#is this a very contrived coincidence?

[ertrunkenerwassergeist]

Under what circumstances would Regis have met his grandchildren before he met his son again?

That...

Is a good question.

I could see Solaris finding some strange tunnels somewhere that lead into the archives below the Citadel. A secret pathway used way back when to connect the archive with the old palace.

(The palace that was in use while Insomnia did not have layers like an onion. It burned down a good 1500 years ago, and the new palace was build where the Citadel now is. The tunnels remained and were forgotten.)

So Solaris finds the tunnels and instead of finding a responsible adult - or Ardyn - she decides to be a brave 8 year old and go exploring. She lands in the royal archives.

She is fascinated by all the old books and scrols and other things she finds there. It's so different from where her dad stores his books. Her fascination is so great that she does not notice the man standing in front of a shelf with old history texts. (History texts Noctis had read shortly before he had vanished.)

Of course Solaris walks straight into the man, who nearly falls over. He is old, with white hair and many wrinkles, and he has a cane, which makes Solaris doubly sorry for walking into him.

She does what any responsible 8 year old would do: scream and hide behind a shelf. Only then does she realise that the man has a very stark resemblance to her dad.

[always-a-joyful-note]

I think the greatest plot twist this anime has had so far is the way Junta actually did turn out to be her childhood friend

[justactgaussian]

So I've seen the whole 'Math's Saddest Love Stories' (asymptotes that drift ever closer but never meet etc.), but I think we're missing the potential of Math's Funny Love Stories. The couple whose destiny is an infinite cycle of breaking up and getting back together again:

Oscillating rapidly in and out of each other's life for a while before drifting apart in opposite directions:

Drifting ever closer, until you finally meet and go fuck that:

One who drifts slowly closer to the other, until they acutally meet and decide to make a very sharp turn in the other direction:

Whatever hellscape of contrived coincidences these series of infinite near misses are:

[comicaurora]

Can you give us a cool example to “something truly ridiculous, power-wise?

Probability manipulation is a fun one. Enjoy your charmed life of increasingly contrived coincidences and your finishing move, "what were the odds of a meteorite landing RIGHT THERE?"

Weather control is one for the large scale. On the scale of individual fights it can be a little ephemeral, but hitting people with lightning is always fun. Commanding a chaotic process that massive will have consequences.

Gravity control is a guaranteed "oh shit" that ranges from no-effort personal flight to colony drops to antigrav-ing people into space to throwing black holes around.

Any warlock-type "channel to unspeakably powerful malevolent being" has the potential to range from very manageable small-scale stuff to actual apocalypses depending on the unspeakably powerful being in question and the person serving as the valve. These powersets are cool because they have no theoretical upper limit for how terrifying the valve person can get.

If you're unethical enough about it, casual things like telekinesis or any sort of force-field ability would let you instantly kill whoever you want.

Superspeed is a rabbit hole of horrifying implications the more you wonder how fast the speedster needs to be able to think in order to move and operate at that speed, and whether or not they can turn it off, but outside of that "get anywhere fast" is pretty busted right out the gate.

[purpledemonlilyposting]

Oh look a blatant self asking talking shit.

[Lily's Post]

Lily people tell each other they hope you cover a thing they like as a CURSE. It is a wish of doom upon their fandom. Are you just whining that people tell you to watch FMA: Brotherhood cause it's really good again? You know it's based on award-winning manga drawn and written by a woman right?

And you get your paycheck from tearing down other peoples' creative output, Lily. Can't complain when someone does it to yours. Don't you only review children's fantasy adventure cartoons you hate because you have to "pay your rent"?

The money I get from laughing at you is like 3rd down the list of my income streams.

Way to prove you have never listened to a word I've said about Utena. I'm not the one who focuses on the allusions to Greek myth and esoteric French literature, that's a bit beyond me. Save that for the essayists on Ohtori.nu. I just talk about the plot and the symbolism cause I'm sick and tired of people who have only ever experienced Utena as an aesthetic mood board pretending they know what it's about.

You OUTRIGHT ADMITTED you spoiled the manga out of sheer spite.

You're such a child. You got called out for trashing a show you very evidently didn't even watch and so in retaliation you made a new video in which you spoil the ending of of the manga without any warning. And you had this video labeled as "First Impressions" for a while. Nobody expects ending spoilers of an unfinished anime adaptation in a first impressions video you absolute petty little bitch.

It's not a good anime, Lily. It's a dull moeblob fest the only purpose of which is to get 4 high school girls on a big technical ship. The writing is incredibly lazy, contrived and relies on increasingly improbable coincidences to get the characters from point A to point B.

And it's not like the girls in the show are actually interested in arctic research or science or ship work. Its just let's get 4 ditzy moe joshi kosei on a big ship to appeal to otaku men who like to goon over "pure" teenage girls next to engineering porn. You played yourself.

[digital-domain]

another Yandere!Alastor imagine

(~500 words of him Making Things Worse)

I need to go to bed

———————

Alastor always seems to be there at your worst moments. It’s always a coincidence, never contrived enough to make you think that he wanted to see this. No. It was merely a stroke of fate that led him to wander into the lobby the one time you cried in public, to pass by your room just at the moment you threw something against the door…

The first time, it’s a shock, an embarrassing realization that someone has witnessed a part of you that you’d very much like to keep to yourself. But he doesn’t do anything to make you feel judged. Only asks you if everything’s quite alright, as if the answer to that isn’t blatantly obvious. Listens as you swallow the remnants of your tears, and spill a little bit more of the truth than you’d planned to when you opened your mouth, relieved to have someone, anyone to talk to. He draws you out of the shell you’ve built around yourself, lets you go on speaking - insists upon it - no matter how hesitant your voice becomes. Actually smiles wider when you do. Bids you goodnight, walks away.

It’s only long after this that you realize how much you really said. But it’s okay, you tell yourself. You’re supposed to talk about your feelings. You were lucky, if anything, to have such a willing, patient audience.

When it happens again, and again, you begin to wonder why - why he keeps finding you in these situations, and why he keeps putting up with your barely-coherant attempts to explain what, exactly, has you in such a state. Of course, it crosses your mind that it’s intentional. That he knows when you’re feeling this way, that he’s drawn to it for reasons you can only guess at.

It’s not like it’s malicious. It can’t be. If it was, he would do something other than sit there and hear you out. He certainly wouldn’t encourage you to keep talking, wouldn’t wring out every little drop of awfulness before deciding that you were ready to be left alone.

And if he says something not-so-comforting, now and again? If the tears come back after he’s spent a few minutes by your side? That’s just another coincidence. You’re set off by little things, sometimes. Benign words in the wrong tone, or little phrases that remind you too much of ugly things in your past. How is he supposed to know? He can’t possibly be expected to understand you that well.

Then again - by now, with all the things you’ve said to him, he might understand you better than anyone. And as time passes, you begin to believe that this is your fault, as well. You should have found a different confidant. Now that he’s found you, it’s a bit too late for that. It’s not like you can run to anyone else when he’s always there.

Your relief at merely having someone is gone now. You’re not sure, anymore, if it would be better to have only him, or no one at all. But it doesn’t matter - regardless of what you decide, you’re not going to be alone any time soon.

[allwormdiet]

Arc 1: Gestation, Concluding Thoughts

Two days in the life of Taylor Hebert, with a bonus one night in the life of Danny Hebert. Let's break it down.

Right now, initial feelings are really positive. I like this arc, I get why people are in on this in such a hardcore fashion, like it's making sense to me as I'm reading it. The characterization is really strong, the A to B plot is cool, and the first fight scene was a fucking banger to open up with.

And like, shit, I get why Taylor is throwing herself into cape life, right? Civilian life is already such fucking misery for her, utterly alone and the only person who's theoretically in her corner is sympathetic but just as helpless as she is. Yeah sure, mortal peril, but if she had nothing to do I feel like the bullying would've killed her eventually. Death versus Lung is at least marginally more noble than death by Emma. And isn't that fucking bleak.

Looking ahead a little bit towards Arc 2 and I'm immensely curious how long it'll take Taylor to do cape stuff again. I feel like I'd need a solid month to process the whole "near death experience" thing and then spend time sweating over whether I even put the mask on ever again. Meanwhile I wouldn't be surprised if Taylor went back out in like a week, because she's a hardcore maniac.

It's also very interesting looking at this and considering the exact sequence of events that went through these chapters. If the bullies didn't wreck Taylor's notebook, or if Taylor took a different message away from its destruction, there might be one or more dead Undersiders right now, and to a lesser extent Armsmaster wouldn't both get credit for a major capture and also owe this rookie hero a favor. Both of those things are going to matter a lot, and it's, I dunno, some people would call that contrived but real life is so full of weird coincidence and happenstance I can buy this no problem.

...Honestly now I get why so many AUs that diverge before this point still include the Lung fight and the Undersiders and Armsmaster meetings, like yeah at that point it's contrivance but I'm not going to sweat an author too hard because they don't want to figure out how fucking dramatic the butterfly effect (hah, butterfly) would be on the rest of the story. Like yeah it's contrived, but that's a lot of work they'd have to do otherwise.

