#i have a bunch of thoughts but none really have any substance or are interesting

[linkedin-offficial]

an assortment of au stuff

i enjoyed thinking about it more :]

[restforthe-burdenedsoul]

I’m on day 17 (not including weekends) of work and still not liking the job.

Other than my very first social work job, it’s never taken me this long to warm up to a job. The more I understand it, the less I like it.

I have therapy in a couple weeks and I’m going to process some more there. I told myself I’d reevaluate after I finish the training. Sept 11 will be my first non-training day.

What follows under the cut is a bunch of processing about what I like and don’t like.

I’m conflicted because I feel like I should give it more time and also, I still have no idea what I’d do otherwise.

I know that I want to help people and the highest satisfaction I’ve had was when I was working with clients in the community meet random goals. Mostly independent living skills, budgeting, healthy eating, interpersonal skills, and some CBT type work.

This job has none of that and I’m struggling. I’m coming home exhausted, failing to get to bed in time (9pm) and struggling to wake up on time (5am). Any time I have (2 hours) after getting home from work (645pm) goes to preparing for the next day. I am quite literally not feeling fulfilled anywhere.

The job is demanding which is okay and I’ll survive it, but it’s mentally boring. Now, the work itself isn’t boring because there definitely is not time to be bored, but it isn’t fulfilling. I meet with patients and do a quick assessment (5 mins unless they’re talkers). I verify their address, doctor, emergency contacts, insurance, etc. I see if they have trouble with their day to day, if they need transport, and some other random things. 

I then read the physician notes to see if there have been any orders put in (OT, PT, Speech, etc) and set up any aftercare that may come from that (home health care or facilities to help meet those orders once they’re discharged).

The bulk of it is communicating with other agencies. I send referrals through a computer, I talk to them through a computer, I set up transport through a computer, everything is work in the computer.

Every 3 days I check in on the patient to see if anything has changed. I discharge them with the services that have been set up.

There’s nothing related to support services (ie mental health, substance use besides requesting a consult through the computer, budgeting issues, daily living issues outside of health care).

I guess I thought I’d be doing more biopsychosocial assessments and referring to both healthcare Agencies AND community supports. I think I just jumped at the job because it fell into my lap and we had to move and M had gotten a job too.

I thought it would be more hands on with the patients.

Instead, I’m stuck in an office 80% of the day, maybe more. Yes I see the patients when I hand them a list of agencies to choose (I don’t even get to help them choose!) or hand them a list with supports (food banks etc IF they ask). I’m communicating mostly with nurses, healthcare agencies, sometimes doctors.

I never had an interest in hospital work, but the pay was alluring and I just don’t think money is enough For me. I’m money driven, but….I don’t think this much.

There’s definitely perks of the job. The day goes by fast, I’m safe, it’s really not hard once you get the hang of the referral process and how to use their system. Patients typically don’t yell at you (But they def still do)…. I’m sure there’s more.

Im not one to give up. But maybe this setting just isn’t for me?

[littleguyconnor]

stupid Pilot and Engie drabble lollolol. What would their ship name be… AIRCRAFT??? Omg.

The pilot had just gotten off another long shift of delivering packages, lethal kinds and not. Both his plane, “Sweetheart”, and himself were slathered with grease and oil and every other kind of unexplainable substance he picked up on the battlefield. He was a mess and really ought to take a shower, but the night was young and he still had enough nerve about him to visit his friend, Engie. The two men shared a couple of drinks amongst themselves and sat outside to talk, heartily laughing at each other’s jokes and explanations of their days alongside the crickets, who were out chirping somewhere in the brush around Engie’s garage. They were both tipsy enough to feel that joyful buzz, but not so much that they’d regret it too badly in the morning. Pilot was a little more sloshed than he’d like to admit, having never been one to hold down drinks despite his swearing he could, and he found himself staring dazedly at his friend more and more often. 

Engineer was the only mercenary out of the bunch who didn’t act like a total freak upon Pilot’s first arrival, and so they got to talking a lot quicker than the rest. He was smart, too, sharp enough to fix Sweetheart up when she got damaged in flight. The rest of the mercs weren’t bad, though. He got along fine with Sniper once he got him to actually talk some. Soldier would be his go-to friend if he was looking for mindless and dangerous stunts to throw himself into, and the same for the Demoman if he was sober enough. Spy had been polite, and Scout was…. A usual 20-something-year-old. That German though, the Medic, was really quite handsome. Pilot had been interested in him upon first meeting, but quickly learned he was unapproachable. Heavy, or his personal bodyguard more like it, frightened him too much to talk to Medic most days. He was sure the both of them would snap him in half if he tried to get slick anyway. 

The Pyro was normal. 

Something about Engie was alluring to Pilot, though. He already felt like they had a connection going on, a real bond. Out of everyone, he’d rather spend his time with him. Engineer liked him just as well too. It was refreshing to finally have someone else of sound mind to talk to, and his plane brought some new and interesting work to test his skills on. More than that, though, he just plain liked Pilot. He was sure that even if he was dumb as a brick he’d still find something worthwhile to hang around him for. Just being able to look at him seemed plenty enough. There was always something new about him he could find, something pretty, or interesting, or both. Like those scars across the bridge of his nose. It’d been curiosity at first, but now his ideas about it just came to wanting to kiss them and any other scars he found. Awful damned thoughts. But they were there. And they were there often. 

Engie turned his head just briefly enough to catch Pilot staring at him before he snapped away, taking another considerable swig of his drink. Some strange feeling bubbled in his chest. 

“Hell are ya starin' at me for?” He asked, tone playful but caught off guard. Pilot looked at the ground, and then skyward, searching in the darkness for an excuse and making a fool out of himself in doing so. 

“Wasn’t none. Just’is.. lookin at the stars.” He coughed. “They’re looking pretty fine tonight ain’t they?” 

Engie glanced up and found nothing in particular about them interesting. Pilot was a damn liar, he’d seen those dumb specks up close countless times in Sweetheart. 

“Ah-huh.” 

Maybe it was the alcohol, but he suddenly felt rather brave and rather warm. He focused his attention on the man next to him again, with intent this time.

“Reckon I can tell you something that’s prettier n’ em.” He tried, and his friend turned to him at that. 

“Yeah? What’ll that be?” 

“Uh.” 

A beat passed. 

“Well, that’ll be you, Pilot.” He said dumbly, and plopped a firm hand on his shoulder. 

The whole interaction was stupid, awkward, and probably regrettable in a few seconds, but the two men just stared at each other a moment. Out in the middle of fuck nowhere, in probably one of the most ridiculously dangerous jobs Pilot ever had, he had found someone. 

“Well. I think you shine brighter n’ them too.” Pilot said, and almost immediately gagged at himself afterward. It was the first thing he thought to say, which was always the worst one. Engineer paused, and then laughed loudly and hoarsely. Pilot laughed too, although a little delayed and stunned, shutting up completely when Engie bonked his head against his shoulder and rested there. 

“Well god damn,” he started, a little out of breath. “We’re both just awful at this!” 

Pilot snorted, feeling slightly less embarrassed, and leaned into his friend, or possibly, his new partner. 

“Ah feel like I’m worse at it than anyone, if that means anythin to ya,” 

“Nah, I think it was real sweet what you said. I don’t hear much things like that now.” He said, and hummed. 

“Specially not toward me.” 

Pilot let out a quiet sigh through his nose, wrapping an arm around Engineer. He looked toward the sky again, this time thinking about what he wanted to say first. 

“Well, if you’ll have me, I’ll tell ya lots more things like that n’ more.” 

“You mean that? You ain’t just drunk?” 

“Hell, I’ve meant it since you first fixed my plane. Maybe sooner! It don’t matter either way, I think.” 

“Then good. Cause I’ve liked you since you first came down here.” 

[floral-force]

ok i just watched seven samurai (1954) yesterday and magnificent 7 (1960) today and i have MANY thoughts. putting them under the cut.

magnificent 7 (1960) is what happens when you take a good plot (seven samurai (1954)) with details and depth (training the villagers, exploring relationships, adding substance to the romance so it’s actually interesting) and change it so it satisfies americans’ white savior complexes, and avoids allowing masculine men to have emotions and depth outside of being cool, stoic gunslingers.

they never show the actually interesting moments that make the relationships btwn characters and the characters themselves likable so their deaths are more tragic and emotional rather than “necessary” (if that makes sense). the romance lacks depth and is just…bland. the last line is set up and consequently delivered with absolutely none of the gravity it deserves. at the end of seven samurai the remaining men are standing below their fellow samurai warriors'—i'd argue, friends'—graves, defeated and mourning.

they did the honorable thing. they helped save a village by training the villagers so they can protect themselves without them and sacrificing themselves in the fight. but the end just shows that these men won’t know peace or any other life; it's tragic despite the happiness we think we should feel. mag. 7 never builds those relationships that make the end tragic and impactful. it never shows you how the characters connect and interact beyond surface level stuff. they don’t have meaningful relationships with the villagers that make their deaths even more tragic (we see the villagers mourn with the samurai at their graves before the ending). hell, wild bunch (1969) and the dollars trilogy (1964-66) show more emotion from men and explores interpersonal relationships more than mag. 7.

what i enjoy about westerns more than other genres is how it explores morality and humanity. these cowboys set out to help a village not for the money (they aren't paid much for a six week contract) but ultimately because they have hearts, simply put. and we never see that humanity explored. one character has interactions with children that are a bit sad but…that’s it. i want to see these people grapple with their gray identities and how their perceptions and biases shift, and that can be from relationships with others. they're drifters; it isn't unbelievable for them to be skilled with socializing and making connections! cowboys aren’t good people, but they aren’t truly bad either. they’re the perfect way to explore humans. (i really think the man w no name exemplifies this throughout the dollars trilogy. i could write an essay on that alone.) they’re driven by money first (and almost entirely) and their hearts second.

but that can change, and that depends on their interactions and the interactions we see them have as the plot moves along. that’s what makes them likable and their deaths tragic. i think of 3:10 to yuma (i’ve watched the 2007 remake, the original is on my list) and dan, and how we come to empathize in a weird way with/somewhat understand the motives of ben through dan’s relationship to him. what makes westerns compelling extends beyond the stunts, music, fight scenes, and cool one-liners. it's the humanity underneath it all, and how at the end of the day, we might all be a little bit like those morally gray gunslingers in at least one way.

what disappointed me most about mag. 7 is how it took out those essential plot details for the sake of focusing on the cowboys only as one-sided reluctant heroes (again, i interpreted that writing/centering as a manifestation of the white savior complex). their deaths/fights were the only focus, not the villagers fighting back (who i’m supposed to believe they trained thoroughly from a few short montages?), and certainly not their interpersonal relationships with each other. these men could have had compelling stories and relations with each other, but it was scrapped for the sake of protecting the traditional image of masculinity. their growing friendships and relations w the villagers were scrapped in the name of the white savior complex; we only see the villagers as one-sided, meek people that we never really see defend themselves and fight like hell for their village in the final showdown.

anyways, i could write an essay on how the dollars trilogy--despite its flaws--explored this moral grayness effectively, and how cowboys and the western genre as a whole is an almost perfect medium for exploring humanity, but i won’t. for now i will conclude my mini rant/essay by saying: akira kurosawa, you created art; cowboys should show emotion (even if it’s subtle); guns are phallic symbols; western stunts are awesome. thank you.

[whocalledhimannux]

@peregrer the What. 👀👀👀 *insert John Mulaney gif of "say more right now"*

ok so when I say "the extent to which I've fleshed out the QT GBBO AU in my head is getting to be embarrassing," I truly and deeply mean it, please enjoy 1,900 words of utter ridiculousness.

first, our competitors:

Legarus - performs so poorly that viewers are a bit confused how he got on the show in the first place, a la Jamie (series 10) or that one guy who made a lime and chocolate cake in the first week.

Chloe - nice flavors and good ideas for decorations, but pretty sloppy. was up for elimination in the first week but came back with a great showstopper.

Melheret - good but not as good as he thinks he is (hence his bread week elimination because of sloppy technique), heavy-handed with the alcohol flavoring

Agape - solid competitor, not flashy but tasty + pretty results. I haven't worked out exact week-by-week themes (that would indeed be Too Much) but I imagine this is something like "Dairy" or "Caramel" or "Vegan," some particular element she just happens to not be strong on. viewers are disappointed by her early elimination

Teleus - Dad contestant. brings in a bunch of weird pans and gadgets he made up himself, does pretty well until it comes to Fiddly Foreign Foods he doesn't know (probably eliminated in French or Patisserie week)

Laela - typically has good flavors and pretty designs but technical knowledge is a bit lacking, so there are usually some flaws in the execution and she's often in the bottom half of technicals

Phresine - Grandma contestant. nails the classics but ultimately isn't creative enough to make it further.

Magus - the "Ian (series 6)" flavor of Dad contestant, often brings in foraged ingredients or eggs from his own chickens or whatnot and revives old recipes/flavor combinations no one else knows about. one week, some of those turn out to just be too weird, leading to his elimination.

Sophos - pretty elaborate decorations and good flavors (on the border of classic and new), but he tends to try a million different embellishments on everything and struggles with timing, occasionally to the detriment of technique.

Kamet - always has really interesting and different flavors and tends to do well in technicals especially, assuming he doesn't get overwhelmed. which is... an assumption (Finalist)

Costis - leans towards classic and indulgent flavors, although sometimes a bit sloppy--the kind of contestant where the judges look at his dishes and say "it's a bit of a mess" and then Paul Hollywood starts laughing because it still tastes delicious (Finalist)

Irene - absolutely stunning visually, queen of the technicals, occasionally gets the "style over substance" warning (Winner)

more details below the cut

I've gone back and forth on whether Eugenides should be in it but ultimately I decided no because I wanted to maintain a pre-show relationship between Laela + Kamet (I thought otherwise at first but then I realized I hadn't left Kamet any longterm friends or family for his finalist video and that's depressing af) and Irene and Sophos which to my knowledge hasn't happened once on the show so far? so having a married couple on top of that seems like it would be a stretch, and also then I think I'd need to make Eugenides the winner on principle and you know what? he can stand to be second fiddle to his wife for a little bit. My alternate backstory for him is that he was actually the winner of MasterChef one year (good with knives), so in the first episode Irene's first little chat to camera is something like "my husband's been bugging me for years to try out and I keep telling him he's got a skewed perspective on cooking competitions, finally I applied just to shut him up... and here we are." Her little video introduction is about how baking is a stress relief from her bigshot job. Her decorations tend to be abstract and gorgeous rather than cutesy.

Kamet, likewise, was nagged into applying by Laela, but she very cleverly framed it as she wanted to apply and wanted him to do it to for moral support. both were confident the other would get in and surprised that they did themselves. This is one of those series where everyone's friendships are immediate and obvious and super adorable (cast of series 10 my beloved...), and in particular these two are holding hands in episode 1. Laela's deep blue robe from TaT sticks in my head for whatever reason so I imagine her making an elaborate blue peacock cake or something one week that wins her star baker. somebody always does a peacock something and it's always impressiev.

Phresine is cool as a cucumber under pressure, always has lovely things to say about everyone else's bakes, and is the go-to last-minute helper because she usually comes in under the time. Irene starts out similar but as the weeks go by she starts to feel the pressure a bit more and cuts it a bit close. Sophos is the worst on timings, and mentions his wife at least once an episode. (I also played with him being single on the show and meeting Helen later through Irene and Eugenides, but this idea is too cute to pass up tbh.) Teleus lives with Relius, a fact that isn't mentioned until a few weeks in when he comments that Relius likes a recipe or gave him an idea for a flavor or something (Relius does not bake himself but will happily sample practice bakes), to the surprised delight of every viewer whose favorite contestant is the oldest gay in any given series (me, me, that person is me).

Costis tends to use a lot of chocolate and, as I said, pretty "classic" flavors--one of those people who makes a full English savory bake at some point. He's usually in the top half of the competition but doesn't get the top until one of the later weeks in the competition, which is a Honey themed week, and he absolutely nails it. The delicate decorations of his honey nut cakes and his use of honeycomb are particularly praised and that's the week he gets star baker. One of those bakers who flirts with elimination the first few weeks but noticeably improves over the course of the show.

My most, like, plot-y ideas are about Kamet (SHOCKER). I imagine he was born in Setra (I usually make Setra a non-autonomous region in my AUs) but arrived in Britain as a child due to [Unspecified Crisis] and ended up with foster dad Jeffa, who was roughly from the same region but not Setra itself; whenever Kamet wanted Setran food as a kid, Jeffa would take him to the library to find recipes and that was what sparked his love of baking. He's well-read on the subject and knows about foods from a lot of different cultures, so he's usually heard of the technical challenges even if he hasn't made or eaten them. He does a lot of fusion flavors, and is ALL ABOUT bread week.

I don't usually make the his-relationship-with-Nahuseresh-is-romantic leap in modern AUs but I think it works for this one because of the nature of the format--Nahuseresh doesn't actually appear on camera but is alluded to once or twice, ends up being Very Displeased that Kamet is doing something for himself, and during the week following Laela's elimination they have the fight that makes Kamet realizes this is actually a terrible relationship and he needs to leave now. He calls Laela to let her know what's up and mentions that, since he'll need to stay in a motel and has presumbly lost his job as a secretary (yeah working for your boyfriend is Bad, he's realized that now), he's going to have to drop out of the show. Laela, despite living in a studio flat without room to host him, immediately thinks "um fuck that" and calls Costis, and within an hour Costis and Aris and a few rugby buddies have moved all of Kamet's things into Costis and Aris's flat, where Costis insists that he'll squeeze into Aris's room (they've shared before, it's fine) and that Kamet gets first dibs on the kitchen for all bake off practices.

None of them actually reveal any of this to the show's producers. Kamet gets a little overwhelmed the following week and nearly walks away from the tent, but Costis jumps in to keep his bake from being ruined, and some soothing words from Irene + the hosts calm him down and he returns to finish. The only mention of the Drama comes in the finale, during the longer video clips they do on each of the contestants. Kamet is deliberately vague about the details of the situation, but Aris shows up in both Costis's and Kamet's videos and references the fact that having TWO flatmates in the bake off is a bit difficult because they only have a standard size kitchen, so he hasn't cooked for himself in a month and has been living off cake and savory breads. one of the hosts talks to Kamet in the tent after that clip is shown and he still won't talk about it in more detail, but says that he wanted to tell people so they could appreciate why Costis hasn't practiced as much the last few weeks (the judges scolded him for winging it a couple of times), and admits that he totally copied some of Costis's techniques for honey week based on watching him at home.

