#but there is still ABSOLUTELY a theme re: how people are remembered and what lessons (if any) are taken from their downfalls

[starbuck]

how do you even watch Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul if you don’t know that a story is true, a story is untrue… as time extends, it matters less and less… the stories we want to believe... those are the ones that survive ??

[dojae-huh]

Thanks for your quick answer! I'm started to worry about Dreamies' future LOL. I always hope they could offer something more...like 127, not just big in sales but also real good music. I still remember Haechan said he is very very proud being part of 127 and I can see that he knows what's what. It's 127 that define the neoness of NCT, always bring sth new to the table. Hmm I wonder why SM doesn't try to give Dreamies a chance... I don't like that they've always walked within the lines. They need a push and go all the way to the extreme. Hmm I need to count the giftedness right? 127 have more talented mems than Dreamies so...

Dream is on a global tour gathering Domes and Arenas, why are you worrying? Heh. They've made it.

I didn't say Dream's music isn't good or too simple, but they do release more general public friendly tunes in comparison to 127's experimental ones. It is done both to cover different audiences (Dream is more for SK, 127 is more for the West) and needs (comforting music vs interesting music); and to adjust to the members' level.

Dreamies learnt how to ride hoverboards, do floorwork, be in sync when it comes to dancing, so it's not like they weren't pushed. However, there is the business thinking involved. Why invest more (vocal lessons) if the product is already profitable? It is more useful for the company to send Dreamies to shoot another ad, than lock them in practice rooms more than absolutely nessesary. Sometimes this attitude vexes me a lot, but logically I can understand. All those people working bts want to live their lives, not to scrutinise every performance and stay with the lacking members till the morning fixing their mistakes. Idols are given rooms, it is their job to put in hours of practice on their own.

Secondly, you can bring a horse to the water, but you can't make it drink. You can't make someone sing better by simply providing them lessons, the artists need to want to progress, go the extra mile, strive for improvement. Some just don't realise they are lacking, or don't care. Or tried, failed, and gave up.

Haechan said he would like to re-record Dream's earlier works. To include Jaemin and Mark on those songs, that they missed. So he is invested in Dream as well. 127 pushes him vocally though, he has Taeil and Doyoung to compare himself to.

Dream can't suddenly change their sound and approach. Their fanbase won't understand. WayV changed their sound and lost me. They even were worried about doing a darker theme. And indeed, "Smoothie" didn't get that many views (16mln after two months).

Not everything needs to be "artsy". Woodkid or Stromae are miles ahead as artists in comparison to k-pop boys, but it's hard to listen to them often, they demand emotional investment, it's "nutrients rich food" you can't eat a lot of it. Nowadays people consume so much content, they get overwhelmed, and want "easy to digest" or "put on the background" music.

I draw a line at "quality". Both a pancake and a complicated multilayered cake have their place, they just need to be done from good ingridients and with skill to be praised.

[dindjarindiaries]

In Defense of The Mandalorian Season Two

A look into how the writing of season two actually reflects the same writing as the original trilogy, most notably The Empire Strikes Back.

DISCLAIMER: This post is in no way trying to refute the opinions of others! I know that, to many, the writing of season two was a let down. I’m simply here to share my opinion on why I thought it was well done, but I’m very open to critiques and discussions (as long as they’re started with good intentions).

Below the cut, I’ll be discussing the similarities of the plot/story’s structure to that of The Empire Strikes Back, how season two acts as a bridge between seasons, and the “dropped” items that many have been concerned with.

SEASON TWO AND THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK: DEVELOPMENT AND SETUP

One of the biggest critiques I’ve seen about season two is that it set up a lot of major opportunities for the development of the story and Din and never went in depth on those. Some of these things include Din being told he’s in a cult called the Children of the Watch, the acquisition of the Darksaber, and the removal of his helmet. These are all things we caught glimpses and hints of, but we never saw any resolution for—not even any processing from Din. This left many feeling unsatisfied by the end of the season.

Much like how viewers must’ve felt at the end of The Empire Strikes Back, prior to the release of Return of the Jedi.

This sounds like a stretch, doesn’t it? But hear me out:

A BIG REVELATION: Din realizes that other Mandalorians can remove their helmets and that Mandalore may not be cursed after all. Similarly, Luke finds out he’s the son of Darth Vader. Neither one of these things is mentioned again in their respective season/movie.

A BIG QUESTION MARK: Din doesn’t know where Grogu’s being taken for training or how to contact Luke again and we also don’t know where he’s at in terms of his “helmet rule.” Similarly, Han Solo is sitting in enemy hands, captured and frozen in carbonite with an unknown fate by the time the movie ends.

IN MEDIA RES: Din’s just found out that he’s now the rightful heir to the throne of Mandalore as he wields the Darksaber and we know this is something he’ll have to acknowledge later. Similarly, Luke’s been training as a Jedi been abandoned his training to save his friends, leaving his status as a Jedi Knight unknown but hinted at being finished later down the line.

As you can see, both season two and TESB ended with huge things that were just... left there. We never get to see how they’re resolved or how exactly the characters will deal with all this information that’s been thrown at them. Instead, we’re left with the shadow of their consequences, feeling as if we’re being left on the edge of our seats.

Evidently, this plays out much differently in a show than it does in a movie because there’s a broader range of screen time/story time. That’s why some of these revelations have to come earlier in the season than they would in a movie. The timeline of season two is short as it is; truly, as far as we know, the whole thing takes place over just a few days. Naturally, then, it makes sense that Din wouldn’t have been processing events very quickly—especially with everything he has to do for Grogu at the forefront of his mind.

The idea with both these pieces is the long-run. We’re not looking at the story over just one season/movie anymore like we did with season one of The Mandalorian and A New Hope. This is going into something so much bigger and we’re truly only in the rising action of it all. We have to look past just this season and to the overall picture of Din’s story. If we got all the answers this season, there wouldn’t be much to work with in season three, especially in terms of Din’s character development. The foreshadowing with these season two events is setting up so much potential for Din’s character to be focused on as much as ever in season three, which—as a huge Din Djarin fan—is so exciting to me!

SEASON TWO AS A BRIDGE

Season three was confirmed by Giancarlo Esposito (Moff Gideon) before season two even released. Thus, it’s obvious that in the minds of the crew, season two is a stepping stone to the future of the story. If season one was the setup of our smaller story, then season two is the beginning of the larger one. The Mandalorian universe is expanding and thus the time that the story takes must also grow with it.

We can expect that all the big ideas season two set up—Din questioning his Way, starting to remove his helmet in front of others, earning the Darksaber, etc.—will be explored in more depth in the coming seasons. While the main goal of season two was still to return Grogu to his people (which did happen!), it also started to give us hints as to what’s coming for Din’s character and story. After all, this show is called The Mandalorian. It’s about time we learn more about that character and not just his relationship with Grogu, as touching as that part of him is!

BUT WHAT ABOUT...?

THE SILVER BALL?

The silver ball has been a very touching symbol of Din and Grogu’s connection ever since season one. It’s made appearances in Chapter 3: The Sin, Chapter 6: The Prisoner, Chapter 13: The Jedi, and Chapter 14: The Tragedy. In Chapter 3, it was a symbol of how Din’s feelings towards Grogu changed during the episode, where he initially denied him access to the silver ball and then later offered it to him to play with. Yet again in season one we see Din give the ball to Grogu after his run-in with the gang. Then, we don’t see it again until Grogu takes it himself in Chapter 13 and it becomes the very thing that gets Grogu to willingly use the Force, especially with Din’s help.

While this all hints at the silver ball being a key symbol in their relationship, it’s not something that’s been absolutely imperative to their bond. It wasn’t brought up again in either season finale, much to many’s displeasure particularly in season two. I think the reason why Din ends up keeping it is because:

It gives him something to remember Grogu by.

Other than the beskar spear, it’s the only piece of the Crest Din has left.

My prediction is that, should Din buy another ship/a new model of the Crest, he may be able to put the ball in that ship—and then when he reunites with Grogu, his son will be very excited upon spotting it in Din’s new ship. Had Grogu taken it, Luke might’ve taken it away from him, too, because the little womp rat was obviously very distracted by it whenever he had it!

THE MYTHOSAUR NECKLACE?

Yet again, the Mythosaur necklace is a touching symbol of Din and Grogu’s bond. It only makes one appearance in the entire show, though—Chapter 8: Redemption. Not once is it even mentioned before or after. We only see it twice in that episode: first when Din’s dying and he hands it to Cara and second when Din realizes Grogu has it and is chewing on it.

I’m not sure the necklace was meant to have as much weight as we gave it. I believe it might’ve just been a symbol of the fact that Din’s finally accepted Grogu as his foundling, just as Din once was himself. I assume Grogu still has the necklace tucked under his robes and that’s why we don’t see it again in season two. But the fact that it only appeared very briefly in one episode means that it most likely was just a one-and-done idea, which is much different than something like the silver ball.

GROGU NOT WANTING TO LEAVE DIN AND VICE VERSA?

One of the biggest themes of this season was letting go. For Din, it was letting go of his fear over Grogu’s safety and the restrictions of his Way. For Grogu, it was letting go of his fear over using his powers and his deep attachment to Din. While obviously leaving each other was not ideal for either one of them, in the end, it’s what they had to do. Din had to do what was best for Grogu, which was to let him train so he can control his powers. Grogu had to train so Din wouldn’t be risking his life so much to protect him and so he could abandon his fear of leaving his father.

Evidently, by the time they’re saying goodbye, it’s bittersweet—because Din’s proud of Grogu and Grogu’s determined/excited to train, but they’re both obviously going to miss each other. But truly, this is where the season’s been leading us. We had hopes they might stay together, but ultimately, Grogu needs to be trained!

IN CONCLUSION

This season left a lot of unanswered questions—because it wanted to. These weren’t plot holes. These were moments of foreshadowing for later, when Din and Grogu began to have their development on their own rather than together. A big lesson we learned from season one is that every moment of screen time counts. The same goes for season two. We can expect every untied thread from season two to be tied off by the time the series ends—whether that be in season three or season four.

[danteinthedevildom]

A Royal Pajama Party “Analysis” - Part 4 (of 7)

We’ll skip over the Jenga scene for now; there’s nothing I really want to add on from it, and typing up another post is going to kill me. Instead, we’re going straight to the next activity - and a fairly major split between choices. 

This Devilgram is absolutely spoilt for choice when it comes (ironically) to choices - and each one brings about something new to learn. You can consider some of these latter parts joined up, then; I’ve just grouped together different route options for sake of reading. 

Of course, we’re deep into the Devilgram now, so all territory covered is locked behind Story Keys! This is your cursory spoiler warning. 

Here we begin, back to our regular schedule of Diavolo angst. 

There’s a potential you thought “watching a movie together” was bad enough to write on a list of things Diavolo’s never experienced before, and wants to share in this rare moment of time he’s managed to attain alone with you. Perhaps you even thought “playing Jenga” was worse. 

Neither of those activities, however, have anything on the concept that Diavolo actually, genuinely wrote down, on his list of things he’s always wanted to do with you, “lazing around, doing nothing at all”. 

This is, I think, the biggest indicator that he’s just... never had an actual, genuine, casual friendship before. He’s never had someone willing to spend time with him doing nothing. 

Which - well. We already knew that. He’s told us before (as I mentioned in part 1) that he genuinely struggles to remember he can just invite you over without having to trick you with “event planning”. He forgets you’re willing to be around him. 

But there’s a difference between “oh, I forgot - you actually don’t mind spending time with me” and “I’ve decided that I want to schedule actual time to just do something so simple and basic, it usually happens when most people hang out, but I’ve never been able to experience it before and I think I’d enjoy that time with you more than anything.”

It hurts to realise most demons won’t spend time in his presence without reason, but it’s actively worse to realise this reaction means he cherishes the ability to do nothing with you. To just savour the fact that you’re there, you’ve stayed, and you really would be happy doing nothing at all. That someone can enjoy just being in his presence, nothing important going on, because they have nothing else to do but focus on him and they don’t mind. 

It’s proof that he’s really enough. Proof that, despite how reluctant others may be to put up with him, you see something in him worth enjoying. He doesn’t need to take you out anywhere, or do anything special. He doesn’t need to make it perfect. He doesn’t need to awe and wow you to stay by his side. 

He can just sit around, nothing planned, and you’ll stay. 

The only times he’s been able to keep demons at his side, he’s had to tie them down with oaths and pleas. These demons have expressed annoyance, at times, when he’s tried to spend time with them - admittedly because they are busy demons, and they don’t quite enjoy the same things as Diavolo, but that doesn’t exactly make the rejection feel much better. So it’s very possible that Diavolo struggles to recognise his own self worth.

It’s very possible that he doesn’t think himself a good enough reason to enjoy a night in. Most friends can say - and often do - that they happily spend time together just hanging out. Talking, lounging around, relaxing, but not really doing much more than basking in the other’s company. Yet Diavolo can’t. Experience tells him “Diavolo’s company” isn’t enough to make someone stay. 

That’s why it’s important to him to schedule this time in, despite how natural it should be. It’s not natural to him. It’s exceedingly rare, actually, and thus an activity he wants to enjoy when he has the opportunity for it. 

But it’s also a reminder - proof - that at least to you, “Diavolo’s company” means something. That, to you, he means enough on his own to be worth spending time with.  

Moreover, this time with you is likely dear to him due to how busy his usual schedule is. After all...

How much free time does a prince get? 

How much time can he spend doing nothing, especially with you - someone so desired, people actively fight over your time and attention? 

There is no better way to savour the fact he - for once - has all your time and attention, no pressing matters to attend to, than to do nothing. He can just sit there and enjoy you. No interruptions. No distractions. Nothing to fret over or worry about. Just the two of you, content in each other’s company. It’s a reassurance. A moment of, “wow, this is really real, isn’t it?”

More importantly, however, is the fact that it’s you. He’d love “nothing more. Together with you, that is...” 

He doesn’t want to be on his own. That’s not the point of the activity. It’s not that he wants to do nothing, that he wants to just sit there and read or eat some fruit as if those things are significant on their own. He doesn’t just want free time because he’s busy and overworked and doing nothing is fun. 

It’s specifically because you’re there. Because he’s not alone. Because these things he maybe does in his free time feel different when he’s doing them with you.    

Of course, if you noticed, there’s two choices he gives you above: read, or eat fruit. I’ve gone for the reading option for this post series, as the fruit open mostly gives a romantic lead and not much development otherwise. 

In this scene, Diavolo’s reading a book to you. It’s actually a single poem from an anthology he loves - from the Human World, once again. 

(The Human World seems to mean a lot to Diavolo. It recurrs a lot. When he’s given the opportunity to pick something, it’s almost always media from the Human World. Whether this is because he hopes it’ll help you two bond over common ground or he just idealises the Human World, or maybe even a bit of both, is uncertain. Interesting, however, that it’s cropped up twice now; even more interesting that the only things he chooses that are Devildom-themed are games and food - things that don’t reflect human culture as much, unless you know more of the context behind them.) 

