#because this season features some of their finest work as these two characters

[doortotomorrow]

SHIPS IN THE SPOTLIGHT : memori edition favourite storyline - becoming the leaders of sanctum

[popcultureoverdosed]

Blood Blockade Battlefront is New York at its Finest

NYC often gets a bad rep. Most people either see it as a smelly hellhole filled with crime and crappy attitudes or a breeding ground for hipsters and vapid socialites. People only see what they want to see without looking at the whole picture. This makes Leonardo's all-seeing eyes of God all the more important. Instead of lumping NYC into a box, he sees it for what it truly is; a chaotic blend of volatile elements.

The storytelling of Blood Blockade Battlefront is pure chaos from beginning to end. Leonardo is thrown into a world of highly deadly scenarios with very little breathing room in between. Each episode focuses on a moment in the character's life. One episode will focus on Leonardo befriending an amnesiac monster who loves burgers and another will feature a brigade of Charlie's angels-esque spies who happen to be invisible werewolves. It's the type of show that always keeps you on your toes because you never know what to expect. Some have criticized the show for its lack of an overarching plot and treat it as if that's inherently bad. Blood Bloockade isn't the type of show that needs a complex narrative. Its biggest appeal is simply seeing its eccentric cast interact with each other. Its episodic nature made watching it a breeze since viewers are never overwhelmed with too much information.

Worldbuilding is done at a casual pace where background lore is only given when it's relevant to what's currently happening. Since most characters are already well familiar with the lore, they usually cut the small talk and get straight to the action. In this way, the narrative mirrors New Yorker's aversion to beating around the bush. Show don't tell at its finest. We need more shows that just get to the point. Rie Matsumoto, director of season 1, feels a bit different about the story than I do, though. She inserted two original characters, Black and White, a pair of siblings who share a character arc that Intersects with Leo's. Under normal circumstances, this would have been an incredibly bad move. Filler in anime tends to feel pointless and just detracts from the story. Luckily, Rie Matsumoto made sure that the filler didn't feel like filler. It was fun watching the mystery surrounding the sibling duo unravel with each episode. It eventually culminated in a finale that was nearly an hour long. Matsumoto took a huge risk with her bold decision, but she definitely stuck the landing.

The production values of the show are also top-notch. Pretty much every episode is a reminder of why studio Bones is such a beloved company. They seriously put their key animators to work in both seasons. The fluidity of the fight scenes always left me impressed. Character designer Toshihiro Kawamoto did a great job at bringing Yasuhiro Nightow's art to animation with his iconic style. I love how even when Toshihiro is adapting someone else's character design, his style still shines through.

Special mention needs to be given to composer Taisei Iwasaki because he really killed it with this soundtrack. It's an eclectic blend of jazz, RNB, hip-hop, rock and more genres that perfectly captures the vibe of a busy New York City. Each track is a different flavor of the city and made me feel at home. The soundtrack truly embodies the chaotic feel of the show and captures its occasional serene moments perfectly.The true musical highlights are the openings and endings. BBB is one of those shows where you feel compelled to watch the full episode because the opening and ending are too good to skip. They're all incredibly upbeat songs that make you wanna stop everything and dance. Sugar song and bitter step is one of my favorite anime endings because of it's colorful animation and cheerful aura.

Blood Blockade Battlefront is the type of show that can really resonate with native New Yorkers. We see all the highs and lows of the city almost every day and you have to be just a little bit crazy to appreciate NYC for what it is.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Psycho Analysis: Winds of Destruction

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

Here I am, dirty and faceless Waiting to heed your instruction On my own, invisible warrior I am a Wind of Destruction!

As many of you might now, I’m a huge fan of the Metal Gear series. What you probably don’t know is  that, despite the series having a penchant for squads of quirky bosses, I’m not really a huge fan of many of them. FOXHOUND? I mean I like Mantis and Ocelot. The Sons of Liberty? I guess Vamp is alright. B&B Corps? I barely remember any of them. I love the Cobra Unit, but that’s because all of them are batshit insane and weird. I’m not saying they’re bad boss fights or anything—far from it, they all offer fantastic boss fights—but as characters I’m not really big on many of these villains.

The Winds of Destruction, on the other hand? I fucking love these guys (and girl).

Metal Gear Rising is what happens when you turn the insane anime action of the main series up to 11, and so it should be no shock the squad of bosses is cranked up as well. Each and every one of these guys is nuttier than the last, and the whole lot of them are some of the most memorable and memetic characters in the franchise. Also Khamsin exists.

Motivation/Goals: So besides the obvious way they tie into the plot because they’re working for Armstrong, each of these villains has a theme song which pretty much details what makes them tick, what they’re about, and expands upon them once you get their health low enough during their boss battles.

Mistral’s theme, “A Stranger I Remain,” details how she has come to this land to sate her bloodlust, and how she truly feels most at home on the battlefield; Monsoon’s theme, “Stains of Time,” acts as a reinforcement of his nihilistic outlook; Sundowner’s theme, “Red Sun,” expounds on his nature as a card-carrying villain and how he revels in the violence and bloodshed he causes; Sam’s theme, “The Only Thing I Know for Real,” lays out his desire for a one-on-one duel with Raiden, his foil, to see who is truly worthy to stand up and continue fighting for their ideals; and Khamsin’s song, “The Hot Wind Blowing,” showcases his patriotic nature as well as just generally acting as a badass boast. Most of these songs  act more as thematic seasoning for the characters, adding on to what is already established in their cutscenes, but for some like Khamsin and to a lesser extent Mistral, it’s pretty much the extent of their development.

Performance: Every single one of these actors really brings their all to make these characters memorable.

Sundowner is the ham and cheese of the group, working alongside Armstrong to ensure that all the scenerey is well and truly chewed. And who better to bring on the ham than Crispin Freeman? Salli Saffioti is Mistral, and is it any shock she’s also played Black Widow before? And also Hilda from Fire Emblem, I guess? Then we have Monsoon, played by John “The Crypt Keeper” Kassir, who delivers everything with gusto as always. Phillip-Anthony Rodriguez makes Sam just as smarmy and charming as a rival should be, and Benito Martinez puts in his all to his brief role of Khamsin. Not a weak vocal performance here, I’d say.

Final Fate: Seeing as they are video game bosses, it should come as no surprise to anyone that Raiden slices each and every one of them into confetti. Special mention to the absolutely brutal death of Mistral, where she gets frozen in liquid nitrogen before you get to shatter her.

Best Scene: For most of them, they only get the one scene followed by their boss battle, with the exception of Sundowner and Sam. Mistral and Khamsin’s boss battles are obviously their finest hours, though Mistral’s takes the cake between the two seeing how explosive and exciting it is, living up to the promise of that first battle with Metal Gear RAY, while Khamsin’s is the finale of a DLC featuring the game’s ultimate jobber, Blade Wolf.

Monsoon has a lot more going for him, because before his boss fight he gives off one of the most amazing monologues ever put into a Metal Gear game, as he lectures Raiden on memes (“The DNA of the soul!”) and his nihilistic philosophy. Then you get to have a kickass boss fight where, if you do well enough, you will make this nihilistic bastard beg for his life as you hack him to pieces.

Best Quote: Monsoon has the honor of dropping the most iconic bit of dialogue in the entire game (outside of everything out of Armstrong’s mouth, of course):

"Free will is a myth. Religion is a joke. We are all pawns, controlled by something far greater: Memes. The DNA of the soul. They shape our will. They are the culture — they are everything — we pass on."

Sundowner, being the massive slab of ham that he is, is no slouch in the memetic lines himself. Two stand out, and that’s his battle cry of “I’M FUCKIN’ INVINCIBLE!” and his proclamation that he wants things to go back to the old ways of war, specifically “IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS AFTER 9/11!” This is hilarious because even with confirming that 9/11 happened in the Metal Gear universe, it still is probably only the second worst thing to happen to New York.

Sam doesn’t really have any great quotes that stand out, but this man is a master of reactions, from his shit-eating grin to his rousing applause. I figured I’d highlight that here.

Final Thoughts & Score: Let’s look at them from best to least best; I don’t think any of them are awful, though some are better than others obviously.

Monsoon

Outside of Armstrong and Sundowner, Monsoon is absolutely the best character in the game. I think part of it is because he so thoroughly represents everything the Metal Gear series is summed up in one character; he’s incredibly philosophical and legitimately fascinating while also being hilariously over-the-top and spouting off some of the most ridiculous and cheesy lines you will ever hear, all while being a bright red-and-black cyborg voiced by a guy famous for acting as the emcee of a horror show. Literally everything about him is the pure essence of the franchise, so even without Kojima’s direct involvement we still got a beautiful 10.5/10 character.

Sundowner

As far as the Winds of Destruction go, Sundowner is second only to Monsoon. He’s just over-the-top in ways I never could have even imagined for this series, and the only thing holding him back is he is almost immediately outdone by Armstrong two levels after you kill him. Still, this bloodthirsty butcher just revels so much in being a huge asshole and delivers all his lines with the Southern-fried charm that only an actor like Crispin Freeman could deliver, and you have a character I wish was around in the good old days after 9/11. He’s an easy 10/10.

Also he is literally just this image as a character, and that’s amazing:

Jetstream Sam

Sam is a really great character in the Cyborg Ninja tradition, easily following in the footsteps of characters like Gray Fox and Raiden himself. The sheer badassery of this man, a normal human whose only cyborg trait is a single arm and yet who is still capable of taking down a RAY by himself, cannot be overstated, and I think he gets a big boost from being playable. There’s an underlying tragedy to the character too, with how he’s something of a fallen hero whose sword was once a tool of justice but who became disillusioned due to his inability to make the world a better place all on his own  and losing to Armstrong in a fight. He’s easily the most complex character besides Armstrong, and his boss battle and theme song are both top notch. I really can’t justify anything less than a 10/10.

Mistral

As much as I love Mistral, it’s hard to deny she is really the epitome of a one-scene wonder. She does not get nearly as much characterization as her compatriots and is very vague and ambiguous even after the DLC… but that might be the point. Her image song is “A Stranger I Remain,” and though we know of her bloodthirsty nature from that song, Mistral still remains a mystery to us to the bitter end. But hey, it’s hard to deny that what we do see of her is pretty impressive (and I’m not just talking about her boobs, I promise). She’s not quite as good as her fellow Winds I’d say, but considering she’s a 9.5/10 that’s not really a knock against her.

Khamsin

Despite having one of the best songs in the game to his name, as well as an intriguing personality and motivations, Khamsin really is incredibly forgettable, to the point his comrades  don’t even bother to mention him in the main campaign. This is not something you should ever be saying about a dude who looks like Quaritch in his mech suit at the end of Avatar on steroids, and yet here we are. Of course, he’s certainly not awful by any means and he makes for a great boss fight, but he falls severely short of the main game’s enemies. Mistral managed to score as high as she did with only having one level to her, but Khamsin only manages a 5.5/10 with the same. Maybe it’s because he just feels so inconsequential… Eh, at least he looks cool.

[hijinks-n-lowjinks]

Hi what about 1 and 12 for the fic ask?

Hi winnie!!! Thank you for the ask 🫶🏻🫶🏻🫶🏻

1. Which three fics occupy your top posts? Tell me a bit about the inspiration behind them!

I’m going to assume this means my most popular posts, so I’m going to go by hits

#3 - It Had To Be You: this is the first fic I ever posted so I’m not surprised it has some of the highest ratings on my profile. Sakuatsu was HUGE back when I wrote this and I think people were ready to consume any media about them at the time because this is not my finest work lol. The inspiration came from watching When Harry Met Sally (my fav romcom of all time, I rewatch it like 10 times a year) and I realized that the personalities of the main pairing fell in line well with sakuatsu.

#2 - you’ll always know me: my baby. My piece de resistance. I’m not surprised it didn’t blow up the way aibtntfi has as hq has a shit ton of extremely good fics so you’re never really lacking for good content, but I’m very pleased this is my second most read! The basic inspiration for this was that I was listening to Taylor Swift’s evermore album (tis the damn season/dorothea in particular) and those two songs reminded me a lot of iwaoi in the time skip. A childhood friends to enemies to friends to lovers was perfectly in the cards for it and I think I planned out the entire fic in like three days.

#1 - and i’ve been tryin’ not to feel it: no one is shocked except for me lol. I never expected for this fic to do as well as it has but now this fic is basically the reason I have a following at all! The inspiration behind this was seeing a lot of jjk tiktokers doing ooc skits and it made me so irritated that I had to write a Megumi and itafushi that I felt was in character for a modern au. It was originally supposed to be a short oneshot but here we are 12 chapters later lol

12. Pick three fics that feature the same trope. What do you like the most about writing that trope and/or how did you do that trope differently in each story?

Friends 👏🏻 to 👏🏻 lovers 👏🏻 slow 👏🏻 burn 👏🏻 Slow burns are my favorite romance trope. I’m aspec so it’s RARE that I’m ever convinced by an insta-love story and I think slow burns where the couple truly gets to know and understand each other are the most romantic sort. Honestly, the only fics of mine that really feature this and can be considered a slow burn are my only three multi-chapter fics lol

• you’ll always know me: This one was the most fun to write, hands down. The angst, the yearning, the passion, this fic had everything that I love I truly wrote it for myself. I think it has the most believable romance out of all of my fics and my use of memories/flashbacks at the beginning or end of each chapter really made the story and relationship feel so much deeper. I can’t rave enough about how much I love it.

• and i’ve been tryin’ not to feel it: This fic is a slow burn in the sense that they like each other the entire time but are both idiots. I did include instant attraction in this one, but it’s not insta-love. Megumi is immediately intrigued and attracted to Yuuji but he refuses to let himself get drawn in by him (he folds almost immediately). Their relationship has been very fun to write and seeing them grow together and slowly understand themselves and each other has been wonderful to write out.

• It Had To Be You: this one isn’t unique at all in the sense that I didn’t realize I didn’t have to copy When Harry Met Sally plot point by plot point. I waited way too late to start changing things up and adding my own personal flair to the storyline, but it’s still a fun time. This fic has the most standard annoyances to friends to lovers plot but I still think it’s quite believable.

[seeksstaronmewni]

The Bear Roots of Burbank Cartoons: A Lookback at Boo Boo Runs Wild

5 years ago, [adult swim] aired the greatest of all Yogi Bear / Ranger Smith episodes, “Boo Boo Runs Wild” (1999), on August 13th, 2016 A.D. at 4 AM.