I imagine the finale task is something like an illusion cake--probably with a bunch of additional required elements because the show has been going bonkers with the finale showstoppers in the newer seasons--and Irene wins with a jewelry box containing, among other things, ruby earrings made out of candy. Kamet does a stepwell, and Costis does something architectural (I was thinking castle but something visibly Greek-ish so maybe a temple or a megaron? idk). Irene wins but they're all BFFs and that's obvious, so everyone's delighted for her. The little montage at the end reveals that Irene + Gen are expecting twins, that everybody hangs out all the time, and that Costis + co recently helped Kamet move into his own flat where he's now working on a novel (Immakuk and Ennikar inspired, obvi, leaning heavily on the honey-shared-on-the-road thing and including some recipes that actually work in the narration, albeit still written in an ancient-novel-like-way).

[Obviously not part of the show, but when Kamet mentions that it's time for him to look for his own place, Costis tries to v awkwardly invite him to stay forever and Kamet is like "nope I've got to try this on my own but yes we will go on a date once I've moved out and see how it goes from there."]

[This is so far beyond the scope of the show but also several of them go on to have more baking-related careers and have active social media presences and at one point they're all hanging out and Eugenides pulls out a camera and demands they all produce baking pick-up lines. Teleus refuses and also doesn't believe anyone knows baking pick-up lines off the top of their head or could make them up on the spot. Sophos sort of proves him right by coming up with "you're the apple of my pie," which Eugenides instantly mocks because Sophos's three greatest loves are baking, Helen, and poetry, and that's the best he can do? Helen comes up with "I like my cake the way I like my men--rich, sweet, and bright red," to which Sophos blushes on cue. Irene's is "when I'm with you, I feel like chocolate heated to 50 degrees--I struggle to maintain my temper." Eugenides protests this is more like an anti-pickup line. Irene insists this is the most accurate marriage-related baking pun anyone could ever come up with.

[Laela's is "You and I are like custard--I hope we never split." Kamet's is "You remind me of bread, because I knead you." Costis freezes for a minute and finally comes up with "Fancy a cream horn?" which produces a lot of giggling and makes Kamet slap his arm in such a way that, hen Eugenides posts this video to instagram, fans of the show all go WAIT ARE THEY DATING NOW] [by this point, yes they are] [I didn't even have to google baking pickup lines for this, guys, I legit came up with them on my own, please clap.]

am I obsessed? I might be obsessed

[inspector-montoya-fox]

let’s talk about why Justine Courtney is a badly written character

it’s been a hot minute since i’ve finished Investigations 2 but i can confidently say it’s very much one of the best Ace Attorney titles, perhaps even as good as Trials & Tribulations. but, that doesn’t mean it didn’t have its flaws, and i think, as much as i love her, Courtney was one them. loads of stuff didn’t really make sense, and her story arc as some sort of antihero didn’t quite gel. let’s dive into specifics (spoilers ahead):

i wanna start off by saying that this character genuinely holds a special place in my heart. if you follow me and my friend’s podcast, Turnabout Podcast, you might know that Investigations 2 was the first game i played without my friend giving me any previews or opinions because it’s the only game in the series that i played first. as such, when Courtney was first introduced, she made an impact by being a female judge sans the restraint of the court. you mean to tell me the judges in the Ace Attorney universe have... a waist, legs and feet !? when i tell you i thought this character was amazing, i mean it. easily one of the best things about my playthrough, something that surely wouldn’t change ever. but before i get into the bad writing, i wanna say that honestly, Courtney has some pretty nice moments in the game.

i think, first and foremost, diversity. like we can clearly see that the traditional Judge borrows heavily from what we all imagine a stereotypical judge would look like. bushy beard, black robes, bald (?). the only thing missing would be an over-the-top white wig with the curls. so, enter Courtney, this woman wearing her pink garment with some astral/cross details, braids in a circle with a thunder-esque fringe in the front, and holding a mini gavel to smash your skull in with. her attire and overall character design successfully portrays a woman who places her faith on the justice system above all else - and that’s a major aspect of her character. honey, she’s serving Florence + the Machine Ceremonials, divine eleganza. this is a prude above all else, and a firm believer that the justice system will prevail in the end, always and forever.

so, with this all in mind, you’d think we’d get a character who’s shtick is ‘blind faith’, etc. i mean, i love Ace Attorney but i have to admit most characters are pretty one-dimensional: Lisa Basil is a computer, Olga Orly is a reveal queen, Phineas Filch is a thief, and so on and so forth. it was a pretty big surprise when Courtney failed to maintain her single trait. the woman clearly doesn’t have a personality or a life outside her job; and even that would make for more interesting character development than what we got. instead, she starts off as an annoying foil to Edgeworth’s plans with some crazy-ass antics, and then proceeds to be excruciatingly irritating just because... she can ???? i feel like the writers had no idea what to do with her so they merged all their half-baked ideas together to form someone with enough systematic power to go against Edgeworth once he effortlessly put Sebastian Debeste in his place. lemme change the paragraph because i’m about to pop off.

Justine Courtney is like... 26 different people. she’s a mother, a judge, an investigator, a babysitter and a pain in the ass all at once. lil mama multi-faceted. the shift in tone doesn’t make sense and isn’t supported by anything in the narrative whatsoever. ok, she was basically playing lapdog to Sebastian in order to get closer to Blaise, i guess. but, why introduce her as someone who’s an avid justice system aficionado and supporter and not drive it all the way home or make it consistent throughout? that’s her entire thing in the Imprisoned Turnabout, talking about the Goddess of the Law and her motivations, but then in the Inherited Turnabout, she barely mentions any of it. instead of maintaining her black-and-white view of the law in order to develop it and make her come to a realisation that it’s not always like this, the writers tried shoving in other stuff like her playing secret agent trying to bust Blaise, or her being a mom.

the storyline at the end where she has a change of heart is completely and utterly unsupported by anything. why help Edgeworth when you’re the one who is to blame for everything !? you’re the reason he’s locked up !? again, if they had just stuck to one tone/ story arc/ theme, it would all make sense. black-and-white view Courtney would realise that Edgeworth is clearly a grey anomaly; mom Courtney would feel something for Sebastian because of her love for John; film noir Courtney would be a double-faced minx who reveals to Edgeworth why she was so eager to antagonise him. but when you put all of these together, it becomes such a convoluted mess that sees none of these aspects fully develop. most of these “character traits” also clash with each other at times, like how she helps Sebastian, an amateur prosecutor, put away people who are most likely innocent (apart from Simon Keyes) despite her undying trust and devotion in the law, or maybe even how her strong motherly instinct would probably prevent her from using Sebastian in order to get closer to Blaise and then ignore the kid’s meltdown in the final case.

and don’t get me started on the teen pregnancy thing. you had to know a secret or a reveal was coming, but that took me out of an otherwise outstanding case just because the Ace Attorney writers refuse to acknowledge that they have an issue with women and their ages. it was a horrifyingly disgusting experience for me doing the math during the Grand Turnabout and then, until it was revealed that John is actually her nephew, i couldn’t think of anything else. looking past how much of a horrible decision it was and how the writers don’t know how to properly give accurate ages to their female characters, it further took away from Courtney’s flawed character. you can’t just give this woman 209131 different storylines, neglect to develop them because she’s kept in the sidelines, and then place her in the forefront of the final major case. that’s not how it works? because when John was abducted, putting my hate for children aside, i genuinely didn’t really care about him. although, i have to admit, the mother-son moments were pretty sweet, and we often praise this on the podcast as well - i truly believe Courtney is an amazing mom, who wants nothing than the best for John. either way, the work wasn’t put in and as such i didn’t really care for a character who failed to gain my devotion and emotional attachment.

when you compare Courtney to other main female characters such as Franziska or Mia, the difference is undeniable. even when we compare her to the Judge, it’s clear that she fails to make an impression on the player because her traits are not consistent. ‘she lacked substance’ would be the TLDR version. if you want more Justine Courtney criticism, @ironicsnap​ quite literally pops off here and we discuss the age thing in detail. but to conclude, i think we should have gotten one version of Courtney. my favourites from the bunch would have to be “film noir” investigator Courtney or the “blind faith” one because i think that would make for interesting character development above all else. i would love to see Courtney be the prosecution’s pawn and then realise that and actually switch sides. if this was the case then she could return in later installments and interact with characters such as Kristoph Gavin, who have similar story-arcs.

[maandags]

I don’t know if it was ever confirmed, but imagine being the one to find Sokka’s Meteor Sword (that he lost in the final battle) and returning it to him.

two more days.

two more days’ walking, and you’ll get to the Capital. two more days’ walking, and your weeks-long journey will finally come to an end.

you nibble on the piece of carefully wrapped bread that you purchased in the last village you passed through. it’s a sunny day, so you found a tree casting shade to sit and rest in. beside you sits your backpack, your bedroll, and tied to your pack the dark metal sword.

it was an insane idea, at first. after scouring the battlefield -- burned, then flooded -- for survivors, or corpses, or anything salvageable at all, you found the sword sticking up from ash-covered soil like it was a thing from legend. black blade against a blackened background, it gave you chills the first time you laid eyes upon it.

a rare sword, it is. not many weapons are that well-made, and made of this particular material. you took it home, cleaned it, polished it. never really knew what to do with it, to be honest -- you’re no swordsmaster. you’re a traveller. someone who knows people and places.

but you took it with you, wrapped in cloth and bound with twine. foolish, in hindsight; it could so easily have been stolen off of you. it still could be. but you did it anyway, not even knowing what to do with it, and by some sort of miracle you were still in possession of it when you ran into a few members of the White Lotus.

well-worn travellers like yourself know a lot of people in a lot of places. you’re no official member of the White Lotus -- though you’d say the relationship you have with them is one of understanding and respect. some well-known figures rank high amongst its members. you’ve had tea with General Iroh of the Fire Nation, as well as King Bumi of Omashu, and other such figures. 

but that’s none of your business, of course. you’re merely a traveller.

however, you had to admit that the small Fire Nation village of Bluevalley is not where you’d expected a White Lotus headquarters to be. 

“why, hello, Y/N. how nice that our paths cross again.” the General’s eyes twinkled. 

you tipped your hat in respect -- a bow without bowing -- and smile. “an honour, as always.”

“tea?”

“that only seems appropriate, doesn’t it?”

Iroh smiled. “indeed it does.”

it was a cozy yet functional headquarters, with a low table and no windows. you didn’t waste time looking around. that was not what you were there for. you were there to have tea; a traveller enjoying old friends’ hospitality.

none of the men asked you what you were doing here, and you did the same. you talked about small things; your recent discoveries regarding various flora and their applications, spiritual talk; vague enough for there to be no real substance to the conversation, yet enough to keep it going nonetheless.

but your attention was focused on Master Piandao. known master of swordfighting, teacher only to those he deems worthy. you thought he might be interested in the blade you carried. 

“master Piandao.”

he slowly took a sip of tea, then looked at you. “yes, Y/N?” 

“I have something I’d like you to take a look at.”

Piandao raised an eyebrow. “do you, now?”

you nodded, gingerly setting your teacup on the table and turning to retrieve your bag, which sat against the wall, next to the door. sticking out of the flap was the sword, wrapped in fabric to conceal and protect the blade. you heaved it out, walking back to the men and laying it out across the table, working to untie the knots. you watched Piandao’s face carefully as the fabric fell away, trying to gauge his reaction.

but he was not a high-ranking member of the White Lotus for nothing, and his expression revealed nothing – until his lips curled into a faint smile. “yes. I know this blade.”

it surprised you, because in reality you hadn’t expected him to know this particular sword out of every sword he must have encountered in his life. but he apparently did, and you leaned forward, interest increased tenfold. “you – you do?”

Piandao lifted it, inspected corners and balance, before gently setting it back on its fabric encasing. “yes. and I’m sure you have heard of him too.” he smiled at you, eyes twinkling. “he is part of the Avatar’s closest friends, after all.”

you stare at him blankly. “you’re not serious.”

“I can assure you I am very much serious.” he cast another look at the sword. 

on the other side of the table, Iroh nodded. “Sokka is very skilled with it. however, I was under the assumption he lost it during the Battle of Sozin’s Comet.”

you shrugged. “I think he did. I just found it, cleaned it. figured I’d try to find its owner.”

Piandao looked at you, estranged. “that is very noble of you, Y/N. not many people would have done the same thing.”

you winked at him. “I’m not like most people, Master Piandao.”

he laughed softly. “that, you aren’t.”

that had been weeks ago. you’d figured you’d just make for the Fire Nation Capital, since that’s where the Avatar and his posse reside at the moment. what to do when you get there – how to actually meet Sokka, actual war hero and probably bearer of a bunch of other titles by now – was a whole other problem, but you’d cross that bridge when you got to it.

two more days, and you’ll get to the wall.

you knock back the last of your water – you’ll have to find a pond or a spring soon to fill it – and stand, swinging your pack onto your back, heaving a sigh. two more days.

the walls of the Capital are even taller than you imagined them to be. inside, you can tell city life is buzzing, people bustling around, shouts and laughter drifting through the air; they’re celebrating still, despite the defeat of Ozai and the ascension of Fire Lord Zuko being a solid two months past already. you’ve heard that the Capital has never been this alive.

“halt.” four guards at the gates, stopping people, exchanging a few words with them, then sending them on their way. you tilt up your hat, putting on your least mysterious smile. 

“what is your business in the city?”

“I’m merely a traveller, sir. just passing through. my cousin has a tea shop here.” the lie flows from your lips with ease. 

the guard looks you up and down, not looking entirely convinced. “anything to declare?”

“no, sir.” you’d tried to conceal the sword as best you could. now, barely the tip of the blade was sticking out of your pack, and you’d managed to cover that up pretty well with your bedroll. they’d have to go rummaging through your stuff to find it.

the guard looks you over one more time, then shrugs and steps aside. “all right. enjoy your stay.”

you smile at him. “thank you. I will.”

it takes you another day to reach the inner Capital inside the Capital. hm. here was where you’d need to either be creative, or ask to meet Sokka. how successful of an endeavor that would be, you weren’t sure of. you’ll just have to… figure something out. 

okay. attempt one. you leave your pack at the cheap inn you stayed at the previous night – it stings a little, but also, there’s nothing in there you can’t get in the city. life as a traveller taught you to not get too attached to your pack or its contents. except, of course, for the sword, which you strap across your back. it’s wrapped in one more layer of dark green cloth, to better conceal its shape.

a walk around the wall tells you it is… very well guarded. there are two points of entry, both gates watched by four guards. the shift change is well coordinated, so sneaking in during it is not feasible either. and even if you did manage to slip past the guards, the gates themselves are bolted shut from the inside. 

there is simply no way for you to get in.

as you’re racking your brain, wondering if you’re really going to risk getting arrested for this sword and this man you don’t know and you’re being so dumb and such an idiot – the gates open, and there he is. just stepping out of the palace grounds, like it’s no big deal. like there aren’t countless youths stood outside the gates, just waiting for him to appear, maybe smile at them, give them even the tiniest bit of his attention. 

you stare at him, because the coincidence is just too hysterical. he’s giving the people around him awkward waves and even awkwarder grins, clearly having no clue what to do with himself around all this attention. he’s flanked by two guards – not surprising – and slowly makes his way across the square. you follow him with one eye, frantically scribbling a note at the same time.

you can’t just walk up to him. hi, hello, you don’t know me, but I have a sword to give you. the guards would be mad to let you approach at all; they’ve probably been trained to shield him from any human interaction that isn’t with his trusted friends – all of them just as unreachable for someone like you.

but a note… you can slip him a note. he doesn’t look like someone who would shy away from a cryptic message asking him to meet you in the park an hour after sundown. does he?

so you get up and hurry after him, eyes latched onto the blue of his clothes, tracing the lines of his body and observing the spring in his step with a crooked grin on your face. he doesn’t look like a war hero, that’s for sure. 

but you often found that looks can be deceiving, and that those who might not look like much have the most to offer.

you catch up with them in a busy street – even busier, after Sokka’s arrival – and manage to sidle up to them unnoticed. 

one of the guards looks around, disapproval clear in his expression. “I don’t understand why you wouldn’t just take the carrier. someone of your status –” 

“no, no, no. the carrier – are you serious? that’s, like, Zuko levels of pretentious. I already feel super awkward with all this – uh – attention –” you roll your eyes – “I mean, not that I don’t enjoy it, but, you know –” 

his voice gets drowned out by the noise of the crowd, and you shake your head, shuffling forward, waiting for an opening that’ll allow you to slip the note in his pocket. you don’t have to wait that long; it’s easy enough to pretend you trip and fall, having to grab onto Sokka’s arm to keep yourself from crashing down. the guards raise their hands, alarm sparking in their expression; but Sokka ignores them, helping you up. 

“you okay?”

you nod, tucking the folded piece of paper between the folds of his clothes. “yes, thank you. I’m sorry.”

“don’t worry about it,” he says airily, with a smile that makes you understand all of a sudden why so many people are fawning over him left and right.

he frowns, opens his mouth, and you duck your head down, grateful your hat conceals most of your face. someone calls Sokka’s name. he looks up, and you use the moment of confusion to slip away into the crowd.

you’re sat on wall surrounding the parks, watching the twinkling lights spreading far into the city, waiting for him. the sword is still strapped to your back. one knee is drawn up to your chest, and you keep an eye out on the park gates.

sure enough, after a while, a figure enters the park that can only be him. you grin, waiting until he’s passed by you before you drop to the ground and clearing your throat.

he whirls around, hands moving to grab the hilt at his side – a sword. you smile. “hello.” 

“do I know you?”

“no, I suppose you wouldn’t.” you tip your hat. “you don’t have to be so nervous. I’m not going to fight you.”

“I don’t know that.” 

“sure. I’ll be gone before you know it, anyway.”

Sokka scowls. “why did you ask me to meet you here?”

you reach behind your back, shooting him an irritated look when his grip on his sword tightens. “relax. I just have a present for you.”

