @iamnotthat @ratnas-musings @justahappyreindeer @avani008. I’m forgetting someone...

The episode begins exactly where the last one ends. “Who dares?” asks Mr. Permanently Angry Drama Queen. Gandhari stutters a hesitant “husband…” I am NOT going to use the word ‘arya’. For some reason, if freaks me out. Another voice joins in “Putr Dhritrashtra”. “Mata?” “Are you ready, son?” “I have been ready for years, mother.” Yeah, Mr. Conceited Ego, we all know how ready you were. BTW, I think I have not pointed this out, thinking it obvious, but in case it isn’t, it’s a CANON FAIL #23: I don’t remember Dhritrashtra being the original person to be crowned. From what I know of canon, it was always Pandu. I’m not sure if Dhritrashtra was crowned after Pandu’s exile, but I doubt it, seeing that it was always Yudhisthir who was apparently the heir to the throne. “You will be Hastina’s King today” says Ambika. She gushes a bit about her happiness. She ends with “We should be there by the time Pandu and Vidur have finished taking the oaths. Come, Gandhari.” Mr. Drama Queen has to keep adding unnecessary drama (I’m actually kinda feeling sorry for the actor by now) and he says “Tell her not to walk by my side.” Dude, she’s your wife, isn’t she? Ms. Always Patnidharm? (This ain’t canon Gandhari, either). “If my pace slows while walking towards the throne for any reason, I will not bear it!” Ah, apparently this show has had enough of psycho ladies. Time for psycho dudes! Psycho dude #1: Mr. Drama Queen. #2 is Shakuni, I’ll defo come up with some name for him too. I think Mr. Ominous Music is good. Dhritrashtra strides off. “Come, sister. Whether or not you walk equally, he can’t sit on the throne without you.” This, quite obviously, is Mr. Ominous Music. Scene switches to an elaborate ceremony. Mr. Honey Boy and Vidur are here. They go stand on two sides of the hall. They do the required salutations. Vidur is the first to start the oath. He and Pandu do it in tandem. Vidur represents the virtues of justice, Pandu those of valour. They are handed the ceremonial spectre and the ceremonial armor respectively. They make oaths to the respective item. With that, the jayjaykars begin and the ceremony comes to an end. Mr. Drama Queen strides in with his usual angry strides, followed by Ms. Always Patnidharm, Mr. Ominous Music et al. He gives perfunctory pranipaats. Bhishm pointedly doesn’t bless him, his usual customary ‘Ayushmaan Bhav’ is missing. Satyavati gives him a blessing and then outlines her hopes. “The throne of Hastina will receive its lord today,” she says. (You’re right, lady, but the lord in question is not the one you think it is…here anyway). “This is one of the happiest moments of my life. Today, you will lift the weight of your father’s nations on your shoulders, that has been borne by myself and Bhishm for so long. Now is the time for your coronation.” Mr. Angry Drama Queen manages to look both angry and dramatic as he ascends the steps to the throne. He joins his hands as Bhishm passes the ceremonial sword to him. “Stop, elder brother,” This is Vidur. Ah, the moment of reckoning is here. “Mahamantri Vidur, how can you do something so inauspicious?” This is Satyavati. “The reason is that I just swore the oath of the Mahamantri.” He repeats that oath. “Hence,” he says “It is mandatory for me to stop this Adharm.” “What Adharm, Mahamantri?” “This coronation, Rajmata.” Cue shocking music. “A man who is blind from birth is not eligible to become a King.” This is further extension of Canon Fail #23, kindly note. Also, for all of Vidur’s ableist words, apparently, this made sense in the culture of that time…but I am not sure. Obviously, Mr. Angry Drama Queen is not going to take it well. But then, if it made sense in the culture of the time, enough that Dhritrashtra, to the best of my knowledge (correct me if I am wrong, folks) was never a candidate for the King at least until Pandu exiles himself, even after that I think he was more of a place holder type King, not the King regnant. People with better canon knowledge than I, please comment. The scene drags on a bit, with repetition of the above dialogue. “You are saying this now? You knew about the coronation beforehand.” Good question, also one that was in my mind, too. “With situation, dharma changes, Rajmata.” “Dharma and change?” This is Mr. Ominous Music, henceforth also dubbed Mr. Annoying Poseur. “This is the first time I have heard of it. I have heard of selfishness changing, but Dharm? Yes, but Hastinapur is a large Kingdom. Maybe the rules are different here.” “Yuvaraj Shakuni!” Here comes the Paragon of Perfection. “You do not have the right to speak in our dynastic issues.” “Forgive me, Mahamahim Bhishm, but a brother has a right to speak in his sister’s stead. Dharma says so, in the entirety of Aryavrata. Whether this is Dharma in Hastina or it has changed, only Mahagyaani Vidur can say so.” “I can answer your question also. Seeing no fault in his elder brother is a younger brother’s Dharma.” Title BGM starts playing. Ah, so this is important. “But when it comes to a King’s virtues and vices, then it is the Mahamantri’s dharma not to see the man as his brother.” “Only the eldest son of a family has the right over the throne, Mahamantri Vidur,” says Satyavati. She’s seriously sounding like a broken record by now. “If every son of the family is equally eligible, only then does the eldest have that right.” He then goes off into obscure philosophy that we don’t need, about Ashad and Shravan, so I am not noting that here. “When thinking between age and virtue, virtue is more important, Rajmata.” Title BGM plays again. Audience, please take note. There is some discourse about the Shaastrs but the long and short of it is that only an able bodied man can be King, according to them. “Not in a deficient man.” Finishes Vidur. Mr. Drama Queen has had enough. “Deficient!” he exclaims. All eyes turn to him. “Me, deficient!” “Forgive me, elder brother.” “Silence! Silence. I have been insulted enough, Vidur. When your ever-changeable dharma has left this Court, send for me.” He descends the stairs and strides back as everyone watches, absolutely shocked. Honey Boy comes to his senses first. “Elder brother!” He calls. “Stop!” But he strides away. Ms. Always Patnidharm (I refuse to give this caricature Gandhari’s name. The Gandhari I know has a lot of self-esteem) asks Sukhdha to take her to her husband. “Just because he is blind, we cannot accept that, Mahamantri Vidur.” “Eyesight is the first and foremost weapon of a King, Rajmata. Unless a King can read a man’s intents on his face, he cannot find hidden enemies in his court. When a King goes on progress, he sees the people with his eyes. How can a blind man do that?” “For all that only we have a Mahamantri, all the ministers, the Senapati.” “Forgive me, but we all have the duty to follow the King.” Dhritrashtra knocks braziers down. “Brother, listen to me,” says Honey Boy. “What else is left to listen, Pandu?” Dhritrashtra goes off on a rant about what a special snowflake he is. “Only Vidur has said so, brother. Since he is the Mahamantri, maybe he considers that his duty. But, we can also keep our side to…” Mr. Drama Queen knocks his brother off. “Ask for favours? Beg for favours? I am the eldest son of this dynasty! All those people who should by rights ask me for favours, you want me to beg in front of them?” “Please calm down!” “I am calm, Pandu! If I were not, I’d have killed you for your betrayal!” Huh? The one mistake Honey Boy is doing is that he’s too considerate of Drama Queen. Since when did he betray Drama Queen? “Betrayal? Brother, I have never…” “I know everything! You and that Dasi-Putr have planned this out. Talking about love and dharma, you want to steal my rights from me! You want to be King!” “This is a false accusation, brother! I have never even thought of such a thing in the wildest of my dreams!” “Go away, Pandu! Or you will burn in the flame of my anger.” Drama Queen pushes Honey Boy away, knocks another brazier down, growls, and strides off again. We come back to Vidur. The previous dialogue that he said is repeated again. “It is a King’s duty to be whole and full of virtue,” Vidur finishes. “And that’s you, Vidhvaan Vidur,” says Mr. Ominous Music. “Of course, you think of yourself alone as worthy.” “Gandhaar Yuvaraj!” This is Mr. Paragon of Perfection. Satyavati stops him with a raised hand. “Give him an answer, Mahamantri Vidur.” He bows. “A thorn’s duty to guard the tree, Rajmata,” he says to the strains of a sad theme BGM. “He neither aspires nor has the ability to replace a flower. I too am a thorn like that in the tree of this dynasty.” Why this much flowery language, bro? “When the subject of the country’s greater good comes to the fore, I will definitely bend. I know that God is always offered flowers, the thorns are thrown away first. But I have no sadness for that. I will always do my duty.” “Rajmata,” says Mr. Paragon of Perfection, “Vidur’s devotion to the throne of Hastina is complete, I have no doubt of that.” Just like that, everything is forgiven by Satyavati. “You are saying the right thing, Son of Ganga. But the throne cannot be empty anymore.” “That is why I advice that elder brother Pandu should have the throne.” Cue title BGM. The camera pans on everyone’s faces, finally focusing on Pandu who is standing at the threshold of the hall. Episode ends. I like this episode! You know why? No Krishna Gyaan! Yay!! Also, Vidur, how I wish you taught your younger nephews that dharma changes according to situation. If only you taught them that, they would not have obeyed their git of an elder brother when he sold them and their wife in a dice game…ah how I wish that! Precap: “There has been injustice with Gandhari, father, injustice and that truth is hurting my heart like a knife.” Yells Mr. Annoying Poseur as he drives a knife into his leg. Okay, that, too, as far as I know, is non canon, so here we have canon fail #24. “Shakuni!” Yells the queen.

#sarcastic starbharat reviews #ep 14 #non canon episode no. 6 #scribbler gets salty #nila rants #dhritrashtra #aka mr. drama queen and mr. conceited ego #pandu #aka honey boy #shakuni #aka mr. annoying poseur and mr. ominous music #gandhari #which is not gandhari but ms. always patnidharm #vidur #satyavati #the psycho dude saga continues #bhishm #aka mr. paragon of perfection

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steve0discusses · 5 years

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Yugioh S4 Ep16: Rex and Weevil Do Not Understand “Rock Bottom”

Hey guys.

Hey.

So... kind of crazy out there, right?

Well, you know what they say. When life gives you lemons, you watch Netflix.

Anyway, Yugioh is racing down this canyon that should be going up alongside the 101 and through the middle of many cities. Don’t worry about it.

And then I found out the name of a card I haven’t seen yet and wow it’s a name.

I’m really glad that Rex Raptor, dinosaur enthusiast, has just no idea how to name dinosaurs and does so like a 6 year old child. Hornsaurus.

(read more under the cut)

So this episode is mostly about Rex and Weevil’s tragic backstory, and thankfully, it’s really not that tragic. We’ve had SO MANY bizarre and weird backstories under our belt, that to have a completely normal one is just...wild to me. They’re so freakin normal.

And on the way, our train just...

OK Train...anyway, I’ll do my best to show which scenes are flash back and which are not, but like bear with me because it flashes back like every other scene it feels like.

So Rex waxes long about that very short time in which he and Weevil were the best ever duelists in Japan (other than Kaiba, I guess, who they failed to mention in this flashback.)

(I used to have a very soft performance fleece sweater the exact same shade as Weevil’s jacket there, popped collar and everything, with piping outline. Don’t judge me, it was the 00′s, I’m just shocked that Weevil also shopped at Old Navy.)

(However I have no idea what’s going on with Rex’s three layers of clashing outfit styles that he has going on. A turtleneck under a thick button up jacket under an open fringe jacket is so much of a 90′s vibe.)

Up until now, bro has been PRETTY SURE every episode that Rex and Weevil are originally from America. I don’t know how I feel about being so right on the money about this one when the episode outright said that they’re from Japan. I don’t really want to out-Yugioh my brother, because at some point, I’ll accidentally let slip that in writing this blog I have accidentally gained all Yugioh knowledge, just like Noah did that one time when he was stuffed into that brain orb.

Just please don’t don’t ask me how this game works, I still have absolutely no idea.

Weevil and Rex had adoring fans in two-shaded polos exactly just like the type I used to wear in high school. But, their fans all left them the moment Weevil lost one single game against Yugi Muto.

Harsh. But granted, I feel like the people of Domino have rabbit memories and if you aren’t actively in the news every day because your blimp got abducted by sea pirates, then who the hell is EVER going to know who you are?

But youknow, Rex and Weevil are pretty sure that dodging getting murdered by Pegasus was actually their last shot at fame. It’s over forever. They’re done. Done until they beat either Joey or Yugi which...very specific, but, it would make you somewhat famous if you did that by simultaneously destroying the Caltrain.

And Weevil is like gunning for the King of Games title but...apparently no one in this episode wanted to mention to Weevil that the “King of Games” moniker actually went to Raphael?

That he needs to beat Raphael...not Yugi Muto?

Nobody?

Nobody feels like mentioning that neither Yami nor Yugi could possibly still be King of Games and that Weevil has no really good reason to be here? I mean it would save Weevil a lot of time. It would also save me a lot of time. We could just walk off this train and go back to what we were all doing before this happened, but nah, lets keep the lie going, because apparently Yami can’t bear to tell the truth, just like his host.

Waiiiit, isn’t Rebecca the King of Games because she beat Yugi in S1?

It’s the freakin Malfroy/Elder wand, it’ll be important in Ch 40 I’m sure of it. I’m sure they’re not going to just...forget...all of the people that beat Yugi before.

Man. Maybe that’s why Yugi is so hell bent on keeping tabs on Rebecca? Just to youknow...make sure she doesn’t tell anyone that she hella beat him that one time because otherwise Kaiba would have lost his freakin mind (again) that Yugi lost that title basically the same afternoon he came back from Pegasus’ island.

Also Rex and Weevil once charged for headshots and this makes them vile, terrible people for some reason.

Apparently this is a bad practice? I mean if you’re famous enough please charge for head shots, you need to make money between playing cards. Take it from this jaded artist, always sell out so you can save money for when you will absolutely get carpal tunnel.

Whatever. Back to Rex who is certain that he is not famous anymore because he lost to Joey.

S4 and still everyone is certain that Joey is bad at cards. Joey will just never be free from this.

It was beautiful anime food for like ten seconds until he did this. How dare. Literally though, how did he do that? Was that burger made out of potato chips?

Can we talk about what a freakin crime it is I can’t watch my Nick at Night retro shows on Netflix or Hulu? Like hell I’m going to get a third streaming service so I can watch and admire how bad “I Love Lucy” aged. I want to see how incredibly off-putting Fonzie is as an adult. But nah. Not even allowed. You can only watch Cheers.

Cheers. What am I? 65? Cheers wasn’t on Nick at Night. My Mom watched Cheers. Gross.

This show trying to convince me so hard that Rex and Weevils lowest point wasn’t when they were 5 seconds away from being set on fire and having their soul removed by Maxamillion Pegasus.

Like for reals, the lowest point for ANYONE (except for the Ishtars) on this show was when they were trapped on that island, without any camping supplies, surrounded by human skulls, Bakura pre-exorcism, and so many other duelists who were probably going to eat them had the tournament gone 24 more hours than it had.

The island that also had a basement that was entirely full of cultists who absolutely murdered a guy right in front of us.

Like when they finally got out of the island’s huge ass forest, their dinner included a soup filled with Pegasus’ eyes.

I would have gotten pissed on by like 70 stray dogs to get off that island, y’all.

So one of the best things about this blog is I don’t have to worry about the restraint of a.) looking professional b.) the fear of sharing my actual real deal opinion. Everywhere else I post, I can’t share anything. I’ve come to terms with this, and so I hide my hot takes deep, deep within this Yugioh blog and the only people who suspect my art rage are like...y’all in the corner of Tumblr who do not care about what I’m talking about.

++++++++++++THIS IS MY HUGE RANT ABOUT ART POLITICS AND ART BITTERNESS FEEL FREE TO SKIP THIS. WE’RE QUARANTINING SO MUCH OVER HERE DUE TO THE VIRUS THAT I AM GOING A LITTLE BIT HOUSE CRAZY+++++++++++++++

But like MAN I need to mention something. Both Joey and Rex are completely off base. Both of them.