The poem Diavolo reads is called “The Greatest of All.”

This poem is extremely significant for Diavolo. It’s a huge part of his characterisation in this chapter, and one of the more overt scenes at that - because he’s exceedingly clear that this poem didn’t make sense to him before. He makes it utterly transparent that something has changed - in him, in his life, in his understanding - to suddenly reveal the meaning to him. 

And it’s all because of that final point. 

“Only those beloved by their peers truly rule the earth.”

Diavolo’s a prince. He quite literally rules the Realm he was born in. As far as he’s aware, that’s all there is to ruling; be the monarch, and you’re there. It couldn’t possibly be more literal than that. 

So what does that final line really mean, to a prince? What does it mean to someone who really is the literal definition of “ruling the earth”? 

Almost nothing at all. It’s baffling. It’s nonsensical. How more truly could you rule than to physically be the demon in power?

Of course it would never click for him before. 

He’s never been beloved before you. 

It’s only recently that he’s understood the poem. Only recently has the Exchange Programme been in action, and only recently has he actually gotten closer to you - moreso in the much later Lessons. 

Diavolo has spent much of his life in power, but completely alone. He’s had almost no connections, no friends, no love or intimate, personal attention; no-one he could say he understood like the back of his hand, who understood every aspect of him in turn. 

He has power and wealth but he’s never truly ruled - not until someone who made him feel alive came into his life. 

Because that’s the point of this poem. It’s not about wealth, or power, or bravery, or support - it’s about being loved. 

You could have everything in the world, but you’d still be nothing compared to the person with little to their name expect the love of their friends. 

Only someone who can say “I have friends who’ll stand beside me through thick and thin; who love me as much as I love them; who see the qualities in me even I didn’t know exist; who bring out the best in me and make me want to be better” is truly great. Only they can say that they have achieved the greatest potential in a fulfilling life. 

Diavolo’s realised how empty his life was prior to you appearing in it. He’s realised just how little he had - how much he’s missed out on, how much he wasn’t getting from the other people he considers friends - and how much happier he is now you’re there. How much bigger he feels. How much stronger. How much greater. 

You are the change that helped him make sense of the nonsensical. You, in befriending him, have utterly changed the way he exists; how he feels, how he experiences, how he thinks. You’ve brought to the table things he never would have considered before - things he never would have been able to consider, because he needed a friend to help eek them out of him; a friend he could love, and cherish, and whom loves and cherishes him just as much - and quite suddenly, he realises why having no-one limits a person no matter how much they own materially. 

This poem is, very likely, the reason he understood how much you mean to him. At some point, he re-read it, reached that final line, and pictured you. 

Which is an incredibly poetic way for Diavolo to show just how much you mean to him; how much you’ve improved every aspect of his life. Without having to say your name, or overtly connect you to the poem, it’s clear that it’s about you - that you’re the reason for his understanding. 

Becase this poem means a lot to him, and you’re the person he wants to share it with; the one he wants to know he’s changed for.

Which perfectly leads us to this next part...

You’re his greatest person. He’s still dancing around it, but there’s really no-one else it can be - not with this description. 

Diavolo has spent - if not his entire life, then a good portion of it, wondering who the most important person to him would be. There’s no way to quantify something like that - to know who’s the greatest person in your life, to find the perfect fit for a list of requirements - because everyone needs something different from the people around them. But what would that person look like for him? What would the most important person look like for a prince?

Someone as royal as he? Someone who supports him, bound to his service? Someone who has no choice but to help him in every way?

Or would it look like a human - a plain, simple, ordinary human - brave enough to tangle with demons and kind enough to befriend them, even when they don’t deserve it? 

Someone willing to spend a night with him doing things others might find boring or rudimentary? 

Someone who makes him feel like more than a title; like more than the “Prince of the Devildom”?

Someone who’s changed him - however many thousands of years old he is - in such a very short span of time?

When you think about it like that, really, it could only have ever been you. 

+++

And thus concludes part 4! A middling one this time, I think; a bit long, but that final part was a little shorter than I had anticipated. Still, I hope you enjoyed it, and that it was easy enough to read!

Next post, we’ll be going over the concluding parts of the Devilgram - for the romantic route, at least. It’ll initially go over the scene that preceeds the choice between romantic and platonic, but then dive straight into the romantic aspect of the chapter. 

So, if you’d like, please head over to part 5!

[vivithefolle]

Love isn’t a Deus Ex Machina thing, it’s literally the core theme of the series, hence why Love Magic exists

Love Magic is never a concept at any time in the series. It’s only about “Lily Potter’s spell”. But what’s so special about Lily Potter? What’s so great about her? She did the thing any halfway decent mother would do for their child: she gave her life for them. Molly would’ve done it for any of her sons. Narcissa would have done it for Draco. Mrs Granger the nonentity would have done it for her daughter had she not been lobotomized instead. Lily Potter’s sacrifice isn’t anything special. It’s only special because Rowling decided so, because the Plot needed it to be.

Love isn’t a Deus Ex Machina thing? Then how come Quirrel conveniently burned to death at Harry’s hands? How come Harry had to live at Privet Drive because reasons so he could be abused so naive readers like you could feel very sorry for the poor widdle orphan and pat themselves on the back because wow, aren’t you special for feeling sorry for the poor widdle orphan?

And I didn’t misunderstand Harry. I literally explained him to you

If you don’t like him, I don’t care. Just stop giving his uniqueness to other characters

And you literally showed me exactly why you don’t understand him.

Harry’s superpower isn’t teh special uniqueness of his luuuurve, or the absolute pure pureness of his heart, it’s that he has FRIENDS. Friends who’d die for him, friends who’d sacrifice themselves for him, friends who’d do anything for him. THAT’S the power of love, not some bullshit ~special pure pureness of the heart of Harry Christ our lord and savior~. Harry isn’’t unfailingly kind or uniquely loving or whatever the shit. Harry is a run-of-the-mill teenager who has such obscene luck I wouldn’t be surprised to learn he was conceived under the influence of Lucky Potion.

You just showed me you’re a member of the Church of Harry Christ and I’m not interested in joining. Dear God I thought I was too attached to fictional characters but wow am I glad I’m not at your level.

Also one more thing: “tortured” someone?

Sure. A painful stunner is DEF torture (that’s legit all his Crucio did; it acted as a painful stunner. It threw Carrow backwards and hurt him while it did. Crucio isn’t even close to that when performed properly)

............ you... you fucking little hypocrite.

You filthy, lying, little bitch cunt of a fucking hypocrite.

Remember when I said the next person who’d try to lie to me to pity poor wee widdle Hawwy would be sorry? You pathetic little piece of shit. If you’re so in luuurve with your precious cuntfuck of a camera archetype you’d accept EVERYTHING about him, wouldn’t you? Haha, but noooo. “Oh wee poor Hawwy only used a painful stunner :)))))))” you fucking little bitch. Oh you accuse ME of trying to “make Hawwy not special :(((” but you... YOU... Hahahaha sorry everyone. I have a slight aversion to people blatantly trying to gaslight me. You may find me getting a little bit angry if you happen to trod on this trigger of mine.

Let’s see that again shall we? Open your eyes and your chakras, bitch, we’re going for a ride.

“It’s not a case of what you’ll permit, Minerva McGonagall. You time’s over. It’s us what’s in charge here now, and you’ll back me up or you’ll pay the price.” And he spat in her face. Harry pulled the Cloak off himself, raised his wand, and said, “You shouldn’t have done that.” As Amycus spun around, Harry shouted, “Crucio!” The Death Eater was lifted off his feet. He writhed through the air like a drowning man, thrashing and howling in pain, and then, with a crunch and a shattering of glass, he smashed into the front of a bookcase and crumpled, insensible, to the floor. “I see what Bellatrix meant,” said Harry, the blood thundering through his brain, “you need to really mean it.” - Deathly Hallows

If I could reach through my screen to force you to look at the relevant bits, I would. And I’d also slap you in passing. Yknow, just so you think twice before being a stinking fucking hypocrite again in the future.

Now, let’s do some actual literary analysis that isn’t your ~wah hawwy puwe of heawt luuurrrve~ diarrhea you’re still trying to paint my poor innocent blog with.

Now let’s see that PaInFuL sTuNnEr in detail:

He writhed through the air like a drowning man, thrashing and howling in pain 

In bold so you can see it very well. Admire the curve of each letter, the angles and the lines. And most of all, interpret the meaning of each and every word. Watch how he’s compared to “a drowning man”, do you know how excruciatingly painful and distressing it is to drown? How the air fills your lungs as you claw desperately for the surface, trying to find something to cling to, anything, the feeling of your lungs filling with this foreign substance you cannot spit back out? The feeling of fading away as all your oxygen is consumed by the futility of your hopeless flailing, your muscles losing their strength, your panic dulling as you slip into unconsciousness and water claims yet another victim...

Of course, drowning people don’t thrash and howl in pain. Because all they’re focused on is trying to BREATHE. But Amycus’ focus isn’t on trying to breathe. Amycus is only focus on Harry’s Crucio and the pain it’s bringing him.

But sure Anon. A pAiNfUl StUnNeR. Fuck you.

and then, with a crunch and a shattering of glass 

Now I’m aware Dummywood has made you believe that glass can be traversed easy without any consequences but real glass doesn’t work like that. Real glass takes some force to shatter. Real glass shatters into hundreds of tiny pieces that embed themselves into your flesh and skin, kinda like... oh! Kinda like that glass chandelier that fell on Hermione, once. After she herself was Crucio’d if I remember well. Hmm, by whom exactly, I have it on the tip of my tongue...

“I see what Bellatrix meant,” 

Ah yes. By the woman who tortured to insanity Neville’s parents and whom Harry is literally acknowledging as having taught him this particular lesson.

Harry himself is TELLING US HE LISTENED TO BELLATRIX’S ADVICE. ON FUCKING TORTURING PEOPLE. But “a PaInFuL sTuNnEr He’S aN oRpHaN :’‘‘(((((”. Fuck off. Fuck off, Anon. Fuck off and learn to fucking read.

Ah but I got ahead of myself! We’re not even CLOSE to the point!

he smashed into the front of a bookcase and crumpled, insensible, to the floor 

So Amycus gets tortured - or, as Anon astutely put it, pAiNfUl StUnNeR - smashes through a sheet of glass, and gets knocked out.

Hmm. Now if Harry just took out a knife and brought it to Carrow’s neck, he’d be worthy of being called Bellatrix’s faithful apprentice.

And now I’m gonna quote one of my Quora answers again because my followers deserve better than to see me completely lose my mind at some anonymous cowardly cunt trying to lie to my fucking face.

On the topic of Harry’s Crucios:

This could mean that Harry is scarily proficient at casting Crucio, that Amycus has low pain tolerance or that he was knocked out when he fell, but regardless of the meaning, IT’S NOT GOOD. EVEN IF IT’S A DEATH EATER, EVEN IF HE PROBABLY DESERVES COMEUPPANCE - IT’S NOT HARRY’S JOB TO GIVE OUT SAID COMEUPPANCE.

(Like, can I please remind everyone that Harry is supposed to be the Jesus Christ of his story? In the Bible we never have Jesus Christ torturing the pharisees or any of those who didn’t believe in him. Just… you’re telling me Jesus “Peace and Love” Christ would torture people… what the hell, Joanne?)

“I see what Bellatrix meant,” said Harry, the blood thundering through his brain, “you need to really mean it.”

…………………….. Um. Harry, what the fuck are you doing???! He’s taken Bellatrix’s advice! He actually relates to the insane sadistic terrorist! He is capable of using a curse that literally requires sadism to work!

(Again, when someone tells me “Jesus Christ”, “sadism” isn’t the first word that would come to my mind.)

At least there’s some sort of reaction. “the blood thundering through his brain”. But that’s a very… nondescriptive reaction. Is it the “adrenaline pumping in my veins” blood? Is it the “holy shit what have I done” blood? Is it the “I could get used to this” blood?

We don’t know. We’ll never know.

Alright, skipping to the part that interests us -

She struggled to pull herself together. “Potter, that was foolish!”

Eh, I’d have said “tactically unsound” (what if Amycus wasn’t knocked out), “monstrous” (that’s Bellatrix’s favourite curse you’re using, Harry), “insane” (re: Bellatrix), but yeah, I guess “foolish” would also cover it.

“He spat at you,” said Harry.

Ever heard of Disproportionate Retribution, Harry? A few fascists regimes all over the world were especially fond of it.

Then I’m skipping over the one thing that causes the most outrage because I’ll go back to it soon, just let me finish with this:

“[…] but don’t you realize — ?” “Yeah, I do,” Harry assured her. Somehow her panic steadied him.

I guess we can imagine that McGee is saying “don’t you realize what you’ve just done?”

Harry “assures” her he realizes. Harry knows. Harry has just used the literal goddamn Torture Curse and he’s totally cool with it. Or, if he was uncool with it, now he’s cool with it. Because “her panic steadied him”. So seeing McGonagall panic makes Harry think “yeah, using Crucio was the right thing to do”.

Well then! Onwards then, Dark Lord Potter! First it’s just one Crucio, then it’s just three, then it’s just one little murder of one lowly little naysayer, then it’s only a little more murder…

And now we’ll go back a smidge, because how are we supposed to react?

How are we supposed to reconcile the idea of Harry, who’s supposed to save us all through his Power of Love, with the Harry that has just tortured a man into inconsciousness?

Even if that man was a Death Eater, Harry is supposed to be the Christ-like figure. He’s supposed to be love and forgiveness incarnate. Heck, not a hundred pages later he’ll offer forgiveness to freaking Voldemort! He forgives Draco Malfoy, he forgives Albus Dumbledore, he forgives Severus Snape!

So how do we reconcile Harry Potter The Forgiver with Harry Potter The Torturer? Tell us, O Author! Tell us how to navigate the murky, twisted depths of human morality!!

“Potter, I — that was very — very gallant of you — […]”

…

…………………

………………………………………………

That was… gallant?

Gallant?

Wait, doesn’t gallantry imply some form of honor?

As in, not taking your opponent by surprise -

Harry pulled the Cloak off himself, raised his wand…

As in, facing your opponent head-on instead of hitting them in the back -

As Amycus spun around, Harry shouted…

As in, not torturing your opponent???

He writhed through the air like a drowning man, thrashing and howling in pain

That’s… unless the definition has changed, nothing about this is gallant…

Let me just -

(of a man) polite and kind towards women, especially when in public

showing no fear of dangerous or difficult things

Alright, so, Amycus isn’t a woman, so Harry can’t, by definition, be “gallant” to him.

Still, being “polite and kind” to a woman didn’t involve “torturing someone who disrespected her”, last time I checked. Punching an asshole harrassing her, definitely *pats Ron*, but torturing that asshole… no, just no.

And well, I guess casting Cruciatus is a difficult thing to do… and Harry didn’t seem very afraid to do it… that’s not supposed to be a good thing, but apparently, now it is…?