“if you try anything –” 

“what, your friends will jump out from hidden corners and murder me where I stand? come on, man,” you scoff, holding the package out to him. 

Sokka looks at it suspiciously for a moment before he sheaths his sword, accepts the package, starts to unwrap it. when the cloth falls away and the sword is revealed, his eyes go wide as saucers, and his knuckles go white around the hilt of the blade. he looks at you, then at the sword, back at you, back at the sword.

“this is – this is my spa – I mean – my meteor sword,” he stammers. “I – I lost this. months ago.”

“and I found it. and got it back to you.” you shift your weight, cross your arms. “Master Piandao says hello, by the way.” 

Sokka is looking more and more confused. “you know Piandao?”

“something like that.”

he exhales shakily, holds the blade to his chest. “who are you?”

you smile, already planning to make your mysterious exit and never see him again – or something like that. maybe you’ll stay a bit. Sokka intrigues you. 

“a traveller.”

[dimensionwriter]

Hammer Away

Gender Neutral! Orc x F! Reader

Word Count: 2,756 words

Warning: None

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So, hi. So big news, I'm working on a way to start up commissions. Since I have some free time, I would be able to do them now. So watch out for that post if you are interested. For now, enjoy this beautiful story.

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Moving to the city was a big deal for you. It was your first step towards that adulthood freedom you always heard about and creating yourself for the future. It was your time to shine in this world.

And things seem to be going great. You got this cute contemporary apartment that was high up, so you could see the sun rising over the city. You got this cool job at a retro cafe and worked at a library on weekends. Things were looking up in your life.

That was until the lot next to you got sold and all of a sudden a hotel was going to be built there. You really didn't think much of it since it didn't block your beautiful view. But your opinion changed really quickly.

You got into the habit every morning to walk past the construction site and peak over the wooden fence to see what was going on. There would be a bunch of orcs working with a bunch of construction equipment. The way they just move so easily with such massive objects just captivated you.

At first, they didn't notice you, but around the 5th day, they did. It shocked you to peek over the fence and see a group of talking orcs stop and wave at you. You were not prepared for that and embarrassingly, you may have ducked down while running away.

You didn't peak over the fence for the next two days. You knew it was a dumb thing to do, but you were too scared of them getting mad at you for always peaking over. You didn't want to seem like one of those creepy humans that was always staring at other creatures like they were some type of zoo animal.

On the 8th day, you grew curious again when you heard what sound to be wielding. You went to a new part of the fence, a few feet from your normal spot, and peaked over. A small one couldn’t cause any damage, right?

The foundation of the building was already built and they seemed to be working on the exoskeleton of it. Bars of metal were being lifted up by cranes along with orcs carrying them around as if they weighed nothing.

You noticed that one orc was staring at you. As soon as you made eye contact, his eyes lit up and he turned to an orc carrying an arm full of sandbags and tapped them. The working orc turned around with a confused look before their eyes landed on you. They seem to jump at seeing you, causing their hands to release the sandbags…right on their foot.

You ducked down at the scream that got ripped out of their throat. You were quick to run to your job after that. There was no way they weren't going to be mad at you now.

A full week went by with you avoiding the construction site like the plague. You were too scared to even go near it. You were expecting a manager to come up to your door and yell at you for distracting and injuring his workers. What if that orc tried to make you compensate them? You can't afford that. How much does damaging someone’s foot cost?

The Monday of the third week, you walked out of your apartment building to see that the wooden fence had changed into a wire fence. The amount of dread that overcame you felt like a tsunami. Whomever was watching over you was finding a huge amount of humour in your suffering?

You walked as fast as you could past the construction site. But you weren't fast enough.

"Hey! Human! Watch out," someone yelled. You turned your head towards the construction site to see a small white object speeding towards you.

You didn't have any time to move. By the time you would've moved your leg, the ball would smash into your face. If you tried to dodge it, your body would move too slow since you just used precision time standing here and thinking.

You flinched as you saw it get extremely close. But instead of feeling your skull getting knocked into next week, a thick arm wrapped around your waist. You were dipped slightly and spun. What?

You open your eyes to see a figure above you. They seem to be a sort of shadow as the early sun creates this giant glow around them.

They tilted their head to the side allowing the sun rays to reach their face. You were met with a dark brown eye and a light green eye. Their hair was flowing down and seemed to encase you within them. The left side of the hair was pitch black while the right was pale white. They were really cute.

They opened their mouths to speak, but nothing came out. Their tusk was jutting out and touching the infinity ring dangling from their nose. A dark green forest was painting their skin as they stood still.

You leaned your head back and saw their muscular right arm was sticking up above you. Wrapped tightly in their fist was a softball. So that's what the white object was.

"I-I-I," they stuttered out like a broken record. You lifted your head back up and looked into their eyes. Their green skin was turning a dark blue colour and was spreading fast. Were they okay?

"You can let me up," you mumbled. Your legs were starting to cramp from being at this angle for so long. Most of your weight was in their arms, which you were kind of grateful for.

"Sorry," they yelped, yanking you forward. Everything blurred for a second before you were slammed into a stop. Their giant hand was gripping harshly on your shoulder as they held you up. You think you may have gotten whiplash.

"Thanks for the help. I gotta- I need to go to work," you slurred out trying to regain your being. Everything felt like it was still spinning.

"Of course. Sorry for being a nuisance," they squeaked out, shrinking into themselves. In your state of dizziness, you barely manage to give them a thumbs up before stumbling away to your job.

The next day, you felt kind of scared to cross past the construction site. You thought about it yesterday and began to wonder why a softball was flying that fast through a construction site. You may know nothing about the job, but you're pretty sure it doesn't require a softball.

You walked at a fast pace as you got closer to the construction site. This time you were going to keep a close eye out. No softball is going to catch you off guard this time.

As you walk past, you realize orcs work a lot faster than humans do. The exoskeleton of the building, which looked to be 7 stories, was already done. Except for one long metal bar that was extended a little over the fence. There were a few orcs on it that were yelling at someone on the ground.

"Bro…she's right there…just talk…okay fine." You looked down on the ground to see who they were talking to. You recognized them instantly.

It was the orc that saved you yesterday. Today, their hair was pulled into a high messy bun that looked like it was going to fall apart if someone blew on it.

They glanced over at you and seemed to jump up high like a cartoon woman seeing a rat. You blinked slowly at them and waited for maybe a wave or something. But they just stood there with wide eyes and seemed too afraid to move. Were they frightened by you? Well, they probably were since you probably damaged their hand because you were too slow to move, and now that you looked at them, they looked like the orc that you caused to drop that sandbag. Yeah, they definitely had a reason.

You turned your head away and was about to walk away. When you hear a voice above you scream," Whoospie. Oh no, human!" It was so sarcastic and insincere that you thought maybe they were making jokes about what happened yesterday.

It was until you saw a wall of green running towards you. You barely had time to turn your head before you felt a pair of arms wrapped around your waist. You were wrapped into a ball full of muscles. A strong wift of cinnamon and pine flooded your senses. They smell really good.

Something cold and wet splashed on your arm causing you to jolt in surprise. The thing around you let out a shiver from that weird substance splashing onto it. It seems that they took most of the hit instead of you.

Slowly, the arms unwrapped from around you and you were pulled straight up. You glanced up to see a pair of brown and green eyes staring down at you in slight panic. Water slowly dripped down the front of their face into their soaked shirt.

"Sorry-dry-um," they let out a low cough before starting again," You didn't get wet, right?" They scanned their eyes briskly over you as their eyebrows furrowed in concern.

"I'm fine, but you're not," you yelped, taking in their soaked form. The white shirt they were wearing was completely see through now and they're jeans were a very dark blue. It wasn't cold, but it would still be uncomfortable standing there soaked. "Stay here."

You turned around and ran as fast as you could to your apartment. You felt so bad for always getting in this orc's way. This poor orc has had their foot smashed in, hand probably bruised from that softball, and now they're soaking wet.

Maybe it would be better if you took a different path to work. You're like a bad omen to this site. Yeah, that's the plan.

You returned back outside with two pairs of towels. The orc wasn't standing where you previously left them. You did tell them to stay there, right? So, where did they go off to?

"Dude, that was so smooth. The way you slid in and wrapped yourself around her," a squeaky voice whispered nearby. You realized that the talking was coming from a portable building.

"It was anything but smooth. Didn't you see how she ran away?" Another one sighed out with a small whimper at the end. You held the towels tightly as you tiptoed closer to the building.

"She probably was too flustered from how awesome you are! I saw her whisper something to you before she ran away. Spill it," a deeper baritone voice cheered on. The sound of a loud hit followed by coughing came from the building.

You stepped towards the building and noticed a small window. It would hypothetically be the perfect height to peak in through. But from all your previous tries, it always ends up in something bad.

But, if you only do it for a few seconds, you should be fine. A few seconds peak won't change anything. Yeah, just a tiny peak.

Tip toeing over to the window, you took a deep breath to calm yourself. You just want to make sure that the orc is okay then you will leave. They have been taking a lot of hits for you and you never got a chance to repay them.

You slowly stood up until your eyes were leveled with the window. Inside of the room were a bunch of chairs around a small table. All the chairs were filled with orcs, but one orc was sitting in the corner balled up. You could see their soaked shirts from all the way over here.

“I wasn’t paying attention to what she said. All I was thinking was that she smelled really really good. Then I blinked and she was running away. Guess my monstrous size scared her,” they mumbled out in defeat. Their hand slowly went up into their hair and started gripping it harshly. The others in the room started to instantly express their disbelief.

“If she was scared of our size, then why has she been coming by here for the longest time. People don’t tend to frequently visit something if they fear it,” the orc closest to them spoke, patting them gently on the head. Their hands untangled themselves from their hair allowing the black and white strands to fall over their face.

Since you were so busy staring at the orc in the corner, you didn’t notice the female orc across from the window staring at you. She bumped the shoulder of the man beside her and flicked her head towards you. Putting a hand over his mouth, he whispered for everyone to glance at the window. It was loud enough for everyone to hear but the poor orc in the corner and you.

“Maybe you should just plainly ask her out,” the female orc in the corner said with a smirk. The orc jolted straight up and stared at her in bewilderment. They furiously shook their head as they squeezed themselves into the corner. “Andy, I’m telling you, you’re just overthinking it.”

“Trust me, she wouldn’t go for someone like. I’m not going to shoot my shot, if I’m in the middle of the ocean, millions of miles away from a hoop,” the orc, who you assumed was Andy, rambled sliding down the wall. The other orcs shook their heads at him and you felt that some of them were glancing at you. Have they already noticed you?

“I am telling you that the hoop is right there, I mean right there,” an orc turned his head so he was staring right at you. Instead of ducking down, you stayed put. You were kind of liking where this was going.

“I’m nothing more than a lump of sea grass floating through the ocean,” Andy whined out balling up. One orc stuck his hands out and pretended to strangle him in frustration. After a second, his rage dissipated and he just sunk into his chair.

The female orc let out a low groan before yelling,” Forget it.” Andy jumped a little and their pretty eyes were widening in panic as they looked around confused. “Ay, human up there. Are you interested in going on a date with this orc?”

Finally, Andy’s head lifted up and spotted you through the window. You had given up a while ago after figuring out they could see you, and was standing at full height. You are kind of surprised that Andy didn’t notice you before. It’s kind of adorable how clueless they are.

“I’ve been standing out here for a while hoping for one,” you joked, sending them a wink. Andy’s face exploded into blue as his brown and green eyes sparkling with happiness. They jumped up and tripped over the chair in front of them, but recovered quickly. Within a quick second, they were staring you dead in the eyes with so much hope.

“Are you free this afternoon? Or is that too soon? I can go with any schedule of yours,” they babbled out rocking on their feet. Their hair was floating around them like some sort of halo. Gosh, this adorable hunk of orc has had a crush on you this entire time. You feel that it should have been the other way around.

“This evening is fine. I should be able to meet you right here around 6. How does that sound?” you asked tilting your head to the side. Their eyes melted slowly and you swear small lights of hearts appeared on their eyes.

“It sounds perfect,” they whispered, giving you a giant smile. You leaned forward and pressed a swift kiss to the window. Even though you didn’t touch them, their face hued darker and their eyes were shining so hard.

“Now, I better get to work before my boss gets mad. See you in a couple of hours,” you yelled jumping off the ledge and running to your job. You just hoped your boss wouldn’t mind you being so late. But whatever was facing you at work, you felt you could deal with, especially when you have a date with such an adorable orc.

As you ran down the sidewalk, the last thing you heard from the construction site was,” I guess you can still make the hoop from the ocean,” followed by loud laughter. A smile made its way to your face as you turned the corner.

See you at 6, Andy.

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Once again I am creating these soft orcs. I promise, one day I will create something better.

Anyway, please leave a Like and Reblog. I love it so much when you guys Comment, I think i reread them like 20 times. It's nice to see that people actually see this content instead of it just passing by in this overwhelming source dump.

Thank you so much for reading. As said earlier, keep your eyes out for a post about commissions from me.

[infinite-xerath]

Runeterra Retcons 8: Kog’Maw

I’ll be honest: when people consider Champions that could use a lore rewrite or update, Kog’Maw is probably far from the top of the list. Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was Riot’s thought process as well. Kog’Maw is another case similar to Twitch where his current story isn’t bad per se, but more-so that there isn’t really much there. His bio on universe consists of only two paragraphs, which obviously leaves him feeling a bit neglected compared to other Champions post-reboot…

Except it kind of doesn’t? While significantly shorter than most Champions’ bios, Kog’Maw’s actually more-or-less does what it needs to. See, Kog’Maw is a Voidborn, a monster born from the eldritch realm of all-consuming cosmic horrors who want nothing more than to see Runeterra and all of reality assimilated and wiped out. While champions from the Void have been shown to have capacity for intelligence, they’re all really just monsters at the end of the day with their only driving force being to consume and grow. They enter Runeterra for that express purpose and that will continue to be their only driving motivation until they either die or until the world ends.

Now, every Voidborn is slightly unique in the ways they go about consuming things. Cho’Gath eats stuff just to grow larger, whereas Kha’Zix eats to evolve, adapting the most useful traits and abilities of his prey. Vel’Koz absorbs the knowledge and information from what he disintegrates, while Rek’Sai eats primarily so that she can continue to multiple and spread her brood across Shurima. It is interesting how Riot made a bunch of monsters whose primary goal is literally just eating and gives each of them a unique twist on the act, and though Kog’Maw is little underwhelming in that department. To get what I mean, let’s take a look at his bio.

So Kog’Maw, similar to Vel’Koz, eats primarily to learn and satisfy his endless curiosity about the world. Kog’Maw is a little unique among the Voidborn in that he’s not malicious or apathetic, but rather possesses an almost childlike innocence that drives him to simply learn all he can. Unlike the others, it’s not clear if Kog’Maw really even understands the Void’s mission or purpose to destroy everything, making him arguably the most sympathetic Voidborn by far.

As things stand, Kog’Maw’s current bio says all it really needs to about his character… Well, all but one thing. Since his inception, Kog’Maw has always been somewhat special among the Voidborn, having a direct link of sorts to Malzahar. The only real change from his original bio is removing any mention of the Fields of Justice or the League itself, but the fact remains that Kog’Maw has always been driven to find Malzahar for some unexplained reason. He wasn’t directly summoned by the prophet like his Voidlings are, but rather, it seems like the Watchers sent Kog’Maw to Runeterra to find the prophet...

But that’s all we know. Seriously, even Kog’Maw’s bio literally says that it’s “anyone’s guess” what will happen when the two finally meet, which, knowing how League storylines rarely get to see a conclusion of any kind, will probably be never. What makes Kog’Maw so special? Why does he need to meet up with Malzahar? How does this acid-spitting Void dog pose more of a threat than the likes of Cho’Gath or Baron Nashor?

Today, that’s what I wanted to explore. I suppose you could say that this episode is less of rewrite or retcon, and more an expansion. I want to give Kog’Maw a more significant role in the story, and while we’re at it, continue the trend of giving him a unique reason to consume things that makes him stand out from the others. So, without further ado, let’s build upon the Mouth of the Abyss and finally give an answer to these age-old questions.

For eons, the Void has gnawed at the barrier between itself and reality, aiming to break through it to usher in the end of all things. The unfathomable horrors that rule over the Void have sent countless of their malformed spawn through cracks in the barrier to further their ambitions, and on occasion have even contracted humans desperate enough to become their heralds. The most prevalent of these heralds are the traitorous ice witch Lissandra and the Shuriman seer Malzahar, but none would ever suspect that the true key to oblivion is a lone Voidling simply known as Kog’Maw.

When Malzahar swore himself to the Void in the remnants of Icathia, the broken seer proved oddly compatible with the otherworldly powers of the Watchers. Just as the Void had called to him, the seer unknowingly called out to something in the depths of the Void. As Malzahar left Icathia behind him, a writhing, twisted creature emerged from the cracks in the earth. A strange, caustic substance secreted from this larva as it slowly took shape. Eventually, the creature formed a mouth and eyes, and found itself intrigued and perplexed with the strange new world around it.

For months, the Voidling wandered the wastes of Shurima alone, driven by a deep-rooted desire to find the one that had summoned him to this world. The more he wandered, the more he began to develop a taste for the unusual, fascinating creatures of Runeterra. Even as he sampled everything he could, however, the Voidling continued to search for the one who called for him. It wasn’t long before he encountered other humans, but they were of little help, offering screams rather than any means of finding the one who summoned him. In response, the Voidling simply melted and devoured those who proved otherwise unhelpful. Those who survived such encounters named the beast Kog’Maw: Mouth of the Abyss.

Having no luck with the caravans, Kog’Maw turned his attention to one of the strange human cities to resume his search. As expected, the humans all screamed and ran, but some, to his surprise, lashed out. Sharp objects pierced Kog’Maw’s flesh, leading to him retaliating with globs of acid that burned through the armor of his attackers. Despite the potency of his bile, though, Kog’Maw was outnumbered, and soon found himself surrounded by soldiers who all drove their sharp sticks into the Voidling’s hide.

In that moment, a violent explosion of energy burst forth from Kog’Maw’s body, consuming the soldiers and their weapons and leaving nothing behind. After that, everything was darkness.

