#it felt like there was real promise there and the writers ultimately didn’t deliver on it

[hayscodings]

i haven’t watched the entire episode yet but for a show as thoughtfully written as doom patrol i find laura’s ending half-baked if somewhat cliche. it’s exactly what i would have expected from a typical show, which seems antithetical to a series as subversive as doom patrol but i guess in the end they decided to lean into old tropes and tried and true predictability

[omegaremix]

25 Years Of Discovery.

January 1st, 2000 came with such underwhelming results. Didn’t help that last summer I had to permanently cut ties with a Judas sorority cousin after a public screaming match in front of family, neighbors, and strangers. I also pissed away the ones closest to me, my circle of “friends” from Brentwood. The liars, narcissists, victim-blamers, and the ones who left me out to dry all alone in parking lots because they were too awesome having fun in groups. Now you see why I had to spend New Year’s at the neighborhood church, pining away three hours until midnight arrived and even I couldn’t have that. A mother arrived with two screaming kids at 11:30 PM and all the while she’s running around the aisles between the seats, shuffling around like crazy catching them to stay put and she acted like a stereotypical soccer mom in the process. The most anti-climactic way to celebrate anything ever.

As my former friend Victoria said: “sometimes you have to go through the worst to get to the best.” Nice one, sweetheart. The best isn’t guaranteed no matter what people suffer through. The following Summer saw myself dealing with even more fallouts and the unpleasant surprises kept delivering.

What became of a Summer job working at the pool supply store with my friend Dede became a weekend bully convention. Dede, who got me the job, showed his true colors when he stood and laughed at me as two co-workers swung boxcutters at me. Store managers who heard my concerns nodded their heads and promised action, but in the end did zero. Showing up five minutes early for my shift wasn’t enough for Dede, however, and the Ever-Controlling One wanted me to work more days. "Who cares about your well-being?", he argued, because according to him it was all about him and his job. After daily dealings with his elitist prima-donna starfucker attitudes and half of the store talking about me behind my back, I no-showed him and shut him out for good. The next morning, he called my house while I was sleeping. “Why did you quit on me?” he asked. No “hello”, no “what’s wrong”, no “hey, everything OK?”. I answered by hanging up on him. Good-bye and good riddance to a self-important narcissistic asshole. But, I still had one out left in the deck. That out was Anna.

Anna and I had plans to meet up at Ocean City where she lived. Eight months of weekend online chats, pictures, cassette trades, hand-written letters (!), and Sunday night calls in the making. Here was a 5’8” pale Polish girl of straight neck-length brunette hair, green eyes, mid-cut shirts and tight jeans. Cute, flirtatious, charming. She came across so amorous and complimentary in such a way I never felt from anyone before. We’d trade notes about my struggles dealing with prima-donna underground musicians and egocentric writer-critics. She had her own drama with friends, co-workers, and exes- while recapping last night’s episode of Saturday Night Live. It was one of the few shining points of a dismal few semesters at community college. All fucking week I looked forward to those two hours talking to her on the phone. The time was right for me to come visit. She wanted it to happen. We made plans well in advance in what would be a unique event for me. To meet someone in a different state via Greyhound and experience something totally new would be exceptional.

Sunday night comes and I get a phone call from her to verify that it’s a go…it’s not happening. She broke the news to me in a sad let-down tone. Our plans were canceled. What was it? Was it because I was quiet about her mixtapes she sent me? Or was it because I saw no indication that she didn’t keep base with her folks that I was coming over and maybe her cover was blown? To this day I don’t even know. She never gave me a reason. They usually don’t. Real nice how some people show their interest in you, take it all back at the last minute and ultimately string you along for a few more miles before leaving you on the side of the road and drive away, never to be heard from again.

It’s June 19th and Summer was on life support. The only saving grace was spending 4th of July at a friend’s house. Then it finally died. I had close to nothing. No job, no pursuits, no movement, nada. Only a Playstation, bike rides to the library, and some trips to the bookstore to buy whatever music with what little money I still had. I was grateful in no longer having a selfish self-centered superstar for a friend, manager, and connection. On the other hand, Anna made me feel dejected because our plans were no more with no reason why. The season now became an excruciating waiting game for Autumn for a final unbearable semester at Suffolk Community.

I was already one year into listening to WUSB. They were the only game in town that played industrial and underground hip-hop. I tried hard to distract myself from recently losing the chance to see Anna, so radio was the drug of choice. I had plenty of blanks to run record on during my late-night shoot-’em-up sessions. Dubbing had been my weekly ritual since the Brentwood era. It was our way of capturing the moment. Downloading and streaming was in their infancy, and we didn’t have the permanence of online archives or YouTube. If you missed it, that’s it. Four, five, six tapes were lined up for the record button with one set aside to be transferred on. That was the beauty of dual tape decks, consolidation, and re-recording. Hit the red dot and let the chips fall as they may. Up on the itinerary: one of the four hip-hop slots our station had on the grid. Ghetto Radio, Street FM, The Basement, or Eminent Audio. Those slots never played the commercial -ish at the time, and they were four reasons why I returned to hip-hop after mostly abandoning it by senior year.

So, this happened: two of Eminent Audio’s dee-jays decided to play some short snippets of Seventies’ jazz, fusion, funk, and groove. Some late Seventies’ groove-line, and some Eighties’ R&B. The classics spun in short 20-30 second bursts, one after the other. It all started with Gang Starr’s “The Planet” which sampled Taj Mahal’s “The Cuckoo”, followed by Steve Davis’ “It’s All Because She’s Gone”, then Galt MacDermot’s First Natural Hair Band’s “Ripped Open By Metal Explosions”. Nas’ “It Ain’t Hard to Tell” and Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature” were also thrown into the mix.

And then, the Ace in the deck: Les McCann’s “Vallarta” ('77).

It played in the tinniest quality, as if it was trying so hard to push itself out of a drive-in movie speakerbox. It hit. It fucking hit like no other. Those feelings of watching those big money shows and ginger'd moms from Indianapolis deal with divorced life and her two kids, as I remember seeing it in my Brooklyn youth. Richard ‘Groove’ Holmes’ “Onsaya Joy” hit in the exact same fashion, too. Then Bob James’ “Caribbean Nights”. I was absolutely stunned out of my fucking mind.

The following week, Asmar (The Basement), always one to keep it real and spit consciousness, played Lonnie Liston Smith & The Cosmic Echoes’ “Expansions” (‘75). Then the comedown: “Aspirations” and finally “Colors Of The Rainbow”. None more accurate to describe the sounds and tonality of an isolated and introverted down summer. At that point that week’s Basement ended and it completely settled in.

It was all over for me.

The sampling parade and Lonnie Liston Smith songs tied into an era, a Borough Park childhood of spending days sitting at home playing with an Atari 2600, watching game shows (with surprise devils, computerized dragons, and lightning bolts), and late Fifties’ Looney Toons on a RGB-lens projector television. The days of my Brooklyn years continued on as an Eighties kid on the island when some of the most memorable moments, believe it or not, were these television station i.d.’s, opening and end credits, and production logos. 11 Alive, WGBH, WABC’s 4:30 Movie, WCBS’s The Late Show Intro, WPIX Channel 11 Film Festival, PBS, Magnetic Home Video, World-Northal, Viacom’s ‘V’ Of Doom, its sister Screen Gem's 'S' Of Doom, and chuckling pinball sounds with Peignot type…I can go on. They stayed with me the whole time. From that point on, I started staying in touch with myself. I always missed those obscure years living in Brooklyn. You miss them because you feel you haven’t had enough of them. Take all those moments, connect the dots, connect the stars, and get everything out of what you can that had everything to do with the era.

I started buying my own vinyl before the turn of the millennium, shortly after I started going to record stores. Only after WUSB’s Summer programming did I start pursuing the classics whenever and wherever I could. It was one way I had to keep up. A trip to what was Bay Shore’s Special Sauce, a skate and ski shop, once sold bins of vinyl records and was the first of many vinyl splurges. When I wasn’t crate-digging, I always referred to the-breaks.com, one of the first sampling sources on the net, way before WhoSampled took the lead it has now. Meanwhile, classic Seventies’ Saturday Night Live episodes followed and later discovered that my significant Yenny had GSN. You could imagine her level of tolerance to have her record these old shows for me on the regular. No, I lied. She was pretty cool about it.

YouTube came halfway into my stay at Stony Brook and I re-discovered those i.d.’s, credits, and logos. It was when I got deeper into collecting and finding those key artists that matched where I came from. John Tropea, Vic Juris, Chick Corea, and Esther Phillips. more Lonnie Liston Smith, Eric Gale, and Les McCann (again). Another very important kicker was my very first jump into library music. (Hello, KPM. Nice to meet you.) That's where I found Alan Hawkshaw, Brian Bennett, and Alan Parker. In fact, it was Parker’s “Unlimited Love” that was used for one of WABC’s movie intros-. Down the road towards the end of the Aughts, my vert first trip to High Fidelity’s old location in Amityville had me discover Phil Upchurch and Billy Cobham. That visit showed me to shop by year of release and gamble on artists I knew totally nothing about. That explains why I have two Karla Bonoff records, The Olympic Runners, Stuff, Maynard Ferguson, Urbie Green, and Ramsey Lewis.

I got re-acquainted with KPM after the turn of the decade, and made an entire mixtape / playlist dedicated to nothing but these sounds. Just so happened that I listened to nothing but Seventies, jazz / fusion, funk, groove line, and soul sounds for that entire Autumn and during Hurricane Sandy. The ultimate point of no return was when I found two very essential groups: Vinyl Archeologie and Reef Ali’s Vinyl Frontier. Could you imagine all these rare and obscure finds for samplers, crate-diggers, and producers they collectively unearthed? The sounds always featured on these groups (as well as Breaks & Samples and The Real Digging And Archeology) have shown me that it all goes to a whole new level.

These above groups are (all) the figurative time machine that takes me to places that no longer exist, ones which I’ve never experienced or been to, but felt like I have. They’ve extended my interest in jazz, soul, classic R&B, funk, groove, and fusion. To this day, they still do. This first-ever “jazz, fusion, rare groove, obscurity, resonance, vinyl finds, and sampling” showcase that aired on my radio show (Summer '13) not only made part of a personal summer mixtape, but symbolizes an all-too-important moment in my timeline with an addict ex-. Because of them, once-unknowns are now all-to-familiars to me. Gordon’s War, Starfire, Sass, Champaign, McNeal & Niles, and perhaps one of the most magical of them all, General Lee & The Space Army Band.

Since then, my affinity for these sounds have all but solidified. In the last few years, I discovered the Music DeWolfe, Patchwork, and Themes International library labels. Vinyl Archeologie and Vinyl Frontier have continued to unearth classics, resuscitate legacies, and renew interests in original artists. Omega is still doing bonus sampling / crate-digger broadcasts, and I’m always returning to find those classic programming moments for myself. With the help of Shazam and YouTube comments, I finally bullseye’d Otto Cesana & His Orchestra’s “Hi!”, Syd Dale’s “Cuban Presto”, and Reg Tilsley’s “Hold The Road”. I’m still unearthing new finds in the form of Emily Remler, Eddie Russ, Teddy Lasry, Tomorrow’s People, and Walt Barr. And, it seemed like only yesterday (Spring / Summer '18) that I once dropped $1,500 to all of the island’s record stores for post-surgery shopping therapy, and I did another record-store tour (Spring / Summer '22) in a winner-take-all fashion for double the price. If there was jazz, soul, fusion, whatever - it was mine.

I can’t say that the unreliables above (my former manager "friend" and the Jersey girl) made for vinyl music to happen. They’re isolated incidents. The sounds that our hip-hop dee-jays made possible happened regardless. I just happened to catch it. I still have the original recordings and digitized them last this year. How wild is it that the Summer has been salvaged from being a total bust for being in the right moment at the right time? How wild is it that one moment has carried on and still thrives to this day? It will continue to keep going because there’s always be something waiting to be discovered all over again. And as long as that does, the self-discovery continues, the broadcasts continue, the spending sprees continue, I continue. Here’s hoping you’ll do the same in your own right.

[cacophony-of-notions]

Really appreciate you saying that disliking the finale isn't just about ships. I just think it was a disservice to Dean.

People making everything about shipping is getting to me... closely followed in order of frustration by people telling me that I just “don’t understand tragedy” and that's why I can’t appreciate the ending. 

The way Dean was killed was a disservice to him in so many ways that I still can’t untangle it all. It becomes worse the more I think about it instead of better. All of the possible implications behind killing Dean this specific way—seeing it as important that he die this way—are very unsettling to me and I can’t even wrap my head around all of them. This post starts a series of taglines to a number of posts that could be written on the subject of possible disturbing reasons for Dean’s young death.  The fact that it’s so tangled up like this is also why it’s so impossible for me to put the finale behind me, because in the back of my mind, I am always thinking, “What did it mean? What did it mean to kill Dean that young, in that manner? Why that way? Why was this how they wanted him to go?” (and don’t get me started on “Atomic Monsters” and Becky and how it just makes your head want to explode). It seems so pointless at best to kill Dean that way, and then you consider the potential meanings and fall into some truly disturbing waters you can never climb out of. It’s “choose your narrative” among a sea of horrifying possible narratives.

I really felt that Dabb wrote primarily about Dean’s boundaries being violated during his run. This was in theme for Dean before, but Dabb took it to the extreme, I felt. 

Dean had to take on a parental role with his own mother to some extent

Dean had to take on a parental role with Jack that I felt paralleled how John placed responsibility for Sam on Dean’s shoulders. (I really believe Dean never wanted Jack as his child... he cared about him, but their relationship was strained by Jack’s powers and the circumstances of his birth/involvement in Mary and Cas being hurt. Father was a role that others tried to force Dean into, when I really think Dean didn’t want to parent another child, or at least not Jack. He would have been happier with Jack as a brother, absent the responsibilities of being a father to him. This is, imo, why we see Dean treat Jack as much more of an adult even when they are getting along, handling the adult conversations Sam and Cas won’t like sex, and driving lessons. It feels more like the work of an older brother. It’s sensing what Sam and Cas want Dean to be to Jack + what Jack himself longs for, that has Dean occasionally trying to force himself into a fatherly role, but he doesn’t really want that role—he wants boundaries and he wants less responsibility, and there never should have been anything considered wrong with that)

Michael’s possession

The alternate universe hunters (strangers) moving into the bunker, one of the only places in the world where Dean feels safe 

Michael possessing him again

Sam and Cas entering Dean’s mind (a necessary but nonetheless violating prospect)

Castiel’s perpetual secrets

Soulless Jack trying to ingratiate himself back with the Winchesters and continue to be a part of the family (Dean is the found family) while, in his state, being incapable of understanding the real weight of his actions (I reblogged an absolutely wonderful bit of writing on this by mittensmorgul at one point)

Chuck revealed as the ultimate villain, Dean feeling he never had free will at all, the way this took every trauma of his life—every lifelong violation—and made it traumatic in new and horrific ways (the deaths of his parents, him having to raise Sam, going to hell, the deaths of the found family he surrounded himself with). Dean says he doesn’t feel real, that he doesn’t really have choices, that he’s just a puppet, which makes your heart break all over again as you think about this also coming from the man who depended on free will in a world where he felt deeply objectified—”Daddy’s blunt little instrument”, “The Michael Sword”—once again an instrument with no will of its own, no power, simply helpless. 

To take that character, who was shown to experience such sheer terror over the prospect of being controlled by an all powerful cosmic force... having his free will perpetually ripped to shreds, to the extent that when presented with the opportunity to make this horrific lifelong violation finally stop, he turned a gun on the person he loves most in the world (and that person begging him to continue enduring his violation, with no alternative plan, and no idea when he will be able to make the violation stop)... it’s all.. a lot. And they take that person, who was so profoundly terrorized by his lack of agency within the narrative of his life, especially in the last two seasons... who was absolutely torn apart by how he had been controlled and used and objectified, and after he gains freedom from the writer of his story once and for all, and the weight is lifted off his shoulders, and he has the chance to make his own choices and stand out on the road and say, “look now at all the possibilities” they kill him. He is stabbed in the back, he is made helpless against creatures who (as Jensen has noted more than once) Dean considers it a cake walk to defeat. It continues the narrative of his helplessness to stop his own violation (he is stabbed. Stabbed).

And that’s only one unpleasant theme mingling with Dean’s death... there are far more than that.

Then there's what it means for Sam, how it forces him into a life he insisted he had grown out of in season 10—how Sam said what he wanted, once and for all, was to hunt with Dean, but if he couldn’t have that... (and he cut himself off, because he couldn’t even consider the prospect) and they take Sam and force him back into that normal life he didn’t want anymore. This time, it feels like it’s in honor of Dean that Sam lives this normal life (exactly like Jared said in his Variety interview). Years later, he still gets in the car and the pain on his face makes Dean’s absence seem like a raw and gaping wound—like he gave up the hunt not because he actually wanted the normal life, but because Dean would want him to live a normal life and die old, and he couldn’t bear the painful memories that would come from continuing the hunt without Dean or even driving the car. 

There’s the way the finale clashes so painfully with Dean’s speech to Sam and Sam’s returning, insistent speech to him in 8.14—how it gives Dean the ending he expected when he was traumatized and suicidal, and calls us back to that forever unfulfilled promise of Sam’s to take Dean to the light at the end of the tunnel. That light at the end of the tunnel materializes as nothing more than the death Sam was trying so desperately on so many occasions to prevent, no matter what the cost (season 3, season 5, 8.14, season 10, 14.12). Don’t think about how Dean was actually the first to use the phrase “The light at the end of the tunnel” in season 3, talking about his impending death, and Sam insisted, “That’s hellfire, Dean.” 

Don’t think about how there are no pictures of the found family in Sam’s home, only dead blood family and his son. Don’t think about how no one attended Dean’s funeral except Sam and Miracle after Dean said he wanted a big funeral. Don’t think about the disturbing prospect of Sam’s son as Dean’s proxy being the one to “finally” give Sam permission to move on and be back with his brother again. 

Don’t think about Dean saying in the finale that if they don’t keep living, Cas’ sacrifice will be for nothing, only for Dean to die a few scenes later. Don’t think about how Cas’ sacrifice perpetuates Dean’s long held fear that loving him is poison. 

Don’t think about the possibility of Dean’s childhood unfairly burdened with adult responsibilities repeated through Jack when he, as a three year old, becomes the new god. 

Don’t think about Amara, who was caged for millions of years, having her agency ripped from the narrative completely nonsensically, absorbed by her brother, absorbed by her grand nephew, and once more stripped of her free will in the process and caged with only a throw away, nonsensical line that she’s at peace simply floating in existence inside Jack, which makes no sense given her history and seems deeply cruel and thoughtless. Don't think about how she was paralleled with Dean in season 11.

Don’t think about what happened to Adam or Kevin, the former unfridged conceivably to deliver to him a more satisfying conclusion, only for him to be forgotten again.

Don’t think about found family and free will and always keep fighting being torn to shreds along the way. 

[omegaplus]

# 3,489

20 Years Of Discovery.

January 1st, 2000 came with such underwhelming results. Didn’t help that last summer I had to permanently cut ties with a Judas sorority cousin after a public screaming match in front of family, neighbors, and strangers. I also pissed away the ones closest to me, my circle of “friends” from Brentwood. The liars, narcissists, victim-blamers, and the ones who left me out to dry all alone in parking lots because they were too awesome having fun in groups. Now you see why I had to spend New Year’s at the neighborhood church, pining away three hours until midnight arrived and even I couldn’t have that. A mother arrived with two screaming kids at 11:30 PM and all the while she’s running around the aisles between the seats, shuffling around like crazy catching them to stay put and she acted like a stereotypical soccer mom in the process. The most anti-climactic way to celebrate anything ever.

As my former friend Victoria said: “sometimes you have to go through the worst to get to the best.” Nice one, sweetheart. The best isn’t guaranteed no matter what people suffer through. The following summer saw myself dealing with even more fallouts and the unpleasant surprises kept delivering. What became of a summer job working at the pool supply store with my friend Dede became a weekend bully convention. Dede, who got me the job, showed his true colors when he stood and laughed at me as two co-workers swung boxcutters at me. Store managers who heard my concerns nodded their heads and promised action but in the end did zero. Showing up five minutes early for my shift wasn’t enough for Dede, however, and the Ever-Controlling One wanted me to work more days. Who cared about my well-being, he argued, because according to him it was all about him and his job. After daily dealings with his elitist prima-donna starfucker attitudes and half of the store talking about me behind my back, I no-showed him and shut him out for good. The next morning, he called my house while I was sleeping. “Why did you quit on me?” he asked. No “hello”, no “what’s wrong”, no “hey, everything OK?”. I answered by hanging up on him. Good-bye and good riddance to a self-important muckety-muck. But I still had one out left in the deck. That out was Anna.