That aside, I'm gonna get back on topic and meditate on my current gripes. 1.3 was a legitimate low point in this arc with the description of the Docks and its residents and their circumstances, and the total clusterfuck of the Azn Bad Boys, which. By the by this is the last time I'm going to say the full name of that gang, ABB is shorter and is less embarrassing for everybody involved. Wall-to-wall racism, classism, and an utter lack of sympathy for the lesser-thans. Like we're talking about crack whores in the year of our lord 2011, or, they were written about in 2011 and I'm hollering about it on the internet in 2024. When this kind of thing comes back up (when, not if, I'm not that optimistic) I just hope I can work around it, like eating everything but the bruise on an apple.

To close this out, I'm thinking about the people in Taylor's life. Emma, a former friend turned bully, and her cronies Madison and Sophia. Pretty shallow characterization at this point, just that they're cruel to the point of hospitalizing their victim. Danny Hebert is supportive, but has all the strength of a sponge when it comes to holding up against the pressures that weigh on Taylor, and he knows it but he's not doing anything differently. The Undersiders, criminals who mistake Taylor for a criminal, but identify her correctly as a comrade and potential friend, who realize she was fighting for them and went to fight for her. Armsmaster, who offers her very genuine and very sought-after praise as an authority figure, and then leans on that authority to get what he wants out of a freshly traumatized and exhausted teenager.

Is it any wonder that Taylor takes the path that she does? Would anyone have it in them to be surprised if they could see all of this from a bird's eye view?

I wonder if Armsmaster ever thinks back about this night, lying awake in bed. If he ever wonders what he could or should have done differently, or if he couldn't have done anything to divert course.

I was talking to my girlfriend about something related to this the other night, actually. If it's worse in a tragedy for there to have been a chance to avert it all, or if it's worse for the end to be inevitable. Looking at Taylor, looking at Brockton Bay, looking at Earth Bet? I dunno. If someone had acted early, with knowledge and intention sufficient to actually provide aid, maybe it would've been enough, but hell. Maybe not. I don’t know which possibility is more damning.

...I get melancholy when it's late, but I don't think it'd be right to delete all that; it's how I'm feeling about the novel, and that's what this blog is for, so even if it's a bit dramatic it'd be self-defeating to pretend I didn't say it.

Arc 2... probably starts tomorrow, assuming nothing comes up. Glad to say I'm looking forward to it.

[gogandmagog]

I just want you to know that the Thematic Implications of Ken Ford dying in WWI instead of Walter lives in my brain now. The way it would so subtly change the story! That being the Hero won't save you, that being the Heroine doesn't mean you get your prize at the end, that "the white flame of sacrifice" doesn't mean you will get to be the sacrificial lamb--that the sensitive genius will have to live with the horrors anyway. Rilla being the symbol of all those girls who were left without sweethearts instead of Una--who might instead by a symbol of all those girls who found their sweethearts irrevocably changed. Obsessed.

SO WELL SAID, @sparrowsarus!!!!   VERY MUCH. All of this, very much.     Obviously, I understand why it had to be a Blythe, for the simple fact that it cuts the reader ever so much deeper than the converse option of losing the very negligible Ken Ford... Walter is a loss that stings everyone, because we are so profoundly attached to him, and if not to him, then to his family. What hurts them hurts us. But everything you say does feel thematically more attractive to the after-shocks message underlying in the story, because of the occasional inference to the still-coming uphill battle of post-war recovery. Maud can be quoted as personally saying, “If ever peace comes again, we will not know how to live in it.” And really, I think of Rilla were to have ever to’ve had a sequel, this thought, together with what you’ve outlined would’ve been far more realistic to grapple with. Rilla’s ending, as it stands, is rooted in an idealistic ‘return’ to innocence, as we see demonstrated with the coinciding return of her childhood lisp... but to me it’s also another semi-contrived signature fairytale ending that we often see in LMM’s classic wrap-up scenes. And for me, this is the only time I actually do clock her classic quick wrap-up as contrived. Usually, I fully recognise that her books were meant for children; that she herself calls them fairytales, and states that the rules laid out in her books would never work in real life. That the natural adult world and the natural adult questions that come with them, don’t have a place or belong in these fairytales. Kids have an effortless trust in happy-ever-afters that grownups struggle with. But Rilla spent so long being seeped in harsh reality, and the pain of a very ugly War... that really, if not for x-ray vision we get from TBAQ that shows us the Blythe’s (and Una’s!) residual struggle, the ending Rilla got would almost feel unequal to the pain in its pages.

The sensitive genius having to live with the horrors anyway? Could’ve been an even stronger message of hope and resilience, in some ways. Learning the hard parts of Keeping the Faith. Faith put to the test, faith contending with survivors guilt.

Rilla, in Una’s spot, though! I kind of waffle with the idea of her as being a lifelong leftover sweetheart, the way Una is. Right before Ken comes back, Rilla’s coolly resigned herself to the notion of him never coming back for her, and in the very next moment shrugs it off and has decided to go to Redmond after all, lol. 😅 Of course she would’ve had an appropriate period of mourning for Ken, but I honestly think she would’ve married someone else, in the years following.

[scrapyardboyfriends]

"it's just one coincidence too many"

You don't say Aaron. Haha.

Sigh...they're writing Plotdale for me again.

So I went back and watched all of the surrounding Aaron scenes from yesterday with Mack and Vic and then watched today's stuff.

I really quite like seeing Aaron have friends for the sake of this plot. So like...that's a positive. I've always thought Danny and Lawerence worked well together and had good friend chemistry. If they could actually stick with the friendship outside of plot specific needs, that would still be really good for both of their characters long term.

Because Mack teasing him about the whole John thing is exactly what the Ben nonsense needed back in 2020/2021. I mean it would not have saved that utterly abysmal attempt at a story but it would have made it slightly more palatable.

And I do like seeing Aaron and Vic having scenes together again.

I also very much liked seeing the garage be a functional set again. I feel like maybe it has been more lately from what I've seen in the spoilers but for so long it really wasn't and so that was also nice.

As for John...I mean...I do feel like he was sort of okay when interacting with everyone else. But he and Aaron just have no chemistry. And I don't really understand what they're trying to do with them. Like I guess...it's supposed to be an enemies to lovers thing maybe??? But there really was just zero reason for him to drive off with Aaron's keys and wallet yesterday. So their hostility towards each other over it just feels empty now.

I mean..what even was that whole little punch/shove thing they had at the end? And I feel like they had them linger close to each other in a threatening manner like it was supposed to be turning them on in the same way the Robron wall slam worked but like...it did not. It was not the same at all. It was just dumb.

And John just feels like another one of those characters that's got a tragic backstory that will come out in one, two months time and be a big deal for two episodes and then somehow that will solve all his problems and then he and Aaron will just magically get together after that and he'll move into the village and none of it will feel earned in any way. That's just the vibe I get. Probably because that's the only kind of story they tell these days and they're all bad.

Because right now he's just unnecessarily hostile to everyone but they can't have him open up and say why yet cause we have to wait for some kind of stupid pointless reveal.

Sigh.

The only time I felt anything in terms of romantic tension was when Aaron learned John was Robert's half brother and she mentioned that Aaron used to be married to Robert. I swear any time Danny gets to be Aaron talking about or thinking about Robert, all of a sudden his acting performance improves. Ryan doesn't even have to be there to elevate his performance. Actually, Danny probably doesn't even have to act. He's probably just like "Wow man I miss Ryan too".

So...yeah...love Aaron having friends. Love seeing the garage be functional. Aaron has way more chemistry with Mack than he does with John, even if it is more friend chemistry than romantic.

Day two...not much improvement on John/Aaron scenes together.

Oh also...just the fact that it took that many coincidences and contrivances to even get Vic to that funeral and place her in John's path...like dear god. Why is this their only way to tell a story???

[clydesavage-thefox147]

[Part 2 to Big Long Awaited Theories. This one is a bit..Roman slandering so be warned, be civil and hear me out here please, sorry if it's a bit jumbled heh] (Part 1 here)

Unpopular opinion/theory here but:

I think Roman sided against the callback because if he picked it, he would be supporting Janus who was seen as a villain at the time by everyone else, so he wanted to avoid any more affiliation. His need to be the hero and feed his broken ego was bigger than achieving a life-long dream.

Don't believe me? Then what does this line mean?

Furthering this belief, there's a notable pattern throughout season 2, particularly to start with Fitting in. When Roman was assigned the role of Slytherin in the group, he was rather taken back. He refused to believe it because he pushed the understanding that Slytherins were evil. This then followed with him saying "I'm not evil!" then Virgil(in a pretty Janus sounding tone) saying "Says who?". (Also coincidence how the snake affiliated house gets called evil here).

