#i just feel like there are so many glorious ways to foreshadow this

[jennycalendar]

so the thing i am noticing as i continue to watch the river eps is that the problem i have with the melody pond plotline is not necessarily its fantastical improbability/ridiculousness, because doctor who has always been a show about making the fantastically improbable and ridiculous feel charming and wonderful, and also i am soooo biased i love melody pond soooo much That's Amy And Rory's Baby To Me! if anything, the fact that this is a series of absurd coincidences endear me to the notion more. but the thing is, with the information we're given about river pre-reveal, there is absolutely no way that anyone could possibly guess river's true identity.

prefacing that statement -- i did a cursory google search & moffat did seem to intimate in some interviews that he had the river stuff locked and loaded as early as s5! i do think that clocks, because river makes lots of references to killing the doctor, amy and river are absolutely a lot alike from the get-go, and the amelia pond -> river song thing is also a clear hint, but the foreshadowing outside of that is literally nothing, in what seems to be a preventative measure. that is not enough info to figure out that river is melody.

i feel like this is most clearly shown in let's kill hitler -- they handwave mels not being present at the wedding or mentioned in any prior episode, when we absolutely should have met her! honestly, mels should have been a character that we see in the eleventh hour (maybe even someone who either helps out here and there or refuses to), to the point where when amy and rory name melody, we know that it's for mels. we need her to feel like amy and rory's best friend from the moment that we meet amy and rory, rather than being introduced in the River Backstory Episode. mels could turn down traveling with the doctor for some unspecified reason, but she needs to be either someone he knows or someone that we have seen make an effort to make herself invisible. her showing up only when she has Narrative Relevance, when she should have been the clearest hint to who river is, was not a good plan, and it makes me upset, because 1) we miss out on mels, a wonderful and adorable and slightly murderous incarnation of river who i'd have loved to see more of, and 2) mels not being there means figuring out who melody is becomes that much more difficult, which really does support my theory that the focus was on Creating A Shocking Timey-Wimey Moment rather than a long-term investment in river's character :( and that, for me, is a bummer.

at the same time, tho, i'm kinda like -- so much of river's character really is defined by being a Woman Of Mystery! the hints can't come from her, obvs, because i think she would lose so much of what makes her her if she's at any point able to be deciphered by the doctor or the narrative. and i do think it's very on brand for river (who is made of masks) to absolutely shut all of her feelings down when interacting with younger versions of her parents. but we really, really, really needed more time with river. i think that's what i'm getting at. we needed more time with river within the show, very possibly through mels, for this to work effectively.

[zonaenthusiast]

One Piece Live Action

EPISODE 1: ROMANCE DAWN - review

Here is the first of my reviews on what I liked and didn't like about the first episode of the live action. I have been writing as I watched the episode for the second time, so it is written in chronological order with references to future episodes.

To begin with, I was very happy with Roger's execution scene. I have to admit that, as soon as Garp appeared giving the previous speech, I doubted if it was like that in the manga. I had to look it up and I'm still hesitating, but I couldn't find anything about Garp being present that day. It's a pretty cool addition, it makes a lot of sense: Roger originated the great age of piracy while Garp is a very proud marine who works every day to erradicate it, his face when Roger says his last words is magnificent. And for those who watch the live action without knowing the original story it means nothing, but for those of us who do know what Garp and Roger really are to each other it was great.

From the beginning you start to notice that the characters are slightly different (I think the Luffy in the manga wouldn't know what mutiny means) but Oda was right when he said that there are things that maybe his Luffy wouldn't say, but it looks good because the words are spoken by Iñaki. Luffy for me is the one who behaves the most different from his original version and I'm not sure he convinces me all the time, but I think our Luffy would be very difficult to translate to the screen by a real actor without being unbearable. Luffy's case is more obvious but it will happen with Nami and Sanji as well, their personalities are very intense and for a live action it was necessary to tone them down.

Alvida is wonderful from the first minute, the actress is a 10/10 in all her scenes (Ilia, please call me, I am free on weekends), confident and menacing and sometimes ridiculous. Perfect. Koby more of the same, Morgan Davies has done a great job playing the scared Koby from the beginning. I loved the first scene of Luffy and Koby together.

What I didn't like so much is the battle against Alvida, the action is one of the weakest points of the series and they have been smart to reduce it just to the necessary because most of them are just barely good enough.

However, one of my favorite things about the live action is how they've connected the characters from the different arcs, especially the villains, it gives it a greater scale that in the manga we didn't see until much later. In the Marineford saga especially, we started to see that many characters know each other because of x or y, because they have a common past, because they did business together, whatever. I thought it was smart to add something like that already. In this chapter, for example, we have Morgan mentioning that he was the one who arrested Kuro.

I say this because adding the fun fact that Zoro killed the previous Mr 7, something that in the manga is only mentioned in passing a whole saga later and has no importance and using it to justify his presence in Shells Town, is brilliant to me. The my favorite is number 1 thing? Foreshadowing at its best if we have a second season.

I'm also of the opinion that while Luffy has the worst action scenes because in the end seeing the fruit is weird at times, Zoro has the best ones. Fellow Zoro stans, I don't know if you feel the same way I do but they are a delight to watch for me. Mackenyu, you are glorious.

Shanks... I liked him but my god, the hair. What is that, is that a wig? is that his hair with a bad dye? I don't know but it looks terrible, the whole wig thing in live action is a complaint I have. The series has opted for an artificial look on purpose and you can tell, similar to the series A Series of Unfortunate Events (and it was a good idea because the gyojins probably would not have worked otherwise), but the hair department doesn't convince me. Also, Makino seemed a bit weird to me, if she hadn't been characterized at the beginning I wouldn't have thought it was her, but then she has a scene with Luffy (small Luffy, you did great too!) in which I did appreciate her personality better.

Another thing about this live action… is that it's not subtle at all, Oda is a master of show don't tell and the difference starts to show soon. Luffy doesn't go around asking people what their dreams are in the manga (he does it only in very few occasions) and I think they could have worked on the script a little more to see how Luffy, without asking directly, inspires people to tell him those things.

We move on to the bar, the moment when Luffy, Zoro and Nami see each other for the first time (kind of, because Luffy and Nami notice Zoro but he doesn't notice them and Luffy and Nami don't seem to notice each other either). Very well done too, I loved it and it's one of my favorite scenes in the whole live action. Luffy eating with Coby, Zoro picking a fight (my god, he is FINE) and Nami taking advantage of the chaos to get what she needs. The stuff with Zoro, Rika, Helmeppo and the rice balls, even if it's different, makes me infinitely happy that it was kept because it's important to understand that Zoro is much less of a dick than he appears to be.

Luffy, tell Sanji about the rice balls, this fandom is begging you.

I also found it curious that they have chosen to insist a lot on Zoro being a bounty hunter, we see Zoro emphasizing several times throughout the live action on the money they provide him, and it's striking because it's not like that at all in the manga. It gives him less of a sucker vibe and that makes me a little sad because I really like that Zoro became a bounty hunter because he needed to eat and he didn't know how to get back to his village. I like my men dumb as a rock. I assume they did it that way because they wanted to tell us what he is but what he doesn't want to be, just like it happened with Coby and it's going to happen with all the mugiwara, so Luffy can ask him the question about what his real goal is.

Anywat, both the first time Luffy and Zoro talk and Luffy and Nami talk inside the navy base are perfect, you can see the differences in their personalities from the first moment. I will always defend that meeting Luffy changes the lives of all the mugiwaras but the most obvious changes are in Zoro and Nami (maybe Robin), they owe Luffy their literal personalities.

I think Zoro breaking into Helmeppo's room while the latter is naked and acting cool with the Wado Ichimonji is cinema, I'm glad they included it. The haircut was a great touch.

Luffy and Nami's shenanigans inside the navy base, from the safe robbery to the fight in the courtyard where they are joined by Zoro... I really like that. The part where Zoro is about to leave but decides to turn around and fight them fits his personality from the beginning very well but it's actually pretty Nami coded too, she has a scene like that in Orange Town in the manga where she almost leaves but in the end feels bad for leaving them to their fate and comes back. Zoro and Nami are very similar and this live action highlights it a lot, we'll see that (episode 5, my beloved).

The battle against Morgan is short and concise, and I repeat: I think they did very well not to drag the action out longer than necessary. The part of Zoro carrying the safe and leaving Nami speechless before such a display of brute force I personally liked it a lot, it's a clear reference to the scene of Luffy and the cage in Orange Town in the manga.

The Shells Town escape also is a great idea. I already wrote a post about why I don't agree at all that Zoro's loyalty to Luffy is immediate and Nami certainly isn't loyal from the start. That they don't say yes to Luffy, but that it's more of a we have to get out of here and right now these other two people are the only allies I have works very well with them because it's exactly how they started in the manga as well.

To finish with this first review, I want to mention a last point in favor of the live action: increasing Garp's presence in the saga and making him the big antagonist present in all the arcs, I will go deeper into this in other chapters. It's very important to see how his relationship with Koby develops (and to think that this was written before the recent events in the manga, good lord).