Like I’ll be real, because of the sudden extra time I have on my hands, I was originally ranting quite a bit about art culture and stuff and I will admit it was projecting somewhat onto a TV show that was written before the recession and the gig economy basically came and laid a huge dump across the creative industry.

However, I really, really, really don’t like it when people naively say “I’m successful because I did the research, I did the work, and then I got a following despite doing no marketing at all,” LIKE HELL YOU DID, DUDE. And there’s certain places I go where this is the mantra of a hell ton of ppl who don’t believe in luck, and I have to just suck it in because they succeeded at a young age. Because inversely, if anyone doesn’t succeed right away--clearly they don’t work hard enough, right?

I won’t dig into real world stuff because that’s...the real world and the real world is a bummer, but even in the universe of Yugioh there’s this crazy disparity in duelers that the people on the top refuse to acknowledge and the people on the bottom have absolutely no way to cope with so they become insanely bitter about it.

Mai has mentioned that despite all of her hard work and success--because she isn’t the top 4 duelists of Kaiba’s tourney--no one knows who she freakin is. The card industry is so toxic, that even KAIBA dropped out.

And even without Kaiba to compete against anymore, Mai still wasn’t able to get in there to fill that void. The void that also has Marik and Odion in it, despite the fact that I’m pretty sure Marik will never touch a card ever again and might be back to living underground or on a boat in the middle of no-where. And we don’t even need to mention Bakura, right? Bakura who should have also been here to fill the void of fame, but his face probably only comes out fuzzy on camera like people haunted by that girl from the Ring. So we’ll just ignore Bakura, that makes sense, I can accept that canon.

But really...it’s just Joey and Yugi at the top of the crop when there should have been room for at least 4.

So, it’s interesting that the Oricalchos in this situation is the “get me popular quick” drug that will somehow give Rex and Weevil what they need for automatic success because I see people desperately looking for this SO MUCH online. I have seen so many post “This is how I got 100000 followers in 100 days,” and it’s always the same story that isn’t so much about hard work, but more how to game a broken system until all other competitors are invisible. And then there’s the hidden factor about...luck...that really offends people although we all know that it exists.

But just remember I’m not allowed to have this opinion that luck...exists...So if anyone asks, I never said this.

And also...if Rex and Weevil had any support up until now from these kids who have been stuffing them in the trunk for over a dozen episodes, they wouldn’t have done any of this.

So talking as a jaded Millennial, I’m not gonna judge you if you take your Oricalchos, if you know what I mean. Everyone has their reasons, and no one’s too good not to ever do it, lets be real.

+++++++++++++++END OF THIS RANT, WOW, I WANT TO SAY THAT WHILE SLAPPING A WHOLE LOT OF PEOPLE IN A GENTLE MANNER+++++++++++++

So I realized something. This cliff face is sort of an iconic train, but it’s the wrong train.

This is the Amtrak in the middle of Nevada/Utah, pretty sure. I know that shade of orange. I’ve done the Nevada drive a lot.

And part of the reason I’m even sleuthing into this is because as an artist I like to see where art inspiration comes from. It doesn’t just come from a void--they clearly did research and I just want to find out...how it happened.

So anyway, like I said last time, the Amtrak is in charge of the Caltrain management, although the Caltrain is not part of Amtrak. And so you get similar paint jobs--it’s just that Amtrak has blue topped cars, and the Caltrain cars are typically red. Yugioh safely did red, white and blue, which both cars do, to an extent, being American trains.

It’s possible that they decided to look up scenic trains in California and were like “this one looks neat.” This one is also named the “California Zephyr” which makes it seem super Californian but in actuality it goes from Emeryville, California to Chicago. Only problem is that Emeryville is North of Oakland, and we’re supposed to be taking the train “to the airport” when the airports are in Oakland or San Mateo. This train doesn’t go to the airport. You just drove by the airport.

This train also doesn’t go to Florida. Chicago is North, way north. This train exists to be a slow, scenic train for old tourists who want to sleep in cramped spaces or jaded millennials writing their award winning novel. It has no other purpose.

So, it doesn’t at all match anything story wise...but it looks cool. They would never take this train if the world was going to end, and Rebecca wouldn’t know it exists, but, it looks cool.

But anyway, onward to the next episode. I’ll be kind of bunking in my home for a while since my entire area basically shut down, so maybe I’ll get the next updates done earlier than usual? Maybe even catch up on my backlog? hm. Possibilities.

And if you just got here, this is all the Yugioh recaps in chrono order.

#Yugioh #ygo #Yu-Gi-Oh #recap #photo recap #episode recap #yugi muto #yami #train #joey wheeler #tristan taylor #rex raptor #weevil underwood #S4 #Ep16

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miguel-manbemel · 4 years

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Aspects & Fanfics Ep. 39: Alone in the Dark

As it has been the norm lately, 14 days have passed and I present you with a new episode of the main narrative of the blog. In this episode, although I had made mentions of it in previous episodes, I fully start mentioning the quarantine and the effect it’s having on Thomas and the Sides, which is gonna be the base for this episode. Some of it is inspired on my own experience of being under quarantine in Spain, which is one of the countries that had the strictest confinements in all the world (we couldn’t leave the house at all except to buy first necessity goods, like basic food and medicines, and the penalty for breaking the lockdown was of 400 euros, with the possibility of even going to jail) I know in America the confinement wasn’t that strict (at least I read they let people get out to do some exercise, always keeping social distancing) but a confinement is a confinement anyway and when its as long as this one, it can take a toll on anyone, including character Thomas. That’s what I’m exploring in this episode. I hope you enjoy it and I’m leaving you with it now. Until next time.

SYNOPSIS: It’s been four months of confinement. Thomas is feeling very lonely, even hopeless, so he calls Joan. They give him the idea of visiting him in the Mind Palace since now they can enter from any physical location at their own free will, and so they both meet there. Roman visits them and soon they realize he’s not feeling well at all, and it doesn’t help matters that Thomas once again gets possessed by his Dark Master self, threatening to wreak havoc all over the Mind Palace.

WARNINGS: Mentions to lack of hope, sickness and the possibility of death. Romantic prinxiety, dukeceit and logicality. Remus and Janus make some innuendo references.

In memory of the great acting lady, Dame Olivia de Havilland (1916-2020), one of the best actresses of the last century. May she rest in peace and her work never be forgotten.

EPISODE INDEX

[Thomas is playing video games in his living room. He seems to be struggling on a difficult level. When he was almost on the verge of finally completing it, he’s beaten out]

THOMAS: [yelling] MOTHERF… [bleep] [bleep] you fu… [bleep] [bleep] [bleep] son of a fu… [bleep] b… [bleep] [bleep] [bleep]

[the screen pauses. Patton’s voice is heard off-screen]

PATTON: Don’t adjust your TV sets, kiddos. Your speakers are totally safe and… sound.

LOGAN: [voice in the distance] Holy sh… [bleep]

PATTON: Logan, please, get your bleeping act together! As I was saying, Thomas is just going through a fit of inappropriate language to vent out his frustration over having to restart that level he’d worked so hard on. Remember, kiddos, it’s not nice to use this kind of language at home. Use instead clean alternatives like “Dadgummit”, “Son of a bee-sting”, or my favorite, “What the fwah?”

REMUS: [voice abruptly interrupting Patton’s voice] Naaah, to the f… [bleep] with that! These words are in the English dictionary so why the f… [bleep] shouldn’t we use them? Let people express themselves however they f… [bleep] …ng want, Patton! Okay, I just wanted to leave that there, go on with whatever boring voice-over you were doing. See ya!

PATTON: [loud sigh] As I was saying, signal will be resumed ten minutes after Thomas calms down so your ears don’t suffer any longer. Roman, if you don’t mind, could you serve us a flash-forward, please?

ROMAN: [off voice] At your service, Patton! Rolling title screen, before the green goblin decides to come back!

[intro sequence]

THOMAS: [still angry but more calm] What is up, everybody? [sighs] Sorry about earlier. I shouldn’t have reacted as verbally angry as I did, and I apologize. It’s just that this quarantine thing is driving me crazy. I know it’s the right thing to do and that it’s hard for everyone and that it is our duty to comply, because everybody’s health, even lives, are at risk, so I’ve complied without fail. I only got out when strictly necessary to buy food, hygiene products, or medicines if I needed them, always wearing my mask and keeping social distancing, and I stayed home otherwise. But it’s been four months already and… every day is harder than the previous and… I also miss hugging my friends and family. I must endure, I know, that’s what I keep telling myself all the time. I thought, as an introvert, this would have been much easier, but one thing is avoiding social contact because you want to and another thing is being deprived of social contact by someone else. I never thought I would say this, but… I miss social contact, every day more. [sighs] Sorry about this rant. I have no one to talk face to face like that, so… yes I have my Sides, but they are me, so it’s not the same… I think I need to talk to Joan. Maybe I should call them. They always have that word of wisdom that helps me see the light in any situation, like all best friends do. I’ll call them. I hope they’re not too busy… Oh, what am I saying? We’re all confined at home, they’re as busy as I am right now.

[Thomas picks up his phone and calls Joan. After a couple of seconds, Joan picks it up]

JOAN: Hi dude.

THOMAS: Hi Joan.

JOAN: What’s up?

THOMAS: Nothing, really. I just needed to hear your voice… Wow this sounded way different in my head, I…

JOAN: It’s okay, I got it. Are you okay, Thomas?

THOMAS: To be honest, I’m kinda feeling like a mess right now. I’m getting a fit of longing for speaking to someone face to face. You’re lucky you’re spending quarantine with Talyn, at least you got each other to hold each other’s back. But I’m feeling so alone in my house right now… I’m sorry I’m venting on you. I don’t want to make you feel as down as I am right now…

JOAN: It’s okay, Thomas, that’s what friends are for and I’m happy to listen to you when you’re feeling bad, just like you listen to me when I’m in your place.

THOMAS: Thank you, Joan.

JOAN: Say, I suddenly got an interesting idea.

THOMAS: What is it?

JOAN: You know, I cannot go there in person to cheer you up, no matter how much I’d wish to do so…

THOMAS: I’d truly wish you to come here in person too. [sighs] but I guess that can only happen in my imagination right now…

JOAN: You read my mind, Thomas.

THOMAS: What?

JOAN: Have you forgotten? Thanks to us synchronizing our brainwaves I can enter inside your Mind Palace any moment, from any physical location. Why don’t we hang out in your Mind Palace so we can see each other face to face?

THOMAS: Oh, my goodness… that’s the best idea you’ve ever had, and you’ve got a lot of great ideas! But wouldn’t it be dangerous because of the virus?

JOAN: I don’t think so. I never heard of a virus spreading inside imagination. Have you? Besides, you said that Sides don’t get human diseases. I presume that also goes for people in the Mind Palace. It’s worth a try, at least. Don’t you think?

THOMAS: I think you’re right. Let’s try. Are you ready?

JOAN: I’m already concentrating. Hang up the phone and I’ll see you there.

THOMAS: Got it!

[Thomas hangs up the phone. Then he concentrates and sinks down. He rises up in a random room in the Mind Palace. After a couple of seconds, Joan rises up next to him]

JOAN: Hi, Thomas.

THOMAS: [happy] Joan! I’m so happy to see you in the flesh, you don’t have an idea!

[Thomas gives Joan a hug. Then he summons a couch and they both sit down]

JOAN: So, how are you doing, Darude Sanderstorm?

THOMAS: Well, as I told you… I’m feeling a little lonely at the moment. And this quarantine thing seems like it’s never gonna end. It’s driving me mad. Literally.

JOAN: Thomas, don’t lose hope. This has to end some day. You’ll see how, when we least expect it, they’ll find an effective vaccine and we’ll finally wake up from this nightmare.

THOMAS: I’m trying to, Joan, but lately, my hope has become so frail.

[Roman rises up in front of them]

ROMAN: [princely pose and smile] Did someone say prince?

THOMAS: What? No… But hi, anyway, Roman.

ROMAN: [confused] That’s weird, I would have sworn that this time you wished to summon me for certain, so I came… Are you sure you don’t need me?

JOAN: Well, maybe you could be of help, Roman, now that I think about it. Sit down here, please.

ROMAN: Okay…

[Roman walks to the couch. When he’s almost there, he stumbles. Joan grabs him before he falls down]

JOAN: Whoa! Be careful, Roman!

ROMAN: [giggling nervously] Haha… I tripped… Thanks for grabbing me, Joan, you’re my hero.

JOAN: You’re welcome. [mumbles in confusion, looking at the ground] What did you trip on, anyway? There’s nothing on the ground… [normal voice] Are you okay?

ROMAN: [sits down next to Joan] Yes, I’m… I’m totally okay, don’t worry. Well, how can I assist you?

JOAN: Well, you thought we were calling you and in a way you were right. The truth is we weren’t calling you by your name, or by the name Princey or anything… But we were discussing about Thomas’ frail hope… And you are Thomas’ hope, aren’t you?

ROMAN: [sighs] I think I know where you’re going, Joan… Thomas, I’m so sorry.

THOMAS: Sorry? For what? I don’t understand.

ROMAN: I’ve been feeling a lack of strength lately that I cannot ignore any longer.

THOMAS: What? But you’ve been working as usual. I may have stopped proper filming, but I never stopped writing, much less imagining stories. I’d say you’re working as good as usual.

ROMAN: Not in the creativity department, but in the hope department. I’m doing my best, but I’m running out of strength to keep your spirits up and you’re feeling the effects of it.

THOMAS: Oh…

JOAN: Do you have any idea of why is it getting so difficult for you to maintain Thomas’ hope strong enough?

ROMAN: Well… Having to face the current reality of the outer world one day after another… it weakens me. I’m fantasy. I feed off from fantasy. But fantasy in turn is grown from reality. If good things happen in reality, good and bright fantasy is created and I become strong as I can be. But lately… reality is so harsh, so crude, so full of illness, injustice and… death… that the fantasy that grows from it is equally spoiled and rotten. So, to put it in a single word, in a way… I’m starving. I’m acting strong but I’m feeling so weak lately…

THOMAS: Roman, please, you don’t need to act strong.

ROMAN: Yes I do, Thomas, because you count on me. I’m your main tool for your work. You need me, and, as I told you once already, so long ago… I can’t let you down.

THOMAS: And I also told you that you could never let me down.

ROMAN: You keep saying that, but you and I know that’s not really true. I… I’m capable of failure. In fact… I’m prone to failure lately. And it scares me that one day you may need me and I just… won’t be able to deliver. If that isn’t happening already, that is…

[Virgil rises up]

VIRGIL: Why didn’t you tell me any of this, Roman?

ROMAN: Oh, Virgil, you were listening?

VIRGIL: I came here looking for you… I just happened to arrive mid conversation and I heard everything. So, again, why didn’t you tell me any of this, Roman? How am I supposed to support my husband if he doesn’t open up to me?

ROMAN: I’m sorry, Virge… I didn’t want to worry you… We already have too many things to worry about, with our child injured. As I said, I need to be strong to support you all, and…

VIRGIL: Do you think you are the only one who has to support our whole family? That’s too much weight over your shoulders! We’re in this together, remember? I’m here to support you as much as you are here to support me. It’s not like the first time we’ve had this conversation.

ROMAN: I know, but…

[Virgil sits down next to Roman and hugs him. At that point, Roman drops the act he had been performing up until that very moment, and Thomas shows a face of horror when he sees Roman’s real face of exhaustion, even emaciation]

THOMAS: Roman! You look horrible! You mean that’s your real face and you’ve been hiding it from us all this time!?

ROMAN: [weak voice] I’m the best actor in this Mind Palace… [ironic weak voice] You must recognize that I delivered the performance of my life… I was even able to disguise my legs failing me as if I had simply tripped. Also, makeup was really helpful too…

[Roman moves his hands around his face and the makeup he was wearing disappears. Now everybody can see the deep dark bags under his eyes and his white paleness]

VIRGIL: [horrified] Wow… You look more emo than I’ve ever looked in my whole life. That shadow under your eyes, I never had it so dark… and it’s not even eyeshadow, right? Are you crazy? You’ve put your life in danger! You should have told us this earlier, at least you should have told me!