What made that

As Amycus spun around, Harry shouted, “Crucio!”

more gallant than

“What else did you take, what else? ANSWER ME! CRUCIO!”

After all, they’re the exact same thing. Torture. Inflicting tremendous pain upon someone for the heck of it.

Why do people lose their heads over Harry using Crucio, when they seem to neglect the fact that Draco Malfoy cast it?

Well, easy enough - Draco Malfoy is an evil little cockroach. The guy wished death upon people, he bragged about the fact that his Daddy dearest was a terrorist who killed people. It’s not too surprising that an evil little cockroach like him would find it acceptable to torture someone he considers “not human”, isn’t it?

What’s more surprising however, is that the hero, Harry Potter, who has been subjected to the Torture Curse, whose only use of the Torture Curse previously was when he felt distress and pain unlike any other, that Harry Potter whom is supposed to be a hero and some sort of role model, would actually manage to use said Torture Curse even though it requires real sadism to actually work.

And what’s even worse is that Harry Potter casts that curse, that literal Torture Curse, and instead of being rightly horrified, instead of being terrified by the boy’s use of such a heinous spell, instead of saying “alright Harry, you’re not doing this again, ever, right?”, instead…

Instead McGonagall calls Harry “gallant”, instead of telling him off for using such a curse. She briefly calls him “foolish”, but it doesn’t register, really, since she ends up calling him “gallant”.

That’s what angers people. That the Torture Curse is the most horrible, awful thing you can do to people… unless you’re Harry Potter, in which case it is a little “foolish”, but mostly “gallant”.

......................

But of course, little Anon over here isn’t angered. Because little Anon is a faithful devoted member of the Church of Harry Christ Our Lord And Saviour. Little Anon can say enormities like A pAiNfUl StUnNeR and believe it with the whole force of their little Anon heart, because uwu Hawwy speshul orphan pure lurve uwu.

Little Anon, please get the fuck out of my blog and never, ever come back. I’m sure this arrangement will be beneficial for everyone involved.

[heyheydidjaknow]

FUCK YOU TIME! I’m aware I’m an hour and a half late, but I finished the chapter, so HA. I know nobody cares, but I’m happy with myself. Previous chapter is at the bottom of the page, of course.

Chapter 4

"Why, pray tell, don't you trust me?"

"Because you're being paranoid." Mikey gets into position at the top of the ramp as you scroll through your phone absentmindedly, watching your friends back home sincerely mourning your death. "I am an ex-peer-ee-onsed skateboarder and ninja. This is gonna be epic."

"As someone who saw that episode," you reassure him, sighing at your mother's inactivity online confirming your suspicions for the umpteenth time, "you are absolutely going to get in trouble." The lair is a mess, the ramp more so, and the entire situation is so obviously the inciting incident that you're half convinced that the universe itself is pranking you. You slid the phone into your pocket, not really in the mood to start crying again. "In fact, this is directly related to the theme of the episode. In other words, don't do it."

"Relax, dude." He sets himself up. "I am totally gonna make this jump and it is going to be sweet."

"Theme?" Donatello pipes up from his place on the ground in front of the ramp. "The first major constituent of a clause?"

You blink. "No, the new Subway footlong. What the fuck are you talking about?"

"That's the definition of theme."

"Who uses that definition? Grammar teachers?"

"The dictionary."

You are dumbfounded. "Why would I— do you know how people usually use that word?"

"People usually use that word at all?"

You look over at Raphael and Leonardo, who are on the floor next to him, and who seem completely disinterested. "Do you guys—"

"No. Who uses the word 'theme'?" Raphael rolls his eyes. "Mikey, do you plan on jumping today?"

"Wait, so none of you have ever used that word in a literary sense?"

"There's a literary sense?"

You sigh. "In hindsight, I guess that makes sense, since— Mikey, you're gonna get grounded for it."

"Will not."

"Will too. Donnie, when you inevitably get grounded for this, after your grounding is over, come to my apartment. I'm teaching you literary analysis because that is ridiculous." You get to your feet. "Oh," you say, "before I go, when he grounds you, don't go out. If you get into trouble while you're out, get me, and if he asks why you're tired, say it was a movie marathon, and if he asks which movies, Lord of The Rings. See ya." You run out as you hear the shouts of their father telling them to stop.

You walk back up to the surface via the empty subway tunnel. You had quickly realized that it was infinitely less gross than going through the sewers, and your apartment already smelled enough like raw sewage from the amount of time you had started spending down there. You have considered buying new clothes with your quickly appreciating bank account, but you could not bring yourself to look, even with your new freedom. Maybe it was a lack of motivation? You do not exactly know. More likely is your complete lack of inspiration and faith in your own choices, but what do I know?

You start down the street to your building. You would not go so far as to say it felt like home, but you had become more accustomed to it. You had learned the bellboy’s name, nodded to neighbors. It is not a stunning amount of progress, but it is progress. You spend most of your days now, if not re-watching whatever episode is relevant next, for the first time, cyberstalking people you knew from back home. How courteous of that organization to give you an up-to-date feed of life moving on without you; at least you get to see your cousins.

You do not remember the actual walk. You remember getting to your apartment, walking right by your refrigerator, and collapsing onto the bed.

You feel like shit.

You roll onto your back, going right back to stalking. You are not sure why you bother making yourself feel worse. You tried messaging them to absolutely no avail. You cannot comment on posts, either. You know this. You still grasp onto this shred from your past. It just makes you sad. Why are you doing this to yourself?

You feel a lump rise in your throat. You close the window.

You curl around your pillow, hugging it tightly. You the sound of your fingers against the screen was the only thing to permeate the room. You are following a tangent, looking for a book you were interested in a century ago. Something about a pervert? You forget.

You miss home.

—

You do not even need to look up from your phone; the panting is enough. "I'm going to take a wild guess."

"I know you said to come get you," Donnie gushed, "but it was 2 in the morning and I totally forgot and I was freaking out about this new invention and—"

You set the e-book down, walking over and grasping his hands gently. "Take a deep breath, alright? You're gonna be fine, so long as you chill out and think."

"Baxter Stockman is serious business."

"I know, honey, but you gotta calm down, alright?" You slowly pull him down to sit on the bed.

"He snapped my staff with his freakin hand!"

"You are going to go through at least 2 more of those bad boys. Breathe with me." You inhale deeply. "In."

He mimics you.

"Out."

He follows suit.

"Okay. Are you good?"

His breathing slows. He swallows, nods. "Okay, I'm calm."

"Awesome. Now, I'm gonna give you a mini version of our lesson, alright? Is that okay?" The irony of you trying to calm down the trained ninja is not lost on you.

"Yeah, alright." He nodded.

"Alright. Let's start off with the basics." You sit yourself up properly. "Now, this is a kid's show, right?"

"If you say so, yeah."

"The thing about kids shows is that there's usually a moral to each of the episodes."

"Okay."

You put up one finger. "At the beginning of the episode, you guys got grounded, right?"

He nodded.

"You guys snuck out, and you got into a fight with Stockman. That fight is the reason he's after you, right?" You try to speak relatively clearly and, more importantly, calmly.

"Yeah." He seems to respond relatively positively to this.

"And then,” you continue, putting up a second finger, “Mikey losing the t-pod and not telling anyone is what lead to Stockman getting powerful, right?”

He nodded.

“In both instances, the problem was a lack of transparency, right? Not asking for help for fear of getting in trouble?”

He nodded again.

“So,” you nod with him, “the way to fix this is?”

“To ask for help regardless of whether or not it will get us in trouble with Splinter?”

“Exactly.” You smile encouragingly. “Why?”

“Because that’s the message of the episode?”

“You really are quick to catch on.” You get to your feet. “I’m not surprised you’re the brains of the group.”

“Really?” His eyes lit up.

“Most definitely. Now,” you get to your feet, “as much as I love when we talk, and as much as I owe you a lesson on how to identify these sorts of things on your own, I’m sure your brothers could use that advice right about now.”

“Right!” He gets up. “Thank you, again.”

“My pleasure, my guy. Oh, hit me up when you’re off of your grounding so I can figure out a lesson plan.”

“You got it.” He climbed out of the window. “See you then, Y/N.”

“Kick their asses.” You wave as he disappears into the night.

Your smile slowly slides off your face as you close the window. You pick your phone up to check the time.

You toss it onto the bed. ‘I’m making cupcakes.’ You have not eaten in what feels like a while. You are already out of bed. Might as well.

--

“She called me honey.”

Raphael rolls his eyes. “I’m telling you, there’s no way that a girl like her is going to be into you. You’re delusional.”

“Honey is a pet name!” Donatello’s voice rises slightly. “And—and she invited me to her place after we aren’t grounded!”

“Let him believe.” Leonardo pipes up from in front of the television. “I think it’s nice that he and she are as close of friends as they are so quick.”

“For the record, I’m rooting for ya, bro.” Mikey takes another bite out of his pizza. “Sure, you’re a little creepy, but so is she, so it works out.”

He scoffs. “Aren’t you three forgetting something? Like, I don’t know, that we’re turtles? Is the fact that she’s an entirely different species not a factor?”

“Part turtle.” He speaks incredibly fast. “Our DNA is mutated with—”

“Oh, I’m sure you’re holding onto that technicality real tight, aren’t you?” He stabs the dummy in the gut. “A technicality that I’m sure she cares about.”

“I did the research.” He gets to his feet, running over and grabbing a diagram from his lab. “We’re physically compatible.”

“Donnie. Brother. No.” He stops. “Please tell me you didn’t seriously look into whether or not you could fuck her. I know you like this girl, but come on.”

“I didn’t go out of my way to research how our reproductive system works for this.” He tosses it back into his lab, sliding the door closed. “I did that research a while back. I just had to investigate reproduction on the female end to make sure everything worked.” He stands up straight. “Theoretically, we are fully capable of reproducing with humans.”

“Theoretically?” Leo looks back at him.

He feels his face go red. “Well, there isn’t any clinical research done on the subject. We’re the only ones of our kind, after all, and I don’t have any female samples to use.”

“For fuck’s sake, Donnie, do not ask her for ‘samples’.” He gags. “That’s just fucking gross.”

“I wasn’t going to!”

“You were. I’d bet money on it.”

“Ten bucks says he still will.” Mikey drops the rest of it down his throat.

“Hey!”

“Dude, you’re freakier than I am. I love you but come on.” He lays back on the couch.

“Y’all are just gross.” He stabbed the dummy in the neck, sand pouring out of the hole. “We need a more durable dummy.”

“You could just not break the ones I make.” He sits down on the couch. “That’s an option.”

“It’s a literal punching bag. It’s a show of love.”

The episode ends. Leo walked over to the two on the couch, sitting on the other side of his lanky brother as Michelangelo scrounges for crumbs. “Look, it might be jumping the gun a bit to start researching if you guys can have kids. You guys aren’t even in a relationship.”

“I know.” He rubs his face with his hands. “I dunno, man. What am I doing?”

“Exactly.” He pats him on the back. “I’m not saying it could never happen, but this is a little much.”

He sighs. “Yeah, that’s true.”

“We wouldn’t lie to you.” He gets to his feet. “I’m gonna go meditate for a while. You wanna join me?”

“I’m good.” Donnie hopped over the back of the couch. “I’m gonna go work on this thing I’ve been working on.”

“Alright, man.” He walks off to the dojo.

He steps into his lab, sliding the door closed behind him. He sits at his workstation, a half-finished robot sat on the table. He slides his tongue in the space between his teeth absentmindedly as he goes back to connecting wires.

‘She used the past tense. Had, she said.’ He bounces his knee absentmindedly, reaching for the soldering iron. ‘But she called me honey. She called me hot stuff. Is that an insult?” He tests the joints. ‘I don’t remember.’

He sets his project down for a second. He opens his laptop, smiling gently at his screen saver. It is a photo you had emailed him of the two of you to show you how it worked.

‘I should make a camera. Or find one. A digital one.’ He sighs, closing it. ‘She is absolutely gorgeous.’

He goes back to work, still feeling your fingers around his.

Table Of Contents

Chapter 3

Chapter 5

[muwitch]

Why the Fullbringer Arc is an important plot milestone - 2

the continuation of this post and I’m bak on my bullshit~ remember my brain will jump to things

also CFYOW spoilers

so part 2/?

key figures and themes of the arc

So last time I said that ppl disliked the majority of new characters because, as opposing to the ones we grew familiar with, the arc was differently paced and so we didn’t have time at large to form some sort of solid connection to them.

And here the magic happens, because we do not have time to get attached to the characters and they seem to be faded against the background of all the others.

But apart from COMPARISON Fullbringers are quite an independent unit that focuses not on how much reiatsu you have, but on skill

In the Can't fear your own world novel the origin of Fullbringer power is revealed and it’s shown how actually universally badass those powers are, take Tsukishima for example, who grows a tree in a second to ward off lightning, simply adding himself to the past. Atomic.

For living people even just getting close to the level of those with whom they fought (three captains and three leutenants) and not dying in the first moment (except u Giriko) is a great achievement. For people who are not Ichigo Kurosaki with a family tree rivaling GoT of course. 

There is another important motive associated with fullbringers, which I mentioned above, and this is LONELINESS. And it's served so brilliantly that I'm going to die now.

If you look and read carefully, it becomes clear that even the fullbringers gathered together are unusually, exasperately lonely. (See the cover? They reach out but never do truly connect) This is the curse of their power. This is their main weakness. This is their unusual humanity and kinship with the Hollows.

This is also why, but that’s my guess, their whole presentation is very lacking, to show how they fall out of everyday life and proper sozialising, so even we, as readers, cannot properly connect to them. Same reach out, but not hold symbolism. Or I am giving too much credit, we just don’t know?

Even the one who has assembled the whole group, Ginjo, is an even lonelier person who has terrible trust issues, who survived betrayal and persecution, and everything that he once believed in was set upside down. And even knowing what kind of person he is, fullbringers, driven by loneliness, followed him. (Though, we must admit, he weilds his words well and rolls +20 on persuation)

Because, although for a short time, he helped them to bear the burden of this loneliness.

Needless to say, the entire initial situation with OG fullbringers happened not only bc of some noble meddling, but also due to the fact that Ginjo gathered people to TAKE POWER FROM THEM SO THEY COULD LIVE A NORMAL LIFE

Ironically enough, each Fullbringer posesses a piece of SOUL KING, which is the source of their power and lures Hollows to pregnant mothers, which is such an important piece of information it makes me mad it was only explained in CFYOW. 

Although it is understandable why Kubo chose not to focus on it during the arc. My take is he planned to show the importance of Fullbringers and their origins during TYBW, but we all know it didn’t happen.

Another common theme that follows from the previous two is PTSD, which unites the characters and key figures of the arc, and the paths of experiencing trauma constitute another conflict, where Ichigo overcomes it through friends and the return of strength and motivation, as opposed to Ginjo, who choses destuctive way to handle his own trauma.