Look and see, kids, how America’s not-so-average bear connects in the wide world of animation that produces many of the cartoons that you love in Burbank, Canada and more!

As and after I saw it, I knew that I found the greatest band of cartoonists out there, and that greatest band of cartoonists out there was none other than...

Spümcø, whose many creatives would end up working at Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, Cartoon Network Studios, and many other popular Burbank and Canadian studios that made the cartoons I grew up and beyond watching.

Obviously, the character design is rather different, but they still look like the right characters, even with the slight color changes...

and with their items of human attire out. Ranger Smith, on the other hand...

Ranger Smith is wildly off model, and probably on purpose, throughout the picture.

Only in one scene appears he with a more familiar face.

Now, I didn’t have to watch Wild Kratts (which, by the way, features 6 Spümcø Canada creatives) to learn that “there’s only one thing a bear likes more than raiding a pic-a-nic basket.”

As the title suggests, Boo Boo loses his temper when Ranger Smith restricts him from tearing bark and decides to go primal in returning to his bear roots: “From this day forth, I’ll not dress in the man’s attire, and I’ll not speak in the man’s tongue. From now on, it’s going on all fours and grunting for me!”

Boo Boo wreaks havoc for the trees with his natural bear roots.

Unlike past episodes, however, the artists went far wilder than the usual Hanna-Barbera cartoon, making the trees alive and screaming in pain! OH, WHAT TOURTUE! Not to mention how I love Boo Boo’s goofy/manical laugh, a beautiful product of John Kricfalusi’s voice (Yes; I know that he was a formerly abusive megalomaniac who still has ADHD, but God knows what cartoons would be like today—at least those produced in Burbank and Canada—if it wasn’t for the many layout artists that he led).

Also unnatural to a Hanna-Barbera cartoon is the extreme levels of slapstick, wackiness and graphic nature of cartoons since such shows as Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, Beany and Cecil’s DiC reboot, and The Ren & Stimpy Show. Boo Boo and now Cindy Bear are licking away at all of the honey... and bees... with insanely long tongues (may be that they’re sloth bears?). This left Yogi Bear practically speechless.

The mere sequence of dialogue between Yogi and Ranger Smith, discussing what to do about Boo Boo, involved HEAVY work in the storyboards by Vincent Waller. So many expressions that they couldn’t fit in each of Spümcø’s 3-panel storyboard pages!

As you see, in addition to Vincent Waller’s storyboards, John K. added extra poses (storyboard revisions more or less, but definitely layout poses) under the respective scenes. That way, Vincent could focus on telling and writing the story in rough pictures. (source of storyboards)

I also love the sound design. While it’s definitely true to a Hanna-Barbera cartoon, John K. and the late Henry Porch were very creative with some weird, dated and out-of-context sound effects, similar to what they and Horta Editorial did on The Ren & Stimpy Show in the first two seasons. The production music (probably APM and Capitol Records) also gave it a vintage, nostalgic feel.

Ultimately, with the aforementioned abusive megalomaniac aside, Spümcø undoubtedly harbored some of the finest animators and artists ever. Such names as Bob Jaques (Spongebob Squarepants, Buy One, Get One Free*, The Baby Huey Show), Ben Jones (DC Super Hero Girls, Cats Don’t Dance, Teen Titans GO!), Vincent Waller (Spongebob Squarepants, Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog), Albert Lozano (Inside Out, A Kitty Bobo Show), Todd White (Spongebob Squarepants), Eric Koenig (Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Madagascar, Cats Don’t Dance, The Simpsons, and The Tigger Movie), and Erik Wiese (Samurai Jack, The Mighty B!) are among the hundreds of creatives who ended up almost everywhere working in Burbank and Canadian animation.

Other names on the Spümcø team that one might recognize include Gabe Swarr (Dexter’s Laboratory, The Buzz on Maggie, Foe Paws, El Tigre), and even background artists such as Richard Daskas ( @rdaskas​ - Samurai Jack, Time Squad, Sym-Bionic Titan, Batman Beyond), Richard Ziehler-Martin (Tiny Toon Adventures, The Wacky World of Tex Avery), Hector Martinez (Tom and Jerry: Robin Hood and His Merry Mouse, Timone and Pumba, Captain N, Evil Con Carne, Dora the Explorer), and Tony Mora (MAD, Teen Titans GO! to the Movies, Pickle and Peanut). I mean: in short, these artists worked for Warner Bros. Animation, Disney Television Animation and Walt Disney Feature Animation, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network Studios!

Spümcø’s production assistants on Boo Boo Runs Wild feature Matt Danner —a fantastic character designer, storyboard artists, director and producer, whose credits range from (Johnny Test and The Legend of the Three Caballeros to Team Hot Wheels and The Looney Tunes Show—and Cartoon Brew editor Amid Amidi. Brian A. Miller was an executive in charge of production, not for but probably in association with Cartoon Network.

Spümcø’s creatives, as I said, are all over the place in Burbank animation. Other shows that still air on @adultswim​ have ex-Spümcø creatives. For example: today’s re-run of Samurai Jack EPISODE XVI features Chris Reccardi (The Powerpuff Girls, The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy)...

Scott Wills (Genndy Tartakovsky’s Primal, The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat)...

Lynne Naylor-Reccardi (The Shnookums and Meat Funny Cartoon Show, Wander Over Yonder) and Jim Smith (YooHoo and Friends, Tom and Jerry Tales, McGee and Me)...

and Leticia Lacy (TRON: Uprising, Sym-Bionic Titan, Wander Over Yonder, Korgoth of Barbaria).

Even outside of Cartoon Network Studios, where most ex-Spümcø artists end up, @cartoonnetwork​’s The Amazing World of Gumball, from Cartoon Network Studios Europe (AKA Hanna-Barbera Studios Europe), features ex-Spümcø artist Charlie Bean (The Powerpuff Girls, Robotboy, Batman: The Animated Series, Timone and Pumba, Creature Crunch) on The Cartoon Network Europe Development Team.

One of Cartoon Network’s biggest and craziest hits, Teen Titans GO!, also features such ex-Spümcø artists as storyboard artist, director and producer Luke Cormican (The Buzz on Maggie, Brandy and Mr. Whiskers, Brickleberry, The Replacements, El Tigre)...

Gerald de Jesus (The Book of Life, The Ricky Gervais Show, TMNT)...

and Eric J. Pringle (Fosters’ Home for Imaginary Friends, The Problem Solverz). What wacky cartoon filled with live-action images, unpredictable visual gags and extreme slapstick humor wouldn’t?

Relatively, you could even tune in to Nickelodeon, the original home of Spümcø’s ground-breaking hit, The Ren & Stimpy Show, and see names of creatives associated with Spümcø and Ren & Stimpy, such as Zeus Cervas (Star vs. the Forces of Evil, Spongebob Squarepants, Clarence) on today’s episode of The Patrick Star Show...

or even Gabe Del Valle (Mighty Magiswords, Spongebob Squarepants) on today’s episode of Middlemost Post!

Overall, Boo Boo Runs Wild introduced me to the cartoon studio whose works I took for granted and on which I was missing out all of my life, and I strongly encourage this generation to support this Yogi Bear / Ranger Smith episode, which you can watch RIGHT NOW on [adult swim]’s site. It was officially on their YouTube channel, but it was removed for unknown reasons. This short never even got a DVD or VHS release!

The last televised airing of Boo Boo Runs Wild on [adult swim] so far was January 6th, 2019 A.D., but Spümcø also produced “A Day in the Life of Ranger Smith” and “Boo Boo and the Man” (based on true events in the life of John Kricfalsui) for Cartoon Network.

As I come to a close, it’s worth noting that layout Ed Benedict, an animator and artist whose credits go all of the way back to the 1930s with Disney and continued with MGM and Hanna-Barbera/Cartoon Network Studios, originally worked on Yogi Bear episode “Yogi’s Birthday Party” as a layout artist, and reprised that very role for “Boo Boo Runs Wild”. What a legacy the animators and artists of this episode leave!

Always will I remember how Spümcø, whose legacy connects to my Cartoon Network-infused childhood, blessed me and graced me that fateful day, August 13th, 2016 A.D., with the ultimate example of the fine art of cartooning that is the Yogi Bear / Ranger Smith episode “Boo Boo Runs Wild”. I was living in the moment, and I thank God for it.

“For years they have [been] asking me to make new Yogi cartoons, but I can’t even get a half a million [dollars] to make one, probably because I actually like the characters, but 60-70 million $ to make walking corpses is economical.” - John Kricfalsui on Yogi Bear (2010)

Another Ranger Smith, Boo Boo or Yogi Bear cartoon from the people behind The Ren & Stimpy Show is highly unlikely today, due to the abuse and harassment of John K. angering the world to the point of hating and condemning the man who helped to shape not only Cartoon Network but also television animation—and animation as a whole—with an undeniable legacy of artists and animators who deserve way more credit and respect than we perhaps thought of giving as kids.

Tweet version of this post here.

[inmyarmswrappedin]

So, because Fatou’s season ends today and, as far as we know, Druck hasn’t been renewed yet, I want to go over the things I feel the team did well in this season and the things I hope they take with them when they sit down to write the next season (which I’m manifesting will be Ava’s).

I think that s5 and, perhaps to a bigger extent, s6, were the team’s attempt to address fan feedback for and criticisms of s3 and s4. So I have hopes that, after possibly the most scrutinized season of any Skams, they are still willing to read even more feedback and sit down once again to craft a couple more seasons (possibly even 3 or 4 more seasons!).

So, without further ado, things that were done well! (Do I have to add “in my opinion”? Do I??)

I liked that for both s5 and s6, the thorough-line for the season wasn’t made obvious or shared in a press release, but rather it was up to fans to connect the story threads for themselves.

I loved that the team sought to address one of the biggest criticisms of s3, that is, that Matteo was given so many symptoms of a mental illness, but it ultimately went unaddressed in the narrative. They did this by giving Nora a dissociative disorder, and Fatou dyscalculia. (Matteo has been headcanoned as being mentally ill and having a disability.) It allowed the teams to develop both fan theories into full-blown seasons and give each of them the importance they deserved.

I have said this already, but I really appreciate that the team chose misunderstood, misrepresented and underrepresented mental illnesses and disabilities. I feel like s5 and s6 will be referents for many years, because they really took the time to portray a dissociative disorder and dyscalculia in a down-to-earth, unhurried way that isn’t meant to shock and awe, but simply allow us to understand why and when Nora and Fatou will struggle. Druck got the viewers to anticipate when Nora and Fatou would struggle, and that’s the first step in being able to anticipate and accommodate the needs of the Noras and Fatous of the world. I really can’t overstate how important this is and what a difference it makes in a real, tangible way. These seasons aren’t meant to be enjoyed for voyeuristic reasons, but they will legitimately help people.

One of the biggest criticisms of s4 was that Amira and Sam didn’t connect as women of color. In fact, it seemed like in s4 Sam was treated as another white friend, when in s2 both she and Amira were the victims of Kiki’s racism. The team addressed this by giving us Ava and Fatou’s friendship, which I want to say might be the first friendship between main characters of color where their race is a substantial reason for their bond. (There are the Sanas with their Jamillas, but the Jamillas aren’t main characters, and then there are friendships like Jo and Megan and Zoya, or Imaan and Liv, or Luca and Yasmina, but iirc in every case their bond as women of color isn’t made explicit.)

Another criticism of s4 was the way Kiki turned into the world’s most understanding white friend offscreen. The team addressed this with the Ava and Mailin storyline, which I think was wonderfully and subtly set up in s5, then built on with the biology test leaked answers.

On the topic of race, I think a major criticism of s3 was that David’s ethnicity wasn’t acknowledged (to the point where a white actress was cast to play his sister gvhvhv). The team has made up for this with Josh (more in the s6 sm than in s5, but I still count it) and with Kieu My. Fatou and Kieu My bonded over being first/second gen children of immigrants, and in doing so, they acknowledged that these characters aren’t white and have different experiences than white Germans.  

The first 6 episodes of this season were some of the finest writing in the Skams. The storylines all connected and built on each other. The motifs were just so good and beautiful and fitting. The themes were all clearly defined and easy to follow.

The tortoise plot was one of the most fun and imaginative storylines in any Skams, it connected Fatou and Ismail in a believable way. And not to rave about a fucking tortoise, but animals can be really uncooperative and that tortoise delivered every fucking clip. Druck has a reputation for being one of the most depressive versions of Skam, but the Maike/Burger plot was just plain fun.

I feel like some of the old gen’s instas were a bit self-indulgent. I’m thinking specifically of Matteo’s memes and how they they weren’t necessarily the kind of memes a gay dude born in 2001 would pick, but someone a decade older. I think this is much better done with new gen. Fatou’s memes reflect her age and her sexuality, and not just that, but Ava, Mailin, Kieu My, Josh, etc. all pick memes and even focus on different aspects of recent news, based on their gender, race, personalities, interests, etc.

I appreciate that the team found a way to fit a sex scene between Fatou and Kieu My to add to the small catalogue of wlw sex scenes on Skams (I’m including the scene in lovleg or we’d only have two lol). While I understood the reasons eskam opted not to include one, I thought there were ways to feature a sex scene that didn’t sexualize the actresses and didn’t require nudity. Cases in point: the lovleg scene, and this scene in Druck.

And it also needs to be said. This is the first original season with a main of color, and the third season overall (after Liv and Imane) where 10 episodes are given to a character of color and no one else. Of the three, it’s certainly the season that loved and respected its main the most. The bar is so low it’s in hell, but Druck did clear that bar!

With all that said, let’s talk about the things I would really want the team to address in following seasons:

The thing I most want them to fix might be small or unimportant for a lot of people, but I think it’s at the core of why the season has been unenjoyable or certain plot points haven’t come across the way the team wanted, for many people. I am talking about the overly expositional nature of the writing.  It appears as if the team approached the writing of the clips with the intention of hitting each beat as noted in their agreed upon outline, and absolutely nothing else was to be added. This is an issue both in s5 and s6. It’s just less noticeable in s5, because s5 is setting up stuff for Fatou’s season, and possibly even seasons that haven’t been written yet. The fact that absolutely every second counts makes for a stressful watching experience for me, because the narrative tension is always heightened. Whereas with Skam, the narrative tension would build throughout the clip. Take the Pride scene in Skam, for instance. The clip allows for Isak and Eskild to get increasingly more agitated as they butt heads. I feel like if this Druck team had done the Pride scene in s5 or s6, the clip would’ve started with both Isak and Eskild already on edge, and cut much of the dialogue that got them there.