ROMAN: What use would it have been anyway? This isn’t something that Thomas or any of us can fix by waving some magic wand. It’s the state of the world what has caused it and there’s nothing we can do about it. Do you mind if I lie on your shoulder, Virge? I’m feeling so tired right now…

VIRGIL: Of course you can. You need to rest. I don’t know how you’ve been able to act as if nothing was happening to you and no one would notice. Heck, I don’t even know how you’ve been able to walk at all.

ROMAN: I’m a great actor, as I told you… and the show must go on, right?

[Roman grabs Virgil’s hand]

VIRGIL: Goodness… Your hand is so cold. Heck, you’re literally freezing! [Virgil takes off his hodie and puts it over Roman’s royal suit, placing the hood over his head. Then he summons a purple blanket] Here, maybe this will warm you up. [Virgil hugs Roman closer to him and they both cover with the blanket up to the neck] I don’t know if my body warmth will be enough, but I’ll do my best to keep you warm.

ROMAN: [now shivering] Thank you, my love. Snuggling with you always makes me feel so nice.

THOMAS: Roman, I’m scared to see you like this. If only I could do something to help you.

JOAN: You can do something, indeed. Thomas, you must try to cheer up and focus on the positive things of life.

THOMAS: You do realize that’s not exactly the easiest thing to do in the current times, right?

JOAN: Yes, I know. But you must try to stop focusing on the negative, or else Roman will suffer the consequences. Not to mention that if you go on this route, you may end up falling in a depression.

THOMAS: [suddenly angry] That’s not something that I can exactly control, Joan! Don’t blame me! It’s not my fault!

JOAN: [weirded out] Nobody is blaming you for anything, Thomas.

THOMAS: [standing up, even angrier] Yes you are! You are all blaming me on what is happening to Roman, as if it was me who drained him of all his energy on purpose!

ROMAN: Thomas, calm down, nobody is…

THOMAS: [demonic voice, his eyes turn green] STOP PUTTING THE BLAME ON ME OVER EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS IN THIS MOTHERF… [bleep] …NG MIND PALACE!

VIRGIL: Oh, no, something’s wrong again! This is the third time this happens!

JOAN: The third time? You mean this happened to him another time after the first one I saw it happen?

THOMAS: I’M TIRED OF HAVING TO TAKE CARE OF EVERYTHING IN THIS PLACE AND NOT RECEIVING ANYTHING OTHER THAN COMPLAINTS! F… [bleep] ALL OF YOU!

VIRGIL: But it had never lasted so long! Thomas, control yourself, please!

[Thomas starts screeching a demonic yell while his eyes start glowing in green and a whirlwind forms around him that pushes the others away from him. Virgil holds Roman tight, preventing him to fall from the couch, while he himself grabs to the couch with all his strength. Suddenly, Patton and Logan rise up, then Janus and Remus rise up too]

LOGAN: [yelling over the storm noise] What is happening!?

PATTON: My ears!

VIRGIL: Thomas suddenly went out of control! He’s being controlled by his Dark Master self again!

REMUS: Wow, I could never screech like that. It hurts even me! Somebody make him stop!

JOAN: [fighting the wind] I know I called him Sanderstorm, but this is ridiculous!

PATTON: I got an idea! I hope it works! If I can get past the wind, that is!

[Patton struggles, trying to reach Thomas’ hand. The wind unties his cat hoodie and it flies away, but Joan manages to grab it before it gets lost. Patton can’t go any further and is pushed back, falling down. However he immediately stands up and tries to reach Thomas again. After some heavy struggle, he manages to grab Thomas’ hand. At that moment, the wind stops, Thomas stops screeching and he shows a neutral, emotionless face. The glow in his eyes disappears, then his eyes start flickering in the colors green and blue. Finally, they go completely blue and he shows a peaceful face, while his eyes start glowing in blue]

PATTON: Is that you, Light Master?

LIGHT MASTER: [speaking through Thomas’ body] Yes, it’s me, thank you for giving me the strength to rein the Dark Master in for the time being.

PATTON: What is happening with Thomas?

LIGHT MASTER: I’m ashamed to admit it, but I underestimated the Dark Master’s power and maybe forcing him to join me in the Mind Palace Core was a bad idea after all. He’s trying to take control of Thomas as he always intended to do. He can’t take control completely while I’m here, but he’s trying to overcome me and we’re in a constant fight.

PATTON: Is there anything we can do to help you?

LIGHT MASTER: Not much, unfortunately, you can’t get into the Core, as that would destroy you. This is a fight I must do on my own, and I promise you I’ll never stop fighting him.

PATTON: But why is this happening to Thomas right now?

LIGHT MASTER: It’s everything that is happening in the outer world lately. The quarantine, the injustices in America and the rest of the world, the people that is suffering and dying for so many different things, the racism, the virus, the denial of healthcare… Thomas is losing hope and that is threatening the equilibrium in the Mind Palace. To put it in words easier to understand, it’s like he’s starting to believe that evil in this world is stronger than good, at least at the present moment, and as a result he’s starting to surrender to his evil self, making the Dark Master stronger than ever since he was “defeated”.

VIRGIL: There has to be something we can do!

LIGHT MASTER: Thomas is gonna need all the help in the world. Both from his Sides and from his friends in the outer world. He needs to be reminded of how much good there still is in his life and how much there is still in this world worthy to fight for. It’s not gonna be a quick process, so you must work on it on the long term, and the Dark Master will never lose his influence completely, as you already know, but the more you can lift his spirits up, the stronger his good self will be. Also, Roman is endangered.

VIRGIL: [scared] Endangered?

REMUS: [also scared] Wait, what is happening to my brother? [noticing Roman’s face of emaciation] Roman, what’s wrong?

LIGHT MASTER: You’ve seen how he is right now. Roman mentioned that he was starving. He intended to say figuratively, but unfortunately, he’s literally starving and no ordinary food can help him, he needs to feed on clean bright fantasy to save himself. If Thomas doesn’t regain the spirit he used to have, Roman will slowly get weaker and weaker until he’s no more.

REMUS: But I’m not feeling weak or starving at all? We are connected, anything that happens to him will happen to me. Why am I not as emaciated as he is right now?

LIGHT MASTER: As a matter of fact, Remus, you are endangered too. You’re not feeling the same as Roman because you don’t take care of Thomas’ hope, that’s all entirely Roman, and you’ve got plenty of dark fantasy to feed on, but if Roman perishes, as you know, you will perish too.

ROMAN: [weak voice] I’m sorry I’m dragging you into this, brother. I wish I could be stronger.

REMUS: [grabbing Roman’s hand with a face of determination] Never mind… we’ll figure something out.

LIGHT MASTER: And I’m sorry I keep on bringing bad news, but there’s more. If Roman and Remus perished, a new Creative Side would be created in the Core as Thomas needs Creativity in his life, but it wouldn’t be Roman or Remus, and of course, if Roman dies, Sandersia, and all its inhabitants, would disappear too, including Roland, your newly found Sandersian friends and the Sandersian body of Ira, who would be condemned to turn back into a Green Sprite again. So there are lots of lives at risk. You mustn’t fail, guys.

JOAN: We’ll do our best, at least our share of the task. Thomas is our best friend and we love him, we won’t let him down on this one.

JANUS: And we’ll also fight for him, like we’ve always done. You can count on us, Thomas. You too, Roman.

LIGHT MASTER: Thank you, Joan, thank you Janus. Thomas is very lucky of having such good and unconditional friends. Now I must go, my fight is never ending and I must continue the struggle. Don’t worry, after the boost of energy Patton has given me, Thomas will be okay after I’m gone, the Dark Master won’t take control of him at least for some time. Farewell, Joan. Farewell, Sides.

PATTON: Farewell, Light Master. Thanks for your advice.

[Patton drops Thomas’ hand. Then Thomas’ eyes turn back to brown]

THOMAS: Thank you, Patton. I was… so full of irrational anger and hatred. It was horrible. Thank you for rescuing me.

PATTON: [suddenly weak voice] You’re welcome, kidd… [Patton suddenly loses balance. Thomas and Logan grab him before he falls down] …oh…

LOGAN: [concerned] Patton, what’s wrong with you?

PATTON: It’s okay, my love. I’ll be all right. I just gave a lot of energy to the Light Master so that he could fight the Dark Master more efficiently. That was the plan, after all, and it worked. Now I’m feeling exhausted, but I’ll be okay in a couple of minutes if I rest. Let me sit down on the couch and I’ll be good as gravy in no time.

THOMAS: I hope so, I don’t want two Sides sick at the same time.

[Logan and Patton sit down next to Roman and Virgil. As the couch is now full, Janus summons two more couches on the sides of the existing couch and everyone sits down]

ROMAN: I’m sorry you guys had to interrupt your honeymoons…

REMUS: Don’t sweat it. Your health is more important, Ro. Many lives depend on it, including mine.

JANUS: And Thomas’ health is important too. If you need us, we’ll stay around. We’ll need to form a plan of action to lift Thomas’ spirits up. It’s time for me to get back to work as your self-preservation, Thomas, and I’m coming in full strength.

JOAN: I’ll also get in contact with Dahlia, Dominic and the others. You better get ready for a good long Zoom call session. You’re gonna have a big bunch of Dahlia’s corny jokes until you can’t handle them anymore. And you know Dahlia has a lot of those jokes… and if they run out, she’ll find more.

THOMAS: [smirks] Yes, I know… Thank you guys, all of you. I don’t know what I would do without you. By the way, Roman, Virgil, where is Chris?

VIRGIL: Don’t worry, Chris has already got out of hospital, and he’s back to his bedroom in our room. Ian is taking care of him right now. He’ll be fine.

THOMAS: Still, he should know what’s going on with you, Roman.

JANUS: It’s okay, Thomas. Ian knows everything through our shared memory. At this point he’s informing Chris.

THOMAS: Okay, glad to know. Thanks, Jan.

REMUS: I hope you switched him off from your memories while we were out on our honeymoon. I mean, I personally don’t mind that he saw everything we did, outdoors and… [mischievous smile] indoors, but I wouldn’t want to disturb your brother… more than on average.

JANUS: [nervous] Remus, please, leave that topic for when we’re alone. And yes, I switched him off at those moments…

REMUS: [wiggling his eyebrows, with a naughty smile] Do I see blushing on your cheeks? Don’t tell me you’re embarrassed of talking about it. Come on, we’re all experienced adults in this room and I’m not so bad at that, am I?

JANUS: [a little angry voice, his human cheek now blushes heavily] Remus, the problem is that you’re… excessively good at that, so much so that I can’t keep up to your rhythm. And this conversation ends right here. We may be adults here, but there may be younger viewers watching, and maybe we can’t stop you from saying what you want whenever you want, but not even you could escape the power of outer censorship of this work of fiction, so zip it!

THOMAS: [face of shock, stuttering] Yes… please… I… I beg you… too much inappropriate innuendo… and too much meta too… [clears his throat] Okay, back on track. What are we going to do to help Roman in the short term? We can’t leave him like this, in this condition.

VIRGIL: Don’t worry, Thomas. I’ll take care of him. We’ll be heading to our room and I’ll make sure he takes some time to rest.

ROMAN: I don’t want to be a burden to you…

VIRGIL: “In health and disease”. I vowed to be there with you, and I’m fulfilling my vow, just like you would if it was me standing there sick, right?

ROMAN: I love you, Virgil. Did ever tell you that?

VIRGIL: Yeah, you did, but it never stops lifting my spirits up, so keep saying it, please.

[Roman holds Virgil’s hand and looks at him with the most loving glance in the world. Virgil kisses his forehead and then Roman kisses Virgil’s hand, with a tear rolling down his now dark purplish cheek]

THOMAS: Guys, when you give each other so much love… I feel so good and complete…

ROMAN: Thank you, Thomas, for rejoicing in our happiness.

THOMAS: It’s more than that. Before you all started dating, there were times in my life were I felt… I don’t know… alone in the dark, like there were times were I despised myself, and I know I have no reason to do that, but self-love is so hard to achieve and… [gasp of realization] …wait a minute, I think I get it. [smiles] Your love for each other, guys… feeds my self-love. You guys are me, so you guys loving each other is me loving myself. I…

[Thomas gets emotional and he starts crying]

ROMAN: I had never thought of that before… but you’re right. If we are you, our love for each other is your love for yourself. Wow, it’s beautiful if you put it this way.

PATTON: It also helps that we all love you, Thomas and we’d to anything for your well-being.

THOMAS: [cleaning his eyes] Sorry, guys, I got overwhelmed by emotion. I love you too, guys.

JOAN: We, the ones that are not part of you, love you too, Thomas, if I’m allowed to say it. I hope that helps you too in your quest for self-love.

THOMAS: Thank you, Joan, it really does. I’m happy to count on your friendship as always. And you know what? I’m feeling more hope than before already. Still not feeling perfect by any means, [singing the song from Tangled] “but at last I see a light”. Wow, it may be true that thing the Beatles said, that “all you need is love”.

ROMAN: It may be true, Thomas. I’m already feeling a little stronger, [singing the same song from Tangled] “and it’s like the sky is new”. Still have a long way ahead until I feel recovered, [theatrical princely voice] but we’ve started walking it. And nothing will stop us. Our adventure has only begun, and we’re gonna be victorious, both of us!

THOMAS: That’s the spirit, Roman. Now, to get some rest and gain strength to keep on walking. [to the camera] And to all of you out there, I hope you all find ways to work on your self love too. You don’t need to have Sides like I do, just remember that you are loved, that you are capable of loving, and that you are worthy of love too, and then you’ll be ready to start loving yourself, I know it’s not easy, but just one step in front of the other, and we’ll get there. Until next time, take it easy, guys, gals and non binary pals. Peace out!

[ending card]

[Thomas is in his living room, in front of his computer. He’s having a Zoom call with Joan, Talyn, Dominic, Dahlia and Kenny]

THOMAS: Wow, guys, I really missed this.

DAHLIA: Well, it’s not like you don’t already know we’re here for you. You can call us by videochat any time you need.

KENNY: Yes, you can count on us for any cyber-reunions like this one. I also miss all of my friends.

DOMINIC: Yes. We should try to make another video together like this. Thomas, Joan, you’ve got to think of something.

JOAN: I have already something in mind… but I need time to make it work. I’ll call you when it’s ready.

DAHLIA: Yeah, and in the meantime you can always count on your other friends, right, Tho…? [notices she’s messed up and covers her mouth]

KENNY: [confused] Other friends? What other friends? What did I miss?

[Dahlia looks at Thomas with a face of guilt, like apologizing without words. The other friends and Thomas show an awkward face]

KENNY: Guys… I suddenly feel like you all know something that I don’t. It’s fine if you want to keep it to yourselves, but this is making me feel a little weird.

[Logan appears next to Thomas, off-screen so no one in the chat can see him. Thomas looks at him with a face of angsty questioning, like telling him “What do I do now?” without words]

LOGAN: Well, it’s my opinion that the circle of people knowing your secret was already wide enough. But you know Kenny well. It’s your choice if you think you can trust him enough to tell him the secret. What does your heart say?

[Patton rises up too]

PATTON: I say let’s give it a try! If Kenny keeps the secret, there’s nothing wrong on him knowing, right? In fact, I would tell all of your close friends. I’d really love to be able to interact with them all, they’re all so nice people, it’s a pity we can only interact with them from within you.

LOGAN: Okay, Patton, one step at a time, let’s focus on Kenny first and we’ll make any future choices when we get there.

[Thomas nods, agreeing with Logan]

KENNY: Thomas, what are you looking at? Who are you nodding at? Is anybody there?

THOMAS: Sorry… I was having a discussion with my… friends.

KENNY: What friends? What discussion? What is going on here?

JOAN: So you’re gonna tell him? Okay, but Kenny, you must promise that you will keep the secret, for Thomas’ safety.

DAHLIA: I’m sorry you’re being forced to do so because of me, Thomas.