Then cut to the episode CLBG. I find it quite funny that Roman felt like Janus used him during this episode even though Roman himself was the one who stated FIRST that acting was like lying AND started the idea of disguising as Joan to help Thomas practice. Janus only nudged him to do it on a stage. Then later into the episode, Roman states about Janus "I hate this guy and his creepy snake face, however he is very kind". First off, making fun of Janus for his snake traits that he has little to no control over having. And two, blatantly admitting that he believed Janus' flattery. He left the window wide open for what happened later in SvS.

Speaking of, in SvS, it was clear that Roman wanted the callback desperately and so did Thomas. Roman is part of Thomas' personal dreams and goals. Janus knows this. Roman was willing to give Janus the benefit of the doubt and let him explain his side of the situation which Virgil obviously wasn't too happy with. Throughout the court case, Janus' flattery was his way of keeping Roman on his side, the best overall decision that was the callback while simultaneously pointing out the denials of all the other sides and Thomas. He eventually got so fed up of them beating around the bush that he made Thomas finally admit that he wanted to pick the callback instead. Like I said before, Janus knew this beforehand so he did low-key rigged the case in favor of the callback choice. This is a positive form of manipulation called a "Contrivance". Something meticulously planned piece by piece in favor of a desired outcome. Virgil I guess was right about it being rigged. But, when all was said and done and Janus was so close to winning the case, Roman pulled out last minute, making Janus reasonably angry. Roman stated "It is my sworn duty to help Thomas achieve his hopes and dreams, but Thomas wouldn't dream of attaining his hopes through deceitful means" following with Janus pleading that that wasn't true. But, Roman's line proves that he picked the wedding to avoid committing what was believed to be a selfish act. You can see how desperate Janus was for the others to see his perspective, even benching Logan in the process to have his lesson heard instead(then did it again in POF). Janus wanted the others to see that they were blowing this simple problem out of proportion but no one cared. He knew the answer was obvious but everyone refused to agree.

Then cut to DWIT, the following episode where Remus was debuted for the first time. Many believed that Remus was sent out, out of pettiness on Janus' part which could be possible. If Roman wanted to be a good person, Janus was going to show him(and Thomas) that it wasn't so easy. Remus made Roman realize and admit that he doesn't want to end up like him. Furthering why I think he made the decision he did.

Then cut to Healthy Distractions, where I find it funny is that here's Roman trying to avoid villainy...but commits petty theft and voter fraud. Roman literally said "I was gonna rig the vote anyway". So much for trying to avoid what he literally talked about an episode prior. Sure, he could've stolen the hat out of a joke but it still is petty(both be petty bitches).

Then..cut to POF: SvS Redux. This is where a lot of this come into play. One noticable thing is within the song. Not only was the line I previously stated there but the lines leading up to it paint a different picture.

Ro: "And no one wanted you to go more than the that slimy snake"

Th: "Who pushed to do the egocentric thing auditioning" (Ro: "Yep that's Deceit!")

Now, correct me if I'm wrong..but don't you have to audition before you get a callback? And isn't Roman the physical representation of Thomas' Ego? And didn't Janus point out Egoism in SvS? AND didn't Thomas called Roman " a bit of an egoist" in the 2017 behind the scene vid? Yes. All yes. So, this can only mean that Janus, in the few months that he and Roman were on decent terms with one another, must've influenced him to get Thomas to audition(or influence Thomas to get Roman involved) since Janus is a part of the 'selfish desires'. In this case, Janus is within his right to be mad at Roman. He spent time setting up the perfect end-goal for Thomas here as a show of good faith and intentions, but Roman shoved it aside because the other sides believed Janus' was still no good.

Then after the song, when Patton was struggling with his rhetoric of morality, some moments seemed to correspond with the court case. Two of these moments Roman himself brought up in conversation. Roman stated the view of how it shouldn't matter why the prince saved the kingdom as long as the citizens are safe(in this case the prince did it for a reward). However, Patton didn't like that conclusion, claiming that that doesn't make the prince a good person. Which then prompted Roman to respond with somber expression "Yeah probably not". Roman wants to avoid any villainous affiliations. But, he also wants the praise of being a hero for his own external validation which he's desperate for(no wonder Janus' flattery almost worked). His reward was that praise and he got that for a short time.

But, according to Patton, this is a selfish act. Roman has stated that he is "a proponent of following one's heart" It would make sense to appease the heart and morality to remain on his good side. However, Roman said shortly after "if it's not helping to fulfilling one's longing, then what is the point?" Patton wasn't fulfilling Thomas' goal of finally being a star. Roman didn't really like that. But, to avoid upsetting Patton, he followed along with him. Hell, Patton was the one who gave Thomas the inspiration to even start video creation. Another incentive for Roman to follow along with him. Double Hell, Roman initially didn't like Patton's idea of using puppets back in LNTAO but then immediately flipped script which Virgil pointed out. Patton definitely contributed to Roman's final decision on the wedding. Roman thought that he was the problem for making Thomas want a 'selfish desire' over friendship, even though this desire wasn't really a big issue at all(and he sent Thomas to wedding as punishment for wanting said desire). Which prompted Patton to beg for Roman to stay on his support team. No wonder when Patton started to view Janus in a different light, Roman got immediately defensive, trying to push that Janus was evil and he wasn't. He didn't want to feel like his decision was for nothing but it ultimately was. Janus states "it served no one" after giving Roman some credit for his sacrifice. But, if that sacrifice was for the praise and glory of the others for his heroism...that's just as selfish as going to the callback. No wonder Roman was upset when Patton thought it was bad. So, why is Roman mad at Janus when he should direct some of his anger at Patton for contributing to his final decision and the moral confusion. Is he afraid of hurting his feelings? Also tagging on, the same episode he said he followed the heart, Roman said that Patton should only stick to knowing the difference between right and wrong and leaving the rest to them...well, look where that took them. Lead Patton to guilt Roman into making him feel bad for pushing Thomas to be dishonest and dishonorable which just made him more confused.

The second thing being that Roman stated the Trolly Problem. The situation of deciding to save the larger group of people or the one person. Roman did this exact same thing the court room. He had to pick between siding with the others (the larger group) on the wedding..or side with the one person(Janus on the callback). He picked the former and let Janus get hit metaphorically.

It all collimated in the final scene between him and Janus. Janus being vulnerable with revealing his name as an attempt to gain trust..all to get laughed at and made fun of. Janus retaliated with the now infamous line "Thank God you don't have a moustache, otherwise between you and Remus, I wouldn't know who the evil twin is". Roman couldn't take it. He can dish out all these insults but the second it's him who's insulted he shuts down or gets pissy right back. However, maybe Janus was right with his statement. I mean, there's been only two confirmed times Roman was ever influenced by Remus. One was the "Naked Aunt Patty" line from the 12 Days of Christmas vid and the bubbagump shrimp line in the carol itself. But, there's been moments where it seems that Roman had no influence from him and it was all his wording. Like how he responded to Janus' pinata metaphor with "I believe he's saying that you beat someone up and rob their unconscious body". Or how in one scene in CLBG, as Joan, he stated "-like your weird habit of gluing your butt cheeks together". Or how in Moving On pt 2, he was all about that butt dial lie and wouldn't stop. And finally, remembering way back to the QnA, when they were asked if they all had YouTube channels, Roman said quote "Epic fail compilations of all the horrible deaths my enemies incur after I impale them". Roman...wanted to film himself..killing people..to post on YouTube. For what? To laugh? To gloat? Does this not sound creepy to any of you? And just adding his petty theft and vote rigging and all his bullying insults up to now...yeah Janus' retort holds a lot of weight.

Another note is that Roman has been getting pretty close with Virgil lately. What's noticable here is that Roman's might be playing favorites. Notice how when both Virgil and Janus revealed their names, they were both equally vulnerable. Virgil revealed his name because he had already gained trust with the others but Janus did it to gain trust with them. Roman gave Virgil congrats for his admittance and bravery and only laughed at the Virgin joke Patton said. But, Roman laughed and insulted Janus? Even though both Janus and Virgil are of dark side origin? What makes Virgil more special? Especially when Roman hated Virgil to begin with and now they're best buddies...then he supported Janus at first and now flat out hates him. He pulled an Ono reverse card on them. Roman mainly chilling with Virgil now because they both hate Janus is definitely 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'. Hell, in FWSA, Roman and Virgil were calling Thomas a liar constantly after he accepted Janus. Meanwhile if Roman continued to do so, he would be in the same boat. Mind you, only Patton has accepted Janus completely. Thomas and Logan are 50/50, and Roman and Virgil are against it entirely.

Janus is aware of the others' denials, lies and desires. He's aware that Roman is in denial. Roman wants to believe he made the right decision but he knows he didn't. He keeps moping and whining over how he wants to be happy and achieve his dreams but he lost that opportunity because he made a stupid sacrifice. If he was confident in his choice, he wouldn't be acting this way. Janus knew Roman would be hurt if they missed the callback. And him behaving this way long after just proves it. Janus said right to his face in the court room "You want that callback so back and it will CRUSH you if we miss it". This was true. And if Roman were to say that he did make a good decision he'd basically be lying and stooping to Janus' level. So both ways he's screwed and played. Roman is also very fraudulent when it comes to his facade. He likes to act like he's this brave prince who isn't insecure and can handle his problems alone when that is clearly a lie. Janus wants Roman to be honest with both himself and the others, the others know by now that Roman is very insecure so what else is there left to hide? Janus would know about facades..and he sees right through Roman's and so does everyone else. Tagging in here, Janus' 'wroammin' spelling meant 'remorse' signifying that Roman was giving Janus sympathy while also showing Roman's imposter syndrome(alongside other times he corrected people on his name). This wasn't Janus insulting his name first, this was him proving a point.