Anna and I had plans to meet up at Ocean City where she lived. Eight months of weekend online chats, pictures, cassette trades, hand-written letters (!), and Sunday night calls in the making. Here was a 5’8” pale Polish girl of straight neck-length brunette hair, green eyes, mid-cut shirts and tight jeans. Cute, flirtatious, charming. She came across so amorous and complimentary in such a way I never felt from anyone before. We’d trade notes about my struggles dealing with prima-donna underground musicians and asshole writer-critics and her own drama with friends, co-workers, and exes- around recapping last night’s episode of Saturday Night Live. It was one of the few shining points of a dismal few semesters at community college. All fucking week I looked forward to those two hours talking to her on the phone. The time was right for me to come visit. She wanted it to happen. We made plans well in advance in what would be a unique event for me. To meet someone in a different state via Greyhound and experience something totally new would be exceptional.

Sunday night comes and I get a phone call from her to verify that it’s a go...it’s not happening. She broke the news to me in a sad let-down tone. Our plans were canceled. What was it? Was it because I was quiet about her mixtapes she sent me? Or was it because I saw no indication that she didn’t keep base with her folks that I was coming over and maybe her cover was blown? To this day I don’t even know. She never gave me a reason. They usually don’t. Real nice how some people show their interest in you, take it all back at the last minute and ultimately string you along for a few more miles before leaving you on the side of the road and drive away, never to be heard from again.

It’s June 19th and summer was on life support. After spending the only saving grace that was the 4th of July at a friend’s house, it finally died. I had close to nothing. No job, no pursuits, no movement, nada. Only a Playstation, bike rides to the library, and some trips to the bookstore to buy whatever music with what little money I still had. I was grateful in no longer having a selfish self-centered superstar for a friend, manager, and connection. On the other hand, Anna made me feel dejected because our plans were no more with no reason why. The season now became an excruciating waiting game for Autumn for a final unbearable semester at Suffolk Community.

I was already one year into listening to WUSB. They were the only game in town that played industrial and underground hip-hop. I tried hard to distract myself from recently losing Anna, so radio was the drug of choice. I had plenty of blanks to run record on during my late-night shoot-’em-up sessions. Dubbing had been my weekly ritual since the Brentwood era. It was our way of capturing the moment. Downloading and streaming was in their infancy and we didn’t have the permanence of online archives or YouTube. If you missed it, that’s it. (I didn’t even think of the word “auditioning”, the act of narrowing these plays down from several tapes onto one, just like how downloads are deleted or go to playlists or be edited for Omega WUSB shows.) Four, five, six tapes were lined up for the record button with one set aside to be transferred on. That’s the beauty of dual tape decks, consolidation, and re-recording. Hit the red dot and let the chips fall as they may. Up on the itinerary: one of the four hip-hop slots our station had on the grid. Ghetto Radio, Street FM, The Basement, or Eminent Audio. Our slots never played the commercial -ish at the time, and those shows were four reasons why I returned to hip-hop after mostly abandoning it by senior year.

Then this happened: two of Eminent Audio’s dee-jays decided to play some short snippets of Seventies’ jazz, fusion, funk, and groove. Some late Seventies’ groove-line, and some Eighties’ R&B. The classics spun in short 20-30 second bursts, one after the other. It all started with Gang Starr’s “The Planet” which sampled Taj Mahal’s “The Cuckoo”, followed by Steve Davis’ “It's All Because She's Gone”, then Galt MacDermot's First Natural Hair Band’s “Ripped Open By Metal Explosions”. After throwing in Nas’ “It Ain���t Hard to Tell” and Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature”, then the Ace in the deck: Les McCann’s “Vallarta” played in the loudest tinniest quality, trying so hard pushing itself out of a drive-in movie speakerbox. It hit. It fucking hit like no other. Those feelings of watching those shows of big money and seeing an Indianapolis ginger mom deal with divorced life and her two kids as a Brooklyn youth. Richard ‘Groove’ Holmes’ “Onsaya Joy” hit in the exact same fashion, too. Then Bob James’ “Caribbean Nights”. I was absolutely stunned. The following week, Asmar from The Basement, always the one to keep it real and spit consciousness, played Lonnie Liston Smith & The Cosmic Echoes’ “Expansions” (‘75). Then the comedown: “Aspirations” and finally “Colors Of The Rainbow”. None more accurate sounds and tonality to describe an isolated and introverted down summer. At that point that week’s Basement ended and it hit. It was all over for me. Over.

The sampling parade and Lonnie Liston Smith songs tied into an era, a Borough Park childhood of spending days sitting at home playing with an Atari 2600, watching game shows with surprised devils, computerized dragons, and lightning bols), and late Fifties’ Looney Toons on a RGB-lens projector television. The days of my Brooklyn years continued on as an Eighties kid on the island when some of the most memorable moments, believe it or not, were all the television station i.d.’s, opening and end credits, and production logos. 11 Alive, WGBH, WABC’s 4:30 Movie, WCBS’s The Late Show Intro, WPIX Channel 11 Film Festival, Magnetic Home Video, World-Northal, Viacom’s ‘V’ Of Doom and chuckling pinball sounds with peignot type...I can go on. They stayed with me all this time.

From that point on I started keeping in touch with myself. I always missed those obscure years living in Brooklyn. You miss them because you feel you haven’t had enough of them. Take all those moments, connect the dots, connect the stars, and get everything out of what you can that had everything to do with the era. I began buying my own vinyl before the turn of the millennium, a little after I started going to record stores. Only after WUSB’s summer programming did I start pursuing the classics whenever and wherever I could. It was one way I had to keep up. A trip to what was Bay Shore’s Special Sauce, a skate and ski shop, once sold bins of vinyl records and was the first of many vinyl splurges. When I wasn’t crate-digging, I always referred to the-breaks.com, one of the first sampling sources on the net, way before WhoSampled took the lead it has now. Meanwhile, classic Seventies’ Saturday Night Live episodes followed and later discovered that my significant Yenny had GSN. You could imagine her level of tolerance to have her record these old shows for me on the regular. No, I lied. She was pretty cool about it.

YouTube came halfway into my stay at Stony Brook and I re-discovered those i.d.’s, credits, and logos. It was when I got deeper into collecting and finding those key artists that matched where I came from.  John Tropea, Vic Juris, Chick Corea, and Esther Phillips. more Lonnie Liston Smith, Eric Gale, and Les McCann (again). Another very important kicker: my first foray into library music. Hello, KPM. Nice to meet you. It’s where I found Alan Hawkshaw, Brian Bennett, and Alan Parker. In fact, it was Parker’s “Unlimited Love” that was used for one of WABC’s movie intros-. Down the road towards the end of the Aughts, my vert first trip to High Fidelity’s old location in Amityville had me discover Phil Upchurch and Billy Cobham. That visit showed me to shop by year of release and gamble on artists I knew totally nothing about. That explains why I have two Karla Bonoff records, The Olympic Runners, Stuff, Maynard Ferguson, and Ramsey Lewis.

After the turn of the last decade, I went back and got re-acquainted with KPM, and during Hurricane Sandy, I had an entire mixtape / playlist dedicated to nothing but these sounds. Just so happened that I listened to nothing but Seventies, jazz / fusion, funk, groove line, and soul sounds for that entire Autumn. The moment that was the ultimate point of no return was the summer after Omega WUSB started airing when I found two very essential groups, Vinyl Archeologie and Reef Ali’s Vinyl Frontier. Could you imagine all these rare and obscure finds for samplers, crate-diggers, and producers that their members unearthed? The sounds always featured on these groups, as well as Breaks & Samples and The Real Digging And Archeology, have shown me that it all goes to a whole new level. It’s the figurative time machine that takes me to places that no longer exist, ones which I’ve never experienced or been to but felt like I have. They’ve extended my interest in all of the above even more. It took nothing for me to give this class of music their own “bonus” broadcasts. To this day, they still do. This first-ever “jazz, fusion, rare groove, obscurity, resonance, vinyl finds, and sampling” showcase (as advertised) was not only part of a personal summer mixtape but symbolizes an all-too-important moment in my timeline with an addict ex-. Because of them, once-unknowns are now all-to-familiars to me. Gordon’s War, Starfire, Sass, Champaign, McNeal & Niles, and perhaps one of the most magical of them all, General Lee & The Space Army Band.

Since then, my affinity for these sounds have all but solidified. In the last few years, I discovered the Music DeWolfe, Patchwork, and Themes International library labels. Vinyl Archeologie and Vinyl Frontier have continued to unearth classics, resuscitate legacies, and renew interests in original artists. Omega is still doing bonus sampling / crate-digger broadcasts, and I’m always returning to find those classic programming moments for myself. With the help of Shazam and YouTube comments, I finally bullseye’d Otto Cesana & His Orchestra’s “Hi!”, Syd Dale’s “Cuban Presto”, and Reg Tilsley’s “Hold The Road”. I’m still unearthing new finds in the form of Emily Remler, Eddie Russ, Teddy Lasry, Tomorrow’s People, and Walt Barr. And it seemed like only yesterday that I dropped $2,000 to all of the island’s record stores for a post-surgery shopping therapy. Should we get another round of stimulus checks in our hands, I might be looking at another record-store tour in a winner-take-all fashion.

I can’t say that the unreliables above made for vinyl music to happen. They’re isolated incidents. The sounds that our hip-hop dee-jays made possible happened regardless. I just happened to catch it. I still have the original recordings and plan on digitizing them later this year when the final CD-r archive audit is finished. How wild is it that the summer has been salvaged from being a total bust for being in the right moment at the right time? How wild is it that one moment has carried on and still thrives to this day? It will continue to keep going because there’s always be something waiting to be discovered all over again. And as long as that does, the self-discovery continues, the broadcasts continue, the spending sprees continue, I continue. Here’s hoping you’ll do the same in your own right.

[bigskydreaming]

I’ve gone back and forth on the subject of the Three Jokers for years at this point, tbh, in the sense that it bugs me that Dick’s not a part of it and the focus is on Bruce, Jason and Babs.....and like, the thing is I can’t decide if that’s just pure fan-nishness on my part, or if there’s legitimacy to my thinking there, lol.

Because yeah, there’s the stuff I’ve said about how thematically the Joker is almost more suited to be Dick’s foil than Bruce’s, and its no coincidence in my mind that they both were created around the same time. And there’s the fact that so many formative stories of Dick’s have starred the Joker as the antagonist, from Dick’s firing, to Last Laugh, to like....idk, I mean, there’s barely any period where Dick goes longer than five years between stories where the Joker has a MAJOR impact on his life and stories.....him vs Dick and Damian during the Dickbats era, him destroying Dick’s circus in the New 52 Death of the Family, etc, etc. I honestly can’t say that there’s a single story featuring Dick and the Joker that on its own reaches the infamous level of The Killing Joke or A Death in the Family (though I will always say the Last Laugh SHOULD be regarded on that level, its just its impact has been deliberately mitigated over the years)....but like, the Joker is a constantly recurring presence in Dick’s life and stories in a way that’s second only to Bruce IMO.

But the sticking point for me, and why I’m never sure if like, I have an actual point here or its just begrudging fandom-ness like ugh, I’m cranky my fave’s being left out of a much-hyped story, lol, that kinda thing.....

Is because IMO the reason Dick theoretically has a place in this story is because for all the times he’s been drastically impacted by the Joker....he’s never really had or found closure for any of the ways the Joker has intersected with his life....same as Bruce, and same as Jason.

I’d argue that despite the infamously iconic standing of the Killing Joke, the same is NOT true of Barbara.

Its not that I begrudge Babs getting a spotlight here, its just that.....it feels kinda weird to me for it to be HERE. Because tbh, I feel that one of the key differences between Babs and Bruce and Jason and even Dick, is that......she put a lot, a LOT of effort into putting TKJ behind her WITHOUT needing a specifically profiled event or story to obtain closure. She spent YEARS in her narratives like...establishing beyond a shadow of a doubt that what the Joker had done to her specifically DID NOT define her, and so there’s something somewhat regressive feeling about bringing TKJ front and center again...when it feels like its being done to provide a third counterpart/antagonist to this third variation of the Joker, rather than being done because its something BABS needs for HER narrative, or closure.

Like don’t get me wrong, I’d be all for Babs being front and center in this to get closure from TKJ, if not for the fact that like.....it really feels like it ignores or dismisses a ton of the character work that went into her expressing no real desire to GET any specific ‘closure.’ Like, she’s had opportunities to go after the Joker and make him pay or bring him to justice for HERSELF, and she’s chosen not to, specifically because she doesn’t want to give him that power over her and her life, and how much of it she devotes to him and the impact he had on her life.

And then add in the way the New 52 made her Batgirl again, despite how definitively she’d moved on and established herself as an Oracle, a hero in an entirely new way not limited by the writers’ specific vision of who and what Batgirl was and how SHE went about being a hero....idk. 

*shrugs* Not sure where I’m going with this, or if I’m going anywhere at all, just kinda musing out loud. Like, I do definitely acknowledge and concede there’s a certain amount of just pure fanboy-ism in thinking “Dick should be present here because he and the Joker have eighty years of history and intersect hugely so it feels like a miss and even a bit of a slight to leave him out.” 

But I also think that’s not all it is, and that narratively, there’s perhaps a bit more to the idea that Bruce, Dick and Jason being matched up against the three different Jokers and exploring the fact that all their lives have been so intertwined with the Joker and with no real closure to ever speak of as it kinda repeats in a never-ending cycle with each of them.......than there is with it being Bruce, Jason and Babs, when Babs specifically and with INTENT has NOT had her live constantly intertwine with the Joker and repeat in a never-ending cycle....DESPITE his presence and impact in one very specific story of hers that didn’t actually define her as she grew BEYOND it and any limitations it might otherwise have served upon her.

But then at the same time, I also recognize that Babs too often is relegated to taking a back seat in comparison to Bruce and the Batboys, specifically, and so it could just as equally be an oversight to leave her out when she does intersect with the Joker so infamously in that one specific story, and that her not needing closure with regards to him shouldn’t be made an EXCUSE to leave her out of a high-profile story like this.

Idk. Ultimately I’ll just wait and see how the story plays out and decide how I feel about it then, but there’s always been just something vaguely off about the promo done for this oft-promised/never-delivered story in particular, lol. It might just be the fanboyism, might be actual valid criticism, and more than likely it might be some kind of blend of the two....but something about just its very premise has felt ever so slightly off from the get go, in that one of these is not like the others kind of way. Because as much as Babs not being interchangeable with the men of the Batfamily has on occasion kept her relatively sidelined in terms of the Batfranchise, its just as true IMO that its one of her strengths as well....she doesn’t....fixate, for lack of a better word, the same way Bruce, Jason and Dick all do in particular, and so on some level it definitely does feel like she’s been drafted for this story as a matter of convenience rather than it actually being FOR her character, so I’m....kinda waiting and hmmming, on that front.

[salvatoreschool]

Best of the Decade: The Vampire Diaries delivered a perfect love triangle in its third season

To celebrate the end of the 2010s, Entertainment Weekly’s Must List is looking back at the best pop culture of the decade that changed movies, TV, music, and more (catch up on our list so far, which includes the MCU’s big Snap, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s history-making hit Hamilton, and Beyonce’s iconic Coachella set). Today, we look back on The Vampire Diaries and its perfect love triangle.

There’s a reason we’ve seen so many love triangles on television. The classic storytelling device is a surefire way to drum up drama in any situation. It taps into a fandom’s desire to root for something, to feel competitive about something. If shipping was born out of fans wanting a particular love story, why not give them two and make them choose? Well, because it can get complicated. For as often as we see love triangles on television series, they don’t always work.

Love triangles are a high-wire act. The two relationships needs to feel different enough, though both must feel valid. You have to give each couple their moments without making the central person’s preference obvious. And most of all, it has to feel right when that central person finally chooses someone. Audiences should be able to look back at the story and understand that decision. (They might not like it, but it should make sense.)

So yeah, love triangles are fun. Will Joey choose Dawson or Pacey? Will Rory choose Jess or Dean? It’s a way to keep the audience on the edge of their seats. But when handled correctly, it should be about more than suspense. It should be about great storytelling. And when The Vampire Diaries premiered its third season in 2011, it delivered on all the promises of a love triangle.

After two years of establishing the love story of Elena Gilbert (Nina Dobrev), the teenager as familiar with loss as she was with homework, and Stefan Salvatore (Paul Wesley), the undead man who brought her back to life, it was time for Stefan to step out of the picture for a bit. (He left town with Klaus as part of a deal to save his brother’s life.) Enter Damon (Ian Somerhalder), Stefan’s older brother. The show had already established Damon’s undeniable connection with his brother’s girl, and through the experience of trying to track down Stefan, Elena and Damon grew closer. But again, high-wire act. Elena, the selfless human who put those she loved before herself, couldn’t suddenly fall head over heels for the selfish, impulsive vampire who once snapped her brother’s neck. But what she could do was slowly start to see other sides to Damon, all the while trying to get Stefan back.

The groundwork was laid as early as episode 2, when Damon told Elena, “When I drag my brother from the edge and deliver him back to you, I want you to remember the things you felt while he was gone.” The key words being “while he was gone.” Stefan’s absence was crucial to building the love triangle: If she felt things for Damon while Stefan was gone, what would it mean when he returned? By pairing the story of Damon’s redemption with that of Stefan’s downfall as Klaus (Joseph Morgan) forced him to drink human blood and turn off his humanity, Elena’s relationship with the brothers was flipped on its head. She found herself once again paired with the “good Salvatore brother” — only this time, it was Damon.

And once that bond with Damon was set, Stefan started to make his way back into the picture.

If we’re talking about the balance needed in a love triangle, TVD’s third season could walk a tightrope. Just as Damon started to win Elena over, Stefan proved that she shouldn’t give up on him. Damon made Elena jealous by flirting with another girl in one scene, Stefan caught her when she fell in the next. We’re not talking about epic, sweeping romantic moments. We’re talking about a look here, a touch of the knee there. Because the show was calculated and incredibly subtle in both building the relationship of Damon and Elena and rebuilding the relationship of Stefan and Elena. You have to be when your season contains 22 episodes. Damon and Elena didn’t share a kiss until episode 11 of the season. Stefan and Elena, the love story upon which the show had been built in its first two years, did not kiss until the season finale. Let’s say that one more time: The show managed to get through 21 episodes without its core couple so much as kissing, and yet Stefan and Elena’s love never felt like it was gone. It coursed through the show with the same electricity it always had, as the thing that propelled each of them forward.

It should be stated that the show was able to survive on an entire season of almost-moments in large part due to the chemistry between the actors. Not every show could get away with a look between two people holding as much weight as Stefan and Elena in a closet in Chicago or Damon and Elena in his bathroom after the bonfire. But thanks to that chemistry, the show didn’t need multiple make-outs and big speeches to make the love triangle feel real.

And by never having Elena waver in her love for Stefan, despite her feelings for Damon, she remained likable as the heroine of the story. At no point did she forget Stefan in favor of her new relationship with Damon. She struggled with both, all season long. As she told Stefan in episode 18, “I never stopped loving you.” And with that love as the foundation of the triangle, she remained relatable in her emotional struggles, which allowed viewers to become invested in both possible outcomes and guaranteed that no matter which brother she chose, fans would follow that love story.

Somehow, The Vampire Diaries managed to build a new love story without destroying the one that launched its series. And furthermore, it found a way to make Damon feel like a viable candidate, despite Elena’s unfaltering love of Stefan, which meant viewers went into the season 3 finale genuinely not knowing which brother Elena would choose. After all, her options were very different. As Rose (Lauren Cohan) told Jeremy (Steven R. McQueen) in episode 19, “[Stefan’s] love is pure; he’ll always be good for her. Damon is either the best thing for her or the worst.” So the question became: Is Damon currently the best thing for her? Or the worst?