THOMAS: It’s okay, Dahlia. If Kenny promises to keep the secret, there’s nothing to fear, and I know I can trust he will keep this promise, right Kenny?

KENNY: And now it’s when I’m getting really confused… Okay, I promise to keep your secret, whatever that is.

THOMAS: Okay… [sighs and keeps going] Remember my videos where I portrayed different characters representing the different aspects of my one personality?

KENNY: The Sanders Sides? Yes, I do, remember that I lent you a hand to film some of the episodes. [smiles] You’re not gonna tell me now that these people are real and are living with you in your apartment right? [chuckles] That would be fun if you think about it…

THOMAS: [nervous giggle] Yes… it would be fun… [smile drops] and it is fun actually… or at least it usually is… Guys? Come here, please and show yourselves.

[Thomas makes a gesture to Logan and Patton to get closer to Thomas, and they do, getting in front of the camera and appearing on-screen. Kenny’s smile drops immediately, while the other’s friends smile nervously, timidly waving hello at the Sides]

LOGAN: Nice to meet you Kenny.

PATTON: [with a huge smile and voice of joy] Look at that Kenny Guy over there! I’m so happy to meet you at last, kiddo!

[Kenny is so in shock that he’s gone completely speechless]

THOMAS: Okay, firsts things first, don’t freak out, Kenny. I know this is gonna take some time to digest so let me tell you my… our story, but remember your promise.

[Kenny barely nods with the same face of shock, still unable to speak. Thomas sighs and starts putting Kenny up to date about the Sanders Sides]

#thomas sanders #sanders sides #character thomas sanders #roman sanders #virgil sanders #logan sanders #patton sanders #remus sanders #janus sanders #romantic prinxiety #romantic dukeceit #romantic logicality #sanders sides fanfiction #sanders fanfic #sanders sides fic #aspects and fanfics

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peppersandcats · 5 years

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Flash stuff, comics and TV

So, I am finally up-to-date on The Flash in both comics and TV format, and I have some thoughts. The comics ones are mostly in the “oh come on are we expected to buy this, clearly you are aiming for that” vein, and the TV show ones are very mild and possible super-obvious, but since both deal with what both what is happening and what I think is going to happen, both might be spoilers so I’m putting them under a cut.

To be clear: please do not tell me anything about these assumptions that does not come from existing text. So for example:

“but in issue 76 we saw X” or “in episode 6 of this season Y happened, so we might get Z fallout” is totally fine. Yay analysis! Would love to hear from you!

“in the comics X happens, so that might mean Y for the TV show” is also cool.

“the comics writer said he’s aiming for X” or “a casting decision has been made so we know Y is still showing up/is not on the show anymore after this point” is really not fine please do not tell me that. I do not want to hear it. Thank you.

Also: discusses possible upcoming character death. I know some people would rather not see that, so mentioning it now.

With that in mind, here are my “I am okay with being wrong about this, but I bet this’ll happen” thoughts:

Comics

Oh, comics. Len has apparently turned into a vicious blowhard, Lisa is picking a fight with him, evil King Cold rules over Central, all is lost, no-one is paying me enough to pick up extra titles from DC to find out what all space and time being broken means, dour, dour, grim.

With that in mind, I have a possibly-more-cheerful read on current Snart events than the one initially presented. I’m going to keep in mind Len’s mention of the Rogues going with Lisa’s plan (issue 78 “Without my sister, the whole plan is on hold.”; issue 79 “This isn’t Lex’s plan. It’s not even my plan. It’s your plan.”), and assume that that was true.

This means that I think (hope) that what they’re going for is a long con. That the Snarts are running with a plan where Len plays bad guy to Central City, Lisa tries to convince Barry to use mega-uncontrollable Speed Force power against Luthor by pitching it as "save my brother he's gone bad", and the end goal is that the world-breaking nonsense and Luthor both get taken down while the Rogues get to keep all the shiny new tech in a world that isn’t weirdly broken by evil.

The big thing that kept throwing me about the narrative presented to Barry is why is Len keeping Barry alive?

Because, look. Right now everyone thinks the Flash is dead (seriously, those guards in the throne room were absolutely thinking “jeez, boss, we’ve heard how the Flash died in your arms three times already this week”), and yeah, that’s good to keep Central hopeless. And Len is coming across as mean as hell. But then why hasn’t he really killed Barry? He’s not angling for the “I will build my reputation with a grand execution!”, because then he wouldn’t be talking up how he’d already killed the Flash. He might be keeping Barry alive just to torment him, but then there’d be no benefit to lying about how he’d killed him. Dude’s stuck in Ice Heights, not even the Trickster* can make a dent in that, it’s not like someone is going to mount a successful rescue.

*Please insert usual where-the-hell-does-he-get-those-wonderful-toys rant here, I’m sure you’ve heard it from me by now.

And if Len was building part of his power on the “I will crush Central City’s spirit by letting them know I have taken down the Flash!” foundation, then Lisa’s “oh no, we can’t let people know you’re alive” seems a bit odd.

So if I take a step back, what I see isn’t “Lisa has a heart of gold and is begging for the Flash’s help.” It’s not even “Lisa is vamping Barry and feeding him a sob story about how her brother has gone bad.”

What I see is “the Snarts have a secret plan that involves no-one knowing that the Flash is still alive, so it doesn’t get back to Lex Luthor. Right now the genius supervillain has a massive blind spot about the existence of a terrifying Speed Force bomb, and Lisa is collecting pieces of Mirror Master’s tech. Those are totally the kind of things you could combine to break Luthor’s secret reality-busting stronghold, which would enable you to get rid of him but still keep your super-cool empowering tech.”

And if Len and Lisa are in cahoots on this, the bombast makes a lot more sense. “My sister has been in hiding ever since I took over Central City... and she reveals herself by stealing from me?" is a performance for the benefit of the two-high level mooks who were following Len and could probably hear him through the open doorway. Giant ice-wolves aren’t anything to do with Lisa being scared of dogs when she was a kid (which didn’t really come across in her reaction to them anyway), they’re just really cool and the speech is Len hamming it up for whoever in his citadel is spying for Luthor.

(I mean. It’s Luthor. You’re working with Lex Luthor, you gotta assume.)

So, yeah. I’m still hoping we’ve got the Snarts running a very sensible long con, which combines the best aspects of “we are crooks who want cool stuff” and “we’re not evil, evil is dumb.” Fingers crossed.

Okay, minor stuff, but I think I’ve finally decoded the symbols on the Monitor’s door!

I was assuming, pretty much, that these referenced the Justice League. The Flash in particular has been throwing in asides to the Justice League since its inception (everyone’s seen the mural at CCPD headquarters, right?), the last crossover involved a building that has people who don’t watch the show assuring me that it’s meant to evoke the Hall of Justice, one of the trailers mentioned seven heroes, here we have seven symbols, etc.

Left to right, I think these represent

Black Lightning - it’s not a logo, but the shape evokes the lightning streaks on the torso of his costume. This one was one I kept getting stuck on - I kept thinking “Trident! ...but it makes no sense for them to bring in Aquaman.” Then I went to catch up on Black Lightning a little and it clicked.

Canary - I honestly was thinking White Canary because I really want to see LOT involved, but Sara doesn’t wear a face mask. Therefore, probably need to go with Black Canary (who is a founding member in at least one version of continuity, lord knows which one, I have trouble keeping track)

Flash - that is, to me, obviously his cowl. Little bit coming down in the middle, little chin covering pointing up, wing-y bits on the ears, we’re good.

Martian Manhunter - this one I’m the least sure of, but given the options available, I think it has to be him. He’s totally a Justice League guy, and the hex with straps pointing up and down to the sides, echoes his costume torso.

Supergirl - again, I was staring at this for a while, completely lost, but now it looks to me like a really stylized ‘S’. If it was narrower on the bottom than on the top, it would look a lot like the family logo.

Batwoman - this is both a scarier-looking mask than the second image, and can be read as a figure spreading their wings to either side. (Huh, I suppose it might be Hawkgirl? But I’m betting on Batwoman. If I’m wrong, that’s okay! I have been wrong before)

Arrow. I mean, really, just Arrow. It’s an arrow-head. Arrow.

And I mean, I don’t necessarily think everyone’s going to survive through this. Oliver Queen in particular I think is going to die. Whether that means Roy or Mia steps up to try and become the Arrow, or whether they leave a seat empty at the table to honour Ollie’s sacrifice, I don’t know. But: Arrow in the JLA of the CW.

But.

Arrow is TV, but in a lot of ways it’s still comics. You know how it happens when people die in comics.

I think we might get to see Ollie as the Spectre.

It fits with the well-meaning darkness and the grim drive. It fits with the judgement of "you have failed this city". It fits with the green hood. The recent “hey, vigilantes working with the police” feel like it gives Ollie a sort of cop-if-you-look-at-him-sideways aura that makes him line up better with Jim Corrigan and Crispus Allen--hell, even Hal Jordan functionally comes across as a space-cop. Even Corrigan’s death thematically echoes Ollie’s first (presumed) death by drowning on the Queen’s Gambit.

I would like that. I have long loved the Spectre, and I would not be where I am as a DC TV fan--hell, as a DC fan--if Arrow hadn’t clicked with me.

I would like it if Oliver Queen, that grumpy control-freak secret-keeping self-righteous ass, could still be there on some level. He means a lot to me.

#commentary #the flash spoilers #dc tv #dc comics #crisis on infinite earths #my commentary #theories #leonard snart #lisa snart #the flash iss. 83 #the monitor #justice league #justice league dc tv #oliver queen #the spectre #arrow #here for a positive fandom experience

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thestudyfeels · 5 years

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🎨 Graphic made by @indiaisstudying: India is brilliant my pals, and I recommend checking her out for studyblr/artblr inspiration. My girl tHIRIVES.

The singular takeaway from this post: Do a creative binge. Much productive than a Netflix binge. Period.

Two months ago, I reached my peak when I coined the term ‘bood day’ (a bad to good day, in my article How To Flip A Bad Day By 180°). Today, puppies and kittens, I present to you— a creative binge.

*crickets chirping, that one dude in the audience scratches his nose and turns away*

…This one actually works but okay, we get it, y'all are bitches. But gonna do my job anyway– if you're a creator reading this, please do a creative binge at least once every two weeks.

I started doing these binges two months ago, and I've seen a VAST improvement in my creative energy. I feel my commercial voice coughing and saying hello to the mic, so before I start listing side-effects for a sponsored pill, let's dive into the basics.

🍵 Quick PSA —

↪ JOIN MY TAGLIST? If you aren't on this yet, please get on it, it'll mean a lot to me! By joining, you get a new article on lifestyle design & productivity every week.

100 Days of Sweat: This challenge starts TOMORROW (10th of April), so if you wanna hustle on your bod this year, join us! Accountability does crazy things.

Ever questioned your life, experienced writer's block, painter’s pain or blogger’s… block? (Narrator: aaaand she's back to advertising.) A creative binge helps deal with fixing exactly that.

“A creative binge is based off the equation of quality in = quality out.”

A lot of creators feel that they're supposed to magically create out of their head, and that's just ridiculous. It's ludicrous considering you don't know shit, read shit, do shit and watch shit.

Even to write fiction, my pal, you'll have to expose yourself to the world to know its ways, read great books and take tips (not to mention stock up on coffee, and prepare to cry a lot) before you start cranking out the pages. Everything you create is ultimately inspired by the Ways Of The World. (And that's a fantastic novel title)

So in short, you’ve got to consume content, to make content. And in a creative binge, you conscious choose content that'll help you create. Genius, I know!

Okay, but what if I'm not a creator?

Brilliant question! Wanna become more valuable and leave the people you interact with better? Take a creative binge.

Allow me an elaboration: Take a janitor and a neurosurgeon. The said janitor is paid much less than the neurosurgeon. Why is that? Is the neurosurgeon a better person? That's debatable. Is the janitor less efficient at his work? Again, debatable. The primal reason lies in the neurosurgeon acquiring more valuable skills than the janitor. Society rewards them by paying more since there are less folks who can do what the neurosurgeon does.

To recap: In order to be indispensable in the role you play (whatever it is, a student, calligrapher, CEO of the Janitor Club), you HAVE to become valuable. Grow your curiosity & know more than yo’ buddies (also bring more value than anybody else). And to become valuable, you consume value. Tada!

(And if you still ain't convinced, I'll pull out the Netflix card. You'd really rather watch shows? Or binge YouTube? Than learn a new skill, or develop existing ones? Question your priorities, my friend. Victims love entertainment, victors love learning.)

Cool, you're joining in then! Not that creative binge is NOT an entertainment binge. It's a value providing binge. What you ‘consume’ has to bring you something in return— whether that's creative inspiration, motivation or skills. *Swing arms* yup! We’re one gay, productive household. Someone remind Hallie to buy the groceries though, the Cheerios are going mouldy.

By my dictionary, a creative binge is a slot of time, 1½ to 3 hours I'd say, when you watch/read/listen to some good stuff. Basically, binge content.

THE 101 OF A CREATIVE BINGE

🌿 Basics:

I conduct one every week (usually Wednesday mornings), lasting around 1½ to 2 hours.

I'll also keep a notepad and a pen nearby, to take notes and jot ideas as they come. Again, this is NOT an entertainment binge, even though it's a chill job.

Sometimes I'll get passive things done (like wiping my desk, eating breakfast and taking out textbooks) while watching. We maximize our time.

🌿 What Do I Watch:

The stuff I watch falls into 3 categories: creative/humor (for inspiration), business/skills (for skills) & motivation (for, um, motivation). Fair warning though, a lot of the stuff these folks make overlap, but that's alright. This is just a rough demarcation.

Creative/Humor: some YesTheory, maybe some MacDoesIt, sprinkle in some Ryan Higa, perhaps an episode of a show with an amazing script, some stand-up comedy from my favorites. Or maybe trash that and just watch Sherlock. (Geez, Netflix, I hate you, I love you.)

Skills: Gary Vee, some artist channels, that random video on how to thrift shop even though I don't shop.

Motivation: Be Inspired, Tom Bilyeu, Mel Robbins and random videos which look nice.

🌿 What Do I Listen To:

Oof, I love music tremendously! If you're a pal, you know it's time to RUN when I come around being like, “soo, I was wondering what's your favourite–”.

Yet, during a creative binge, I'll only listen to stuff that 1) inspires me, or 2) is creative in a way I can't explain. Some recommendations!

Hype music:

The Score

Imagine Dragons

Creative music:

Billie Eilish

Lana Del Rey

Sleeping At Last

Lorde

Conan Gray

Harry Styles

🌿 What Do I Read:

Usually the book that I'm reading at that point if I'm being lazy.

POETRY: It's my belief, but poetry is a writer's most powerful device. There's a novel to be said in a simple sonnet.

FICTION: I dig great fiction. PS, please read (and sob over) Away Childish Things, by @letteredlettered. It changed me as a person, changed my entire perspective about kids. I'm much kinder and softer now, and my pimples are gone. I'll literally never get over drarry too, so thanks lettered, love you.

ARTICLES: Bookmarked psychology, productivity & fitness articles on Medium. Maybe check out James Clear's & Gary Vee’s blog for new posts.

Because I wanna drive this home, here's what I did in my last creative binge as a concrete example —

Care to Note that:

All of the stuff I consume is pre-planned.

I add videos throughout the week to my Creative Binge playlist on YouTube, download albums from Amazon Music and articles for offline reading.

DON'T leave this to the last moment, you'll more likely pick entertainment vs learning then.

Watched–

Why I'm done trying to be "man enough"

Redecorating my room 2017 (I wanna decorate my room this year so)

How to Squat Properly (I’m trying lmao)

Giving a 9-Year-Old Her Dream Job for 24hrs!! (I stan YesTheory so much)

How To NOT Be A Starving Artist (A mood. I love Sorelle)

Couple more, I could go on & on, but you get me.