To add on, Roman turned to Janus after he said "I thought I was your hero" and Thomas replying "You are". Roman trusted Janus' confirmation. Janus' nod was confirming that Thomas is telling the truth but Roman only believing Janus was lying, he took it as Janus confirming Thomas was lying. Or, Janus was sadly confirming that Thomas was in fact lying. But I think the former is most likely. Roman now believes he lost his "hero" title..which honestly might be a good thing, maybe he'll try to earn it back in a very honorable way without letting the power go to his head. His bullying and grandiose behavior was his way of making himself feel important when he deeply felt like he wasn't good enough. Roman is so desperate for external validation because he can't love himself without it and Janus is trying to tell him that. Quit acting like you love yourself and actually..do so.

In conclusion, I believe Janus was more in the right here but if we must compromise, they both must reach an understanding and an apology. My theory stands that Roman sided against Janus to avoid any further association for the reward of heroic praise.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk. Feel free to correct me or change my mind if you so please but remain civil.

Part 3 soon.. maybe.

[theplottdump]

The following morning, as the stars once more conceded their positions in the sky to give haste to the rising of the warm summer sun- little Sunny set off on the familiar path to her very secret cave.

You know, the one with the giant door.

Both wind and wave watched with a vested interest as the two lonely children had been once again nudged onto converging paths.

Admitting that yes, their initial attempt at introductions may have proved to be- well, let's call it mildly unsuccessful.

But the Ocean knew the hearts of her children, and the Winds blew a hopeful accompaniment.

A warm breeze carrying the scent of change danced at sunflower's heels as she rushed through the door, seeking whatever adventures the old cave might have left to share with her.

Of course, they would deny their contrivances to the heavens if asked. Their storms and their schemes- the old rocks shaken loose in a cave, the stray pull of the tide that takes you somewhere new and secret.

Pure coincidence to be sure.

Because even if the spirits of the island declared themselves to be merely impartial bystanders, they also recognized that a life in a cage- no matter how gilded, would always be better with some accompaniment.

Even if that meant some second chances required a little… 𝙥𝙪𝙨𝙝.

Sunny: 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘱…

[nancynancydrewdrewdrew]

Noisette is Bad at Making Treasure Hunts

I'm really not sure if Noisette actually wanted anyone to find her treasure, or if she still harbored a ton of resentment and fear towards the city and wanted to clear her conscious before death by making it appear that she had done the work to ensure it would be found without actually making it possible for someone to do so. If she really wanted the stained glass to be returned, she could have just written in her will "the stained glass is in xyz, please give it back the following places:"

Instead, if her goal really was to have someone find the hidden stained glass after she died (as she states in the game in her final letter) she was bad at following through on her goals. The fact that Nancy was able to do so is due to so many contrived coincidences that would completely make it impossible for her treasure to be found in the real world. To find her treasure you need:

a) access to her moulin. This is in IMO her stupidest move in the whole game, she was director of public works (or something like that) and instead of trusting the moulin to the city when she died she did nothing and let it go to auction to a private buyer. Literally the only person in the entire game who gives a shit about her and the treasure (Lynn Manrique) can't do anything to find it bc Noisette didn't ensure that the treasure would be accessible to the public

okay, so maybe she intended for whoever purchased the moulin to find her treasure. Nope! because...

(Okay, I have a lot of thoughts here and this ended up being really long so the rest is under the cut!)

b) you would also need access to another completely private residence, Hans's old apartment. Nancy is lucky that Dieter still lives there and he works in the fashion industry, which coincidentally the owner of the moulin is in. But what are the odds of that?? Also, it states in the game that Hans went to Germany after the war and never returned to Paris. So did he just hang on to an empty apartment that whole time or did Dieter randomly end up in the same apartment as his grandpa? Paris was fine with a German soldier occupying an apartment during the war and never wanted to re-allocate it afterwards?

okay, so there's someone that has access to the moulin and Hans's apartment, they can find the treasure, right? Nope!

c) you need a very specific mechanic key to open the panel in the apartment wall. A key that for some reason only Hans had? She never spoke to him again after the war, so I'm assuming in order to hide her diary afterwards she had her own key, but that's not a part of the treasure hunt or clues at all. Nancy got Hans's key out of pure coincidence, so how was someone else supposed to open the panel? okay, someone living there managed to open the panel, maybe some construction workers discovered it during renovations. So can they find the treasure? No! d) The panel is locked, and you need to 1. know that the hazelnut symbol refers to Noisette and 2. know her life story to the point that you'd know her life fell to shit in 1945. if you weren't connected to the mystery, good luck!

So you made it in the panel, you have her diary, and you have the paper with the eyes. That doesn't help at all unless you...

e) know what Noisette's last words were! If that was an important clue, why not write it down somewhere??

also...

f) YOU NEED A FRENCH RESISTANCE WWII DECODER. Noisette was said to have died recently when the game came out in 2006. You're telling me that in the sixty years between the end of the war and her death she never once noticed that no one has one of those just lying around? She couldn't have changed that step or at least hidden "ma cherie" in one of the lock boxes? In the game we get incredibly lucky that we just randomly stumble on one, and even in that case it's known to be so rare that we need to jump through hoops to get it.

That's all well and good, but there's more! g) you need to be able bodied enough to use ladders, swim through tunnels, and more. And you also have to be willing to break the law and go into restricted areas of the catacombs, AND swim through flooded areas?? of the catacombs?? where they have dead bodies?? who would do that?? h) once you do that, you need to have a working knowledge of the metro system, otherwise you need to go back and do it all twice. And that's assuming that there are no line changes or renames in the time between making the puzzle and someone finding it! You also have to hope that no one has made any changes to the art in the park in that timeframe

Okay it took a while but you found the treasure!!

I) Now you're locked in so you better hope you know how to use the code she likes to get out, otherwise you're stuck there forever and you're dead. If you didn't pick up a random code book while visiting the park, sorry!

This ended up quite long, but my overall point is that it would be completely asinine to assume anyone would be able to discover the treasure. Even Nancy finding it was contingent on a ton of random coincidences and deus ex machinas that would be unreplicable in the real world. I love the puzzles and the vibes of this game but the I hate the plot and after writing this I'm realizing how much I really hate Noisette as a person lol

[bestworstcase]

@sailorb00 tags here

#i was also on the fence about the EA siblings and Theodore being related by looks alone (#... and the alice + dorothy comparison#mostly chalked it up to coincidence but now that they're conf. to be from Vacuo it's looking less like coincidence fsdf#then is the girl on the desk photograph Alyx before she and Lewis found the EA?#And Theodore juat inherited it? He grew up on his great-great grandfather/uncle/who know's stories about the EA being real?#Maybe in hopes that one day his sister would return and be welcomed by family? even if they're generations apart#if Lewis's pseudonym is Theodore Im gonna lose it#I mean we dont know his or the EA siblings' surnames.#IS THAT WHY THEODORE DOESNT GO BY HIS SURNAME#BC OF THE FAMILY LEGACY???#ok imma go sit down now before i hurt myself w/ speculation fsdf

YEAH SAME on the being like Doubt.jpg about a relation between theodore and lewis on the basis of… skin color, basically, but the minute i heard “i couldn’t believe they were from vacuo,” that’s a deliberate choice to link these kids to the setting for the next major story arc, and that’s happening in conjunction with several developments in the 9.11 animatic that suggest history is about to become very important (soaring popular support for the crown—probable mountain glenn history-repeating-itself theme with salem razing vale—oscar mentioning vacuo’s history of colonization—plus the great war having ended with ozma’s use of the sword in vacuo).

it’s very. raises eyebrow. alrighty then!

so whatever lewis did after coming home, other than writing tgwfttw, probably has some narrative relevance—might be as small as something jaune needs to find closure, or it might be bigger than that, who knows, but if it was a hundred and fifty years ago and it matters enough to be in the story, then the story needs a vehicle to deliver this information in a manner that feels naturalistic and non-arbitrary. (jaune-stumbles-across-loved-one’s-memorial-statue-by-chance once is a believable happenstance; twice, a cheap contrivance.)

the simplest way to do that is to introduce a vacuan character with some connection to lewis, and the obvious choice there is a descendent, because lewis lived a long enough time ago that family lineage is kind of the only plausible reason for a living character in the present to have a meaningful personal connection to lewis.