It all built to the second half of the season finale, when Elena had to make a decision because she believed both brothers were hours away from dying. She had to choose which one got the goodbye. And ultimately, she chose Stefan. Because, as she told Damon, “No matter what I feel for you, I never unfell for him,” a line that acknowledged her feelings for both brothers and allowed viewers to understand her decision. (And just to make sure the Delena shippers didn’t lose hope, the writers threw in a flashback that revealed that Damon and Elena actually met first.)

In its third season, TVD told a beautifully balanced, perfectly paced story about a human girl torn between two very different vampire brothers. And in the end, she made her choice. As she’d later claim, it was the best choice she ever made, and for viewers, it was one of the best love triangles TV had ever seen.

[teenytinystorage]

A Poolside Chat

Summary: A relaxing dip in the pool to add to his wonderful birthday soon turns into a surprising and gay-panic-festered chat between Roman and Logan.

Word Count: 1,804

Warnings: Multiple food mentions

Pairings: Logince

Happy birthday Roman! Enjoy the Logince, y’all :)

—

As he shut the Imagination’s door behind him, Roman let out a satisfied exhale and fell back, shifting the grasses below him into a pool and landing upon a circular dragon-witch floatie.

He then transformed his usual outfit into a pair of bright red, gold-embroidered swim trunks and a pair of yellow sport sunglasses.

The sun blazed above, but this being the Imagination, the heat was nowhere near oppressive. A cool breeze was only a hand-wave away, and so was a glass of fresh-squeezed lemonade.

Peace enveloped him as he let himself drift upon the waters and reflect upon how his birthday had been going thus far.

He woke up to a birthday cupcake (red velvet, of course), and a burst of writer’s inspiration. Then Roman received his individual birth wishes from the other sides throughout the day, each giving him a gift.

They were all standard for each side: one Nightmare Before Christmas poster reluctantly given by Virgil (“No bugging me for any more posters after this, though.” “You got it, Sappy.”), a maroon pair of comfy floor-sticky socks from Patton, a free “no vibe checks for one day” pass from Remus, a pile of Thomas’s nostalgic Playbills from Janus, and a promise of a birthday cake later from Thomas (delivered, not homemade. Who knows how that’d turn out).

And now he sat at his very own pool, relaxing and drifting under the clear sky.

A lovely day indeed, but he soon found himself grappling with hurt as he realized who was missing from that gift list. Logan.

Roman hadn’t seen the nerd all day. No one even knew where he was, especially not Roman. He was looking forward to spending some time with Specs today. Seeing his clear, pristine face, hearing him ramble on about how uncanny having a cupcake for breakfast is, being near him, and maybe even getting to playfully elbow him to feel those cold, strong arms of his…

Roman felt a dopey grin line his cheeks, and although he hadn’t changed the temperature of the Imagination, some warmth coated his face and ears upon the thought.

But, alas, he hadn't seen Logan today. Roman decided that was, ultimately, okay. It meant fewer times for him to embarrass himself, after all.

He took another breath in of the air, coconut and citrus-scented, and dipped his hands into the water-- a door near him creaked open.

Roman didn’t mind it at first. Probably a side giving him a reminder of spaghetti dinner tonight, his favorite meal, or just to check on him.

It was only when the figure’s silhouette entered his shades’ vision did he feel the warmth from before burning him.

“Roman? Are you in here?” Logan called, wringing his hands as he strolled through the Imagination.

Roman secretly wished for his dragon-witch floatie to devour him in its plastic casing. It, sadly, didn’t. But his sunglasses vanished from his face. So that was something.

“Down here!” Roman waved, minimizing the lovesick smile he felt bubbling inside into a cheerful grin.

Logan’s gaze drifted down to him as he approached the outskirts of the pool.

Roman waved again, chuckling. One tick onto his “how many times can this lovesick dope humiliate himself today” list.

Logan crouched down next to the pool, his tie dangling down and nearly dipping into the water. “Greetings, Roman.”

“Hi!” Roman said with enthusiasm. He tried and failed to hide how overjoyed he was.

“It appears my daily attire is unfit for this setting, hm?” Logan noted, standing back up. “Here.”

He swiped his hair up with his hand and shifted from his usual polo and slacks to a pair of black swim shorts.

“There we go. Normally I’d wear a swim shirt as well, but since this is the Imagination, I can’t imagine that I’d be getting any sunburns.”

“I can’t imagine so either,” Roman agreed, forcing his drifting eyes to look back up into Logan’s rather than staring at his bare chest.

Gosh, did he have it bad.

Logan crouched down again and submerged his feet into the water, kicking them back and forth against the pool wall. “So Roman, how has your birthday been going so far?”

“Uh, good,” Roman nodded, leaning on his elbows atop his floatie. “Just the usual birthday routine, y’know? Gifts, desserts, fun, all that-- fun stuff.”

He barely avoided slapping himself.

“I’m quite glad to hear that,” Logan added, his hands moving behind his back. “You deserve to be having a good birthday today.”

“Oh, well, that means a lot, Specs. Thank you!”

“Of course,” Logan bit his bottom lip, glancing away.

Roman let out an awkward chuckle before taking notice of Logan’s hidden hands. He paddled himself over to the wall and floated a few inches in front of Logan. “Whatcha got behind your back there?”

“Ah, it’s…” Logan stopped. He took in a breath.

Roman leaned over, trying to sneak a peek. He couldn’t see what it was, though, so it couldn’t be anything big. “It’s?”

Logan ran one of his hands through his hair and took in another shaky breath. “A gift. For you.” He hesitated, closing an eye, before shoving out his hand and revealing the gift.

It was a red rose, roots still intact.

Logan flinched, looking back at Roman.

Roman dumbly stared at it. “A rose, hm? It’s quite pretty.”

“Yes. A red one, at that. Red. A symbolic color. Happy birthday,” Logan rambled, his arm pulling back a tad.

Roman paddled himself closer, somehow planning on accepting the rose and putting it… where? How would he even get it without falling off the floatie? He didn’t think it through at all, just like anything he did around Logan.

“Did I do this wrong?” Logan asked, curious. “I thought a single red rose signified romantic feelings between people.” He inspected the flower down-up, staring at its roots. “Is it the roots that threw you off? I had a sneaking suspicion that the roots were unnecessary, but I couldn't be sure.”

“Roh… romantic feelings?” Roman stammered, gaping at Logan.

“Yes. That’s right, isn’t it? The internet isn’t always a reliable source, however…” he reasoned, “I spent all day making sure this flower would imply the correct meanings… and maybe also just milling about nervously.”

If he felt warm before, Roman was smoldering now. Like all his cells were replaced with stoked coals. He was probably as red as his swim trunks, too.

“I… I…” Roman tried to sit up from his floatie, still barely comprehending the confession just spoken to him.

But his arm slipped, and he squeaked as his floatie tipped off-balance and caused him to plummet into the pool.

“Roman!” he heard Logan call before he met his aquatic fate.

The cool waters rushed over his burning skin, and he was quite thankful for that. But he found a chilly grip resting on his hand, and soon, another splash met the water.

His blurred vision faintly recognized Logan’s flushed, clear figure ahead of him. Logan’s hair floated above his head in a flowing tuft, and his eyes were shut behind his soaked glasses.

Roman was swimming with a real-life Poseidon.

He would’ve stayed to enjoy the view, but his eyes started to burn and his lungs were pleading for air. Roman breached the surface, bobbing on the water and taking in a long breath of air.

Logan rose out right after, a small coughing fit following.

“You okay?” Roman frowned.

Logan nodded, removing his glasses and taking in a breath as he waded in the waters.

Roman then realized Logan was one of those rarities who looked hot even without their glasses. Unfair! his mind cried as his body warmed once more.

“So, you like me?” Roman said, “Like, you like like me? For realsies?”

Logan nodded, “I do. Like like, you. Or love you, in clearer terms. Or am utterly and illogically infatuated with you, in my own terms.” He glanced over to the rose that lounged alone where he sat before.

Roman grinned like the lovesick fool he was.

“Well,” Roman turned, scratching his neck and looking at Logan through his eyelashes. “I like you too.”

Logan looked back at Roman, holding his glasses in his hands. His calloused, cynical expression softened into a calm, admiring one.

Before Roman could stop himself, he swam to Logan and gave him a peck on his exposed widow’s peak.

He then cupped Logan’s cheek and smiled wider. “I hope that suffices as a worthy reply to your rose.”

Logan glanced down, a small smile quirking his lips as he flipped his hair back-- then Roman could barely react to the new feeling of Logan’s lips on his.

The edges of Roman’s smile curled up before he melted into the moment, Logan’s tangy softness taking over all his senses. He released Logan's cheek and wrapped his arms around Logan’s shoulders to pull him closer. Logan followed, wrapping his arms around Roman's waist.

The kiss ended what seemed like years after as Logan pulled away, his eyes fluttering in that pleasing way only kisses could spur on.

Roman, despite still being above the water, wanted to submerge himself inside this moment forever.

“Hey there, kiddos,” a voice dripping with uncomfort echoed. “Uh, bad time for a five-minute supper warning, huh?”

Logan and Roman yelped at the interruption, separating and turning to face the awkwardly grinning Patton standing at the foot of the pool.

“Thank you for the warning, Pat!” Roman took all his remaining energy to act as normal as possible while still being drunk from the kiss. “We’ll be there soon.”

Patton nodded and quickly dismissed himself, sinking out.

Roman turned to Logan and broke out in laughter.

Logan joined in, and soon, both of them couldn’t stop laughing as they bobbed in the water.

Roman then lifted himself up onto the pool’s wall and sat on its tiles, spilling water everywhere around him. He raised his hand out to Logan and beamed.

“You coming, nerd?”

Logan put his glasses back on before he grabbed onto Roman’s hand.

“Sure am, prep.”

Roman tugged Logan out of the water and watched as Logan sat next to him, grasping the rose and offering it to him once more.

“I now accept your rose,” Roman cooed, taking it from Logan and taking a brief whiff before sending it off to his room.

Logan then summoned two towels, brandished with their respective logos, to dry off with. They both wrapped the towels across their shoulders and stood to make their way to dinner.

But before they left, Roman gave Logan a small smooch on the lips and grasped onto his hand again.

Logan’s lips turned upward with his own foolish, lovesick smile.

Two sugary desserts, a takeout spaghetti dinner, five gifts, a boyfriend, and three kisses? Roman tallied.

Best. Birthday. Ever.

—

[annabethbreakstherules]

OUAT and why “mystery box” narratives are doomed to fail

Once Upon a Time premiered on Oct 23, 2011 to 12.9 million viewers and fairly positive reviews from critics who praised the performances of the main cast, the surprisingly complex and interesting takes on storybook characters, and the impressive special effects. This quote from the Wikipedia page essentially summarized what was so compelling about the show (and hints at ultimately why it failed):

“‘Rick Porter gave the pilot praise for bringing together the central theme, saying "No other new show this fall is attempting to tell a bigger story, and we're hoping the rough patches smooth out and it fulfills the potential that's there in its very strong cast and premise.’”

Once wasn’t unique for its fairytale remixes, which was also being done concurrently for a time on NBC’s Grimm, but for it’s intrigue and mystery. Emma Swan is pulled into the uncanny world of Storybrooke and into a scheme much bigger and more complicated than she could imagine.

Premiering a year after the controversial Lost finale, OUAT was propped up as the next project from Lost producers Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, promising a series built on unknowns and mysteries that unravel as time goes on. The first season utilizes the Enchanted Forest to give the audience hints and clues that line up with discoveries Emma makes in the town in the real world. It’s laden with pockets of missing information that get revisited and stories told out of order to better serve the overall narrative. It works. The first season was critically and commercially successful, pulling audiences in the 12-9 million range in the Sunday night slot. However, as time went on and the show unfolded, things changed and the show declined in viewership and quality. A lot of the qualms with the latter season of the show stem from the fact that from the second half of season 3 onward it essentially became a weekly hour long commercial for Disney properties, with the recent or upcoming films and their characters being woven into the story. Certainly this is likely true as the show originally so compelling for its unique take on characters that challenged their pervasive PG interpretations but also didn’t simply turn to the original Brother’s Grimm tales. However, this shift is storytelling is a side effect of the larger problem the show faced that it failed to overcome, ultimately ensuring its eventual downfall.

OUAT was sold as a mystery box show, but it ended as your average villain of the season supernatural/fantasy show bogged down by Disney and recycled plots. No matter what direction this show took, because of the original premise being rooted in a mystery box plot, like the previous project the show runners worked on, it was bound to come in contact with narrative problems. 

Part 1: The JJ Abrams and the Lost finale of it all

What exactly is a “mystery box”? Here is a link to a TedTalk where Abrams himself describes the concept: https://www.ted.com/talks/j_j_abrams_the_mystery_box?language=en 

Essentially, he breaks down the power of mystery and specifically how his conception of mysteries and the unknown as opportunities for incredible feats of human imagination factored into the creation of Lost, where the first two episodes, which he wrote and shot with Damon Lindelof in the span of 11 weeks and set up a bunch of questions that end up driving the plot of the subsequent episodes and seasons. In his TedTalk, Abrams talks about how mystery boxes stand in for unknowns that when revealed, often lead to much broader and deeper truths that speak to things bigger than the narrative itself. This was supposedly the idea behind Lost. 

However, this didn’t end up being the reality. Abrams exited the show in the third season and (allegedly) pretty much left the new showrunners and writers room with little idea of what was inside the mystery box he’d set up. Thus, it was up to people who didn’t create the show to guide it through three more seasons and attempt to land a satisfying ending. The details of the finale aren’t important, what matter is that it came with a lot of controversy. Fans found it confusing or unsatisfying and felt it ultimately failed to provide good answers to the questions it set up. While not relevant to this story, Abram’s handling of the Star Wars sequel trilogy suggest a pattern of setting up a mystery box he doesn’t intend to answer himself (and then fumbling when he attempts to solve the equations he wrote). 

Opinions on the finale have changed over time, but in 2011, just a year after the show had concluded, ABC and Kitsis and Horowitz were very aware of the precarious view many people had of the show’s conclusion. With OUAT, ABC was clearly trying to recapture the magic of Lost, where the television mystery became a massive phenomenon as people wrote think pieces and articles, tuned in every week for more clues, and talked about their theories online. They wanted another show that would keep people guessing and, therefore, encourage them to discuss it publicly and drum up more interest. However, they knew they couldn’t afford to fumble the bag this time and risk alienating people who were unsatisfied with Lost, but had enough good faith to give the show a chance. Kitsis and Horowitz saddled themselves with this task, despite likely having no real idea how to best address the problems Lost had. The concept of “the mystery box” was championed by Abrams and he had yet to really prove a mastery over the thing he created. This motivated the decision making behind the structure of the show for better or for worse. 

Part 2: Looking inside the box too soon 

Lost was built on the question of what exactly was going on with the island and whether or not the people on it could escape. OUAT was built on the question of what was going on in Storybrooke and what it had to do with Henry’s book of fairytales. The Enchanted Forest identities of Storybrooke citizens, who cast the curse, and how to break it were shrouded in mystery and slowly revealed through flashbacks and Emma’s own investigation.  It was pretty compelling TV that provided a few good gasp worthy reveals over the course of the season. It all built towards the final reveal that Emma was the Savior, the fabled hero of the Enchanted Forest, the daughter of Snow and Charming, and that True Love’s Kiss is the way to break the curse. The curse is lifted and everyone regains their memories. The mystery is solved. And therein lies the problem. 

The entire marketing campaign around the show either capitalized on the fairy tale aspect of the show or the mystery, usually both. Every episode trailer was about what information the flashbacks would reveal next, what new characters we might meet, what we might learn about characters we already knew, and what Emma and Henry would learn about Storybrooke itself. The genre of the first season of the show is obviously a mystery and a good one with several branches that, while connected, all had their own unique and complex answers or causes. The majority of these questions were answered in the season finale, which seemed an odd move from the network and producers who brought audiences the six season long Lost, where even in the finale things were left unanswered. 

It’s clear ABC and the showrunners wanted to capitalize on the success of the show while also trying to rectify the problems that had plagued it. One of the reasons the finale to Lost was likely going to be unsatisfying to many no matter what it contained, was that the show had simply been on for long and there was so much speculation and hype about how it would end that there was no way anything they could write would live up to fan expectations. Additionally, over the course of six season, plot holes began to build up that one two-part finale could never hope to make sense of. That’s the burden of putting long narrative mysteries on TV, they’re hard to land. This is why we’ve seen many shows that revolved around mysteries or crimes turn to the anthology format where every season poses a new question that is solved in a limited amount of episodes. This was likely the intent behind “looking inside the mystery box” at the end of OUAT’s first season; it was better to present a coherent and condensed mystery narrative than drag it out and risk creating a mountain of contradictions. This isn’t a terrible call, especially because Kitsis and Horowitz and their writers delivered on the promises they set up and presented great characters. It was a great set of 22 episodes. Had the show ended after 1 season, there would be little to talk about, it might even be regarded as one of the most competent mystery shows ever to air on a major network. However, the problem doesn’t lie in the first season, but what comes after it. 

Part 3: What happens now? 

OUAT managed to pull off a feat that should not have been possible considering the circumstances. After solving most of the mysteries that drove the plot and made the show interesting in season 1, they somehow managed to pull of a second season that didn’t drastically decrease in quality. In fact, on Rotten Tomatoes, season 2 has the highest critic and audience scores. The team behind the show had left just one stone unturned in the final episode of season one: what was the ultimate fate of the Enchanted Forest after the curse? 

The dual settings of the storybook land and the town had never collided. The showrunners took advantage of this and capitalized on the new dynamic of Emma going to the Enchanted Forest. Suddenly, in addition to the flashbacks that continued to flesh out recurring and new characters and the going-ons of Storybrooke, Emma’s adventures in the present of the Enchanted Forest became a third arm to the narrative. The show was still pretty exciting and had some fun twists and turns, but it was fundamentally different. It was no longer about small town social politics, intrigue, and putting together the pieces of a past in a magical world that how somehow leaked into reality. While the show had always been based in fantasy, the mystery kept it grounded. The second season launched it full speed into the fantastical and committed itself to being a strictly fantasy show. Regina remained a prominent antagonist, but the new villain was her mother, Cora, who became the first in a long series of villains who stayed around for a half to a whole season before either being defeated or fading into the shadow of a new big bad. There was no longer a larger ultimate goal the show was heading towards as it had been in its first season. The show’s identity had completely changed and this created a lot of problems.

Part 4: A wuick summary of the decline

The first season was fairly streamlined with each episode serving a clear purpose in pushing the mystery forward, with the new goal being to simply defeat the new bad guy, filler episodes began to crop up with some frequency as the writers tried to shoehorn in as many fairy tale characters as they possibly could. The flashbacks also began to double back. In order to line up with the new big bad narratives each season, the backstories of many characters had things retroactively inserted into them that didn’t really line up with what the audience already knew of the characters. 

The writers also kept trying to chase the magic of the first season, introducing new curse after new curse and continually undoing Regina’s character development to keep her as a constant antagonist. The show had nowhere to go, so the writers began throwing things at the wall and seeing what stuck. There was time travel and rewriting the past, there were other fantasy worlds where characters from other public domain stories that weren’t traditional fairy tales lived. The show ultimately did a soft reboot and basically recreated the storyline of the first season in the final season with Henry taking up Emma’s mantle of main investigator. And it was all...pretty lackluster. 

However, the biggest downfall of the show came in season 4. Season 3b had seen the writers managed to weave in Oz, which was featured because of the upcoming Disney flop Oz the Great and Powerful, and create a moderately interesting character and plot through the introduction of Zelena. This seemed to embolden them, because, whether forced by ABC and Disney execs or inspired by the massive commercial success of the film, a Frozen plotline was introduced. This wouldn’t have been too terrible had they not ripped the character designs and stories directly from the film itself. With Oz they’d put their own spin on the world, but Elsa and Anna received no such treatment. They were simply carbon copies of their film counterparts, which felt wildly out of place in a world where Peter Pan was Rumplestiltkin’s father and Prince Charming had an evil twin brother. Viewership began to decline in earnest over the fourth season, yet the writers never really learned their lesson, with most new introductions to the show being fairly similar to their previous appearances in films. 

The show had the benefit of continued good performances and the foundations of good characters. They also chose not to introduce a true love interest for Emma until the second season and didn’t begin to develop their relationship until the third. Their continued success hinged fairly squarely on the shoulders of shippers who cared more about Captain Swan than the actual narrative of the show. 