And Buggy has the best first appearance of all. My king.

ko-fi

[gunsatthaphan]

hello doreen ^_^

i just rewatched mlc and alangaipa still feels like a fever dream. to this day i still can't believe they happened. but tbh after rewatching, i have to say that the foreshadowing was pretty much there with gaipa being told by other characters, mainly his mom, that someone will walk into his life soon and him meeting alan at the funeral does feel like his mom actually sent alan to gaipa. but i guess back when mlc was airing, i was so sure alangaipa would not happen that i didn't think too much about the foreshadowing or that it would actually lead somewhere and turn out to be alan. but it makes sense now that i rewatched the show in one sitting with a clear and objective mind. like i initially didn't think they would be a good match but the show focused so much on establishing that they are both people who love deeply and want to be loved just as much, so maybe they are really meant to be. and maybe meeting at the funeral may seem a bit too much but for a show that especially made use of metaphors and symbolism and all, them meeting there does kind of signify that it was his mom's doing and that her wish for him to meet someone came true. it's sad that we may never get to see them actually being together but with the way the fandom acted with their 3 scenes (iykyk), i think it's okay if we don't get a continuation lol. mlc as a whole is truly a great show, like i loved it when i first watched it but after rewatching, i appreciate it a bit more. i hope gmmtv produces more shows like mlc, quality-wise.

hello nonny!!

I'm about to cry at work lmao I agree so much with all of this 🥺 I remember laughing at the people on twitter predicting AG when the show was airing bc I was like yall are delusional af but then aof said bitch u thought lmao it was glorious.

"him meeting alan at the funeral does feel like his mom actually sent alan to gaipa." wHY would you say things 😩😭 I never thought of that but also I did not pick up on any of the foreshadowing either lmao so all of this completely came out of the blue for me. you have a point though.

I just appreciate how subtly they handled + depicted it, it was such a nice wrap-up for both their individual stories where they found happiness in each other after suffering so many hardships. they did a great job at signalizing that they're meant to be, all without being pushy and without overshadowing the main plots. it was the outcome of excellent writing + acting. I was suffering for alan more than I was for gaipa - probably bc I related to him more - so seeing him smile like an idiot when gaipa showed up made me so happy 🥺

I have not rewatched anything from the show yet, mostly because I'm scared that it will make me sad again lmao but it sure was a special production. I felt more connected to these characters than with any other show tbh and I appreciate that they hired the best possible cast for this because I truly believe that no one could've done a better job at bringing these characters to life.

xxx

[pianostarinwonderland]

This masquerade event has definitely blown away my expectations thus far like,I want more darker toned events or more scenarios that just pull a twist (ahah) on you

like damn I wish they went like this during endless Halloween

!!! Same same!

Glorious Masquerade is everything I wanted in an event. I love TWST's events in general. They're fun and lighthearted, and they have a touch of that Disney magic that you don't get to feel in many of their works anymore. But this event actually presents us danger. And it's threatening and it makes your heart pump and puts you on the edge of your seat as you learn more about the characters and hope to God that they succeed.

I wanted this for Endless Halloween. It presented us with a real danger, where the people you know and care for suddenly disappear in one night for mysterious reasons. I even had theories that maybe a TWST Chernabog would actually appear.

And yet it ended with a "surprise it was actually a prank". My disappointment was absolutely immeasurable. In hindsight, the music was a big big foreshadow to the prank due to its playful nature, but still, I wanted something thrilling. I wanted to see everyone sigh in relief as they defeated the big baddie, bring their friends home, and be greeted to a sunrise as they are thankful that everyone's alive and safe The only reason why I'm not going insane about it is because we got one mob talking about Azul stepping on people, which is very hot and sexy of him.

It didn't help that that ending presented Malleus in his omnipotence, so much so that he was the one in the "right" for pulling off such a prank (along with Lilia and the ghosts), and the boys were "wrong" for fighting the ghosts. Like 😭 I don't mind the prank itself, but I do mind the way that they presented Malleus and Lilia as innocent.

I think that's one of the main things I really like about Glorious Masquerade: that it presents Malleus as more than just an omnipotent figure who has everything under his control. It presents Malleus as someone more "human". He doesn't brag about his power. No, he is aware of it, he knows that it is a gift. And he even says it—that it's a gift that he chooses to share with the people he cares about. That has to be one of the kindest things anyone can say.

And there is that expectation to do a lot since he is powerful. But we see him needing help from Sebek and Silver when he was entangled in the flowers. He's told to conserve his power by Azul and Idia. And from that, we get to see Malleus being kind to his guards (him telling them that he trusts that he has good guards when they had to leave Sebek and Silver behind). We get to see Malleus giving praise where it is due (him praising Azul for getting rid of the flowers). And there are so many more moments that show Malleus as more than his omnipotence and power. We learn about Silver proudly presenting the magic handkerchief to Malleus. We see him being upset about receiving a false invitation when he had been excited about it. I've gotten to enjoy a lot of Malleus moments this event, but most importantly how he's become a bit more relatable.

I think I gone off topic from the ask completely HWAHAHHA but yeah, great event, everything is awesome. I am so happy.

[velvetvexations]

(anyone who may know better - I happily welcome corrections!)

I was reading some more into the Second Sino-Japanese War, as is my wont, and I think the key to understanding Imperial Japan is that they were (A) obsessed with securing the dominance and propagation of Yamato culture via (B) copying everything the West did as closely as possible. They were undoubtedly motivated by a very strong envy of Western empires and entitlement to a seat at the same table. Not that they were more entitled than the ones already sitting at the table, of course! No colonial asperations were morally pure or justified beyond simple nationalistic greed. But it's interesting because in those other cases the table, by which I mean not just the benefits of empire but the balance of power where the Western empires had a stranglehold on the world, kinna gradually formed between them over the course of centuries, and Japan was like, on the outside trying very hard to break in and take that for themselves after the Perry Expedition. And holy hell did they go a long ways towards making themselves a modern world power in an extremely short amount of time, the exact opposite of the Qing Dynasty, which was in such disarray during this entire period that by the time WW2 rolled around it was interrupting China's ongoing civil war that had been going on since a couple of decades earlier when the Qing had fallen.

Like, they suppressed the local languages of their colonial conquests but then, also, look at this:

That's a group of IJ officials pretending to inspect where a fake bomb was set off to false flag a justification for taking Manchuria. Japanese people dressed in "Western"-style clothing is hardly anything surprising now, but in-context, it's strange. Because like, IJ was trying so hard to make all of East Asia distinctly Japanese, right? But it was all filtered through that desire to be as powerful and glorious as they saw the Western world. IJ was, in a sense, stuck in a mindset of "anything you can do I can do better" - towards the West, with East Asia just being the tool with which they proved that with.

Fear of a Qing-style Century of Humiliation probably made it feel existential on some level, a case of doing or dying on top of plain nationalism. To assert their independence, because an empire by definition can not be subordinate to any other power, Korea went through modernization reforms and proclaimed itself an empire in 1897 despite patently not being an empire (the justification being that Korea had historically once been divided into three kingdoms), but it was too little too late and IJ annexed them just a decade or so later, which absurdly must have seemed to justify IJ's worldview that one was either a colonizer or the colonized.

There was a political cartoon about the Boxer Rebellion where the Eight-Nation Alliance is seen carving up a pie labeled "China" as a Chinese man looks on in outrage, and it's so fascinating, because the Chinese and Japanese man (who, side note, appears to be the only genericized ENA rep rather than a caricature of a specific person) are drawn in the same racist way yet Japan was nevertheless by the turn of the century seen by the West as being at least close to same level - the full understanding of how far Japan had come on the world stage would arrive just a few years later when Japan kicked Russia's ass in the Russo-Japanese War.

The Russo-Japanese War is particularly interesting in regards to the disparity between how IJ viewed Asia and the West, because one thing that particularly shocked the latter was how 'gentlemanly' IJ's wartime behavior was, treating prisoners and civilians with boundless (and most importantly for the IJ, vocal) generosity. Yet, just a decade earlier during the First Sino-Japanese War, they committed many atrocities that would foreshadow the many they committed in the second. Unsurprisingly, the West quickly forgot the PR scandal IJ made for itself with the Port Arthur massacre of 1894 and declared that it's conduct in the war with Russia (keep in mind I am paraphrasing a turn-of-the-century opinion in a historical context!) "proved Japan is civilized".

It's interesting to think that the person who sent Perry to open up Japan and had this huge radical affect in causing Japan to become obsessed with modernization and catching up, which led to as much as it did, was...Millard Fillmore. Who Wikipedia notes is ranked by historians as both one of the worst and least-memorable presidents ever. The fact that he's in a very real way responsible for one of the most evil regimes in history is probably underdiscussed.