On the topic of naturalistic dialogue, this season doesn’t have it. Here is an example from ep 10 clip 2, Wieder vereint/Reunited 11:37.

Fatou: I’ll get a certificate too and bring it over to you. And I checked it, I only have to change one course and my schedule will work.

Teacher: Miss Jallow, you are not the first one to come to me with an epiphany. We could fill entire school weeks with the lessons you missed. In addition, Doctor Steinberg told me about your, well… activities. You don’t have a lot of arguments on your side. 

Fatou: But I’ve spoken to all of the teachers and they said they are okay with it. 

Teacher: You seem to have friends among the teaching staff. Mrs Pavlovic put in a word for you. Okay then, do it and go before I change my mind. [translated by @kieu-tou! Thank you!] 

Like. This is the bare bones version of a dialogue. This should be the first draft, not the final version. The coordinator goes from absolute no to yes, with just one line from Fatou. The coordinator gives reasons that would necessitate more than one sentence of counterargument, like Fatou’s absences and the Biology test leaked answers. The coordinator even says Fatou doesn’t have a lot of arguments on her side, and yet it takes Fatou one line to change her mind!

And of course we viewers don’t want or need a lot of time with the coordinator. And particularly at this point in the season, no one would enjoy a naturalistic dialogue with the coordinator of all people.  But my point is that this is an issue with the dialogue all this season (and last season as well, but this season has been more scrutinized), the reason I picked this example is because of how easy it is to see here.

Which brings us to the pacing of the clips, and specifically the Friday clips. Because the script goes straight to the information the team wants to convey to the viewers, skipping the build up to it, many Friday clips have fallen flat, felt abrupt, and have been, tbh, unsatisfying. Again, I had this issue in s5, but as that season went on, I felt like the team had a better grip on Friday clips. But then they did it again in the first Friday clip this season, and so I think this is something the writers really should work on. The first Friday clip in Isak’s season closes on Isak being sandwiched by Emma and Even on a bench, visually setting up the love triangle, or more accurately, the personifications of who Isak should want to hook up with and who he really wants. But in order to get there, we’re shown a good amount of info, from the way Vilde, Eva and Sana are handling Noora’s absence, to Chris and Kasper, Even hovering around Isak, Emma trying to impress Isak, Isak escaping and, like, draping himself on the walls because he’s so over it all. Isak playing a game on the bathroom to stall for time. The paper towel maneuver to immediately give us a sense of what a weirdo Even is. A conversation between Isak and Even that gives us some clues about Even’s shame, as well as establish interests in common (like weed), and this is all before Emma even joins them! Just think of all the stuff we learn about who Isak, Even, Emma, Eva, Vilde or Sana are as people, before we get to the point of the clip! Fatou’s season simply didn’t have that. Compare it with the first Friday clip of Fatou’s season where the cashqueens quickly talk about the leaked answers, one of the major storylines this season that only gets a couple lines, before Fatou says she doesn’t want to talk about school (Fatou’s struggles with school, another major storyline), and then we’re onto the point of the clip, which is that Kieu My likes girls too. AND FADE TO BLACK. When people say they want longer clips, what they mean isn’t artificially inflate the clip length or add more plot stuff. Just let us watch the characters interact with each other so that we get a feel for how they relate to each other. I know I wish we’d have gotten more of Ava and Fatou interacting with each other before things turned to shit, and Ava with the other girls, so that I know why they all like and value Ava so much. I wish we’d have gotten more of Kieu My talking to the cashqueens about, like, why she didn’t make use of the biology test answers, instead of getting it on a chat. Or food combos they don’t like. So it makes more sense that later on Kieu My actually thinks she and Fatou are friends.  And every line doesn’t have to count. In Skam España, the characters are constantly talking and not everything they ever talked about ended up being relevant. When one of the characters lied about her house undergoing renovations to hide the fact that she was poor, the characters joked about Italian marble and put on bad Italian accents and made that Italian hand gesture. None of this was important to the plot because those renovations weren’t real to begin with, but they made viewers feel like these were real friends joking around, instead of characters needing to hit every storyline beat in a clip.

I have this joke with my friends about Druck always going 🤪🤪 in the last third of every season, in which a season that was very tightly written and cohesive suddenly pulls something inexplicable and pretty much impossible to resolve in 1-3 episodes. Hanna’s season suddenly switching to Mia, Björn creeping on Mia in episode 9! of a total 10, David getting outed in episode 8 and then disappearing for a whole week, Amira’s season pivoting to Mia and Hanna. It has happened in every season except Nora’s, so I thought the team had learned its lesson, but then the forgotten date with Ava happened. To be clear. It really makes no sense that Nora would have hung out with Ava several times since Tuesday, and the topic of the cashqueens being officially introduced to Kieu My wouldn’t have come up. it’s just not realistic.gif I feel like at that point the writing for the rest of the reason became super contrived to keep Fatou miserable and apart from Kieu My and Ava to artificially delay the reunions until episode 9 and 10. Why add a cheating insinuation and the main checking her partner’s messages in episode 8 if you know you won’t be able to properly resolve it? Why make Kieu My mock Fatou’s “uhm” if it’s not going to be addressed in their reunion clip? Kieu My had taken the initiative for a lot of the relationship, so it’s okay for Fatou to take the initiative when it comes to making up. You don’t have to add things that can only be resolved through an expositional info dump. (Please no more exposition than it’s necessary! I think we’ve established that at this point lol.) In the case of Fatou’s season, this is even sadder because I feel like Kieu My’s intimacy issues could’ve been the reason to drive them apart for two weeks, rather than the Maya/uhm stuff. This could’ve also been resolved through Fatou and Kieu My explicitly negotiating their boundaries and how they want to be comforted and how they want to comfort each other, which I thought was the issue with Fatou rejecting Kieu My’s attempts to help while wanting physical touch, while Kieu My didn’t want to be touched but rather seen.  

There are going to be many thinkpieces on why a myriad of stuff didn’t work for people, so I’m going to keep this simple and address one last thing. I think that choosing to focus on Nora’s mental illness and Fatou’s disability is a great choice that doesn’t complicate the themes too much, but Druck (and all the Skams, but I’m invested only in Druck succeeding at this point) still struggles with being intersectional. This is the major reason why the Ava/Mailin storyline ended not with a bang, but a whimper. There just wasn’t enough work done to connect Fatou’s struggles not just to her disability, but also to her race (and even her sexuality). I think that if people really want (and lbr, it’ll be mostly poc who will put in that effort and work), they can see how Fatou’s race affected the way other people and especially adults reacted to her, but this wasn’t made explicit. If Ava and Mailin are going to argue about racism all season, why not connect that with Karin firing Fatou from Aquarius? As it stands, Karin fired Fatou because of a disability neither of them knew Fatou has, and that was the resolution to that storyline. Why not make it explicit that the Physics teacher had preconceived ideas about Fatou because Fatou is black? Why wasn’t Fatou’s disability addressed in the meeting with the coordinator? Why didn’t Fatou express to Mailin that Fatou, too, had issues with how Mailin was acting wrt racism? It felt like, with the way the season was putting so much emphasis on racism, all these threads were going to be connected. In the end though, it almost felt as if only Ava is affected by racism (aside from Mailin mentioning Fatou in the last episode). It’s not like talking about how racism affects Fatou is going to make the topic redundant for Ava’s or Ismail’s season. As a light-skinned black lesbian with a disability, Fatou’s life is going to be impacted by racism in a different way than Ava’s will, as a dark-skinned black fat straight cis girl, or Ismail’s, as a Turkish-German possibly Muslim possibly non binary person. All these experiences are specific enough, and different enough, that they can be touched upon in different seasons without becoming redundant. The fact that Fatou’s season almost seemed to forget at times that she is a black lesbian, doesn’t bode well for Ava’s and Ismail’s season to acknowledge all their struggles.

The bottom line is that this season really was great and did a lot of good, and I feel like the writing just needs to be tweaked a bit for further seasons to be even better and more enjoyable overall. I am very pleasantly surprised by how the team took s1-s4 fan feedback to heart and worked to implement suggestions, and so I really trust them and hope they keep working on the show. It’d be a shame if Druck wasn’t renewed, with this team at the helm.    

[hawkland]

Destiel fic recs (round #4) + commentary

Time for another (mostly) Destiel fic rec round-up post before my bookmarks get out of control! This one’s a mix of longer and some shorter fics (or series thereof), no particular theme except I guess a lot of angst, hurting Cas, and all the other things that tickle my Id. Several Season 9 human!Cas divergence fics, plus some later season angst-fests and rewrites.

In the Shadow of your Wings by Enochian Things (Salr323) (52k) The first of two fics by this author which I absolutely fell in love with! Canon-divergence from the end of Season 11. Cas finds himself blasted to Naples, Italy by the banishing sigil in the bunker and he stumbles — almost literally — into a sexy, delightful Italian Man of Letters, Luca. When he makes his way back to the bunker and finds Dean still alive, he tries to confess his feelings but Dean panics and shuts him down. Cas goes back in Italy soon thereafter and ends up beginning a relationship with Luca, much to Dean’s chagrin. Meanwhile Sam is still missing and it turns out there may be some dangerous individuals who are out for Cas more so than even the Winchesters. 

I loved everything about this fic so much - Luca is an amazing OC, the Naples and London locations are wonderfully evoked and took me straight back to places I’d been. The angst, the pacing, the plotting and the eventual Dean/Cas getting together are all amazing and this is definitely on my re-read in the future list.

The rest of my recs below the cut!

My heart is beating from me by Enochian Things (Salr323) (55k) The other fic by this author that I literally inhaled in one day! Season 9 Human!Cas canon divergence. It’s been months since Sam and Dean have heard from Cas, and when they do, it’s in the form of a wedding invitation. Cas is getting married to Daphne - the woman who “rescued” him and named him Emmanuel when he’d lost all his memories post-Leviathans. It seems Cas went back to her while on his own and they’ve rekindled their relationship...whatever it is. Dean just knows something isn’t right about her, so he sets out to investigate and try to figure out WTF Cas is doing before it’s too late. 

This story is so, so good! The case Dean gets Cas to come along on is unique and provides a neat investigation subplot, but what’s so especially wonderful is the explanation the author gives of who Daphne really is — and why she’d been so cool about just having a strange man with no memories move in to be her “husband” (and then want to marry him for real a couple years later, after he’d vanished from her life!) In fact it’s so brilliant I’m basically accepting it as my Daphne headcanon from now on and I don’t want to spoil it. The fic is also great in exploring Cas still struggling with understanding human emotions, customs and etiquette, Sam is A Very Good Friend, and Dean is, well, Dean. (I’m just sad this author hasn’t written more SPN fics because what they have is just brilliant.)

The wilderness. by orange_crushed (8k) Wonderful, shorter Season 9 canon divergence fic by an author who consistently makes me happy. Human!Cas leaves the bunker with a few things to get off the ground from Dean and directions to connect with Garth...but he ditches that plan to try to find his way on his own. It’s wonderfully detailed about the basic struggles of survival, finding work, making ends meet and trying to make some new friends...and why it’s important for him to prove he can make it on his own before he’s willing to welcome Dean (back) into his life.

I Through My Window See by deHavilland (26k) This is an interesting one, written well before we had canon human!Cas in Season 9. Canon-divergence in which Cas remains human after they avert the apocalypse in Season 5. Sam and Dean set him up in an apartment in Sioux Falls and then...just kind of abandon him there. He spends most of a year just barely existing before a visit from Sam finally stirs him out of his inertia and depression, to eventually get a job and also start hunting on his own. This is an interesting read, if just to see an author exploring the idea of human!Cas abandoned by Dean a few years before it actually...ended up becoming canon! I love how Cas is written in this (it’s a story much like the next one on my list that I thought does an amazing, realistic job of capturing what depression feels like), but I do have some issues with Dean. It’s never fully resolved or explained why Dean was being such an ass so I honestly wasn’t totally sold on the ending - I wanted some more out of Dean, some more explanation or apology or something. It’s a story that would have been great to have a sequel from Dean’s POV but after all this time, that will just have to exist in my brain, I suppose! Still worth a read because it’s excellently written, Cas becomes totally bad ass again by the end and it’s always fun to read early SPN fic speculating on future developments.

I Shall Not Want by domesticadventures (20k) I found myself inhaling a bunch of wonderful short ficlets by this author the other day, but this is the one I had to stop at to rec. It’s another Season 9 divergence fic, of a sort - Cas is newly human, for the sake of the story there’s no Abbadon to worry about, Sam is healed...and Sam wants to move out and get on with his own life. Cas and Dean are both struggling with adapting to their new lives and it’s a hauntingly rich and stark portrayal of depression, inertia, and the slow healing process of accepting and adapting to change. I also liked that this story gives us a Dean who is a little more aware of his feelings for Cas and they both struggle to reach out to each other - for once it’s not sexuality causing a crisis of identity but all the other shit they are coping with.

Don't Sing Love Songs by ireallydidthistomyself (17k). I’m not normally a big fan of baby/toddler!Jack fics - I like the angst that he was forced to grow up too quickly, and in general I’m not big on kid!fic in fandom. This author’s work is a big exception to that. They’ve written several stories along a similar theme: Cas raising Jack on his own/in secret for years, Dean only finding them or coming back into their lives later on. But this is the version of that idea that really packed the most punch for me and was incredibly emotionally satisfying. Dean finds Cas after 6 years, where he’s kept Jack mostly isolated and safe from the world. But with Dean allowed back into his life, Cas may be inviting grave danger upon Jack as well. This one ripped my heart out but managed to make it all better by the end.

Better Ways to Kill Our Time by always_a_birthday_girl (8k) I don’t know why I torture myself reading Dean-in-the-Ma’lak-box AUs, but I do. I think because it’s pretty much my biggest nightmare/horror and for some reason it’s cathartic while terrifying? Anyway here’s one where Dean goes through with his plan, Cas crashes and burns for most of a year, until Dean finally starts doing what he promised he wouldn’t: praying to him. Cas figures out a way to communicate back and over the distance, they manage to have certain conversations they should have years before. It’s painful but lovely and there is a happy ending, so it’s well worth the read!