The turn to weak season to season plots was ultimately what hurt OUAT as the writers clearly ran out of viable ideas long before the show ended. This turn was ultimately necessitated when the show continued to be renewed despite having fulfilled its premise so early on. 

Part 5: Conclusion and the future fate of “mystery box” shows

Lost was fresh and unique and exciting when it premiered; there was really nothing else like it on TV. The desire to recapture what Lost did continues to this day (see NBC’s Manifest feat. OUAT alum Josh Dallas). However, should Lost be something writers try to recreate? The show had mass popularity, but the finale can routinely be found on lists of worst TV finales or TV finales that ruined shows along with the likes of Dexter and Game of Thrones. Lost ultimately failed to deliver on its promises. Some fans may enjoy the ending now or have come to understand it after rewatching the show a few times, but its still pretty controversial, enough so that pretty much every anniversary of the finale is marked by interviews with the cast and crew and articles about whether the ending worked or not. A successful mystery story shouldn’t leave audiences wondering if the mystery was actually solved. 

OUAT certainly doesn’t have the fanfare surrounding it as its predecessor. The show croaked to a finish in 2018 with a fraction of the viewership it had in its first season. OUAT had a really strong first season, proving that mystery box narratives can work in an episodic structure and come to a satisfying end. However, the problem was that the show continued on past that, shedding its mystery identity for a time and then desperately trying to go back to it when things began to turn. 

The show pretty strongly supports the thesis that mystery box shows might only work for one season. If stretched for too many seasons they either become extremely convoluted and impossible solve in a way that the audience will understand and enjoy or eventually have to solve the mystery and shift to a new structure to stay fresh (see Westworld which somehow manages to do both). Anthology mystery shows seem to have the right idea. However, what OUAT proved is that when a mystery box has a planned answer, they make for good television with satisfying payoff. 

This isn’t to say OUAT couldn’t have continued on extending the mystery of the original curse into more seasons. I see a world where it could’ve occupied a majority of the second season, with more questions being raised. However, OUAT suffered under network and showrunner fears of repeating mistakes. Drawing out a mystery over multiple seasons hadn’t, so they shied away from that. The premise of OUAT was brilliant and interesting, capitalizing on past trends while also adding a the new element of fairy tales; this brilliant premise and strong mystery was ultimately its downfall. Like many shows that were once Tumblr darlings, OUAT has some of the best seasons of television early on, but now many former fans are embarrassed to have been associated with it. The puzzle was completed too soon, yet fans wanted more content. The result was lazy and lackluster storytelling that have greatly tarnished the initial success and genius of the show. 

[jbuffyangel]

Bigger Than The Friggin Universe: Arrow 7x22 Review (You Have Saved This City)

This one was hard to write. 

Goodbyes are always difficult, but when it’s goodbye to someone or something you love it’s particularly hard. I love Felicity Smoak. I love Olicity. I know you do as well. They are the reason we watch. Arrow delivered a spectacular season finale that felt like a series finale and it will be for some of you. 

Most importantly, they paid tribute to the character and love story that changed the show forever. Buckle up my friends and bring the tissues. This will be a long one. Felicity Smoak and Emily Bett Rickards deserve no less.

Let’s dig in…

Olicity, Original Team Arrow, Flash Forwards, and the Glorious Felicity Smoak

Changing up the format because this is going be a big smorgasbord of feels. I can’t think in sections because the writers just dropped kicked my heart into oblivion.

It’s all about the last twenty minutes right? Right. So let’s get to it. Honestly, I revved myself up for this episode. I was ready to go.

As if pure commitment to power through could protect me from the painful onslaught of emotions Stephen Amell and Emily Bett Rickards were about to bestow upon my soul. 

I was a fool. Nothing could prepare me for the last twenty minutes.

But then “You Have Saved This City” started moving fast. Like really fast. I blinked and we had blown through 35 minutes. I barely knew what happened! Oliver saved the city... I guess? 

It’s amusing we focused on this single goal for so long and once achieved it felt kind of... perfunctory. 

Saving the Star City was a plot point we were just waiting for the writers to pull the friggin trigger on and we knew they never would until the end. 

Arrow is a lot of things, but there’s never a lack of action in the series finale. It’s often incredibly frustrating because hugely important Olicity scenes are regulated to less than five minutes because ACTION.

“You Have Saved This City” was different. It felt like the writers were rushing through the episode to get to the Olicity scenes. They breezed past Oliver beating Emiko and The Ninth Circle. Those ungrateful twats known as the Star City Police Department and their equally annoying cohorts the citizens of Star City finally figured out Oliver is a good guy. The scene they pieced it all together though took less than three minutes. 

The writers wanted to focus on the emotional beats of the story because this was really their last chance to do so. Go big or go home. Fine with me.

It was great, but I started to panic. REALLY PANIC. The episode was moving waaaaaay too fast. This meant I had to say goodbye soon to a character I adore and a love story I have spent obscene amounts of time writing about. I wasn’t ready, but I was never going to be.

Oliver and Felicity tell the team they are going to leave Star City for a little while. The fact the city is safe and under the team’s protection is the reason they feel like they can leave. 

Source:  littlegirlinvisible

True, but also some nutcase from the Ninth Circle named Beatrice is still gunning for them. Who the fuck is Beatrice? Eh. Forget it. I don’t care.

The team ends the way it began with Oliver, Felicity and Diggle.  

Source: @plotbunnyshipper

Even though Original Team Arrow doesn’t get the focus and screen time we crave, they are and will always be the show. The chemistry between Stephen Amell, Emily Bett Rickards, and David Ramsey was discovered as Season 1 evolved. 

Arrow struggled to find its footing in the first season and it took many episodes for the writers to hit their groove with OTA, but ultimately they found the right path. 

Source: Paige

Original Team Arrow is the gravity which kept the show centered. Diggle talks about the legacy of heroes Oliver launched, but in truth it is the legacy THEY launched.

Source: Paige 

This is the moment I started to lose it because it didn’t feel like Diggle, Oliver and Felicity talking. It felt like David, Stephen and Emily. The lines between real and fiction began to blur as these actors said goodbye to Emily/Felicity and to the team they formed both on and off the camera. 

Source: Paige 

Stephen is wrecked. He giving it his all to hold it together and failing miserably. You aren’t the one leaving man! You still have another ten episodes to do with David! Honestly, though is anyone surprised? No. Stephen is the fuzzy marshmallow of this group. Don’t let the abs fool you. He is powerless against the power of Felicity Smoak and Emily Bett Rickards.

Oliver/Stephen, Diggle/David, Emily/Felicity also say goodbye the way they began. Original Team Arrow officially formed in Season 1 Episode 14 “The Odyssey.” Oliver Queen’s story, particularly in Season 1, was shaped from Homer’s Odyssey and this is the not remotely subtle nod. Moira shoots “The Hood” and Oliver turns to Felicity for help. She brings him home to The Foundry, to Diggle, and they work desperately to save Oliver’s life.

Felicity is overwhelmed by the blood and is deeply concerned she and John are Oliver’s only option for medical assistance. Diggle has seen a lot of war and trauma. He’s trained for this. Well mostly. There’s a moment when he reaches out to grab Felicity’s hand to reassure her. John’s other hand is keeping pressure on Oliver’s wound flat against his chest and close to the heart. I’ve often called Original Team Arrow the heartbeat of the show and this is the moment their perfect circuit formed.

Source: arrowdaily

David Ramsey honors that iconic moment by reaching for Emily’s hand across Stephen’s shoulders and placing his other hand on Stephen’s chest, right against his heart. This is the bond that brought the show together and held it together for the last seven years. Original Team Arrow is front and center in the home and legacy they built. Losing Emily and Felicity’s character means saying goodbye to the entity this trio formed through their wit, love, chemistry and loyalty. Stephen and Emily pretty much lost it then and there and I was right there with them.

I wrote this way back in Season 3:

Each member and relationship is a beat of this heart. Diggle is a beat. Oliver is a beat. Felicity is a beat. Their relationships with one another: Diggle and Oliver, Oliver and Felicity, Felicity and Diggle, and of course the trio, are beats as well. When we remove one of these characters or relationships the rhythm of the show is changed.

It’s unfathomable to imagine the show without all three and yet this is where we’re headed. All I know for certain is next season Arrow’s heartbeat will be irregular. It will be an echo.

Source: arrowdaily 

Felicity/Emily tries to comfort Oliver/Stephen by holding his arm tight and gently nuzzling his shoulder. 

Source: arrowdaily

(Because it’s bad y’all. Number One on the call sheet is going down by the head! MAYDAY MAY DAY!)  Felicity has an entire relationship with Oliver’s shoulder. 

This is incredibly well documented. Whenever she grabs on to his arm and kisses his shoulder it feels like she’s an anchor trying to hold a ship steady. Oliver is home and Felicity will sail with him anywhere. And he will sail steady with her by his side. It always reminds me of a line from Message in a Bottle, “A harbor where I am forever home.”

Source: arrowdaily

Felicity and Diggle disperse and Oliver is left alone in the bunker 

Source: arrowdaily 

just like he began, but worlds away from the person he used to be.  

He came back from Lian Yu broken and completely shut down emotionally, but it was through the unconditional love of these two people that Oliver’s soul was saved and he found his way truly home. The city is finally at peace because Oliver is at peace. Their journeys were always one in the same.

Source: arrowdaily 

I’ve always said Oliver Queen is like the sun Star City revolves around. His light ultimately saved the city. 

But now Oliver is leaving, and unbeknownst to him, it will be for 20 years. Star City will fall again in that time. When Oliver leaves he takes the light with him. The bunker going dark is an ominous foreshadow for the future.

Source: arrowdaily 

Diggle brings Mr. and Mrs. Smoak to the love cabin where they will bring their child into this world. 

Source: legends-of-today

The Ninth Circle is still gunning for them. We receive no other explanation other than Emiko made sure Oliver’s family will die. Oooookay then. Hiding it is! The truly bizarre piece of Season 7 is we knew exactly where Olicity was headed for a long time, but seeing it all play out is no less painful… or wonderful.

John brings them to the safest neighborhood in the world – it’s filled with ex CIA, ex ARGUS and ex. Listen, this ain’t nothin’. I grew up next door to a cop. It was fantastic. 

The Olicity love nest is one big safe house hand chosen by the man who loves and ships them the best. Oliver keeps insisting it’s only temporary despite the Ivy Town like bliss and complete military protection surrounding them. Ugh, my sweet summer child. The more you say “temporary” the more it becomes anything but. Can someone please explain the rules of television to my son? Thanks.

Source: Paige 

Oliver lets it slip they are having a baby girl and Felicity follows up with the name. Olicity bursting with excitement to tell John Diggle about The Princess That Was Promised is so on brand. He practically willed this kid into existence and no one understands that better than Oliver and Felicity. Diggle is appropriately jazzed. Representing the fandom to the bitter end!

But can we talk about this gender reveal though? This means at some point during all the crazy Oliver and Felicity had an ultrasound AND THEY DIDN’T SHOW US.

I accepted no triplets. I think I’m handling it pretty damn well don’t you think? But I draw the line at missing the ultrasound. We had time to listen Dinah bitch about her job 34,234 times this season, but there was no time to show the ultrasound???!!!! 

My head canon is Oliver was late and had to show up to the appointment in the Green Arrow suit.

This also means Felicity is around the 18 – 20 week mark. I don’t know if this actually tracks because I don’t want to do math. I am simply accepting it as fact. I might be dating myself though. It’s been 12 years since I popped out a kid and maybe you can find out gender sooner than 20 weeks. 

Source: Paige 

Felicity isn’t showing too much yet, but every woman is different. That’s probably just lunch. Also have you seen her abs? ANYWAYS IT DOESN’T MATTER BECAUSE THEY ARE HAVING A GIRL, HER NAME IS MIA AND JOHN DIGGLE KNOWS.

The city is saved so John tells these two crazy kids to focus on their family. Can I just say no one has actually qualified why the city is suddenly saved other than for the team declaring it so, but whatever they are giving me an Olicity love cabin. 

I am perfectly content with it because it’s what Oliver and Felicity deserve. Star City can go screw themselves.

We get our Delicity moment. It feels like Marc, Beth and the writers came up with an “Emily Bett Rickards Is Leaving the Show” To Do list to make sure I didn’t riot outside their houses. This was a wise plan. I commend them for it.

The truth is we never get enough Delicity. It’s one of Arrow’s great failings. Hell, we can summarize the whole problem as not enough John Diggle. The ONLY positive I see out of Season 8 is maybe this man will finally get a storyline, but I’m getting ahead of myself. 

Source: Paige 

Anywho, Felicity is preggo, emotional and hiding away with her husband in a love cabin for at least the next four months, so she gushes to John about how much she loves him and how he will always be family. Then Delicity gets their hug on. 

Source: Paige 

STAHP. I JUST REGAINED COMPOSER.

Oliver and Diggle’s brotherhood and friendship has always been more of a focus than John’s relationship with Felicity, but that doesn’t mean he is any less her brother too. He has protected Felicity and offered her wise Yoda advice particularly when it came to Oliver and she needed it most. 

And Felicity has given John the same love and friendship in return. Diggle and Felicity are their own precious beat in this show.

The hardest part of Season 7 was seeing the strain in their friendship. Diggle refusing to help Felicity free Oliver still enrages me and I don’t think the writers gave the characters an adequate amount of screen time to repair that damage. But it doesn’t erase the last seven years between these two. Families disagree, fight and disappoint each other all the time. It doesn’t mean you stop being family. John had Felicity’s back in the end and if she can forgive him then so can I.

This cracked me up. 

Source: Paige 

These dudes still have ten more episodes together. Nobody is getting teary yet.

Olicity is finally alone after John leaves and Oliver is looking at his wife like a snack.

Damn. This blows @callistawolf​’s holiday in Aruba, and my personal head canon, to smithereens. However, we rebound nicely because Oliver Queen aka The Sex God has exactly one thing on his mind. Never change your priorities dude because they are on point.

Source: olicitygifs 

I remember in the early days of Arrow when sex scenes made me want to claw my eyes out because he slept with every female other than Felicity the first two seasons. 

But then the glorious Season 3 happened, we met Celibate Oliver and then THIS HAPPENED:

Oliver channeling all his sexual energy into one woman the last four years is character evolution I am here for. I’m also here for pregnant belated honeymoon sex. HAVE AT IT KIDS. 

Oh man! I don’t get to watch? Arrow continually stomping on my voyeuristic needs is really not cool. What the hell do they think television is for anyways?

They fade out from the kiss and I swear to God I yelled, “DO A MONTAGE!” and y’all THEY DID. Most of the time when I yell things at this show I am ignored, but every once in awhile they do the thing I ask. 

I had very few expectations going into 7x22. I write the occasional fic, but I’m really bad at coming up with things I want Olicity to do (other than sex) or words to say. The best moments on the show for me and the lines I love the most are the ones I can’t come up with. I didn’t have any expectations for a montage and it was everything I could have hoped for and more.

It felt like a truncated Ivy Town only better. 

Oliver and Felicity’s time in Ivy Town was idyllic because they left the insanity of Star City behind and lost themselves in each other. But there were cracks in the relationship even then. Their time in Bloomfield is much different. Oliver and Felicity have been through the good and the bad in their relationship. They’ve seen the worst and the best in each other. They found a way to be heroes and build a family together. Oliver and Felicity choose each other.

If their choice is the tree then this montage is the fruit it bears. My father said in his toast on my wedding day that a marriage is built in the quiet and simple moments. These are Oliver and Felicity’s quiet and simple moments. 

Source:  olicitygifs

They share a peaceful night enjoying being in each other’s company, rocking in chairs on the porch, under the stars, discussing anything and everything.

They take a stroll in the backyard with sweet baby Mia. 

Oliver lifts his baby girl high in the sky and is the picture of perfect happiness. 

Source:  olicitygifs 

This is the life Oliver never thought he’d have. It was the quiet dream he kept to himself alone in that bunker, night after night, resigned to his fate.

Arrow is a story about a man learning how to live again and this is Oliver Queen truly living. 

Source:  olicitygifs 

He falls asleep peacefully with his daughter safely tucked in his arms, happily cooing as he slumbers. (This is a factual representation of parenthood btw). 

When Oliver returned from Lian Yu his home was a stranger to him and the horrors of the five years away followed him into his dreams. Sleep was as evasive as peace.

Bloomfield isn’t the city Oliver grew up in and the Queen mansion dwarfs this cabin, but it doesn’t matter because Felicity is home. She is the reason Oliver faced his nightmares, forgave himself, and stopped merely surviving while he waited for death. Felicity Smoak gave Oliver a reason to live. She pushed her way through all the darkness, so his light could shine through. And their love created more reasons to live.

Source:  olicitygifs 

Oliver returned from Lian Yu to fight a war not just in the city, but within him.  He fought, clawed, bled and sacrificed his way to heroism while losing nearly everyone he ever loved along the way. Oliver has no superpowers. He became a weapon by sheer force of will.  Lian Yu burned everything he was to the ground and from the ashes he rose. Oliver’s pain molded him into someone else… something else.

But being a vigilante wasn’t enough. Two separate personas weren’t enough. Cutting himself off from his humanity wasn’t enough. Oliver needed to be more… so much more. He had to merge the darkness and the light, the man and mask. Sometimes the only way out is through. Oliver fought his battles and won not just by surviving, but by embracing life. And life to Oliver Queen is Felicity Smoak.

Oliver’s catalytic moment is his father’s death, but he was so short sighted about what his father was asking of him. 

This was always about more than Oliver righting Robert’s wrongs. This was always about more than a list or villains or even the city. Before he took his own life to save his son, Robert asked Oliver to be a better man. But the person Robert imagined wasn’t the Green Arrow. The man Robert imagined was this:

Source:  olicitygifs 

This man doesn’t happen without Felicity Smoak. Oliver saved the city, built a legacy, and became everything his father asked of him because of her. Felicity’s love gave Oliver the courage to open up his heart again after everything he suffered. Her compassion helped Oliver forgive himself. Her belief made Oliver believe he could someone he never imagined.

Sometimes even superheroes need to be saved. Felicity is Oliver’s hero. She saw the best in him. She harnessed his light.  Felicity was his path from purgatory to peace.  Love was the way through. And now he’s here. Oliver Queen is every bit the man Robert asked him to be and every bit the man Felicity Smoak deserves.

The road was long, painful, filled with loss and mistakes, but the man I glimpsed when he smiled at beautiful computer tech is here. 

I couldn’t connect with Oliver until he met Felicity Smoak. When he smiled I remember thinking, “Oh there you are Oliver.” And this is the man I saw in that smile. This is who he was meant to become. We’ve waited seven long years, but Oliver Queen is finally home. The dream foreshadowed all those years ago came true.

Source: feilcityqueen

And he’s about to be torn from it again. Even though I know this separation is coming nothing can prepare me for the pain. That said, Arrow isn’t known for their subtle and before they rip my heart out the writers give us hope. The montage began with Oliver and Felicity sitting on the porch with two candles flickering between them 

Source:  olicitygifs 

and it ends with two candles as Oliver and Felicity prepare to sit down to dinner.

Source: Paige 

Twin Flames.

We can have more than one soul mate, but we can only have one twin flame. A twin flame is one soul in two bodies. We are fated to meet this person and when it happens it is like coming home. There’s a ying and yang balance and even though twin flames seem like opposites they are really the same deep down.

Twin flames come in and out of each other’s lives and the relationship can often be tumultuous. However, separation is an illusion because their shared soul will keep them linked forever.  Twin flame energy inevitably leads to reunion and the souls will join together in perfect unconditional love.

SOUND FAMILIAR?!!!!

This isn’t the first time two candles have been used to represent twin flames. Oliver and Felicity declared their love and slept together for the first time just before being separated forever. 

We know Olicity is about to be torn apart again and for a much longer period of time. However, the flicker of the twin flames is light in the dark. It is hope in despair. Oliver and Felicity are one soul in two bodies. There is no separation for any length of time or distance which will ever distinguish their love. Their reunion is inevitable. They are meant to be together. It’s fate.

But first they have to separate. 

Oliver hears a noise, grabs a knife and brandishes it against The Monitor’s throat in a stellar parallel to Mia doing the same to Felicity in “Star City 2040.” 