Listened–

Every song on YouTube by Bruno Major

Born to die: paradise version (album) by Lana Del Rey

Read–

Articles from James Clear's blog — (x) (x)

Articles from Gary Vee’s blog — (x) (x)

HIIT workouts for beginners

All of this birthed–

Ideas for future articles, titled: How To Be Great & Solomon Letters #2: Question Your Faith, Not Your Dreams, among others.

A small poem about faith– posted on my IG, check it out!

New content ideas, like value chains (upcoming!)

Bunch of other small rants for everyday posting

Some business and life advice that might be useful later.

Gotta say goodbye now! (literally too... but post about it coming on 12th so wait for it) Try this one out, and let me know how your binge goes (tag it with #team conquer). Mine usually end with a bucketful of philo notes, a recharged left (right? psychology? idk) brain, and a fresh perspective towards the rest of my week.

This is the #1 strategy I've adopted to sustain creative energy when it's sapped all around by negativity and school & I promise it helps. No side effects, no sponsored pills needed. Thanks for reading!

Related: How To Get Back Into The Creative Process (if you're in a blogger's block or experiencing painter's pain)

Have something to say? I treasure all feedback! If this post inspired you to do something, or you wanna throw some love/constructive criticism at me— hop into my ask box, or reply to this post itself!

Thanks for dropping by! Major articles, like this one, come out every Thursday! Join my taglist by to read them when they do. I also post daily wins, journal entries, rants & photos of my plant babies throughout the week, so follow me if you’re into conquering life. I vow to be the loudest cheerleader. ✧

Sending you love and good energy, talk soon.

Nandini 💌 (´｡• ᵕ •｡`) ♡

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wheremytwinwatches · 4 years

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[Where My Twin Watches]: Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood Episode 4

Tephi: Okay, guys, it's that episode. And, as I told Ranubis, I would like to speak for my discipline and say that we do not condone Tucker's actions. #not all biologists (You know what, it's really hard to try to be funny after reading this recap, so I'm going to stop.) Onwards with Brotherhood! Last time the Elric Brothers revealed a corrupt priest, and now they’re going to report to Colonel Roy Mustang. And learn about bio-alchemy, according to the last post-credits? Let’s get to it!

We get the Narrator recapping last episode, and he says the priest used alchemy and… ‘a’ Philosopher’s Stone? Wait wait wait, what? He had the real thing? ...that raises many questions, some of which I asked last time. I’ll just keep watching to see if I get some answers this go-around. Ok, never mind then. Should have waited a few more seconds until the Narrator said “revealed to be a fake.” Episode 04: “An Alchemist’s Anguish” Well that’s not an ominous title at all. Late at night in Central (is that the town’s name, or just the keep?) with a freaking-huge moon taking up most of the screen. A State Alchemist is walking along a street and good Leto man, what is going on with your mustache?! Hold on, have to take a screenshot.

What, did you strap a boomerang to your face? How much mustache wax do you use to make those razor-sharp points? Really now, that’s just excessive. Ahem. Anyways, Mr. Mustache comes to a stop and grunts. He sees someone? [Scar] “You are Basque Grand, the Iron Blood Alchemist… correct?” Huh. So we’ve got a name for Mister Mustache, but given how we’ve never seen him before, and someone apparently named “Scar” is confronting him at night… taking all bets folks, how long is the Fresh Meat going to last? My money’s on him bowing out in under a minute. Waitaminute, I recognize you from the intro! Your sunglasses don’t fool me, you’re that guy with the white X scar on his face! Appropriate name, I guess. He says Alchemists who have turned against God shall be punished. Another Leto follower? So Basque recognizes him as a “bloodthirsty murderer” who’s been targeting State Alchemists lately… which implies that he’s faced multiple Alchemists, and is here to tell the tale. Uh, Basque? Buddy? You think you might want to call for some backup against someone who’s faced a bunch of… nah, nevermind. You go ahead and equip your engraved gauntlets, I’m sure you can handle it. Ooh, nice power! Punch the ground and summon a bunch of cannons. How effective is it? Not at all! Some chains! The same. Stick him in a vault? Maybe- oh come on dude. “That wasn’t so difficult”? You’re just asking for it now. Yup, grabbed by the face. “Now you perish.” And oh jeez that face-zapping was uncalled for… and right past the minute mark. Seriously, that “battle” went from timestamp 2:54 to 3:54. I think Scar’s credentials have been established. Hey, I know that voice! And THAT voice too! Good to see you guys again, Hughes and Armstrong! And… oh dear. Hughes warned Armstrong to be careful, that he could be the next target, and The Mighty Armstrong… just said “Understood.” No bravado, no boasting, just business. This is serious, isn’t it? Fuhrer Bradley/Fury arrives at the scene, and every Alchemist immediately salutes. Fury looks over the scene, and authorizes Hughes as the officer in charge of the case any additional personnel he needs to track down the traitor. The next day at Central, Riza’s doing paperwork and hands something to a Lieutenant Breda, and ooh a cast of unique characters sitting at a table? Breda gripes about the Colonel letting work pile up, asks for Havoc to help but the blond guy says he’s got enough already. Then [Falman] identifies some guy in the paperwork as a crooked State Alchemist that the Elrics exposed. Messing with a radio is a little guy with glasses, Master Sergeant… aw come on, really? *Sigh* Guess I have to give up on Fuhrer Fury, since we’ve got this little guy named Fuery now. Way to ruin the joke, dude. Anyways, Fuery’s saying he’ll probably have to replace the radio’s receiver… when a familiar white glove in a red sleeve reaches into frame and touches the radio, leaving it good as new. Man, Alchemy sure is handy. Good to see you guys! Now hurry up, the Colonel’s expecting you, and wipe that grimace off your face. Congrats on the Liore incident are in order, although Ed gripes that he didn’t do it for them. And the stone ended up being fake, but Cornello still got power from it. How does that work? Neither brother knows much about the field of bio-alchemy. Roy recommends they consult a specialist, pulls a file on The Sewing Life Alchemist, Shou Tucker, who’s done research into chimera transmutation. Well that’s nice of- for Leto’s sake Ed, stop ranting at your boss. He is your boss, remember? But Roy insists he’s trying to repay them for the Liore case, as “doing you a favor is better than being indebted to you.” Panning across the city now, Roy talking about how two years ago Tucker transmuted a chimera that could understand human speech, earning his certification as a State Alchemist. So it could talk? Huh, interesting. I assumed chimeras were brute-force creatures like the one Cornello used. But bio-alchemy can create communication-capable creatures? Not sure what to think about the ramifications- Oh what the hell. Concerns multiplied. “It only said one thing: ‘I want to die.’” And then it refused to eat until it got its wish. Um. Ok. I am now rather suspicious of bio-alchemy. Standard alchemy that we’ve seen has mostly been similar to basic magic or elemental control. But creating a communicative creature that wishes only for death? That sounds more like the thing a State Alchemist would be sent after to shut down, not say “Nice job, here’s a badge!” Alright, moving on. The Elrics and Roy are at a house now, Ed’s remarking on how big it is- Dog! Giant dog just glomped Ed, Al’s all worried about his big brother who’s stuck under a cheerful dog. Then the door opens? A little girl (Nina) tells her father there are people outside, he gently reminds her this was why she needed to keep the dog tied up. Heh. Inside, the camera’s panning over a bunch of dusty books and scrolls, and some very… used dishes in a sink. Tucker apologizes for the mess, ever since his wife… “ran out”? What’s the story there? Tucker fixes some tea, says that he’s pleased to meet Edward. And he’s more than happy to show his research. However, he does ask that if he’s showing some of his tricks, that Ed could show some as well. “It’s the code we live by - equivalent exchange.” EEC: 7 Outside, Nina’s playing with the dog, braids it a headband of flowers. Daw, that’s cute. Bit of a contrast with the inside, as it seems Ed’s told Tucker the story of their attempted Human Transmutation. Which begs the question, if Human Transmutation is taboo, what makes bio-alchemy different? In any case, Tucker lets the Elrics take a look at his laboratory- gah! Head in jar! Cerberus creature! Lots of other creepy stuff in jars! Guh, I’m not a big fan of biology, sorry. Tucker’s apologizing, saying he’s regarded as an authority on chimeras, but it hasn’t been going well that lately. What does that mean? They move on, reaching Tucker’s library and forget the creepy lab I wanna be there now. Look at all those books! The brothers dive into reading, and Roy says he’ll head back to work and have someone pick them up in the evening. But Ed doesn’t even hear Roy he’s so focused in the book. Tucker chuckles that they don’t even know they’re there anymore… Um, Tucker? What’s with the glasses push and grin? Like, you smiled in the lab at one point and I didn’t mention it, but now here’s a second smile and a glasses-push? Really getting some Bad Scientist vibes here. What’s going on? Uh, ok. Moving on, it’s later and Ed’s surrounded by piles of books now. Al’s over by a shelf with his own and- hey, it’s Nina! The little girl just poked her head around the aisle to look at the giant suit of armor, runs off when Al notices her. Then pokes her head back around to [Playful Music]. Ed breaks out his studies at hearing [childlike laughter], walks over to see Al giving Nina a piggyback ride. Daw. But of course Ed has to be a grump, yell at Al for playing horsie instead of- Dog! And Nina says Alexander wants to play too. Ed enters Dramatic Mode, saying that the dog’s bested him twice, but no more! And Ed races after the “mangy mutt”, while Nina just laughs. Late afternoon now, Havoc is telling the “chief” his ride has arrived. Ah, Havoc was sent to pick the brothers up. And looks like Ed wasn’t very successful against Alexander, he’s down for the count again. Havoc’s walking the boys out now, passes on a message to Tucker that “Assessment Day is coming soon”. What’s that? And why was Tucker so serious when he said that he knew? I’m guessing it’s like a checkup exam for SAs, to renew their certification. *Sigh* Look, Tucker? I’m getting a lot of mixed signals from you. First you made a creature that wished for death, but then you were a kind father, then you smirked and did a Glasses Push, then you made a dog pun, but now you’re all serious about “Assessment Day” and clutching the door handles? I’m not sure what I’m supposed to think about you. Nina asks what “Assessment Day” means, Tucker confirms SAs have to do a research report once a year to keep their certification. Last year Tucker didn’t get a very good evaluation, and unless he does something really impressive this year he won’t be a State Alchemist anymore. Nina proclaims that Tucker will do great, with how much he studies. But Tucker just [laughs nervously], says that he’ll try hard… ‘Or we’ll be left with nothing… again.’ Bad feelings keep gathering. Not sure what’s happening. [Sentimental Music] the next day, the Elrics are back and studying. Al’s talking with Nina about her mother, who left two years ago to live at her parents’ house. Why’d she leave? I mean, Tucker said she “ran off”, did they have an argument? Assuming about his studies or something, not sure why though. She was clearly with him long enough to have a child who I’m fairly certain is much older than two, so she would have been around for all the bio-alchemy. So what caused the split? Al remarks that it must be lonely, the two of them in a big house. But Nina’s happy with her daddy and Alexander. Although Tucker’s been studying in the lab all the time lately. Cramming for his exam? Ooh, flashback! Baby!Elric Brothers looking through a door - hey, I know that hair! That’s that blond ponytail guy from the intro, can’t see his face to confirm the beard but I recognize the ponytail! So he’s the absent Elric father? What’s his story? Ed just shut his book? Oh, good for you! He claims his shoulders are stiff, and when Al suggests he move around some Al goes and challenges Alexander again. Daw, props to you Ed, putting aside studies for Nina. That’s really nice of you. As [Goofy Happy Piano] music plays, Ed runs around with Nina chasing him on Alexander. But then he turns the tables, transmuting his arm into a sharp-toothed puppet (complete with the little spring of blond hair) as he chases them! Al serves as a slide for Nina, Alexander gets the drop on poor Ed again… lots of happiness and laughter outside. But inside… Tucker’s sitting at a table, head in his hands. What’s wrong? Why are you so worried about Assessment Day? You’ve done it before, right? And you’ve been studying like crazy. So what’s the problem? Back in Central, Hughes is wondering about Scar, why he’s targeting State Alchemists instead of easier targets like the military police. Armstrong thinks that the fact they’re State Alchemists is the reason he’s attacking them. But for what reason? Their pay, their status? Or failure to uphold their creed: “Alchemist, be thou for the people.” A concern that alchemists are supposed to be pillars of science and truth but are turning into weapons for the military. And there are many people who have not forgotten the role of State Alchemists in the Ishvalan Civil War. There’s Ishvale again, another mention of this mysterious conflict prior to the show. What’s the story there? It’s been mentioned so often I know it’s gotta come up soon, but right now I know next to nothing about it. What was the deal? An orderly interrupts the conversation, reports that a man with a large scar on his face was seen the night before at the train station. So he got away? Later that day, [Melancholy Music] at Tucker’s house, where he’s telling the Elrics about life before his State Alchemist certification. The family was poor, Mrs. Tucker couldn’t stand living like that, and we’ve got a picture of Tucker and the wife yelling at eachother while Nina cowers behind Alexander. Jeez. Tucker’s saying he can’t afford to fail the examination. Hmm, maybe you could ask the Elrics for help? I mean, they’re crazy-good at alchemy, I’m sure they could help with your studying. Or maybe take up Nina’s offer of her and Alexander growling at the test-givers until they say yes. Aw, Tucker just offered to play with Nina the next day. Yeah, there you go, spend some time with Nina, then study with the Elrics until you’re ready! The next day… it’s really cloudy. Why is it cloudy? Oh no. No no no. Do not do this to me, show. You do NOT make things go bad when they were so cute earlier. Do NOT do this. Ok, so what’s going to happen? Doorbell’s ringing, but no-one is answering. Al opened the door, called for Mr. Tucker, but nothing. Al and Ed are walking through the house, calling for Tucker and Nina, but nothing. And I mean nothing, there isn’t even any music playing right now. Door opens to to what no nonono nonononononononononono tucker is kneeling in front of something something with dog paws and long brown hair what did you do what the FUCK did you do “I did it boys. I finally did it.” A chimera that understand human speech. Ed. Al. What the hell are you both doing just standing there. Do you seriously not realize what’s going on. Do you realize where Nina Nina The thing is just repeating “That person… Ed… ward.” I don’t want to see this. “Big Brother Ed.” And the penny drops. Ed asks when Tucker first got his certification. He confirms it was two years ago. And his wife “left” two years ago too. Oh, don’t you act so surprised that Ed figured it out so quickly, you bastard! Ed, kick his teeth in! Did… did you really just say “this is how we progress” in regards to transmuting your dog and your own daughter to make this creature?! To maintain your fucking CERTIFICATION?! Human experimentation as a necessary process? For WHAT?! You’re comparing yourself to Edward, saying you’re the same? Far from it! He made a mistake trying to bring back a family member! You’ve used yours to get paid! Al just grabbed Ed’s arm, said that if he keeps the beating up that Tucker would die. I am really, really having a hard time seeing that as a bad thing right now. Oh. “Edward… no.” Not in front of his daughter. “Daddy, do you… hurt? Daddy?” I can’t. Al’s apologizing to… the chimera. Saying that with all their power, they can’t change Nina back. The chimera just asks if they can play. And Tucker just rants about how he “passed.” Riza and Roy are discussing the case. Ed and All are sitting on the steps outside of Central in the rain. Roy tells the Elrics that they are likely to see more cases like this in the future. And have to get their hands dirty. Then he asks if they’re going to shut down like this every time. Ed says that them being called dogs of the military, cursed as devils… it doesn’t matter, they’re still going to get their bodies back. They’re not devils. They’re not gods. They’re only human. They can’t… “even do anything to save one innocent little girl. So what good are we then?” … In a room, the chimera and Tucker are facing each other. Tucker is whining about how “no one’s capable of understanding me.” And then someone enters the room. It’s Scar. “You’re Shou Tucker, correct?” … … ...do it. But the chimera saw it. Scar walks towards the chimera. “God… hear me. Two human souls have just been returned to you. Please accept them into your loving arms. Please grant these poor, lost souls everlasting peace and salvation.” ...credits. “The rain pours down in East City. Still grief-stricken over the death of Nina, Ed and Al are attacked by the mysterious man, Scar. In a moment of crisis, Ed must make a desperate decision, while the life of his brother hangs in the balance. Next time, on Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood-” Episode 05: Rain of Sorrows”

#where my twin watches #wmtw #ranubis #full metal alchemist #full metal alchemist brotherhood #fmab #fmab 4

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sadiespells37 · 4 years

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(Content Warning for today’s post. It has transphobic language, and while I will keep it to a minimim I feel dancing around the word would be dishonest it is only one slur used as a quote from the show, but fair warning all the same)

Well a week or so into this and I feel like doing something different from the rest of this. While the goal of LGBTQPril is to keep things positive and highlight the growing, but still smaller than it should be, examples of good and nuanced representation in media. That being said, I can’t shake the feeling that today’s character isn’t entirely on the harmful side of representation. Thinking about it is actually part of the reason I wanted to start this project. So join me in a deep dive of one character’s appearances back with the owners and operators of the Worst Bar in Philadelphia that I call:

If you’re not a TV geek like me and that coy hint or specifically recreated title card didn’t alert you I’m again talking about It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Specifically I’m talking about a character who had a few appearances known simply as Carmen or as the gang, all awful people refer to her most of the time “The Tranny.”