Time Flows Like Water and We're Drowning by triedunture (7.9k) A little break from the later-seasons stuff I (mostly?) read, featuring a seriously hot (but angsty) Cas/Endverse!Cas/Dean threesome. When Zacariah’s plan to show Dean the future doesn’t change his mind about taking on his “responsibility”, he sends Endverse!Cas back in time to try to convince Cas instead, showing him what he’s to become. I don’t think Zac expected it to turn into a threesome, but it’s hot and beautiful and sad and wonderful all at once. 

hachikireru by vaudelin  (23k) At one point I went on a wallow-fest of reading a bunch of sad 14x20-15x03 divorce-arc fics. Just to hurt myself more, I guess. I know this fic’s been recced around a lot (at least on fail_fandomanon) and I can see why! After leaving the bunker, Cas ends up in Sioux Falls to visit Claire. She’s busy tracking down leads to find Kaia’s killer and he decides to go along with her on one such hunt. But what they find is an unexpected supernatural threat targeting those with broken hearts. Well. I think you know where that might be leading. This is a wonderful casefic with lots of character moments between Cas & Claire and then Cas & Dean, working through their pain and angst and just...it’s a very satisfying read.

Moriah Codas: A Trilogy by Toomanyfandoms99 (11k total) A series of 3 shorter fics spinning off the events of 14x20, developing a slightly divergent universe the author’s written where Cas does have his wings back and has helped resurrect a few of the angels (Balthazar, Gabriel, and Samandriel in particular). This series is absolutely heartbreaking — Cas is completely broken by Jack’s loss, has “fallen out of love” with Dean after he was ready to kill Jack, and sees no way back to what he’d had and felt before. He’s determined to just let the Empty take him...but not until he and his assembled squad of “avenging angels” clean up the mess Chuck has created, smiting zombies and taking out super-powered monsters across North America. 

Cas’s motorcycle gang/angel squad is so fucking awesome (I want a happy fic where they do this!) and this is BAMF!Cas at his finest. I just have to include a quote:

He set down the empty glass, and Gabriel said, “well, dearly beloved, we have gathered here today to kick some zombie ass. Since they have chosen to amass in Carthage, we are here to take out as many as we can without causing this town to flip the fuck out. Are we in agreement?”

“I expect,” Balthazar grinned, “a full-on bar brawl. Do not disappoint me.”

“Cassie, Driel,” Gabriel addressed the duo, “how are we with weapons?”

“I have enough machetes in a storage facility uptown to film a Jackie Chan movie,” Castiel said.

But it’s also utterly and completely heartbreaking, so don’t read this one if you need a happy ending. If you do read, check out the author’s other later-season coda fics and fic series as they are all really great.

to mend what is not broken by gothyringwald (2.6k) This last short one I’ve mentioned before, but I just have to rec it again! It was my gift for the 2021 Hurt Comfort Gift Exchange and it’s everything I wanted, and more. Sweet and caring Dean, wounded but still prideful Cas, and some lovely wing!kink/wing!care that pushes all of my button just right.

Anyway, that’s it for now as I think this is long enough. If you enjoy my recs, could you let me know? I try to not just list titles but give some commentary...as it helps me re-find stories I enjoyed the most, too!

[ofstoriesandstardust]

Champagne Problems-Diego Hargreeves

a/n: WHO’S READY FOR THE ANGST?! here we go lol. i’ve never written a song-inspired fic but here we are. this part 1 of of my 2 valentine’s day fics. the other is a cute luther fic and hopefully I’ll be able to write more umbrella academy so... NO I HAVE NOT FINISHED SEASON 2 DON’T COME FOR ME. i’m also totally willing to write a second part to this, especially after i hurt myself so bad so if it’s something you’re interested in, please let me know. listening to champagne problems during this is probably a good idea. this also exists minorly in my law and order: special victims unit x the umbrella academy universe but it’s really only slight mentions of ADA work, so no real connection. 

masterlist | prompt list

warnings: ANGST, Hazel, Agnes, and Eudora live and Ben comes back to life because I said so, post-Texas apocalypse but my own storyline because I haven’t finished season 2 yet, my own thoughts and feeling in the form of the main character, Ben’s secretly a history nerd, Tumblr fucked with my spacing and I’m salty

word count: 3,064 (including song lyrics)

You booked the night train for a reason

So you could sit there in this hurt

Bustling crowds or silent sleepers

You're not sure which is worse

-

You always opted to take the cases that kept you up the latest at night, working the hardest to get victims justice. You refused to sleep at night until you knew you’d be able to put a killer or rapist away the next day. Which, in turn, meant that there’d often be nights a detective would call in need of a warrant, already knowing you’d still be awake. However, there would be nights, weeks, even, where it was a small case or no cases at all. Those were the days you’d busy yourself in the office until you had no other reason to be there, finding the later you took the subway home, the fewer people there would be. Usually, the quiet of the night calmed you and gave you time to reflect. Sometimes though, your mind would wander to him.

-

Because I dropped your hand while dancing

Left you out there standing

Crestfallen on the landing

Champagne problems

-

Diego had taken you on a drive, bringing you to the city of Manhattan. You always spoke of your love of the city, missing your time spent there while in law school. The two of you had gone for a walk and picnic through Central Park and as the sun was beginning to set, leaving the New York sky a dusty pink, he grabbed your hand as you talked about your favorite memory at the Chinese place just down the road. You paused, looking up at him, seeing the love for swimming within his features. After that night, you had grown to hate the sight of Central Park and avoided it by all means necessary. Your team had never been able to figure out why.

-

Your mom's ring in your pocket

My picture in your wallet

-

Although never actually married to Reginald, and despite the fact that she was an AI, Grace had a wedding band she kept tucked away. When Diego had introduced you to Grace, he knew that you would be the one he’d marry. You were so kind to the AI, not batting an eyelash at her charging port or her sometimes distant nature. She was Diego’s mom by all accounts, and he’d be damned if he was going to live the rest of his life with a girl who didn’t respect his mother. Despite Diego’s fear, you and the AI got on splendidly and at the end of the night, when you were talking to Pogo, Grace brought the boy upstairs and slipped him the small band. She smiled at him and Diego had to restrain himself from crushing the sweet women in a hug. “Just in case.” she had said.

-

Your heart was glass, I dropped it

Champagne problems

-

Diego had tried from the very beginning to be honest with you that he came with a lot of issues. Building trust had been difficult and a fragile process. You had been patient and kind and understanding and everything he was certain he didn’t deserve. Diego slowly learned to let his walls and heart open to you and by the end of it, Diego believed that you had melted his heart of ice and worked your way into his life and family. Until you turned away, dropping the ice heart, shattering it.

-

You told your family for a reason

You couldn't keep it in

-

When you and Diego had first met, it had been purely by accident. You were just moving into the apartment across the hall from Vanya’s and he had come barreling down the stairs after Five. After knocking you and one too many boxes to the ground, Diego profusely apologized, concerned eyes flitting across you to make sure that you indeed weren’t hurt. He had offered to help you finish moving your belongings, wanting a few more minutes with the pretty girl on the stairs. You agreed and asked if he would be interested in grabbing dinner with you that night since you didn’t know anywhere in town. He agreed and the two of you had always considered that your unofficial first date. As the two of you grew closer and Diego’s family became interested in the mysterious ADA with whom he spent all his time, the more determined Diego became to shelter you from them. His family came with a lot of baggage, a lot of trouble, and you had enough just trying to put the bad guys away. But as he became more certain he wanted you in his life for a long time, the more he knew he wanted to tell his siblings. After the apocalypse, he and his siblings had tried to repair the broken bridges and had been successful for the most part. So, one night, at family dinner, he looked around at his siblings, laughing at some witty comment Five had made, and he blurted it out before he could stop himself. The siblings went quiet, looking over at him. You had just met Grace a few days ago, and he was sure he wanted to spend the rest of his life with you. “I think I’m going to marry her.”

-

Your sister splashed out on the bottle

Now no one's celebrating

-

Allison had been the most excited, wanting to plan an elaborate engagement scheme, wanted to help him pick out the ring. He let her too, unsure of really what to do, and was happy to see her so excited about something. She had convinced Diego to introduce you to her and Vanya, wanting to get to know you, to accurately help Diego (and of course to get to know her future sister-in-law, with whom she was determined to be best friends). As the date that they had settled on drew nearer, she bought an expensive bottle of champagne, stating that only the finest would do for her brother’s engagement. Diego rolled his eyes, but deep down he appreciated that she cared about him this much to help him. When Diego returned to the Academy that night, unannounced and much later than originally intended, Allison immediately knew something was wrong. The siblings looked around at each other, in shock and disbelief. No one had really thought you’d say no.

-

Dom Pérignon, you brought it

No crowd of friends applauded

-

You weren’t sure why Diego brought the bottle of champagne with him, and he wasn’t sure either, both knowing you didn’t drink. As you stared at him, and he stared at you, hurt flickering across the other’s face, all Diego could focus on was the fact that he brought that stupid bottle of champagne. Why had he listened to Allison, or Vanya, or any of the Hargreeves for that matter? Diego was not meant to get a happy ending, he was sure of it. And he had gone and tempted fate and had gotten the heart-breaking answer he knew all along.

-

Your hometown skeptics called it

Champagne problems

-

The Hargreeves had taken Diego out to Griddy’s that night, not sure what else to do with him. Hazel and Agnes looked at him, pity in their eyes. The police chief of the town was there, the one who had despised Diego entirely and was entirely infuriated when he had found out his favorite ADA was “messing around” with the disgraced ex-police officer-turned-vigilante. He looked at the pity party that seemed to be happening in honor of Diego and laughed. “She always was too good for you. Glad she finally realized it.”

-

You had a speech, you're speechless

Love slipped beyond your reaches

And I couldn't give a reason

-

Diego had a speech, he had. He’d prepared it with Grace and Allison and had practiced it a million times over, to make sure he wouldn’t stutter. Klaus and Ben had listened patiently, giving him pointers and Vanya had even helped him rewrite it when he thought it wasn’t conveying what he wanted to say. And yet, as he looked at you, he couldn’t think of a single word of it. He was nervous, sure, but he was so consumed by the love he felt for you, that he just blurted out, “Wanna get married?”. He offered wondered if he had given you a speech, told you how much he loved you, why he loved you, if you’d still be with him.  

-

Champagne problems

Your Midas touch on the Chevy door

November flush and your flannel cure

"This dorm was once a madhouse"

I made a joke, "Well, it's made for me"

-

Diego had been so nervous bringing you to the Academy to meet his siblings. He wasn’t sure how’d you react to the dysfunction of his family and he was terrified in anticipation of what the siblings might say or do that would scare you off. Luckily, you and Klaus had immediately become attached at the hip and you were already familiar with Vanya. Luthor and Five had been cold at first, waiting to see if they were up to their standards and if you had ulterior motives with Diego. You, of course, passed with flying colors and by the end of the night, you had them laughing and sharing embarrassing stories of Diego. Allison was enthused and happy to welcome you to the family. Ben had engaged you in a deep conversation about the legacy of ancient civilizations long after anyone else cared to listen or contribute. Still, Diego had been nervous it was all a front as to not have the dinner be awkward and uncomfortable. As he drove back to your (unofficially shared) apartment, he had joked that his house was a madhouse. You had seen right through him, knowing he was trying to apologize for the chaos that is his family and that is, well, Klaus. You had laughed and told him that if you could survive in your madhouse of a family, you could survive in his too.

-

How evergreen, our group of friends

Don't think we'll say that word again

-

As Diego looked back on your relationship, he looked for signs that you were unhappy, or wanting to leave. He was unable to come up with any, with the exception of one. You and Diego never fought. It couldn’t have been healthy but there was… never anything to fight about. You were both okay with the other’s line of work, and while not perfect, Diego was learning to be open and honest with you about what he needed from the relationship and you had always been so receptive to that. Ben had once joked that he hadn’t seen plants so evergreen as your relationship. You had laughed and Diego smiled, happy he had someone that was so easy to be with after all the hardship he’d experienced in his life. Now all Diego could do was look back on that memory with the bitter taste of regret.

-

And soon they'll have the nerve to deck the halls

That we once walked through

-

Christmas had been your favorite holiday ever since you were a child. As you had gotten older, the excitement faded, but the cheer and happiness that came from watching old Christmas films and dancing to songs in your kitchen as you baked cookies found its way into your heart without fail every year. So, when the first Christmas with Diego came around, you had cautiously asked him if he’d like to celebrate it with you. Diego tried not to speak too much on Reginald, and from what you knew about the man, Christmas didn’t seem like something that was being celebrated at the Umbrella Academy. Diego had shrugged, saying he didn’t really know what Christmas was about to know if he’d enjoy celebrating it or not. Thus, you had taken Diego to look at lights and watched all your favorite Christmas movies as a child and listened to songs while baking family recipes and he had even helped you decorate the apartment. By the time Christmas rolled around, Diego had started to understand why you cherished the holiday so much. But waking up the morning of Christmas to gifts you had picked out for him, one making up for every year he lost out on what Christmas was supposed to be like, he felt his heart growing three sizes more, like the Grinch from the night before. Diego had never felt a love as pure when he looked at you.

The next year had been no different, just on a larger scale as the whole Hargreeves clan joined in this time. That year, Christmas morning found the Hargreeves boys whisper-yelling at Diego about how he had found the perfect woman as they woke to an abundant amount of gifts under the tree. You dragged Vanya and Allison down the stairs, insisting the family had to open presents together. Klaus had insisted he act as Santa, stating the real Santa should get to sit with her boyfriend. You hadn’t protested, seeing how much a kick he got out of the hat and curled up into Diego as he sat with his back against the arm of the couch. Diego ran his fingers through your hair, and you laid your head against his chest. Luther, wide-eyed, asked you how you were able to pay for all of it. You had shrugged and stated that being an ADA paid you a much larger salary than you knew what to do with and moving out of Manhattan meant a lot less on rent. When Vanya asked why you’d bother spending all that money on them, your response had ensured to Diego that he’d found the right one. “Well, you guys are like family to me. And you never got the Christmases I grew up with and it’s all about making other people happy. I wanted to give you back the Christmas you never had.”

As he looked around at the decorated Academy this year, Klaus and Ben insisting on continuing the tradition you left behind, Diego just felt an overwhelming sense of hatred of the colors and lights. All just painful reminders of what he lost. Of the girl who left.