(and it can’t be oz, because oz had no idea the ever after existed.)

this descendent-character also ideally should be prominent enough in the story to matter for reasons unrelated to their relation to lewis, to avoid feeling shoehorned in. and they are probably human, given the apparent rarity of interracial human/faunus couples.

that pretty much narrows it down to theodore, or the asturias twins. NOW hysterical as it would be for jax and gillian to be descended from lewis, finn asturias is obsessed with “the old stories about [his] family” and yet doesn’t drop even a single hint about the ever after, so i think we can rule that out.

which leaves theodore. hmm.

that picture in his office:

She still remembered that her attention had been drawn to one photo in particular: a black-and-white picture of a young girl in pigtails and a checkered dress with a small black dog. She hadn’t mustered the courage to ask who she was to Theodore. A daughter? A sister? Whoever she was, Velvet could see the resemblance.

plainly evokes dorothy, and even bearing in mind that there may be discrepancies (theodore is described as blue-eyed in the book but has brown eyes in beyond, for example)… there’s nothing in this photo to suggest a resemblance to alyx beyond ‘young girl.’ alyx doesn’t wear her hair in pigtails, nor does she have checkered patterns anywhere in her design, nor does she have a little black dog. so i doubt it’s her.

but black-and-white does suggest it’s old. ‘sister’ seems a lot more plausible than ‘daughter’ for that reason, and ‘mother or aunt’ even more likely than either of those.

(the other thing about a young girl with a small black dog in This story, is.

it’s a symbol for the deaths of the ozlem girls and the inescapable grief that underlies the whole conflict between ozma and salem—there’s a reason she sends a giant monstrous hound to capture oz and then huddles in the shadows miserably looking at conjured images of her daughters until oscar wakes up; the black dog reappears as this terrifying monster in conjunction with the surfacing of all this pain.

so the question is to what extent this small black dog in the photograph is Just Toto, and whether the specific narrative symbolism is or isn’t in play here; Did This Girl Die? that would preclude her being theodore’s mother but she could well be an aunt or great-aunt.)

of course the point of drawing attention to this photograph might be as simple as hinting at theodore’s quote-unquote real ozian allusion; not dorothy but the silver shoes lost in the desert. which is an interesting angle to consider with regard to this possibility of lewis being his ancestor, because on the one hand there’s the silver shoes carrying dorothy home yet becoming irretrievably lost themselves in doing so, and on the other there’s alyx, the white rabbit, guiding people home yet never able to return home herself. see the rhyme?

in a sense jaune and team rwby bring alyx home with them, in that they know what happened to her and if there are descendants of lewis still living in vacuo then the question of why she never came home can finally be answered. and if the descendent is theodore, then the intertextual confluence between him and alyx is more resonant than the surface dorothy-and-alice comparison; the silver shoes are the home the white rabbit returns to, as a memory, a hundred and fifty-odd years late. and it matters.

but also i have a little hamster wheel churning at all times in the back of my mind and right now it’s churning around: sixty, seventy years before the great war began, vacuo was a colonial territory of mistral—before the great war, it had no formal government, it wasn’t a state, and oscar references the history of colonization in the 9.11 animatic. so that history and the history of the great war—which was for vacuo a war for independence—is narratively salient. lewis was a child who grew up in vacuo during the fractious decades preceding the great war; he gives a face to this period in history.

and jaune told lewis and alyx not only that he was from remnant but that he was from more than a century in their future; he and lewis “compared notes on remnant.” jaune couldn’t believe they were from vacuo, “back before the war, before huntsmen.”

they compared notes.

jaune’s grandfather fought in the great war.

so lewis went back home to colonial vacuo fifty, sixty, seventy years before the great war knowing that the great war was going to happen. knowing that within his lifetime vacuo would fight for its independence and win. knowing that there would be peace in the end. according to what blake says in 9.2, in the book, alyx “didn’t know [afteran] customs and started a war between the townsfolk” and that takes on a really different subtext now that we know the story’s author was a man who grew up in colonial vacuo knowing that the great war was coming.

either lewis and alyx were vacuan, or they were mistrali but born in vacuo; either way the tenor of the girl who fell through the world suggests that lewis’ sympathies lay with vacuo. both options stand to be compelling if he acted upon this knowledge more directly than writing anti-colonial themes into his children’s book. or books. there is also the boy who fell from the sky, mentioned in after the fall, and alice’s adventures in wonderland does have a somewhat lesser-known sequel.

i doubt lewis fought in the great war himself—he was probably in his seventies or older by then—but if he had children they would have been of an age to fight for vacuo, and if lewis had passed down to them the stories he knew of what remnant would be like after…

y’see how lewis could have ended up playing a really important role in vacuo’s side of the great war, if he’d decided not to leave matters in the hands of fate? jaune told him about what the world would be like after the great war, but lewis also figured out that jaune knew more than he let on, figured out that jaune remembered a story lewis hadn’t written down yet. he knew that knowledge of the future could shape the future, because if it hadn’t been for jaune and jaune’s foreknowledge of his book, he might not have written it the way he did, as a guide for how to get out of the ever after.

so he goes home, knowing the great war will happen and what the outcome will be—or else knowing that it might happen that way. who did he become with that knowledge? what did he choose to do with what he knew? the one thing we know is he became a storyteller, and “storytellers have great power” is a prominent narrative theme.

salem inspired the world to rebel against the brothers by telling the story of what they had done to her, and speaking of her vision of a time when humanity could be free.

lewis…?

[showtoonzfan]

The one thing I’ll say about the leaked episode without spoiling anything. They had no idea what to do in this fucking episode and it’s so messy and disorganized. This is why people say the writing is a fanfic, the bad kind. There’s really good fanfic out there I won’t deny they’re existence, unfortunately hb doesn’t fall into that category. So much “to this to that, to this to that and than this happens” it’s contrivances and coincidences that move the plot instead of being organic and following continuity. Matt stone and Trey Parker go into detail about story beats that should be mandated to watch on good story telling

Yep, pretty much. I have a whole rant saved in my drafts for when the episode officially drops, but I do mention the “fanfic” thing a lot, because this episode REALLY signifies why we call Viv’s shit a fanfic in the first place, not because of homophobia, but because she desperately wants these wild filler plots to happen for no rhyme or reason even if it makes no sense, doesn’t add anything, or lacks buildup. The other big issue is that she would rather take more runtime/dedicate screen time to said wacky filler plots, rather than focusing/developing on the actual characters themselves and their relationships.

For example, Seeing stars had ONE scene with Octavia and Loona talking about her dad. What was most of the episode that surrounded that? Stolas and Blitz dicking around and getting stuck at a studio. Unhappy Campers had ONE small scene of Barbie blowing up at Blitz and Millie blowing up Moxxie. What was most of the episode that surrounded that? A murder mystery plot where Moxxie and Millie dress up. Ozzie’s has Stolas and Blitz’s confrontation, what was most the episode that surrounded that? Blitz stalking Moxxie and Millie and Ozzie singing a song about how Mox needs to use Lust.

Scenes that should be VERY important to the plot/characters always feel sidelined and like an afterthought, because you’re using the amount of screentime you have to dick around, and it’s the same for Oops. The majority of the episode is dedicated to Ozzie and Stolas sitting around, and Blitz and Fizz arguing over petty stuff that has nothing to do with their conflict. Viv’s got so much nerve to call this a “character driven” show lol because she puts the plot BEFORE the characters every single time.

[thewadapan]

Launch codes to nuke "73 Yards" from orbit - Doctor Who review

CW: discussion of rape

So I've been watching a lot of Moffat Doctor Who lately, which is broadly dogshit, but each new episode of Russel T. Davies' return to the show's helm is really pushing the boundaries of what it means to create bad television. I actually would believe that this is part of a grand plan to destroy the BBC from the inside, by blowing millions of pounds on a singularly dreadful Disney+ show, but RTD's original run on Doctor Who was also much worse than people are typically willing to acknowledge, so this is obviously nonsense.

"73 Yards" has apparently proven very divisive, with some people lauding it as one of the best Doctor Who episodes in ages (this means nothing to me, I didn't watch any of Chibnall's stuff), and some people taking a CinemaSins-esque "look at all these plot holes!!!" approach to criticising it. This essay definitely resembles the latter, but I want to clarify right away that I don't care about plot holes in and of themselves. If a story coheres on a metaphorical level, I can overlook nonsense plotting. Any given Doctor Who episode, including many of my favourites, will have at least a few major plot holes. It's like swiss cheese, the holes are the hole point!

The thing is, this episode is like a block of swiss cheese which is all holes. As in, there's no cheese there, just an empty plate. It neither furthers the overarching plot of the series, nor reveals anything substantive about the characters. If you watch Doctor Who for the vibes, you can perhaps get something out of the spooky images and buy into the intended emotional content of each scene. That has unironically always been the best way to watch Doctor Who and enjoy it without becoming incandescent with a kind of impotent, essay-provoking fury—so genuinely, good for you if you're able to do that. I just kind of think that it's possible for television to be good, so.