In short flashbacks shown during “Pray for Predators” chapters, we can also clearly see PSTD practically in every person’s past. Each of Fullbringers go about it differenly, most proactive being probably Riruka and most reactive being Tsukishima and Ginjo. Which is also symbolically shown that people, who can go own with their lives and finally integrate into society stay alive. Those, who cannot, go to SS and are set into new path by more drastic measures.

I will surely attribute to the pluses how Kubo shows Ichigo's PTSD, literally in 3-4 chapters showing how he cannot, like Remarque's hero, settle in peacetime, because he constantly catches triggers, for example with his substitute badge.

Through Ichigo’s thoughts is shown how he merged with his position as a substitute shinigami and constantly thinks in categories that are not very applicable to his normal life, which he seemed to have dreamed of for 16 years And now he actually got it, but absolutely does not know what to do with it.

Kubo skillfully fuels PTSD and Ichigo's anxiety which is why he is being swayed by Ginjo's words correctly spoken at the right time.

 Example: Karin speaks of his brother, they say he always fought to protect  Ginjo fuels Ichigo’s doubt , saying he must act to protect his family

Accordingly, the theme approaches the climax for a push into the plot at the time of the attack on Ishida, Ichigo gets a punch in the gut twice: first from Ishida himself, who, with his unwillingness to tell things, pokes Ichigo into his helplessness and excludes him from the circle of trust, which IS the last blow 

And then from Ishida's father, who by his behavior shows that Ichigo's efficiency now amounts to zero, so much so that he cannot even protect Orihime while she walks home, which is why he runs away in frustrated feelings, realizing the message. So this intro is absolutely veritable and ingenious.

And so that you understand how desperate Ichigo is, if not yet, then here is a panel where FATTEST visual forshadowing happens. And here is an absolutely genius moment to understand that Ichigo is not a child but a teenager with all that it implies

He may be battle-hardened, but this is a 17-year-old living boy with trust issues, and if we remember that through his manager's lips we are given a direct hint that Ichigo is still immature in a way, so the meaning of this arc as a stage of Ishigo's psychological maturation becomes clearer.

Just look at the face he has when Ginjo promises to return his powers (not to mention the hysterics after that) Is this a healthy person's face?

And here my hands are literally itching to start talking about Ginjo, because to give an antihero who, in addition, will have a much closer dynamics with Ichi than Urahara, plus for the duration of the arc  will act as a mentor and father figure, this is just genius. Don’t @ me.

But the next plus, which will then bring us further, and this is THE Forshadowing 

Everywhere, just everywhere, starting from the very first pages.

And Kubo still confuses us in the course of the narrative, but my god, when you re-read, Easter eggs are crammed almost in every chapter and I think its beautiful. Both verbal (Ginjo is such a bad actor that he has to change his memory badumts) and visual

The plus that I mentioned earlier is 100% more lively dynamics between Ginjo and Ichi, because both are people and in fact, there is much more than it may seem at first, that brings both together. And the friendly connection that they establish with each other in this arc still not 100% false placeholder. (Which is easily spotted by the way Ginjo adresses Ichigo through the arc especially last chapters). 

And at the same time, they are in many ways the antonyms of each other, in age, color scheme, design, even names and also in what gives them motivation, in how they react to this or that event. For example, Ichigo is quite an emotional guy and puts his soul into everything, so to speak, then Ginjo, for example

Plus, the latter is not only skillful manipulator, but also embittered. And through such contrast, with generally the same input data, Kubo shows us that there is always a different path, leading to the topic choice, and where each specific one can lead a character.

Which absolutely doesn’t stop Ichigo from familirizing himself right off the bat and the two of them have comedy gold moments from the start. It is more lively, than being set against 300+ y.o. Urahara (whom I love as a character).

And, cross my heart Isshin is a great character, but he’s got that father of the year award, and Urahara can only give like a little itsy bitsy of information at a time only if it benefits him or a bigger picture, so the mentor’s role goes to Ginjo, which is well earned as he is technically the First Substitute. 

Ginjo is a mentor, a guide, and the main antagonist of the arc, which in itself is an unexpected and interesting combination within the framework of  Bleach. Here is a living example, in the moment of training he can go so far as to help Ichigo overcome his psychological barrier by simply and cruelly breaking him.

Which he does in the most painful way, through the trauma and inability of Ichigo to protect his loved ones. And from the reaction of the latter, childish and naive, his immaturity can be clearly seen (see the previous points). Although we do not know this yet, Ginjo is constantly trying to teach Ichigo one lesson that he himself learned the hard way. 

Combining this with such an important praise for a teenager and faith in Ighigo’s powers, which Ichigo was deprived of for 17 months as soon as he lost his powers as a shinigami ( all relatives are trying to isolate him from this, no one believes that he can and is able to stand up for him). This is another plus of the arc, namely the whole depth of the betrayal that Ichigo experiences when the cards are revealed.

Maybe the quincy arc would go completely differently, if Ichigo felt Ishida's betrayal or reacted to the truth about his mother in a different way. Did Ginjo not temper/prepare Ichigo in the way he did, did he involuntary not strengthen Ichi internally... Who knows how Bleach would end in general.

 This is to the question of the importance of this arc yes 

P.S  Strengthening the body also benefited Ichigo.Friendly reminder that he fights in his physical body for the entire arc except the end.

And the training episode immediately appears in a different light, right? 

And in my next hot take I will focus on another really important thing which is salvation and my own bitterness of why didn’t Kubo explore the whole SS thing and now we have to fee ourselves

[rockshortage]

*Cracks knuckles* Ow. Let's see, how about: A6, 16. B1, 12. C1, 2, 3, 5, 8. D4. E2, 3, 7. F2, 5, 10, 12 (Sorry, but also not sorry) I6. L1, 2, 4, and 9 :)

hoo boy that took a while

A6) Does your OC tend to assume their interpretation of events and reality is correct, or do they question it? I.e., “I’m sure that’s what you said” versus “It’s possible I misheard you.”

Ah, he questions himself a lot. Maybe he wasn’t listening well enough because he was too distracted by being anxious? Maybe he misinterpreted this event, because his background knowledge on it was lacking, he doesn’t know the full story and opinions from all sides, he’s not sure he can form a well educated opinion on this--

A16) Does your OC have to go through their own trials to learn a lesson, or do they listen and learn from observation and lecture? I.e., does your OC listen when someone tries to tell them the importance of budgeting, or do they have to go experience what happens if you don’t budget first?

Hector needs to do it himself for Science, because how else is he to truly know, if not from his own personal experience? Trusting what people tell you is good and all but gathering data yourself is better.

Unless we’re talking about raider politics, in which case there’s not really a good way for Hector to gather data without seriously endangering him and friends, so he’ll just listen to Gage.

B1) Do they believe you have to give respect to get it, or get respect to give it?

Generally, he believes it’s necessary to give people respect before you can expect it in return. He learns that many people do not in fact think the same way. He’ll still want to extend basic courtesy to them even if they’re assholes, unless they disrespect/piss him off to the extremes, or if their actions threaten his position and in turn the well-being of himself and friends.

B12) Your OC orders something to eat and gets their order done in a pretty wrong way, something they can’t just pick off or whatnot to correct, or something major is missing. What do they do?

Have a back and forth about it in his head – ah it’s not so bad it’s still fine, but then again he really wanted it differently… but he doesn’t wanna bother them and be entitled about it, but man… :( Might get close to pointing it out but chances are slim that he’ll actually get someone to correct the order. It’ll be disappointing but he’ll eat it.  

C1) Does your OC have a moral code? If not, how do they base their actions? If so, where does it come from, and how seriously do they take it?

Eeeh, not a super strong one. His baseline are general societal morals and norms, like… help person good, kill person bad. Most of the time he’ll base his actions on what feels right for him and for his friends. He’ll consider: will doing this make me feel bad afterwards? Will it have a negative impact on other people, who don’t deserve it? Is that consequence worth it because it saves my own skin or helps/protects my friends?

C2) Would your OC feel bad if they acted against their morals? If not, would they find a way to excuse themselves for it?

Bringing back the point about sacrificing for the greater good. He’d consider that the morally right thing to do because it impacts fewer people negatively. But making that sacrifice endangers his friends, whose lives for him personally are worth much more than an abstract crowd of people. So he chooses to not do the thing for the greater good and save his friends instead, and yes, he would feel very bad on the one hand, because oh boy. As far as most people are concerned, he did a horrible terrible thing and was extremely selfish and absolutely chose wrong. But on the plus side, and that’s a very big huge plus- he still has his friends. And still having his friends makes him feel less bad than how he would have felt if he didn’t have his friends anymore.

So uh… yes and no.

C3) Is it important for them to be with people (socially, intimately, whatever) whose major ideological tenets align with their own?

More or less. He can’t hang out well with people he completely disagrees with in every way, of course that’s not going to work. But Hector is… how to say… kinda boring when it comes to ideals and opinions and all that stuff. He just doesn’t have very strong ones in general. Which can make him a little bland and potentially spineless, but also pretty agreeable. As long as they don’t constantly shove their great big opinions in his face, they’ll get along well enough.

C5) Do your OC’s morals and rules of common decency go out the window when it comes to those they don’t like, or when it’s inconvenient? Aka, are their morals situational?

I think I kind of answered this in C2. Basic morals do get thrown out the window if friends are threatened, or if he gets pissed off enough. He’d have to be really pissed off though. As well as being post having-grown-a-spine(-at-least-partially). Hurting people bad but being insufferable to Hector also bad so guess what fucker

C8) Is your OC more practical or ideal morally? I.e., do they hold people to high expectations of behavior even if it’s not realistic for the situation, or do they have a more realistic approach and adapt their morality to be more practical?

Again a little tricky because I’m having trouble coming up with a scenario that would help me make up my mind with a definite answer. I’m leaning more towards a practical approach 1) because Hector is more of a realist/pessimist in general, 2) he doesn’t want to like… be overly demanding

D4) Would they like to be immortal? Why, why not? If they are immortal, would they rather not be?

The more he thinks about it the more meaningless life seems to get for someone like him. Solution: don’t think about it! Repress that shit because it’s not like you can do anything about it anyway. Also an involuntary solution but one that helps nonetheless: have shit memory so that you don’t feel like you’ve lived too many lifetimes.

If you were to ask him, the answer you get completely depends on the headspace he’s in at the moment. If he’s just vibing, going about his day and things are going well then yeah! Immortality isn’t so bad. If you catch him on an off day, things aren’t going so well, maybe he just thought about having to deal with losing his friends eventually… then you obviously get the opposite answer.

E2) Which of the nine types of intelligence is your OC strongest in? Weakest? (Linguistic, existential, naturalist, et cetera)

I know I talked about this before and I grouped them from strong to medium to weak but I can’t for the life of me find the post anymore (thanks tumblr for your useless garbage search and tagging features). So I can’t even check if I’m still on the same wavelength with past me :v

From strongest to weakest we have…

Logical-mathematical

Spatial

Linguistic

Bodily-kinesthetic

Musical

Naturalist

Interpersonal

Existential

Intrapersonal

E3) How many languages do they speak?

Three… and a half.

The half language being Swiss German, because I don’t know what the fuck it is even after graduating from language uni

The others: Standard German, English, and French, from strongest to weakest.

E7) Are they a good note-taker? Are they a good test-taker? Do exams make them nervous?

Yes, yes, and yes. He’s very good at taking notes considering most of science is documentation. And even now when he’s not doing a lot of Formal Science things, he still writes in his journal almost daily, summing up events and making notes of important things. He gets nervous with tests with all the self doubt if he really prepared well enough and the unpredictability of the questions that will be asked, but once the pen is in his hand, he just blazes through it.

F2) What’s their ideal home look like? Where is it?

Someplace underground, safe and sturdy like a vault. Industrial aesthetic is welcome and he wants to have plenty of space, but it shouldn’t feel huge and empty. Needs to be homey, even if it might feel a little rustic to the average person. Having it built into a mountain would be sick, so he still has the perfect protection from the sun, but he doesn’t have to crawl out of a hole in the ground like some kind of worm – instead he opens the door and gets the most amazing view immediately.

… and I promise, only after writing the above did I remember that he pretty much lives in a mountain already, just a plastic one. Close enough.

F5) How handy are they? Can they fix appliances, cars, cabinets, et cetera?

Quite handy indeed. He can fix most things, he usually just needs some time to (re-)familiarize himself with the object and its functions. A lot of it also involves trial and error, but he’ll figure it out eventually.

F10) Do they engage in any of the arts? How good do you intend them to be? Would they agree they are?

He’d actually be really good at pen/pencil drawing, what with making technical illustrations and blueprints of Science Stuff, but it’s not a skill that’s applied in an artsy setting. When the goal is to draw for the sake of drawing, evoking emotion, or paint with a brush, that’s probably when shit would fall apart. I can’t remember who the artist was, but it reminds me of this little comic about Paladin Danse – in which he’s extremely good at technical drawings but then he attempts to draw a dog and it just looks…wrong.

Now with music, he’s more likely to engage in it in an artful way. He likes to sing, even if he very rarely does it now that he has people around him more often than not. Before, he’d just be alone in his lonely place and sing and scream to his heart’s content, but now he’s too awkward to do it, because someone might hear him. He is pretty good at it though, considering how much alone time he’s had to practice.

F12) Would they enjoy a theme park?

The rides and junk food? Yes absolutely. But the giant crowd and every little consequence it entails, nope, no thank you, he’ll just leave it be.

You bet he’s gonna go on the rides at nuka world though once they got them back up and working, because the crowd isn’t as big as pre-war and he’s the fucking overboss and can skip lines and restrict access to others however he damn pleases.

I6) Could they eat the same thing they enjoy over and over and not get bored of it quickly?

He can, but that doesn’t mean he enjoys it. The first month or so at nuka world he almost exclusively lives off of some shitty nutrient bars. In some scenarios, food just exists as sustenance and not as something to be enjoyed.

In a preferable scenario though, it is to be enjoyed. And I think while he would get bored of it after a while, it’d take longer than for the average person. And even then, he’s just happy he can eat something enjoyable at whatever pace he likes instead of having to scarf down Compressed Nutrient

L1) How have your characters changed since you created them?

He stopped existing in a void, which is a pretty damn big change. Now he has a whole world and other characters to interact with, that contribute to shaping and developing his personality.

L2) What do you consider the biggest themes in your character, if any?

Oof, this is hard. Maybe… getting to know yourself? Accepting change, personal growth?

L4) Would you hang out with your OC if you could?

I’m actually not sure sjdfsdnsv

Like yes he is sweet bean who must be protected, but that doesn’t change the fact that he is a weird little old man. I guess if we can just chill listening to music and he can go off about crustaceans or something and we speak The Horrible Language, why the fuck not

L9) How did you come up with your OC?