-

One for the money, two for the show

I never was ready, so I watch you go

Sometimes you just don't know the answer

'Til someone's on their knees and asks you

-

Luther was the only one who could never quite believe you were with Diego totally and completely. Maybe the misgivings came from his strained relationship with the second Hargreeves boy but he always believed you were in it for one of two reasons. Either the money that came with Hargreeves fortune or the fame that came with the Hargreeves name. Of course, Luther wasn’t you, and would never understand the real reason you had said…

“No.” Diego looked at you, hand on his pocket, ready to give you Grace’s ring, unsure if his fear was playing tricks with his head. You shook your head, “No, Diego. I’m sorry.” When those words had left Diego’s mouth, your heart had stopped. You loved Diego, more than anything you had ever known, but the untold horrors of your life before Diego came rushing to the surface and began to choke you. How could you marry Diego when you couldn’t disclose the worst moments of your life to him for fear of being a burden on the already broken boy? You realized at that moment, you could be everything Diego needed, but you would never allow Diego to be everything you needed, setting your relationship hurtling for sure-fire failure. You gasped, the tears threatening to render you breathless. “Diego, I-” And in a moment of pure, blind panic, you grabbed your things and ran, leaving the boy devastated behind you.

-

"She would've made such a lovely bride

What a shame she's fucked in her head, " they said

-

A few weeks after that night, Diego found himself alone at the Academy with Five. The two of them were sitting at the bar, not saying much. Finally, Five put his drink down on the table and looked at Diego. “I am really sorry about her, Diego.” Diego looked up at Five. “It’s a shame she’s got too many issues up here,” he said, tapping his head, “to give you what you wanted. She was one-of-a-kind.”

“What are you talking about Five?” Diego questioned, mildly annoyed Five brought you up.

“Did she give you a reason why, Diego?” Number 2 shook his head. “She always seemed to have her own issues, her own baggage, she was never willing to discuss. Maybe her issues with marriage was one of them.”

“That’s ridiculous Five, she would’ve told me.” Diego said, taking a sip of his drink. But as he thought about it, the more he wondered if Five was right. You had told him about your less-than-ideal relationship with your family and disclosed the fact that you didn’t drink due to a genetic predisposition of being an alcoholic, but he had always sensed there was something more you wouldn’t share.

-

But you'll find the real thing instead

She'll patch up your tapestry that I shred

And hold your hand while dancing

-

One night, he ran into Eudora at Griddy’s making a midnight waffle run for the family. She told him she had heard about the failed proposal and that if he ever wanted or needed to talk, she’d be there. He called her a few days later, and the two of them met up at a bar for a few drinks. He told her about you and that night, and as Diego talked about it, he realized that pain subsided. The outings to the bar became weekly occurrences and he found himself enjoying the company and comfort Eudora offered. And as Eudora found her way back into his life, as time went on, Diego realized he thought of you less and less.

-

Never leave you standing

Crestfallen on the landing

With champagne problems

Your mom's ring in your pocket

Her picture in your wallet

You won't remember all my

Champagne problems

You won't remember all my

Champagne problems

[mdianasims]

D. Cloak ~ Novels & Knits

Retail, 30x20, $ 115.026. Peace & Quiet, Home Studio, Gnomes. NoCC, NoMOO, play tested.

Packs used: Get To Work, Get Together, Cats & Dogs, Seasons, Island Living, Discover University, Eco Lifestyle; Vampires, Parenthood, StrangerVille, Realm of Magic; Cool Kitchen, Movie Hangout, Romantic Garden, Fitness, Nifty Knitting.

Gallery: MDianaSims Gallery Download Link Tray Files (will be added later)

Click pictures to enlarge.

The local bookstore in Windenburg. It used to be the “Cloak & Dagger Bookshop”, or at least, that was the idea. But I had so much space left in this cottage, and needed a knitting store, so I combined them. I had to sacrifice part of the name for it, because I wasn’t allowed more characters :/ Anyway, Dora Cloak owns this store and she used to live above it. But because her murder mystery novels bring in a nice amout of royalties, she moved to Cobblestone Cottage with her boyfriend Jack Dagger. The upper floor of the shop was empty for a while, but now features the finest crafts from the local knitting club (Dora’s other hobby).

I haven’t play tested super extensively, but I have set everything for sale that needed to be. Routing works, but the two level store isn’t the most efficient. I did have some issues with the outfits, but I think it’s been fixed in this version, at least it was in my game.

[felicia-cat-hardy]

20 TV Shows & Movies That Are Almost Too Dirty To Be On Netflix

One of the wonders of Netflix is its expansive content offering. It's a place you can go to relive the joys of your youth, and to find some seriously sexy content (probably not in the same movie or TV show, but you get it). If you’re looking for the latter, sifting through the mass of titles can be a challenge; it’s sometimes easy to get lost in the silly or serious pieces of content without ever discovering the many raunchy movies and shows available — and what a pity that is, because there are plenty of shows and movies that are almost too dirty to be on Netflix out there for you to watch.

The site's dirtier fare ranges from art house foreign films to Netflix-produced shows, and they definitely give a new meaning to "Netflix and chill." Netflix obviously isn't a porn site, but there are a number of movies and shows that will make you wonder how — and why — they passed the site's censors. Actually, on second thought, you probably won't be questioning why so much because, as the old adage goes, it's best to not look a gift horse in the mouth.

Whether you're watching these shows and movies to turn up the heat with your partner, or just to broaden your streaming horizons, these are bound to make you think, "I wonder what this is doing to my algorithm preferences..."

‘Duck Butter’

Two women meet and decide to condense a relationship into 24 hours — by having sex every 60 minutes. The movie creators wanted to show a funny and tender film with “lesbians as far as the eye could see,” and the chemistry between the two women is also on fire.

Watch On Netflix

‘Altered Carbon’

In the future, human consciousness can be transferred to available human bodies, called “sleeves.” And boy do we see a lot of those (very naked) sleeves, as well as a bunch of sex.

Watch On Netflix

'Orange Is The New Black'

The popular Netflix original goes where most network TV's explicitness-parameters cannot. Naturally, if you lock a bunch of people up in an enclosed space with not much to do, naughtiness is gonna ensue.

Watch On Netflix

'Y Tu Mamá También'

This movie has everything. Sex in cars, sex in beds, sex in twos, sex in threes. Everything else in between is pretty great, too. Subtitles optional.

Watch On Netflix

‘Sense8’

The tragically cancelled Sense8 from the Wachowski sisters (The Matrix) introduced a plethora of beautiful, complex LGBTQ characters, and a ton of very sexy sex. Yes, this is the series with that orgy scene you’ve heard so much about.

Watch On Netflix

'Amar'

Amar is a Spanish dramedy all about sex and relationships. Literally everyone is doing it (or talking about it) all the time. And the creators aren’t shy about showing all this sexiness onscreen — a very, very good thing.

Watch On Netflix

‘Ride Or Die’

This edgy Japanese film is about two childhood BFFs: one of them (Rei) is in love with the other (Nanae), who’s stuck in an abusive marriage. Nanae asks Rei to kill her husband — and violence (and sexiness) ensues.

Watch On Netflix

'Newness'

Newness is a serious movie about Tinder and dating apps — which also happens to be quite steamy. Two people meet through a hookup app, and despite the odds, start to fall for one another. But can it last?

Watch On Netflix

‘365 Days’

Caveat: this movie has been widely criticized for depicting what starts out as a non-consensual relationship (a woman is kidnapped and given 365 days to fall in love with her abductor). But it’s still managed to gain notoriety for its sex scenes, which are insanely hot — so if you’re curious about the buzz and haven’t watched yet, consider tuning in for those scenes alone.

Watch On Netflix

‘Outlander’

Before Bridgerton, there was this sex-filled period piece. Still going strong and entering its sixth season, this (sometimes literally) bodice-ripping drama sees a woman on her honeymoon accidentally time travel from 1945 to 1743 — and subsequently meet the love of her life.

Watch On Netflix

‘Bridgerton’

But, while we’re on the subject, why haven’t you watched Bridgerton? Or, if you have, why haven’t you watched it again? This is Jane Austen romance, plus glorious mansions, plus a mountain of sex — and it’s sure to have your television exploding from the hotness.

Watch On Netflix

‘Sex Education’

I mean...the title says it all, doesn’t it? Otis is a shy teenager who just so happens to know a ton about sex (the theory at least, less so the practice), thanks to his sex therapist mom. His crush Maeve uses Otis’ skillset for a brilliant concept: a sex therapy consulting business for high schoolers. Oh, and because they’re all teens, lots of sex is happening.

Watch On Netflix

'Elisa & Marcela'

This drama about forbidden love is set in 1885, making it ideal for those who like corsets with their steamy love scenes. It's about two women who fall in love with each other but have to keep it secret — until one of them poses as a man in order to get married. It's also based on a true story, which makes it educational and hot.

Watch On Netflix

‘MILF’

Again, this one’s pretty self-explanatory: three French women in their 40s are dealing with life and heartbreak. The trio of friends go after — and land — much, much younger guys on vacation. Age-related hilarity (and tons more sex) ensues.

Watch On Netflix

‘Riverdale’

Who knew that a redux of the Archie comic books could be so dark and twisty? Also, so adult: the series is known for its (many) sex scenes involving the characters in a wide variety of couplings. The genius of the show is you’ll end up rooting for certain pairs, but cheering for a lot of the sex.

Watch On Netflix

'Easy'

Easy features a series of vignettes about various people's sex lives. It's voyeurism at its finest — and it also offers honest insights about how people navigate intimacy.

Watch On Netflix

'Shameless'

Shameless is very NSFW. If you're going to watch TV at work (perhaps not advisable in any scenario, but no judgement), you should probably steer away from Shameless in case a co-worker happens to sneak a peek during one of its many sex scenes. It could cost you a trip to HR.

Watch On Netflix

'Blue Is The Warmest Color'

Its sex scenes have been deemed unrealistic by many LGBTQ viewers, but Blue is the Warmest Color is still pretty steamy, and it also features a sweet story of a woman coming out into the world.

Watch On Netflix

'Weeds'

I could rave about Weeds for many reasons — its writing, its acting, and its soundtrack — but we're here to talk dirty, so I'll just say this: Weeds has some of the hottest sex scenes ever to grace Netflix. The fact that so much of its plot revolves around taboos and scandals makes for a great deal of naughtiness.

Watch On Netflix

'Concussion'

This is as hot as it gets. Concussion tells the story of a bored suburban housewife who starts seeing female sex workers for pleasure. Eventually, she decides to become one herself.

Watch On Netflix

Get Relationship Advice Here

[bananaofswifts]

4/5 STARS

hat Taylor Swift has called Evermore a “sister record” to Folklore does something of a disservice to both albums. While it’s true that both represent the first time since the Fearless and Speak Now that the singer-songwriter has released back-to-back albums that share such a significant overlap in their production aesthetics, to state outright that they’re intertwined implies that neither can stand on its own.

Evermore is at once as confident and complete a statement as its predecessor. Certainly, it matters that the two albums were born of the protracted isolation of the Covid-19 pandemic and that collaborators like Bon Iver and the National’s Aaron Dessner figure prominently on both. But Evermore finds Swift digging further into her explorations of narrative voice and shifting points of view, taking bigger risks in trying to discover how the newfound breadth of her songwriting could possibly reconcile with the arc of her career.

The album’s opening track, “Willow,” nods to the contemporary hip-hop inflections of 2017’s Reputation, with its emphasis on the natural rhythm of its language and salty “That’s my man” rejoinder. That it also follows a conventional verse-chorus structure makes it a more obvious candidate for a single than anything from Folklore. “No Body, No Crime,” featuring HAIM, is an obvious homage to vengeful hits by women in country music, with a storyline that elbows its way into conversations with the Chicks’s “Goodbye Earl,” Miranda Lambert’s “Gunpowder and Lead,” and Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats.”

That isn’t to say that these songs mark a purposeful bid by Swift to return to the upper echelons of either the pop or country airplay charts. Instead, it’s a matter of further exploring whether the songwriting tropes she touched upon on Folklore lend themselves to the conventions of a career that has, to date, been a commercial success largely without peer in contemporary pop. If not all of those experiments work—“Ivy,” for instance, never settles on a particular tone to ground its narrative—there’s at least a clear logic to each production choice.

A focus on that production, unfortunately, means that the writing on the album isn’t as consistent: “Gold Rush” lacks the kind of robust melody that Swift is known for, the titular hometown friend in “Dorothea” doesn’t emerge as a fully formed character, and no one outside of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia relishes the word “goddamn” quite as much as Swift seems to on “Ivy.” But while there are a handful of moments that fall short of Swift’s lofty standards, Evermore also boasts some of her best work.

Swift considers a casual, home-for-the-holidays hook-up with an ex on “‘Tis the Damn Season,” undercutting the bitterness of a years-past hurt with a pragmatism that dispenses with niceties and nostalgia. The breakup ballad “Happiness” turns the realization that “There will be happiness after you/But there was happiness because of you/Both of these things can be true” into a mantra that could put a host of self-help gurus out of work.

Champagne problems” rivals 2012’s “All Too Well” as the finest songwriting in Swift’s entire catalog. “You booked the night train for a reason/So you could sit there in this hurt” is an astonishing, truly literary opening line, and she spends the following three minutes naming that hurt in unflinching detail and outlining her culpability for having caused it. Swift has always excelled at reserving her best, most critical lines for the bridges of her songs, and that’s the case here, as the piano crescendo behinds her and her pace quickens and she observes, “Sometimes you just don’t know the answer/‘Til someone’s on their knees and asks you.”

Earlier in her career, Swift’s writing was limited by her apparent belief that hers was the only story worth telling. What makes Evermore an essential addition to her catalog is her willingness to tell others’ stories with the same insight and compassion with which she’s always told her own. And on this album, in particular, the stories she tells are about how her narrators’ choices impact others, often in ways that cause irreparable harm. That makes the songwriting a bit riskier than on Folklore, and not all of those risks pay off. If that means Evermore isn’t quite as strong as that album, she nonetheless managed to release two of the finest albums of her career in the span of just a few months.

[fictionfromafar]

The Transparency Of Time by Leonardo Padura 🇨🇺

The Transparency Of Time

Leonardo Padura

Translated by Anna Kushner

Bitter Lemon Press

Publication Date: 10 June 2021

#RandomTTours

A new Leonardo Padura novel is never a small matter. Recognised as Cuba’s finest living author by The Washington Post, Padura is one of the most highly regarded contemporary novels in Latin America. Unlike many other Cuban writers, Padura continues to live in Cuba. He has written historic novels on Ernest Hemmingway and Leon Trotsky yet he is perhaps best known for his seminal Havana Quartet featuring Lieutenant Mario Conde. These were brought to the attention of English language readers in the mid noughties by Bitter Lemon Press. Televised by Spanish television as Four Seasons In Havana these are available to watch on Netflix.