Kog’Maw awoke hours later, alone in the desert once again. Though confused and hungrier than ever, Kog’Maw resumed his search with renewed resolve to find the one called Malzahar. He believes that the Void seer is the only one who can satisfy his curiosity and help Kog’Maw to understand the nature of the mysterious power that dwells within him. The more he consumes, the more this power grows… And all-the-while, Malzahar waits for the destined time when Kog’Maw will arrive before him, ready to unleash that power and tear open the veil of reality once and for all.

So, ominous, right? I admit, it’s still a little vague, but I’d like to think that the implications are clear enough without me flat-out saying it. Basically, in my rendition of the lore, Kog’Maw is a bomb.

One of Kog’Maw’s most notable but also most out-of-place abilities in-game is Icathian Surprise. This passive ability basically makes it so that Kog’Maw explodes when he dies, allowing him to deal True Damage to members of the enemy team. This ability is never brought up or referenced at all in the lore, and it’s certainly a strange ability to have for a creature who’s all about melting things down with acid.

So, crazy thought: what if we actually gave Icathian Surprise lore relevance? What if Kog’Maw’s ability to self-destruct is actually his main ability? He melts things down to eat them, and the more he eats, the more the power inside him grows and swells. When he’s killed, Kog’Maw unleashes that power in a violent explosion powerful enough to obliterate everything around him… And if he eats enough, that power could even become so strong as to blow open reality itself.

Yes, Kog’Maw is more than just an acid-spitting Void dog. In my interpretation of the lore, Kog’Maw is a doomsday weapon. His purpose for eating is to build up power, and when he’s consumed enough, Malzahar will bring him to Icathia. where the Void already has a foothold. There, the prophet slays Kog’Maw so that the resulting blast will widen the gap enough for the Void to begin its assault on Shurima once again. This is the prophet’s grand plan, and for now, all he has to do is let Kog’Maw wander and feast…

The one silver lining is that if Kog’Maw dies prematurely, all the power he’s already built up is released and he has to start over from scratch. This, I think, is a much more interesting direction to take the character and gives him a much deeper significance in the Void plot overall. I also really like the idea that, despite seeming like the weakest Void Champion in the game, Kog’Maw is arguably the most dangerous because of his true purpose. I suppose I’m just a sucker for the trope of relatively harmless-looking characters possessing terrifying hidden powers deep down.

But, that’s my take on it. What do you guys think? Does Kog’Maw work as a secret doomsday weapon for the Void, or do you prefer to keep him vague and more comedic? Leave your thoughts below, and I’ll see you all next time.

[smokeybrandreviews]

Smokey brand Movie Reviews: Stop, It's Already Dead

I’ve been trying to watch Army of the Dead since it came out but every time i start, i end of bailing on it because it’s trash. Yeah, that’s it. This movie is trash. You can literally stop reading this review right now because that’s the verdict. Army of the Dead is shallow, inconsequential, zombie murder porn wit that trademark Zack Snyder, edgelord, spice. It’s f*cking ridiculous and i hated every minute of it. That’s it. That’s the review. Don’t watch this rancid spooge. Now, if you want to know why i hated it so much, read on. But it really is one of the worst things i have seen all year.

The Adequate

Dave Batista works magic with the material on hand. Zack Snyder isn’t know for having emotional bite or a realistic edge to any of the characters in his films but Batista was able to hone in on something and does a decent job of letting me tolerate this clusterf*ck. His Scott Ward is easily the best thing about this flick.

The carnage displayed while the opening credits rolled was almost as dope as Zombieland and i appreciated that. Literally the only time during the film where i didn’t feel like someone was standing on my sack and twisting.

Also, Hiroyuki Sanada is in this. I don’t know the name of his character and i don’t care i just genuinely enjoy Sanada’s work. He is an excellent actor and, similarly to Ken Watanabe, makes everything he’s in better, regardless of his role’s size or relevance.

The integration of Tig Notaro was kind of seamless. That sh*t was surprising because every one of her scenes was added in post. She had no interaction with any of the cast, not even in pick-ups. That’s just her, in front of a green screen, talking to herself. Of course, there are scenes where that is very apparent but the fact she was even able to replaces an entire actor wrapped month beforehand, is kind of a miracle and testament to the absurd technical skill Snyder wields as movie maker.

The Horrid

Zack Snyder. Literally everything i am about to unload, is Zack Snyder’s fault. This “film” is pure Zack Snyder. More so than the Snyder cut of Justice League. More so than BvS. Even more than f*cking Sucker Punch. Netflix gave this man a bunch of money and told he to go “create” and, to his credit, Snyder did just that. Unfortunately, he created hot dumpster water topped with soggy diarrhea.

Seriously, everything i have a problem with, has Zack Snyder’s name on it. He was the director, the writer, the screenplay writer, AND the f*cking cinematographer. What the f*ck, dude? Like, you want to be an auteur director, fine. Be good at it. Be good at movies if you’re trying to wear all of those hats. Zack, as a filmmaker, is bad at ALL of them. At best, he’s pedestrian, so doing all of that, just infuses abject mediocrity throughout this movie and it shows.

I’ve seen a lot of cats haring of Snyder’s depth of field choices but I'll take it one step further; What the f*ck was up with the shot composition as a whole, in this film? It was bad! All of it was so bad! There was no substance, no dynamism in the camerawork or the way the shots were set up. I’m not going to sit here and say it was just a bunch of static work, like how someone would film a play for theatrical exhibition, but it wasn’t that much better. I was watching this sh*t and thought to myself, “Hamilton had better camera work than this. F*ck.”

The whole ass plot is paper thing. I’m watching these first few minutes and it’s readily apparent that the guv’ment knows zombies be doing a zombie and Vegas is lost. Why the f*ck didn’t they nuke that motherf*cker off the face of the earth. Straight up Raccoon City that b*tch. There is nothing, no plot contrivance or mental gymnastics that could make believe that Las Vegas wouldn’t have been scrubbed off the map, within a week of this outbreak. Not after seeing actual paratroopers floating in to their deaths and straight up napalm strikes on the Strip. Why did anyone think building a fence out of shipping containers was a good long term option for containment! And that’s literally just in the opening credits! It gets worse as the flick progresses, man! The actual plot is trash!

Now, the actual premise? Interesting. It could have been interesting. But then Zack Snyder snyder’ed it up with the f*cking execution. Look, in order to write a great zombie flick, you need a strong human element. That’s where the audience is going to focus. They’re going to try and find the humanity in a sea of despair. Every great Zombie flick has a laughably strong lead and fantastic supporting characters you come to care about, usually withing the first act. 28 Days later is a fantastic example of how to execute your Zombie disaster apocalypse. You do not give a sh*t about any of the characters in Army. Snyder tries with Batista, thus the father-daughter relationship, but that cliche sh*t was cookie cutter from a whole different movie, which I'm going to get into next...

Army of the Dead is Aliens. It’s just a popularization of Aliens. It’s the same f*cking movie, but worse. There are shot-for-shot recreations in this movie, with just enough changed so Snyder won’t get sued. Just, off the top of my head, the ending. It’s exactly the same as f*cking Aliens! Literally the same goddamn ending! Heroes survive a gauntlet of monsters, rush to the top of or roof. Pilot of escape flying contraption kissing. Hero curses pilot of said whirly dervish. Queen Alien or Zombie King shows up. Pilot returns at the last minute to save survivors. Same. F*cking. Scene. And that’s just one. There are SO many in this thing you’d think Snyder watched Aliens everyday on set and just stole sh*t from that flick to add to his. It’s real bad. Real f*cking bad, man. which exasperates my next point...

This movie is f*cking boring. i was bored. If you’re stealing the entirety of Aliens, how do you f*ck that it up so bad? The same movie, which thrilled and entertained me thirty years ago, sh*t the bed so hard, today, and i don’t know how that happened. It’s infuriating when i think about it for too long. Speaking of long...

Why the f*ck is this anal prolapse, two and half hours long?? Why did you need this much movie to tell so little story? Seriously, how the f*ck is there this much run time yet, no actual f*cking characters outside of whatever the f*ck Batista was able to save with his sheer screen presence? How do you have all of this time and still not craft a character in which to invest?? In a f*cking Zombie movie?!

Also, he hired a rapist.

The Verdict

This movie sucks. For all of the reasons outlined above. I told you that in the beginning. You didn’t have to rad this far. You knew i hated this movie within the first sentence. This sh*t was a waste of my life. Batista is good in it and that sh* Snyder did with Tig was pretty cool, but everything else is bad. All of it. None of this movie is good. It was boring. It wasn’t entertaining. There are no characters. The plot is dumb. The execution is worse. The run time is absurd. Did i mention how bored i was? Army of the Dead is garbage. This is a bad movie. This is what you get when you just let Zack Snyder do whatever the f*ck he wants with no limits or boundaries. Snyder is bad at movies and he keeps proving it. I have no idea why people keep giving this obvious fraud work.

[autumnblogs]

Day 43: Openbound

We’ll principally be doing Act 6 Intermission 3 today, so expect lots of pictures in this one!

Believe it or not, I initially didn’t like Openbound very much; I felt like it kind of dragged on my first readthrough, and generally had a pretty hard time getting myself to care about the Dancestors. They’re a pretty unsympathetic bunch.

Then again, lots of Homestuck characters are pretty unsympathetic! I’ve been really feeling that in the second half, as retrospect allows me to view a lot of secondary characters through the lens that we’re not intended to get attached to them.

That said, Openbound is actually pretty key to helping us understand the second half of the comic, I think, and makes explicit a lot of the themes that it explores, and how it builds upon the first half.

I think that the theme of Openbound as a self-contained work within Homestuck that we can use as a tool to decode Homestuck can be concisely stated like this; “Nostalgia and a desire for unity with the past causes toxic stagnation.”

So, aside from the introduction that we’ve already gotten to Meenah through the short conversation she had with the other kids, this is our first real opportunity to get to know her! Boy is she obsessed with money.

Money, like Cake, is a symbol that is associated with the Aspect of Life. As an aspect principally associated with Raw Power - the power to do what you want, unfettered by the stringent restrictions that are associated with Doom - it’s natural that Life would be associated with money.

The origin of money in history is pretty nebulous; it precedes the invention of writing, so any theory concerning its invention is ultimately conjecture. What I think is interesting about money is that the move toward a monetary economy in history mostly (but not always) happens as a result of the fact that it is way more efficient to collect taxes; the state mints standard coins, only accepts taxes in the form of standard coins, and propagates them into the economy by buying goods and services from the market.

It’s a tool of government, and even though Meenah may abrogate her inheritance, the Princess can’t escape her birthright. Money offers control, security... and power. What makes all of this extra interesting is that money is effectively worthless in the afterlife. Here, there’s actually nothing for her to really buy or spend it on; anyone can dream up whatever they want with ease.

It’s a nice bit of callback humor that Meenah has the same reaction to discovering the Thorns of Oglogoth that Rose does, but unlike Rose, Meenah actually does destroy them on the spot.

For being so headstrong and dangerous, there are ways in which Meenah is really pretty surprisingly sensible.

Lord English can destroy ghosts - this has always been a pretty disturbing thought for me. I may have said something to this effect before, but if I haven’t I’m a free-thinking Theist - raised in the Church, and largely independent in terms of beliefs, but I’m still pretty convinced that there is some kind of life after death. It doesn’t bother me nearly as much in works that have final death as a general presupposition, but it always bothers me when some kind of eternal life after death exists in a setting, and can be arbitrarily denied by evil beings with some power or another, like how some Demons and Liches can destroy or devour a soul in Dungeons and Dragons.

In Homestuck though, it fits with the themes established by the ways in which everyone God Tiers - spiritual power can be pretty arbitrary, and generally signifies very little about the moral worth of the one who has it; it does not intrinsically elevate the one who has it. It fits with its general criticism of power and the powerful, whether that’s the Mayor’s hatred of Kings, or the associating of corporatism with the worst parts of Jane’s characterization and Crockercorp in general.

Lord English has the power to destroy ghosts and end the lives of immortals not because he has attained to any kind of heightened spiritual awareness. He’s just some douchebag who through cosmic serendipity was in the right place at the right time to become basically all-powerful.

I adore Meenah’s spark. Who gives a fuck if Lord English is invincible? She knows exactly what she’s going to do when she gets her hands on him, and she’s got a plan from the outset. I think it’s also interesting the way that even though Meenah is absolutely taken by the spectacle of power, it isn’t sufficient to make her want to join up with English. Only soft power works on Meenah Peixes; emotional intimacy, friendship... keeping her entertained. All of these are the actual way to moderate her violent and dangerous personality.

While neither Rose nor Meenah is a parallel character to either Gendo or Rei from Neon Genesis Evangelion (I think, actually, that Dirk is the character who most strongly parallels both of them), this bit reminds me of the way that Ritsuko describes both of them;

Rose says of herself and Meenah, “You’re not very good at this, are you? ... talking to people.”

Ritsuko says of Gendo and Rei, “They’re not very adept (at)... living, I suppose.”

The same can really be said of a lot of characters in Homestuck, particularly the ones who primarily find their identity in some form of power-seeking. Whether it’s Rose, or Dirk, or Meenah, or even someone as innocuous as Jake, none of them is particularly adept at living.

Rose is pretty conciliatory with Meenah; given her attraction to danger and darkness, it’s probably not surprising that she makes such an obvious pass at Meenah in spite of the fact that she probably knows what their relationship was in another life.

Further evidence that Rose is the horniest Homestuck character.

“you know how it is with ancestors

they just kind of hold this inexplicable power over you”

Dave continues to progress down the path of not giving a shit, as did Sollux before him.

He’s not quite to the level of reluctance that he eventually adopts, of choosing to just not engage with English at all.

Gods are, to some extent, aware of the various narrative forces that govern their existence.

About the only thing this piece of nasty trash has in common with Karkat is the extent to which they both blabber, and he helps create contrast with the other, somewhat more likable dancestors. Kankri is pretty much openly contemptible, and really in the worst way. I’m almost inclined to call him a concern troll because of the extent to which his verbal essays exist purely to make him feel better about himself. Any time it comes time for him to listen to people who historically actually suffered from the systems they were involved in, Kankri shows his true colors, slut-shaming and misogynistic.

Unsurprisingly, The Other Thief is also the vector for English’s ideology in her session, “turning us against each other to make us stronger.” While Kurloz may be a worshipper of English, and Damara may have thrown in her lot with the demon because of her nihilistic despair, Meenah (rather like Dirk!) is clearly driven toward a life of violence, and restless action for its own sake.

Now we’re starting to get some insight into Feferi’s style of rulership, which in turn, probably gives us some insight into Jane. For Feferi, leadership means taking power away from the people you’re leading if it seems like they have the potential to hurt themselves (or to be a drain on society if left to their own devices). It represents a violation of agency, perhaps not so severe as the kind that Vriska perpetrates usually.

Feferi and Jane are the sort of people, I think, who want to create a perfect world - but it’s important to them that they’re the one who’s creating that world, and less important that the world is perfect for anyone in particular. Just perfect.

https://homestuck.com/story/5288

John’s whole self-conception, and especially his conception of himself as a man, and someone who might be growing up to take on the same roles as his Father, is tied up in the icons of dadliness and masculinity in the movies that he likes.

So we should expect that his disillusionment with his past will change the way that he thinks about his future, and what he’s going to do with it. It’s a shame that this line of questioning never goes anywhere in Homestuck proper, but I’ll use it as evidence in the “John/June Egbert is trans” folder. Reminds me of how my decisive lack of affinity for the Boy Scouts serves as a nice little retrospective bit of evidence in my own trans narrative.

Based on the number of trans Eagle Scouts I know, I feel like there’s a certain extent to which it be like, a fast-track to figuring that out about yourself, like, you tried all the boy stuff and just decided, nope! Not for me.

https://homestuck.com/story/5290

Man, especially if we continue to read this section of Homestuck as conflating the characters and the audience, this whole section reads as John not just having a meltdown about Con Air, but also generally having a meltdown about his own story so far - everything he’s done in Sburb, etc. It just all feels lame and shitty in retrospect, when it was something that was kind of exciting at the time, at least up until the point where his loved ones all dropped dead there at the end.

It turns out that there was nothing particularly edifying about John’s suffering.

https://homestuck.com/story/5300

Teens can be such monsters. It’s the anniversary of Bro’s Death too. Davesprite is probably as broken up about that as John is about Dad, but it’s hard for boys/men to talk about that kind of thing with each other.

Cronus is even more of an incel than Eridan. He may be the most singularly contemptible character in Paradox Space. Do I hate anyone more than Cronus? No, I think I do not.

I won’t have a lot to say about the middle leg of Openbound; it’s relatively empty of substance, and not much that happens in it is ever relevant again compared to the first and second legs.

I like to think that this leg of the journey is, more than anything, a chance to ruminate on some joke characters who were already parodies; parodies of parodies, a joke made at the expense of an existing joke. The kind of thing Dirk Strider would write, basically.

Hey check it out, the Year of Our Lord 2012, and Andrew was starting to show some mild sensitivity in his choice of words. Just mild enough to have the lowest character in the story show a tiny bit of sensitivity himself.

This leg of the adventure does give us some more insight into Meenah’s character. Just like Vriska, she’s all about being a hardass super-murder, until she starts causing problems for the people she actually cares about.

Being Evil Sucks.

This is a really weird sentiment for Karkat to have in light of like, everything else about the latter half of the comic. I mean, he hasn’t exactly had the epiphany yet that the ideas that he has about being a leader are kind of awful and shitty, so it’s possible that he’s talking the Condesce up to avoid thinking about that. IDK.

He also immediately claims he’ll leave behind the meteor to go and join Meenah’s army, so maybe Karkat is just in a pretty low place in general? That tracks.

Karkat’s little conversation with Terezi explains at the two thirds mark of Openbound exactly what this whole thing is about.

Almost the entire second half of the comic is about examining the character’s guardians, and their relationships with them. The Guardians - Grandpa and Bro especially - are hyped up to be these outrageous badasses, both in-and-out of universe, and their ambivalent relationship with their kids creates this ambiguity throughout the comic about whether the kids are worthy, whether they’re living up to their parents’ legacy - and it’s the kind of thing that plagues them throughout.