Not a great start with that nickname I know, but let’s break down the few times she was on the show and maybe my point of view will be clearer. Her first appearance is probably the most problematic, but still has things that make it stand out. She is in the bar and Mac and Dennis are trying to find a girl to hook Charlie up with. After meeting and chatting Carmen up Mac thinks she’s great Dennis says the unfortunate phrase “That’s a dude,” and proceeds to explain that she is the trans cousin of someone they went to high school with and points out the bulge in here jeans. But what makes the scene stand out to me is right after Mac goes back to Carmen and asks “Is that a penis in your pants?” She says yes, Mac says she lied to him and she immediately turns it around says he lied to her, that he doesn’t work out, and that she’s seen him at the gym and continues to flirt with him. Mac caught off guard is flattered she noticed him and says he will call her later. The candidness of Carmen’s yes that is a penis is given a level of straight forwardness that isn’t often afforded trans women on TV. Yeah she has a penis, no it’s not a big deal, and then her moving on to continue to flirt with Mac and him being receptive to it gives Carmen a certain amount of agency that you don’t often seen in characters like this.

Her second appearance doubles down on all of this. Mac has been sneaking around and the rest of the gang is suspicious. Quickly the audience finds out that it’s because he’s seeing Carmen again. She is shown to have that agency again while Mac is having doubts and worries about the gang finding out, Carmen again shows she knows how to read people and that flirting with Mac will make him more willing to embrace his feelings and attraction to her and it works, for a while. After the two of them have sex she decides to ask about going out on a real date. Mac brushes off the idea in way that makes it seem like that was never an option and she’s silly for bringing it up. No one can see them together. Carmen, once again, given a level of agency trans women rarely get on TV then just throws Mac out of her apartment without a second thought. It’s at that point she realizes that no matter how attractive she finds him, he is a transphobic asshole. She seems to think she could get him to be more open, but clearly if he’s just going to treat her like a dirty secret she doesn’t need to put up with that.

Her final major episode a few years later sees her having had, for lack of a better phrase, bottom surgery and now happily married. Mac is very obviously jealous. He says they had discussed him getting a call after she had her surgery and then goes into a rant about how their marriage is a “gay marriage” and uses that and his religion as an excuse to fight it instead of his again, super obvious, jealousy. At this point Carmen is having none of it. Her husband even gets in on it by bringing up a passage in the Bible about beating slaves being alright after Mac tries to pull that card. In the end Mac doesn’t change anything and learns nothing, as is often the case for this show. And aside from appearing unexpectedly at the end of the season to reveal that Carmen and her husband hired Dee as their surrogate she hasn’t been seen since. She gets to go off and be happy with her husband and new child, which is something not a lot of the side characters in this show can say. Just look at the priest they drive into homelessness and drugs.

Anyway though this is why Carmen is so fascinating to me as a character. The characters don’t treat her well, but they don’t treat anyone well. In fact they have a slew of other nicknames, and never bother using their real ones for a bunch of side characters. She is misgendered really overtly in her first episode, but she isn’t made less of a person because of it. It’s clear to me that there is a gap between the characters, who are awful, and the writers (who are the same ones acting.) As writers they give her a sense of agency that seems to be really uncommon for other trans women on tv. Especially non-main characters who are just there for the main ones to date/sleep with. One of them even regrets parts of what they wrote about her, particularly the name “The Tranny” In 2018 Glenn Howerton, Dennis, said this in an interview:

“I mean, there are a few things, that if I could go back, I would probably do differently. In the first couple seasons, we referred to a character as 'the tranny.' Personally, I wasn't as aware of the power of that word at the time. Now, granted, I think one of the reasons why we get away with it or why it makes sense is because the characters are awful people. They're not celebrated for it and they always lose and they always get their comeuppance, and I think that's important. But I think if I were to do it all over again, there would probably have been at least one person in the group to say like, 'You shouldn't use that word.' I know our hearts were always in the right place and we never wanted to offend anybody. And still, our intention is never to offend."

Finally I’d like to address one thing that I feel like a lesser show would have done but It’s Always Sunny is smart enough to do. As discussed previously in recent seasons Mac has come out as gay after it being hinted at for years. The linking of these two concepts, Mac dating and sleeping with a trans woman, and Mac coming out as gay after years of repression are never linked. The hinting at it isn’t even brought up in any of the seasons before Carmen’s final appearance, with the exception of a mild crush/wanting a father figure out of a Phillies player. And in the later seasons where it’s hinted at and shown greater, Carmen is never brought up as a factor. The only thing close to that is when Mac is jealous she got married she says “If anything you are gay because I still had a penis when we were together!” In that moment, and because it comes from Carmen herself it comes off less as a genuine observation and more as her being able to read Mac like she did when they were flirting, except this time she’s tired of his crap and knows just how to get him to back off. It’s a small thing in the grand scheme of things, but I feel like other shows that aren’t as aware would make that connection and just keep making it, in spite of those facts having nothing to do with one another.

So I’ve said my peace, and I’m still not sure where I fall. I think in the ends on the positive. She’s a smart capable trans woman and most all of the harmful language the gang uses about her is because they’re all horrible. Still I realize that this could be a highly subjective topic and I don’t expect my view to be anything close to “right.” Check out the episodes and decide for yourself.

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia S1 E4: Charlie has Cancer (2005)

S3 E10: Mac is a Serial Killer (2007)

S6 E1 & E12: Mac Fights Gay Marriage & Dee Gives Birth (2010)

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That’s all for today folks. Please leave any likes or comments below. I am especially curious to hear responses and other opinions about this peice on particular. I want to know what you have to say. And of course if you have something you want to suggest or cover feel free to do so with the #LGBTQPril.

#lgbtqpril #television #lgbtq #trans #trans woman #it’s always sunny in philadelphia #it’s always sunny #Carmen

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blackjack-15 · 5 years

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Secrets and Killing — Thoughts on: Secrets Can Kill/Secrets Can Kill Remastered (SCK/SCK2)

Hello and welcome to a Nancy Drew meta series! 30 metas, 30 Nancy Drew Games that I’m comfortable with doing meta about. Hot takes, cold takes, and just Takes will abound, but one thing’s for sure: they’ll all be longer than I mean them to be.

Each meta will have different distinct sections: an Introduction, an exploration of the Title, an explanation of the Mystery, a run-through of the Suspects. Then, I’ll tackle some of my favorite and least favorite things about the game, and finish it off with ideas on how to improve it. If any game requires an extra section or two, they’ll be listed in the paragraph above, along with links to previous metas.

These metas are not spoiler free, though I’ll list any games/media that they might spoil here: SCK, SCK2, episode 1X14 of The Mentalist.

The Intro:

We’re beginning with Secrets Can Kill/Remastered, not only because it’s first, but also because it’s one of the easier games to analyze. The plot isn’t anything especially complicated, the suspects are caricatures, the locations are pretty barren — and all of this is true in both versions. It’s a short, unsatisfying game, which spawned a short, unsatisfying remake that fixed some things and ruined others.

The Title:

The title itself sounds like the murder occurred because Jake was keeping secrets (not because he was blackmailing people with them) — and it’s also incredibly vague — so as a title, I wouldn’t say it’s incredibly effective. The word “kill” is evocative, to be sure, but I think that’s the strongest part of the title by leagues.

The Mystery:

Nancy’s Aunt Eloise is a school librarian whose school finds a student murdered — so her first instinct is to call her plucky 18-year-old niece to come solve it.

The murdered student, Jake Rogers, has left cryptic messages in the school and the nearby diner, pointing towards not only what caused his murder, but also how to solve the crime and catch his murderer. There’s actually a really chilling clue that Jake tells us “will seal [his] murderer’s fate” — meaning that in the course of leaving these clues, Jake knew he’d be murdered.

Perhaps that’s a justification for the actual mystery being so /easy/ — the game can be beaten in under 45 minutes without too much trouble, sadly enough (obviously discounting the time spent in the original version switching discs).

The identity of the murderer/bad guy(s) is…honestly pathetic in both versions as well, with the biggest difference being screen time rather than complexity or plausibility. The remastered version nerfs the ending where Nancy stands for Truth, Justice, and Guns, and instead employs a rather ridiculous ending that’s meant to test you on your recall from the beginning of the game…but fails, because the beginning of the game was under an hour ago.

The Suspects:

Hal Tanaka (whose name in Japanese I’m guessing is actually Tanaka Haru or something longer but similar, since “l” isn’t a phoneme in Japanese, and no word can end in any consonant other than “n”) is a student at Paseo Del Mar who focuses very hard on getting the best grades he can possibly get —through both honest and dishonest means.

As a suspect, he’s pretty pathetic; there’s not a single minute where he’s even remotely plausible as Jake’s murderer, and he’s really just there to make sure that there’s “enough” suspects to seem more complex (and to pad out the run time of the game).

He also never pays for his plagiarism? Like the kid is a senior going into college and he just straight up copies the Big Essay? And it’s not really well written — if you’re gonna cheat, cheat well, Hal. It really bothers me that Nancy’s like “and he got his scholarship! Huzzah!” when the dude is a Stone-Cold Cheater.

Jake’s blackmailing him because of the aforementioned plagiarism, which…like, blackmailing is Not Right, but am I supposed to feel like Hal is the Victim here because he’s planning on taking a scholarship that he doesn’t deserve with his plagiarized paper away from another kid who does deserve it because they have the smarts and effort to write their own? Is that what this game is telling me to think? Because the game is wrong.

If Hal has the smarts to do Jake’s homework for the rest of the year, dude has the smarts to write his own essay. He’s a lazy coward, and I’d blackmail him too.

Connie Watson is the official tattletale (sorry, “hall monitor”) of Paseo Del Mar, and spends the game in the “student lounge” (what kind of bougie high school is this?) doing…nothing at all, honestly. I get that it’s the end of the year, Connie, but…go home. There’s no way school is in session, a murder just happened there.

She parades her Judo trophy-necklace around like she’s not being blackmailed for it and that, in 1998 or 2010, no one would recognize it? I mean we definitely know that Connie’s not getting a scholarship, girl is flat out dumb. She comes off better in the 1998 version where she at least gets to use those Mad Judo Skills, but she’s not an important character in either version, to be quite honest.

Connie’s being blackmailed because she won a men’s Judo competition…by wearing…a ski mask…yeah, there’s no defense for this, not in ’98 and not in ’10. Anyway, Jake is blackmailing her into going to the dance with him because he saw her taking off her mask (which she definitely should have done in a more secret location if she wanted it to be a secret?) but like…girlfriend is Flaunting her little neck-trophy, so I honestly don’t see what sway he has over her. It’s Very Wrong of him to do so, yes, yes…but he’s got no power here, and Connie’s an idiot if she thinks so.

She’s an idiot anyway, and once again is never even a consideration for Jake’s killer. What an interesting choice, to have two separate characters as the “dumb muscle” stereotype. And this one’s a girl! #feminism

Daryl Gray is the SBP of Paseo Del Mar, along with basically the manager (from what we see) of Maxine’s Diner, creepy escort, police contact…you name it, Daryl’s your bleach-blond guy.

He’s also super shifty; in the original game, he’s involved in drug trafficking, and in the remastered version, he’s selling his father’s company’s secrets. He also hits on Nancy a lot, but since Nancy never tells him to knock it off, that’s a Mild offense at best.

Daryl is being blackmailed in the original game because of the drug trafficking, and in the remastered version because of the whole leaking company secrets thing. Daryl 100% deserves to be blackmailed for that, as both of those things are Very Illegal, and he’s being Very Stupid about them. Yes, I understand that blackmail is illegal as well.

Hulk Sanchez is a character with as much subtlety as his name would imply, and is the star football player for Paseo Del Mar. Injured on the field and yet still looking to play college (and eventually pro) football, Hulk steals steroids and takes them, putting the “muscle” in “dumb muscle”.

Hulk is, true to his one-note character, being blackmailed for the whole “stealing drugs” thing (which seems to be his only character trait), as Jake wants him to deliver messages for him. Hulk by far got off the easiest, and if I were him and could be busted for both theft and drug use, would be thrilled that I was getting off this easy. Having no sense of perspective, Hulk instead rants to everyone about how Jake Rogers was a “punk” and how it’s a good thing that he’s dead.

Mitch Dillon, the school’s janitor, is the original baddie in the 1998 game, and is Unseen throughout the ENTIRE game, appearing only at the end to wave a gun around and punch Connie before being apprehended.

In the 1998 game, he’s buying drugs off of Daryl, whereas in the 2010 remake, he’s buying company/government secrets off of Daryl and selling them to Detective Beech. In both cases, Jake tries to blackmail him for his crimes, and he kills him. Both games see him arrested, but neither one actually treats him like a character, and he is, ultimately, a plot device that weakens the games.

Lastly, the remake introduces the character of “Detective Beech” (real name unknown), who also goes by “Uncle Steve” in his guise as Nancy’s police contact.

He is, of course, nothing of the sort, and has lost his journal with Gray Enterprises’ dirty little secrets that Mitch sold to him, and “hires” Nancy to find it under the guise of searching for Jake’s killer. Cartoonish and so obviously the Bad Guy that you’ll lose your voice yelling at Nancy to stop telling him things, he tries to kill Nancy when she finds out the truth and ends up trapped in Aunt Eloise’s kinky sex cage intruder cage thanks to Nancy telling him (repeatedly) the wrong combination to the safe. Yeah.

“Detective Beech” in-universe is a TV show mentioned in passing in STFD, VEN, and TOT, which makes the fact that Nancy fell for this disguise even sadder. That’d be like some criminal posing as an officer being like “call me Detective Columbo” and you being like “that sounds Plausible, yes”. Honestly.

It’s interesting that this game sets up a story where most of the suspects are “cheating” in some way or the other — Hal’s plagiarism, Connie’s joining of the competition, Hulk’s steroids, etc. I’m not sure this was purposeful, and I’m even less sure that it really means anything, but it’s interesting to note, regardless.

The Favorites:

There’s not much about this game that I like, to be quite honest. I enjoy Jake (more on him below), and Ned’s cheesiness as a phone contact, and the fact that it’s Mercifully Short.

Also Hulk is SUCH an enormous douche that it’s almost funny. And Aunt Eloise’s kinky sex cage intruder cage.

If I have to choose a favorite puzzle, it’s reading all of the signs Jake hid around the school/Maxine’s diner.

Or the ladle for the sheer stupidity.

The Un-favorites:

Everything else about the game.

The visuals are “blah” (except Remastered!Daryl, who is the stuff of effing nightmares), the characters are cardboard cutouts with a combined IQ of 7, and Nancy comes off weak and stupid as a result.

The villain(s) are one-note and boring, and the attempt to improve the game by remastering it made it easier to play (no disc-switching, faster loading, etc.) and had some campy yet cute easter eggs, but on the whole introduced new problems to the plot and took away Nancy Using an Effing Gun. Boo.