Despite releasing Conde from active police service, Padura has been keen to return at times to return to his most celebrated character, this is the ninth Conde novel. In Havana Fever we saw Conde visiting the older homes of Havana for book collections which he could then sell for profit. While this would provide him with sustenance, on principle he would refuse to sell Cuban literature to international buyers as he believed the country’s treasures should always remain on the island.

Central to all Padura’s novel is of course Cuba and through his words, as readers we learn how his city has transformed over the years. Set in Autumn 2014 a month before Conde’s sixtieth birthday, neither Conde or Havana are in particularly good shape: “Mario Conde knew perfectly well that being old – even being old without being an old fart – is a horrifying condition due to all it entails, but especially because it carries with it an incontrovertible threat; the statistical and physiological approach of death… just one, one quarter of life left.”

Furthermore, he is struggling financially as he is finding fewer books even with the help of his dealing friend Yoyi. However his luck appears to change when the latter puts him back in contact with Bobby Roque, who was a fellow pupil of Conde’s school many years before. Roque, who used to be a staunch Marxist is now a flamboyant Santeria practitioner and homosexual, needs Conde to investigate the disappearance of his younger lover Dubois who vanished taking many of Roque’s valuables including his treasured statue of the Virgen de Regla – a black Madonna. This is particularly precious as Roque believes it has healing powers.

Conde takes on the case as it is financially beneficial to him and starts by speaking to his former Sergeant Manola to obtain details on Dubois. When the information received is not as expected, Conde delves into a far larger investigation where two men lose their lives.

Leonardo Padura’s novels have a fantastic sense of setting and we can feel Conde’s love hate relationship with the city where he lives: “Every time he wandered the streets of central Havana, increasingly run down by poverty and neglect, Conde was determined to find, beneath the layers of dirt, age and precariousness of all kinds the possibility that any of its charms had survived.” For Conde’s generation life has become very difficult, almost depressive - a contemporary of his points out that “you have good days and then you have days that are worse.”

This hardship is maybe the reason that Conde is then happy to spend some of his earnings on a meal and drinks for his friends that would equate to an average Cuban’s weekly earnings. Conde and his friends Rabbit and Candito take a trip to what he terms “the world of the invisible” – these are the shanty town ‘settlements’ where many people from the east of the island move in search of work. They are horrified by the conditions there – “like Haiti, or Africa or Hell. Aside from one priest’s mention of the “speeches and promises” there is no mention of the causes of this depravation - no criticism of the Cuban Government nor the punative US sanctions

The cliché goes that for each person who leaves Havana for the west, another would replace them from the east. Conde has lived in a country which he felt had reduced its misery through concerted will and effort, yet increasingly it seems that the majority live in misery except for those who have benefited from ill-gotten gains. A reoccurring theme is Conde trying to find anyone who actually has a reputable job. There is though still charm to stories such as the man with no shoes.

The book is broadly split between Conde’s investigation, Padura’s examinations of Cuba’s changing society and then separate to these we follow the timeless Antoni Barral during the Spanish civil war and later in the book the blockade of Acre during the crusades. Bear with these parts as they do tie into the book. Providing some vital historical context, they show Padura's willingness to stretch his imagination and those of his readers.

The translation is both lucid and fluid. The translator is Anna Kushner, the daughter of Cuban exiles, who had also translated Padura’s The Man Who Loved Dogs and Heretics; Guillermo Rosales’s The Halfway House and Leapfrog; and Norberto Fuentes’s The Autobiography of Fidel Castro.

Drawn in to work with his former police colleagues Conde finds their generation’s outlook very different to his. We also see him sense déjà vu and sentimentally look back on some previous investigations through the story, but no prior back knowledge of Conde’s earlier novels are required to enjoy The Transparency Of Time. The investigation takes Conde to very different parts of the cities with a large number of potential suspects. His skill and experience are key to solving the mystery behind the Virgen de Regla and its whereabouts. He is also left to conclude that there are actually two invisible cities within Havana.

There are few novelists who can absorb you into both a crime fiction novel and the feel of a city as Leonardo Padura can do. Whether you are new to the series or a seasoned reader, there is plenty to enjoy about The Transparency Of Time even though it does leave you with a melancholic sentiment for his homeland. Many thanks to Alex Hippisley-Cox at Bitter Lemon Press for a free advance review copy of The Transparency Of Time and to Anne Cater at Random Things Tours for inclusion in the blog tour. Please check out these other reviews.

I am running a book give away to win The Transparency Of Time and Into The Mouth Of A Lion via Twitter

[ljones41]

"LOST" RETROSPECT: (2.07) "The Other 48 Days"

"LOST" RETROSPECT: (2.07) "The Other 48 Days" I cannot deny that "LOST" will always be one of my top twenty (20) favorite television series of all time. Nor can I deny that despite my feelings about it, the writing had been flawed on many occasions. If there is an episode that truly reflected my positive feelings about the series, it is the Season Two episode called (2.07) "The Other 48 Days".

This episode is probably my TOP favorite one in the entire series. Before "The Other 48 Days" aired, I had been watching"LOST" for at least a little over a month. In fact, (2.02) "Adrift" was the very first episode I had ever watch. Although I did watch most of the episodes that aired between "Adrift" and "The Other 48 Days", I found it difficult to feel the series' magic. I was about to give up on the series for good when "The Other 48 Days" aired in late November 2005. Not only did I enjoy the episode, I became a permanent fan of the series. The plot for "The Other 48 Days" proved to be very simple. It chronicled those first forty-eight days that the Tail Section survivors (the Tailies) of Oceanic Flight 815 experienced on the island. Most of the episode focused upon the minutes following the plane crash, to the Tailies' encounter with Fuselage survivors Jin Kwon, Michael Dawson and James "Sawyer" Ford (which happened at the end of "Adrift"). The remaining few minutes of the episode is basically a montage of the Tailies and the three Fuselage survivors experiences between (2.03) "Orientation" and (2.06) "Abandoned", when one of the Tailies accidentally shot and killed series regular character Shannon Rutherford. If one thought that the experiences of the Fuselage Section survivors were traumatic, what they had experienced was a piece of cake in compare to the Tail Section survivors. Unlike the Fuselage passengers, the Tailies had no medical doctor/surgeon, a wanted convict with a talent for tracking, a "Great White Hunter", a son of a South Korean fisherman, the fisherman's daughter-in-law with a talent for botany, a construction worker, or a former member with the Iraqi Republican Guard with a talent for communications. Instead, the Tail Section survivors had a former LAPD cop, a Nigerian warlord-turned-drug runner-turned-priest, a flight attendant, a dentist and clinical psychologist. Hmmmm. From my point of view, only the cop and the former warlord proved to be potential leaders for this group of survivors. Without a medical doctor, the Tailies had to witnessed the deaths of those survivors who had been seriously injured. They also lacked supplies, luggage and some foodstuffs from the plane's Fuselage section. Both groups were infiltrated by men spying on behalf of the island's long time inhabitants known as "the Others". Because the Tailies' beach camp was situated not far from the Others' complex, they were harassed and terrorized by the island inhabitants from Day One, to that Forty-Eighth day that marked Shannon's death. In fact, the Others managed to kidnap a total of twelve survivors from the Tailies' camp on Days One and Twelve. On that last 48th day, they finally snatched the flight attendant. The only Fuselage survivor that ended up kidnapped was Claire Littleton. Unlike the snatched Tailies, Claire only spent eleven days as one of the Others' captive during those 48 days. Compare to the Fuselage survivors, the Tail Section survivors came close to experiencing their own version of "Lord of the Flies". Was there anything about "The Other 48 Days" that I did not like? I did not care much for that montage that marked the last three days that the Tailies spent with Michael, Sawyer and Jin. It seemed like a waste of air time. But I suspect that Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse needed some kind of filler leading to that moment from “Abandoned”, when Shannon was shot. I could complain that "LOST" never fully explained why the Others snatched some of the Tail Section survivors in the first place. But that is not the fault of this particular episode's writing, considering that the series is a serial drama. My biggest complaint about "The Other 48 Days" is that the Tail Section survivors' story was told in one episode. I truly regret this. In some ways, I found their story a lot more fascinating than the experiences of the Fuselage survivors during that first month-and-a-half. Between the deaths of the injured passengers, the kidnappings by the Others, the power struggles and paranoia between the survivors, the consequences of an Other's spy in their midst, brief contact with a Fuselage survivor via a short-wave radio and God knows what . . . the Tailies' story could have provided an interesting contrast to the Fuselage survivors during the series' first season.

The character of Ana-Lucia Cortez was first introduced to "LOST" viewers in the Season One finale, (1.23) "Exodus, Part 1", when she flirted with lead character Dr. Jack Shephard at an airport bar in Sydney. By the time the viewers saw her again, she had transformed into a hardened and brusque leader, lacking in any patience with the likes of Michael, Sawyer and Jin; and struggling to stay a step ahead of the Others' harassment. Many of the series' fans grew to hate her, complaining of her character's tough exterior. At the same time, they praised the Mr. Eko character, who proved to be the former Nigerian warlord-turned-priest, for being such a badass in their eyes. I had forgotten that despite the advent of civil rights regarding race and gender, we still live in a very prejudiced society. Apparently, it was okay for a man like Mr. Eko to be tough, but not a woman. Especially not a woman in a leader position. A woman can be tough like Kate Austen or Juliet Burke, as long as they maintain a superficial projection of femininity and find themselves stuck in a love story or mother role. I adored Ana-Lucia from the moment when she first punched Sawyer in (2.04) "Everybody Loves Hugo". And even after another four seasons, she has remained one of my favorite characters in the series. Before "LOST", I had viewed Michelle Rodriguez as a mediocre actress. I still cannot regard her as a great actress, but her portrayal of the stress-ridden Ana-Lucia had developed her into a very good one. And it took two scenes - one of Ana-Lucia's confrontation with the Others' spy and her emotional breakdown in Mr. Eko's arms - that made me realize that Rodriguez had come far as an actress in the five-to-six episodes she had appeared on "LOST" by "The Other 48 Days".  To this day, I consider Ana-Lucia Cortez to be her best role.  Another performer that truly caught my eye was Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, who portrayed the fascinating Mr. Eko. To be honest, I first noticed Akinnuoye-Agbaje in the 2001 movie, "THE MUMMY RETURNS" and 2002's "THE BOURNE IDENTITY". He was memorable in both movies and very entertaining. But his portrayal of Mr. Eko proved to be more complex. Yes, he could be a frightening badass. But at the same time, Akinnuoye-Agbaje injected a great deal of pathos and compassion into his performance, allowing his Mr. Eko to become a more complex character than the ones I have seen him in past movies before his stint on “LOST”. I feel that Cynthia Watros had received a raw deal during her time on "LOST". Thanks to her performance as clinical-psychologist Elizabeth "Libby" Smith, she presented a complex woman behind a superficially likable woman. I am not saying that Libby was an unlikable woman. But considering that she had encouraged Ana-Lucia to do something about a survivor named Nathan, whom they suspected of being an Others spy; and in the next episode, dumped all of the blame surrounding Nathan's death on Ana; I found myself wondering about her true nature. I like to view "The Other 48 Days" and the following episode, (2.08) "Collision" as some of Watros' finest work on the series. Fortunately for Sam Anderson, he got a chance to stretch his stuff in more episode. He certainly did an excellent job as Bernard Nadler, the dentist who happened to be married to one of the Fuselage's survivors. Kimberly Joseph was first introduced as flight attendant Cindy Chandler in the series' early Season One episodes. Her character was eventually kidnapped by the Others just before Shannon's death in "Abandoned". As one can see, I do not have much to say about Cindy. Joseph gave a solid performance in the episode. In fact, most of her performances have solid throughout the series' run. I have been aware of Brett Cullen since I first saw him in the television Western, "THE YOUNG RIDERS". I have seen him in many television and movie roles over the years - especially during the first two seasons of "PERSONS OF INTEREST". But I feel that Goodwin Stanhope might be one of the best roles in his career. I was especially impressed by his screen chemistry with Michelle Rodriguez, making his relationship with Ana-Lucia on of the most interesting during the series' run. What else can I say about "The Other 48 Days"? It is a dark and fascinating television episode marked by an epic story line about survival, trust and paranoia, thanks to a superb script written by Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof. It also features first-rate direction from Eric Laneuville, and some excellent performances - especially from Michelle Rodriguez, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje and Brett Cullen. After my latest viewing of the episode, I still wish the Tail Section survivors’ story had been stretched over more episodes. 

[theradioghost]

hey, can i pester you for some podcast recs? something with a good dose of humour and not too many episodes to catch up on. a sprinkle of queer romance would be a nice bonus. my fave so far is tsco starship iris, and i also loved greater boston, wooden overcoats, the bright sessions and caravan. and thanks always for all your great recs! you’ve brought many hours of joy into my life :)

We Fix Space Junk -- Two intergalactic repairpeople -- a knowledgeable cyborg veteran and a former socialite on the run -- travel the universe meeting people and fixing things at the behest of the terrifying intergalactic corporation they’re trying to work off their debts to. Hilarious British sci-fi sitcom featuring Evil Space Capitalism, many many wonderful AI characters, and an absolutely delightful teenage space wasp-human-cow hybrid princess who is probably off accomplishing her grandiose special destiny somewhere offscreen while the main characters deal with things like their bosses possibly trying to kill them (again).

Death by Dying -- People have a tendency to die in odd ways in the small town of Crestfall, Idaho. Luckily the town also has an Obituary Writer, an eccentric and nameless but impeccably stylish fellow whose closest friend is the Angel of Death, and who has a knack for solving murders even though that’s definitely not his job description. Throw in walrus haikus, extremely rude ravens, Something Mysterious And Malevolent Lurking In The Dark Woods Outside Of Town, disappearing childhood homes, silent nuns, ghost bicycles, and three man-eating cats, and you get something like a delightful cross between Wooden Overcoats and Lemony Snicket. (Also, OW is peak Canonically Bisexual Dumbass.)