[livlepretre]

pt 2

“A Jeremy-who-was-not flickers in her mind’s eye, the details of his lifeless face grown hazy over the years. She pushes the memory down, down…” even so far down their relationship, the memory still haunts her, she cannot fully move past that situation Rebekah put her in (but she can forgive klaus for actually murdering her aunt in front of her? like im kinda surprised it doesn’t cross her mind much anymore, but so much time has passed and so much has changed)

I was a bit confused by this bit “A new enticement, that tears at her heart far worse than any other of Rebekah’s previous offers, because she knows that she will ultimately turn this one down, too. To take her up on it would be to place Jeremy directly before Klaus’s wrath.”, I see it this way: she was talking about Rebekah’s offer to go a different path when Esther awakes, as in going separate ways with Klaus, which of course he wouldn’t like and consequently, kill Jeremy. She knows she will ultimately turn this proposal down too, like her rejection of vampirism, because she can’t possibly leave Klaus behind. I may not be understanding it correctly; if so, pls correct me.

“And besides. Her mother will never awaken. Things will never be different.” this is 100% foreshadowing lol

“Elena rubs her palms against the echo of the past, of a time when she had stood victorious over that glorious force of nature.” Elena reminiscing about her past with Klaus? Stood victorious when she daggered him or when she had his devotion and had an impact on his decisions??

Also I wish we could get a Stefan x Kol friendship, I feel like you kinda hinted it when Stefan walked in the opera box. It would make Klaus even more lonely and depressed than he is rn which I NEED.

“Since you were obviously digging, there’s the answer to the question you so desperately wished to ask me: here is the subject I have been most intrigued by since my rude awakening last summer” the subject is the doppelgänger and her blood’s abilities? Very interesting

Can’t wait for the next chapter cause I feel like so many things will make more sense I HATE BEING IN THE DARK. Splendid chapter, I adore it and how you wrote Kol it’s just perfect👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

Well. I think that if Elena was asking Klaus to track down information on Jenna/maybe even come into some kind of contact, she would have trauma flashbacks/misgivings about that too. Like, the situation is bringing it back up. I don't think Elena really forgave either Klaus for murdering Jenna or Rebekah for her cruelties in the usual sense we mean it in... I think Elena hit a breaking point, sanity-wise, and also emotionally, and gave herself permission to accept the totality of her feelings, which included falling in love with monsters. And it was sort of like-- okay. I will accept that this happened. I will accept that I still committed the very grave sin of falling in love with you, and I will stop punishing myself for what you did. But you mustn't do it again.

And-- I recognize that the past few updates have taken me years to roll out, but she does still think of Jenna-- she brought it up directly with Klaus as recently as chapter 63! (Even though Jenna was not mentioned by name, that is who she was talking about when she told him she had "forgiven worse.")

I interpret that little flash at any rate as Elena having this moment of clarity when she remembers Rebekah is a monster, and actually sees her that way, but she suppresses it because she's not able to deal with it.

Yes, your interpretation of the enticement bit is correct-- Rebekah is saying, here, choose me, go with me when my mother wakes up, and leave Klaus behind, and I can offer you a better future-- one that includes your brother in it (and also, of course, you as a vampire!). And Elena is tempted, because this is actually the thing that would really tempt her, but she can never turn it down because 1) she won't leave Klaus, for various fucked up reasons she cannot articulate to herself but which actually come down to the fact that she is loyal to him in her heart and, like him, thinks her fate is tied to his; 2) she takes Klaus's threat to kill her loved ones if she bails seriously, and she won't take that risk, when that has been the entire point of her sticking around all this time; and 3) she knows that Esther will never wake up because, per Klaus's confession to her, she is actually dead, and she knows Klaus is lying to the rest of them about being able to wake her up (just like on the show, right? ;-D )

probably a little of both, but mostly reminiscing about that time she murdered him/conquered him

there will be some Stefan x Kol friendship this next chapter, but I wouldn't call that a good thing!

maybe especially not for Klaus?

and yes, Kol is VERY interested in Elena's latent supernatural abilities, and how that power can be turned toward certain uses...

[travelingue]

Romancing the stone: identity and architecture in Finland (To HEL and back 4)

In Helsinki, it pays to look where you walk.  I mean look up, not down - the pavements are spotless here, unlike in Paris.

This Finnish capital, my colleague Risto told me, is an architectural feast for the eyes.

So we've found it to be. But thus far we've only explored the column-heavy, neoclassical centre of the city. Those pre-1850 buildings are scaled-down versions of the stuff you can see on the London Mall, the Place de la Concorde or across Washington.

During our first walk two days ago, however, we got glimpses of a funkier side to Helsinki's cityscape.

A stone’s throw from the Protestant cathedral (built 1830-1852 - below left) is the Russian orthodox one built from from the 1860s (right).

Any orthodox cathedral, you might say, is bound to be more ornate than a Lutheran one.

The inside of Helsinki's Upenski cathedral is gloriously tacky:

But the differences in design reflect more than a theological split.

The second half of the 19th century saw a movement towards glorious tackiness in Western art.

Operetta replaced opera as the most popular form of musical drama. Architecture lightened up in the same way, and Helsinki, a small city, is ideal for observing that shift.

Behind the Russian cathedral is this layer-cake of a building: 

Note the fancy carvings at the top and the rough, Nordic stone near the bottom. 

The 1890s block of flat was designed by Gustaf Nyström, a master of Finland’s neo-Renaissance movement.

Just down the road is his magnum opus, the 1902 custom house:

The culmination of this movement was National Romanticism, Finland’s equivalent of Art Nouveau.

Before I left, Risto wrote the vernacular phrase for me on a piece of paper: "Kansallisromanttinen arkkitehtuuri."

He articulated it in that heartfelt Uralic staccato that sounds much nicer to my ears than French (although that’s probably because I understand what French people say.)

Now in situ, I tap the phrase on my phone. Google takes us to this:

By the turn of the century, when the Finnish National Theatre (above) was built, Finnish granite is all over buildings.

The Pohjola Insurance (above) building dates from 1899. 

Unlike neoclassicism, which reflected the might of the state, the National Romantic style was driven by bourgeois commercialism. 

The Wasa Bank building (below) is a prime example of new money reinventing the old world.

It may seem paradoxical that capitalism, in its moment of triumph, should wallow in nostalgia for pre-industrial times.

But revolutions often justify upheaval by harking back to the past. Britain’s Arts and Craft and neo-Gothic fashions were championed by captains of industry.

Thus the new armies of pen-pushers and factory drudges could think of Merrie England as they trundled to work.

The equivalent, it seems, happened on these Baltic shores.

Another key aspect of Finnish National Romanticism is its appeal to the country's mythical heritage.

It's sometimes called "Karelian architecture".  Most of ancient Karelia was absorbed into Russia long ago, but that's where many Finns fancied their roots were.

Traditional Karelian designs were carved in wood. Romantic nationalist designers tried to set them in stone.

I'm not sure what Karelian motifs look like, but I suspect they can be found on the façades of the Polytechnic Students' Union (1903, above) and the Nylands Nation building (1904, below).

But for some reason, around 1905 Finnish architects move on from National romanticism.

Quirky neo-medievalism fades into something starker. Might and massiveness return.

Large institutions are back at the forefront of architectural innovation.

The Transport Ministry building (1909, above) and the Helsinki stock exchange (1912, below) are the work of the great Lars Sonck.

Both structures make you feel small, not nostagic. They foreshadow the forcefulness of Art Deco geometry.

When asked to build a warehouse for the customs service, Sonck came up with this pre-brutalist behemoth – now a smart hotel:

Another of his masterpieces was this church in the Kallio district (1912).

Incidentally, when exploring Helsinki's architectural riches, I recommend taking advantage of its cheap, efficient transit system (the only thing that's cheap here).

Kallio, a working-class district well on the way to gentrification (above), is infused with utopian spirit of early 20th-century city-planning.

Also a short tram ride from the centre but on the other side of town - both in geographical and sociological terms – is the Eira neighbourhood.

Eira is what the British call would call a garden suburb. Built in the second decade of the 20th century, it includes opulent blocks of flats, large single-family homes and embassies.

There are few right angles: the streets weave and wind around a small central park.  

Another remarkable Art Nouveau neighbourhood is the Katajanokka peninsula, just east of the city centre.

Katajanokka was a slum until these apartment blocks went up in the early 1900s.

Back in city centre, we find the most striking expression of raw, post-romantic assertiveness: the central railway station.

Its mighty entrance is pictured at the top of this post.

The station opened in 1919, two years after Finland won independence from Russia. A century later, it is flying the Ukrainian flag.

Finnish architecture has continued to break new ground over the past 100 years.

However it's now late afternoon and we don't have time to hunt for Helsinki's modernist wonders, which are scattered towards the outskirts.

We only manage to spot the 2018 Oodi library from afar.

One question has been bothering me all day. 

Neo-gothic in Victorian Britain and Haussmannian bombast in France were in vogue for decades.  Why did Finnish National Romanticism take hold so spectacularly around 1895, only to go out of fashion 10 years later?  

We repair to Helsinki's architecture museum to find out. We have to be quick.