I have no favorite puzzles, as they’re all horrible or horribly easy. Nothing in this game stands out.

Well…maybe one thing stands out, but it’s not to the game’s credit.

The Fix:

The first (and biggest) thing I’d do to fix SCK is to set it in or near River Heights.

Yeah, there’s a throwaway line about this not being Nancy’s first case, but it doesn’t have to be her first case to make more sense in River Heights. It could happen in an adjacent suburb to River Heights as well, I’m not picky – it just should be local.

Now, that takes away Nancy being “undercover”, but honestly that’s not a big part of the game to lose, and setting it in a town next to River Heights pretty much solves the question of why would these kids talk to her if they knew who she was (though I don’t think that’s a problem; high schoolers, especially high school senior, are pretty apathetic about other peoples’ reputations and wouldn’t really care if a small-time amateur detective well-known in her own town but not nationally was there to ask them questions).

This fixes a few things, not the least of which being how Nancy is even allowed to be there in the first place. It’s ridiculous, no matter the time period, to think that Aunt Eloise would be notified of a student’s death, turn around to the police and the principal and be like “Hey, I have a niece! She sure has found some missing dogs!” and the authorities being like “Some lost dogs? A niece? Gee whiz! You got her number handy?”.

It’s a nonsensical way to get Nancy into the game that sticks out because there were sensical ways to ensure she could investigate.

Have Eloise working in a school a town over (and having previously lived in New York, to set up STFD), encounter the murder, think of Nancy, get the River Heights police chief to put in a good word for her with the other town’s police, and you’ve got a logical process of getting Nancy involved.

Make SCK Nancy’s first big case outside of River Heights (even if it’s just by a handful of miles) working with a different police force/school/etc., and suddenly there’s a justification for starting with this case.

The other big change I’d make is in the whole premise of the game.

Nancy Drew doesn’t tackle another murder until DED, and honestly it’s a good thing they waited for a good concept and a competent writer, because the one thing that stands out in the game is the premise: a person is murdered, and no one cares.

It’s one thing to have some of the characters not care, or be actively hostile to Jake Rogers while he’s alive, etc. etc. After he’s dead, no one’s shaken; sure, Jake has been blackmailing all of them, but the characters either intensely don’t care, or (in the case of Hulk, for example) are glad he’s dead, and have no qualms about telling you so.

Outside of your suspect pool, no one cares either; the most the teachers say is a line in an email noting that they’ll have to replace him for bulletin board duties. A student is murdered — a student that these teachers all knew, as he worked administratively for the bulletins at least — and they don’t care. Heck, Nancy doesn’t even care — she’s just there to poke her nose in and say some horrifically cheesy lines.

And honestly? I’m not okay with it.

Jake Rogers wasn’t a people person, and he was a jerk. His dream was to get enough money to go to an island and live a life of solitary luxury. He blackmailed people who broke the law (Connie is the weakest link here, but technically competing in the competition is Fraud because of the monetary prize, even if I don’t condemn her for it) for his own gain, but he was the definition of a temporary problem.

And an adult saw this kid as a temporary problem and used a permanent solution to fix it.

There’s the great episode in the first season of The Mentalist, 1X14 “Crimson Casanova”, where a woman having an affair in a hotel with a pick-up artist is shot to death.

At the end of the episode, it’s revealed that this woman, who cheated on and stole from her husband, was not the target at all — that a hotel employee who was in love with the pick-up artist’s ex-girlfriend tried to kill the pick-up artist in revenge for his treatment of the ex-girlfriend.

The following dialogue takes place between Patrick Jane (the titular Mentalist) and the murderer:

Murderer: “I’m not sorry. He’s dirt. The way he carried on with those other women, rubbing Katie’s nose in it? …I wish I hadkilled him.”

Jane: “But you killed Claire Wolcott instead.”

M: “I never meant to do that…but she shouldn’t have been doing what she was doing, should she? I mean, it’s not like anybody cares. Her husband was going —”

J: “I care! I care about Claire Wolcott! She was a living person!...You took her life!”

When his detective partner tries to calm him down, Jane responds with a simple statement:

J: “I…I just…I think he should be sorry.”

And that’s how I feel about Jake Rogers’ death.

Sure, he was a blackmailer. He, too, shouldn’t have been doing what he was doing. But he’s also a senior in high school involved in, let’s face it, petty crimes at most. He was a living person.

I don’t expect the murderer to be sorry, like in the above example. But a kid was alive, and now he’s dead, because someone murdered him in cold blood.

And I think someone should be sorry.

So how would I fix SCK?

Set it in or near River Heights, flesh out the characters, acknowledge the wrong that all of them do.

Make the culprit an actual part of the case.

Have actual puzzles in the game.

Acknowledge how terrible it is that Jake Rogers was murdered and that no one seems to care.

Have someone on his side, even if it’s only Nancy — Nancy, who shares so many similarities with Jake, who spies on those around her, who gathers evidence of their wrongdoings and, yes, holds it over their heads to get them to tell her what she wants to know.

Give Nancy sympathy for Jake, wanting justice for Jake, and you’ve won half the battle.

#nancy drew #nancy drew games #clue crew #secrets can kill #SCK #video games #my meta #nancy drew meta

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per-ineptia-ad-astra · 6 years

Text

Star Trek Episode 1.4: The Naked Time

AKA: Everyone Has A Real Bad Day Except For Sulu

CONTENT WARNING: This episode contains an onscreen suicide in which a man stabs himself in the stomach and dies later in surgery. No blood or gore or details of the surgery are seen. This recap covers the first scene but does not contain any images of it. There is one screencap of the surgery scene, which does not show the body, and is only there to point out a particularly ridiculous prop.

Here's a story about The Naked Time for you: one year when I was in college I had a Star Trek wall calendar. Each month had a picture from an episode on the top half, with the name of the episode underneath it, and then some trivia about it on the bottom half. The picture for February was shirtless Sulu posing on the bridge, naturally captioned The Naked Time. So one day a friend of mine who didn't watch Star Trek was over hanging out when she saw my calendar, and I wound up having to explain to her that yes, that was an actual Star Trek episode, no it was not a porn parody of Star Trek, yes it was really called The Naked Time, no, no one actually got naked in it. Which was quite the conversation. You try explaining shirtless Sulu with that caption completely out of context.

February was a good month that year.

Our episode begins with the Enterprise orbiting a planet called Psi 2000, because 2000 is the coolest number (except for 3000). Psi 2000 is an old planet, now little more than an arctic wasteland, which is near the end of its life. So near, in fact, that it's about to fall apart completely, and the Enterprise is there to watch (for science). Before they do that, though, they've got to pick up a research team that's been stationed down on the planet surface.

But all is not well, for we soon see that the inside of the research lab is just as much of an arctic wasteland as the outside, complete with a dead person sprawled over a console. Spock and some dude beam down wearing snazzy orange bubble wrap suits and Spock examines the stiff with his Pringles can gun.

[ID: Spock and another man wearing textured orange hazmat suits, faces only barely visible, standing in a room covered with dubiously realistic snow and ice. A body is slumped over the table in front of them, also covered in snow. Spock is pointing a cylindrical device at it.]

The two of them split up, the dude to check out the life support systems and Spock to examine the horrible scene of a shop window mannequin half-buried in snow. His Pringles can tells him that she's been strangled. The dude comes back and reports that all life support systems are off and there are four more dead people, including the engineer frozen apathetically at his post and another man taking a shower fully-clothed. Well, maybe his clothes were dirty too.

As Spock goes to check out this spectacle for himself, the dude wanders back into the main room and gets out a device of some sort that makes whirring sounds. But then his face itches, so, like the competent Starfleet officer he is, he carries on and ignores this. Ha ha, no, I'm just kidding. He takes his glove off, puts it on the dead guy's head, then sticks his bare hand up his helmet to scratch himself. As if that wasn't bad enough, he then leaves the glove off while he messes around on the floor. When he puts his hand on the side of the desk, we see an ominous red spot in the ice. To give the guy the very little credit he deserves, he doesn't put his hand directly on the red spot, but this doesn't matter much because some of the liquid crawls upward and splatters onto his hand anyway. And he obviously notices this, because he shakes his hand, sticks it back into his helmet to sniff it, then puts his glove back on like nothing happened.

Immediately afterward, Spock comes back and tells him to be certain they expose themselves to nothing. Well, have I got some bad news for you.

Spock calls up to the Enterprise to tell them what's going on, and when Kirk asks what caused all this, Spock says it's like nothing they've dealt with before. The drama of this is a bit undermined by two things: one, everything they deal with is like nothing they've dealt with before, and two, Spock says this in a complete and utter deadpan, even by Spock standards.

After the titles, Kirk recaps what just happened, and says that despite it all they're still going to hang out and watch the planet implode because hey, why waste a trip. Spock and the dude—whose name is now revealed as Tormolen—beam aboard and Scotty decontaminates them by making the transporter lights flash on and off for a few seconds. Then they go over to Sickbay to get checked out just to be double sure. This consists of a brief examination which I don't think is going to be much good for revealing any contaminants they might have picked up, but at least we get to see the cool Sickbay examining tables that flip up and down.

Here's an interesting point: in this scene both Spock and Tormolen are wearing black t-shirts instead of their usual colored tunics. We saw this earlier with McCoy wearing the same kind of shirt when he was chilling back in The Man Trap, and he also seems to be wearing one under his short-sleeved blue shirt, which suggests that it's a standard uniform undershirt (especially since Spock and Tormolen put their blue shirts back on over them after they get done with the examination). So...where the hell is Kirk's? Because we're going to see Kirk with his shirt ripped or off many, many, many....many, many times throughout this series, and he's never wearing anything under it. So what gives? Are these not part of the uniform and these three random people just enjoy wearing them? Are they part of the uniform for everyone but goldshirts? Is Kirk exercising some kind of captain's privilege to not have to wear an undershirt? I don't know, man. Star Trek uniforms have never made any sense to me. Also, I’m sorry I introduced that as interesting. I don’t know why I did that.

Anyway, Spock and McCoy snark at each other a bit, but on a less cheerful note we see that Tormolen is rubbing his forearm anxiously. Which presumably means more in this context than it does when I do that about thirty times a day. Kirk comes in to see what's up, and Tormolen mournfully describes how terrible the scene was. That leads to this bit of dialogue from him and Kirk: “I keep wondering--” “You keep wondering if man was meant to be out here. You keep wondering, you keep signing on.” So either Kirk is a mind reader, or this sentiment is old ground for Tormolen.

Spock says he has no idea what happened down there, but maybe they could find something on the record tapes. Kirk tells Tormolen to go get some rest since he keeps going on about how many dead people there were down there, and he and Spock go off to check those tapes. We see Chapel (yay!) and Tormolen looking at his hand while a sinister rattling sound plays (not yay).

In the briefing room, everyone's looking over the tapes. Spock identifies one as a spectro-analysis tape, but it turns out to just be a slow pan of the room where they beamed down. I would say that's not what spectro-analysis is, but spectro-analysis (as opposed to spectral analysis) isn't a thing, so I guess you can have it mean whatever you want. Kirk muses over how bizarre and macabre this situation is, with everyone just frozen and uncaring, and asks for theories. McCoy says it couldn't be drugs or intoxication since the bio-analysis tapes, which were apparently more useful than the spectro-analysis tapes, rule that out. Spock suggests it may be some new form of space madness, which is like regular madness but in space, but he doesn't know what could have caused it since they didn't pick up anything unusual on their sensors. Scotty points out that that just means they didn't pick up anything unusual that they were designed to pick up, so this could still be something entirely new.

Kirk's main concern is this: they have to get the best readings they can of Psi 2000's breakup, and to do that means maintaining a really precise orbit, so they need absolute efficiency and no one getting space madness and randomly dying. He asks if there's any chance that what happened to the science team could affect the crew of the Enterprise. There's a conspicuous lack of any answer to this, which annoys Kirk, but hey, if they don't know what happened, how can they know what effects it's going to have? Anyway, the bridge calls in to report that the expected erratic changes are beginning to happen to the planet, and the meeting ends on that note.

In the rec room, or whatever, some people are playing space checkers (like regular checkers, but in space) and Tormolen is getting some food. He's still staring at his hand and rubbing it against his shirt like there's something on there he can't scrub off. Which I guess there is.

Sulu and friend come in to get some coffee, chatting about Sulu's latest passion: fencing. His friend complains that Sulu has a habit of picking up intense interests every week or so, which I guess is kind of thrown in there as a justification for why Sulu was in the botany lab a couple weeks ago but never shows up there again. The two of them sit down next to Tormolen and Sulu, noticing his buddy's new compulsion, asks if everything is alright, causing Tormolen to snap at him violently.

The two goldshirts get called to the bridge, but Sulu makes one last effort to check on Tormolen before they go. This really sets Tormolen off, making him jump up, knock his chair over, and go on an impassioned rant about how mankind doesn't belong in space. When his friends try to calm him down, he grabs the knife from his plate and points it first at them, then at himself. They get into a tussle, trying to take the knife from Tormolen, while everyone else in the room watches dispassionately. Thanks, guys.

Sulu and his pal aren't successful getting the knife away and all three of them take a tumble to the floor, and as they get up it's revealed that Tormolen stabbed himself in the stomach. I'm...not sure how he managed to do that with a butter knife. Sulu's friend runs over to the intercom and yells that they need medics. Then we hear another sinister rattle and he starts rubbing at his hands like Tormolen did.

After the break, Kirk gives a log saying that unbeknownst to them, a new disease has been brought on board. But this one's not in the past tense, so it just kind of makes it sound like Kirk has precognition. On the bridge, Sulu and his friend—who we finally learn is called Riley—are keeping the Enterprise steady around the rapidly condensing planet. Spock waxes on a bit about how they may be seeing Earth's own future, since before its sun went dark Psi 2000 was very similar to Earth. I dunno what we're going to do with that information, but hey, science!

Everything seems to be going alright so far, except that both Sulu and Riley have caught that bad case of Out, Damn Spot that's been going around, complete with sinister rattling. Kirk can't hear the soundtrack, though, so he doesn't notice anything off. He goes over to talk to Spock about the strange case of Tormolen. Spock thinks Tormolen was too confused to be actively trying to kill himself, but he notes that the man's capacity for self-doubt has always been high and wonders what caused it to suddenly come to the surface like that.

In Sickbay, Chapel and McCoy are operating on Tormolen, but it's not going well, even when McCoy blowtorches Tormolen's wound shut.

[Image description: McCoy and Chapel, dressed in blue Sickbay scrubs, doing surgery on a draped body at a Sickbay table. McCoy is saying, “Closing,” while pointing a device at the patient. The device looks remarkably like a completely undisguised blowtorch. ]

We briefly cut away to the bridge, where there's been a sudden increase in gravity that causes the orbit to go all wonky. Riley's too busy looking at his hands to do his job, causing Kirk to have to do it while Riley sits there and sweats heavily. Back in Sickbay, Tormolen's vitals are inexplicably dropping, and despite McCoy and Chapel's best efforts, he dies. This really freaks McCoy out because Tormolen's wounds shouldn't have been fatal. He calls Kirk to Sickbay, and after taking a moment for a bit of exposition, Kirk heads down.

Sulu and Riley talk about how much they're both sweating, then Sulu abruptly suggests they head down to the gym for a bit of a workout to calm their nerves. Riley is understandably perplexed about this, but that doesn't stop Sulu from sneaking off the bridge unnoticed (somehow), leaving poor Riley with no idea what to do about it.

In Sickbay, McCoy is explaining to Kirk that Tormolen's wounds were not severe enough to kill him, and says that the only reason he died was because he didn't want to live. Um. I don't think you can will yourself to death. Especially not while you're unconscious. But McCoy can't come up with anything else, and he's especially baffled because he says that men like Tormolen don't give up. They can't be trusted to investigate inexplicable deaths without contaminating themselves and they're incredibly susceptible to ennui, but they don't give up.