Masks cool. Me especially like gas masks. Unhinged science characters also cool. Make generic but still sliiiightly unique design and make it a point to not have him be a young pretty boy character despite having immortality. Add lots of weaknesses to compensate for the immortality. Add science personality things and complete the picture with projections of my own personality. Boom, you’ve got yourself the beginnings of a Hector

[yanderedbh-moved]

The Yanderes As Horror Movie Villains

Slasher-thirst Tumblr is a wild place, but I would like to thank it personally for helping to inspire this post. I realize these are all debatable, but I hope I provided adequate enough arguments to explain everyone’s placement, please enjoy!

Connor: Buffalo Bill (Silence of the Lambs)

At a cursory glance of the two, one might come to the conclusion this is a man who follows the rules, one who appears just as normal and well-adapted as any other. However, bind closed doors; in private, it is only then that they would show there is much more to them than meets the eye.

Bill is described as “He wasn’t born a killer, he was made one.” This reflects the way Connor may have been created to serve a purely functional purpose for the benefit of humans through the events of his life, as well as through his own choices, he becomes something of his own making. He becomes an individual as a result of his own free will.

As a yandere, Connor would likely experience intense frustrations over being created as an android, and he couldn’t help but act out on these frustrations, maybe even taking some of this out on you. He wants to be what he fundamentally isn’t, and it kills him.

Markus: Micheal Myers (Halloween)

While there may be a bit of hesitance for Markus to decide which path he desires to pursue. (Be that pacifism or violence.) Once he has made up his mind, he will follow through without hesitation or a second thought. Quite similar to the way Micheal devotes his life to stalking his sister and completing his “unfinished business.”

While not precisely as bloodthirsty or ruthless as some of the other killers present, Micheal is far from squeamish and is just as capable of ending the life of his victims, or really any who get in his way as any other. And given a choice, Markus is equally competent in this regard.

As a yandere, Markus would really personify Meyer's chilling stalker side. He can easily play with you without making himself visible, maybe even without you noticing anything at all at first. He’s a tricky one to figure out, and even if you do think you understand him, it’s all the more difficult to convince others to see him as dangerous as you do.

Kara: Norman Bates (Psycho)

While she may initially pride herself on her ability to look after those under her care, God only knows what she’s capable of, should one cross her, or try to challenge her by hurting those she’s close to.

It’s practically within both of their DNA to latch onto what provides them with love. She wants above all things to keep those she loves safe, to never abandon them, or in other words, to never let them get away.

The two of them share a demeanor, which would suggest they are far weaker than they actually are. Norman acts particularly secretive and shifty around strangers, and Kara will generally function with her cards close to her chest, never really proving just how strong she is without a good reason to do so.

Hank: Freddy Kruger (A Nightmare on Elm Street)

This is a little tricky to explain, but if you view the events which play out in their story as a timeline, there is a massive connection between the two. At the start of their roles in the story, they worked hard to maintain (and even uplift) a positive reputation, however, due to one dramatic change. For Freddy, it’s the discovery of what he’d done to the children of the town, and for Hank, the loss of his son. Which change their lives and reputation forever. For Freddy, this results in the city burning him alive, and for Hank, this leads to a downward spiral of alcoholism, among other self-destructive habits.

Additionally, there’s a common theme of escapism, which connects the two. The way Freddy waits until his victims are asleep, and he has the chance to kill them in their sleep, while Hank’s life is changed by his reliance on alcohol to escape the tragedy of life, and to avoid his own feelings.

Once he eventually does find his passions again, though, be it falling in love with you or managing to re-discover his enthusiasm for his job Hank will peruse these with enthusiasm and passion equal to Freddy’s.

Luther: Pinhead (Hellraiser)

Even though Luther doesn’t hold onto his initially created purpose for long in the game, that doesn’t change the fact the two of them were designed to cause harm and evil. Though admittedly through very different paths, and scales.

Both are far more intelligent than they would likely admit. It’s interesting to note Luther knew how to handle himself well enough while in his master’s home so as not to fall victim to Zlatko’s sadism, but was also competent enough to know when he had a viable means of escape.

When it comes to getting his revenge on his master for the cruelty he caused, Luther doesn’t actually need to use violence to punish Zlatko. Leaving others to handle bringing him to justice, similarly to how Pinhead doesn’t need to use force as a way to intimidate or scare his victims.

North: Damien Thorn (The Omen)

There’s a theme that connects the two. However, this yields vastly different results for each character, respectively. The two fail to really understand their own strength, though, for Damien, this is on account of him undermining his abilities. While for North, this leads to her failure to be a proper leader for Jericho.

Deep down, as a yandere, North wouldn’t actually want to hurt you or give you any reason to fear or resent her. However, she just fails to understand humans in a fundamental way, which results in her accidentally bringing you harm again and again without learning her lesson.

She doesn’t really entirely seem to grasp or take accountability for the way her recklessness and impulsiveness will put others in danger. (The way a violent route can end with Markus getting shot and losing his life.) There’s no way she saw this coming, and only did what she did because she believed the ends would justify the means.

Simon: Rose Armitage (Get Out)

Say what you will about the way Rose betrays Chris at the end of the movie, from the very start she knows precisely where her true loyalties lay, and to the end, she does not compromise this.

Like many of the other androids fighting at Jericho, Simon wouldn’t be anyone’s first choice as a fighter. However, he is willing to prove, through either dying or surviving, he is far more capable than others saw him as. Rose definitely undergoes a change of her own and is far from the person the audience thought her to be at the start of the movie.

While in many ways, Simon would be the type to downplay his own voice and opinions in the name of preserving an overall peace, when it comes to what he has to say in regards to the more significant whole conflict, only then will he say how he really feels.

Josh: Carrie White (Carrie)

There’s a kind of bittersweet parallel which connects the two of them. That being, neither of them would intentionally go out of their way to hurt anyone, Josh, in fact, using most of his screen time to convince Markus from making violent decisions. Yet still, Carrie is eternally remembered for the deaths of her classmates, which died at her hands, and if Markus chooses to peruse violence, as an android, Josh will be remembered for his leader’s cruelty.

Likewise, as a yandere, Josh would hate to cause his love any kind of harm, or even really scare you too much, yet all the same, when pushed to his breaking point, he is just as willing and capable of inflicting pain as any other.

Many would say because of this, then deep down, they really always were this cruel and violent to their core. This is entirely false, however. Deep down, Josh wants nothing more than a happy and willing partner, one who desires to provide him with the love he would give you.

Kamski: Patrick Bateman (American Psycho)

While his innovation and ambition would do well for him in terms of his career, it’s not all it would result in. Many who work closely with Kamski would take discomfort with his icy, stony outer shell, and would at the least distrust him, and at most, detest him.

The two share incredibly high standards both for themselves, as well as for those around them. Kamski will always be remembered for his “test” he forced Connor to complete, and it’s far from a stretch to imagine he would try to force you to undergo some kind of similar test to prove your loyalty to him.

And of course, this is not even to mention their obsession with their own self-image and unclockable narcissism. Elijah’s pension for self-isolation likely a result of the way he feels too caught up with himself to bother sharing company with another; he deems “unworthy.”

Chloe: Jennifer (Jennifer's Body)

She was programmed to be a companion and a servant first and foremost. She was designed to be something which completed another, with any care for her own well being or inner desires left as an afterthought.

As a yandere, it’s interesting to imagine her using this to her own benefit. As in, she would use her own charm and good looks to convince you she means no harm, and after all, how could someone who appears so innocent be up to no good?

Jennifer, as a villain, uses her own good looks and charisma to ensnare her victims, and you can bet Chloe would follow in this lead. She knows how to uses people’s outer perceptions of her against them.

Gavin: Jack Torrance (The Shinning)

There’s not really anything shown of Gavin’s life outside of work, so it’s tricky to gauge what exactly his passions are, however, what is clear is the way once Gavin becomes genuinely passionate about something at work he becomes far more animated and interested in following them through.

In The Shining, Jack balances a deeply nerving combination of both a loving father and husband, and a murderer, and you know as a yandere, Gavin would act eerily similar as well. Just as threatening as he is loving, playing equally as your lover, as well as tormentor.

What is plain to see between the two of them is their absolutely self-serving attitude in regards to themselves, as well as how this extends to others. Gavin doesn’t care who he upsets, or who he steps on to get what he wants, and there’s nothing anyone else to can do about it.

Zlatko: Jigsaw (Saw)

It’s debatable and not precisely well elaborated in the game what it is that motivated Zlatko to be so cruel and evil to androids. However, he does appear interested in testing the limits of what androids are capable of, and what they can endure, persuading a truth Zlatko himself doesn’t quite fully understand. Which in a roundabout way isn’t too far off from Jigsaw.

In his eyes, there is no such thing as a genuinely innocent being, and no one, human or android alike, is free from his pain. This absolutely would extend to you as his lover.

Furthermore, as a yandere, Zlatko would use pain and would continually put you through intense agony as a way to try and chip away at your free will. His end game here would be something like trying to slowly weaken your resolve until you were just as loyal to him as Jigsaw’s followers are to their leader.

Ralph: Annie Wilkes (Misery)

While he may not exactly have Annie’s innocent face, still, Ralph wasn’t programmed to be anything more than a farmer, and because of that, people may not see a real reason to fear him at first.

Unfortunately, he was left traumatized and fundamentally shaken from an attack long ago, which causes his violent mood swings. He can be just as pleasant and happy with you, and he can be cruel and hurtful. Again, even though he may not want to bring you harm, Ralph doesn’t really understand his own actions here and can fall victim to his own anger every now and then.

Additionally, it’s challenging for Ralph to hide any pain or anxiety he feels on the inside, and it’s near impossible for him to stop himself from hurting you during an intense emotional outburst, even if he knows deep down he’ll likely regret this later.

Daniel: The Babadook (The Babadook)

Both of them almost serve as a metaphor for the possible damage which arises from trying to hide your inner pain and feeling from the ones you love. This damage hurting both the host and those around them in the cross-fire.

There is an intense fear Daniel possesses, the fear that if he ever were to be genuinely vulnerable with you or to really show you any of his weakness, then you would just leave him and know how much he relies on you.

A part of him might actually genuinely think it’s for the best to be like this. It’s hard for him to ever really, totally grasp the way his anger and resentment hurts him, and how he doesn’t have any real reason to fear being open with you.

Nines: Hannibal Lector (Silence of the Lambs)

In the single scene, we see of Nines in the game, we know he isn’t there for any kind of a positive reason. He was created to eliminate Connor and send him away fro good. Yet still, as he stands there, Nines is perfectly poised and doesn’t show any kind of outward hostility or malice towards Connor.

His chilling reputation precedes him. Nines is deeply analytical, never failing to notice even the smallest of details, and even if you can’t stand who he is as an individual, it’s easy to see how he earned the position he currently occupies.

As a yandere, he’s all the more analytical and terrifying. Because of that, he wouldn’t feel the need to use any displays of violence to cause you to fear him, and he knows as well as any other the effect he has on you.

[heartfullofpony]

Family Appreciation

It was 8 years ago almost to the day when Family Appreciation Day aired, and it was on that very day that Bronycon 2012 was held. Back when it was BroNYCon. It was the last of their conventions to be held in New York City properly - preceding the one that came 5 months later in a New Jersey convention center, and the one that followed a year after that in Baltimare.

I've got to tell you, it was absolutely crazy. 7 or 800 people showed up for an event that was only prepared for 250. The layout of the entire convention was two narrow hallways that formed the shape of a letter "L", leading to an auditorium, and all of the dealers and artists were packed into those hallways. It was so crowded that the hotel threatened to call the fire department and shut us down. My heart went out to people who were turned away at the door.

It was a crazy experience, but a magical one as well. I was fortunate enough to have a home base - a place to keep my backback - a place to sit. Because I was manning the charity table, running the toy drive. And it was in those earliest years of the brony phenomenon that people gushed the hardest at the prospect of doing charity work. There was so much joy. So much positivity. So much hope.

I was there with my daughter, and a fellow member of Bronies for Good named Tortilla who I had only met that day. In all the chaos, there was no real set up for screening the episode within the convention, (at least not one that I could physically get to). So my daughter and I slipped away for 20 minutes and watched it in an echoey stairwell, huddled around my cell phone.

Looking back, I think Family Appreciation Day was the perfect fit for the occasion, because for me, that moment was all about building a family memory. Having recently re-watched the episode, I now have a new respect for how profound it is. For those who don't remember, the premise is that everyone in school has to bring in a family member to give an oral presentation, and for Apple Bloom, no one can do it except Granny Smith because the harvest is coming, and everypony is busy.

Diamond Tiara made Apple Bloom really, really, really self conscious because Granny Smith was kind of kooky. Apple Bloom spent most of the episode trying to avoid humiliation - embarrassment of her kin. And it's perfectly natural. We've all been there at various points in our adolescence - kids embarrassed of our elders.

When Granny Smith gave the actual presentation, however, she told the history of the founding of Ponyville - how she was there. How every quirky ritual that she'd built around making zap apple jam was actually born of experience - of magic. How that very jam was the foundation of all the fortunes built in Ponyville. Even Diamond Tiara's own ancestors'.

It was an eloquent story. A beautiful one. This was a landmark episode in the show's history, because up until then, Granny Smith had been something of a senility joke. But here, they laid the foundation for a longstanding theme that lasted throughout the series - emphasizing that the elderly have value - that they have stories to tell - that they were young once just like us. That the friendships they formed as children were still important in the present day.

And all of those lessons are seriously amplified by hindsight. In The Last Problem, middle aged Applejack shows up at Twilight's castle wearing the scarf that Granny Smith had always worn. And we all inferred that Granny Smith had died of course - that Applejack was the new matriarch. Watching this episode really drove that point home.

Knowing that emphasized to me just how important its message really is. How fleeting life is. How the stories that the elderly have to tell are, in fact, a limited resource.

If Granny Smith not given that presentation in Apple Bloom's class, that knowledge might never have been passed on at all.

As time goes by, more and more of our history slips out of living memory, and gets confined to books and recordings.

Looking back at this episode, I also can't help but look forward, and wonder what stories I will have to tell when I am old. How will I explain the world before the Internet? How will I explain all the crazy stuff that's going on right now today? I hope and pray that if I'm fortunate enough to live long enough to pass those stories on, that there will be someone young who actually wants to listen.

But in the meantime, I'm grateful for the memories I have. My daughter has long outgrown the show, even though I have not. This episode, to me, apart from its own richness in meaning (made only richer by the finale's reminder of Granny Smith's mortality), will always remind me of the time my daughter and I watched it together, huddled around a tiny screen. In an echoey stairwell, taking a break from the chaos of the crazy little convention that would eventually evolve into the mammoth that Bronycon became.

Discuss

-Sprocket

Please support me on Patreon. That is, if you want to. No pressure of course, but I ask because I do have mouths to feed. You can also follow Heart Full of Pony on FimFic

[inevitablyuncertain]

1, 4, 16 & 18 for bookworm asks?