"The museum closes in 45 minutes," the woman at the till says. "You might want to come back tomorrow." "We're flying back in less that 24 hours," I snap.  "I need answers NOW."

She hands us the tickets, unfazed by my impatience.

I run up the stairs.  The first room is dedicated to a celebration of Finland's female architects down the ages. The sign reads:

I'm all for feminism, but I've come here for factual information, not inspirational homilies.

The exhibition on "architecta" says nothing about national romantism or any other movement. I’ve just wasted 10 precious minutes.

I try the adjoining room, where another sign explains why, on second thoughts, it's wrong to even talk about women architects:

By now I'm ready to throttle the curator – or worse: call them by the wrong pronoun. 

But wait! Signs point to an upper floor. I race up another flight of stairs.

Tucked away in a corner of Helsinki's architectural museum I find a display about the architecture of Helsinki.

The information I need is revealed to us in lucid, succinct prose - I suppose the writers had to be succinct given the limited space they were given.

The gist is this: Czars, who had been exercising benign suzerainty over Finland, turned into control freaks at the end of the 19th century, spurring a movement of national awakening.

Artists got with it. Identitarian sentiment infused works like Sibelius’ Karelian Suite (1893).  National Romanticism was the architectural expression of this yearning.

And in a flash, I also understand why it lasted only a decade.  I can hear Risto's great-grandfather exhort his compatriots, in hearfelt Uralic staccato, circa 1905:

"Guy, GUYS.  Stop dreaming of turrets and medieval guilds.  We'll never get a homeland by spinning fairytales.  This is the age of ruthless empires.  Japan did not defeat Russia with samurai folklore, but with guns.  Wake up to the 20th century!"

Sonck's brutalism, I now see, was the consequence of Risto Senior's pep talk. And in 1917, Finland kicked out the Russians.  A generation later the tiny nation was able to repel the Red Army.

To this day you don't mess with the Finns.  Per capita, they have more people in uniform than any Western country. Despite their woke pieties and genuine niceness, there is steel in these people.

We experience it at our modest level that evening, after dining on locally grown leaves and sustainably roasted zucchini at a ravintola.  A smiling waitress hits us with a €145 bill.

The credit card reader cheekily asks me if I'm willing to pay even more: I leave a €20 tip without a squeak.

                                              ***

Previous “To HEL and back” instalments:

. L’invitation au voyage . Guidebooks don’t lie . How Sweden lost Finland

[greenjudy]

TROP notes

Some of these are love notes. Some are responses to criticism. Some of them are spoilers through ep 7, so proceed with caution.

-I still cannot wrap my head around why there is so much volcanic rage and hatred and contempt being spewed onto this vehicle. It’s not the best thing I’ve ever watched, ever (possibly the 2012 version of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, or maybe the 2003 anime Ping Pong), but in many respects I like it better than the PJ films. 

-This weird memey new critique “The writing is bad” seems to have gained currency on Twitter over the last few days, but I do not find it borne out by repeated viewing. 

-As I see the writing, there are a few places where the wagon wheels leave the road entirely, but not that many. 1) I thought that even the Stranger repairing the orchard wouldn’t necessarily have earned him the trust of the Harfoots at the level they demonstrated it, so that turn felt a little abrupt.  2) Disa’s ambition could have used some foreshadowing and preparation in earlier episodes. 3) Tar-Miriel’s real position about elves needed a little shoring up in a similar manner earlier on.  

-In general, I find the writing quite nuanced. Elrond’s character is outstanding. On the evidence of his writing alone, I am prepared to meet an equally complex Celebrimbor when we get back to this dude. Although I adore the dynamic of her character, Galadriel’s writing is not, I think, quite the triumph that Elrond’s is (Elrond is very obviously a proxy for one or even both of the showrunners; I do not mean this as a criticism, just an observation), but Morfydd Clark has done great, great things with the material. 

-By the way, maybe Galadriel isn’t actually assuming responsibility for the eruption of Mount Doom? I’ve seen criticism that she shouldn’t know how the Key works and what it did. 

I personally think there are two layers to her asserting that it’s her fault. First, maybe she is saying she should have bagged Sauron by now, and the fact that he and his minions are wreaking havoc is on her. 

I am more inclined, based on how the scenes feel in the last 2 episodes, that she’s in fact assuming responsibility for the people she drove to undertake this catastrophic mission. This is different than saying, “I should’ve gotten Sauron by now.” Instead, I think it’s this very intense quest for revenge that is starting to come under scrutiny inside her soul. Her vendetta has proven extraordinarily destructive. I feel she’s taking stock, in a deadly serious way, with where she’s been left. She is now looking in the mirror, as advised by Adar. 

So I loved the final shots of Ep 6 where we see her looking steadily into the chaos unfolding before her. And I love the way she interacts with Theo and opens up to him in Ep 7. We might call these preliminary steps on a journey to the Galadriel whose mirror can show what was, what is, and what may yet come to pass.

-There is nothing reasoned or sensible about virulently hating on this show because it ‘breaks the lore’. Tolkien broke his own lore. There are no rules about stuff like this actually. Maybe in video games, because player agency can get banjaxed if the lore is inconsistent. But not in fiction. Dude, the writer is making constant adjustments to the lore. Some of them are chiropractic; some are apocalyptic. 

-Adar is one of the coolest and most interesting villains I’ve ever seen, enabling us to take up, in real time, the kinds of questions that must have plagued King Elessar at the opening of the Fourth Age. “Uruk,” indeed. 

-The ‘who is Sauron’ question is being rather deftly handled. He is pre-eminently a shape-shifter at this point. I like how they have put a few character beats into place to make you really wonder (**cough cough Halbrand the smith**). 

-The vibe: the Harfoots scenes, so far, are some of my favorite views of Second Age Middle-earth. Poppy’s song is glorious. 

-I was not in theory happy about the Galadriel-Halbrand ‘romance.’ As it’s playing out, though, I think their relationship is marvelous. 

-To me, the Stranger might be the most concise expression of the deep melancholy at the heart of this show. The Second Age is anguish layered on top of anguish, tragedy on top of tragedy. And all of it is in the Stranger’s face: his yearning to do something positive, his shock and sorrow at the malevolent effects his good intentions have when they go to work on the world.

[none-ofthisnonsense]

Merlin S2E3, “The Nightmare Begins”

Okay so Morgana’s eyes have some the magic glow. This has totally not been foreshadowed for a whole season previously.

(On another note, by far the biggest inconsistency is where Gwen lives.)

OH SHE MADE THAT CANDLE LIGHT UP

So Uther is right about the way it happened, but wrong about the person. This is just Morgana. But I do love to see this episode it’s definitely one of the better ones (and I’m only 3 minutes in!)

For once I would’ve liked to see Merlin figure things out for himself.

Merlin and Morgana are parallels in SO MANY WAYS I LOVE IT SO MUCH THEY’RE MY FAVOURITE CHARACTER FOILS

Ohohoho he’s bringing flowers I can see how this could be misconstrued

Gwen and Morgana ARE friends. Better ones than Arthur and Merlin. I want to read a modern, high school AU of these four.

Katie McGrath is GLORIOUS. And Morgana is by far the best-written character.

The music in this episode!!!

The CGI definitely improved between S1 and S2.

Merlin establishing that he’s not interested in Morgana and being completely misbelieved is a feeling I can very strongly relate to. I feel you, Merlin.

I don’t ship them but they would have potential as a romantic couple. (Or just let them develop as besties who would kill for each other, that’s fine too.)

I LIVE for Merlin and Morgana interactions.

“I’d be lost without you, Gaius.” IT’S MY FAVOURITE FATHER/SON DUO SAYING THEIR LOVE FOR EACH OTHER I LOVE THEM

The music in this episode is once again great.

This is the guy who played Doctor Moon in Doctor Who, isn’t he?

MORDRED!!!! MY LITTLE GUY!

Uther was a good king (ish) at the start of S1 but as time is going on he is growing increasingly unreasonable and isolationist.

Telepathy is a curse, isn’t it?

Oh fuck wait he’s leading the knights to the druids isn’t he

Uther does care for Morgana like his daughter! She and Arthur are spiritual siblings confirmed.

The druids seem calm. I’m sorry that they’re about to get decimated.

Of all people on Camelot Merlin is definitely the one who understands the most.

The sudden change when the fog appears is really well-done, and the whole fog music is great.

AGLAIN NO

Times like these I do believe Uther considers Morgana like his daughter. Even if most of the time he doesn’t act like it.

“Merlin.” “My lady.” is giving me Gaius-talking-to-Nimueh vibes. M&M (ha) are by far my favourite duo and I’m so happy we get so much of them!!

Merlin being so happy begetting to talk about magic :) and seeing someone else be as enthusiastic about it as he is!!

Okay it definitely looks like they’re fucking. From Arthur’s POV.

“You can’t hide anything from me, Merlin.” well-

A HUG!!!! WE’RE GETTING A GAIUS/MERLIN HUG!! I love them so much they’re the best family duo

LOVED this episode. 