The episode is titled "73 Yards" for the distance our companion du jour, Ruby Sunday, finds herself at all times in this episode from a strange indistinct cognitohazardous woman, who follows her at a "semperdistance" (a word coined by the episode in an excruciating scene where an old lady goes, "well, I don't think there's a word in the English language like that, so to coin one from Latin, it would probably be 'semper distant', meaning 'always distant'"). I knew immediately what this title referred to the moment the woman appeared—great, I roll my eyes, at some point Ruby is going to walk past a really big ruler, and she'll go oh my word, why that woman, she's exactly 73 yards away from me!

At the start of the episode, the Doctor and Ruby step out of the TARDIS and—after a very conspicuous bit of exposition about a dangerous future Prime Minister from Wales—they almost immediately accidentally break a magic circle. Doctor Who has always struggled with one dissonant bit of narrative convenience, which is that no matter where the TARDIS goes, there's always some horrible ghastly supernatural alien shit going on. While writers have attempted to justify this in-universe, really it's just the anthropic principle of the show's narrative: if the TARDIS were to arrive in a normal boring inoccuous place, why would we watch that episode? We have to take it for granted that they're going to stumble onto something—and RTD increasingly seems disinterested in wasting time explaining the contrivance each episode—so in this case, it's that a magic circle happens to be right there underfoot and they step on it. Call it a "coincidence", fine, I gather that's what the series mytharc is about this time around. Now, later in the episode, the story seems to want to strongly suggest that the curse is a consequence of Ruby's actions—she has disrespected the magic—but as originally presented, it seems more like she's completely oblivious to the presence of the magic until it's too late. Ruby doesn't actually exert any agency in this introduction, nor in most of the episode, so the breaking of the circle fails to reveal anything about her character. By the same metric, I think most ordinary people would behave pretty much the same way, so this really tells us nothing about who Ruby is.

At this point, the Doctor disappears because of magic. The TARDIS remains, but without the Doctor, is inaccessible to Ruby. In just the preceding episode, "Boom", one of the many scenes in its already-bloated denouement saw Ruby being given a TARDIS key, which she tries in this episode, and it doesn't work, showing the viewer that this is spooky magic bullshit. I think this is bad showrunning, because the ending of "Boom" seriously needed trimming, so why bother if it only creates the narrative busywork of needing to show "and the key doesn't work" in this one? Why not have the Doctor give her the key after an episode with a beat similar to this, where Ruby needs to get into the TARDIS but can't, and he wants to stop it from ever happening again: "don't worry, the TARDIS doors will always open for you from now on!" As written, it strikes me as very clumsy plotting.

Ruby walks down the cliffside and encounters a hiker, who is actually the mysterious old lady who's recurred in every episode of this series in seemingly unrelated circumstances. This mytharc structure is the only kind I have ever seen RTD even attempt; Moffat rarely does better, but at least on occasion will take a token stab at tying the mytharc easter-egg into the themes of his series or individual episodes. (The crack is really, really good for this.) This time, Ruby recognises the woman on some level, to clue an inattentive audience into the fact that "ah, I guess this character was in the previous episodes, and maybe I was supposed to notice, because that might be relevant in some future episode!" No threat of it being relevant this episode, of course. Anyway, this hiker makes a bit of fuss about how Ruby's not dressed for the weather. I don't recall if the episode intends to suggest that the weather has suddenly turned evil after the circle was broken, or if Ruby and the Doctor arrived on a windswept cliff by accident, or if Ruby really is just ill-prepared—none of this is interesting.

Poor Millie Gibson has been given nothing but terrible material this episode, but where better actors have managed to salvage this kind of fare in prior episodes, she's not really up to the task here. Apparently this was the first episode she filmed for the show, which is a baffling decision—how is she supposed to establish the character without any series regulars to bounce off of? Why would you lead with an episode that's very pointedly building off a relationship developed over the course of the rest of the show? Regardless, between the script and Gibson's performance, not a single interaction where she talks about her stalkerly apparition to another person is remotely plausible as a way any real person would actually behave in this situation. I'm not even sure she tries to approach the follower at any point? She clearly tries to communicate with it, but it refuses to acknowledge her. This is Ruby's fifth adventure with(out) the Doctor, it should by this point be obvious that the woman is supernatural, dangerous, and related to the magic circle in some way: but the episode at this point seems to suggest this hasn't really occurred to her yet. Or, perhaps, that it has occurred to her, and she just thinks the hiker wouldn't believe her—but then if she does already think this is spooky magic, why does she throw the hiker under the bus by asking her to go talk to the entity? The entity ignores the hiker, and then lo and behold, the hiker is suddenly subjected to some kind of supernatural effect that causes her to flee screaming. How unexpected!

Oh well. Ruby continues to the village and goes into a pub, commencing the worst scene in the episode by a significant margin. In terms of set design, this pub is the kind of sterile nondescript establishment The World's End mercilessly lampooned, but I don't get the impression this was the intended effect. A half-dozen stereotypes inhabit the bar, all seeming to know each other, all dropping their individual interactions to singularly focus on Ruby from the moment she arrives. Again, they make fun of her for not having a coat. Ruby politely asks the innkeeper if they have any rooms going, and the innkeeper names a price. Ruby has no cash on her, so she asks if she can pay with her phone. Incomprehensibly, the innkeeper feigns ignorance of the entire concept. The idea here is that the episode is trying to trick you into thinking they've actually arrived in the early 2000s, before contactless payments were a thing. Ruby tries to rephrase the request, and the innkeeper remains committed to the bit. Finally, Ruby tries to explain that it's to do with online banking, and—this apparently being the desired reaction—the innkeeper at last reveals, ahah, it was all a ruse! Of course I have a contactless card machine. Everyone in the bar laughs at Ruby's supposed prejudice, and the innkeeper is implied to overcharge her £5 for a glass of Coke.

Look, I've been to pubs like this, and if the bartender tried to pull this shit on me, if everyone else in the room made it obvious they didn't want me there, I'd walk out and find another pub. And there'd be one, because I refuse to believe there's a single coastal village in this country with just a single pub, and if I told the people there what had just happened to me, they'd almost certainly be like—what the fuck? Or maybe, oh yeah, we know those guys, they're notorious freaks in the local area and everyone hates them. I'm sorry, who the fuck in any service job would pull something as mean-spirited like this? Like of course I could see it, if we're talking about an absolute scumbag customer, someone who walks in and spits on the counter and orders you to wipe it up. But I just don't think the scene as written remotely sells the impression that Ruby is behaving in a way that could possibly be construed as offensive towards anyone. Instead—and I realise why this isn't the case, but—it kind of does just create the impression that they're the ones prejudiced against this clearly-lost English girl?

And the episode isn't even done. Next, another old lady at the bar reacts to Ruby's fear of the magic circle by pretending to believe in the supernatural, rattling off a bunch of local folklore (which, in the wider context of the episode, turns out to be entirely true). At the mention of "fairy circle", a young girl laughs and points at her goth friend, saying "you can ask him about that!" to implicitly call him a homophobic slur. Everyone in the bar seems onboard with this old lady's yarn, and when there's a loud knock on the door, they all react with seemingly genuine terror. FUCK! It's Mad Jack, here to kill us all! The goth says something like, "He'll kill me first! You know why that is, don't you?" No, go on, Russel, why is that? Because he's gay, and he thinks that Mad Jack is homophobic?

Finally, the big surprise: this person outside, banging repeatedly on the unlocked pub door, is actually just a guy carrying a big tray of Cornish pasties. To a small Welsh pub. With like four customers in. In the late evening. And instead of, like, just barging in with the tray, or even setting down the tray to poke his head in and ask for some help, the guy has apparently loudly knocked multiple times while carrying this tray in both hands for some customer or member of staff to invite him in. What is he, fucking Dracula? Anyway, big laugh from everyone in the pub. Can you believe this Ruby girl thought that we believe in witchcraft! What a stupid twit! The old lady calls her a racist to her face. I can't believe what I'm watching. RTD is Welsh, of course, and I'm English, so maybe through some lens of demographic essentialism I have to assume that he is simply expressing something here which I can never understand, because racism is something which transcends my understanding, it transcends race, it's really just to do with when there's a foreigner. Isn't this all so very miserably misanthropic? Doesn't it just want to make you blow your brains out?

But fine, whatever, I can accept this stupid caricature land that we've suddenly been deposited into. Hey, maybe it's part of the mytharc, maybe breaking the magic circle has sideways transported us into a dimension where everyone is a prick. Genuinely, the allegory for this episode is meant to be something along these lines, but practically every other scene in the episode has people behaving perfectly kindly towards Ruby right up until the exact moment they directly confront the entity, so clearly this isn't even an attempt at interesting metatextual bullshit, this is just these people behaving according to their supposed nature. Taking all that for granted, we can imagine that perhaps the little arc for this sequence will be that Ruby makes peace with the Welsh, is meaningfully enlightened in some way about her own internalised bigotry, or whatever, and they finally warm to her.

Pff, so we can imagine! No, we cut to a day or two later, and the innkeeper insists with real venom that Ruby is forbidden from staying in the pub any longer, because one of the other regulars (scared by the following lady) refuses to return so long as Ruby is there. She takes a train back to London and we never see any of these characters again. Oh my fucking lord.