But the thing is, Ancestors can be lame, or even terrible. They’re not really anything to aspire to, and the image of success that they project onto the world is one of learned confidence, and usually that only if they’ve really managed to make it.

Even the best parents are flawed, and instead of trying to measure up to them, growing up healthy usually means learning what those flaws are, and committing not to reproduce them.

Parents don’t suck; they can be awesome, and generally speaking, for a long part of our life, they’re all we’ve got. It’s hard not to love them. But we shouldn’t turn them into idols.

(On another note, it’s one hundred percent fitting for Terezi’s Ancestor to be an outrageous coolgirl. Terezi is perpetually anxious about being cool enough, the sort of person who is breathlessly fun to be around, who commands the attention of everyone around her, and she’s surrounded by them wherever she goes.)

https://homestuck.com/story/5340

John’s distress leads him to dream about his dead Dad, and boy is he angry. He spends a lot of the second half of the comic seething in rage directed at whomever is responsible for all the suffering he and his friends endure, dishing out beatdowns toward those responsible, but I’ve never gotten the impression that these little outbursts of his are particularly rewarding for him.

https://homestuck.com/story/5358

That was quite a blow. He knocked out like a tenth of Jack’s health bar.

https://homestuck.com/story/5387

Depending on where you’re standing some really totally different things can matter to different people. From Vriska’s point of view, the things that happened back when she was alive totally don’t matter at all anymore - only the matter of Cosmic importance that is fighting Lord English.

But the stuff that matters to the people she left behind, and the suffering she’s responsible for - especially for putting Terezi in a position where she had to slay her - all of that still matters very much to the people who are alive, which is what makes her self-conception as someone who is on the side of the angels now really... not sit well.

She clearly hasn’t changed all that much. She just thinks, as usual, that now that things are even, now that the score is settled, things can go back to the way they were before.

https://homestuck.com/story/5388

Tavros and Vriska are really bad for each other in general. Like, it’s not good for her to be around someone as pliable as Tavros is, and it’s plain to everybody that it’s not good for him to be around her either; whenever he’s around her, he apes her bogus inflated self-esteem in all the worst ways.

https://homestuck.com/story/5397

Tavros’ explanation of what Vriska does suggests that storytelling has become kind of a ritual for her - a means by which she is attempting to connect with her Ancestor, by performing the same actions she is, miming her - still the same old Vriska.

That’ll be all for now. Cam signing off for now - join me for the thrilling conclusion to Openbound tomorrow, Same Cam Time, Same Cam Channel.

[snkpolls]

SnK Episode 63 Poll Results (for Anime Only Watchers)

The poll closed with 114 responses. Thank you to everyone who participated!

Please note that these are the results for the Anime Only Watchers’ poll. If you wish to see the results for the Manga Readers’ poll, click here.

Anime only watchers, beware of spoilers if you venture over to the manga readers’ poll results.

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RATE THE EPISODE 98 Responses

It would appear that the response to this week’s episode is even higher than last week’s, with 99% giving it a score of 3 or higher. Nice!

Amazing episode overall, it really gives you the feeling that something huge is about to happen

The best episode so far. Music was perfectly matched with animations. 

Hype

i liked it!

This was an amazing episode and I can't wait to see what will happen next !

WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING MOMENTS WAS YOUR FAVORITE? 100 Responses

The cliffhanger at the end of the episode was by and far the most favorite among viewers, with 56% stating it was their favorite moment from the episode. It is distantly followed by the festival scene in which Reiner sacrifices his money to spoil the kids. And at a distant third, people got a good laugh at the stairwell scene where Porco gets spooked by Pieck.

WOULD YOU SHAMELESSLY EXPLOIT REINER FINANCIALLY IF YOU HAD SUCH AN OPPORTUNITY? 99 Responses

Looks like more than half (61.6%) of responders would agree to exploit Reiner financially (half of those without a hint of shame). Others would either consider it or reject the offer, in that order. 

RIP Reiner's money

WHICH FOOD WOULD YOU WANT REINER TO BUY YOU? 99 Responses

Pizza is the clear winner on this one (62.6%), followed by Desser at a distant second (25.3%). Just a little over 9% went for Sandwiches instead. The couple of other responders clearly cheated!

WHICH KID HAD THE CUTEST “BEGGING” EXPRESSION? 100 Responses

Gabi went ahead and knocked out her competition for this tournament (gaining 64%). Guess she really is cute, as she says. Falco’s in distant second (29%), followed by Zofia (7%). Poor Udo has gotten no love.

NOW THAT WE’VE SEEN MORE OF THE NEW CAST, WE’LL ASK AGAIN. WHICH NEW CHARACTER IS YOUR FAVORITE? 99 Responses

We’re back with this question, again. It would appear that Falco has won over the hearts of most responders, gaining 54.5%. Pieck the Enigmatic Cart Titan Shifter is in second place with a little over 25%. Gabi the Fiery Warrior cadet is in third place with 10.1%. Others gave their preference for Willy, Magath, Zofia and Udo in that order. Poor Porco has gotten no love! 

Love zofia but my favs always disappointed me.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF PIECK CRAWLING ON ALL FOURS BECAUSE IT FEELS “MORE NATURAL” FOR HER? 97 Responses

When it comes to the scene of Pieck crawling on all fours, almost 60% seemed to think of it as either a cute or even a hot (you know what kind of hot) moment. On the flip side, almost 26% thought the scene was disturbing or simply sad. A few others either didn’t seem to care or thought the scene was funny. 

Cute,but sad since she's adapted to being this tool for war of the Marleyans

fan service

Pieck got a dump truck

mixed

Y'ALL NEED TO TAKE A DEEP BREATH AND TOUCH SOME GRASS, YOU HORNY F*CKS

WILLY TELLS MAGATH THAT THE WARHAMMER TITAN IS PRESENT, BUT THAT MAGATH PROBABLY CAN’T GUESS WHICH MEMBER OF THE TYBUR FAMILY HOLDS IT. WHO WOULD BE YOUR GUESS? 100 Responses

In retrospect, we should have included an option for those who have already been spoiled on the identity of the Warhammer titan, based on many of the responses we received. We’ve blacked out the pie chart to avoid spoiling anyone. But, in order from the first choice on the list to the last available choice, the following options were most favored: Willy, the old man, the old woman, the blonde mother, one of the children, the woman serving food, and one of the guards.

MAGATH AND WILLY TALK ABOUT MARLEY’S SELF-DESTRUCTIVE WAR HISTORY AND MAGATH NOTES THAT IT’S TOO LATE TO STOP IT. DO YOU AGREE WITH HIM? 98 Responses

Most responses assert that Magath’s prediction will come true in the end and Marley’s downfall will be a result of its own conduct (little over 56%). Some others dissent, arguing that although Marley will probably fall, it will not be because of its own previous conduct. The rest either can’t say for sure, believe Willy’s plans will save the nation or simply don’t care.

WILLY TALKS A BIT ABOUT “HELOS,” THE GREAT HERO OF MARLEY WHO SUBDUED THE TITANS. HE SAYS THAT MARLEY NEEDS ANOTHER “HELOS.” WHO, IF ANY, OF OUR PROMINENT CAST MEMBERS DO YOU THINK THAT NEW HERO COULD BE? 96 Responses

“I need a Hero! I’m holding out for a hero to the end of the-“, you get the point. Everybody needs a hero, right? It would appear that a quarter believe Eren could fit in as this metaphorical “Helos”. Almost 20% believe that none of them will fit this type of role. In third place we have our recently promoted Protagonist, Reiner Braun. Other popular options included Zeke, Levi and Falco, in that order. Gabi was written in for one response. Looks like we forgot to include her in our options. 😅

gabi... i feel very early seasons eren vibes from her

IN A SIMILAR VEIN, MAGATH CRITICIZES THE HELOS STATUE BY STATING THAT IT IS HOLLOW INSIDE. WHAT DO YOU THINK THIS MEANS? 98 Responses

When critiquing the statue itself, Magath noted that it is hollow. In that vein, almost 38% believe that Marley’s defeat of the Titans in the Great Titan War is a hollow lie. Others (17.3%) believe the story will simply lack a hero in the end. Almost the same percentage (16.3%) think that Marley’s defeat of the Titans *was* genuine, but their subsequent conduct is anything but heroic. The rest either believe there is some thematic substance in that statement, but aren’t sure what it is or think that Magath is just a cynic.

WHAT IS THE TRUTH WILLY INTENDS TO REVEAL AT THE FESTIVAL? 97 Responses

When it comes to discerning Willy’s plan at the festival, almost 65% were convinced he wants to reveal something about the history of Marley and Eldia. In distant second place (16.5%) we had folks believing Willy wants to reveal certain information about the Titans. The rest were either not sure or thought he wanted to reveal info about something else entirely. 

the war

WHAT DO YOU THINK WILLY’S “SOLUTION” TO THE WORLD’S PROBLEMS MAY BE? 96 Responses

We got a rather colorful pie chart for such a bleak question. The slight plurality (27.1%) believe Willy wants to obtain the coordinate in order to obtain the control of all Eldians, others (26%) believe he wants to commit genocide on Eldians living on Paradis island or perhaps wants to obtain the powers of all Nine Titans. The rest believe Lord Tybur either wants to commit genocide on all Eldians in the world or wants to make with the Ethnic group. A whole array of different opinions. 

the war Genocide of Marlians

I don't really know lol

DO YOU THINK WILLY CAN CONVINCE THE PEOPLE TO GET ON BOARD WITH THE “SOLUTION” HE WILL REVEAL AT THE PLAY? 97 Responses

When it comes to convincing the audience of the festival to support Willy’s plans, the overwhelming majority believe he’ll be successful, either in part (majority) or in whole (minority). The rather miniscule minority isn’t sure and even less people believe Willy will wholly fail. 

I think Willy's speech may lead to a serious division throughout Marley between people that agree with his solution and people that don't

marleyans are a bunch of sheeps anyways so i don't think they will even question his "solution" as long as it's about getting rid of eldians

WE ARE INTRODUCED TO A WOMAN WHO GABI SAYS IS “AN EASTERNER FROM HIZURU,” WHO APPEARS TO BE SYMPATHETIC TOWARD THE ELDIANS. DO YOU THINK THAT THIS WOMAN WILL HAVE ANY IMPORTANCE IN FUTURE PLOT DEVELOPMENTS? 97 Responses

When it comes to the “Easterner from Hizuru”, it would appear that a decent chunk of responses believe she’ll play some sort of role in the story later, either in relation to Mikasa (42.3%) or the Eldians (16.5%) as a whole. Others dissent and argue that she’s there to showcase people sympathetic to the Eldians in the world instead (24.7%). Finally, some are simply not sure (16.5%).

DO YOU THINK THERE IS ANY SIGNIFICANCE TO THE BASEBALL MITT? 97 Responses

It would appear that Eren has a baseball mitt. Does it mean there is any significance to it? I don’t know. I’m just a ghost writing walls of text. Anyway, a plurality (42.3%) of those answering this question believe that there is (significance) and that it’s a hidden message from Eren’s “family”. Some others also believe in the importance of the mitt (22.7%), but aren’t sure of what it means exactly. Others take a middle position (21.6%) favoring a symbolic interpretation of the iteam. The rest simply have no idea. 

From monkey boy and his perfect game ? Idk why tbh

Maybe alluding to Zeke, probably helps Eren where to channel his hatred

DO YOU THINK THAT EREN CAME TO MARLEY ALONE, OR WAS HE SENT THERE BY THE SURVEY CORPS TO FULFILL A ROLE? 96 Responses

When it comes to the status of the SC and Eren in Marley, the definitive majority believe they are there with him (59.4%). Almost 22% think he is there alone and without the consent of the Corps. On the flip side, 14.6% believe he is there alone, but wholly with the Corps’ consent.  

HOW DO YOU THINK REINER AND EREN’S CONVERSATION WILL GO? 95 Responses

A rather interesting development exists in the prospect of another conversation between Eren and Reiner. Also interesting are the predictions for this question. Just a little over a third believe they’ll have a civil talk, in contrast to their talk from S2. A little under a third believe the conversation will not have any yelling, but will still be rather bitter. Others believe that they’ll either start fighting or engage in another shouting match. 9.5% are simply not sure.

Eren becomes attack titan probably

ON A SCALE OF 1-5, HOW MUCH WOULD YOU LIKE TO RETURN TO THE SURVEY CORPS/PARADIS RIGHT NOW? 97 Responses

Finally, here is another recurring question. How much do you want to return to the SC/Paradis right now? A little over 50% are very eager, though a little under 50% state that they can afford to wait a bit.

Marley is kinda boring

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODE?

I feel like the story hasn't moved that much or maybe there are just a lot of things that haven't been clarified yet. I did read some spoilers of the latest chapters but I can't seem to connect the latest episodes to the spoilers I have read.

Mainly gave it a 4 because I'm in the middle between superb quality of animation and my lack of interest in the Warriors, but added +1 because we are finally getting back to the SC crew!

Gabi is still annoying as hell, she's the effing worst

The build up is nice

I felt bad for Grandad Yeager, wish Eren could have patted his shoulder or something. Guess he's an asshole now. Would love to find out more about the baseball thing.

I can't wiat 2 weeks, i'm going to cry

The more they focus on Gabi, the more unlikable and unsympathetic she becomes. I really hope we don't have to deal with too much more of her after this arc.

It really felt like the calm before the storm. Very interesting episode. I just know something is going to happen during Tybur's speech and Eren's talk with Reiner. Can't wait! 

Sucks to be Falco ig

Ughhhhh, just a fucking vibe of an episode. I'll say it.... I like Reiner now😌😌 yeh I know.  This episode made me love the warriors crew despite me not giving an f about them before. I hope porco is secretly in love with Reiner and explains why he hated him so much. Still waiting out for [redacted]’s new side part, hopefully we will see him soon. Well... till next week friends ~C

wait too long for next T-T

WHERE DO YOU PRIMARILY DISCUSS THE SERIES? 91 Responses

Thank you again to everyone who participated! We’ll see you again next episode!

[deliasbabe]

I’m With You- Venable x OC

Alright, so here’s the Lilac!Venable Kid Fic someone requested! I don’t know how y’all will feel about it, so any feedback would be very much appreciated! Also, if you are interested in me continuing this, let me know! Fic inspired by the song “I’m with you” by Avril Lavigne.

Words: 3,179

Warnings: None really, slight angst? Shithead kids?

Venable hadn’t ever considered herself a very observant person. Sure, she was meticulous in her work, leaving no detail unfinished. But for life in general, the small things tended to slip by, not that she cared. Her time was too precious to be distracted by menial things, and even the idea of “people watching” made the woman’s skin crawl. You didn’t have to study the human race to know they were a bunch of idiots, Wilhelmina dealt with them on a daily basis. She probably wouldn’t have even noticed the girl sitting on the bench, but after more than a few passing glances, the woman realized she had seen the same girl practically every day for months, and she couldn’t help but be a little intrigued.

It didn’t help that she had a perfect view of said bench from her office window, and she found herself staring at the girl more and more as the days passed, wondering what exactly she was doing. Sure, the office was in LA, but it was a secluded area with little to no foot traffic. Venable wondered if maybe she was waiting for the bus, but after a few days the woman realized that wasn’t the case. She never met with anyone, never talked to anyone, she just sat quietly. Some days she would have a book to read, other days she would eat some chips or a small snack. But more often than not, she would have nothing, not even a backpack or a phone. Venable wanted to find it annoying, just sitting around all day doing nothing, taking up what could be valuable space, but it wasn’t like she was being a nuisance. She kept to herself and didn’t bother anyone, didn’t cause a scene, the only annoying thing was that Venable couldn’t stop watching her. So maybe Venable could find her annoying, her mere presence being the nuisance.

But after a few days with no sight of the girl, Venable found her absence to be more of a distraction. She found herself to be glancing out the window more than usual, completely falling behind on a huge project Jeff and Mutt had assigned her to. She was always ahead of the game, always beyond punctual, and it infuriated her that this stranger had woven her way into the women’s head. Was she alright? Did something happen? Where did she go?

After a week, Venable started to believe she imagined the whole thing, after all, the girl should have been in school, but Jeff and Mutt had also mentioned not seeing her, although they made sure to comment that if she wasn’t so young they would totally bang her, which just made the woman roll her eyes and scoff. The boys were so focused on physical appearance they didn’t see what she did, didn’t recognize the signs she knew all too well. Venable only ever saw her in three different outfits, and most of the time her clothes were speckled in what the woman assumed was dirt and other various substances. Her blonde hair was often dirty and in desperate need of a trim, and she didn’t have the usual wide eyed gaze of a child who was properly cared for. Her blue eyes were dim, glazed over, empty, which meant either she was homeless or viewed as an afterthought, much like Mina was growing up in the system. Maybe that was why she took an interest, because she understood it, or felt some sense of camaraderie.

One rainy Friday night, Venable stayed late in order to get some work done for the quickly approaching deadline. She stared at the blue tinted screen in front of her until the sun had set and her head hurt, her eyes straining as she tried to finish as quickly as possible. Eventually, she paused and ripped open her desk drawer, searching through it until she found an aspirin bottle, the pounding in her head becoming too much to bear. She glanced out the window as she sipped on her bottle of water, spotting the girl once again taking residence on the dripping bench. “Idiot…” She mumbled to herself, shaking her head disapprovingly. Sure, it wasn’t pouring anymore, the rain reduced to a light yet annoying drizzle, but only a fool would choose to sit outside during it, drenching her clothes and giving herself a cold in the process. But when it dawned on the woman once again that maybe the girl didn’t have a choice, she glanced away and refocused on her work, not wanting to entertain the idea any further. After all, even sitting underneath an overpass was a smarter choice than sitting in the open air.

Still, she couldn’t stop herself from glancing up as the rain fluctuated between a sprinkle and a downpour, seeing the girl never move, not even an inch. At a quarter to 10, she finally gave up on her duties, begrudgingly leaving them for another day, and called for a car. She wasn’t one to give up on work, there were numerous times she stayed until 2am and toyed with her spreadsheets until they were absolutely pristine, but the rain had seemed to calm, and she wasn’t quite sure how long it would last. She was smart enough to actually plan her time so she wouldn’t be caught in the looming flood, unlike someone she knew, or at least knew of.