[nightmarist]

@leetutheicefanatic

Yes, if I remember correctly, Flemeth is a vessel of Mythal, while also being worshiped as a god herself.

Her apotheosis was probably because of it, granted honorary god status in the pantheon while also granted the literal godhood and power that comes with housing a god being. So, it’s possible that the ancient elves saw/knew her ascension and adopted her into their pantheon as Asha’bellanar many ages ago. The Dalish having a broken up and partially lost history serves as a good and convenient narrative device so it could be that elves just don’t remember Why a non elf is in their pantheon and just accept it / don’t question it.

Culture and religion just naturally evolve history into legend until the facts are lost or become more like suggestions. Sort of like Cassandra’s rise to becoming a Hand of the Divine where the story says it was a single handed effort she was rewarded for vs truth of it being the efforts of many, or Varric’s tall tale telling in all of his stories to make them feel more heroic and glorious than they are, or the Chantry’s attempts at explaining the Golden/Black Cities and Darkspawn with only fragments of stories.

As a human vessel of an elf god, in addition to being worshiped by the Dalish as a separate god herself, compounded with Elvhen history of slavery between both their own gods and humans creates an interesting narrative — if it’s a purposefully crafted narrative to evoke that very connection it would provide a really fucked up (in a good way) sense of disparity. But if not then it feels a bit out of place. It wouldn’t be game breaking just mild disappointment. Maybe making her an elf in some capacity could fix some dialogue and offer foreshadowing and better explanation for other events throughout the series like Solas’ reveal, Morrigan drinking from the well, and Morrigan’s child. But that’s also just a personal “wouldn’t it be cool if” thing.

[lelu3]

I have ranked all the Ted Lasso episodes from my favorite to least favorite and wrote some of my thoughts on each one. Spoilers ahoy. Feel free to disagree and tell me I'm a moron in the notes, but don't fight with each other.

Rainbow--My favorite episode. Absolutely as good as the series gets. Highlights are Ted's unending positivity and the the romcom themes mapping surprisingly seamlessly onto this football office dramedy. Make Rebecca Great Again--The introduction of so many things I love about the series: focus on Ted's mental health, Sassy, Rebecca taking steps toward getting over Rupert, Hannah Waddingham's singing voice, Keeley and Roy. That final sequence is just a masterpiece. No Weddings and a Funeral--The THEMES, man. Juxtaposing Ted and Rebecca's relationships with each of their fathers. The team showing up to support Rebecca. Rupert being slimy. This episode has it all. So Long, Farewell--Admit it, you cried. I cried too. I have some quibbles with this one, but all in all it was the most satisfying ending we could have had Mom City--You know I like me some Ted and his mental health. The "thank you, fuck you" scene encapsulated kids relationships with their parents. This one is just very personal for me. Man City--This is such a wham episode. Roy hus Jamie and my heart explodes, Ted admits to Sharon that his father killed himself and my heart explodes again. I may be in the minority, but I also really liked Rebecca and Sam. Also, who doesn't love Roy and his interactions with Phoebe? Sunflowers--A series of isolated stories that really come together into something special. Highlights include Trent and Colin bonding over their sexuality, Jamie and Roy bonding in general, and the Flying Dutchman. Also holy shit, Ted actually successfully does his job for the first time. Two Aces--A nice, solid episode. Dani is a treasure. Beard's "WE SHOULD DO THIS PART OUTSIDE" makes me laugh every time. I've never disliked Rebecca more than in this episode (in a good way). Tan Lines--Ok, real talk, Ted's toxic positivity would be WAY too much for anyone, and it was really nice to see divorce as a necessary thing that can happen. Henry is adorable. Trent Crimm: The Independent--Trent is in my top 3 favorite characters in the series. In contrast to the previous episode, Ted's positivity is on full glorious display in this one. Watching him be slowly figure out Ted is genuine is a joy to see. Phoebe and Roy are adorable. (I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea--Another Trent episode. I really like Roy coming to grips with his self-doubt and Trent realizing how much her hurt Roy. As much as I dislike them later, Shandy and Zava's introductions are actually pretty successful. Inverting the Pyramid of Success--Another solid episode. Watching Nate implode was heartbreaking, but seeing the team win was amazing. Nick Mohammed is a really amazing actor. Midnight Train to Royston--We're reaching the point of the series where all I have to say is "really solid episode". I liked Edwin Akufo in this one and I felt his blow up was actually really funny, as was Sam and Rebecca's conversation at the end where Sam is talking to "Ted". Beard After Hours--Yeah, I'm in the minory that liked this one. Beard's weird night fits his personality perfectly. I really liked how off-the-wall this one was. For the Children--Rupert's real introduction! Keeley breaking up with Jaime! Accountability matters! Ted seeing through Rupert's bullshit! What's not to like? Pilot--A nice, solid episode that sets up the plot as well as the series' themes. International Break--There are things I like in this one, like Rebecca's speech and Jaime wearing Sam's number and Nate FINALLY starting to take accountability, and "those children are dead, Rebecca", but it also has Edwin Akufo who was DEFINITELY never utilized well. The Hope that Kills You--Another really solid episode that foreshadows Nate's downfall. It's sad seeing the team lose, but the actual football match was well done. The Signal--Watching Roy rise to the challenge of being a coach is awesome and there are some small points I really like about this one, but I gotta be honest; I was never terribly invested in Jaime. Also the Beard/Higgins/Jane plot is weird and I get second-hand embarrassment from Rebecca's mom. The Diamond Dogs--The debut of the Diamond Dogs and the darts match can't really save this middling episode. It's ok. Higgins quitting and Keeley getting angry at Rebecca feels like set-up for something that didn't quite pay off as well as I wanted it to. Buiscuits--Another solid, middle of the road episode. This one suffers for not being particularly memorable, but it doesn't do anything particularly offensive, either. La Locker Room Aux Folles--As sweet as the locker room scene is, this one is brought down by Isaac making Colin's coming out about himself and Ted comparing being gay to being a Broncos fan. Also, I looked up the Broncos on my phone after this episode and now I keep getting notifications about them? I don't even watch football (any of them). No, putting a lampshade on the Broncos doesn't make it better. We'll Never Have Paris--I know a ton of people hated this one, but I kinda liked it. Ted being neurotic about Michelle and Jake felt natural to me and Beard's conversation with Henry made my heart melt. On the other hand, this series REALLY handled Jake poorly. The stuff with the leak brings it down, though. Do the Right-est Thing--This one is fine. Nora is fine. The Dubai Air thing is fine. This one just kinda suffers from being unremarkable. Carol of the Bells--Super sappy with just enough pathos that I don't mind. It sure is a Christmas episode. Lavender All Apologies--The confession scene sure is good. So is Roy and Keeley's scene in the locker room. Fun fact, a gif of Rebecca and Rupert's conversation in this one is what got me to watch the series. Other than that, it kind of feels like another one that isn't all that remarkable. Goodbye Earl--The dog dies. Ted is weird about therapy despite desperately needing some. The cartoon dream sequence was weird as hell. Another pretty middling one. Smells like Mean Spirit--Another pretty eh one. I wasn't crazy about Roy and Keeley breaking up. I don't remember too many funny moments in this one either. Headspace--Ted's story with Sharon just kind of frustrates me and I get a LOT of second-hand embarrassment from Roy and Keeley's deal. Signs--Hate it. Hate Shandy. Hate Rebecca visiting the fertility clinic because of the psychic. Hated Nate's date. Hated Zava and his pointlessness. Really fucking hated Jack. Big Week--The entire episode we're waiting for Nate to approach Ted and it never happens. Ted talking to Michelle at the end is not nearly enough for me to show that Ted is expressing his anger in a healthy way rather than repressing it. Rebecca dressing Rupert down was pretty good, though. 4-5-1--Hate it. Hate how no one is paying attention to Ted's obvious spiral. Hate the green matchbook and the psychic thing. Hate Dr. Jacob. Trent catching Colin and walking away to "Everybody Knows" is the one bright spot. The Strings that Bind Us--The worst one bar none. The red strings felt like a joke Roy would make that Ted and Beard would shut down because it's INSANE. Jamie potentially losing his dick was such a stupid, sophomoric joke. I hate Keeley and Jack and their whole deal. I don't give a shit about Jade. Sam vs. the bigotted Cabinet member felt like it could have been an ongoing thing, but it was dropped after one episode. The only bright spot is Ola, but he's not enough to save it.

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL

Nov 2021 Wk 2

Being a highly subjective assessment of one tiny corner of the interwebs.