The next two sections are just recapitulations of the supernatural conceit. Arriving back at home, there's a lengthy scene where Ruby listens to her mum make misandrist remarks about how the Doctor, like any man, probably just wanted to lock himself in his shed, nevermind that the Doctor was literally just a woman, nevermind that the Doctor is totally nonbinary now for real in a way which will matter to the narrative and mean something. For some fucking reason, Ruby decides it'll be a good idea to experiment on the supernatural old lady who appears to strike mortal terror into anyone she talks to with her own fucking adoptive mum who she loves more than anything. The old lady strikes mortal terror into the mum, who flees from Ruby and kicks her out of the house. Next, Ruby meets up with Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, a character who for me is roughly equivalent to a walking textbox which spans the screen with a helpful disclaimer reading "THIS EPISODE OF DOCTOR WHO IS CURRENTLY PISS DRECK," so it's obvious to anyone watching that the episode is piss dreck. Kate, supposedly the most competent member of Britain's best government agency, idiotically sends a whole taskforce to intercept the cognitohazardous entity while remaining in contact to facilitate the spread of any cognitohazards. Hasn't she read There Is No Antimemetics Division? Steven Moffat certainly hasn't, at least according to his lawyers, but at least he seems capable of thinking about his fictional thought-hazards for more than two minutes to work out how characters might try to act around them. Where this kind of conceptual bullshit is usually a hallmark of one of Moffat's better episodes, for RTD it's definitely an indicator that shit's going to get very stupid. Kate Lethbridge-Stewart decides she wants nothing to do with Ruby. In a slightly better version of this episode, the soldiers literally holding guns would physically open fire on Ruby, forcing her to flee.

That's one of the things about Doctor Who which has always consistently floored me: even in earlier series where they're clearly straining against the budget, the show is constantly failing to thoughtfully devote its budget towards anything narratively compelling—speaking both on the micro-level here, within each individual episode, and in a more general sense of "why do they keep giving these hacks so much fucking money". It also floors me how, despite clearly having Disney bucks behind it, the show somehow looks worse than ever, desaturated to shit with flat lighting and sterile compositions. Despite being a present-day Britain episode—or perhaps because of that—the budget for this episode oozes off it, with countless sets polished to a mirror-sheen, tons of costume work for Ruby, a whole military taskforce. But woe betide we edit some stock muzzle flashes onto these guns in Adobe After Effects! Wouldn't want this episode getting too exciting, now would we?! I can see how this episode is attempting to say something about fear and alienation—basic themes which Doctor Who has explored countless times before in significantly better episodes, and even mid episodes by RTD like "Midnight" (see, it's even in the title)—but with that being the case, if you're going to do a whole thing about nukes anyway, why not just show the government just fucking shooting at the poor girl? Is that image too politically-charged for the BBC? No, actually, tell me, why exactly would the BBC object to such an image?

Ruby retreats oop Norf and we enter a montage intended to make it obvious to everyone watching that yes, Ruby is not going to be stuck here without the Doctor for hours, or days, but rather for years. In the same breath, of course, it immediately makes it obvious that nothing which happens in this episode will ever stick or matter in any in-universe sense, because it'll all be reset in some way, so the best we can hope for is that the events of the episode will teach us something about who Ruby is as a person. (In the formulaically-similar Rick & Morty, a consistently better-written and more thoughtful show than Doctor Who—stop booing me, I'm right, I'm not even going out to bat for Rick & Morty it's just that Doctor Who is usually rubbish—plotlines like this happen roughly once a season and will always, always stick... or if they don't, the fact that they don't will crush you somehow.) RTD's wondrous imagination fails to conjure a single idea of what Ruby does as a person in this time. She is depicted dating a series of interchangable men who are not the Doctor, being distracted by the apparition unceasingly signing at her from the corner of her eye. Finally, she catches a news report about a Welsh politician called "Mad Jack"—the name of the fae entity supposedly contained by the magic circle—which she takes as a sign that the plot is finally being allowed to begin.

She joins Mad Jack's campaign team and he immediately makes it clear that he is a slimeball who hates foreigners and really really wants to just fucking nuke everyone. Of course, Mad Jack isn't running for an actual real-world political party, he's running for some fake political party which has no realistic views whatsoever, even if yes I'm sure there's a lot of foreigners the Tories really would like to nuke if they thought they could get away with it. There's an incomprehensibly unconvincing news segment where Mad Jack delivers implausible rhetoric about phone apps and the cost of living, in 2046, which is so close to making some kind of meaningful satirical point that I'm going to scream. When Mad Jack speaks to Ruby for the first time, she practically sics him on this other woman in the campaign team. Again, the episode fails to commit to explicitly saying what it is that Mad Jack does to this woman, but it's probably that he rapes her. Later, the other woman vaguely tells Ruby that Mad Jack is definitely "a monster". Towards the end of this sequence, one of the male campaign members later suggests that Mad Jack is going to be hosting a "wild" party and that he's invited this specific woman by name, implying that he's planning on raping her again. Shortly after, that guy explains how Mad Jack is finally going to be getting the nuclear launch codes for real, and for some reason this is what makes Ruby go, oh fucking shit, it's go time babey! She gives a heartfelt apology to the other woman for not intervening against her presumably-rapist sooner. Then she walks out into the middle of the venue to stand exactly 73 yards away from Mad Jack, and finally he notices the old woman. The old woman strikes mortal terror into him and he resigns immediately, averting the bad future the Doctor recounted at the very start of the episode. Again, all of these characters basically disappear from the episode at this point.

I cannot stress enough how much I hate everything about the implied rape stuff here. After it happens, Ruby appears to be made aware of it, appears to already have a plan to send this guy to the shadow realm—and yet she does nothing! The narrative ultimately presented is that she chooses to overlook this for the greater good, to prevent a miscarriage of justice, because she has to be sure the guy is a horrible nuclear rapist. And the thing that really gets me, what really blows my mind, is that the way she plans on dealing with Mad Jack doesn't kill him, it doesn't send him to jail or anything, all it does is end his political career. Dude is fucking fine! She knows he'd be fine, because she's seen this before with dozens of other people by this point, with her own mum. And hell, she literally has foreknowledge that the guy will become the most dangerous Prime Minister ever. So why doesn't she just pull the trigger right away? Why couldn't she just have a modicum of female solidarity with this other complete non-character victim? Assuming I'm not completely insane, it's staggering to me how closely Ruby's behaviour mirrors the real-world narratives that get trotted out whenever some public figure is involved in a sexual assault scandal. It deeply depresses me that our protagonist, supposedly at forty, would make these choices.

Anyway, Ruby grows old, and finally they switch out her laughably-youthful forty-year-old makeup for an elderly actress. She revisits the TARDIS, which is now effectively a grave for this alien she went on four adventures with sixty years ago, and says some nondescript words. Then she's seen dying in a future care facility, and in what's maybe intended to be an ironic beat, a young nurse assumes that she doesn't know how voice-operated lights work. Ruby protests because obviously we had Alexa or whatever in 2024. The nurse leaves, and in what's definitely meant to be the big emotional climax of the episode, the old Ruby expresses feeling as if everyone in her life has always abandoned her, but that she nonetheless has constant company in the form of this inexplicable old lady ghost. In a genuinely spooky moment, the lights flicker on and off, and we see the old lady—now facing away from Ruby—slowly approaching her, like a Weeping Angel, until Ruby reaches out her hands...

...and finds herself back on that cliff in Wales. Except this time, she's looking at the TARDIS, at the Doctor and herself stepping out of it. She waves at herself, and we finally hear the old lady saying "don't step! don't fucking step you dumb ass!", and this time, young!Ruby notices the magic circle just in time to stop the Doctor from breaking it. Old!Ruby, her own ghost all along, disappears, her purpose apparently fulfilled at last, and it's implied young!Ruby has some vague awareness of her lifetime spent in this circle.

So hang on, if it was just Ruby all along, then what the fuck was she saying to all those people to strike mortal fear into their hearts? What the fuck did she say to that hiker? And why would she choose to say it? I legitimately don't give a shit what the answer is meant to be, I know there isn't an answer, what I'm saying is that if you're going to do a twist like this, then it needs to actually serve the narrative: it needs to recontextualise the events we've already seen. In this case, it's just not fucking good enough to say "ahah, it was Ruby all along!", because that's meaningless, there was nothing Ruby-like about the old woman's behaviour throughout the episode, and nothing to explain why her behaviour would've changed to be like this. In RTD's grand political morality play, what the fuck does it mean that Mad Jack's omnicidal campaign was undone by Ruby's old-lady future-self ghost saying something which we never get to hear? Maybe RTD means to suggest that it is impossible to stop these monsters in the real world, because of course, magic like this isn't real in the real world.