:0

1. What are you reading right now, and what do you think of it? i’m currently making my way through les mis (take 2 electric boogaloo). and i think the each book being started with like a 50 page history lesson isn’t really necessary, but i read them anyway because sometimes there’s lines that i just Vibe with. i like how dramatically allegorical every named character is; it take’s people’s character traits and goes ‘yea but what if they were the Absolute Symbol for this’ which is probably at least part of the reason adapting it to modern au is so popular in the les mis fandom (in addition to historical accuracy being a pain + modern au is easier to fluff for such a depressing book). and every so often i’ll be reading and think oh, the trait of this character could foil that trait of this other character from 300 pages ago and i just think that’s neat. it’s so funny to me how Dramatic(TM) and petty javert can be. i think think this kind of “i’ve chosen my hill and i’ll die on it” mentality of more classical lit characters has perhaps influenced how i play characters in dnd

4. Most overrated classic book? does contemporary classic count? to kill a mockingbird. i have no idea why everyone and their mother says that’s their favorite book. it was a good book, i read it in 10th grade english class too. but like? idk. it sounds like an easy answer

16. Favorite genre(s) and author(s)? sort of adjacent to my last answer but a lot of my reading tastes were influenced by my various lit classes so i do like classics especially the mid-century works like catch-22 and 1984. something about the writing style of the time is straightforward? which lends itself and gives some kind of tone to the exaggerated or absurdist themes they have.  i like bradbury and the stories he tells. my brother complained once that ‘for a scifi author he seems rather anti-technology’ but that’s not the point! >:V it’s about the people who use that technology and what they do with it. (also what’s the point of glorifying technology when those stories show like. the same amount of problems and suffering in the world ?) i also really enjoy baldwin. giovanni’s room? picture me pacing around me room re-reading the lines because they feel like they need to be heard aloud but i’m reading this for a class and i can’t keep getting distracted 

18. Favorite and least favorite books read for high school classes? hhhhh remember when i said my tastes were influenced by lit classes lmao favorites: - the little prince. i read this one in my french class and it! is very sweet! and i love it! one of my friends got it for me for my birthday one year - the awakening. i remember being just absolutely fascinated by the ambivalence that enda felt about her life as a mother and wife - their eyes were watching god. just. overall a very good book. i haven’t read it in years and i remember about half the plot AND YET it still holds a place as a favorite because i remember how well it was written and how much i enjoyed it least favorites: - tess of the d’urbervilles. i don’t actually know if i’d consider this a ‘least favorite’ but this is another one i haven’t read in years but unlike their eyes were watching god, i remember nearly ALL of what happened and i still sometimes just think about it and get frustrated. i’m not gonna get into that now though, just know i have strong feelings about this book - the old man and the sea. just kind of dull for a 9th grade english class and the teacher didn’t take and measures to make it more interesting

book asks :V

[historianatlarge]

So I was tagged in a thing.

I usually don’t do these, but perhaps people would like to know a little about me, at least. Got tagged by the excellent @psifitopia, too, and they are a nice enough person I’d do it just because it’s them, really.

Taking a couple of these out for repetition/privacy, but I’ll compensate you all with a bit more elsewhere.

Name/Alias: Charles

Hobbies: Reading, by and large. I suppose writing still counts, since I find the work I do on here quite enjoyable. Still have some fun with games of various descriptions, in my spare time. I’ve also got some model kits (all of them historical, go figure) that are laying about incomplete that I really ought to get back to, at some point.

Favorite colors: Orange! The story behind how it became my favourite is a complex one, but nowadays it’s still going strong – and has been ever since I was a small child. Oddly enough, however, I don’t usually care for it as a colour on cars.

Last song listened to: I’ve been listening a lot to Anna Akiko Meyers, who is just an utterly superb violinist. Specifically, I love her interpretation of Arvo Pärt’s Fratres. The piece isn’t even my usual style with classical music, but something about it just works when I need to get work done.

Last film watched: Most recently, the film Hurricane about the 303rd Squadron in the Battle of Britain. I found it rather rushed overall, though I’m glad some attention was being paid to these brave Polish pilots. It had a good underlying message that tied past British events to current ones, but I’m hoping to see Dywizjon 303 to make a comparison.

Inspiration or muse: Well, my wife helps inspire me quite a bit. Perhaps above all in reminding me that what I do is interesting and relevant. I’m also inspired by the idea of sharing historical knowledge with people who may not have it – historical knowledge is critically important these days in the defence of democracy. In other words, it helps to know there’s a good reason to do what you’re doing. (And it’s just fascinating, but individual mileage may vary on that one!)

Meaning behind your url:  Well this one is relatively simple – I have a terrible time thinking up usernames. Whatever other creativity I have, it fails me utterly there. It was the first idea that came up that I didn’t think sounded ridiculous, so I went with that.

Currently reading:  Working my way through a couple books, far too slowly. Trying out Ursula K. LeGuin’s Steering the Craft, and starting Bitter Glory, about Poland’s history between 1918-1939. I’ve got a stack beside them to either read or finish re-reading, foremost amongst them a re-read of the superb Into the Dark Valley, which details the descent into extremism in the 1930s, and has very important lessons for today.

Dream job: I’ve already got it! I’m a teacher of History and English with an Ontario school board. I’ve been proud of every day I’ve spent on the job. I’ve had some truly remarkable young minds under my tutelage, and I could pick out the ones I think will be making this country better one day.

Top three ships:  This one is supposed to be about fandom, isn’t it, I can’t just list my three favourite actual ships of all time? Can I do both? I’m going to cheat and do both. Well, I love the liner Normandie, and consider her the most beautiful ocean liner ever constructed. After that, I’ve always been fascinated by the submarine Surcouf because the entire concept of a cruiser submarine seems so alien and out-of-place today, beyond which the very idea of a submarine capable of sinking a destroyer on the surface is just so wild to look back at. Lastly, I absolutely love the sailing ship Sørlandet, and feel so very lucky to have had the chance to board her. Possibly the most beautiful ship around today.

Now, for those who may or may not enjoy well-written pairings in fiction. The first I’ll mention is Nick and Nora Charles – it’s so rare, even today, to see a married couple written as actually enjoying time with each other. I find the ‘take my wife, please’ stuff rather tiresome – it’s far more enjoyable to see the positive aspects of a couple, their partnership and how they compliment and improve each other. For the sci-fi fans out there, I’ve always enjoyed the suitably operatic pairing of Aeryn Sun and John Chricton from FarScape. Frankly, I find the entire show just delightful, especially the space muppets. Lastly, a bit of an obscure one: Kyle Katarn and Jan Ors from the Star Wars: Dark Forces games and books. In part, I suppose, because they might be the first fictional couple whose development I enjoyed.

Lipstick or chapstick: Chapstick, though the only one I use these days is a orange-scented one my wife found me. I wish I could remember the names of the people who made it, but they also made Harry Potter-themed lip balms that are rather delightful. If you are someone making such lipbalm in Southwestern Ontario, let me know and I’ll tag you here.

[edgeofthedales]

A short birthday tribute to Robert Hardy

A little over a year ago today, Robert Hardy passed away at the age of 91. Had he lived, today would have been his 93th birthday.

(Image credit: The Stage)

Having only become aware of his work late last year, I know there are fans who are far more knowledgeable about his life and work and who could give a much more comprehensive analysis of his life and work. So, this essay will not be that.

Instead, I’d like to talk about what makes him stand out to me.

I actually had been introduced to him many years ago in the film adaptation of Jane Austin’s Sense and Sensibility. Hardy played Sir John Middleton, a kindly if boisterous member of the local gentry who shows compassion to the Dashwood sisters and whose first appearance onscreen involves having a pack of dogs travel with him in his carriage (shades of things to come, for me….). At the time, he mainly stayed in the sidelines for me although that was only because he was one in a cast of wonderful actors within a superb period film.

(Image credit: Frock Flicks)

Back then, I was rather ambivalent to period dramas and even more so to romantically themed ones, but Sense and Sensibility won me over with the high caliber of acting and film-making…of which Hardy certainly played a role.

It wasn’t until years later though, that he actually caught my eye in one of the roles he was probably best known for: Siegfried Farnon on All Creatures Great and Small.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

I had enjoyed the James Herriot books immensely when I was a teenager, but never thought to seek out the TV series until late last year. Originally, it was because I had recently became interested in Peter Davison’s work, first on Doctor Who and then on the vintage mystery series, Campion. Thus, I had fully expected to enjoy All Creatures if only to re-acquaint myself with Herriot’s charming stories and enjoy one of Davison’s most popular roles.

What I didn’t expect was how quickly I became intrigued with Hardy’s Siegfried Farnon. I remembered Siegfried as an explosive, eccentric and yet compassionate character from the books. Hardy, however, gave him even more depth on the TV series. Siegfried became hypocritical and yet charming, temperamental and yet loyal, whimsical and yet possessing sharp, clever mind.

Hardy did not shy away one inch from Siegfried’s flaws and instead showed us how those flaws were simply part of the ultimately warm, kind-hearted and yet complex person that Siegfried was. We wouldn’t want Siegfried to change who he was one bit, flaws and all, and it takes a true acting gift to bring a character like that to life while maintaining that careful balance of shortcomings and noble qualities.

Hardy also did plenty of other things besides All Creatures, of course. One thing that I enjoyed in particular was how he made use of his voice for readings and audio plays. Hardy uses pauses, changes in tone and pitch to add interest to his readings of works like H.G Wells’ The Time Machine.  I would love to hear how he handed Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories, but sadly, have not come across any of his audio-book readings.

Speaking of Holmes, Hardy did manage to have one role on the Granada adaptations of the Holmes stories: that of Sir Charles Milverton from the story, The Master Blackmailer. The episode is one of the longest in the Granada series for the short stories, and honestly, I can understand the temptation to spend more time with this one. Hardy makes Milverton an absolutely terrible character: condescending, odious, callous and smarmy. He doesn’t resort to the clichéd mustache-twirling techniques too many use when crafting truly evil villains. He doesn’t have to. There is an edge of danger to his Milverton that comes through despite his lack of making few direct threats.

(Image credit: I hear of Sherlock)

In fact, I think this is something that Hardy excelled at. Many of the characters he played, be they heroes or villains, were often a perfect blend of charm and menace. The mix ensured that his good guys were never too bland and that his villains remained thoroughly watchable.

One set of roles that absolutely required this sort of mix is the other series that I know Hardy best for: Hot Metal, a comedy series from the mid-80s. Hot Metal was a satire on the rise of tabloid journalism in general and on the infamous press figure, Rupert Murdoch in particular. It was an over-the-top, brutal satire of how this brand of journalism fueled an atmosphere of distrust, misinformation, and political polarization in the media and, if anything, is even more relevant today than it was back when it was on the air.

In this series, Hardy has the duel role of Terence “Twiggy” Rathbone (a clear spoof of Murdoch), a multimillionaire businessman who buys out The Daily Crucible, a failing newspaper, and Russell Spam, the editor Twiggy hires to steer the Crucible however he wishes. Both Twiggy and Russell are terrible in their own ways with Twiggy leaning toward egotism and vindictiveness and Russell having nonexistent scruples about getting the latest scoop and increasing readership.

However, despite the fact that these two are far from the protagonists of the show, Hardy manages to keep both Twiggy and Russell entertaining and intriguing. Yes, they are villains, but Hardy is wise enough to figure out that the show could get dreadfully dreary fast if he didn’t also give them an odd sort of charisma which makes it easy to laugh at them and with them even while they are being awful.

I think a detail that sums up a facet of Hardy’s acting best is a moment when Twiggy is being interviewed about his plans for the Crucible. During this interview, Twiggy tries to insist that he’s a “life-long socialist” and friend to the workers (both of which are categorically untrue). While he is spinning his lies, he has a charming smile on his face, but he is also playing with a letter opener, brandishing it like a weapon, like he fully plans on stabbing someone in the back. It’s the perfect quirk to remind us what is really lurking below the surface of Twiggy’s apparent goodwill.

It’s also the sort of detail that Hardy is a master at, going beyond just his dialogue and where his mark is onscreen to bring these characters to life.

Even toward the end of his life, Hardy demonstrated a true skill at giving depth to his characters, no matter how brief their time onscreen was. In Familia, short film by independent filmmaker, James Murray showcases this. Here, Hardy has his last film performance as Sir Ashton Leonard, a very old man who apparently has shown up for a driving lesson and ends up in a revealing conversation with the instructor, Nina. Although we are limited to watching him converse with Nina in a car, Hardy gives us a lovely, bittersweet snapshot of a man who is contemplating years gone by and the end that is surely coming soon. He does this with how his expression mirrors (or sometimes reveals) the emotions Leonard is working through during this conversation.

Honestly, I’m not sure how anyone can keep a completely dry eye when Leonard says “where I’m going, you can’t take anything with you.” It’s a heartbreaking thought, but Hardy delivers it with a quiet insight that is peaceful rather than depressing.

Perhaps that is the heart of what made Hardy such an extraordinary actor: his insight. His commitment to his characters to make them as real and as impactful as they could be, even if that impact was mainly about inspiring a laugh or sheer entertainment.

There is a lot more of Hardy’s work that I have left to discover and sadly, none of it will happen while he is still alive. However, I like to think that he’d enjoy the thought of people coming to know him through his work long after his death.

(Image credit: Move Nocitias)

So happy birthday Sir Robert Hardy (yes, he was never knighted, but really should have been). Thank you for leaving so much to those of us who will miss you.

[callie-the-snarky-geek-blog]

RvB16 Episode 7 Review: It Just Winked At Me

Last time on Red vs Blue: O’Malley came back bitches. That’s it. That’s all you need to know. No need to go into how Grif is all alone with only a talking lens flare and all the potential angst that writers can dig up from that. Or that Atlus is a dork who obliterated Tucker and Sister into subatomic particles. None of that’s important at all. Only O’Malley matters.

Alright, so this episode has been hyped for awhile. Joe hyped it up. Kyle Taylor (the Machinima director) hyped it up. Even Gus hyped it up. Any of this can mean anything. So as we enter the shortest episode so far (only 7 minutes… I guess Joe couldn’t make the episodes longer unless he’s holding them back for later), what has all the talk been leading up to? Well… I can say it was like nothing I’ve seen before!

Overview

So good news, Tucker and Sister are alive! Yay… yeah I knew that was coming. There is no way that they’d kill a long-time character and a fan favorite character they finally made a main like that. Also it looks like the blast sobered them up. So there’s your lesson kids: if you are drunk off your ass, being blasted by God is how you sober back up! Atlus tries to kill them a couple more times before finally realizing that ‘his’ protection is making that impossible. Also we find out that Kalirama is his sister, which explains her being the Queen of the Cosmic Powers. So goign into some speculating, Kalirama mentioned being the Daughter of Time. My guess has been that the villain is Chronos, the Personification of Time. It can also refer to Cronus, the King of the Titans and father of Zeus. If Joe made Chronos and Cronus the same person who Atlus overthrew and he and Kalirama and his kids trying to keep him locked up… wow and I thought the Church and Grif families were fucked up.