Ongoing Series - Thai

My Mate Match (Line) Ep 5 fin - aw, it’s kinda cuteness incarnate. We all knew it’d end up the way is did, but what a graceful exit from Sir The Path Not Chosen. I gotta say I like it when the actors are mature enough to kiss like they actually know what they’re doing. (Honestly the Thai BL pulps served us good kisses on a platter this year.) My Mate Match is a bit of a mess and the characters are occasionally too dumb for words, so in the end I give it 6/10 RECOMMENDED BUT PRETTY DARN FLAWED 

Bite Me Ep 11 fin (Viki) - there’s more talking and less cooking in this last episode than all the others combined but that dialogue was stilted, awkward, and cliche. The kiss was pretty, I guess. And it was kinda fun to see a bunch of desserts I recognized from Until We Meet Again. But we spent all our time with side characters. Honestly what the hell happened to this show? I’m not even mad, just let down. My best one word description is: disappointing. If I were one of the two leads I’d be mad though. They were great. The show failed them, not the other way around. Watch it if you like longing looks and cooking shows, but don’t expect story 6/10 QUITE FLAWED 

Love With Benefits Ep 1 - appears to be another meta BL about BL. Plot: The leads of a new BL series aren’t doing well enough to pass as a shippable couple so they are forced to live together to build intimacy in an opposites attract kinda thing. It’s slow moving (not as bad as Bite Me, but what is?) with lots of punching down humor and predatory trans characters (when did THAT become an archetype? grrrr) so... I’m not sure about it at all. 

Loveless Society Ep 0 - dropped 20 mins of bts, no subs, to Line, so I think we can expect that from the rest of the series too. Which may or may not start next week. 

Bad Buddy (YouTube) Ep 3 - I’m getting a real “scion of SOTUS” feel from this show now and loving that for it. Truly. ALL THE TROPES dropped this week and the boys are flirting and softening towards each other. It’s GREAT. I’m live blogging it here.

Between Us special (YouTube) Ep 0 - 3 little vignettes of pitch perfect domesticity, nothing more, no spoilers or foreshadows. And it’s charming and glorious and exactly satisfying. Suddenly, I’m all confident in Wabi Sabi again. Or is this just New doing that sporadic master of the BL universe for the honor of Grayrainbow thing he does? (Closely followed by a 7 Project level betrayal). Who cares. YAY!!! 

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

My Sweet Dear (Korea - Viki) Ep 7-8 fin - I really liked this one, I think slightly more than Tasty Florida (I don’t enjoy love triangles), but it rates about the same. Tasty was prettier, Sweet is more stylish and grown up. I’m looking forward to the movie version, hopefully they will iron out some of the editing/timing/flashback issues. This was what I wanted Bite Me to be. I didn’t feel like the crisis/ending was rushed because I watch too many Kdramas and all the shit always goes down in the last few episodes, so I was expecting it. RECOMMENDED 8/10 

My Type (Taiwan indie - hard to find but a kind soul is subbing it here) Ep 2-3 this remains very cute and kinda fun for a baby project. 

Friend or Lover (Taiwan - YouTube) Ep 6 fin - finally the last little installment. It was cute, it’s a fine indie piece, better than most, not actually very good tho. 5/10 RECOMMENDED ONLY IF YOU HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO

Vanishing My First Love AKA Kieta Hatsukoi (Japan - indie subbed) Ep 5 - it’s so fucking funny, Aoki the spaz in the forest, that spider slap on the back, it all just made me laugh so hard my ribs hurt (I grew up rural, this shit is golden). This show is a work of slapstick genius with poor Ida the only stiff in the bunch. It’s gloriously ridiculous without losing any of its earnest wholesome sincerity. 

In Case You Missed It 

New Pinoy BL Rainbow Prince dropped a trailer. It is a musical BL featuring under cover royalty living in a hotel with his dogs. I just... WHAT? 

My DNA Says I Love You is (if you can’t guess from that title) a new BL from Taiwan for next year. Announced on FB but there is the tiniest of teasers on YouTube. 

Korean Bl To My Star confirmed season two... again. 

Not BL, Baker Boys got it’s official trailer from GMMTV. Singto (SOTUS) plays a gay character in this (it will be his last role under GMMTV). I talk about that and the original source material on @heretherebedork​‘s post. 

Thai BL NillunDon is officially delayed for a recast of Don, among other things. 

Thai BL Paint with Love got a new trailer. Interesting casting going on here so far as the Thai studio system is concerned, can I talk about it for a sec? Singto (SOTUS originally GMMTV) with Tae (2 Moons franchise) and a secondary couple made up of Yoon (Cheewin’s stable) and Yacht (who I thought was married to Wabi Sabi and not doing BL) and also there is Natty who’s from Oxygen (Mauve). It’s weird right? I mean, it’s all very well to have a chocolate box assortment but this is like a halloween candy bag that mixed Hershey + Nestle + Mars + Lidnt. It doesn’t make sense. I’m not complaining just confused. 

GOSSIP - Thai BL

Coffee Melody got a teaser! Cafe set BL starring Pavel (my one true love) as a barista (Forth in 2moons2) and Benz as a singer (Ait in Call it What You Want) and they look good together. Forth is my tumblr icon so obviously I am BEYOND pleased with this news. 

Wabi Sabi picked up defunked project Dear Doctor and is apparently bringing it back, staring Grey Rainbow couple Nut & Karn (love them, hate their BL). Adapted from a novel, the show focuses on a romance between a doctor trying to save his patients and the Grim Reaper (both his enemy and lover). I LOVE THIS PREMISE!!! Doom at Your Service only gay? WE WANTS IT. 

Wabi Sabi also bring us My Only 12%. Guess who’s starring? SANTA & EARTH!!!!!! This is based on a y-novel by Afterday (who also wrote the novel behind Bad Buddy). About neighbors and childhood friends, Cake and Seeiw, who have totally opposite personalities and are growing apart because of this. (source + full plot description)

Santa and Earth Santa & Earth SANTAEARTH!!!!!! 

Next Week Looks Like This:

Love With Benefits (Thailand - Line) and Utsukushii Kare AKA My Beautiful Man (Japan - Gaga) are supposed to start their 10 episode arcs. Loveless Society might also be starting on Line TV. Money Boys the movie hits Taiwanese theaters. 

Some shows may be listed later than actual air date for International subs accessibility reasons. Also I tend to put Sat/Sun stuff onto Mondays.

Upcoming 2021 BL master post here. (many of these now unlikely to happen this year)

Links to watch are provided when possible, leave a comment if I missed something.

This week’s best moments?

[thevibraniumveterans]

“Come home…”

“When she sings, she sings ‘come home’…”

- Loki // LOKI (2021-) | Season 1 Episode 3 | Lamentis

“Sylvie, stop. Stop. Stop… Stop. I’ve been where you are. I’ve felt what you feel. Don’t ask me how I know.”

- Loki // LOKI (2021-) | Season 1 Episode 6 | For All Time. Always.

 <And also, really not that long ago, actually…>

“You give up the Tesseract! You give up this poisonous dream! You come home.”

- Thor // THE AVENGERS (2012)

—————

They say that home is where the heart is.

When Thor asked Loki to “come home”, he doesn’t necessarily mean Asgard, but basically, to once again become the brother Thor always knew Loki to be. Thor had said, “We were raised together. We played together, we fought together. Do you remember none of that?” Loki had replied, “I remember a shadow living in the shade of your greatness.” While both Loki and Thor were right from their respective points of view, Thor carried the simple knowledge that he would one day be king, while Loki shouldered the impossible burden of knowing he would always be second best and never be equal to Thor, which makes his statement in the previous film “I never wanted the throne. I only ever wanted to be your equal” all the more heartbreaking. Thor wanted Loki to come back to him, to be brothers and family once more, the way they’d always been.

When Loki serenades Sylvie on the train in Ep3, one of the verses he sings is in Norwegian, the last line of which (before he switches back to English) translates to asking “when do you come home?” It really isn’t surprising, therefore, given the catastrophically heartbreaking events of Episode 6 that we know for a fact all Sylvie and Loki really want to do is to come home to each other, among other things like “saving the universe, even”. Well, multiverse now, but I digress. Sylvie has, after killing HWR, just discovered that chasing her “glorious purpose” wasn’t what it was all cracked up to be, and she’s left feeling empty and sad, with regret soon to follow with the knowledge of both how she was wrong to push Loki away and how he was right all along. She’s going to be questioning a lot of things, her decisions being one of them. Her home - Asgard being gone from her reality - is now Loki, and unsurprisingly, his home - his reality being gone as well - is now Sylvie. It might not be too much of a stretch to say that when Loki sang “When she sings, she sings ‘come home’”, it foreshadowed Sylvie’s feelings of needing (or wanting, perhaps) Loki to come back to her. Now, I have to point out that Sylvie is BY NO MEANS a damsel in distress, she doesn’t need saving. She can do many things, and I’m pretty sure the first thing she needs to do is to get out of that Citadel, and she has the means to do so. She will be able to get out of there, but where she will end up is unclear, but regardless, if there’s one person she will ultimately find her way back to, it’s Loki. And thanks to that tidbit of information that Tom Hiddleston had provided us via an interview with Empire Magazine, if there’s one person Loki will never stop at anything to look for, it’s Sylvie. They’ll find their way back to each other. They’ll come home to each other. And we’ll be there when they do.