And seriously, why the hell did the Doctor disappear—the old lady didn't talk to him! Did she beam bad psychic thoughts at him or something so he'd flee in mortal terror despite being 73 yards away? The episode is uninterested in these questions, and certainly doesn't care to give us anything concrete about how the spell works. Look, I don't even care who Mad Jack is, obviously he's just another guy like the Toymaker or the Maestro or whoever the fuck is going to be the next one of these all-powerful impotent demons, but give me something. Everything that happens in this episode happens "just because", or through Ruby's passivity, rather than through character actions or self-consistent setting details.

I've seen it suggested that all of the inexplicable dialogue in this episode, from the point of the magic circle being broken, is actually just Ruby exerting her own beliefs on reality. Through this lens, the people in the pub go through such incomprehensibly wild behavioural shifts as a diegetic result of Ruby's own gut feelings about how they should be acting. Similarly, Ruby's mum and Kate Lethbridge-Stewart are only reacting the way Ruby feels they should, deep down. I find this argument unconvincing because it's never explicitly mentioned or alluded to in the episode itself, so if this were what was going on, it would immediately be an order of magnitude more subtle than any other bit of writing in RTD's entire series so far. There's been little to nothing in previous scenes with Ruby's family to suggest these kinds of feelings are even latently present; she seems quite secure with her adoptive mother, simply harboring natural curiosity regarding her biological mother. (My girlfriend, who watched this episode with me, and who I have promptly abandoned to write this incendiary review, suggested that a subtler approach with Ruby's mum could've been much more effective: perhaps her mum simply suggests that it's about time Ruby moved out, they can't really afford to keep looking after her, isn't she old enough, wouldn't it be good for her anyway?) Rather than it being some kind of deft narrative masterstroke, the simplest explanation for these scenes being uneven and unrealistic is that RTD is an uneven writer who has always written extremely wooden character interactions in this vein.

This episode invites comparisons to various fascist-Britain political pieces from RTD, such as his plotline with the Master/Harold Saxon. I generally don't think those episodes of RTD's were very good anyway, but this one is objectively worse. Ruby's plotline, meanwhile, is most closely reminiscent of "The Girl Who Waited", one of the better episodes from Moffat's tenure, written by Tom MacRae. In that episode, our companion at the time, Amy Pond, winds up stuck living out years of her life along in a facility. She plays directly off her younger self, and the episode revels in the dramatic irony that everyone involved—both Amys, Rory, the Doctor, and you, the viewer—know it's a foregone conclusion that the older Amy will be wiped away, sacrificed to the status quo. It's fucking fantastic stuff. It's visually arresting. It's emotionally harrowing. Yes, the makeup department struggled almost as much to make Amy look forty as it did with Ruby, but both effects are better than the CGI homunculus that the Doctor became in "The Sound of Drums", so who's to say if they're good or bad.

This episode depressed me thoroughly. I thought the implied rape was a flippant inclusion, and if RTD wasn't willing to do it justice, it shouldn't have been in the episode at all. I thought the stuff in the pub painted an unrealistic and uncharitable picture of what people on this island are like to one another. But these feelings aren't why I think this was an objectively bad episode. I just cannot conceive of a lens where this episode isn't objectively bad, because I believe I fully grasp the themes it was attempting to convey—xenophobia, superstition, abandonment—and reckon there are many aspects of the plot that fail to communicate those themes in a self-consistent way. The nonsensical object-level plot and the intended allegorical throughline are in constant conflict with one another, rather than supporting one another.

Worst of all, I think RTD has continued a running trend of failing to achieve even his most basic mission statement with this new series. He's been determined for Doctor Who to veer more towards fantasy, more towards escapism, more towards feelings of unrestrained joy and wonder. Yet practically everything decays towards deconstruction, if not the exact opposite of presumably the intended message. Nonbinary furby Beep the Meep is actually an omnicidal little monster. The episode about the joys of music is practically devoid of it. There's an episode entirely about the horrors of war and capitalism where like half the cast just die. Rape is something that it's best we don't talk about, at least not in anything more than veiled terms, because that might be inconvenient for people who are more important than you. Isn't this fantastic? Aren't you escaping? Look, "Space Babies" is by no means a perfect episode, but it has come closest to fulfilling the mission brief. At least it made me smile. "73 Yards" is no fun, and no good.

If you enjoyed this review, you can find more of my writing over on Letterboxd. If you didn't, then... sorry?

[hughjidiot]

Total Drama Island Reboot Season Two: Episodes 2, 3 and 4

Okay wow, was not expecting three new episodes at once. Again I am baffled by both the local and international release schedules. But I'm continuing to watch and enjoy this reboot, here are my rough impressions of all the characters in all three episodes. Spoilers below the cut, obviously.

Chase is out second. Pretty obvious boot with how he behaved in the challenge, but that's just how TDI is sometimes. Glad he went early if I'm being honest since his whole subplot with Emma had run its course and there wasn't much more to get out of Chase. Speaking of which though...

Emma was out fourth, which kind of surprised me. I thought she might get an arc of finally forgetting about Chase and moving on, but then she goes and gets eliminated. Maybe they're saving an Emma arc for if gen 4 gets a third season? Who knows. A little disappointing but not a huge loss.

And between them, Millie is out third. Not surprising if I'm being honest; Millie had a chance to train up to be a stronger player with Priya's help, but neglected to actually study for it. And then in episode 2 when she tries to think creatively to help her team win, her lack of social skills is what did her in when she failed to consider how pissed her team would be for tricking Damien down the most dangerous slide. Her elimination feels like a natural consequence of her own actions and shortcomings instead of the contrived coincidences that Total Drama was guilty of many times in past seasons.

Then there's Damien himself. So far he still hasn't done a whole lot, but he's definitely shown to have become more self-confident with the way he called out Millie and how he was willing to brave that rickety bridge in episode 3. Time will tell if he makes it far.

Zee continues to be hilarious. Not really having much of an impact in terms of plotlines with other characters, but he always gets a laugh out of me. "Not thinking is my specialty!"

Gotta say, I thought Priya would have at least shown a little more of a reaction to her bestie being voted off. Still her plotline with Caleb is interesting. I can picture this leading to drama down the road where she realizes Caleb has just been trying to build an alliance rather than flirt with her. Or who knows, maybe Caleb will develop genuine feelings for her and it becomes a ship. Could go either way.

Speaking of Caleb, he represents the biggest difference between the writing of the reboot and previous seasons. Not once does the show portray him as antagonistic in trying to manipulate Priya into an alliance; he's just trying to form a strong partnership to make it farther in the game. Helps immensely that Caleb isn't actively cruel like Heather and Alejandro; he's genuinely chill despite his determination. Him literally carrying most of his team in episode 3 was awesome, not gonna lie.

Nichelle continues to dominate and be awesome in challenges. However I can't help but notice she's not really trying to get close to anyone, like Caleb is with Priya for example. I have a feeling that could come back to bite her if people vote her off for being a potential threat ala Caleb in season one.

I'm loving Axel so far. She's much better about being a team player but also hasn't lost her edge. I also like how we're getting depth to her, like her love of poetry. And then there's her romance with Ripper which I did not see coming. More on that later.

Holy shit, I was hoping for more of the MK/Julia alliance, but I wasn't expecting this much! I'm loving MK's unorthodox strategy of disguising as an intern to get inside information, it's very unique.

Oh and MKulia might become a thing. "Oh stop it, you'll make me blush!" "If MK's brain drove a cool car, I would totally date it." Watching these episodes I was like Wait are they gonna go there? Oh my god they might actually go there! And if they do, I am here for it!

Wayne and Raj continue to be very wholesome and hilarious! I love the dynamic they bring to Team Skunk Butt, wanting to play fair while Julia and MK cheat. And stuck in the middle...

is Bowie. I'm loving the drama of his character arc: he's still willing to pull the same underhanded tactics he used in season one and is all in on MK's strategy, but now has Wayne and especially Raj are acting as his morality pets. Some are predicting this could lead to a Rajbow break up, but I honestly don't think they'd do that. What I think will happen is Team Skunk Butt loses a challenge despite MKulia cheating again with Bowie's knowledge, Bowie feels terrible, and to make it up he offers to eliminate himself if one of the Hocky Bros is about to be voted off.

Last but not least, Ripper. Gonna be honest, he was my least favorite of gen 4 in season one; I didn't care for his focus on gross-out humor and he survived eliminations over characters I liked more. I didn't expect much from him going into season two so I was blindsided here. Not only is his gross out humor significantly toned down (but still present) but he proved to be quite endearing with his insecurity over his crush on Axel. I was especially stunned in episode four when he actually tried to connect with Axel's interest in poetry and actually wrote a poem for her, something I could never see season 1 Ripper doing. And Axel reciprocating with a kiss despite not seeming interested in him earlier? My haw hit the floor. Before I was hoping he'd be an early boot, but now I find myself actually wanting to see Ripper stick around and see where things go with him as a character and his potential relationship with Axel. I... actually like Ripper now, which is a sentence I never thought I'd say.

A few minor issues aside, I am loving this new season so far. I haven't genuinely enjoyed Total Drama since the original TDI 15 years ago.