Since Atlus can’t obliterate Tucker and Sister, he goes with the option of ‘let my mindless minions do it’. So he summons up a cyclopes… I am NOT joking. Some may find this too bizarre, but as someone who likes mythical shenanigans I do NOT give a shit! Plus it fits the myth theme since cyclopes’ are part of both Greek and Roman mythology. So the cyclopes obviously isn’t a Halo character, so what did they do? They… put Gus in a costume/a ton of makeup and made him do it. Yes, you read that right. The cyclopes was RvB’s very own Gustavo Sorola. It is also, I believe, RvB’s first implementation of live-action within the show, at least on this level. It’s pretty good! I mean the cyclopes is butt ugly, but I’m pretty sure that was the point… sorry Gus.

So Atlus sicks… Grugh, I think? Screw it, I’m calling him Gus. My blog, my rules. Atlus sicks Gus on the two Blues. They understandably, make a run for it. At least until Sister quips that Tucker could prove how great a fighter she is. Which she meant as sarcasm… but Tucker of course has to decide to be Mr. Macho and face Gus. The result? Both the time gun and the sword get knocked away from him. I should also point out that Gus is about 100X larger than Tucker. So he can easily crush him… yyyyeah… not your best plan Tucker.

Back in the 6th Century (not the 16th like I wrote last week, Past Callie is stupid), Huggins is trying to figure out what to do now that O’Malley has gotten away and both she and Grif are stranded. Grif is currently… I guess looking for mushrooms since he mentions eating them later. Guess since he can’t talk Italian, that’s the only way he can survive, I mean it worked on the moon! Anyways, Huggins contemplates her options. Now because she’s talking fast, it’s hard to make out everything and for whatever reason,t he RT site doesn’t have a subtitle option that I REALLY hope they fix soon. But anyways, Huggins comes u with three potential solutions:

Wait it out and let time move along until she’s back in present day. This is ruled out because it would take far too long. This one is declared a ‘maybe’.

MURDER! Kill Grif and prevent at least one dirty shisno from fucking everything up! This is also ruled out as it goes against Huggins’ code and it’s also forbidden. Oh, but Atlus can obliterate people? I sense abuse of power!

Talk to Grif and convince him to team up so that they can find a way out of the 6th Century. But if she does this, thee penalty is getting tortured int he Underworld for all eternity. But this is the only option that could work, so… ye, she risks it.

Alright, so reasoning! Huggins goes to Grif, who is pretty much refusing to believe anything that is happening. Huggins tries to convince him to help her since otherwise hey’re both gonna die. Grif doesn’t buy any of it, especially when Huggins reveals that the Gods sent her to spy on them. SO he just walks away and Huggins is probably re-considering the murder option now.

Alright, back to the moon! Tucker tries to shoot Gus… and of course fails. Stupid guns! Sister retrieves both the time gun and Tucker’s sword as Tucker himself ducks inside the base. He tries to think of what to do… and sees his old armor set, giving him an idea. Gus reaches in and grabs what looks like Tucker, eating his head. Eww, Gus! That’ll ruin your teeth!  Also is this an Attack on Titans reference? I’m positive that it’s an Attack on Titans reference. But of course it was really the empty armor which Tucker stuffed with grenades. Which go off, distracting Gus and Tucker drives in with the Warthog, driving it straight into hos face. It finally knocks Gus down and Tucker along with him.

So it looks like Tucker wins, right? Haha… yeah… about that. Sister points out that normally when you beat the boss, they come back twice as powerful. You’d think that Tucker, living in a video game, would know this but meh. SO yeah, Gus gets back up and he is not happy. Hey Tucker, tell him that they should go to Vegas! That’ll make him REALLY angry I bet! Tucker runs into the caves and seems safe since Gus’ hand is too big… until Tucker says he needs to do it one finger at a time. And Gus can understand English, so… yeah…

Fortunately before Tucker can get grabbed, Sister channels her inner Xena and attempts to use the sword, jump down form the cliffs, and stab Gus in the head. But Tucker informs her too late that the sword only works for him. SO she gets smacked away and when Tucker exits the cave to help, he gets knocked over to her. Sister points out that cyclopes’ have a fatal weakness, so Tucker goe sin and… attacks Gus’ groin. I… don’t think that’s what she meant Tucker… but it works as Gus finally hits the ground. Well… not the defeat I was expecting, but it was a defeat!

Unfortunately, Atlus decides to sick Gus’ wife on them who is rather peeved that due to this, they can’t do hanky panky and have kids. Having had enough, Tucker and Sister FINALLY do what they should have done before: open a time portal and get the fuck out of there. Where do they end up? Well remember the medieval scene from Episode 1? Well they FINALLY connected it to the main narrative as the two end up on the same tower as medieval Grif and Simmons. And the two get arrested… WELP.

Review

This episode has had a lot of mixed reception so far. I haven’t seen anyone hate it, but many were disappointing. It’s understandable why. After all the hype, it was really just about a dumb joke. A very well shot dumb joke, but a dumb joke. There’s still so little about he plot we know, nothing advanced any further here, the episode was incredibly short, and it’s still unclear what all of this is leading us to. We’re on Episode 7 and no progress has been made. I think so far Joe has the opposite problem he had last year. Last year, he rushed it because he only ha done season. This year he has more than one, but due to it he slowed down. A little too much maybe. This coming off the heels of last week’s O’Malley plot bomb and… yeah I don’t blame people in being disappointed and viewing this as completely pointless.

I didn’t know how to feel during the first viewing… but when watching ti again to write this review, I was laughing so much. I got a LOT more enjoyment out of it. To be fair, I am always like that. I always like stuff on the second watch than the first one since I knwo what’s coming and I can better process it. And watching ti again… I don’t think that this was pointless at ll. There’s no major progression with the plot, and I agree that it’s been long enough. But… I got a lot out of this episode, even form Grif’s brief scene. Not just with plot, but the work on this episode is truly impressive imo.

Before we talk about that, lets do Grif’s scene. It’s only about a minute long and the only machinimated scene. Yeah, 95% of the episode was CGI animated. But Grif’s scene, while brief, was good. I wish we saw a bit mroe follow-up on how he’s doing after O’Malley left him stranded, but him living off mushrooms I can buy. Him also goign into denial over everything I can also buy. So not as much as I was hoping for with him, but good stuff that matches his character.

The scene’s actual importance is mainly setup for what’ll happen later. It also FINALLY gave us some time with Huggins’ since Episode 1. And OMG, I absolutely love her. Her rapid fire dialogue is kind of hard to make out, but her actress did a good job at it. Huggins is cheerful, but serious about her job. She understands the importance of what’s coming, but has to resort to breaking law since she’s in a position where otherwise, everyone is doomed. She’s cute, but also sassy as evident with her response when Grif calls her Tinkerbell (is that gonna be his nickname for her when he warms up to her? I want it to be!) Seriously I am already loving the interactions between Grif and Huggins and I am really excited to see more of it! Now how they’ll get out of the 6th Century IDK, but we’ll just have to wait.

Okay, back to the res tof the episode. As I said, pretty much the entire episode is CGI animated. it’s the first major CGI fight in the season, and it was awesome. Okay it was mostly running, but it was fun to watch. Tucker plowing the Warthog into Gus was freakin’ badass. The voice acting was also on point. I have never laughed harder at Jason Saldana’s performance than I have today and Becca continues to crush it as Sister. Seriously, going all Xena with the ‘alalala!’ war-cry had me dying. An ProZD as Atus… OMG ProZD. He was fantastic in this episode and it added so much to Atlus as a character. Like he is just enjoying the show and is so unimpressed with Tucker and Sister even when they win. His animation where he’s just celebrating watching Gus winning was also so freakin’ fantastic and again, dds to the character. Seriously, I wasn’t sure what to think of Atlus before, but he has already become one of my fav RvB villain ever after this episode alone.

So onto Gus… I have no idea how Joe talked him into this. I mean he’s done worst and IDT anything will be as bad as when he did the Baby Gus RT Short. That short man… anyways! I think Gus did really well! It felt like he was truly interacting with the environment. He didn’t have to do much acting aside form grunting and going around wildly, but it felt like he was playing a monstrous cyclopes. Credit also to Joe and his directing. I don’t knwo what inspired him to do this, but OMG I am so glad he did. I mean it looks weird and it’s ridiculous.., but it’s RvB. It’s always been weird and ridiculous. Plus using live action again sells the effect that the cyclopes is a monster compared to what we’re used to with the machinima. It sold the effect really well. So kudos to Joe and to Gus because shooting this and then editing it in had to be a nightmare.

It’s why I don’t think the episode was at all pointless. I mean we DO have some minor things. We find out that Kalirama is Atlus’ sister, the villain si indeed a locked up time God, get a taste of how powerful the Cosmic Powers forces are, have some characterization for Atlus, setup for Grif and Huggins’ plot, an actual fight scene after so long, and it FINALLY ties in the medieval scene. It’s also huge on a cinematic scale, which is probably why it’s only 7 minutes. I mena Joe and his team had to fully animate the episode, shoot Gus’ scenes where he’s pretty much just interacting with air, combined the footage together, likely do re-shoots if the live action was even slightly off, edit it all together with the machinima, and… yeah. This was likely a huge pain it he ass to do for everyone involved. But I appreciate that they did. Joe is going above and beyond what he has to do. he could just do solely machinima and it would be fine. But he’s trying new things, implementing more CGI, and taking the show to the next level. Is it a hit? That’s for one to decide on their own. I think it worked here, but I don’t think they should regularly implement live action as they did. Special occasions are fine though. But I still appreciate Joe trying things and putting in the effort when he doesn’t have to. He wants to make the show as good as he can, and I can absolutely respect that.

Final Thoughts

Did they hype this one too much? Maybe a little. It was not what I was expecting at all. But I don’t thin that’s a bad thing. Again, I appreciate them going out of their way to do this. Plus the animation, dialogue, and voice acting were really good. Can I understand why people don’t like this episode and are getting weary of the season? Absolutely yes. I do hoe that Joe starts to speed up the plot soon. But I still had a fun time watching the episode, and in the end that’s what matters: having a good time. It was weird and ridiculous and I wouldn’t have it nay other way.

[calliecat93]

RvB16 Episode 7 Review: It Just Winked At Me

Last time on Red vs Blue: O’Malley came back bitches. That’s it. That's all you need to know. No need to go into how Grif is all alone with only a talking lens flare and all the potential angst that writers can dig up from that. Or that Atlus is a dork who obliterated Tucker and Sister into subatomic particles. None of that’s important at all. Only O’Malley matters.

Alright, so this episode has been hyped for awhile. Joe hyped it up. Kyle Taylor (the Machinima director) hyped it up. Even Gus hyped it up. Any of this can mean anything. So as we enter the shortest episode so far (only 7 minutes... I guess Joe couldn't make the episodes longer unless he’s holding them back for later), what has all the talk been leading up to? Well... I can say it was like nothing I’ve seen before!

Overview

So good news, Tucker and Sister are alive! Yay... yeah I knew that was coming. There is no way that they’d kill a long-time character and a fan favorite character they finally made a main like that. Also it looks like the blast sobered them up. So there’s your lesson kids: if you are drunk off your ass, being blasted by God is how you sober back up! Atlus tries to kill them a couple more times before finally realizing that ‘his’ protection is making that impossible. Also we find out that Kalirama is his sister, which explains her being the Queen of the Cosmic Powers. So... I made a post a few days ago about Kalirama’s titles and she mentioned being the Daughter of Time. My guess has been that the villain is Chronos, the Personification of Time. It can also refer to Cronus, the King of the Titans and father of Zeus. If Joe made Chronos and Cronus the same person who Atlus overthrew and he and Kalirama and his kids trying to keep him locked up... wow and I thought the Church and Grif families were fucked up.

Since Atlus can’t obliterate Tucker and Sister, he goes with the option of ‘let my mindless minions do it’. So he summons up a cyclopes... I am NOT joking. Some may find this too bizarre, but as someone who likes mythical shenanigans I do NOT give a shit! Plus it fits the myth theme since cyclopes’ are part of both Greek and Roman mythology. So the cyclopes obviously isn’t a Halo character, so what did they do? They... put Gus in a costume/a ton of makeup and made him do it. Yes, you read that right. The cyclopes was RvB’s very own Gustavo Sorola. It is also, I believe, RvB’s first implementation of live-action within the show, at least on this level. It’s pretty good! I mean the cyclopes is butt ugly, but I’m pretty sure that was the point... sorry Gus.

So Atlus sicks... Grugh, I think? Screw it, I’m calling him Gus. My blog, my rules. Atlus sicks Gus on the two Blues. They understandably, make a run for it. At least until Sister quips that Tucker could prove how great a fighter she is. Which she meant as sarcasm... but Tucker, of course, has to decide to be Mr. Macho and face Gus. The result? Both the time gun and the sword get knocked away from him. I should also point out that Gus is about 100X larger than Tucker. So he can easily crush him... yyyyeah... not your best plan Tucker.

Back in the 6th Century (not the 16th like I wrote last week, Past Callie is stupid), Huggins is trying to figure out what to do now that O’Malley has gotten away and both she and Grif are stranded. Grif is currently... I guess looking for mushrooms since he mentions eating them later. Guess since he can't talk Italian, that’s the only way he can survive, I mean it worked on the moon! Anyways, Huggins contemplates her options. Now because she’s talking fast, it’s hard to make out everything and for whatever reason,t he RT site doesn't have a subtitle option that I REALLY hope they fix soon. But anyways, Huggins comes u with three potential solutions:

Wait it out and let time move along until she’s back in present day. This is ruled out because the Reds and Blues will still be time traveling, evil time God goes free, and the universe dies. This one is declared a ‘maybe’.

MURDER! Kill Grif and prevent at least one dirty shisno from fucking everything up! This is also ruled out as it goes against Huggins’ code and it’s also forbidden. Oh, but Atlus can obliterate people? I sense abuse of power!

Talk to Grif and convince him to team up so that they can find a way out of the 6th Century. But if she does this, thee penalty is getting tortured int he Underworld for all eternity. But this is the only option that could work, so... ye, she risks it.

Alright, so reasoning! Huggins goes to Grif, who is pretty much refusing to believe anything that is happening. Huggins tries to convince him to help her since otherwise they're both gonna die. Grif doesn't buy any of it, especially when Huggins reveals that the Gods sent her to spy on them. SO he just walks away and Huggins is probably re-considering the murder option now.

Alright, back to the moon! Tucker tries to shoot Gus... and of course, fails. Stupid guns! Sister retrieves both the time gun and Tucker’s sword as Tucker himself ducks inside the base. He tries to think of what to do... and sees his old armor set, giving him an idea. Gus reaches in and grabs what looks like Tucker, eating his head. Eww, Gus! That’ll ruin your teeth!  Also is this an Attack on Titans reference? I’m positive that it’s an Attack on Titans reference. But of course, it was really the empty armor which Tucker stuffed with grenades. Which go off, distracting Gus and Tucker drives in with the Warthog, driving it straight into his face. It finally knocks Gus down and Tucker along with him.