Source: ebett

The Monitor doesn’t have to say a word. Oliver knows immediately why he’s there. It’s heartbreaking because he thought he had more time.

I think Oliver saw the newspaper heading of The Flash’s disappearance at some point and figured he had at least until 2024. Due to some shenanigans on The Flash which I won’t get into other than IT’S ALL BARRY’S FAULT (well his daughter too, but mostly Barry), “Crisis” is happening sooner. 

It’s bad enough Oliver is sacrificing his happiness to save Barry and Kara, but now that speeding disaster zone of a human being stole an additional five years from him. Five precious years.

Oliver didn’t know the exact terms of the bargain he made with The Monitor at the time, but he’s informed he has to go save the multiverse. Or whatever. Yes, Felicity knew about the deal. He told her. That’s not something I even worried about while watching.

Source: Paige 

The Monitor also tells Oliver he’s going to die while trying to stop the inevitable. Nice. This guy is a real charmer.  The least he could have done is offer another bottle of wine before he obliterates Oliver and Felicity’s entire life.

Now, before anyone freaks, the rules of television explicitly state that when the writers say a character is going to die they are NOT going to die. The more this show talks about Oliver dying the better you should feel. IT AIN’T HAPPENING FAM.

Felicity ain’t having any of this. 

Source: Paige 

She protectively steps in front of her husband and tells The Monitor to go screw himself. THATTA GIRL BABY GIVE HIM HELL! Felicity giving zero fucks about saving Barry, Kara or the universe is such a big mood.

The Monitor assures Felicity he’s not going to harm either her or their daughter. MIA IS TOO IMPORTANT. Hahaha raise that neon spin off sign a little higher executive producers. Mars can’t see it yet.

Source: Paige 

It’s cool and all that The Monitor isn’t going to kill Felicity and Mia (thanks?) but it doesn’t really solve her Oliver problem. Felicity doesn’t give a crap about the spin off because she won’t be in it. The spin off can go screw itself just like Barry, Kara and the universe. NOBODY IS TAKING HER HUSBAND. 

Source: Paige 

He’s Felicity’s twin-flame-superhero-sex-god-father-of-her-children-chef-extraordinaire. Do you know how hard it is to find a man who cooks like Oliver who also looks like Oliver? I guarantee there isn’t another man like him in the multiverse. This poor man’s version of Thanos can fuck off.

Oliver, because he’s superhero Jesus now, gently tries to convince Felicity to back off. 

Source: Paige 

Hahaha, that’s cute. It’s never gonna happen big boy. Your woman is fierce. Remember when she slipped you a Mickey post coital to smuggle you out of Nanda Parbat? I do. It was awesome.  Speaking of, thirsty Oliver?

Source: blakelivey 

OMG YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SO MUCH TRUTH!!!!

B*rry causes 99.9999999% of the problems in the DC Universe and suffers about 0. 0000001% of the consequences. In fact, Oliver suffers more from things B*rry does than B*rry ever has. A little death would be good for the kid. Consider it a growing experience. The world will be just FINE. Better even because we won’t have B*rry All*n jerking the timeline around. Diggle might get to keep all the kids he and Lyla have. The Flush deserves every bit of this comeuppance Oliver Queen. STAND ASIDE AND LET IT HAPPEN.

What about Kara?

She’s a lovely person, but I don’t watch her show anymore and my kid likes Hermione better now anyway. I am completely comfortable hanging her out to dry as long as Olicity gets to live their life in peace and happiness- even if it’s for a short period of time.

What about the universe?

Eh. Let the world hang Oliver. It’s cool man.  I’m about 51% sure I’ll go to heaven. Purgatory is for sure, so let’s roll the dice. Go sit down on the porch with your wife, raise your baby for the few months left, and we’ll all go out together in a blaze of glory. If you are taking requests because the world is ending then I would appreciate one more sex scene. Thanks buddy.

Source: blakelivey 

Honestly, the little headshake Oliver does when Felicity asks why it always has to be him says it all. Oliver has no answer for why the world is constantly screwing him over. So he slept with someone’s sister. Yeah, I know that was bad, but the man watched his father blow his brains out, was tortured multiple times, has been nearly killed every day for the last ten years, watched countless people he loves die, suffered a romantic horror show with L*urel, and put up with the Newbies & their bullshit for the last three years. Oliver has suffered enough.

Unfortunately, the Monitor tells Oliver he can save not only the lives of millions, but Felicity, William and Mia’s lives too. Damn it. Of course, he’s gonna go now. Even if he was comfortable letting the world go up in smoke (which I know he’s not) Oliver is not about to let his wife and children die.

Ruelle is playing and Oliver is walking into Mia’s nursery. Shiiiiiiiit.  This is going to rip out my heart. WHY CAN’T I EVER GET OBSESSED WITH A COMEDY?

I don't want to know Who we are without each other It's just too hard I don't want to leave here without you I don't want to lose part of me

Oliver is already crying, which means I am already crying. DID YOU HEAR THAT LYRIC? I think the only thing worse than Ruelle would be Sarah McLachlan at this point. These writers watched Buffy and it shows.

Source: olivergifs

Oliver looks into the crib at his perfect baby girl who is kicking, gurgling and not sleeping (factual representation of babies). He whispers “hey” the same way he’d whisper it to her mother whenever she was scared. 

This voice was how Oliver reassured Felicity. 

For so long it was the way he would tell Felicity he loved her without saying the actual words. Oliver whispers “hey” to tell Mia she’s safe. It’s his “I love you.” He can’t say the words or he’ll never leave. Oliver whispers “hey” because he can’t say goodbye.

Felicity is understandably disillusioned with being able to have a normal life. How can they if a caped alien agathokakological being is going to snatch their happiness away at a moment’s notice? This is a fair and accurate statement given the current state of events.

But what’s normal? It’s a relative term. Nobody is really normal. Sure, on the surface people look like they are living normal, everyday existences and to some extent that is true. But everyone has something they are dealing with. The something I deal with might be on a very different scale than the something you deal with, but nobody escapes this life without suffering. Nobody. And suffering always  obliterates our normal, everyday existence.

Oliver and Felicity want to sit on the porch, drink a glass of wine and be home to put their babies to bed every night. That’s a completely reasonable desire. It should be achievable even though their night gig is masked vigilantes. For a very long time it was achievable.

And yet it’s not because they are masked vigilantes. The needs of the many will always outweigh the needs of the few. This life Oliver and Felicity have chosen comes with a lot of benefits. They have found their true purpose. They help people. Oliver and Felicity even saved a damn city full of ungrateful twats.

But no choice is free of consequence. Life as a hero requires sacrifice.  Heroes put the needs of others before themselves. It’s what makes them heroes. You don’t hear me volunteering to save the universe do you? Hell no. Let it burn man! Make your peace with God everyone! I’m ready to go! I am not Oliver Queen and Felicity Smoak.  

Bloomfield was never the permanent plan. Oliver and Felicity always planned to go back to Star City and the bunker to fight another day. Felicity continued her life as Overwatch as she raised Mia. Oliver and Felicity are their best selves as Green Arrow and Overwatch, but it comes with significant downsides like danger anger, pain, loss and sacrifice. Their selflessness is what makes them heroes, but it costs them the very happiness they desire and deserve. Heroism is a bitch.

Of course, Oliver and Felicity have suffered enough. Of course, they deserve a happily ever after without any additional pain. Of course, they deserve to raise their family together for the next twenty years. But that’s not really the story Arrow is telling.

I mean… name one horrible thing that happened to Oliver that he truly deserved? He cheated on his girlfriend with her sister. So he deserved to watch his father commit suicide? Oliver was a drunken, whoring, layabout in his twenties. So he deserved to spend five years in hell tortured, beaten, fighting for survival and separated from everyone he loves? A lunatic forces him to pick between Sara and Shado and as punishment for that choice another lunatic murders his mother and lays waste to his city? Uh sure that’s balanced. These punishments don’t fit the crime. There’s nothing about Oliver’s story that is fair. It was never about fair.

Oliver Queen is an imperfect person. He tries and fails so many times, again and again. He is the perfect example of the disaster zone human beings can be while also representing the best of who we can be. He’s a murderer and a hero. Oliver is a sinner and a saint. He is light and dark like all of us.

But what I love most about him is his resiliency. He keeps fighting no matter what life throws at him. As does Felicity.  The truth is my friends; suffering is rarely “deserved.” There seldom seems to be a balance in the cosmic scale. I’ve witnessed terrible things happen to extremely good people. The fact they are good did not serve as a protective bubble from pain, although I naively at times thought it would.

If we’re all just doomed to suffer then what’s the point of being good? Why do bad things happen to good people? I believe we have to ask the right questions first and it’s never why. If the Lord Jesus Christ came down from heaven and explained to me in detail why the twins I miscarried had to be with him and not here on Earth with me, I’d still believe his decision was crap. There is no explanation God can give me which will make me understand why I had to lose two precious children. They belong here with me. Full stop. The Lord and I will just have to agree to disagree.

Why seldom leads to any answers. The question we should ask in the face of suffering is how. How do we survive this? How do I mold my body around this pain, become someone different, but not lose my soul in the process? More often than not suffering’s intent is to bring us to our knees. We aren’t supposed to be Pollyanna, although all the power to those who can. I believe we suffer so we understand we cannot survive alone. We need love. We need to reach out and for others to reach back. We need God. That’s how we survive.

I suppose that’s why I love hero stories. They are heightened and exaggerated reflections of suffering and survival. 

We watch these characters rise above loss, pain and darkness again and again. 

Not only do they survive, 

but they become a defining example of what selflessness, sacrifice 

and compassion look like.  

It doesn’t take a psychology major to understand why a girl, who has been in and out of hospitals her whole life, loves a character who has super strength, never gets sick and slays vampires. But Buffy’s story was not without pain. It was more often than not a story about pain.

I wish I could love selfish characters. I wish I could love stories where the biggest problem is solved in twenty minutes or less. I wish I could love relationships that are smooth sailing from start to finish and live happily ever after. I wish I could love stories like that, but I can’t. 

Those stories don’t resonate with me the way stories like Oliver and Felicity Smoak do because they aren’t a reflection of life. Pain and loss are as much a part of it as joy. I want to escape from life inside a story, but I also want it to give me hope. If these characters can survive their pain then maybe I can to. But that’s just me.

All I have wanted for Oliver and Felicity is for them to be happy, but that’s a fairly broad spectrum. I truly didn’t expect the suffering to stop until the final moments of this show and we aren’t there yet. Just look back on the ebb and flow of their relationship:

Oliver tells Felicity he loves her for the first time, but she’s kidnapped by Slade as a result of the confession. 

Oliver and Felicity go out on a date and the restaurant explodes.

They have sex for the first time and are separated forever (seemingly).

Oliver and Felicity get engaged and she is shot.

They get married after nearly being killed by Nazis.

Oliver is betrayed by his team 10 minutes after their wedding reception.

William is part of their lives, but his mother is dead and he’s kidnapped on a regular basis.

Felicity is pregnant, but Oliver’s psycho sister is trying to kill them with her wacko cult.

It’s a constant carrot, stick, carrot, stick, carrot, stick process. This is Arrow and it always will be. Oliver has finally saved the city. He’s more than earned a happy life with Felicity, their daughter and son. And now he has to sacrifice it all. This is the last thing Oliver and Felicity deserve, but this is why they are heroes. This wheel will keep turning until the final minutes of the show and only then it will stop. And we aren’t at the end yet.  

All Oliver has ever wanted is to keep the people he loves safe. It’s why he wore the mask to begin with. The idea of leaving Felicity alone with their infant daughter, knowing the Ninth Circle is out there and a hundred other dangers known and unknown to them, is crushing to Oliver. Their separation while Oliver was in Slabside did serve as a trial for what was to come. They had to discover who they were without each other. Oliver didn’t lose himself in the darkness once separated from Felicity. And she did whatever was necessary to keep her and William safe.

Source: feilcityqueen 

This is why Oliver is asking Felicity to make him this promise. There is nothing more precious to him than their children. The only way he can fight for the world is because he knows Felicity will fight for William and Mia every day. She will keep them safe. Oliver questioned the decisions Felicity made while he was in prison, but now he has her back completely. He knows she is strong enough to keep this promise. 

The promise is for Felicity too. If the worst happens and Oliver dies then their children, and the promise she made him, will give Felicity the strength to keep going… to keep fighting… to keep living.

Felicity makes Oliver a promise too. 

Source: @olicitygifs​ 

There is no amount of time or distance which will ever separate her love for him. They are one soul in two bodies. 

In the movie of The Count of Monte Cristo, Edmund is unable to buy his love Mercedes an engagement ring, so she wraps a string around her finger and promises to never take it off. When they come face to face again twenty years later, and even though she is married to the man who sent him to prison, the string is still on her finger. Felicity is making the same declaration. No matter where Oliver goes she will always be his wife and her devotion will never end.

Source: @olicitygifs​

I love that Felicity tells Oliver they are the best parts of each other. We’ve focused a lot on the impact Felicity had in Oliver’s life, and it was monumental, but he changed her too. Oliver opened up Felicity’s world. She found a strength she never knew existed, a purpose worth fighting for and a love worth living for.

Love wasn’t the finish line for Oliver and Felicity. Their relationship wasn’t the reward after all the struggle and hardship. Their love was the evolution. Oliver and Felicity inspired, challenged, changed and supported each other. They became heroes together. They are unique and interesting characters separately, but together they are magic.  Olicity brings out the very best in each other, which means they are living life to the fullest. This love makes life worth living… just as Diggle promised Oliver not so long ago.

And then the mic drop.

Source: @olicitygifs​

OLICITY IS BIGGER THAN THE FRIGGIN’ UNIVERSE. 

Oliver and Felicity are the OTPs of OTPs, the ship of ships and the story of stories. Olicity set the standard at infinity. No other love story will ever come close. At least not for me.

All the sorrow, sacrifice, joy and triumphs make Oliver and Felicity’s love story EPIC. In the immortal words of Logan Echol, “Spanning years and continents. Lives ruined and bloodshed. Epic.” Maybe their life isn’t normal, but it is extraordinary. This love will conquer all no matter how long it takes.

Source: @olicitygifs​ 

Whoa. I can do twelve pages just on this statement alone. WOW. These writers love shining a beautiful bright light on Olicity while simultaneously taking a crap on L*uriver. It’s truly a gift.

I am going to take some time to discuss this because this line is incredibly important. The writers are drawing a comparison to Felicity and Oliver’s past relationships for a reason. This is a deeply profound statement as Oliver reflects on the person he used to be and the person he is today.

Oliver shut down his emotions and became The Machine to survive those five years in hell. 

He told Felicity on their first date how he wasn’t able to see the humanity in other people when he returned home. 

He had shut off everything that made him human. 

Until he walked into Felicity’s cube and she sparked the light inside him. Then everything began to change.

But it was a very slow process. When we look back at Season 1 and Oliver’s behavior, his fear of being unable to love is quite prevalent. His inability to connect is crippling to his relationships with Thea, Moira and Tommy.

It’s even worse with the women he “dated.” Oliver was going through the motions in his relationships before Felicity. It was like he was playing a part. He mimicked what a relationship was supposed to look like without ever risking real vulnerability. There’s a wall inside Oliver and nobody knows that better than him. He had sex with these women, but Oliver wasn’t truly connecting with them and he knew it. No wonder Oliver believe he’d lost the ability to love.

Yes, even with Sara. The Original Canary will always be Oliver’s “perfect on paper” love interest. She was missing everything Oliver feared about a relationship with Felicity. I’m not just talking about the danger, even though Oliver’s fear for Felicity’s safety was high on his list of concerns. 

However, Oliver’s love for Felicity was like a raw nerve. It exposed all the vulnerabilities he worked so hard to protect. It took Oliver a long time to be ready for Felicity and he fought it nearly every step of the way. Loving Felicity reopened Oliver’s humanity, but that humanity came with the flood of pain he’d been trying to keep out.

Sara was a perfect path of avoidance because she was even more screwed up than Oliver, which says A LOT. The entire focus of their relationship was Oliver saving Sara. It was all about fixing her sins and brokenness. Saving Sara meant saving himself without having to bother with all the messy, uncomfortable and painful parts of his trauma. It was like putting a Sara shaped band aid over the gushing wound of his past. Not gonna work Handsome! Oliver also believed Sara was broken because of him. She was a manifestation of all his sins.

Oliver used these relationships like a mirror to reflect all the awful things he believed about himself. He failed Helena.  He wasn’t good enough for McKenna. He destroyed Sara. And L*urel was self hatred.

Din*h L*urel L*nce. Holy hell where do we begin? Every time Oliver talks about feeling undeserving of love he is referencing his relationship with L&urel. 

Hell, he told her that in the alien dream world. Real and sustaining love brings out our best selves, so it is impossible to feel undeserving of it. If anything it feels like the love you were always meant to find.

L*urel was the person Oliver believed he should love. He felt like something was wrong with him because he didn’t. Oliver decided to blow up his life rather than have an honest conversation with L*urel about it. This was a mistake he paid for and then some, but it didn’t mean Oliver’s feelings were wrong.

When he returned from the island his pursuit of L*urel was pursuit of self hatred. It was a continual cycle of chasing after her, trying to be worthy and failing. 

L*urel never missed an opportunity to tell Oliver he is a complete waste of a human being. And then the next week she’d be batting her eyes, panting and mauling him. 

I think Oliver became addicted to the cycle. When L*urel unleashed her vitriol and rage it confirmed every awful thing Oliver believed about himself. But redemption felt possible when L*urel showered him with affection and it was almost euphoric. He was stuck in this toxic cycle with her for a very long time.

Oliver’s pursuit of L*urel in Season 1 is much like his pursuit of his mission. He is chasing an illusion of love just like crossing off names on a list gave Oliver the illusion he’s saving a city. 

The reason he always talks about feeling undeserving of love when it comes to L*urel is because Oliver knew, deep down, she was chasing an illusion too. 

He knew the man L*urel loved didn’t exist. She loved who Oliver should be and not who he was. Oliver is L*urel’s “perfect on paper” love interest, but she never looked beyond the page.

L*urel: We decided to look for apartments together. I know it’s a big step but we’re ready. I think we’ll live together for a year, engaged for another and then –

Sara: Mrs. L*urel Queen.

L*urel: Maybe one day.

When love is unconditional we feel it. When love is conditional we feel it too. The illusion L*urel loved made Oliver feel like crap. He knew he’d never measure up.

If he let L*urel see who he really was then she would see him as less than. Which is worse – someone loving you for who you’re not or someone not loving you because of who you are?  It’s a tough call. No wonder Oliver got on the boat.

Not only was Oliver feeling undeserving of love, but he also felt incapable of love. This tells you everything you need to know about L*uriver. It was never about love. 

He was going through the motions with L*urel just like every other love interest. Oliver mimicked love, but he didn’t feel it. Not the way he should and, even back then, I think he knew that on some level. He was addicted to the toxic cycle with L*urel and what he wanted, more than anything, was to fix things with her. If he fixed everything with L*urel, if she forgave him and took him back, then it was like Lian Yu never happened. Oliver earns his redemption without having to look deep inside the pain. 

And none of that has anything to do with really being in love with L*urel L*nce. Furthermore, he’d be with a person who doesn’t really love who he truly is, which is exactly the kind of love Oliver Queen believed he deserved.

Felicity Megan Smoak is the antithesis of all of this. She is the first mirror to reflect all the good things in Oliver and slowly, bit by bit, he began to believe that reflection was true. The sheer force of her goodness was like a battering ram against the wall Oliver built inside himself. She cracked him wide open and all his light began spilling out. 

All the pain came with all that humanity and it hurt a lot, but Oliver was never alone. Felicity was always by his side. Her compassion made the pain bearable. It gave Oliver the courage to show Felicity who he truly was, the good, bad and awful, and he received unconditional love in return.

She was the first person to tell Oliver he deserved more. There was one inescapable truth Oliver couldn’t ignore. Oliver believes in Felicity Smoak. She is beyond reproach. Felicity is the best of humanity in Oliver’s eyes (and he’s right).  If that is true, and Felicity loves him, then maybe Oliver isn’t as bad as he thought. Even more importantly, she loves Oliver for who he is and not in spite of who he is. This is the difference between feeling deserving and undeserving of love.