She grabbed her things, cane in one hand and an umbrella in the other, her bag slung over her shoulder, and walked toward the doors, locking them behind her and praying her moron of a driver was timely for once. She was careful as she stepped onto the slick pavement, taking small, light steps in order to keep her footing steady, the last thing she needed was to slip and ruin her freshly dry cleaned suit. Heels were a poor choice of footwear, given that she needed her cane in order to balance, but Venable wanted to look immaculate at all times and it usually didn’t cause much of an issue, at least not until that night.

Once she made it to the curb she stood regally, umbrella perched over her shoulder, and she glanced over at the girl momentarily, mostly just to see if she even noticed her presence, but she didn’t seem to, she just stared down the street as if she were alone. It wasn’t like Venable wanted to hold a conversation, and she felt a sense of relief that the girl wasn’t staring at her, but she also was intrigued, briefly wondering if it was something she was conditioned to do, or maybe she just didn’t want to chance any form of interaction.

The woman was drawn out of her thoughts by the sound of some rambunctious boys walking towards her, hollering like it wasn’t the middle of the night, snapping her glaring gaze over to them and giving a fiery stare. Why did teenage boys, or boys in general, always have to be so obnoxious, like they had to make their presence known at all times, like they needed the attention? It probably was because they did need the attention, felt like they deserved to take up residence in everyone’s minds at any given moment, and the woman rolled her eyes at the thought.

“What are you staring at, hag?” One of the boys said, catching her stare and shifting their direction toward her, the rest following like a pack of wolves.

Venable smirked, “Not much, apparently.”

“Oh, you think you’re funny, huh?” One of the boys said, marching right in front of her and towering over her like he was some sort of god, the rest circling around her. Venable didn’t break her stare, refusing to be intimidated by a bunch of shithead teenagers who probably couldn’t form an intelligent thought if they tried, but it only seemed to egg the boys on, and one was quick to snatch her cane out of her grasp, making her stumble slightly, “How about now?” The boy swung her cane in front over her, tempting her to grab for it, hoping the action would make her fall, but she knew better and stayed put, “You want this back? Apologize.”

The woman laughed, picturing the million ways she could take her revenge and dispose of their bodies, “For what? For recognizing the societal failures you all are?”

The boy in front of her narrowed his eyes, a grin overtaking his features, “So no apology, huh? Ok, have it your way. Give us your money and we’ll give you this crap stick back. How does that sound? Pretty fair, wouldn’t ya say?”

Before Venable could even respond, could even tell them they wouldn’t ever get shit from her, the boy was shoved to the ground, the cane ripped from his grasp. “What the fuck?” He yelled, the rest of the boys quickly moving to help him up.

Venable locked her eyes on the girl, cane in the teenager’s hand like she was ready to swing, the assistants jaw clenching. “Get the fuck out of here.” The girl bit, her eyes blazing. She didn’t even look at Venable, her eyes laser focused as the boy stood and moved towards her.

“That’s ours, give it back.” The boy said, reaching for it as the girl reared the cane behind her and twisted her arm so it was palm up, seconds away from smashing it on the idiot’s head.

“Go find some kids to steal candy from. That’s more in your league than robbery.” The girl said, bouncing the cane as if it was going to give her more momentum, “You heard me, scram!”

“Little bitch.” The boy muttered, looking back at his friends and motioning them to go on, seemingly deciding this wasn’t a battle worth fighting, “Let’s go.”

The girl turned and watched them as they walked away, holding the cane behind her with an open palm like it was a relay stick so Venable could grab it, waiting until the cane was out of her grasp and firmly situated in the woman’s hand before turning back to her. “Are you ok?” She asked, although there wasn’t any softness in her voice, not an ounce of pity.

Still, Venable clenched her jaw. “I’m fine.” She said coldly, expecting a look of offense to wash over the girls features, but it didn’t, she just gave a curt nod and retook her position on the bench. Venable sat brooding for a moment, feeling the need to dig into the girl and rip her apart. She didn’t ask for help; she didn’t need help. She wasn’t weak, the child should have minded her own business and not meddled, and the woman would be damned before she said thank you. “Isn’t it too late for someone your age to be out?” Venable asked harshly, catching the girls attention after a short period of silence.

Her tone didn’t seem to faze the girl, she just shrugged her shoulders, “Probably.”

“Are you waiting for someone?” Venable asked, the harshness dissipating once she didn’t get the reaction she had hoped for.

“No.” The girl said quietly.

“Don’t you think that your parents are going to be upset at your meandering after dark?” Venable asked snidely, trying to provoke some sort of reaction from the girl that wasn’t painfully neutral.

“They aren’t my parents and they don’t care. The less I’m in that house, the better.” The girl said matter of factly.

Venable let out a huff, frustrated with herself for identifying with the girl, seeing herself reflected back as an almost mirror image. She hated that she felt sorry for her, because no one ever felt sorry for the assistant. No one pitied her situation, no one ever understood, but Mina understood this girl, her frustrations, her isolation, and she didn’t know how to handle it. She wasn’t a woman who was particularly empathetic, but she knew this pain, and she hated that she felt it, wanting to do anything to destroy any bond she might be forming with this wet, stray dog of a child. “You know loitering is a crime.” Venable said shortly, hoping it would scare the girl into walking away, but it didn’t even make the girl squirm.

“Sidewalks are public space and the bus stop is right there.” The girl stated, throwing her gaze towards the sign a few feet to her right.

“But you aren’t waiting for a bus. You’ve been here all day.” Venable fired back, although she did have to admit that she was impressed by the girls planning. The bus stop was an easy out, and she could easily deny that she knew the bus wasn’t running at these hours.

“Are you going to call the cops on me?” The girl asked bluntly, looking the woman in the eye.

Venable pursed her lips, sitting quietly for a moment, which told the girl her answer was no. To most, the girl’s bluntness and confidence would be seen as some sort of defiance, but strangely, Venable liked it. There wasn’t a hint of condescension in her tone, she wasn’t trying to suck up to the women, she was just to the point with her answers instead of tiptoeing around them to sound polite. “What is your name?” Venable asked, now purely out of her own interest, although the realization that she was interested confused her. This was the very thing she hated, and there she was, actively pursuing it.

“Charlie.” The girl said.

Venable couldn’t stop herself from snorting, “Charlie?”

The girl raised one eyebrow, a smirk on her lips. “Do I look like a Charlotte to you?” She asked sarcastically.

Venable nodded slightly, glancing away as she fidgeted a bit and flexed her hand on her cane, uncomfortable with the fact that she was so comfortable. She understood the sentiment behind the question, the idea that the girl didn’t live up to her name, that she wasn’t who a Charlotte should be. It was the very reason why Wilhelmina went by her last name, her first name seemed too regal and perfect for what she was, disabled and alone, imperfect in every way. It was why she was so focused on her appearance, why she dressed in purple every single day, fighting to make herself believe that even for a second, that she deserved the name, that she embodied it.

She shifted uncomfortably, hating the slight warmth she felt making its home in her veins, a sort of affection she had never felt previously, an affection for this girl. Venable had never really liked children, she always saw them as weak, naïve, but this girl wasn’t, or at least she didn’t seem to be. She wore the same mask Mina did, the detached persona, borderline robotic, but the woman knew there was more beyond the surface, a whole array of the very human emotions Mina herself tried to burry, ones the woman wanted to drag out and view, despite her best attempts at keeping distance. The idea of taking the girl home briefly flashed in her mind, but she pushed it out, clenching her jaw as if the sheer force of it would keep her in line. Did she really think she could help this girl? Wilhelmina was just as damaged as she was, probably more so. She couldn’t help her, the girl had to help herself, just like the woman failed to do. Venable wasn’t the nurturing type, and nurturing was exactly what the girl needed, something she couldn’t provide even if she wanted to. All Mina needed was for her damn driver to show up so she could leave and keep herself from making a horrible mistake.

“You’re Venable, right?” Charlotte asked, the first question she had dared pose to the woman.

Venable gave a small nod, now thoroughly intrigued, “Wilhelmina. How did you know that?”

“The idiot coconut heads never shut up about you.” Charlotte laughed, Venable smirking at the nickname, “You know it’s amazing they’ve made it this long? God help whoever decided they were capable of running their own company. Someone has to be helping them keep their shit together, and you seem to fit the bill.”

Venable gave another smirk, arching an eyebrow, “Flattery will get you nowhere.”

“That’s not flattery, it’s a statement.” Charlie said, glancing away before looking back, “I don’t flatter anyone.”

Venable gave a nod before the air was silent once again, the slight sprinkling of rain progressing into a drizzle, the woman letting out a scoff at her driver’s inability to be even remotely prompt.

“You could wait inside.” Charlotte stated, watching the woman roll her eyes and move to shield herself with more of her umbrella.

“I wouldn’t have to if my employees would do their damn job. Idiots, all of them.” Venable spit.

Charlotte smirked, “Are you going to call him a miserable excuse for a human again?”

Venable looked over at the girl, the shock written on her face, but only for a moment before she set her face and pursed her lips, “Am I that predictable?”

Charlotte gave a shrug, “Everyone is. Everyone has a pattern; you just have to pay enough attention to notice.”

Venable gave the girl a stern once over, “And I’m assuming you believe I’m being harsh?” It wasn’t like she actually valued the girl’s opinion, like it would change a single thing about her or her actions, it was more a test to see how blunt the girl would be.

Charlotte gave another shrug, “You just want people to be competent, that’s not a bad thing. Someone has to have the balls to call people out, be the villain, otherwise you’re just enabling and contributing to the problem.”

“Or maybe I’m just cruel.” Venable said, almost as if she was trying to play devil’s advocate, arching an eyebrow at the girl and a slight smirk forming on her lips.

Charlotte creased her eyebrows, thinking for a moment before she glanced away, “Sometimes the cruelest people have the best intentions.”

Venable wanted to ask what she meant by that, her mouth opening to pose the question when she spotted headlights in the foggy distance, pursing her lips and letting out a frustrated sigh. The car pulled up, the woman stepping towards it and opening the door before freezing in her place. Every rational bone in her body was screaming for her to just get in, but when she spared one more glance at the teenager, the words were flying out of her mouth before she could stop them, instant regret hitting her taste buds.

“Charlotte, get in the car.” She said, catching the girl’s attention as Charlotte looked at her inquisitively.

“What?” she asked, her brain taking a few moments to register the words before she shook her head, “No, I don’t even know you.”

The woman clenched her jaw, furious that her own stupid heart betrayed her, that it was winning over her very rational mind, “Charlotte, it’s raining, and I won’t ask again. Get in the car.”

[grigori77]

Summer 2020′s Movies - My Top Ten Favourite Films (Part 2)

10.  BODY CAM – in the face of the current pandemic, viral outbreak cinema has become worryingly prescient lately, but as COVID led to civil unrest there were a couple of films in this summer that REALLY seemed to me to put their finger on the pulse of another particularly shitty zeitgeist.  Admittedly this one highlights a problem that’s been around for a good while, but it came along at just the right time to gain particularly strong resonance, filtering its message into the most reliable form of allegorical social commentary – horror.  The vengeful ghost trope has become pretty familiar over the past decade or so, but by marrying it with the corrupt cop thriller veteran horror screenwriter Nicholas McCarthy (The Pact) has given it a nice fresh spin, and the end result was, for me, a real winner.  Mary J. Blige plays troubled LAPD cop Renee Lomito-Smith, back on the beat after an extended hiatus following a particularly harrowing incident, just as fellow officers from her own precinct begin to die violent deaths under mysterious circumstances, and the only clues are weird, haunting camera footage that only Renee and her new partner, rookie Danny Holledge (Paper Towns and Death Note’s Natt Wolff), manage to see before it inexplicable wipes itself.  Something supernatural is stalking the City of Angels at night, and it’s got a serious grudge against local cops as the increasingly disturbing investigation slowly brings an act of horrific police brutality to light, until Renee no longer knows who in her department she can trust.  This is one of the most insidious scare-fests I’ve enjoyed so far this year, sophomore director Malik Vitthal (Imperial Dreams) weaving an effective atmosphere of pregnant dread and wire-taut suspense while delivering some impressively hair-raising shocks (the stunning minimart sequence is the film’s undeniable highlight), while the ghostly threat is cleverly thought-out and skilfully brought to “life”.  Blige delivers another top-drawer performance, giving Renee a winning combination of wounded fragility and steely resolve that makes for a particularly compelling hero, while Wolff invests Danny with skittish uncertainty and vulnerability in one of his strongest performances to date, and Dexter star David Zayas brings interesting moral complexity to the role of their put-upon superior, Sergeant Kesper.  In these times of heightened social awareness, when the police’s star has become particularly tarnished as unnecessary force, racial profiling and cover-ups have become major hot-button topics, the power and relevance of this particular slice of horror cinema cannot be denied.

9.  BLOOD QUANTUM – it certainly has been a great year for horror, and for most of the summer this was the genre leader, a compellingly fresh take on the zombie outbreak genre with a killer hook.  Canadian writer-director Jeff Barnaby (Rhymes for Young Ghouls) has always clung close to his Native American roots, and he brings strong social relevance to the intriguing early 80s Canadian setting as a really nasty zombie virus wreaks havoc in the Red Crow Indian Reservation and its neighbouring town.  It soon becomes clear, however, that members of the local tribe are immune to the infection, a revelation with far-reaching consequences as the outbreak rages unchecked and society begins to crumble.  Barnaby pulls off some impressive world-building and creates a compellingly grungy post-apocalyptic vibe as the story progresses, while the zombies themselves are a visceral, scuzzy bunch, and there’s plenty of cracking set-pieces and suitably full-blooded kills to keep the gore-hounds happy, while the horror has real intelligence behind it, the script posing interesting questions and delivering some uncomfortable answers.  The characters, meanwhile, are a well-drawn, complex bunch, no black-and-white saviours among them, any one of them capable of some pretty inhuman horrors when the chips are down, and the cast, an interesting mix of seasoned talent and unknowns, all excel in their roles – Michale Greyeyes (Fear the Walking Dead) and Forrest Goodluck (The Revenant) are the closest things the film has to real heroes, the former a fallible everyman as Traylor, the small-town sheriff who’s just trying to do right by his family, the latter unsure of himself as his son, put-upon teenage father-to-be Joseph; meanwhile, Olivia Scriven is tough but vulnerable as his pregnant white girlfriend Charlie, Stonehorse Lone Goeman is a grizzled badass as tough-as-nails tribal elder Gisigu, and Kiowa Gordon (probably best known for playing a werewolf in the Twilight movies) really goes to the dark side as Joseph’s delinquent half-brother Lysol, while there’s a memorably subtle turn from Dead Man’s Gary Farmer as unpredictable loner Moon.  This is definitely one of the year’s darkest films – by and large playing the horror straight, it tightens the screws as the situation grows steadily worse, and almost makes a virtue of wallowing in its hopeless tone – but there’s a fatalistic charm to all the bleakness, even in the downbeat yet tentatively hopeful climax, while it’s hard to deny the ruthless efficiency of the violence on display. This certainly isn’t a horror movie for everyone, but those with a strong stomach and relatively hard heart will find much to enjoy here.  Jeff Barnaby is definitely gonna be one to watch in the future …  

8.  PALM SPRINGS – the summer’s comedy highlight kind of snuck in under the radar, becoming something of an on-demand secret weapon with all the cinemas closed, and it definitely deserves its swiftly growing cult status.  You certainly can’t possibly believe it’s the feature debut of director Max Barbakow, who shows the kind of sharp-witted, steady-handed control of his craft that’s usually the province of far more experienced talents … then again, much of the credit must surely go to seasoned TV comedy writer Andy Siara (Lodge 49), for whom this has been a real labour of love he’s been tending since his film student days.  Certainly all that care, nurture and attention to detail is up there on the screen, the exceptional script singing its irresistible siren song from the start and providing fertile ground for its promising new director to spread his own creative wings.  The premise may be instantly familiar – playing like a latter-day Saturday Night Live take on Groundhog Day (Siara admits it was a major influence), it follows the misadventures of Sarah (How I Met Your Mother’s Cristin Miliota), the black sheep maid of honour at her sweet little sister Tala’s (Riverdale’s Camila Mendes) wedding to seemingly perfect hunk Abe (Supergirl’s Superman, Tyler Hoechlin), as she finds herself repeating the same high-stress day over and over again after being trapped in a mysterious cosmic time-loop along with slacker misanthrope Nyles (Brooklyn Nine Nine megastar Andy Samberg), who’s been stuck in this same situation for MUCH longer – but in Barbakow and Siara’s hands it feels fresh and intriguing, and goes in some surprising new directions before the well-worn central premise can outstay its welcome.  It certainly doesn’t hurt that the cast are uniformly excellent – Miliota is certainly the pounding emotional heart of the film, effortlessly lovable as she flounders against her lot, then learns to accept the unique possibilities it presents, before finally resolving to find a way out, while Samberg has rarely been THIS GOOD, truly endearing in his sardonic apathy as it becomes clear he’s been stuck like this for CENTURIES, and they make an enjoyably fiery couple with snipey chemistry to burn; meanwhile there’s top-notch support from Mendes and Hoechlin, The OC’s Peter Gallagher as Sarah and Tala’s straight-laced father, the ever-reliable Dale Dickey, a thoroughly adorable turn from Jena Freidman and, most notably, a full-blooded scene-stealing performance from the mighty J.K. Simmonds as Roy, Nyles’ nemesis, who he inadvertently trapped in the loop before Sarah and is, understandably, none too happy about it.  This really is an absolute laugh-riot, today’s more post-modern sense of humour allowing the central pair (and their occasional enemy) to indulge in even more extreme consequence-free craziness than Bill Murray ever got away with back in the day, but like all the best comedies there’s also a strong emotional foundation under the humour, leading us to really care about these people and what happens to them, while the story throws moments of true heartfelt power at us, particularly in the deeply cathartic climax.  Ultimately this was one of the summer’s biggest surprises, a solid gold gem that I can’t recommend enough.