[istumpysk]

I can’t decide what’s the most indisputable proof of a Jonsa romance. Jonnel x Sansa, the Ashford Theory, the Byron hints (my personal fave), the almost identical wishes and dreams of family, R+L=J apparently being useless to the plot, the fact that they rarely think about each other, Jon’s attitude of “the grapes are too sour anyway” towards ladies and ladylike women, Jon being attracted to Ygritte’s softest traits and moments that remind everyone of Sansa (while being appalled by her ruthlessness, violence and mentality in general), Sansa’s crush on Jon’s lookalike, Jon’s “Sansa looked radiant”, Jon admiring Val with dark honey hair and close to Ghost (while rejecting the silver-haired Val), Jon killing Slynt and becoming Sansa’s official hero (glorious), Jon and Sansa being undeniably compatible, especially because of their shared softness and romanticism, their marriage solving many political problems and making sure Catelyn’s grandchildren rule Winterfell (her greatest fear).

They’re just...too strong. There’s no possible way we misinterpreted. They make too much sense, both in regards to their personalities and to the plot. This ship is unsinkable. I’d be extremely confused if Martin pulls a D&D and chickens out. But that won’t happen. The foundation is already strong as steel.

Damn anon, let em know. You’ve got me all amped up over here. Send something like this to me at least once a week, okay?

To say it’s impossible to misinterpret sometimes feels like an understatement, huh?

My vote for most irrefutable evidence is the stuff that makes antis squirm, in my experience. The material they really struggle to overcome, because it’s so obviously meant to directly reference Jon and Sansa. They’d have to deliberately portray themselves as slow to deny it.

Jonnel (One-Eye) and Sansa Stark

The Pact of Ice and Fire

The outline 

Say what you want about that outline, it puts an end to any talk that George would never explore that angle with the Starks. It also immediately kills the notion that this series was ever about Jon x Daenerys, lulz.

Of course the most irrefutable evidence isn’t necessarily my favourite. I'm a sucker for all the foreshadowing that points to the angsty romance to come. Nobody cares about boring ass political matches. Give us deep palpable love, George.

[dogbearinggifts]

What are your thoughts on tua S2? Did you feel like the characters grew? What did you like? What did you not? I’m interested in your perspective. Your analysis are super thoughtful and interesting!

Aw, thanks, Anon!

Overall, I really enjoyed S2 and thought it was a solid follow-up to S1. I do have my quibbles about it, so I think (for ease of reference and because my thoughts are a little scattered today) I’ll list some of my personal highlights (in no particular order) before getting into what I didn’t like as much.

Big spoilers ahead.

Allison. I thought they handled her storyline especially well. Of all the siblings, I think she had the most difficult obstacles placed in her way (not only is she a Black woman landing in 1961 Dallas, but she’s a Black woman landing in 1961 Dallas who can’t even speak in her own defense for a year) and they sugarcoated exactly none of it. The writers pulled no punches when showing what civil rights protesters went through, which just made their nonviolent response all the more breathtaking. Allison’s fear and anger during those scenes were palpable even as she kept them hidden. But along with that horror, we see the kindness and warmth of the Dallas Black community, the women who take her in simply because she needs their help, and her love for Ray, perhaps heretofore THE most thoughtful husband ever portrayed on screen. I loved him, and I loved him and Allison together. While I understand and respect his choice to stay in 1963, I wish they’d gotten more time together. They both deserved it.

Vanya. We got to see how much the baggage from her past affected her by glimpsing what she might be like if it were taken away. It’s an interesting philosophical question, and it was explored well, in my opinion. She finds it easier to love and be loved, and she stands up for herself more readily—but she also doesn’t hesitate to use powers she can’t quite control and threatens Five without fully realizing how dire her threat is (or how it might dredge up traumatic memories she doesn’t know exist). The moment where Ben finds her curled up, fully convinced she’s a monster, was heartbreaking. I loved watching her find happiness with Sissy, even if that was fleeting (and dear god, Sissy deserved her happy ending with Vanya, dammit, I don’t care if it would fuck up the timeline). Her patience and sweetness with Harlan were just beautiful. And the way she used the confidence she gained during her amnesia to fully come into her own not to exact revenge on her siblings, but to save them, was fucking phenomenal.

The humor. There was a lot more humor this season, and it was awesome. So many iconic scenes—Olga Foroga, Luther babysitting two homicidal Fives, Elliot awkwardly lecturing his guests on the history of Jello, “NEW TIMELINE NEW ME,” “Your vagina needs glasses,” AJ the fish gobbling up the cigarette bubbles, Five getting to say “fuck”….this season was a lot funnier than the previous one, and I think that was one of its strengths.

Klaus’ cult. It was played for laughs, which I both expected and thought was the best way to handle it. He didn’t want to start a new religion with himself at the center; he just wanted to not get thrown out of any more diners, but Destiny’s Children had other ideas. The “I too am a fraud!” scene was hilarious and tickled the question of whether or not a religion founded on false pretenses can still help those within it find meaning.

Luther. Getting him away from his dad, his siblings, and the Academy was exactly what he needed to become the pure of heart and dumb of ass genius we always knew he was, but his first major step in that direction was heartbreaking. We all knew he’d be rejected once he got to the Academy. We all knew Reginald would rip his heart out and stomp on it in his admittedly fashionable shoes. It gets Luther out on his own and forces him to become his own person apart from his dad, but that doesn’t make it any easier to watch. He got the positive character development he needed, but the catalyst was tragic.

Diego. We see, for the first time, exactly how Reginald kept him in line—not with meds or with PTSD-inducing torture, but with words. Even when he knows Diego as little more than a stranger, Reginald is able to rip off his skin and fling it in his face with a single diatribe; and even at 30, with years away from his dad, Diego is left unable to speak, feeling as if all of his accomplishments up to that point were the work of a dumb kid who thought he was smarter and more capable than he actually was.

Luther and Diego sharing a braincell. Luther has bad ideas. Diego has bad ideas. When they put their bad ideas together, they get terrible ideas. I loved watching them work together as a team, rather than being at each others’ throats for most of the season, even if I’m left hoping Olga Foroga had a pleasant and quiet day after that phone call.

Reginald. At first glance, it may look like the writers were trying to make him likable so they could parade him around as your average abusive-parent-with-a-soft-side. But it’s more nuanced than that. Abusive parents (and abusers in general) often fly under the radar because they fool outsiders into thinking they’re good people. They’re active in their communities. They give to charity. They have friends who attest to their virtue, significant others who think they’re the greatest. And that’s what we see with Reginald. We see him as the rest of the world did: an intelligent, eccentric man with a sharp sense of humor who cared deeply about scientific advancement. That’s how he evaded suspicion—because there were stories from years past of lively parties at his mansion, of what a gentleman he was to Grace and of how he did everything he could to save little Pogo. But those stories would all have come from people he considered his equals. When he’s with people he considers his inferiors—aka, the Umbrella kids—he’s openly condescending and demeaning. We get to see how he fooled the world, and it is chilling.

Elliot. He deserved better, and you can ship him with any one of the Hargreeves kids and get the cutest thing ever. 

The Swedes. They said so much while speaking very little.

Ben. He got more personality and screen time, and it was glorious. His love of his family and resentment toward Klaus practically leapt off the screen. The way he says “I’ve missed you all…so much” once they’ve all left was one of those right-in-the-feels moments; and watching him get so much of what he’s wanted for years when he possesses Klaus was beautiful.

Now, as for things I took issue with….

Ben. I understand why they ended his arc the way they did. I get that they were probably afraid the Klaus/Ben dynamic would grow stale if they didn’t change it somehow and wanted to give him a larger role in S3. His death(???) was heartbreaking and extremely well-done. But it also wasn’t foreshadowed. We never got any sense of what ghosts in the TUA ‘verse are, so the fact they can be destroyed by a ton of sound-turned-energy or by going too far into someone’s psyche or whatever happened….it’s not that it doesn’t make sense so much as there’s not enough evidence to determine whether or not it makes sense. It feels like the writers just kinda made that up so they’d have a reason to change Ben’s relationship dynamics, but if that’s the case, couldn’t they have done it another way? Couldn’t they have made it so the immense energy or psychic woo-woo or whatever gave him a power-up instead of destroying him? Vanya transferred some of her energy into Harlan and brought him back to life. Couldn’t something similar have happened with Ben? And if it tied him to Vanya as well as to Klaus, great! More fodder for angst and humor! (”Vannyyyyyyyy, stop hogging Ben!” “You got him for 17 years, Klaus, you can part with him for 20 minutes.” “Guys, don’t I get a say in this?”) I’m glad they didn’t write him out of the series entirely, but I still wish they’d kept him and all the character development he’d gotten throughout S2.

Episode 10. It looks like they tried to cram half a season’s worth of developments into 45 minutes. Twenty minutes in, I’d already said “Wait what the fuck” half a dozen times. A lot of those moments were explained later on, and I was able to make enough inferences to fill in any lingering plot holes, but…still. Too much stuff, too little time. E9 was a perfectly satisfying ending to the season. Yes, it leaves the siblings stranded in 1963, but they could’ve tied up those loose ends in the S3 premiere.