Source: @olicitygifs​ 

This is what Oliver means when he says Felicity opened up his heart in ways he never thought possible. He repeats the words Felicity said the night she told Oliver she loved him for the first time. 

Felicity didn’t tell Oliver she loved him because it was her last chance. I mean… yeah it was, but that ignores the massive shift in Oliver’s behavior in 3x20.

Thea was near death and the pain brings Oliver to his knees. Thea was all he had left of his family. She was everything Oliver worked so hard to protect and he failed. 

Instead of pushing Felicity away like he has for most of Season 3, Oliver reaches out to her. He allows Felicity to take care of him. Oliver lets Felicity love him, truly love him, in all the ways he deserves and yet so adamantly refused to accept. And of course, Felicity reaches back. She tells Oliver not only how much she loves him but the profound impact he had on her life.

And that’s the point. Somehow amidst all the pain and suffering in life there is love. We must reach for it, particularly when our world seems darkest and the pain is too much to bear. If we can have a profound impact on one person, inspire his/her best self and make his/her life better by simply being part of it then our life will resonate long after we are gone.  We all deserve unconditional love. If we have to fall to our knees to find it then so be it because it makes life survivable. It’s why life is worth living.

This is gift of Olicity. This is the lesson their story teaches us. Unconditional love seems like such a simple idea, but it isn’t. It gets lost in all the noise of anger, blame, retribution, self hatred, selfishness and indifference. This is why we need hero stories. They serve as a reminder of who we should try to be. Maybe we can’t shoot a bow and arrow like Oliver Queen or hack computers like Felicity Smoak, but we all are capable of loving like they do. Arrow may be a little television show on an almost network, but Olicity’s love is a powerful example to us all.

It’s important to note Stephen is really starting to lose it here. We’re almost at Sarah Michelle Gellar “It’s not enough time!” level hysterics. 

For the love of God someone convince Emily to stay for another 10 episodes. Amell isn’t going to make it! Me neither fam. I honestly missed 95% of this speech the first time because I was sobbing so hard. 

And then he delivers the humdinger. 

Source: @olicitygifs​ 

There are three levels to an Oliver Queen line:

1. Swoon

2. Panty Dropper

3. Cardiac Arrest

This is a hardcore Level 3. It’s been nice knowing everyone! Cause of death: My Only Regret Is Not Telling You I loved You Sooner. Damn Oliver.

Felicity Smoak may be leaving, but lines like this can keep a fandom going for twenty years. Hell we could go fifty on this one. Think of the fics, gifs, artwork, metas and fan vids we can create from this line alone!

SO WHEN WAS SOONER OLIVER? Quite frankly, we could make a strong case for 1x03. Hell, I’m willing to argue for the 3x14 flashback too. One of the first metas I ever wrote was “When Did Oliver Fall in Love with Felicity?” and to this day it’s probably the most popular article I’ve written. It is my firm belief Oliver’s journey towards realization was slow and then it happened all at once. 

This line perfectly dovetails with all those moments because the truth is there is no right answer. Felicity Smoak evolved as Oliver’s true love as the show evolved and yet it was also destiny. Talent and chemistry met opportunity. The unexpected became the plan. That’s the magic of television.

This line reminds me of one from How I Met Your Mother.

“Hi. I'm Ted Mosby. In exactly 45 days from now you and I are going to meet and we're going to fall in love and we're going to get married and we're going to have 2 kids and we're going to love them and each other so much. ... I'm always gonna love you, til the end of my days and beyond. You’ll see.”

Oliver wants those extra 45 days or six months or two years or INSERT PERSONAL TIME FRAME HEAD CANON HERE. All he wants is more time with Felicity.

Source: @olicitygifs​ 

This is tooooo muuuuuuuch! 

Stephen and Emily are shattering my soul. By the way, Oliver finally said Felicity was beautiful! This has been in the fandom’s craw for a loooooong time and IT HAPPENED. (Marc and Beth check off #232).

As much as I love this line it is extremely painful because Oliver is acknowledging he won’t be around to watch Mia grow up. He’s accepted he’s going to die. 

But Felicity hasn’t. She makes her husband another promise and instills some hope in Oliver.  

Source: @olicitygifs​ 

Felicity Smoak is never wrong. If she refuses to accept Oliver’s fate then so should we.

One last I love you.

One last kiss. 

One last hug.

One last look. Memorizing every detail. This memory will have to last 20 years.

Source: @olicitygifs​ 

And then he’s gone. 

Felicity holds on for as long as she can until the distance breaks their hands apart.

And she is alone.

Life will always bring us to our knees my friends. 

Source: @olicitygifs​ 

It’s why our moments of joy are so precious. If you can glean one lesson from this love story I hope it is that.

Arrow did their very best to convince us Oliver is dead. Look guys! A grave!  

Source: olivergifs

Nothing short of a body, autopsy report and dental records will convince me of it. A headstone ain’t gonna cut it!

Felicity says goodbye to her children at his gravesite. 

Source: felicitysmoakgifs 

They’ve saved Star City in the future, but now Felicity & Co. is going on the run. She is putting the city in Mia, William, Connor and Zoe’s hands because they are ready. It’s time for the old guard to fade away and the new guard to step up.  

I don’t believe for one second Oliver Queen is dead, but I realized in this scene why Felicity has not gone out in search of him even though it’s been 20 years. Felicity couldn’t keep her promise to find Oliver until she kept the other promise she made him – to keep William and Mia safe.

All season we’ve watched Felicity struggle with letting go of her children and allowing them to be the heroes they are meant to be. 

Source: feilcityqueen

She knew it would be goodbye once William and Mia could protect themselves. Felicity has devoted her entire life to these children and sacrificed nearly everything – including finding their father. Felicity has been living the last twenty years torn in half as she faithfully kept all the promises she made to Oliver.

This is an impossible choice. If she stays with the children then she’ll never find Oliver. If she leaves to find Oliver then she can’t be with the children. And yet, Felicity made those decisions the last twenty years with grace and love.

I’ve always identified with Felicity in some way, but I probably feel the most connected to her in this scene than I ever have before. We’re supposed to raise our kids to be independent and contributing members of society, but they leave home when they become everything we’ve asked them to be. We spend our children’s entire childhood preparing them to leave us. It’s unbelievably difficult because all we want is to keep them close and hold on even tighter. The hardest part of being a parent is letting go.

And that’s what Felicity has done all season in the flash forwards. She’s held on as tightly as she could to William and Mia, trying to keep them out of the action and safe, but that’s not who they are. It’s not in their blood to stand on the sidelines. William and Mia are the children of heroes and now it’s their turn to carry on their parent’s legacy.  It’s time for Felicity to let go.

William and Mia are ready and the goodbye she’s been dreading the last twenty years is here. 

Source: smoakmonster 

As Felicity says goodbye she brushes the hair from Mia’s face just like Oliver brushed the hair from hers the last time they spoke. Oliver’s dream of Mia growing up to be as smart and as beautiful as her mom came true. She is everything Oliver could ever hope for and more just like William.  These children are his legacy.

Source: felicitysmoakgifs

Mia is heartbroken she never knew their father, which means she will get the chance in Season 8.  THESE ARE THE RULES OF TELEVISION OKAY?!

Source: felicitysmoakgifs 

Felicity solidifies Mia and William’s Season 8 arc by asking them to take care of each other (that neon spin off sign is flashing again too).

Source: felicitysmoakgifs 

 And now is the time we must say goodbye to Felicity Smoak and Emily Bett Rickards. 

Source: blakelivey

She was telling the truth when she told William and Mia she was going on a journey of her own, but it’s not as a fugitive on the run. 

Felicity waits in the middle of the road, the light of the moon streaming behind her like a flashlight guiding her on her journey, and The Monitor arrives. He is taking Felicity to Oliver.

Where she is going there is no return, which is why saying goodbye to Mia and William was so difficult. However, Felicity promised she would watch over them, so I’m thinking wherever she’s going isn’t completely cut off. The minute they “point of no return” then it automatically means the characters will return. Rules of television.

Felicity’s favorite story is The Wizard of Oz and this journey with The Monitor is like Dorothy leaving home for Oz. However, I prefer to think of it as Felicity leaving Oz for home because home is wherever Oliver is. There’s been sadness in Felicity’s eyes in the flash forwards because a piece of her is missing, but now her eyes are shining with light and joy. 

Source: felicitysmoakgifs 

The reunion she’s waited twenty years for is finally here. They are soul in two bodies and these twin flames will finally be together again.

I WAS SCREAMING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I couldn’t believe what just happened. I never expected Beth and Marc to give us Oliver and Felicity’s happy ending NOW. Yes, I know it happened off screen, but they are together. 

Hopefully, this multidimensional zone Oliver has been chilling in for the last twenty years looks a lot like Aruba and are having hot-we-waited-20-years-for-each-other sex.

Most of the time when an actor leaves a televisions show there are tons of loose ends and it’s vitally important he or she comes back for the series finale if there’s any chance of resolving the storyline happily. It is incredibly stressful as a viewer. 

But we don’t have to worry about Emily Bett Rickards coming back for the final season. I fully expect her to in the series final at least, but if it doesn’t happen for some reason then it’s okay. The writers planned for the worst case scenario and protected Olicity’s happy ending. 

This is a spectacular gift particularly for those who are saying goodbye to the series now.

I don't want to know what it's like to live without you

Don't want to know the other side of a world without you

Felicity twists her wedding ring, the symbol of her unending love and devotion to Oliver, and steps into the other side of the world to find her husband and fulfill her promise. 

She’s lived the last twenty years without him and she doesn’t want to spend another day without him. Felicity is going home to Oliver.

It’s the home we all found when Oliver brought a bullet ridden computer to the hacker with a ponytail and glasses chewing on a red pen. 

Source: felicitysmoakgifs 

Felicity Smoak and Emily Bett Rickards drifts out of our world with the same light and hope she drifted in with. Oliver may be my favorite character, but Felicity Smoak is the most important. 

There is no other actor or character who had more impact on the story and the trajectory of the show. Emily Bett Rickards came in as a day player, turned the show on its head, became the female lead and anchored the love story Arrow revolved around. THIS IS UNHEARD OF. IT DOESN’T HAPPEN. 

THAT IS PURE TALENT.

Even more importantly, the writers and Emily crafted a strong female character by embracing her humanity. Felicity Smoak is intelligent, witty, compassionate, brave, resilient, optimistic and honest. She makes mistakes (occasionally), but she always learns from them and it makes her a stronger person. 

This was never just Oliver’s story. It was Felicity’s too. She helped Oliver become a hero by being a hero in her own right.  She is a fictional character my daughter can look up to. She made me laugh, cry and ponder life as she wow’d me with her genius, heroism and open heart. That’s more than I could ever ask for.

Emily and Felicity Smoak brought the light to Arrow. 

She saved the show by becoming the show. It gave me a character and love story I will love for the rest of my life and for that I will always be grateful.

As for the future, Felicity essentially disappears inside a black star. The path home to Oliver is a black star. 

Source:  ebett 

No universe can disconnect the souls of this family. They will find each other again. We just have to wait and hope. 

Stray Thoughts

I care very little about anything else going on in the other 30 minutes, so I’ll just catalog my other rando thoughts here rather than create additional sections. Cool? Cool.

It really boils down to Emiko being ticked she didn’t get Queen Consolidated. Wow. My buddy Chris King really nailed it.

“He's trying to save you dumbass.” BEN TURNER GETS TO STAY. I’d exchange Ben Turner for Curtis Holt, Dinah and Rene in a heartbeat. IN. A. HEARTBEAT

Speaking of  Curtis. Keep it. Completely unnecessary having him in Emily’s last episode. 

Nobody really buys that Rene and Dinah should be part of the Mark of Four right? Good. Just checking. 

“Been there before." Never change Roy Harper. I love you just the way you are

“I wanted to be a Queen.” I didn’t really care about Emiko, but that line got me.

“Overwatch?” Annnnd Curtis answers. This is why he had to go. I HATE HIM.

Oliver saved the city and stopped Emiko by using over a decade of loss, pain and PTSD to therapy his sister out of her crazy. That’s kind of awesome.

The parallel of Mia and Oliver fighting was flawless. Probably one of the coolest stunts the show has ever done.

I’m here for Father/Daughter selfless crime fighting duo. I’m going to keep saying I need a spin off until I get it.  Source:  ghxstfoxgoddxs

Mia gets her Daddy’s bow, so the bird fans really need to stop with all the Canary nonsense. How they don’t understand she’s the Oliver in the future/new show is beyond me.

QUEEN SIBLINGS FOREVER! Source:  blackstargifs

The “let’s talk custody with William’s grandparents” line was weird. William’s whole storyline present and future was weird. Keeping William with his grandparents was meant to solely facilitate the Mia shocker and it will always be the piece of this storyline that does not work for me.

I seriously thought the fade out from Oliver’s grave would be the last of the flash forwards and I was going to be ticked because I didn’t want to do yet another season of “Is Oliver Dead?” Or “Is Felicity dead?” for that matter. SO OVER IT. I was completely overjoyed it was not the end of the flash forwards.

Can we all just finally agree the writers would rather chew their hands off than kill Felicity Smoak? Because it’s true.

L*urel isn't part of the Mark of Four. She gets a handshake because that's the same. This show is so savage with any version of her character. YIKES.

Rene lived! Shocker.

Felicity instructing John how to take care of the bunker is my level of OCD.

“I have to find a way to atone for that.” Sooo… you park it on a deserted island?

William asks how Roy ended up on the island and he pretty much says it’s a great story, but then doesn’t tell him. HILARIOUS.

Stephen dropped the bag on the stairs and looked like he was trying not to laugh as David finished his lines. The fact this is the best shot they had is further evidence of all the shots Stephen probably blew with all his feelings. Source:  legends-of-today

No Diggle in the flash forwards, so that’s something to look forward to for Season 8.

I have absolutely no idea how Season 8 is going to work. Is it going to be like the prison storyline and Oliver is just off on his own universe show while Diggle holds down the fort in Star City? Oooookay.

So much Outlander it ain’t even funny.

Are you alive? You just read a term paper on Olicity and Felicity Smoak. 

Thank you for your patience as I finished this review and thank you for reading it! 

To all those who are moving on thank you for visiting this blog, reading what I write, and helping me create a space for us all to enjoy a television show we love. I appreciate all the support and can never thank you enough. Feel free to visit any time because I’m not going anywhere! I have some fun things planned for this summer and of course there’s still 10 more episodes of Arrow in the fall. 

To those sticking around thanks for hanging with me until the bitter end.

Disclaimer: Any gifs on the blog are not mine. If you would like a gif removed from my reviews, please message me. 7x22 gifs credited.

If you’d like to support the blog, please buy me a cup of tea!

[strictlyfortheculture]

MY TAKE: 1,300 WORDS ON JAY ELECTRONICA’s ‘A WRITTEN TESTIMONY’

After 11 years of anticipation, Jay Electronica finally released an official study album, A Written Testimony featuring Jay-Z who was playing the role Ghostface Killah did for Raekwon on Only Built 4 Cuban Linx.  

Jay-Z was the co-star; the Scottie Pippen to Michael Jordan; the one who complimented the headliner, assisting him in a win, and this album most certainly was a win.

Now I make the point of listing Jay-Z as a co-pilot in this audio journey because many in the Internet realm want to say Jay-Z "lyrically murdered" Electronica on his own shit. Ironically, something Nas claimed happened to Jay Z on the Renegade song years ago.

That didn't happen. Jay-Z did what he was supposed to do, he collaborated with an emcee who captured his ear and mind back in 2010. 

This was not Watch The Throne, Part II. To say such a thing is to disrespect what Jay-Z and Kanye West created in 2011. A Written Testimony was the overdue, formal introduction to the rap world Hip-hop's resident Willy Wonka - Jay Elect - the man who creates endless wonders while staying aloof. Jay Electronica is a real-life James Bond, a man who shook the Hip Hop world when he released the game-changing "Exhibit C", dated and fathered a child with Erykah Badu, sparked a bidding war between Puff Daddy and Sean Carter based on the strength of a couple singles, the man who disappeared for years, and was romantically linked to an heiress from the Rothschild family. 

YEAH, this man is a legend.

But those exploits coupled with several loose singles and two mixtapes were not enough to satisfy the appetite of hungry Hip Hop listeners, eager to devour the sounds of a man from New Orleans, Louisiana who is, lyrically, more like Rakim Allah than Soulja Slim ... and still, Jay Elect pay homage to his NO influences throughout the album (see "Ghost of Soulja Slim", in particular).  How can a Southern emcee come on the scene without having a stereotypical sound of a New Orleans rapper? He doesn't sound like Master P nor does he follow the path of Lil Wayne. No. Jay Elect made his trail unique; distancing himself from the pack.

After 10 years of waiting, Jay Electronica announced his album WOULD be released in Match 2020. Now a lot has changed since 2010 when the original album was meant to come, and during that time tastes change and even the most loyal fans lost faith that it would happen. 

Was this real? Was Jay Electronica gonna drop or was this another instance where an artist over-promised and under-delivered? 

Finally, Friday the 13th, March 2020 A Written Testimony was released and the internet was flooded with the full gamut of emotions ranging from exhilaration to disappointed (can't please the internet critics or Joe Budden) to a renewed faith in the man of legendary reputation. 

Yes, people were pleased to hear that Jay-Z is still one of the best in the game, today, but for me, I was delighted to hear Jay Electronica slay the sound-waves. This 10 track album not only reinforced my appreciation for Jay Electronica; it made me want to study his lyrics; dissect these testaments to its very root.

The introductions to (1) The Overwhelming Event and (2) Ghost oF Soulja Slim featuring sound bytes of Louis Farrakhan speaking to the masses about the Black people in America being real children of Israel; the recipients of God's promise to bless the descendants of Abraham caused dissent from Hip Hop critics and listeners alike who felt the Nation of Islam leader's alleged anti-Semitic comments have no place in a rap album. Those people forget that Jay Electronica is a member of the Nation of Islam.

WRITER'S NOTE:  All of those critics are silent when rappers say of Nigga or calling Black women "bitch" and "ho". Where are they during those moments of controversy? Hmmm. This is a conversation for another time.

Controversy aside, the lyrical wordplay on display should have silenced any nonbeliever.  

(2) Ghost of Souljah Slim starts off the album right with both men trading verses, and more importantly Electronica showing that he can hold his own with Sean Carter. 

(3)The Blinding has Jay Electronica talking about the hesitancy to release his music to an audience that will undoubtedly pick apart his work rather than enjoy it for what it is. (4) Neverending Story is where Jay Elect laces an Alchemist beat with the tale of his come-up from humble beginnings and hostile surrounding to still being chosen by God; bestowed with divine greatness. 

(5) Shiny Suit Theory showcases Elect rhymes over a self-produced song proclaiming his forthcoming rise in the world of rap.

(6) Universal Soldier has both men share tales of their rise from hardship and criminal lifestyle to gaining knowledge of self and ultimately overcoming the hurdles placed before them

(7) Flux Capacitor has Jay Elect speaking on a preordained calling upon him to bring superior lyricism and teachings to the world while representing New Orleans. 

(8) Fruits Of The Spirits  is a song detailing the long wait for this debut album, Electronica lets the listener know that it was all part of his master plan for just like Thanos (from the Marvel Comics), he can defeat any competition with the snap of his fingers.

(9) Ezekiel's Wheel ties into the Biblical story of Ezekiel, the warrior who was placed by God to be the prophet over Israel, Jay Electronica declares himself to be a prophet to the children of Israel, whom Farrakhan, in the album intro stated were the Black people in America. 

(10) A.P.I.D.T.A. (All Praise Is Due To Allah) is my personal favourite is a song dealing with the loss of loved ones. According to reports, this song was written on the same night Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna Bryant died in a tragic helicopter crash in February 2020. Wow.

On this sombre track, Jay Electronica offers lamentations over the loss of his beloved Mother, speaking of how her departure from this physical form has cut him to his soul, rendering his spirit wounded. 

Eyes fiery, cry tears to my diary Sometimes a Xanny bar can't help you fight back the anxiety I go to my Lord quietly, teardrops on our faces Teardrops on my face, it's like teardrops become waterfalls by the time they reach my laces My eyelids is like levees but my tear ducts is like glaciers As I contemplate creation, the salt that heals my wounds pour out my eyes just like libations I can't stop my mind from racing, I got numbers on my phone Pictures on my phone The day my mama died, I scrolled her texts all day long The physical returns but the connection still stay strong

Jay Elect later rhymes,

Sleep well The last time that I kissed you, you felt cold but you looked peaceful I read our message thread when I get low and need a refill

All controversy and delay aside, Jay Electronica delivered a debut album that rivals that of your favourite MCs. FUCK Joe Budden and anybody who disagrees. I'm still waiting on Joe to release one record as meaningful as Elect's worst.  Anyway, I digress. 