7.  THE LAST DAYS OF AMERICAN CRIME – the summer’s other heavyweight Zeitgeist fondler is a deeply satirical chunk of speculative dystopian sci-fi clearly intended as a cinematic indictment of Trump’s broken America, but it became far more potent and prescient in these … ahem … troubled times.  Adapted by screenwriter Karl Gadjusek (Oblivion, Stranger Things, The King’s Man) from the graphic novel by Rick Remender and Greg Tocchini for underrated schlock-action cinema director Olivier Megaton (Transporter 3, Colombiana, the last two Taken films), this Netflix original feature seemed like a fun way to kill a cinema-deprived Saturday night in the middle of the Lockdown, but ultimately proved to have a lot more substance than expected.  It’s powered by an intriguing premise – in a nearly lawless 2024, the US government is one week away from implementing a nationwide synaptic blocker signal called the API (American Peace Initiative) which will prevent the public from being able to commit any kind of crime – and focuses on a strikingly colourful bunch of outlaw antiheroes with an audacious agenda – prodigious Detroit bank robber Bricke (Édgar Ramiréz) is enlisted by Kevin Cash (Funny Games and Hannibal’s Michael Carmen Pitt), a wayward scion of local crime family the Dumois, and his hacker fiancée Shelby Dupree (Material Girl’s Anna Brewster) to pull off what’s destined to be the last great crime in American history, a daring raid on the night of the signal to steal over a billion dollars from the Motor City’s “money factory” and then escape across the border into Canada.  From this deceptively simple premise a sprawling action epic was born, carried along by a razor sharp, twisty script and Megaton’s typically hyperbolic, showy auteur directing style and significant skill at crafting thrillingly explosive set-pieces, while the cast consistently deliver quality performances.  Ramiréz has long been one of those actors I really love to watch, a gruff, quietly intense alpha male whose subtle understatement hides deep reserves of emotional intensity, while Dupree takes a character who could have been a thinly-drawn femme fetale and invests her with strong personal drive and steely resolve, and there’s strong support from Neil Blomkampf regulars Sharlto Copley and Brandon Auret as, respectively, emasculated beat cop Sawyer and brutal Mob enforcer Lonnie French, as well as a nearly unrecognisable Patrick Bergin as local kingpin (and Kevin’s father) Rossi Dumois; the film is roundly stolen, however, by Pitt, a phenomenal actor I’ve always thought we just don’t see enough of, here portraying a spectacularly sleazy, unpredictable force of nature who clearly has his own dark agenda, but whom we ultimately can’t help rooting for even as he stabs us in the back.  This is a cracking film, a dark and dangerous thriller of rare style and compulsive verve that I happily consider to be Megaton’s best film to date BY FAR – needless to say it was a major hit for Netflix when it dropped, clearly resonating with its audience given what’s STILL going on in the real world, and while it may have been roundly panned in reviews I think, like some of the platform’s other more glossy Original hits (Bright springs to mind), it’s destined for a major critical reappraisal and inevitable cult status before too long …

6.  HAMILTON – arriving just as Black Lives Matter reached fever-pitch levels, this feature presentation of the runaway Broadway musical smash-hit could not have been better timed.  Shot over three nights during the show’s 2016 run with the original cast and cut together with specially created “setup shots”, it’s an immersive experience that at once puts you right in amongst the audience (at times almost a character themselves, never seen but DEFINITELY heard) but also lets you experience the action up close.  And what action – it’s an incredible show, a thoroughly fascinating piece of work that reads like something very staid and proper on paper (an all-encompassing biographical account of the life and times of American Founding Father Alexander Hamilton) but, in execution, becomes something very different and EXTREMELY vital.  The execution certainly couldn’t be further from the usual period biopic fare this kind of historical subject matter usually gets (although in the face of recent top-notch revisionist takes like Marie Antoinette, The Great and Tesla it’s not SO surprising), while the cast is not at all what you’d expect – with very few notable exceptions the cast is almost entirely people of colour, despite the fact that the real life individuals they’re playing were all very white indeed.  That said, every single one of them is an absolute revelation – the show’s writer-composer Lin-Manuel Miranda (already riding high on the success of In the Heights) carries the central role of Hamilton with effortless charm and raw star power, Leslie Odom Jr. (Smash, Murder On the Orient Express) is duplicitously complex as his constant nemesis Aaron Burr, Christopher Jackson (In the Heights, Moana, Bull) oozes integrity and nobility as his mentor and friend George Washington, Phillipa Soo is sweet and classy as his wife Eliza while Renée Elise Goldsberry (The Immortal Life of Henrietta Jacks, Altered Carbon) is fiery and statuesque as her sister Angelica Schuyler (the one who got away), and Jonathan Groff (Mindhunter) consistently steals every scene he’s in as fiendish yet childish fan favourite King George III; ultimately, however, the show (and the film) belongs to veritable powerhouse Daveed Diggs (Blindspotting, TV’s Snowpiercer) in a spectacular duel role, starting subtly but gaining scene-stealing momentum as French Revolutionary Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette, before EXPLODING onto the stage in the second half as indomitable eventual American President Thomas Jefferson.  Not having seen the stage show, I was taken completely by surprise by this, revelling in its revisionist genius and offbeat, quirky hip-hop charm, spellbound by the skilful ease with which is takes the sometimes quite dull historical fact and skews it into something consistently entertaining and absorbing, transported by the catchy earworm musical numbers and thoroughly tickled by the delightfully cheeky sense of humour strung throughout (at least when I wasn’t having my heart broken by moments of raw dramatic power). Altogether it’s a pretty unique cinematic experience I wish I could have actually gotten to see on the big screen, and one I’ve consistently recommended to all my friends, even the ones who don’t usually like musicals.  As far as I’m concerned it doesn’t need a proper Les Misérables style screen adaptation – this is about as perfect a presentation as the show could possibly hope for.

5.  SPUTNIK – the summer’s horror highlight (despite SERIOUSLY tough competition) is a guaranteed sleeper hit that I almost totally missed, stumbling across the trailer one day on YouTube and being completely bowled over by its potential, prompting me to hunt it down by any means necessary.  The feature debut of Russian director Egor Abramenko, this first contact sci-fi chiller is about as far from E.T. as it’s possible to get, sharing some of the same DNA as Carpenter’s The Thing but proudly carving its own path with consummate skill and definitely signalling great things to come from its brand new helmer and relative unknown screenwriters Oleg Malovichko and Andrei Zolotarev.  Oksana Akinshina (probably best known in the West for her powerful climactic cameo in The Bourne Supremacy) is the beating heart of the film as neurophysiologist Tatyana Yuryevna Klimova, brought in to aid in the investigation in the Russian wilderness circa 1983 after an orbital research mission goes horribly wrong.  One of the cosmonauts dies horribly, while the other, Konstantin (The Duelist’s Pyotr Fyodorov) seems unharmed, but it quickly becomes clear that he’s now playing host to something decidedly extraterrestrial and potentially terrifying, and as Tatyana becomes more deeply embroiled in her assignment she comes to realise that her superiors, particularly mysterious Red Army project leader Colonel Semiradov (The PyraMMMid’s Fyodor Bondarchuk), have far darker plans for Konstantin and his new “friend” than she could ever imagine.  This is about as dark, intense and nightmarish as this particular sub-genre gets, a magnificently icky body horror that slowly builds its tension as we’re gradually exposed to the various truths and the awful gravity of the situation slowly reveals itself, punctuated by skilfully executed shocks and some particularly horrifying moments when the evils inflicted by the humans in charge prove to be far worse than anything the alien can do, while the ridiculously talented writers have a field day pulling the rug out from under us again and again, never going for the obvious twist and keeping us guessing right to the devastating ending, while the beautifully crafted digital creature effects are nothing short of astonishing and thoroughly creepy.  Akinshina dominates the film with her unbridled grace, vulnerability and integrity, the relationship that develops between Tatyana and Konstantin (Fyodorov delivering a beautifully understated turn belying deep inner turmoil) feeling realistically earned as it goes from tentatively wary to ultimately, tragically bittersweet, while Bondarchuk invests the Colonel with a subtly nuanced air of tarnished authority and restrained brutality that makes him one of my top screen villains for the year.  Guaranteed to go down as one of 2020’s great sleeper hits, I can’t speak of this film highly enough – it’s a genuine revelation, an instant classic for whom I’ll sing its praises for the remainder of the year and beyond, and I wish utmost success to all the creative talents involved in the future.  The Invisible Man still rules the roost in the year’s horror stakes, but this runs a VERY close second …

4.  GREYHOUND – when the cinemas closed back in March, the fate of many of the major summer blockbusters we’d been looking forward to was thrown into terrible doubt. Some were pushed back to more amenable dates in the autumn or winter, others knocked back a whole year to fill summer slots for 2021, but more than a few simply dropped off the radar entirely with the terrible words “postponed until further notice” stamped on them, and I lamented them all, this one in particular.  It hung in there longer than some, stubbornly holding onto its June release slot for as long as possible, but eventually it gave up the ghost too … but thanks to Apple TV+, not for long, ultimately releasing less than a month later than intended.  Thankfully the final film was worth the fuss, a taut World War II suspense thriller that’s all killer, no filler – set during the infamous Battle of the Atlantic, it portrays the constant life-or-death struggle faced by the Allied warships assigned to escort the transport convoys as they crossed the ocean, defending their charges from German U-boats.  Adapted from C.S. Forester’s famous 1955 novel The Good Shepherd by Tom Hanks and directed by Aaron Schneider (Get Low), the narrative focuses on the crew of the escort leader, American destroyer USS Fletcher, codenamed Greyhound, and in particular its captain, Commander Ernest Krause (Hanks), a career sailor serving his first command.  As they cross “the Pit”, the most dangerous mid stretch of the journey where they spend days without air-cover, they find themselves shadowed by “the Wolf Pack”, a particularly cunning group of German subs that begin to pick away at the convoy’s stragglers.  Faced with daunting odds, a dwindling supply of vital depth-charges and a ruthless, persistent enemy, Krause must make hard choices to bring his ships home safe … jumping into the thick of the action within the first ten minutes and maintaining that tension for the remainder of its trim 90-minute run, this is screen suspense par excellence, a sleek textbook example of how to craft a compelling big screen knuckle-whitener with zero fat and maximum reward, delivering a series of desperate naval scraps packed with hide-and-seek intensity, heart-in-mouth near-misses and fist-in-air cathartic payoffs by the bucket-load.  Hanks is subtly magnificent, the calm centre of the narrative storm as a supposed newcomer to this battle arena who could have been BORN for it, bringing to mind the similarly unflappable turn he delivered in Captain Phillips and certainly not suffering by comparison; by and large he’s the focus point, but other crew members do make strong (if sometimes quite brief) impressions, particularly Stephen Graham as Krause’s reliably seasoned XO, Lt. Commander Charlie Cole, The Magnificent Seven’s Manuel Garcia-Rulfo and Just Mercy’s Rob Morgan, while Elisabeth Shue does a lot with a very small part in brief flashbacks as Krause’s fiancée Evelyn.  Relentless, powerful, exhilarating and thoroughly unforgettable, this was one of the true action highlights of the summer, and one hell of a war flick.  I’m so glad it made the cut for the season …

3.  PROJECT POWER – with Marvel and DC pushing their tent-pole titles back into late autumn in the face of COVID, the usual superhero antics we’ve come to expect over the main blockbuster season were pretty thin on the ground, leading us to find our geeky fan thrills elsewhere.  Unfortunately, pickings were frustratingly slim – Korean comic book actioner Gundala was entertaining but workmanlike, while Thor AU-take Mortal was underwhelming despite strong direction from Troll Hunter’s André Øvredal, and I’ve already made my feelings clear on the frustration of The New Mutants – thank the Gods, then, for Netflix, once again riding to the rescue with this enjoyably offbeat super-thriller, which takes an intriguing central premise and really runs with it.  New designer drug Power has hit the streets of New Orleans, able to give anyone who takes it a superpower for five minutes … the only problem is, until you try it, you won’t know what your own unique talent is – for some, it could mean five minutes of invisibility, or insane levels of super-strength, but other powers can be potentially lethal, the really unlucky buggers just blowing up on the spot.  Robin (The Hate U Give’s Dominique Fishback) is a teenage Power-pusher with dreams of becoming a rap star, dealing the pills so she can help her diabetic mum; Frank Shaver (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is one of her customers, an NOPD detective who uses his power of near invulnerability to even the playing field when powered crims cause a disturbance.  Their lives are turned upside down when Art (Jamie Foxx) arrives in town – he’s a seriously badass ex-soldier determined to hunt down the source of Power by any means necessary, and he’s not above tearing the Big Easy apart to do it.  This is a fun, gleefully infectious  rollercoaster that doesn’t take itself too seriously, revelling in the anarchic potential of its premise and crafting some suitably OTT effects-driven chaos brought to pleasingly visceral fruition by its skilfully inventive director, Ariel Schulman (Catfish, Nerve, Viral), while Mattson Tomlin (the screenwriter of next year’s incendiary DCEU headline act The Batman) takes his script in some very interesting directions and poses some fascinating questions about what Power’s TRULY capable of.  Gordon-Levitt and Fishback are both brilliant, the latter particularly impressing in what’s sure to be a major breakthrough role for her, and the friendship their characters share is pretty adorable, while Foxx really is a force to be reckoned with, pretty chill even when he’s in deep shit but fully capable of turning into a bona fide killing machine at the flip of a switch, and there’s strong support from Westworld’s Rodrigo Santoro as Biggie, Power’s delightfully oily kingpin, Courtney B. Vance as Frank’s by-the-book superior, Captain Crane, Amy Landecker as Gardner, the morally bankrupt CIA spook responsible for the drug’s production, and Machine Gun Kelly as Newt, a Power dealer whose explosive pyrotechnic “gift” really isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.  Exciting, inventive, frequently amusing and infectiously likeable, this was some of the most uncomplicated “cinematic” fun I had this summer.  Not bad for something which I’m sure was originally destined to become one of the season’s B-list features …

2.  THE OLD GUARD – Netflix’s undisputable TOP OFFERING of the summer came damn close to bagging the whole season, and I can’t help thinking that even if some of the stiffer competition had still been present it may well have still finished this high. Gina Prince-Blythewood (Love & Basketball, the Secret Life of Bees) directs comics legend Greg Rucka’s adaptation of his own popular title with uncanny skill and laser-focused visual flair considering there’s nothing on her previous CV to suggest she’d be THIS good at mounting a stomping good ultraviolent action thriller, ushering in this thoroughly engrossing tale of four ancient, invulnerable immortal warriors – Andy AKA Andromache of Scythia (Charlize Theron), Booker AKA Sebastian de Livre (Matthias Schoenaerts), Joe AKA Yusuf Al-Kaysani (Wolf’s Marwan Kenzari) and Nicky AKA Niccolo di Ginova (Trust’s Luca Marinelli) – who’ve been around forever, hiring out their services as mercenaries for righteous causes while jealously guarding their identities for fear of horrific experimentation and exploitation should their true natures ever be discovered.  Their anonymity is threatened, however, when they’re uncovered by former CIA operative James Copley (Chiwetel Ejiofor), working for the decidedly dodgy pharmaceutical conglomerate run by sociopathic billionaire Steven Merrick (Harry Melling, formerly Dudley in the Harry Potter movies), who want to capture these immortals so they can patent whatever it is that makes them keep on ticking … just as a fifth immortal, US Marine Nile Freeman (If Beale Street Could Talk’s KiKi Layne), awakens after being “killed” on deployment in Afghanistan.  The supporting players are excellent, particularly Ejiofor, smart and driven but ultimately principled and deeply conflicted about what he’s doing, even if he does have the best of intentions, and Melling, the kind of loathsome, reptilian scumbag you just love to hate, but the film REALLY DOES belong to the Old Guard themselves – Schoenaerts is a master brooder, spot-on casting as the group’s relative newcomer, only immortal since the Napoleonic Wars but clearly one seriously old soul who’s already VERY tired of the lifestyle, while Joe and Nicky (who met on opposing sides of the Crusades) are simply ADORABLE, an unapologetically matter-of-fact gay couple who are sweet, sassy and incredibly kind, the absolute emotional heart of the film; it’s the ladies, however, that are most memorable here.  Layne is exceptional, investing Nile with a steely intensity that puts her in good stead as her new existence threatens to overwhelm her and MORE THAN qualified to bust heads alongside her elders … but it’s ancient Greek warrior Andy who steals the film, Theron building on the astounding work she did in Atomic Blonde to prove, once and for all, that there’s no woman on Earth who looks better kicking arse than her (as Booker puts it, “that woman has forgotten more ways to kill than entire armies will ever learn”); in her hands, Andy truly is a goddess of death, tough as tungsten alloy and unflappable even in the face of hell itself, but underneath it all she hides a heart as big as any of her friends’. They’re an impossibly lovable bunch and you feel you could follow them on another TEN adventures like this one, which is just as well, because Prince-Blythewood and Rucka certainly put them through their paces here – the drama is high (but frequently laced with a gentle, knowing sense of humour, particularly whenever Joe and Nicky are onscreen), as are the stakes, and the frequent action sequences are top-notch, executed with rare skill and bone-crunching zest, but also ALWAYS in service to the story. Altogether this is an astounding film, a genuine victory for its makers and, it seems, for Netflix themselves – it’s become one of the platform’s biggest hits to date, earning well-deserved critical acclaim and great respect and genuine geek love from the fanbase at large. After this, a sequel is not only inevitable, it’s ESSENTIAL …