Less is Morgue -- Riley is a paranoid, reclusive teenager with a fondness for conspiracy theories who lives in their parents’ basement. They’re also a predatory ghoul who feeds on human flesh. Evelyn is a cheerful, outgoing young woman with questionable tastes in media. She’s also a ghost, ever since she was killed by a falling stage light at a Nickelback concert 16 years ago. And since Riley dug up and ate Evelyn’s corpse, they’re roommates! Will they ever manage to record a coherent episode of their podcast without something going ridiculously wrong and/or Riley eating one of the guests? Probably not!

Victoriocity -- The steampunk buddy-cop comedy-mystery thriller you never knew you needed but definitely do! Featuring Inspector Fleet, a grouchy, extremely driven policeman looking for the murderer of the Empire’s greatest inventor, and Clara Entwhistle, an even more driven and unfailingly upbeat rookie journalist who has just arrived in the island-spanning, bizarre cityscape of alt-history Even Greater London. Come for some of my favorite sarcastic British narration since Adams and Pratchett, stay for characters-are-begrudgingly-forced-to-work-together-until-they-come-to-genuinely-and-deeply-care-about-one-another-as-friends trope. (Also for Tom “Eric Chapman” Crowley as the aforementioned grumpy detective.)

Quid Pro Euro -- From one of the other leads of Wooden Overcoats, this doesn’t have a typical plot as such but has made me laugh so hard I pulled a muscle despite the fact that I know nothing about the EU. Which is what this near-surreal, Look Around You-style comedy is about: Felix Trench’s vision of a simultaneously hilarious and terrifying alternate European Union, seen from the perspective of a serious of educational tapes from the ‘90s predicting what the EU would look like in the 21st century. It’s hard to describe this show in any way that does it justice, but it’s incredibly funny.

Time:Bombs -- A miniseries by the exalted creators of Wolf 359, which (because they are madmen) was written, recorded, and produced in the space of one week. Also, a comedy about an NYC bomb retrieval squad on New Year’s Eve, most of whom are just trying to get through the night while their leader attempts to break a record for most bombs cleared before the calendar ticks over. Chaos and hilarity ensure.

Superstition -- Wisecracking, bi, Jewish, definitely-a-private-eye-just-don’t-check-her-qualifications Jacqueline St. James receives a message from her father, which is weird, because her parents disappeared years ago. Following the trail leads Jack to Superstition, Arizona, a town in the middle of the desert where everyone’s got secrets, assorted ghosts/monsters/cryptids harrass the locals, and the missing persons rate is the highest in the nation. As a protagonist Jack is Looking For Trouble And If She Cannot Find It She Will Create It, so while Superstition isn’t a comedy per se, it’s got a fair share of laughs and is also just so, so excellent in general.

Standard Docking Procedure -- A self-declared hopepunk scifi workplace comedy about the somewhat dysfunctional staff of Pseudopolis Station, effectively a high-tech interstellar truck stop. It’s funny and heartwarming, nothing truly bad happens, and Julia Schifini is there.

Solutions to Problems -- A morally-questionable human named Janet who has defintely never done any illegal time travel and an easygoing, physically indescribably alien who likes to go by Loaf host an intergalactic advice podcast. Are you tired of your species’ insistence on solving everything via ritual combat? Not sure how to talk to your partner about whether body-swapping has a place in your sex life? Dealing with being a superpowered teenager summoned into being by the collective will of an apocalyptic groupthink cult? Janet and Loaf have you covered! Provided that Janet’s on-and-off girlfriend, the AI who supplies the air they breathe, doesn’t kill them all first. Oddly heartfelt comedy in the form of a relationship advice radio show from the Space Future.

Middle:Below -- This show’s tagline is “Remember: bad things WILL happen,” and that is basically a lie. This is actually a short, incredibly heartwarming and frequently funny show about Taylor Quinn, the only human with the ability to pass between the land of the living (aka the Middle) and the land of ghosts (the Below). Meaning, of course, that the dead call on him to fix all their problems, with the help of a girl named Heather, a ghost named Gil, and a cat named Sans. (Also, some of the most comparatively wild live shows I’ve ever heard.)

Inn Between -- Ever wonder what fantasy characters get up to between adventures, during all that time they seem to spend at inns? This show skips all the adventuring, question, and action, instead focusing on the quiet moments between where what is Definitely Not A D&D Party meet and progress from bickering strangers brought together by circumstance to close-knit found family -- all at the inn, of course. (Lots of queer folks in here also, although there’s no romance at least in the first  couple seasons.)

The Godshead Incidental -- A relatively new but very exciting and so far really enjoyable show!! Following a young woman who writes an advice column through her life in a familiar, and yet strange city where anyone might be a minor god -- your editor, your landlord, that weird guy on the street who was shouting about how he’s the God of Memory and you got into a fight with him and now you keep forgetting everything? Also, your apartment is full of pigeons now because you found out the aforementioned landlord is secretly the god of doorknobs and he’s panicking. Good luck! (Starring Ishani Kanetkar, aka Arkady from Starship Iris!)

Gal Pals Present: Overkill -- Madison, a middle schooler at a Girl Scout camp, agrees to play a game with a somewhat tastelessly bright-pink Ouija board. However, Madison doesn’t know that she’s a natural medium, and now sarcastic mid-2000s 19-year-old Aya Velasquez has joined the many ghosts who are for some reason haunting scenic Harding Park. Aya, however, will not rest until she can solve her own murder (and possibly get to know that other ghost girl a bit better, who says romance has to stop when you’re dead?). Absolutely hilarious writing of a narrator who is almost definitely wearing spectral Uggs during the entire show.

Dark Ages -- The Rivercliffe Museum of Mostly Natural History is one of the finest museums anywhere! Or it would be, if anyone ever actually visited it. Or maybe if the staff weren’t a disastrous and dysfunctional collection of criminals, weirdos, wannabe immortals, idiot bisexuals who can’t just admit they like each other, and one extremely uptight elf with no people skills. Also, it would probably help if the legendary and fearsome Dark Lord, finally returned from his millennia of dormancy to complete his prophesied conquest of the world, wasn’t hanging around watching the chaos unfold because they’ve got his crown on display. (Fantasy workplace comedy with a theme song that did not need to go that hard?)

Brimstone Valley Mall -- It’s mid-December 1999, and at one mall in South Central Pennsylvania, a group of demons are going about their evil work -- namely, working at various dinky kiosks and restaurants, hoping of achieving every demon’s dream of getting to work at Hot Topic, trying not to do too much evil because Earth is way more fun than Hell and no one wants to get promoted back home, and preparing for their band's triumphant opening performance at the upcoming Y2K party. Just one problem: their lead singer is missing. Another absolute masterwork from The Whisperforge.

Arden -- 10 years ago, Hollywood starlet Julie Capsom vanished into the woods of northern California, leaving behind a car containing a human torso that may or may not have belonged to one Ralph Montgomery. Now, private eye Brenda Bentley and reporter Bea Casely, both of whom were among the first at the scene and both of whom have their own very strong opinions on the case, are setting out to solve the mystery on their true crime podcast, Arden. Providing, of course, they can stop arguing with each other long enough to solve it. (Or, a not-really-parody-but-definitely-comedy “true crime” podcast where the crime is a retelling of Romeo and Juliet -- and even knowing that, it’s still a genuine mystery with twists and a surprise ending! -- and the hosts are wlw Beatrice and Benedick from Much Ado About Nothing. In other words, it’s perfect. Season 2 is upcoming soon and is adapting Hamlet!!)

Alba Salix/The Axe and Crown -- Another high fantasy workplace sitcom, this one a medical comedy about the titular not-very-personable witch who runs the kingdom’s House of Healing and the various shenanigans she gets into, between her somewhat scatterbrained sister and brother-in-law the king and queen and her assistants, an overly-whimsical fairy and a wannabe monk forced to do community service. The same feed contains The Axe and Crown, a spinoff set in the same world that manages to simultaneously be a sitcom about the staff of a local pub trying to stave off foreclosure and come up with schemes to beat their business rivals, and a heartfelt story about gentrification and recovery starring a gay veteran with PTSD? Which is possibly one of my favorite podcasts? (Also contains one of the most unbelievable crossover cameos possible: Leon Stamatis.)

The Adventures of Sir Rodney the Root -- Also a high fantasy comedy! When a witch transforms heroic Sir Rodney into a small piece of wood, his closest companion Sir Gilbert must set out to cure him by collecting several highly powerful and dangerous relics, accompanied by a snarky dwarfen thief, an imperious princess, a slightly creepy human child raised by fairies, a picky elf sorcerer, a dead unicorn possessed by the ghost of a stoner, and a bard who breaks the fourth wall too much for his own good. So far as I can tell, nobody is straight.

The Amelia Project -- A dark comedy about a secret organization that helps people fake their deaths. Which is honestly a pretty full summary, barring the two important points that 1. this show contains possibly the most continuity-warping crossover event of all time (it’s the center point of this absolutely chaotic diagram), and 2. in one episode Felix Trench plays a character named Bartholomew Fuckface Chucklepants Knucklecracker.

[aion-rsa]

Cobra Kai: How the Show’s Martial Arts Level Up in Season 3

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This article contains Cobra Kai season 3 spoilers.

Despite its iconic standing within the martial arts genre, the martial arts in The Karate Kid have never been outstanding. Sure, the crane kick is a classic, but from a technical standpoint, it’s not that impressive. Ralph Macchio had no martial arts training prior to undertaking the role of Daniel. In many ways, that’s part of the charm. Whether you know martial arts or not, Daniel’s wax on, wax off awkwardness makes Macchio’s portrayal more genuine. 

Throughout the film franchise, it was Daniel’s adversaries who were the martial artists. William Zabka (Johnny Lawrence) had a background in wrestling prior to the first film and continued to train in Tang Soo Do under Master Pat E. Johnson after it wrapped (Johnson played the referee and trained the actors for the film.) Martin Kove (John Kreese) studied Gosoku-ryu Karate under the founder of that style, Grandmaster Takayuki Kubota. The villains in the sequels all had previous training too. Yuji Okumoto (Chozen Toguchi) began Chito-ryu Karate when he was thirteen and was a brown belt by the time he appeared in The Karate Kid Part II. In The Karate Kid Part III, Thomas Ian Griffith (Terry Silver) practiced Taekwondo since childhood and holds a black belt in Kenpo Karate. Stage combat is one of his specialties. And Sean Kanen (Mike Barnes), like Okumoto, studied Karate since he was thirteen, only his style was Shotokan. He also worked professionally as a bar bouncer. 

Because Macchio was a much weaker martial artist than his adversaries both in the story and reality, it was challenging for the stunt choreographers. It limits the vocabulary of where the fights could go. Without a strong martial artist in the lead role, the fight choreographers had to create work arounds, like the crane kick. But again, that was part of the charm of Daniel. No one could play Daniel LaRusso like Ralph Macchio. 

Cobra Kai faces a similar situation because like Macchio, few of the lead actors had previous martial arts training. For more authenticity, newcomers to the cast were not only tasked to learn Karate, they had to do some of their own stunts. With that in mind, Den of Geek spoke with Macchio and more about season 3’s ambitious combat, and the training and editing that goes into major fight scenes. 

No Mercy

Cobra Kai suffers from the same constraint as the original films had with Daniel. All the high school kids are amateurs. We bear witness to their inductions into Karate, and their meteoric rise in skills (Just like The Karate Kid, Cobra Kai takes major liberties on how quickly someone can progress in the martial arts, but so do most stories in the genre). They’re teenagers, not ninjas or Shaolin monks. The fight scenes cannot pivot on extreme Jackie Chan moves. To remain genuine to the story, the next generation must retain some of Daniel’s awkwardness. 

However, stunt coordinators Jahnel Curfman and Hiro Koda did excellent work in keeping it real. In the premiere episode, Johnny’s first fight showed that Zabka had kept up on his Tang Soo Do and could still throw a decent kick. It served the story perfectly, showing Johnny as slightly out of shape, but still formidable. As seasons 1 and 2 progressed, the fight choreography complemented its story arcs appropriately, but Cobra Kai wasn’t a show just to watch for its fight scenes. 

This changed with the season 2 finale “No Mercy.” Curfman and Koda composed a thrilling high school brawl with a solid long take shot – a “one-er” where there are no cuts in the action. It was a thrilling fight, full of complex cinematography and enough close-ups that we could see that many of the actors did their own stunts. 

The season 3 finale fight in the LaRusso residence was even better, longer, and more complex. According to Xolo Maridueña (Miguel), Cobra Kai’s second one-er was a challenge. “When you film an episode like the finale of season 2, you get to the point where you’re like, ‘How do we top this?’ It feels like we kind of achieved everything that we wanted. And I think at that point, we did achieve everything that we wanted. We got this really, really great scene that felt so grand. And in season 3, we want to give people that same kind of feeling, that same rush that you get from watching so many moving parts working together, but it needs to be different.”

How was it different? Maridueña elaborates. “I think that you see that the motives of a lot of these characters are different. The circumstances, the need to win I think is much higher in a finale. And I think up until the very end and even after the fight feels concluded you still feel that sense of weight on your shoulders.”

The Long Take One-Er

Cuts make fight choreography easier. When there’s one cut for every strike, retakes aren’t as difficult. If there are two strikes before a cut, it’s twice as hard. More strikes increase the challenge exponentially. In the original film, The Karate Kid, there was a one-er, but it wasn’t a fight scene. When Daniel first enters the All-Valley Karate Tournament from the locker room, it’s a continuous long take that clocks in just shy of a minute and a half. The blocking is complicated but it’s not as complex as a fight scene would be, and according to Macchio, the scene took 35 takes to get right. 

In filmmaking, one-ers are always held in high regard for their technical achievement. Hitchcock’s Rope was a pioneering example with the entire film consisting of only 11 one-ers. The critically acclaimed World War I film 1917 was nearly a single one-er. When it comes to fight choreography, this is why classic Kung Fu films from the 70s and 80s are so highly respected by martial art movie connoisseurs. While they weren’t one-ers, those fights, like what was coming out of  Shaw Brothers Studio, went dozens of moves before a cut. Some recent films like Atomic Blonde and the John Wick trilogy have showcased one-er fights. What’s more, they are shot in such a way that we can see that Keanu Reeves and Charlize Theron are doing a lot of their own stunts. In contrast, in Netflix’s latest assassin thriller Ava, all of Jessica Chastain’s fights are one strike, one shot, and her stuntperson takes over for all the heavy lifting. 