In an era where the word Classic has lost its meaning thanks to the overuse of fans and critics alike, I won't give it that distinction, at this time. I do, however, feel this album will go down as one of the more significant releases of the last 10 years.  This is evidence of substance over style. No commercials tracks. No filler. Just two talented men delivering lyrical food to a hungry audience in need of manna from heaven rather than the pursuit of bread ($$$).

And man cannot live on bread alone.   Peace God. Holler at me

[shnookumsandlovemuffin]

If you could rewrite oitnb...would you and if so how would you do it?

Well in terms of Alex and piper story I would definitely rewrite season three and I’ve bitched so much about their storyline in season seven but yes I would rewrite their storyline in season seven also. Season three just suffered from bad execution. The best thing about season 3 in my opinion was Tiffany Doggett’s arc.

For Piper I understood what they were trying to do with piper’s character it just didn’t sell very well and you know it didn’t sell very well because you have people literally writing and analyzing piper’s behavior and trying to make sense of it. But basically what I felt the writers were going for was trying to show how after all this time when piper kept trying to stay on the straight and narrow and try to be a good person it just kept blowing up in her face and people were constantly telling her how much of a horrible person she was and how she was manipulative and the final straw, the nail in the coffin, was Alex calling her a manipulative cunt so in the end I felt, my interpretation was that after that statement by Alex, piper just said fuck it and said fuck all of that humanity shit and that’s when she proceeded to act out. In short you think I’m an asshole you think I’m a horrible person well I’m going to be a horrible person. She gave into the role that people kept assigning her. And part of the reason why piper was such a shit to Alex why she refused to acknowledge that Alex was in any actual danger was because piper wasn’t trying to feel anything because admitting that Alex very well could be in trouble in the prison would mean acknowledging that it is her fault that Alex is in there in the first place and Piper is done feeling guilty. She has completely engrossed herself into this full blown selfish manipulative version of herself. The humanity is gone. But again I don’t think this translated well in season 3. And I would at least rewrite it for clarity.

Also Stella’s character wasnt necessary to show piper being more and more of an asshole because the result ended up being the same anyway. Alex broke up with her for being an asshole not for cheating. So I would eliminate Stella Carlin from the picture altogether. You can remove her from the equation and lose nothing.

Season seven is worse in the sense that history has been rewritten to service a whole new narrative that makes absolutely no sense and Alex who we have known for years is suddenly given new character traits that we’ve never been introduced to in the past. Not only does season seven feel disjointed from season six but there were a lot of good moments from season six that are totally forgotten and they don’t even carry over into season seven. So it’s like none of it ever really happened.

Remember how piper brought kickball back to the prison? Does that ever come up again? fuck no

Piper planning to write a memoir when she gets out of prison. Is that even mentioned? Does that ever come up again? Fuck no

Alex struggling with the fact that she has peaked already and is considering going to college so she fills out the application and she can totally do that now because Carol’s dead. Does that ever come up again? Fuck no

Do we ever get into the mind of some of the opinions of the inmates about Carol and Barbara now being dead? Fuck no

Remember Alex and piper’s wedding when Alex apologized for hurting Piper and promising to make it up to her every day in small quiet ways? Alex sure did. So I guess fuck that too.

This is why season seven feels so much like an alternate ending to me because in reality you could actually end orange is the new black at season six. it ended on a bittersweet note same as season 7.

Out of all the infinite plot lines they could’ve used for Alex and piper’s final storyline in season seven they chose the most cheapest basic storyline ever. once again we go down the line of infidelity.And if I were to rewrite their storyline in season seven it would’ve been as follows: Alex being forced to deal for Hellman and then trying to stay on the straight and narrow for piper so that she can ultimately be on the outside with her wife but constantly meeting all these different struggles that make that almost impossible.

Overall the things I listed above would be what I would change out of the whole series itself but I think orange is the new black is a very solid television series I didn’t really have any real complaints about anything else.And if I did they were relatively minor and forgettable.

But if I am being honest with myself I feel like the writers stopped giving a shit about Alex and piper and it kind of shows. And my thing is I don’t care if you personally as a writer don’t give a shit about these characters you should at least take into consideration your audience and fans. While there are a lot of people that don’t like Alex and Piper there are still a lot of people that do and therefore you still should deliver “A” quality material and a good storyline that makes sense.Regardless of what your personal feelings are to certain characters.

[professorprophetess]

Lost in Adaptation

Though there have been successful game based movies before, like Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, that was about a fictional game coming to life. It worked for a different set of reasons and they all had to do with the concept of half-real Juul talks about in the book of the same name(Juul 121-162). That begs the question, can real games get proper adaptations into film without having their attempts fall flat. The short history of video game movies does not really suggest that this is usually possible. Yet even then exceptions can exist. For the sake of simplicity I will be sticking to movies produced by the West AKA Hollywood that are not animated that feature real game properties being adapted into films. To get the greatest breadth of the attempts to adapt games into movies I’ll pick one per decade since the very first live action adaptation of a video game came out in 1993. That movie is one that I’ve often chosen to pretend doesn’t exist as it was a very disappointing childhood memory: Super Mario Bros. Next I’l jump ahead to the 00’s with 2008’s Doom. Finally, I’ll look at the recent game based movie Pokémon: Detective Pikachu. Where did the previous two movies from prior two decades go wrong where Pokémon: Detective Pikachu got things right is the question I seek to answer by analyzing these games based films from those decades. Please note, I will not be counting any movies made by Uwe Boll amongst adaptations that got things wrong as I am lead to believe he does not care about how far off track he takes his films and it would appear as if he does it on purpose. Therefore, all films he makes are anomalies and should not be counted.

First, the movie that started it all. Super Mario Brothers was a very big deal in the early ’90’s. As a child of that decade, I know first hand how ascendant Mario and Luigi were. My older siblings and cousins all clamored to play as much Super Mario Brothers games on their NESes as they could. Naturally, a movie based on their beloved game was going to be awe inspiring.Oh, it was but for all the wrong reasons. To be fair to Hollywood, games are hard to adapt into a movie because of that half-real element many games have to them, especially story light platforming games of the NES era. However, that still doesn’t fully explain how they went from a fantasy romp where the hero—an everyman Italian plumber— rescuing the princess from a monster into gritty sci-fi dystopia, extra emphasis on the gritty. The set design, cinematography, plot choices, and direction are all bizarre when one takes a step back to just look at it. For instance, their redesign of the iconic Bowser into a man with weird hair. Because of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film coming out three years prior, the ability to have made a puppet suit for someone to wear to bring Bowser to life in all his dragon-turtle glory existed. Yet, for some reason, instead of respecting the intellectual property, whomever had purchased the rights handed the project off to writers who clearly were so embarrassed to be adapting a video game that they didn’t bother actually adapting it. As a small child, all I’d cared about was that they’d made Yoshi look weird and the goomba’s looked wrong. Now that I’m older, I’m more perplexed by why they’d choose to go so far a field. Their idea had no business being grafted into the Super Mario Brothers’ universe. In fact, had they not been supposed to be adapting Super Mario Brothers, their idea would have been fun for a Sci-fi B-Movie. Instead they just went so far off to the side that it left a shadow that kept Nintendo from allowing anyone to make movies from their IPs. The actors did what they could but a bad script and bad direction cannot be overcome by anyone. (Super Mario Bros)

The shadow wasn’t just cast by Super Mario Bros but other movies kept the belief that video game movies just would not work alive. Thus we get to Doom. I was far too young to play Doom at its initial height of popularity but I knew what it was. So by 2005, after strings of other not-so-good-to-so-campy-its-fun video game adaptations, it was Doom’s turn. The trailers looks promising. Then what happened was a clumsily cobbled together film that used elements of Doom’s barely there plot, as well as plot threads from Alien and other space horror flicks to produce a B-movie that bears next-to-no resemblance to Doomat all. There’s an instance where the movie switches to first person POV like the game, and the human antagonist has become and alien creature called a “pinky” which is a demon from Doom, but ultimately being PG-13 could not deliver on the gore factor needed to fully capture what it was that Doom was: a bloody maze of gore and violence. In this case, it was likely based on the fact it was Doom that they thought adapting it was a good idea, but in their fumbled and neutered execution they made a so-so space horror that almost utterly fails as an adequate adaptation of the game of the same name’s fame it had tried to cash in on. Again, the set design is questionable as it is set largely on a space ship instead of in a maze of tunnels through Hell, and the tame levels of violence are not reflective of the core part of Doom’s appeal at all. The acting was decent enough, but otherwise the story direction and direction in general are suspect. 2005’s Doom failed because it did not try to be the by proxy gore fest that its source material was and without that gore, the classic Doom doesn’t have enough of an identity to fall back upon (Doom).

Pokémon: Detective Pikachu: A film I’d initially thought would also fail. One reason was because I thought the game it was based on was a silly idea when it came out, but also because it had become an almost accepted maxim that all video game based movies would continue to be awful because when it comes to gaming that Half-real effect I mentioned that Juul wrote about makes it hard to fully adapt a game because we, the players are not just passive watchers but active participants with game play, meaning what we do is projected into what happens so even with highly story based games, like a Final Fantasy title, no two people are going to have the exact same gameplay experience (Juul 121-62). Yet, those games have a higher chance of being adaptable.  Those games prior to Pokémon: Detective Pikachu that most consider to be meh-to-passable all tended to be those based on games that tended to have far more of a narrative world to them than something like Doom or Super Mario Bros which were adapted from a story light FPS and story extra-light platformer. In the case of Pokémon: Detective Pikachu versus the series it spun-off from, until Generation V, there really wasn’t much to the story to speak of, and though it’s still not central to the main games, it’s stepped up to keep with what Generation V did. Pokémon: Detective Pikachu is a point and click adventure the is full of story and characterization that is not dependent wholly on the player, making its world and story far more adaptable into film format. A second thing the makers of Pokémon Detective Pikachu got right was they kept the aesthetics of the Pokémon world whenever they were designing the set design. They only deviated as such to make sure that these things looked coherent and real in that sense but it still reflected the worlds the games had presented. The pokémon were also a huge factor. They had to be redesigned to fit with the humans in the movie, but those redesigns were made with respect to how these creatures would look were they actually real creatures, keeping the uncanny valley at bay. Also, in a start contrast to the Super Mario Bros movie, this world was not only vibrant but it was a live and full the the fantastical creatures people expect to see in a world full of pokémon. Which is to say, we expect to see pokémon and they fulfilled that and then some. The plot is nothing extravagant or especially complex, but it was fun, it had genuine moments of heart and it fit in perfectly with the insanity that can happen within the pokémon universe. It felt like it and the games took place in the same world (Pokémon: Detective Pikachu).

Doom and Super Mario Bros on their own are not actually purely awful films. Doom fits right in with a lot of passable sci-fi horror trying to be Alien—and failing— whereas Super Mario Bros is more like an 80’s sci-fi B-flick that is trying to be cool—and also failing. However, the problem is these movies do not exist on their own, they were in fact adaptations of other intellectual properties that their makers did not respect enough to properly adapt to the silver screen. Whereas the Pokémon: Detective Pikachu film had nothing but respect for the game franchise it was representing into a live-action/CGI hybrid. Pokémon Detective Pikachu fits into the Pokémon World. It feels like it belongs there, and these events could be in that same universe. That, ultimately, is where the other two films failed horribly. Both films, so caught up in trying to be appealing to everyone, lost their identities to the point that they no longer fit in the worlds they were supposed to be adapting.

Works Cited

Pokémon: Detective Pikachu. Directed by Rob Letterman. Performances by Ryan Reynolds, Justice Smith, and Kathryn Newton. Legendary Entertainment, 2019.

Doom. Directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak. Performances by Karl Urban,Dwayne Johnson, Rosamund Pike. Universal Pictures, 2005.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. Directed by Jake Kasdan, performances by  Dwayne Johnson, Karen Gillan, Kevin Hart , and Jack Black, Sony Pictures, 2017.

Juul, Jesper. Half-Real. MIT Press, 2005. pg 121-162.

Super Mario Bros. Directed by Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton. Performances by  Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo, Dennis Hopper. Allied Filmmakers, 1993.

[douxreviews]

Quantum Leap - Season Five Review

It had been awhile since I watched season five, and some of it was better than I remembered. Unfortunately, some of it was worse.

Celebrity leaps

The Kennedy assassination? What were they thinking? ("Lee Harvey Oswald," 5.1 and 5.2.)

Quantum Leap always played with celebrity encounters as cute little supplemental by-the-ways and isn't-this-fun, like Buddy Holly and Michael Jackson, and honestly, I totally understand their desire to try something new, to do a high concept two-part episode. But "Lee Harvey Oswald" was terrible, uncharacteristically grim and unforgivably dull. Quantum Leap is a science fiction adventure show with a great deal of humor and charm. It is not a documentary.

Not to mention that Quantum Leap's raison d'etre is to fix "what once went wrong." How on earth could they possibly fix the Kennedy assassination without changing a massive event in American history? Having Sam save Jackie Kennedy, who died in the original history, was an interesting twist, but it was also a cop-out. Especially when you consider what Jackie did with her life after Jack Kennedy's untimely death. (No judgment there, honestly. I'm just saying.)

It also felt wrong to see Sam so affected and influenced by the person he leaped into that he couldn't change anything, and it's telling that this was the only way they could make the script work. We all know that if Sam had been himself, he would have found some way to stop the assassination. I understand from the internet that Donald Bellisario believed that Oswald acted alone and that it was the point he was trying to get across. And I will respond by saying that a show like Quantum Leap was not the place to do it.

"Goodbye, Norma Jean" (5.18) didn't work either, despite a good performance by Susan Griffiths as Marilyn and some enjoyable faux cameos by actors playing Clark Gable, John Huston and Peter Lawford. The big question for me again was, why? What did Sam put right that once went wrong? Supposedly, Marilyn needed to live a little bit longer and do one last film, and if The Misfits had been one of the greats, I would get it, but honestly, it's not a great film. If they had to do Marilyn, wouldn't it have been great if Sam had kept her from committing suicide earlier in her life?

The other two celebrity leaps this season were outright fun, though, and those did work.

I loved Scott Bakula doing an actual impression of "Dr. Ruth" (5.14) in an episode that featured the real Dr. Ruth Westheimer. While the double entendres were uncomfortably thick on the ground, it was pretty much the perfect celebrity leap to illustrate the differences between the reserved and prudish Sam, who had a terrible time doing a radio show about sex, and Al, who didn't hesitate to avail himself of free sex therapy in the Waiting Room with Dr. Ruth herself. We also got a timely reminder that Al has been married five times, and that he still loves his first wife, Beth.

I also enjoyed "Memphis Melody" (5.21) where Sam leaped into a young Elvis Presley. It was so much better than Lee Harvey Oswald and Marilyn Monroe because it wasn't depressing, and Scott Bakula got to sing as Elvis. Very nice. Especially his version of "Amazing Grace." (Which is not what they're singing in the photo below.)

Movie tributes

One of Quantum Leap's constant go-tos was movie tributes and/or ripoffs. In "Leaping of the Shrew" (5.3), Quantum Leap did The Blue Lagoon, and they even got Brooke Shields to guest star. You'd think that wouldn't work, but it was actually pretty darned cute. They also did Coming Home in "Nowhere to Run" (5.4), and it even guest starred an adorable pre-Friends Jennifer Aniston. But honestly, the way they got around Sam walking around while he was supposed to missing his legs was pretty darned weird.

Points for trying

I liked the idea behind "Trilogy" (5.8, 5.9 and 5.10), an interesting twist in the formula where Sam leaped into three different people while trying to save the same person, Abagail Fuller. It was almost like they finally addressed the "what happened to the person Sam saved later on" question. But the story acquired a mildly incestuous feel when Sam went from being Abagail's father figure in part one to her fiance in part two. And the idea of Sam fathering a child while not in his own body was interesting, but also weird. Although I did like the idea of Sam's brilliant daughter Sammy Jo helping out at the Quantum Leap project. Were they thinking about casting her as a permanent character? That could have been fun.

I also liked "Killin' Time" (5.5), where Sam leaped into a serial killer and had to explain the truth about the Quantum Leap project to his hostages. The best part about it was that there was actually action at the project in alternate universe 1999 as the killer escaped and Al took off after him, while Gooshie had to replace Al in the imaging chamber. I'll admit that the face paint, neon decoration and strange computer stuff didn't work, mostly because we all know now that 1999 didn't look like that. Maybe I should have taken that to mean that all of Quantum Leap happened in an alternate universe?

I wasn't as crazy about "The Leap Between the States" (5.20), the first and only time that Sam leaped out of his own lifetime, inhabiting his great-grandfather and romancing his great-grandmother back in 1862. It might have been a little better if they'd managed to resist white savior syndrome.

"Promised Land" (5.11) was a nice idea in theory, popping Sam back to his own home town with people he grew up with. Maybe a little hokey, but at least he got to see his late father one last time. But couldn't we have spent time with Sam's family again instead of getting stuck in a bank for the entire episode?

No points for trying

And then we had the evil leaper. (5.7 "Deliver Us From Evil," 5.16 "Return of the Evil Leaper," 5.17 "Revenge of the Evil Leaper")

Okay. I can see where the writers would have hit on the idea of an evil counterpart to Sam, but I thought it made absolutely no sense and was in fact never explained. Was Satan carrying on a Quantum Leap project of his own to put wrong what once went right? Although it was nice to see the characters from season two's "Jimmy" again and the carrying on in the women's prison was sort of fun, it just didn't work for me. Plus Alia's existence made Sam non-unique, which is something you don't want to do with your lead. The evil leaper concept didn't deserve to take up three full episodes of their final season.

The series finale

I hadn't seen "Mirror Image" (5.22), the final episode of Quantum Leap, since it aired, and was really looking forward to it because I remembered how choked up I was by that last scene with Beth and that final card about what ultimately happened to Sam. Unfortunately, I am sad to report that I found the rest of "Mirror Image" to be sub-par.

Sam arrived in a barroom at the moment he was born, and for the first time, when he looked into a mirror, he saw himself. That was actually a powerful scene, and it was touching that his hair had started to become gray. There were many scenes in the barroom in the coal mining town of Cokesburg that included actors from previous episodes playing other characters. I'm sure they were going for some sort of huge metaphorical what's-is with the mine collapse, but I just didn't get it.

I also thought it was sad that, even though the resolution of the series was all about Al Calavicci, we saw too little of him in the finale. Instead, we got Bruce McGill as the enigmatic Al the bartender, who kept giving Sam clues about what's going on. Was this new Al supposed to represent the God who had sent Sam on this strange journey? I suppose so.

We also learned that it was always Sam's unconscious choice to keep leaping, that his leaps would become more difficult, and at this point, Sam could choose to go home. The fact that Sam chose instead to leap back to the end of "M.I.A." and change Al's life forever was by far the best part of this mishmosh of an episode. Sam's ultimate choice was a selfless expression of love for his closest friend. It was also a radical, series-changing choice, breaking all of the rules we've come to accept as governing Sam's leaps. It was emotionally satisfying, though. So like Sam to give such a huge gift to someone else instead of taking advantage of his one last opportunity to go home. Tragic.

That last title card, "Dr. Sam Becket never returned home," really got to me way back when it first aired in May of 1993. This time, when I saw it, the one big thing that struck me was that in their rush to close down their series, they spelled their lead character's name wrong. (It's "Beckett," with two T's.) Maybe they made that mistake because "Mirror Image" wasn't supposed to be the series finale and they were forced to tack on an ending.

While that last scene with Beth, and its implications, were a worthy end to the series, and I loved the idea of Al happily married to the love of his life, the thought of a sad and exhausted Sam choosing to continue leaping forever was emotionally wrenching. In a way, it also negated everything that happened in the entire series. The Al Calavicci that helped Sam on every step of his journey is no longer the same Al Calavicci. I guess I need to remind myself that I must never try to apply logic to time travel stories.