So it looks like Tucker wins, right? Haha... yeah... about that. Sister points out that normally when you beat the boss, they come back twice as powerful. You’d think that Tucker, living in a video game, would know this but meh. SO yeah, Gus gets back up and he is not happy. Hey Tucker, tell him that they should go to Vegas! That’ll make him REALLY angry I bet! Tucker runs into the caves and seems safe since Gus’ hand is too big... until Tucker says he needs to do it one finger at a time. And Gus can understand English, so... yeah...

Fortunately, before Tucker can get grabbed, Sister channels her inner Xena and attempts to use the sword, jump down from the cliffs, and stab Gus in the head. But Tucker informs her too late that the sword only works for him. SO she gets smacked away and when Tucker exits the cave to help, he gets knocked over to her. Sister points out that cyclopes’ have a fatal weakness, so Tucker goe sin and... attacks Gus’ groin. I... don’t think that’s what she meant Tucker... but it works as Gus finally hits the ground. Well... not the defeat I was expecting, but it was a defeat! 

Unfortunately, Atlus decides to sick Gus’ wife on them who is rather peeved that due to this, they can't do hanky panky and have kids. Having had enough, Tucker and Sister FINALLY do what they should have done before: open a time portal and get the fuck out of there. Where do they end up? Remember the medieval scene from Episode 1? Well, they FINALLY connected it to the main narrative as the two end up on the same tower as medieval Grif and Simmons. And the two get arrested... WELP.

Review

This episode has had a lot of mixed reception so far. I haven’t seen anyone hate it, but many were disappointing. It’s understandable why. After all the hype, it was really just about a dumb joke. A very well shot dumb joke, but a dumb joke. There’s still so little about the plot we know, nothing advanced any further here, the episode was incredibly short, and it’s still unclear what all of this is leading us to. We’re on Episode 7 and no progress has been made. I think so far Joe has the opposite problem he had last year. Last year, he rushed it because he only has done season. This year he has more than one, but due to it he slowed down. A little too much maybe. This coming off the heels of last week’s O’Malley plot bomb and... yeah I don’t blame people in being disappointed and viewing this as completely pointless.

I didn’t know how to feel during the first viewing... but when watching ti again to write this review, I was laughing so much. I got a LOT more enjoyment out of it. To be fair, I am always like that. I always like stuff on the second watch than the first one since I know what’s coming and I can better process it. And watching ti again... I don’t think that this was pointless at ll. There’s no major progression with the plot, and I agree that it’s been long enough. But... I got a lot out of this episode, even form Grif’s brief scene. Not just with the plot, but the work on this episode is truly impressive imo.

Before we talk about that, let's do Grif’s scene. It’s only about a minute long and the only machinimated scene. Yeah, 95% of the episode was CGI animated. But Grif’s scene, while brief, was good. I wish we saw a bit more follow-up on how he’s doing after O’Malley left him stranded, but him living off mushrooms I can buy. Him also going into denial over everything I can also buy. So not as much as I was hoping for with him, but good stuff that matches his character.

The scene’s actual importance is mainly setup for what’ll happen later. It also FINALLY gave us some time with Huggins’ since Episode 1. And OMG, I absolutely love her. Her rapid-fire dialogue is kind of hard to make out, but her actress did a good job at it. Huggins is cheerful, but serious about her job. She understands the importance of what’s coming but has to resort to breaking law since she’s in a position where otherwise, everyone is doomed. She’s cute, but also sassy as evident with her response when Grif calls her Tinkerbell (is that gonna be his nickname for her when he warms up to her? I want it to be!) Seriously I am already loving the interactions between Grif and Huggins and I am really excited to see more of it! Now how they’ll get out of the 6th Century IDK, but we’ll just have to wait.

Okay, back to the res tof the episode. As I said, pretty much the entire episode is CGI animated. it’s the first major CGI fight in the season, and it was awesome. Okay it was mostly running, but it was fun to watch. Tucker plowing the Warthog into Gus was freakin’ badass. The voice acting was also on point. I have never laughed harder at Jason Saldana’s performance than I have today and Becca continues to crush it as Sister. Seriously, going all Xena with the ‘alalala!’ war-cry had me dying. An ProZD as Atus... OMG ProZD. He was fantastic in this episode and it added so much to Atlus as a character. Like he is just enjoying the show and is so unimpressed with Tucker and Sister even when they win. His animation where he’s just celebrating watching Gus winning was also so freakin’ fantastic and again, dds to the character. Seriously, I wasn’t sure what to think of Atlus before, but he has already become one of my fav RvB villain ever after this episode alone.

So onto Gus... I have no idea how Joe talked him into this. I mean he’s done worst and IDT anything will be as bad as when he did the Baby Gus RT Short. That short man... anyways! I think Gus did really well! It felt like he was truly interacting with the environment. He didn’t have to do much acting aside form grunting and going around wildly, but it felt like he was playing a monstrous cyclops. Credit also to Joe and his directing. I don’t know what inspired him to do this, but OMG I am so glad he did. I mean it looks weird and it’s ridiculous.., but it’s RvB. It’s always been weird and ridiculous. Plus using live action again sells the effect that the cyclops is a monster compared to what we’re used to with the machinima. It sold the effect really well. So kudos to Joe and to Gus because shooting this and then editing it in had to be a nightmare. 

It’s why I don’t think the episode was at all pointless. I mean we DO have some minor things. We find out that Kalirama is Atlus’ sister, the villain is indeed a locked up time God, get a taste of how powerful the Cosmic Powers forces are, have some characterization for Atlus, setup for Grif and Huggins’ plot, an actual fight scene after so long, and it FINALLY ties in the medieval scene. It’s also huge on a cinematic scale, which is probably why it’s only 7 minutes. I mean Joe and his team had to fully animate the episode, shoot Gus’ scenes where he’s pretty much just interacting with air, combined the footage together, likely do re-shoots if the live action was even slightly off, edit it all together with the machinima, and... yeah. This was likely a huge pain in the ass to do for everyone involved. But I appreciate that they did. Joe is going above and beyond what he has to do. he could just do solely machinima and it would be fine. But he’s trying new things, implementing more CGI, and taking the show to the next level. Is it a hit? That's for one to decide on their own. I think it worked here, but I don’t think they should regularly implement live action as they did. Special occasions are fine though. But I still appreciate Joe trying things and putting in the effort when he doesn't have to. He wants to make the show as good as he can, and I can absolutely respect that.

Final Thoughts

Did they hype this one too much? Maybe a little. It was not what I was expecting at all. But I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Again, I appreciate them going out of their way to do this. Plus the animation, dialogue, and voice acting were really good. Can I understand why people don’t like this episode and are getting weary of the season? Absolutely yes. I do hope that Joe starts to speed up the plot soon. But I still had a fun time watching the episode, and in the end, that’s what matters: having a good time. It was weird and ridiculous and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

[alixofagnia]

Dear Star Wars Diary,

Today, I went to my fourth and final big screen viewing of TLJ. It was bittersweet because I will likely not be watching this movie in its entirety again until I own it. What follows are some musings I had as I watched it for the last time, in all its theater-experience glory.

SNOKE

I don’t want to get into the whole “Kylo Ren is abusive and a mind rapist beh!” debate because it’s stupid, on several levels.

I just want to make the point: Snoke is the abuser and the not-an-actual-thing mind rapist in this story.

PAIGE and the BOMBERS

On my first viewing, I thought the opening bombing scene was insanity. Like, it was awesome and beautiful, but totally insane. I was seething: “Tallie! What happened to protecting all the bombers?! Also, why did you send so many?”

[Numbers, of course, increase the chances for success. But still. Surely they didn’t have to send ALL the bombers? Leia’s rank over Poe should’ve disengaged the bombers. I don’t know if this is supposed to be addressed with Poe’s cutting off communication with Leia or in an implication that the Resistance squadrons and bombers are simply more loyal and/or responsive to Poe, which is a troubling notion.]

But these are small quibbles in a bigger picture because you know what? The bomber scene is probably one of the most memorable moments for me as a female moviegoer of Asian descent. I’m not someone who actively seeks/looks for cultural representation or diversity in movies of any scale. But I have to admit…I was really moved.

The images: a lone bomber flying toward destruction and glory; a sole survivor with dogged determination and belief in her cause; calm composure in the face of Death.

Ugh. My heart.

I do like Rose, but I was more affected by Paige’s death than I felt I should’ve been, and I think it’s because I felt an added touch of pride. Here, for the film’s first lesson on failure, our teacher is a female character with a face like mine. And she literally has a single spoken line: her comrade’s name.

That is awesome.

LEIA’S LONG LOOKS

-Sensing Kylo through the Force

-Leaving Holdo on the Raddus; watching Holdo die

-Staring down the TIE fighters on Crait (Seriously! I can’t believe those TIEs stayed airborne!)

-Feeling Luke’s death

These are just my personal favorites. Carrie Fisher got some good one-liners in for Leia. But I think she was never more powerful than in her silent acting. It’s just so exquisite. I trust how J.J. Abrams and co. will handle her absence from IX, I really do. That being said, I personally feel like Leia’s death will have to be written in: after her performance in TLJ, it’s just not plausible to have Leia alive but not at the center of the action, nor is it plausible to have her alive and just never show up in the entire movie, to just have her constantly be referred to by other characters.There’s no closure there, and this is a character who demands closure of some kind in this trilogy.

People have theorized on a funeral opening the film or occurring early, and I think this is generally a good idea. It really sucks to have her die off-screen. But under the circumstances, I don’t think it would be wise to have a scene where her ship explodes or something of that nature because it seems unnecessarily cruel but, more practically, could take time away from moving the story forward; everything would have to sort of revolve around that and stall. But if the death occurs off-screen and we open on a funeral, it’s a better jumping off point for the narrative and characters. If Leia’s life in IX was going to be a plot device, particularly as it pertained to her son’s arc, then her death (harsh as it is) could also conceivably serve the same purpose.

LUKE the LEGEND

I’ll be honest: I was never a big Luke Skywalker fan. I liked him by virtue of the fact that I was supposed to because he was the hero in the hero’s journey storyline. But I didn’t feel any deeper connection to that character, although I did feel like he began to ascend to legend status in RotJ and I always liked him best in that movie. So, that’s sort of where the character ended for me; I never read any of the old EU and I didn’t have him built up in my mind the same way some people obviously did.

I absolutely love that Luke became a legend in his lifetime after RotJ. But I love that he succumbed to hubris even more. It’s so real, so human. The higher you go, the harder you fall. What I really can’t understand about all these butt-hurt fanboys, who expected Luke to always be Luke the Legend and never-stop-nevering, is that not only did you get a humanized presentation of your hero, but he did in fact re-ascend to legend status in TLJ. That isn’t bad story-telling; that’s amazing story-telling!

I can’t believe there was anyone who didn’t get chills when Luke Skywalker stalked out of that burning cave to the staccato of a stirring John Williams march. Like, where the fuck are you in your head?

Luke the Legend projected himself across worlds to bring hope to his sister, who had finally used up all of hers, and to a rag-tag group of rebels forsaken by their allies. Luke the Legend projected himself across the galaxy to apologize to the nephew he had wronged, preventing Ben Solo from adding to the blood already on his hands, thus saving him in the only way he could.

Luke the Legend gave his life to save those he loved.

What is so fucking character-destroying about that?!

HOLDO and DJ

Two of my favorite characters from TLJ were Holdo and DJ. One of the most common complaints I’ve heard/read about the them is that two excellent actors were wasted.

That is so insulting. That’s a back-handed compliment. “Oh, hey, Laura and Benicio, you guys are really super great and talented. But you were shit in TLJ. They did you real dirty.”

Because, actually, both Holdo and DJ were there in case the GA got lost and confused about the whole “failing is learning” theme. It’s a credit to the talents of Laura Dern and Benicio del Toro that they actually did as much as they did with what little screen time they had. Darth LeakyLungs from RotS had all the screen time in the world and I don’t even remember his name! (Wait, was he even a Darth? I dunno.)

Look, you can tell me that you weren’t able to care about either character. That’s fine. That’s legit. Not all characters, big or small, will resonate with everyone.

But don’t you dare tell me they were pointless or that the actors were wasted, because that’s a terrible lie and you know it.

KYLO REDEMPTION

Ahhhh, my most favorite topic.

Every time I’ve gone to see TLJ, I’ve gone in trying to be convinced that this was the end of Kylo’s arc. He’s done for. IX will be all about his actual, for real downfall, he will no longer be conflicted, he will die and he will die in the Dark. It’s finished.

Wonder of all wonders, I’ve never been more convinced of a redemption in some shape or form. It’s that final shot of him, the literal final shot of him, hanging his head, staring at the ground, where there is nothing JUST LIKE WHAT’S LEFT OF HIS BUSTED HEART.

Here’s the thing: if they weren’t intent, from the outset of this trilogy, on sending Kylo Ren on an arc of some kind (the anti-hero’s journey to Rey’s hero’s journey where they meet in the middle), then they wouldn’t have gone to such lengths to portray him as conflicted in TFA and they definitely wouldn’t have devoted AN ENTIRE MOVIE to humanizing him, all without resolving the conflict he started with. If anything, TLJ should’ve left him on a slightly less ambiguously conflicted note.

The point is if he were slated to stay and rot in hell, we would’ve left him in TLJ on that long-suffering, rage-fueled scream after Luke disappears. That’s the perfect note to end a going-nowhere arc on. If it ended there, I would 100% be on board with Kylo Ren: Irredeemable Asshole. Prepare for him NOT to finish what Vader started. (What does that even mean, btw? I’ve always wondered. What did Vader start that he didn’t finish? The 2nd Death Star?)

But we freaking didn’t leave him there! Oh no, we left him broken to bits on some dirty floor in the middle of nowhere. Furthermore, if he wasn’t going to be redeemed, we certainly would NOT have been shown that he’s still Force-connected to Rey, who now –lacking Leia– must serve as his only (corporeal) thread to the Light.

I just want one thing: Let Kylo Ren turn however he’s going to turn –Gray, Yellow, Pink, Blue, whichever color– just do it early-ish. I cannot sit through another entire movie of Flip-Flop Kylo only for him to make an actual decision in the closing five minutes.

Talk about doing a character dirty.

REYLO HUG

I don’t know why it was this one of all viewings, but today when I was watching the Austen Proposal, all I could think was, “Ehrmygawd, Rey! You need a hug! And he needs a hug! Just go hug him!”

I love Reylo, but I’m exhausting myself on this ship lol. I love and generally agree with all the metas on why it couldn’t go the way she wanted it to or the way he wanted it to. But I just kept thinking, as I was sitting there watching their sticky, weepy-eyed faces for the millionth time, Seriously. Go hug him!

Like, after being hit in the face with the blunt truth, what if Rey had said fuck it to the hand and just thrown her arms around him? It wouldn’t have fixed their problems, obviously; it actually probably would’ve made them worse.

But it would’ve fixed mine for the next 2 years!