There are some trade tricks to one-ers. The first is a stitch where the camera pans to a featureless surface. This can disguise a covert cut, making the scene appear seamless. But in actuality, there was a break. The other is what is known in the stunt industry as a “Texas switch.” This is where an actor is swapped out with a stunt person by somehow leaving the shot, like being tossed out of frame or ducking behind an obscuring set piece.  

Television fight choreography has leveled up in the last few years. Daredevil was a game-changer for TV one-ers. The show kept upping its game every season. Season 1 episode 2 “Cut Man” ended with a one-er hallway fight that caught every martial arts fan’s attention. It had a lot of stitches and Texas switches. During that one-er, the camera repeatedly moves across featureless hallway walls hiding cuts and Daredevil is masked, allowing for multiple stuntmen to take over. Nevertheless, it’s still a thrilling fight and top-notch choreography. Season 2 episode 3 “New York’s Finest” featured another brutal one-er in a staircase fight. Again, Daredevil is masked so swapping stuntmen was easy. On top of that, Daredevil knocks out the lights, so a lot of the fight is in the dark, obscuring more stitches and switches. In Season 3 episode 4 ‘Blindsided’ Daredevil pulled off their most spectacular one-er of all and one of the best that has ever made it to the small screen so far, the prison fight. In that scene, Daredevil is not masked so Charlie Cox can be seen doing a lot of his own stunts. It clocks in at over 10 minutes. The fight choreographers on Daredevil, Chris Brewster, Philip Silvera, and Roberto Gutierrez raised the bar on TV fight choreography.

Karate And Stunt Training

The one-ers in Cobra Kai aren’t nearly as long, but they do showcase the actors doing many of their own stunts. And like Macchio, few of the cast have had previous training. Jacob Bertrand (Hawk) has a purple belt in Karate and Taylor Buchanan dabbled in Taekwondo, but that’s about the extent of the young cast’s experience. Beyond learning their lines and finding their characters, the actors had to take a crash course in martial arts. 

“I only started learning in season 2,” says Peyton List (Tory), “and that was just in episode 4 of season 2, when I first came in. And I just take everything I can get, and I love learning it. So I’m trying to do everything I can even from home, but that one-er was one of the most fun. Jahnel, my stunt double, she was like, ‘You’re doing this all on your own.’ And that was a big moment for me, and I’m excited for everyone to see that.” 

“My training is something I take super seriously,” adds Mary Mouser (Sam), “because I know that a lot of people who watch this show love martial arts and love the fighting aspect. As much as all the other fun things we have, we have a lot of really cool martial arts fans. So I want to make them proud. I am clearly still a novice in this world, but Samantha is not. So it’s fun to get to stretch myself, to see how much I can push myself to look like I’ve been doing Karate for all these years, when in total probably have about a year’s worth of training so far.”

Bertrand’s Karate background doesn’t make shooting a one-er any easier. “The next couple of days after those types of shoots, you’re definitely sore for at least two days. You’re running the same thing over and over again at 110%, but honestly, I’m just so excited for everyone to see that final fight, it’s going to be so great.”

Forever Young

In season 3, Daniel says he’s now as old as Miyagi was when they first met. Despite his baby face, Macchio is 59. He admits doing fight scenes no  isn’t as easy as back in the day. “The challenge is always as I get older or attempt to look younger, is the physical stuff. Staying in shape, not getting hurt. It requires work and attention and focus.”

Macchio is like David Carradine, who played Kwai Chang Caine in the television show Kung Fu. For their defining roles, they posed as martial arts masters, however they are actors first and foremost, not martial artists. At the very least, Macchio has maintained his integrity by never claiming to be an expert. Carradine milked his master role by writing martial arts books and selling instructional videos, despite his martial mediocrity. Today, Carradine’s martial products are generally disregarded, even mocked, by earnest practitioners. Most considered them to be a joke (the fact that Carradine’s Kung Fu uniforms looked more like Klingon athleisure suits didn’t help). Macchio could have easily cashed in doing the same but to his credit, he never did. 

Will Cobra Kai attempt an even bigger one-er for Season 4? “As soon as the fight is over you’re ready to watch the next one,” teases Maridueña. “And I think that’s all you can ask for in a fight scene.”

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Cobra Kai season 3 is now available on Netflix.

The post Cobra Kai: How the Show’s Martial Arts Level Up in Season 3 appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[blackswaneuroparedux]

Anonymous asked: I always think of you as Kristin Scott Thomas’ character Fiona in Four Weddings and a Funeral as a beautiful woman who is scarily clever and classy. So with my upcoming wedding (next year!) and especially wedding music I thought of you. I really would appreciate your advice on Mendelssohn or Wagner as they seem to be the traditional choices of music to play at a traditional church wedding. My fiancé isn’t bothered what music we play but I can’t decide. Please do help as I value your unvarnished truth.

Thank you for the flattering words which while well intentioned are nevertheless entirely misplaced.

Swiftly moving on, a sincere congratulations on your forthcoming wedding. I can only imagine how stressful it must be running around like a headless chicken trying to desperately organise everything. And desperate you certainly must be - perhaps even certifiably insane -  if you’re turning to me on Tumblr for advice!

I’m not married....yet ( oops! better get that caveat in before I am chastised by those who really know me)  but I am a wedding veteran - some would even say, a jaded one (thank you, mummy).

Every season there is a string of wedding invitations that I can’t turn down and I feel obligated to attend. While great fun, one wedding starts to blur into another especially when the champagne starts to copiously flow. I have my own thoughts on the good, the bad, and the tacky about wedding etiquette but I don’t want to disappear down that rabbit hole. Instead let’s talk about Mendelssohn and Wagner.

Both music pieces have traditionally struck a chord (pardon the pun) and have become a staple of traditional weddings since time immemorial.

Mendelssohn's ‘Wedding March’ was originally composed in 1842. He got there first.

Wagner's ‘Bridal Chorus’ came later in 1848. The ‘Bridal Chorus’ became a popularised piece to play at weddings around Europe after it was most memorably used as the processional at the wedding of Victoria, the Princess Royal to Prince Frederick William of Prussia in 1858. Nowadays - certainly in Britain and the US -  it is generally known as "Here Comes the Bride”.

I suppose the straight forward answer is that it doesn’t have to be Wagner vs. Mendelssohn. Why not both?  Wagner’s ‘Bridal Chorus’ can be used for the entrance processional of the bride walking down the aisle and the Mendelssohn ‘Wedding March’ for the recessional walk out of the church.

But you did say you wanted my ‘unvarnished truth’ so allow me the small luxury of an arm chair rant from the Coronavirus self-isolation of my Paris apartment. 

Of the two I would definitely ditch the Wagner piece. Please don’t misunderstood me. I am a huge fan of Wagner’s music - like any true Wagnerian I have taken more than one pilgrimage to Beyreuth - but in this case playing Wagner’s music would show a frightful ignorance of the meaning behind the ‘Bridal Chorus’ piece.  

I don’t know why more people haven’t picked up on this but I’ve always found it a terribly odd piece to play at a wedding especially as it originates from Wagner’s masterful opera, Lohengrin.

Wagner came upon the opera's inspiration around 1845 when he took interest in the legend of the Holy Grail through the poems of Wolfram von Eschenbach and the anonymous epic of Lohengrin. Composed by 1848, Lohengrin features "Bridal Chorus" as the prelude to a very short-lived, doomed marriage between Elsa and Lohengrin.

The famous ‘Bridal Chorus’ is lustily sung by women of the bridal party serenading Elsa to the bridal suite after the wedding in Act III. Elsa is not allowed to know her true knight’s true name and identity. But this is a romantic German opera and so of course Lohengrin is found out with dire consequences for all.  A sad Lohengrin ends up revealing that  he is in fact a knight of the Grail and son of King Parsifal, sent to protect an unjustly accused woman. The laws of the Holy Grail say that Knights of the Grail must remain anonymous. If their identity is revealed, they must return home. Lohengrin is lead back to the castle of the Holy Grail. Elsa is grief stricken at being left behind.  Poor Elsa (naturally) collapses and dies with a broken heart.

Charming.

To say it’s not the happiest of allusions of looking forward to a long life of wedded bliss would be an understatement.

However my objections against Wagner’s ‘Bridal Chorus’ goes beyond this. For one thing I find it rather too sombre - Oh dear God! Is marriage really like this?!

My main ire is that it overly used and therefore boring to listen to. And when one is bored the mind wanders.

In my case, without sounding malicious, my mind just drifts to whispering mischievous lyrics under my breath that go like, “here comes the bride, big fat and wide, here comes the groom, skinny as a broom.” Try as I might I can never get those words out of my silly mind whenever I hear the organ music playing “Here come’s the bride.” Not my finest hour.

Now Mendelssohn’s ‘Wedding March’ is different beast entirely. Beast being the operative word as we are dealing with Pagan deities.

Typically used in church wedding recessionals, the ‘Wedding March’ piece has sparked controversy due to its literary origins. The Prussian monarch Friedrich Wilhelm IV commissioned Mendelssohn to compose incidental music for many pieces that were based upon Greek mythology and tragedy in order to revive the genre of literature and performance. Among his commissions, in 1843 Mendelssohn composed a setting for William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream; the setting comprises twelve musical numbers and a finale. The plot of Shakespeare's play focuses on a pagan god and goddess and is filled with fairies, magic, and fantasy. Due to the piece's pagan, fantastic inspirations, some puritanical leaders and musicians - particularly in Roman Catholic churches - have found the piece to be inappropriate for a Christian religious ceremony. In its defence at least Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night's Dream was a comedy with a happy ending.

If you’re feeling traditional rather than puritanical then the joyous Mendelssohn ‘Wedding March’ might still be a great option either as a processional or recessional.

If you’re looking for options outside of either Wagner and Mendelssohn then it’s really a matter of exercising good taste alongside what suits the personal tone of your wedding.

Off the top of my head I keep coming back to Johann Sebastian Bach.

Bach’s many cantatas and fugues seem to tick all the boxes. In particular there is Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring (derived from the cantata Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben, "Heart and Mouth and Deed and Life”). There is also the Toccata and Fugue in D minor ‘Dorian’ BWV 538 and the Toccata and Fugue in F Major, BWV 540.  Arioso in A flat for solo piano from Cantata No. 156 "Ich steh`mit einem Fuss im Grabe is softly elegant. A particular favourite piece of mine is Weichet nur, betrübte Schatten, BWV 202, the ‘Wedding Cantata’. Of course many would point out that Bach’s Ave Maria would be perfect for a processional but I would think twice about that. As beautiful as the piece is it is about the Virgin Mary after all and you may invite unwanted speculation from your guests if you are (cough) chaste.

Trumpet Tune in D by Jeremiah Clarke is a little more festive. Or consider his more famous Trumpet Voluntary ‘The Prince of Denmark's March’.

Charles-Marie Widor  was a fine composer and his Toccata (from Symphony for Organ No. 5) is spiritually intense for traditional organ music.

Eugène Gigout's famous Grand Chœur Dialogué might appeal to you as well.

G.F. Handel’s Water Music Suite - Air has a graceful and calming tone. The Arrival of The Queen of Sheba (Solomon) HWV 67 is upbeat and was made for a processional.

Beethoven’s Für Elise is perfect to calm last minute panic attacks before you go up the aisle.

And how can one forget Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart?

The Serenade No. 13 for strings in G major, K. 525 or more commonly known as Eine kleine Nachtmusik KV. 525 - II. Romanze: Andante is a beautiful melody familiar to many and sets a soothing tone. Ave verum corpus, K.618 is profoundly spiritual and lifts your hearts up to the angels. ‘Alleluia’ from ‘Exsultate, jubilate’ is wonderful if you can get your hands on a competent soprano. If you are feeling more adventurous then the Spanish Wedding March from The Marriage of Figaro which might be to your taste. 

Elgar’s Salut d'Amour, Op. 12 is soft, inviting and makes one feel you’re in some 19th Century romance novel set at court.

Elgar finished the piece in July 1888, when he was romantically involved with Caroline Alice Roberts, and he called it Liebesgruss ('Love's Greeting') because of Miss Roberts' fluency in German. When he returned home to London on 22 September from a holiday at the house of his friend Dr. Charles Buck, in Settle, he presented it to her as an engagement present. The dedication was in French: à Carice. 'Carice' was a combination of his wife's names Caroline Alice, and was the name to be given to their daughter born two years later.

Edvard Grieg’s Wedding Day at Troldhauen, Op. 65, no. 6 is magnificently playful.

Jean-Joseph Mouret’s Rondeau from Sinfonie de Fanfares is a beautiful Baroque piece. What’s a wedding without trumpets that could be heard all the way into the heavens?

Gluck’s Dance of the Blessed Spirits from his Orfeo et Euridice can be an elegant choice to do a recessional. Perfect for sensitive souls.

Gabriel Fauré’s Pavane, Op. 50 is sublime. I can never get tired of listening to it. Would make a worthy piece as a processional.

I would also throw into the mix Gaetano Donizetti’s ‘Una furtiva lagrima’ (A furtive tear) is the romanza from Act II of his delightful opera L'elisir d'amore.

It is sung by Nemorino (a tenor) when it appears that the love potion he bought to win the heart of his dream lady, Adina, works. Nemorino is in love with Adina, but she is not interested in a relationship with an innocent, rustic man. To win her heart, Nemorino buys a love potion with all the money he has in his pocket. That love potion is actually a cheap red wine sold by a traveling quack doctor, but when he sees Adina weeping, he knows that she has fallen in love with him, and he is sure that the "elixir" has worked. It may not fit your idea of a processional but I would try and use it some where in your wedding - perhaps at the reception.

I feel guilty about trashing on Wagner and Mendelssohn so I will leave you with two final thoughts. Reconsider Wagner’s opera Lohengrin. Forget the Bridal Chorus but instead listen to the chorus ‘Gesegnet soll sie schreiten’ in Act II. The various horns give this chorus a dreamlike quality and you feel like you are floating on air. Mendelssohn’s On Wings of Song is a powerful and poignant piano piece and quite suitable to play as your guests away your arrival in church.

I am sure there are other great classical music pieces that I have neglected to mention but others reading this might give their thoughts in the comments below.

If knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit, then wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad. So give careful and considered thought to what music you throw together into the mix as your church wedding processional and recessional.

Congratulations again and I hope it’s a special day for both of you and your families and friends.

Thanks for your question.