Bits and pieces:

-- The credits for season five featured a new arrangement of the original theme song. It was terrible. Awful. Blech.

-- Notable actors: Neil Patrick Harris, age twenty, in "Return of the Evil Leaper," Stephen Root in "Goodbye Norma Jean," Hinton Battle from the Buffy musical in "Revenge of the Evil Leaper," and Meg Foster of the amazing eyes in "Trilogy."

-- Bruce McGill, who played Al in the series finale "Mirror Image," was also in "Genesis," the pilot episode. That was a nice touch, since I assume it was deliberate.

-- I hadn't known this until I looked it up, but Susan Griffiths ("Goodbye, Norma Jean") has made a career out of playing Marilyn Monroe. And Michael St. Gerard, "Memphis Melody," played Elvis several other times as well.

-- Just a general observation: when I was finished my rewatch, I figured out what years Sam leaped into the most, and which months of the year. There were very few winter leaps, which makes sense since they filmed in Los Angeles. It also makes sense that the writers would mostly choose the 1950s and 1960s because they could do more interesting period stuff. The year Sam leaped into the most was 1957 (seven times).

And in the end:

Despite this mostly negative closing review, I enjoyed rewatching Quantum Leap more than I thought I would. It was a creative series that aired at a time when there was very little quality science fiction on television, and the two lead characters and the actors who played them were exceptional. There's also no question that Quantum Leap is showing its age a bit sooner than it probably should.

There are a lot of series revivals going on right now. What would a reboot of Quantum Leap be like? I bet that in today's "it's all about the arc" environment, they could go in some truly interesting directions.

What do you guys think?

Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

[goothemighty]

I had a strangely detailed dream DnD session last night.

Everything played out “in fiction”, with the dream based background knowledge of the “real world” setting. At least five players, six player characters, and one devious DM.

It was a short, startup campaign with low level characters that bizarrely started out with one player character betraying the group almost immediately and killing another player character.

This had apparently been planned in advance, with the traitor player and the DM in league from the start.

I’m guessing the murdered character was for a no-show player, or at least that’s what we were told originally, since the murder caught the rest of us(?) off guard.

I say us... there were at least two other non-traitor players, but I never saw their faces or gleaned their character classes. Dreams are like that.

Meanwhile, I was playing a Human Cleric of the Bardic god Finder. The “player” who got murdered was a Wizard and a practical joker, well loved by all and a good friend of my character. So yeah, bummer if a start for my Cleric. His best friend just got murdered, but at least he knows where to find the traitorous bastard who did it, and the rest of the party was just as motivated to find him as well.

So, fast forward through some dream haze, and our party finds themselves in a cozy town apartment, in mock ease across from our Traitor and a DM controlled Priest of the evil god Bane. Apparently the Priest of Bane had seduced our Traitor over to their side with promises of wealth and power (typical Zentarim ploy), and this we had two antagonists to deal with. “Pleasantries” and posturing are exchanged as we sit in comfortable chairs, none the les battle ready, with nothing but empty room between us and our swaggering foe.

Ultimately, “negotiations” petter out, and it’s clear a fight is about to be triggered. The DM, cementing the cocky nature of this Priest of Bane, ends discussions with the priest giving a deliberately mocking prayer to his evil god, thanking him for delivering us, the players, into his waiting hands. This was definitely meant to intimidate the players themselves, but halfway through his prayer, I remember; I’m a Cleric too.

Under my breath, as the DM read off his pre-prepared space of a prayer, I make up my own prayer to Finder for my character to say, under his breath as well, without drawing the attention of the evil priest or the DM. I wish could remember how it went, but basically, as a player, I was just psyching myself up by reminding my self and my character that he had just as much divine backup as the evil priest, if not more. It felt cool.

The fight broke out immediately with “Amen”s on both sides, and was frankly short. I think I did something to hamper our two foes, but the other two players delivered the DAMAGE. The evil priest was dead, and the traitor fled to the roof.

I pursued him, intending to end this, only to realize that the roof is where he had stashed all of the Wizard’s pilfered belongings, including his spellbook, which was now open and ready to be used by the traitor.

He was some sort of Rouge build, but apparently one with enough wizardly training to use spellbooks. We had surmised that he killed our friend in order to steal his magical items and spellbook, but I had neglected to consider that he would be able to use it on me. Our Wizard friend had cast a couple spells before he was murdered, so I knew there was some potent stuff in that travel journal sized tome.

However, as the traitor flipped though the book to find a deadly spell to use, his expression changed from one of grim glee, to confusion, to panic, and my character took the opportunity provided to cut him open and push him off the roof for good measure.

Mission accomplished!

As an afterthought, probably at the prompting of the DM, my character picked up the battered and blood stained spellbook to give a look through, curious about why the traitor failed to cast a spell.

Remember how the dead Wizard friend was a prankster? On every page, the spellbook was filled, not with spells, but with jokes! And terrible ones at that! From beyond the grave, the lovable goof had pranked his own murderer to death, a perfect ironic demise to the would be spell thief.

Roll credits!

I wanted to share this for a couple reasons.

1. Props to the dream DM. I can’t honestly take credit for any of his storytelling, since I never would of thought of half of that if I hadn’t had this dream. Don’t know how that works, but whatever.

2. I’ve never heard of nor would have expected a low level campaign to start with the player party being reduced by two fifths it’s size by a murder and a betrayal of PLAYER characters. Good sneaky nonsense from the DM and the two players!

I’d love to see/hear about other people doing things like this in their campaigns! It was also a good hook to motivate the remaining players, for revenge and honor among party members.

It’s actually a lot like The Italian Job, for the three of you who know that movie, and I kind of love that!

3. The whispered prayer to Finder was what made the dream stick in my head. To have a party Cleric, ready to fight his foes, completely ignore what an evil priest is praying in order to pray to his own not-evil god for aid is such a cool image in my head.

“Yeah, I can do that too, bitch.”

4. Also the fact that dream me didn’t even bother to make said moment known to anyone else is neat. It may not add a buff or anything if the DM is oblivious, but it’s a rad character moment for the player to keep for themselves.

It was also a moment of growth for my dream Cleric, since hadn’t spoken to his god since the murder of his friend. It fit as a resolution/acceptance of loss as well as a rising moment mere seconds before the campaign’s final fight!

Again, I never would have thought of this on my own, but I am totally going to use it, and you should too!!!

6. Finally, the Joke Book/Spell Book! Why a neat punchline!! It’s cool when the murderee gets to Don Giovanni themselves some revenge, especially in a way that is very THEM. But also... he did cast spells with that book at the beginning of the dream...

Finally: As I was waking up, I had reached the conclusion that our poor Wizard was in fact a much more talented spell caster than he had let on, able to cast Wizard spells entirely from memory, like Elminster the Sage, and only “using” the book to keep up appearances and not give away the extent of his skill. Alternatively, he could have been a Sorcerer or a Warlock, who simply disguised himself as a Wizard for appearances sake.

However, I have reached a new conclusion since my commute into work. I have read in plenty of Forgotten Realms novels where Evil or Disreputable Wizards will steal spell books from other masters of the art in order to increase their own library of spells. In fact, that is what the traitor did in my dream. What I didn’t consider until I was driving to work this morning was this: what if Wizards kept their spell books written in code?

My new conclusion is that dead Wizard friend was either a genius spell caster who liked to keep a lid on his real power OR he wrote all of his spells in code that, to anyone but himself, just looks like bad jokes!

I love this idea and definitely want people to steal it if it not already a thing!

Make your wizards FMA level code-smiths! I want to hear about wizards whose spellbooks look and read just like ordinary cookbooks and almanacs!!

Seriously though, use anything from this dream that strikes your fancy, as a DM or a player or even a writer! They weren’t my ideas really, so if you like it, use it!!

Then tell me about it, cause I wanna hear cool stories!!!!

[amandajoyce118]

Friday Five: Marvel Cinematic Universe Chapters

In honor of SHIELD100, I’ve spent a lot of this month focusing on my favorite things about Agents of SHIELD, but this week, I thought I’d expand to the MCU as a whole and list my favorite “chapters” of the universe. In other words, my top five movies/tv shows of the nearly 200 hours of entertainment. At least, they’re my favorite at the time when I’m writing this in the middle of the week. By the time this scheduled post goes live, I might have changed my mind, as is the nature of favorites. I still recommend them all.

Five: Runaways

I’m not going to lie, this spot almost went to Ant-Man (because I love a good heist) and Agent Carter (because I miss her terribly), but I went with one of the newer MCU properties instead. Despite not being exactly like the comics, which involve a lot of time travel, the show has remained incredibly faithful to the spirit of the comics. The kids are like they’ve been ripped from the pages, there’s a great representation of a real diverse group of kids from Los Angeles, and the show has a lot of talent on screen.

Weirdly, I’m also someone who loves the Easter eggs and connection aspect of the MCU, but Runaways shows very little connection to anything, and I don’t find myself turned off by that.

Four: Black Panther

I love Black Panther. Full stop. As much as I love Marvel, this movie is a breath of fresh air in the MCU. I love that every named character has a comic book history. I loved that each woman had a distinct personality and wasn’t just a cardboard cutout. I loved that the fashion drew from several different cultures throughout the continent. I love that it looked and felt completely different from Marvel while still obviously occupying a space in that universe. I love that Shuri’s genius is celebrated at 16 and that she’s in charge of innovation for an entire country. I love that M’Baku isn’t left as a cocky villain, but instead gets his own story and gets to save the day.

I love everyone in this movie. If the Black Panther characters did a heist movie, honestly, that would probably be the perfect combination for Marvel. Have some characters steal some heart-shaped herb that a developer stole once upon a time or something since Wakanda’s supply was burned. Complications ensue. I would probably see it several times. Free sequel idea, Marvel!

Three: Captain America: The First Avenger

My opinion on whether I like The First Avenger or The Winter Soldier best is constantly changing. I like the latter because it was a twist that actually turned the universe on its head, something that many a writer likes to promise but rarely delivers on. I like the former because it’s an introduction to two of my favorite characters (Peggy and Steve), but also because it’s so gorgeous to watch.

I mean, Red Skull is no one’s favorite villain, let’s be honest. But the rest of the movie - seeing a scrawny and sickly kid from Brooklyn prove himself worthy of becoming a super soldier, seeing Peggy fall in love with him, seeing the Howling Commandoes get fleshed out, and seeing the SSR take steps toward becoming SHIELD with the friendship between Howard Stark and Peggy Carter make me appreciate it all the more.

Two: Agents of SHIELD

So, I’ve been a Marvel fan for pretty much as long as I can remember. My dad used to let me read his comics when I was little and I grew up watching X-Men cartoons in the 90s. I was primed for the MCU before it even became official. But my deep love for the MCU is firmly rooted in Agents of SHIELD. There’s something about getting to spend 22 hours with characters instead of 2.5 that is just better. There’s more story, more drama, more heartache, more laughs, and more getting to know the quirks of the characters with a series than you can ever get in a movie.

Agents of SHIELD was the first MCU series to bring a small corner of the universe into my everyday life, and I was interested for that reason alone. Over time, it became the home for (most of) my favorite MCU characters and the place willing to take the most storytelling risks, and I love them for it. I might not always agree with the risks the show takes, or what the writers thinks are “twists,” but I love the series all the same. I would watch another 100 episodes of the show if Marvel and ABC would let me.

One: Jessica Jones

It was a toss-up for me on ranking Jessica Jones one or two, but ultimately, she edged out Agents of SHIELD by just a smidge. Why? Because as much as I love the adventure and the found family in SHIELD, I love that Jessica Jones is unapologetically messy and that she’s struggling to get beyond her own demons, but she still has to save the world because that’s just who she is. I love that the villain of the first season was a man who couldn’t take no for an answer from a woman he was interested in. I love that the show didn’t shy away from the psychological ramifications of rape, addiction, jealousy, or really anything that any other show would only devote one or two episodes to. For Jessica Jones, those topics create a framework for the stories rather than a single plot point.

I also appreciate that the creative team behind the series is doing everything they can to get more women a foot in the door in Hollywood. They champion female writers and artists for their scripts and promotional materials. They hired all female directors for season two. They’re using a superhero show as a platform for change, and I love that.

There you have it! My favorite little corners of the MCU. What’s yours?

[i-may-have-a-point]

Review of 14x01 “Break Down the House” and 14x02 “Get Off on the Pain “

“The painful irony for doctors is that we often have to make you sicker in order to heal you.”

There are a few things we can count on with Grey’s Anatomy.  One, the voiceovers are meaningful.  The words that begin and end each episode are intentional.  Two, most seasons (13 was a glaring exception) are written with the end in mind.  Where our characters start is rarely where they finish.  However, where they start is still important.   Three, when the show promises a lighter, happier season, we will always get the exact opposite.  With that said, once I heard the opening voiceover, I knew we should expect pain and lots of it.  And in true Grey’s fashion, they delivered.

Let’s start somewhere easy.  

Ben/Bailey-  Benley spent most of the two hours snacking on the stairs of the main lobby, overanalyzing the construction workers, and discussing shoes. When I heard Ben would be going to the spin-off I wondered what their story would be this season. Season 12 brought us rebellious Ben who sliced people open with clipboards and waited for his wife to chastise him.  Season 13 brought us doormat Bailey who let Catherine Avery intimidate her into thinking she didn’t know how to run a hospital, which of course, led to the terribleness that was the Eliza storyline. So for season 14, I could do with a little less Benley. I adore both of them, but honestly, I would be okay with them staying on the stairs.  

Megan/Nathan/Meredith - Megan’s return is something we have all been waiting for since we heard she was only” presumed dead.”  It could possibly be the least shocking return from the dead in the history of television.  Predictability aside, I appreciate that while this feels like a different version of Addison showing up in her fur coat, Mer and Megan stayed mature in an awkward situation.  They are setting up Mer and Nathan’s relationship much better than last season as well.  In season 13, we collectively cringed each time Nathan asked Meredith out because after fifteen rejections, you’ve got to take a hint, man.  By the time they ended up on the plane together it felt so forced that it was hard to root for them.  Having Nathan show that he is torn between the two is warming me up to Griggs more, though.  And that proposal scene has so much secondhand awkwardness that I literally threw my blanket over my head so I didn’t have to watch.  My guess is that in the end, Megan will choose her son over Nathan and return to Iraq, and Nathan and Mer will find their way back to each other after an entire season of pining from afar.  

Amelia/Owen/Teddy - I thought Teddy was such a nice addition to these two episodes.  She was absolutely correct that Mer operating on Megan is a conflict of interest, and I think Teddy and Owen have great chemistry.  Just like Megan’s return, Amelia’s brain tumor also feels like a new version of an old story - Izzie’s brain tumor.  Are we going to see her freeze her eggs as well?  Because all Owen Hunt has wanted for the last 74 years is a baby, and he clearly has no problem finding a new woman if he needs to.  Staying faithful is not his strong point.  As much as I like Owen and Teddy’s chemistry, I felt that having Owen cheat on his wife who wouldn’t give him a baby yet again, really put a dent in his character.  Giving Amelia a tumor should make for some great dramatic scenes with Owen, Amelia, Mer, etc., but it also pushes the “Owen finally gets a baby” story back another season.  And really, unless Caterina leaves, which I don’t think she will, Amelia will be fine.  Krista said in an interview that she wanted to explain Amelia’s ooc actions (a nice way of saying bad writing) so she decided to give her a tumor.  That’s how bad things got in season 13.  They can only be explained by a brain tumor.  Nice.

Jo/Alex/Deluca - Looks like they quickly kicked Deluca out of the picture, and made it pretty clear this will not be a triangle.  Every time Alex or Jo started talking to each other I so badly wanted one of them to say, “Why I haven’t I seen you in eight weeks?”  Last season they could barely look at each other without getting teary-eyed and mopey, and this season they act like most of s13 didn’t happen.  I guess that is another way Krista is trying to fix the writing.  Just act like it didn’t happen.  I wish we had that luxury.  I am a Jolex fan.  I think they belong together, and I want to see them get rid of Paul and live happily ever after.  Unfortunately, happily ever after usually lasts about five episodes on this show, so the fact that they are so happy in the premiere makes me nervous for where their story will go from here.  Also, I know Jo sleeping with the intern was supposed to be shocking and funny, but it made me cringe.  For a woman who has been with multiple abusive men in the past, Jo going home with a man who is essentially a stranger seemed ooc.  Also, she snuck out of his room in the morning and then had sex with Alex hours later in the Resident’s Lounge.  I hope she showered in between.

Arizona/Carina - Carina is already better than Eliza, but I am not completely sold on this story.  This was also incredibly predictable.  Once she was announced as joining the show, most of the fans called that she was joining for Arizona.  How did we know?  Because that seems to be the only story Arizona can have.  I am all for her finding someone and finding happiness, but I would like to see Arizona, the doctor, again as well.  

April/Jackson/Maggie - Before I say anything else, I have to say that Sarah Drew is incredible.  Her heartbreak was so real and so tangible that it made an unbearable scene beautiful.  

I see this from two angles.  One perspective is the show (Krista? Shonda?) wants to end Japril and has decided to put Jackson with Maggie because (like Arizona) hooking her up with someone seems to be the ultimate goal, while her abilities as a doctor and her character development are ignored.  There were some hints that this may happen.  I think Jackson and Maggie may have been trying to have some moments, but it is so hard to tell.  I have to rewatch their scenes and analyze are they being intentionally awkward or is the awkwardness a result of their lack of chemistry?  Is that a confused look or a thinking look? Was that a smile or a grimace?  With Japril and Maggie/Nathan and Maggie/Deluca their feelings were always clear.  Now whatever they are doing is making their already painful scenes more difficult to watch.  If Jackson and Maggie is something they pursue, they will have a hard time getting the audience on board.  The majority is adamantly against it, and they will never come out from Japril’s shadow.  Japril’s story cannot be matched or recreated, so Jackson/Maggie would eventually become a side couple who just happen to be on a show that people are watching for Griggs or Jolex. As viewers we feel so disrespected that there is no saving that ship in our eyes. From this perspective it was difficult to watch Jackson sit there and not respond.  Or to accept the idea that he would think sex to April could ever be casual.  It was heartbreaking.

Another perspective I see is that Japril may not be completely dead.  I am not at all trying to give out false hope.  I saw what you saw.  But as painful as it was, I am happy that April said what she was feeling and that Jackson was clearly bothered by knowing he had hurt her.  And as much as I wanted him to fight for her, to say something, anything, watching them sit in silence, holding hands made me think about how through everything, the love and respect has remained.  They may be the only couple in the history of the show who have stayed faithful to each other no matter what.  The writers could have destroyed them completely.  We easily could have seen a Jackson/Maggie hook-up that would have broken them in a different way.  Instead, we saw April tell Jackson what she needed to say and Jackson listened.  Writing the scene that way leaves that trust, respect, and love in tact so that it can be revived.  The episode had a couple of other moments made me wonder if they were hints as well.  Maggie’s relationship with Deluca was brought up for the first time in forever, and Maggie seemed pretty excited that he called her beautiful.  Granted, Maggie would get excited about a man offering her a tissue when she sneezes, but again, Grey’s does not write random lines.  Plus, Deluca is officially out of Jolex’s relationship, I believe.  So that is something to keep an eye on.  Also, Maggie and Webber had a clear father/daughter scene where he talked about hoping she got her talent from him.  So, for anyone arguing he isn’t her dad, the show seems to say otherwise.  I thought it was interesting they put that scene in if they have any thoughts of Jackson and Maggie happening.  Krista says April has a complicated journey this season.  I would argue that she has had a complicated journey every season, but for them to openly say it has my wheels turning with ideas.  And of course, these things on top of Jesse and Sarah’s open support and love for Japril leaves me with a flicker of hope.  

They left hope for a reason.  If we are to believe the words that opened and closed the show, then this season will be about breaking things down to build them up better the second time.  

We’ve seen how they are going to break things.  Now let’s see how they fix it.

“The painful irony for doctors is that we often have to make you sicker in order to heal you. If a bone is healed unevenly, we have to re-break it. If a scar is too thick, we have to scrape it off and create a new wound. We break you down to rebuild you. We go to medical school because we want to learn how to fix what’s broken, but we quickly learn that we often have to make things worse before we can make them better. It’s risky, and it’s frightening for surgeons and for patients, but usually, it’s worth it. You get a second chance at life, and we get to be the architects of your second chance. It’s win-win, when it works.”