1.  TENET – granted, the streaming platforms (particularly Netflix and Amazon) certainly did save our cinematic summer, but I’m still IMMEASURABLY glad that the season’s ultimate top-spot winner was one I got to experience on THE BIG SCREEN.  You gotta hand it to Christopher Nolan, he sure hung in there, stubbornly determined that his latest cinematic masterpiece WOULD be released in cinemas in the summer (albeit ultimately landing JUST inside the line in the final week of August), and it was worth all the fuss because, for me, this was THE PERFECT MOVIE for me to get return to cinemas with.  I mean, okay, in the end it WASN’T the FIRST new movie I saw after the reopening, that honour went to Unhinged, but THIS was my first real Saturday night out big screen EXPERIENCE since March.  Needless to say, Nolan didn’t disappoint this time any more than he has on any of his consistently spectacular previous releases, delivering another twisted, mind-boggling headfuck of a full-blooded experiential sensory overload that comes perilously close to toppling his long-standing auteur-peak, Inception (itself second only by fractions to The Dark Knight as far as I’m concerned). To say much at all about the plot would give away major spoilers – personally I’d recommend just going in as cold as possible, indeed you really should just stop reading this right now and just GO SEE IT.  Still with us?  Okay … the VERY abridged version is that it’s about a secret war being waged between the present and the future by people capable of “inverting” time in substances, objects, people, whatever, into which the Protagonist (BlacKkKlansman’s John David Washington), an unnamed CIA agent, has been dispatched in order to prevent a potential coming apocalypse. Washington is once again on top form, crafting a robust and compelling morally complex heroic lead who’s just as comfortable negotiating the minefields of black market intrigue as he is breaking into places or dispatching heavies, Kenneth Branagh delivers one of his most interesting and memorable performances in years as brutal Russian oligarch Andrei Sator, a genuinely nasty piece of work who may be the year’s very best screen villain, Elizabeth Debicki (The Night Manager, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Widows) brings strength, poise and wounded integrity to the role of Sator’s estranged wife, Kat, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson gets to use his own accent for once as tough-as-nails British Intelligence officer Ives, while there are brief but consistently notable supporting turns and cameos from Martin Donovan, Yesterday’s HImesh Patel, Dirk Gently’s Fiona Dourif and, of course, Nolan’s good luck charm, Michael Caine.  The cast’s biggest surprise, however, is Robert Pattinson, truly a revelation in what has to be, HANDS DOWN, his best role to date, Neil, the Protagonist’s mysterious handler – he’s by turns cheeky, slick, duplicitous and thoroughly badass, delivering an enjoyably multi-layered, chameleonic performance which proves what I’ve long maintained, that the former Twilight star is actually a fucking amazing actor, and on the basis of this, even without that amazing new teaser trailer making the rounds, I think the debate about whether or not he’s the right choice for the new Batman is now academic.  As we’ve come to expect from Nolan, this is a TRUE tour-de-force experience, a visual masterpiece and an endlessly engrossing head-scratcher, Nolan’s screenplay bringing in some seriously big ideas and throwing us some major narrative knots and loopholes, constantly wrong-footing the viewer while also setting up truly revelatory payoffs from seemingly low-key, unimportant beginnings – this is a film you need to be awake and attentive for or you could miss something pretty vital.  The action sequences are, as ever, second to none, some of the year’s very best set-pieces coming thick and fast and executed with some of the most accomplished skill in the business, while Nolan-regular cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema (Interstellar and Dunkirk, as well as the heady likes of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, SPECTRE and Ad Astra) once again shows he’s one of the best camera-wizards in the business today by delivering some truly mesmerising visuals.  Notably, Nolan’s other regular collaborator, composer Hans Zimmer, is absent here (although he has good reason, currently working on his dream project, the fast-approaching screen adaptation of Dune), but Ludwig Göransson (best known for his regular collaborations with Ryan Coogler on the likes of Fruitvale Station, Creed and Black Panther, as well as truly awesome work on The Mandalorian) makes for a fine replacement, crafting an intriguingly internalised, post-modern musical landscape that thrums and pulses in time with the story and emotions of the characters rather than the action itself. Interestingly it’s on the subject of sound that some of the film’s rare detractions have been levelled, and I can see some of the points – the soundtrack mix is an all-encompassing thing, and there are times when the dialogue can be overwhelmed, but in Nolan’s defence as a film this is a heady, immersive experience, something you really need to concentrate on, so these potential flaws are easily forgiven.  As a piece of filmmaking art, this is another flawless wonder from one of the true masters of the craft working in cinema today, but it’s art with palpable substance, a rewarding whole that really HAS TO BE experienced on the big screen.  So put your snobbery at post-lockdown restrictions aside for the moment and get yourself down to your nearest cinema so you can experience it for yourself.  You won’t be disappointed.  Right now, this is my movie of the year, and with only one possible exception, I really don’t see that changing …

[arkus-rhapsode]

What do you consider the IDEAL comic crossover for My Hero, DC or Marvel?

Oh boy, an excuse to talk about comics! Strap in this answer may surprise you.

Since superheroes in the traditional sense are more of a western creation and the comic industry is dominated by Marvel and DC, its only natural when a manga series all about superheroes that resemble that traditional western idea you’d think about them crossing over.

However, there’s a lot of distinct differences between MHA’s universe and the big 2 mainstream comic universes. These differences make it harder for me to see them actually being able to mesh.

Obvious ones being space aliens and magic exist. Heroes with just gadgets are more common. And very key to the marvel universe, you can be a mutant and discriminated against even though there’s a bunch of other heroes with freaky powers that just weren’t born with them and somehow they get a pass (That’s a discussion for another day).

But what I always go to as what makes MHA extremely different and not at all compatible with comics like Superman or Wonder Woman or Wolverine is very simple, weakness.

Quirks in MHA suffer a variety of weaknesses. A big point in the story is growing your skill to work around that weakness. Now that’s not to say heroes in Western Comics don’t have weaknesses. Superman can be stopped by Kryptonite, Green Lantern can be stopped by the color yellow, ans Martian Manhunter can be stopped by fire. All well and good, but most of those limits are super specific malefactors that aren’t products of limitation the way quirks are.

The pinnacle of MHA’s hero society at this moment is Endeavor, a guy who can make a bunch of flames, but use too many and he burns himself out. That’s their PEAK. Now hop over to Marvel and Human Torch can literally go on forever.

This is due to both industries taking a different approach to action. In MHA you can make chapters on just the fight. The back and forth and struggle. And a battle of skill is really engaging.

But in comics, fights aren’t really about the battles. Its more, strike a dynamic pose while caption boxes use that to tell a story. The action can look cool and have stakes, but its more a story than it is a battle of skill. Now there are times this isn’t always the case.

The Dan Jurgens’s Teen Titans and Kyle/Yost New X-Men both used an emphasis on skill in battle as a way to show these young heroes were up and coming and had to grow into protectors and fighters. And long comic books like Superman vs The Amazing Spider-man used it’s extra page space to infuse it with more intricate action. However, these are exceptions, and not the rule. This is likely due to Manga be produced in a week and comics being produced in a month yet having roughly the same amount of pages.

Another thing is role. MHA is one story told by one guy and will have its definitive end. When they beat a villain, that’s a big moment because its likely the end of that villain. But in western comics, they have no true end. You beat that villain, they can come back, maybe acting differently depending on the writer.

It’s due to their limitations, the characters of MHA just wouldn’t work in the worlds of Marvel or DC, they are too fragile. Too different. The characters of MHA would be upstaged in terms of feats. It’s such a difference in base function that it really removes the interest in seeing them crossover. Thus making it not IDEAL for me.

I actually think characters from the Justice League or Avengers would cross over better with heroes from One Punch Man. There, S-Class heroes are ridiculously strong. The roof on their power limit is almost unachievable to any of heroes in MHA and people like the fast as super tech of Child Emperor, Super Martial Artist Bang, Tornado of Terror Tatsumaki would actually integrate into the same weight class as God of Thunder Thor, Super Science Iron Man, and super regenerative Wolverine.

But this isn’t OPM, it’s about MHA, and after I gave that big dressing down of how they just wouldn’t really fit in the over powered worlds of Marvel/DC. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a universe I think MHA would fit in with.

The universe is Marvel’s New Universe.

For those who don’t know what the New Universe, the basic gist of it is this. In honor of Marvel’s 25th Anniversary, a distinctively separate universe from the main Marvel continuity, was launched with a unique mission statement and goal. This would be a superhero world grounded in realism.There would be no hidden races, gods, mythological beings, magic, or supertechnology (in fairness, this rule was broken by one Character called Justice, who was an exiled Alien Warrior, but 7 out of the 8 titles sticking to the rules isn’t too bad).

Superhuman characters and powers would be limited and thus more subdued in their activities, yet their actions would have more realistic consequences. Superhumans began to appear thanks to a phenomenon called the White Light Event, which gave 2 out of ever 1 million humans super powers. Those who gained powers were referenced to as Paranormals.

Now this project was certainly ambitious for Marvel, and as you can guess from how little relevance it has nowadays, it didn’t do so hot. Unfortunately, New Universe just couldn’t afford the A-list Talent it wanted and the line crashed and burned. Becoming more of a foot note in Marvel Comics history and sometimes explored or had elements taken from it by the mainstream marvel.

A shame as, New Universe would actually mesh with MHA, unlike mainstream marvel, super humans are just starting out, there is none of that baggage of “mutants bad, but people who got their powers from radiation good.” No, if you had powers, you were a target by a glowingly concerned public.

There is no magic or magic metal like vibranium that can be relied on by normal humans to gain powers.

As stated previously, it was almost all earth bound. Heroes in this world had to have powers all from the same place. This white light that made genetic anomalies that gave people powers.

And what about those powers? Well lets take a look at one the super hero “teams” of the New Universe DP7. A title all about a group of 7 paranormals.

Well their powers included members like:

Friction- acquired the power to make herself, anything she touched, and any other object she thought about within a limited range friction-free enough to make the object or person slide effortlessly. Over time, Beck learned to make her power object-specific or to increase friction to stick things together.

Scuzz- who produces a corrosive substance from his skin, which he himself is immune to. He can increase his skin's production of the chemical, to the point of burning through a steel plate in 10 seconds, but cannot stop it, turning anything he wears into a tattered ruin within days and affecting objects such as bedsheets and furniture that he comes into regular contact with.  He learns to form his chemical-laden saliva with his skin secretion into "gobs" or "spitballs" that he can throw.

Twilight- whose body produces "fatigue-poison inducing bioluminescence" that can paralyze and render unconscious individuals that are exposed to it. Twilight's power requires her to remain covered over her entire body at all times

Blur- whose body vibrates so fast that he cannot stand still. He requires vast amounts of food for his accelerated metabolism and can move at superhuman speed.

As you can see, these superhumans are more in line in terms of power with how Horikoshi writes powers. And I think that means you’d be able to crossover without one of the heroes being upstaged.

However, why I think this is ideal is just the fact that the New Universe is a world at the cusp of super humans appearing. We know in MHA that when that happened with quirks, it didn’t go smoothly. So I think it be amazing to see the characters of MHA who’s society reflects a possible conclusion for the society of the new universe.

Look, I know there’s tons of fanfiction and fan works that pair MHA with Marvel or DC and there’s nothing wrong with that. That is your creativity, and you are free to explore it in anyway you want. Never has this post been my intent to tell you that you can’t have an MHA/DC crossover or what have you. This is simply what I’d consider the most ideal crossover.

And I think that with these factors of realistic world, powers with limitations, and the blossoming of a super human society. That’s why I’d say the New Universe is the best one MHA could have a western comic crossover with.

[polar-stars]

If you could've furthered any plotline intro'd either before or during the BLUE arc, what would they be? I know what you think the BLUE plotline, (I personally give it a C+), but was there anything you think that could've been furthered elaborated on? I thought some ideas were better then others, but the execution was off. I blame Shueisha's poor business model. SnS could've gone 400+ chapters (along with some other titles)

If I could ask for an arc to be redone and overworked, it would be Central Arc tbqh. 

This might be a contentious point to have, as many fans regard Central Arc to be the point where Shokugeki began to crumble, as the sudden usage of actual villains instead of normal rivals was something that many considered not fitting for the tone Shokugeki held before Azami’s introduction. 

I do understand that criticism, but personally I do actually like Central Arc’s premise. Establishing an totalitarian regime and putting the protagonists in a position of struggling revolt is just an interesting conflict for me that also holds a lot of potential for intriguing clashes and compelling drama.

My problem is how it was executed and that the execution of the premise did not live up to the potential that said premise has imo.

Central vs. Rebels ultimately became very generic Good vs. Bad. For the most part we’ve just been told that Central is bad and has to be taken down, instead of being shown that it is. I mean, look at how Central was established: Members of the Elite 10 voted Azami into power. But who exactly were the members that voted for Azami? Eishi, Rindou, Somei, Momo, Nene and Eizan. The members who were against it? Megishima, Isshiki and Kuga. My point here is that, Isshiki is out of all the Elite 10 members the most familiar one to us (save for Erina) as he’s been introduced somewhere in the most earliest chapters. We know him and he is someone trustworthy to us. Then there’s Kuga, who got at least some insight during Moon Banquet Festival and while not overly familiar to us at that point, because he was still relatively fresh, he was still a lot more familiar to us than most of the characters we had on Central’s side. Somei, Momo and Nene had barely any characterization back then. They were pretty much strangers to us. Eishi and Rindou got a bit to do before Central’s establishment, but still had a mysterious aura to them. The truly most familiar to us who voted Central into power is Eizan, as he was also established a lot earlier. Eizan admittedly did not do all too much in the series at that point, but the things he did indeed do were not really the actions of a good guy. He threatened Soma and was also the one to orchestrate the whole Mimasaka-situation in the Autumn Elections, a situation that put one of the fan-favorites, Takumi, through strong suffering. So yeah, Eizan is not what you could call a sympathetic character. And that’s the point; the people against Central were the more familiar one to us who we come to trust, while the people who ultimately got Central into power were a bunch of mysterious strangers to us + the one guy who we’ve already come to know as jerk and antagonist. That all is just a very blatant way to establish Central as the “evil side” and to have the reader root for the rebels instantly, because that’s the characters we know and love, right?

Based on it’s premise, I always thought of Central as an ideology-war. However, that requires to actually explore the ideology and convince the reader that one ideology is better than the other. But what we got instead is that the people who are responsible for this arc happening in the first place (The Traitor Elites) barely ever actually talk about the ideology they supposedly stand behind. The individual reasoning for voting Azami into the position of headmaster was not really explored for most of the Elites, so it all never felt all too convincing to me. The major change we see Azami make on Totsuki is getting rid of clubs in such, but most of his reformation is also not really shown on us. (It’s an overall theme in Shokugeki that Tsukuda dismisses the show, don’t tell rule to be perfectly honest) Meanwhile the Rebels are presented to be 100% in the right, as if the old system of Totsuki truly was absolutely perfect. I would have liked an exploration on good and bad on BOTH sides. How the old system DID have flaws, how there’s possibly some good ideas in Central’s regime but their actions are overall terribly unjust or they take things to the extreme. It requires a lot of writing skills, I’ll admit that and I don’t think I’d be able to write such a thing….But Tsukuda is a guy who makes a living out of writing, if I am not mistaken. 

Maybe he should have actually make an detailed “Survivor’s Hunt”, instead of just showing us one battle and nothing else, to get a lot more substance and character into the Central-Regime than just “baddies, that’s all you need to know”. 

Central gets concluded through the Regiment de cuisine which is therefore still part of the overall Central storyline, despite being counted as its own arc, so that should be redone as well.

RDC is something I view as even more critical. 

I like Central’s premise as I said, but RDC’s premise is something I’ve always seen as rather problematic and here’s why: RDC’s end goal is to have the Elite 10 defeated and that’s kinda were I am already frowning. The thing is that the Elite 10 had more build up than anything else in this series and ever since Shokugeki started they’ve been made out to be the ultimate, competent GODS of their universe. And then just this arc has as end goal that said GODS will be defeated within just one arc by mostly first-years. 

So yeah, that was just a problem for me and as the rebels ultimately won, in the process only Eishi and Rindou got to look like actually competent while the rest felt a lot more like normal rivals which is a shame and disservice to the build-up that the Elite 10 received over the course of the entire series. I mean, not even the Elites on the Rebels side got to do stuff that would be justice for them: Kuga lost his only battle in it, Megishima (*cough* former third seat, that’s a high number) got a win against a character with little to none characterization but lost his next fight and Isshiki also just got one win against a newly-established character who was not even made out as very competent but also lost the follow-up fight. 

For me, there’s two ways to possibly fix RDC:

1. Arena 51 Raid, they can’t stop all of us: Don’t get rid of half of your cast for cheap tension and actually have a much huger mess face the Elites. The number of people participating in a Regiment de cuisine does not have to be equal, so do not make it equal just to add tension. Have more people on the rebels side, because that would have make a victory of the rebels over the Elites possibly a bit more realistic to me. DONT SHOW ME MIYOKO AND NAO IN THE AUDIENCE SMILING ABOUT THE REBELS APPROACHING VICTORY BECAUSE NOW I AM FORCED TO ASK WHY THEY WERENT APPROACHED BY SOMA TO PARTICIPATE IN THE RDC. The rebels should have recruited everyone they could get in their boat, it’s the Elite 10 they face off against for heaven’s sake. 

2. Lower the stakes and actually have Central win: Another problem with RDC are the ridiculous stakes for the rebels. Like damn, in case the Elites loose they loose their seats (which they can obtain again anyway, as presented to us by Nene and Eizan in 3rd year) and Central would have to dissolve. Which yeah, I guess, does kinda suck for them? But it’s not really something comparable to Erina and Jouichiro giving up their freedom as people to be in Azami’s clutches forever, plus Jouichiro closing the place that belongs to his wife’s family and all of the kids having to leave Totsuki forever. Given how immense the stakes were for the Rebels, it was pretty much inevitable that they’d win and therefore sucked out a lot of tension. So yeah, make the stakes something that does suck greatly (I mean, expulsion could still remain one I guess) but is not an ultimate destruction of an individual. And then, as I said, have Central actually being victorious in the Regiment de Cuisine, showcasing what actual monsters they are. What would follow up is the Rebels throughout 2nd year trying to win back the school, through other ways that could possibly interesting. Especially if they are possibly thrown off the school, but still don’t give up and seek their ways to make moves even from the outsides. 

MEEP

So yeah, I believe Central as well as RDC could have been done well and be interesting but ultimately were written very clumsily. I’d love to see a good rewrite of Central Arc. I’d to it myself, but I don’t consider myself skilled enough for it. However “Shokugeki no Kimiko” will have two arcs that very  strongly reflect what I would have wished for to be done with Central and RDC.

I hope that this ramble did make sense, although it was probably just insanely uncoordinated as always ; 7 ; And also me, not knowing how to word stuff properly. 

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Aside from that, if you are to ask me, if there’s any arc Post-RDC I’d like to see redone, I’d say the Beach Arc should be stretched out a little as I think it was much too short but actually a very fun idea.