Lila. She’s an incredibly fun character, but her arc is kind of a mess. Most of that is due to E10, and I do feel that more time to let her arc breathe would’ve worked wonders, but I’m left feeling like her turn from “Handler is the best mom ever and I lurve Diego too” to “KILL DIEGO AND HIS EVIL FAMILY” to “Handler is a bad mom and Diego is right” happened too quickly.

The Commission. Okay, so, the Handler announces the entire Board has been killed, and she’s stepping in as director even though everyone appears to know she’s been demoted (and demoted pretty severely—she went from having an office bigger than some apartments to being a case management drone). There’s suspicion and lots of it. But then, La Resistance is….ten or so people in a single room? And when she calls the temps agents to her side, thousands of them show up ready and willing to fight and die? I dunno. Just seems like there should’ve been more splintering going on there. Again, I think they needed more time to tie everything up.

Aside from those complaints, I loved the season. I set aside most of a day to binge it, and I do not regret that decision at all.

[magicaththedemigod]

an extensive analysis of “the song of achilles” by madeline miller

Or: things I noticed and couldn't keep to myself.

Because I just finished reading it and have many feelings about it, I've decided to compile all of them into a very lengthy Tumblr post.

This will be broken up into three parts:

1. Foreshadowing

2. Dramatic (and regular) Irony

3. Fatal Flaws

1. Foreshadowing

Miller does such a delightful job with foreshadowing. The number of quotes I could be spitting at you right now... but I digress. The main job of foreshadowing, especially in a tragedy like "The Song of Achilles," is to set the characters up for their tragedy.

What I like most about how Miller goes about it in this book is that she doesn't attempt to pull a shocking twist out of nowhere; instead, she takes an approach which allows the reader to fully marinate in their despair.

For example, this quote:

Achilles shook his head, impatiently. "But this was a greater punishment for her. It was not fair of them." "There is no law that gods must be fair, Achilles," Chiron said. "And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone. Do you think?"

Let's take a moment and unpack some of this. For context, this is a conversation between Patroclus, Achilles, and their mentor Chiron. They're discussing the tale of Heracles, who's driven to madness and ends up killing his own wife and kids.

From reading the book, (SPOILER ALERT) you know that Achilles' own pride and honor end up forcing Patroclus to impersonate him in order to save the Greek army, and in doing so is killed by Hector. The fact that Chiron directs this question, "And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone. Do you think?" to Achilles, who is left behind after Patroclus' death is such delightful foreshadowing that I almost threw the book across the room when I first read it.

Achilles slumps into such a depression after Patroclus dies (really, after he kills Patroclus with his own fatal flaw), that he even loses the ability to care about his fame or honor anymore. He feels the greater grief, so to speak.

Even after he dies, Patroclus is left behind, unable to rest properly because they never put his name on the tomb. In that sense, Patroclus is then the one left behind, experiencing loneliness and grief.

The book is full of little hints like this, and that's part of why it's almost torture to read as someone who knows how the Iliad goes. As I said before: the foreshadowing in this book is meant to have the reader in pain from the beginning because you know nothing is going to work out in the end.

2. Dramatic (and regular) Irony

Yes, that's right. I'm about to rip into your soul.

Probably one of the biggest parts of classical Greek myths is dramatic irony (the audience knowing something the characters don't). In plays, the ending is almost always announced before the play begins. In fact, the audience most likely already knows the story from previous tellings or just general knowledge. It makes sense that it would be one of the biggest players in "The Song of Achilles."

As usual, let's start with a quote:

His eyes opened. "Name one hero who was happy." I considered. Heracles went mad and killed his family; Theseus lost his bride and father; Jason's children and new wife were murdered by his old; Bellerophon killed the Chimera but was crippled by the fall from Pegasus' back. "You can't." He was sitting up now, leaning forward. "I can't." "I know. They never let you be famous and happy." He lifted an eyebrow. "I'll tell you a secret." "Tell me." I loved it when he was like this. "I'm going to be the first." He took my palm and held it to his. "Swear it." "Why me?" "Because you're the reason. Swear it." "I swear it," I said, lost in the high color of his cheeks, the flame in his eyes. "I swear it," he echoed. We sat like that a moment, hands touching. He grinned. "I feel like I could eat the world raw."

First of all: cute. Second of all: wow, so much pain.

As you know, Achilles is the opposite of happy at the end of the book (well, maybe after they die, but we'll get to that later). Though he swears it here with Patroclus, the two of them make decisions that ultimately lead to their downfall: Achilles decides to abandon the Greeks after they slighted his honor, Patroclus decides to help them even if it means risking his life, and Achilles lets him do it.

So let's talk about dramatic irony. The irony here is that you know, maybe just from this exchange alone, that Achilles isn't going to be the first happy hero. You know there is a war coming, know that Achilles and his famous heel will get himself killed. You might also know at this point that Patroclus will die first and send Achilles spiraling into grief before that happens.

It's painful, truly. Achilles spends his last days in utter agony, wanting to die but unable to kill himself, and Patroclus can only watch on as a ghost (spirit?). Even when Achilles does die and his ashes are put into their urn (seriously, how did any scholar ever think they weren't lovers?), they still have to wait to be reunited.

But there's still more. Consider these lines:

Hector's eyes are wide, but he will run no longer. He says, "Grant me this. Give my body to my family, when you have killed me." Achilles makes a sound like choking. "There are no bargains between lions and men. I will kill you and eat you raw."

Sound familiar? That's right: "I will kill you and eat you raw" sounds an awful lot like "I feel like I could eat the world raw," doesn't it? Another parallel from Miller: one from a time of happiness, the other from a time of extreme grief. However painful it is, I really live for connections like that.

And I've got one more for you:

Achilles shook his head. "Never. He is brave and strong, but that is all. He would break against Hector like water on a rock. So. It is me, or no one." "You will not do it." I tried not to let it sound like begging. "No." He was quiet a moment. "But I can see it. That's the strange thing. Like in a dream. I can see myself throwing the spear, see him fall. I walk up to the body and stand over it." Dread rose in my chest. I took a breath, forced it away. "And then what?" "That's the strangest of all. I look down at his blood and know my death is coming. But in the dream I do not mind. What I feel, most of all, is relief." "Do you think it can be prophecy?" The questions seemed to make him self-conscious. He shook his head. "No. I think it is nothing at all. A daydream." I forced my voice to match his in lightness. "I'm sure you're right. After all, Hector hasn't done anything to you."

See where I'm going with this? I don't think I need to explain this one.

3. Fatal Flaws

That's right, one of the most essential pieces for a tragedy: hamartia. For those who might not know, hamartia is the fatal flaw that ultimately leads to the downfall of a tragic hero or heroine. In every single piece of classical greek writing, if the story is a tragedy, the main character will have a fatal flaw that makes it so.

Take Achilles:

I looked at the stone of his face, and despaired. “If you love me-”

“No!” His face was stiff with tension. “I cannot! If I yield, Agamemnon can dishonor me whenever he wishes. The kings will not respect me, nor the men!” He was breathless, as though he had run far. “Do you think I wish them all to die? But I cannot. I cannot! I will not let them take this from me!”

You probably already know what his fatal flaw is: pride. He needs the fame, needs the glorious memory of his deeds to live on forever, so badly that he is willing to sacrifice his life and what might’ve been a fulfilling and long life with Patroclus out of the limelight. His fatal flaw is what spurs each of his actions in the later half of the book, including the moment where he decides to leave the Greeks to their deaths for slandering him.

Even Patroclus has a fatal flaw: his love for Achilles.

That night I lay in bed beside Achilles. His face is innocent, sleep-smoothed and sweetly boyish. I love to see it. This is his truest self, earnest and guileless, full of mischief but without malice. He is lost in Agamemnon and Odysseus’ wily double meanings, their lies and games of power. They have confounded him, tied him to a stake and baited him. I stroke the soft skin of his forehead. I would untie him if I could. If he would let me.

Though riding into the center of the fighting, especially dressed as Achilles, will make Patroclus the prime target, he decides to do it anyway. And not out of fear for Achilles’s life; he knows how important his pride and reputation is to him, and out of desperation will do anything to keep Achilles from being devastated when it doesn’t work out for him.

(Honestly, this is the part where I start to hate Achilles for doing this to Patroclus... it’s like he doesn’t even consider Patroclus his equal and does everything without consulting him.)

Of course, Agamemnon has a fatal flaw as well. He is like the mirror image of Achilles, so proud and stubborn, righteous and arrogant. However, he is the darker image, the one that revels in taking things by force and, of course, raping women like Briseis. He serves as a poignant foil for Achilles, highlighting all the ways the traits they share can easily become corrupted. It’s part of why this novel works so well.

I hope you all enjoyed this book as much as I did. Truthfully, I did have a few problems with it, but I wanted to trying picking it apart anyway. And if you haven’t read the song of achilles... what are you doing reading these spoilers??