Kirk wonders if this is a coincidence, with Tormolen dying after having been down on the planet where all those other people died. McCoy can't see how, since they checked everything they could and did everything that was possible. Kirk tells him to check the impossible too. What the hell does that mean? “Check if he was a vampire! See if he died from Kryptonite poisoning! Try sprinkling fairy dust on him!”

On the bridge, the orbit goes out of whack, causing Spock to finally notice that one of the helmsmen is mysteriously absent. He runs over and sets things straight, recruiting a guy called Rand (no relation) to take Sulu's place and demanding to know why Sulu isn't there. Riley is...not very helpful.

[Image description: Riley, a white goldshirt with brown hair and a very drunk look on his face, sitting at the helm on the bridge and proclaiming, “Have no fear, Riley's here!”]

Spock relieves Riley, replacing him with Uhura. That's right, Uhura can run communications and fly the ship. Uhura can do anything.

Spock sends Riley to Sickbay, and Riley goes happily enough, sauntering off through the corridors and opening the Sickbay doors by blowing on them. He goes in and pesters Chapel, first mournfully asking her what happened to Tormolen, then, without skipping a beat, starts hitting on her, causing more sinister rattling when he touches her chin. Then he says that Tormolen's mistake was that he wasn't born an Irishman. Because as we all know, Irish people are immortal. Then he leaves. Well, to be fair, Spock just said to report to Sickbay, he didn't say anything about what to do when Riley got there.

Riley's pretty quickly overshadowed though, because immediately afterwards we see Sulu burst through a door, shirtless, laughing, waving a rapier, and having the time of his life.

[ID: Sulu, wearing only his uniform pants and boots, standing in the middle of an Enterprise corridor, grinning and striking a duelist’s pose with a rapier. The subtitle reads [Music]. ]

Legend has it that the original script was undecided about whether Sulu was using a rapier or a samurai sword, and that the choice was up to Takei, who went with the rapier because he felt that the samurai sword was much too stereotypical for a Japanese character, something he really wanted to break away from because in the 60s it was really goddamn hard for an Asian actor to get any role that wasn't a pile of stereotypes. Legend—and by legend, I mean, George Takei—also has it that Takei spent the time up until the shoot frantically doing push-ups in his dressing room to prepare for his shirtless scenes. He really enjoyed this episode, and boy howdy can you tell by watching him.

Sulu encounters a couple of crewmen walking the other way, who have an astounding lack of reaction to being spontaneously menaced by a really sweaty guy with a sword. At least, up until he charges them, at which point they turn tail and run away. Sulu only finds greater amusement in this, calling them cowards as he climbs up a nearby ladder.

Meanwhile, Spock gets a guy to relieve Uhura, and Kirk comes on the bridge to discuss the strange case of the missing helmsmen. He tells Uhura to send a security team out to locate and confine the two of them, and Uhura responds with a report about Sulu's antics.

Spock proposes a pattern of hidden personality traits suddenly surfacing: Tormolen's self-doubt, Sulu's desire to be a swashbuckler, and Riley...being really proud of being Irish. I guess that's a personality trait.

Before they can go any farther with this theory, there's another disturbance from the planet, only this time the helmsmen can't compensate because their controls aren't working. Kirk decides enough's enough and orders them to warp out of there, but the warp drive also isn't responding. Neither are the impulse engines.

Kirk heads off to see what's up with this, but he's interrupted by Sulu bursting in on the bridge, waving his sword around wildly, and I don't think Shatner's expression as the rapier gets shoved in his face had much to do with acting. Uhura tries to get the sword away, but Sulu grabs her to his side, declaring, “I'll protect you, fair maiden!” To which she responds, “Sorry, neither.” Wow. Censors were asleep that day, huh.

A triple attack by Kirk, Spock and Uhura gets Sulu a Vulcan nerve pinch for his trouble, and Spock has him hauled off to Sickbay, with a surprisingly snarky comment from Spock about “D'Artagnan here.” Kirk goes back to trying to raise Scotty about that engine trouble...but it's not Scotty that replies. It's Riley. He says that he's relieved Scotty of his duties and also that he's the captain now. Apparently they can't shut him off, either, because he goes on to demand double portions of ice cream for dinner and then starts singing “I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen.” Kirk's face says it all.

[ID: Kirk, standing on the bridge next to the lift doors with one hand to his forehead, looking extremely frustrated, while Riley sings, “I’ll take you home again Kathleen...” over the intercom.]

Kirk's having a really bad day.

With nineteen minutes to go before they swandive into the collapsing planet, Kirk finally reaches Engineering, where Scotty is doing his best to get in. He says that Riley told everyone that Kirk wanted them on the bridge, then locked the door behind them. Wow. It is really easy to take over Engineering. Not only that, but Riley's hooked everything up to the main panel in Engineering, so they can't use auxiliary control. The only way they can get back into Engineering is to literally burn a hole through the wall, which is going to be tricky because the wall is full of stuff that you really don't want to burn through.

Riley's still singing, and I would comment on the quality of his singing, but that would be very hypocritical of me, so I won't. Besides, everyone else in the episode will do it for me. Uhura reports to Spock that various incidents among the crew are increasing, either because of the sickness or because they're all just worried they're gonna die, so Spock orders her to have the main sections sealed off so they can hopefully slow down the spread of this thing. But Uhura's alert is cut off by Riley, who's also overridden the alert channels. You can do anything from Engineering. Riley tells Uhura that she won't get ice cream since she interrupted his song. Awwww. He also says there will be a dance in the bowling alley later. Hang on, they have a bowling alley? Of all the things you could have installed for entertainment on your starship, you picked a bowling alley? No wonder they're so desperate for shore leave all the time.

Uhura says she can't do anything to cut Riley off, so Spock goes over and presses a bunch of buttons to confirm this. I've noticed a running theme in this show is that no one believes Uhura when she says she can't do something or something's not working. Then again, that happens to Scotty a lot too.

Just then, there's a big jolt, and everyone dutifully flings themselves across the set. My favorite part of this is the brief cutaway to Sickbay where we see McCoy doing a belly flop across Sulu's legs.

[ID: Sickbay tilting to the side, causing Chapel to fall backward onto a bed and McCoy to wind up horizontal on top of a passed-out Sulu.]

He calls up to the bridge to complain about this (apparently Riley didn't bother cutting that particular channel) and says that they're running tests on Sulu but haven't found anything yet. Kirk asks if there's anything he can do about Riley, but McCoy's got nuthin. Not even some tranquilizer gas to pump in there or anything. You're falling down on the job, there, Bones. Literally and metaphorically.

Riley calls in again to give the female crewmembers orders on how to look (thanks dude), including telling them not to wear too much makeup. You don't want too much makeup on this ship, Riley, you better take that up with Mr. Spock and his eyeshadow.

Then he starts singing “I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen” one more time. Which I guess is the only song he knows. You couldn't mix it up a bit there, Riley? Rocky Road To Dublin? Galway Bay? Thousands Are Sailing? No?

Scotty does something that gives the bridge enough power to keep the ship stabilized, but that's not that much help since their orbit is still decaying and they're now sixteen minutes away from faceplanting into the planet (faceplaneting). Kirk takes a moment to sign a PADD for a crewman. Kirk. Kirk, the ship is crashing. You can do paperwork later. He sends Spock down to help McCoy, but tells him to stop on the way to harangue Scotty to go faster.

On his way, Spock encounters a maniacally laughing man who's painted 'love mankind' on the wall, and a goldshirt harassing Rand, because harassing Rand is the main pastime on the Enterprise. Spock tells him to stop that, and he does...until Spock leaves, whereupon he immediately starts again. Helpful.

Spock finds Scotty, who says he's doing the best he can, dammit, and he can't cut through the bulkhead safely any faster, but Spock tells him they don't have time to be safe. This clearly perturbs Scotty deep in his engineer's soul. Not much anyone can do about it now, though.

In Sickbay, McCoy is yelling at the biopsy lab, but they're not responding, so he goes over to yell at them in person. Chapel is left behind with Sulu, who's coming out of the tranquilizer (we can tell because he's thrashing his head around and grunting). Unfortunately Chapel has the contagion from where Riley touched her, and she wanders off.

Things aren't going well on the bridge. Riley is still singing, various people are having to be shoved out of their chairs as they succumb to the contagion, and Kirk is about to lose it. He snaps at Uhura to cut Riley off, and she snaps back at him that she sure as hell would if she could. Kirk has the good grace to apologize, but it's understandable; I think anyone would lose it after that many renditions of “I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen.”

Spock finally makes it to Sickbay, where he encounters Chapel, who starts rubbing his hand and talking about how the men from Vulcan treat their women. Keep in mind that's the Vulcan equivalent of passionately making out, so Spock is understandably pretty perturbed by this, especially when she starts saying she loves him. Spock finally manages to disentangle himself, but it's too late: he's been infected too. He wanders out into the corridor, ignoring Uhura's attempts to get a hold of him, and starts sniffling, which is the Spock equivalent of attacking people with a sword.

Kirk stomps down to Engineering with some security guys in tow, where Scotty is finishing up cutting a Tetris block-shaped piece out of the wall. He reaches his hand right in the still-smoking hole (badass) and opens the door, letting Kirk and the redshirts rush in and apprehend Riley. Riley's a graceful loser, though; he just says, “No dance tonight,” and gets thrown into the redshirts while Kirk and Scotty desperately start pushing buttons.

Meanwhile, Spock finds an empty room to duck into, and tries desperately to get control of himself, collapsing into a chair and muttering some math as he breaks into sobs. This is an interesting scene, because it wasn't originally in the script; Spock was supposed to have a much more light-hearted encounter where he burst into tears after getting a mustache drawn on him by the mad graffiti artist. Nimoy objected, feeling that this was out of character for Spock and missing a great opportunity, so he pushed for the scene to be changed. He had to keep pushing, because the scriptwriter didn't initially want to do it, and then it came in at the end of the shooting day and no one thought they could get it done in time, but Nimoy persevered and did the whole thing in one take right under the wire.

The result is something special: a rare scene showing Spock in a moment of true, open vulnerability, confessing to the feelings he insists he doesn't have, the struggle to keep himself restrained and logical to the point that he can't confess feelings like love and friendship even to himself. It also stands out from the rest of the episode, as aside from Tormolen—whose arc, while tragic, is rather flat--most of the results of the affliction are much more Wacky Hijinks than anything seriously emotional.

There's bad news in Engineering: Scotty's found out that Riley turned the engines off completely, and it would take thirty minutes to start them up again. This is bad, since they're now starting to burn up in the planet's atmosphere and have got about eight minutes left...leading to one of Scotty's most famous lines: “I cannot change the laws of physics. I got to have thirty minutes!”

Well, Kirk isn't going to take the immutable laws of physics as an excuse. He suggests a controlled implosion of the engines, but Scotty says that's only a theory and has never been done. They'd need a row of computers working weeks to find the right formula. Speaking of which, where is Spock?

In Sickbay, Sulu has finally come round, which for some reason involves screaming at the top of his lungs while McCoy watches dispassionately.

[ID: Sulu sitting up in Sickbay and screaming, while McCoy watches him with a hypospray in his hand.]

When he's done screaming, Sulu seems back to normal and apparently doesn't remember anything since he left the bridge. That's enough for McCoy, who shoves Chapel out of her chair (there's a lot of shoving people out of their chairs in this episode) and calls the lab to tell them they've finally isolated the problem. He says that somehow on Psi 2000 water has changed to a complex chain of molecules (it what now) that's passed through perspiration and acts like alcohol once it's in the bloodstream. Except it doesn't cause anyone to lose coordination, or slur their speech, or throw up, or pass out, or have difficulty thinking, or have any effect aside from soul-baring and a lot of sweating. So...maybe not a whole lot like alcohol. McCoy tries to tell all this to the lab, but they just laugh hysterically at him, so he goes off to do it himself.

Kirk finds Spock (...somehow) and demands to know why he's crying in a side room while the ship is crashing. Spock starts talking about his mother and how he could never tell her he loved her. It's very moving, but we've only got five minutes before no one on the ship is going to be telling anyone anything ever again, so Kirk's got no time to listen. Not even when Spock says that he feels ashamed when he feels friendship for Kirk, a touching admission which is somewhat undercut by the fact that Kirk is currently expressing that friendship by smacking Spock repeatedly across the face.

Eventually Spock gets tired of this and backhands Kirk in return, sending him tumbling over the nearby table with such force I'm surprised Spock didn't break his jaw in the process. Kirk starts ranting about the about implosion process and then smacks the nearby console when Uhura tries to contact him, from which he intuits that he's got the infection. Then he starts going on about how the Enterprise consumes everything in his life and he can't have normal relationships. Now, when Tormolen, Sulu and Riley were affected it took considerable time for substantial behavior changes to occur, but Kirk has to one-up everyone so he managed it in about five seconds. Meanwhile, Spock calms down and starts talking about the intermix formula, because...I guess he just got over this by himself. Also, I'm pretty sure five minutes have passed by now.

Scotty comes in to try and get something useful out of somebody, and he and Spock go off to work on the intermix formula, leaving Kirk to angstily make his way up to the bridge. As he steps out of the turbolift, McCoy is waiting to give him the antidote, which he does by ripping Kirk's sleeve open. Even though hyposprays can go through clothing. And Kirk's exposed neck is right there. And a gentle tug at the fabric would have been more than sufficient. Look, McCoy's had a long day, alright, he needs to take it out on somebody.

[ID: Kirk standing in front of the bridge lift doors looking tired and annoyed while McCoy injects a hypospray into the bare skin on his arm exposed by Kirk’s uniform shirt sleeve being ripped open almost down to the elbow.]

While we're at it, the question must be asked: how did McCoy manage to not get infected this whole time? He was in ample contact with lots of people who were infected, while wearing a short-sleeved shirt, and somehow never once had the slightest bit of skin-to-skin contact with any of them? The only thing I can come up with is that he was infected but it was impossible to tell any difference.

On the screen, the planet is rushing past closer and closer while everyone stares silently. In Engineering, Spock and Scotty are cutting even more corners to get the intermix to work in time. They do...something, and the lights go dim on the bridge while everyone reacts dramatically; Kirk goes full throttle by throwing his head back in a silent scream, while McCoy is content to rub his ear and squint a bit.

Then it's all over: the lights come back up and instead of a rapidly approaching planet on the viewscreen there's an open starfield. Spock comes up to say that they were successful, obviously, but with a bit of a hitch: they overloaded the engines and now they're traveling faster than possible. Not only that, but the ship chronometer is now running backward. They're going backward in time! Why is this happening? Who knows. Maybe they just went so fast they came back around again the other way.

They hit the brakes, but not before traveling three days back in time. Well, could've been worse. Spock points out that this is all very intriguing, having, you know, access to time travel now, but Kirk isn't interested in repeating this experiment anytime soon. He tells Sulu to take them on to their next destination. Um. Are you sure it's a good idea to head to your next destination before you've technically departed your last one? You're gonna get some questions from Starfleet about why you're not on the mission you're supposed to be on.

Anyway, the episode ends there, leaving the whole time travel thing a bizarre non-sequitor that comes out of nowhere, adds nothing whatsoever to the episode, and is never mentioned again. This is because this episode was originally supposed to be a two-parter leading into Tomorrow Is Yesterday, which is a proper full-fledged time travel episode. For whatever reason that didn't happen, though, so we just have this weird little endcap that it's probably best not to think about too much.

TREK TROPE TALLY: Crew death count for this episode is one blueshirt (Tormolen), bringing us up to seventeen. We also have our first case of Space Diseases with the Emotions Virus, our first case of a Time Trek, albeit an extremely mild one with the Enterprise getting thrown back three days into the past, and our second case of Uniforms Unformed with Kirk’s tissue-paper sleeve being mercilessly destroyed by McCoy. Next time, we'll be looking at a tale of doppelganger woe in The Enemy Within.

#star trek #star trek TOS #star trek tos season one #1.4 The Naked Time #recap tag #star trek TOS recaps #1.4 The Naked Time recap

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