#it kind of just elevates the entire show to a whole other level

[theromanticrationalist]

Young Sheldon Series Finale: 7x13 Funeral

So, I was delayed in watching the finale because I actually wanted to watch it with my own Dad, but AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

😭

Damn, damn, damn, DAMN DAAAAAAAAMN!! So, that Funeral episode hit and it hit hard. (Did they really HAVE TO HAVE AN OPEN CASKET FOR THE LOVE OF GOD...ughughughughugh) The writing for that episode was the crème de la crème, and I think is the cathartic thematic climax of this series. The final episode was necessary for transitioning between YS and TBBT, which brings both stories together, but as far as the story YS was telling, Funeral was the show's end. It isn't a perfect ending and it wasn't a pretty ending, and in fact is quite devastating in so many ways, but it is truthful to Sheldon's journey, and to the human experience.

When Sheldon got up in front of the church to say a few words, playing out the scenario as he wished he had done it, that was the moment. The whole episode is Sheldon processing his grief - imperfect and messy as he has literally no tools or precedent to fall back on - as he replays his father leaving that fateful day over and over, tweaking it each time to make it "better". With a young man with an eidetic memory and a compulsive need for his reality to be orderly (and the fact that he believes in the Many-Worlds Interpretation), this would make sense. He begins be utilizing Star Trek (Spock's death) to filter it and provide context, but that no longer proves sufficient to the crushing and terrible emotions of what he is experiencing. That was a tool he used for when he was a boy, but now he has been thrust into the world of manhood in absolutely the worst way possible. What is it that will speak truest to what he is going through than the bare naked truth?

"I've been thinking a lot about the last moments I had with my Dad. It was morning and he was leaving for work. He said "See y'all later." And I said nothing. I regret that. I could have said bye. Or asked him for a ride. Or told him that I loved him, but I didn't. I barely noticed that he left. So many times that I didn't notice my father, I hope he knew how much I loved him."

From the audience's perspective we have been watching Sheldon play the scenario many times through his mind, and to have the rug pulled out from under us at this moment of all moments, to see that this too was only just a scenario (played out by Sheldon Prime), is exactly what it is like living in this world, enduring this life - not just for Sheldon but for all of us. In one of my previous posts I mentioned how I loved Sheldon Cooper's story because of what he could teach us. This episode encapsulates it in total. He can teach us that you cannot quantify life, you can't organize it so that everything makes sense and plays out in a well-structured narrative and format, where every feeling is named and every event categorized. Life is myriad, so much richer and so much fuller and so much wilder than anything we can imagine or think up on our own. It is what makes it utterly terrifying and wretched, but it is also part of its beauty and purpose. Sheldon Cooper comes to realize this, but he is only able to have this deeper understanding after first living it. Sheldon Prime's concluding narration at the end of Funeral is Sheldon Cooper's story taken as a whole - past, present, future - the life in movement. Of course young Sheldon would not experience his father's death in its completeness. He is the midst of it. He is trying to survive it. So I love the realness of Sheldon's "imperfect" response to his father's death in the fact that he didn't respond to it. He quite literally did not process it, and instead ran away from it. It is painful, brutal, but truthful. Yet that was not the end of Sheldon Cooper's story, as we know, and I think that leaves us with hope, but it is a kind of hope that must be waited for with profound patience.

Although I myself have not gone through the loss of a parent like Sheldon has, I still have gone through devastating and traumatic life events, so I am very familiar with the inexplicable and violating nature of grief and loss. I am still processing that grief and loss, so these thoughts I am sharing with you all right now are pretty recent revelations, and quite literally me living them out in real time, so it might be a little messy...hehe.

However, I will end this by saying that none of these truths mean that life is arbitrary. It doesn't mean it makes life meaningless. Just because human endeavors cannot place life within a context that he himself can first create and then comprehend, doesn't mean that life doesn't have a context and that that context can't be understood. It just means that that context comes from a different Source, an external and eternal one (and I will say, by necessity, a paternal one, but that is a thought for another day!)

Fitting then that the episode, and Young Sheldon, should end with the recitation of the Lord's prayer:

“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." | Matthew 6:9-10

[autistic-ben-tennyson]

In Defense of Shinji/Rei

Out of all the pairings in the Evangelion fandom, Shinji/Rei is one of the most controversial and least popular, especially here on tumblr. It did have some popularity at one point but that has died down in favor of Kawoshin and Asurei. It’s a ship that I, and many others, feel is often mischaracterized and dismissed due to its more controversial elements but one that is honestly very emotional and deserves less hate in my opinion, as do it’s shippers who people also have a misguided view of. Fandom in general has become more moralistic and puritanical in recent years. It’s like no one learned a thing from the SU fandom discourse where people were bullied or called homophobic for liking a certain pairing over the other.

Argument 1: she’s his mother/sister

The most common criticism of the pairing is that it’s incest and that their relationship is that of a brother-sister or mother-son. First, Rei’s whole arc in the show is that she’s not just a clone or copy of Yui or Lilith. She’s her own person with her own desires which is why her loyalty to Gendo wanes as she becomes more of an individual. Her DNA also isn’t that similar to Shinji and only a small amount of Yui’s was used. The rest was affected by Lilith hence the differences in their appearance. So there is a little bit of blood relation but it’s not on the same level of say Bwen or Pinecest. Incest is terrible because it’s a betrayal of family trust and abuse but Shinji and Rei met as teens and were not raised as siblings, nor did he know of her origin until Ritsuko explained it.

I’ve also seen the argument that their bond is sibling-like or Shinji views her as a Madonna/mother figure. Anno has stated that he intended there to be a “love triangle” with the pilot trio and show’s proposal described Rei as having “learned about feelings when she fell in love”. While that info comes from Reddit and may not be reliable, it does challenge the idea that there was no intention for their dynamic to be romantic.

Next, antis really take that elevator scene out of context where Shinji was complimenting her on being like a mom while ignoring him telling her she’d make a good housewife. The rebuilds and manga make their connection more blatant but it was always there. Misato, Toji and Kensuke all tease Shinji about his crush and the two act as friends after warming up despite their icy first interactions. There may be some maternal aspects to it but it’s rather simplistic to dumb their bond down to a family connection. It seems antis argue that they’re siblings because the romantic implications are uncomfortable and antis don’t want to admit that they do have feelings for each other.

Argument 2: it’s misogynistic and queer erasure

Okay, this is a less common argument against it but one I’ve seen from popular Eva analysis writers that view Kawoshin as the only valid pairing for Shinji. I’ve seen it used against Asushin and Marishin too. This goes hand and hand with the idea that Shinji views Rei as a Madonna and is misogynistic. I have a lot of thoughts about the “Shinji is an incel misogynist and Asuka did nothing wrong” discourse but that’s for another day. He’s not a perfect uwu soft boy but fans seem to base his entire characterization off the hospital scene in rather single issue Eva analyses that cherry-pick certain scenes or dialogue.

The argument that it’s queer erasure is one I’m starting to despise. Yes, there are homophobic dudebro fans who hate Kawoshin but not everyone who prefers a “straight” pairing is anti gay. Shinji could still be bisexual and be in a m/f relationship. I’ve also seen some ship him in a polycule with Rei and Kaworu. Plus, not everyone has to interpret the show or character the same way. The writers made it so people can view Kawoshin as romantic and Shinji as queer, but never demanded that be the only possible interpretation.

This kind reminds me of something I’ve occasionally seen in the Ben 10 fandom too. A few fans, not all of them, treating the wholesome gay ship as the only good pairing because of the problematic elements in the m/f ships or because they view the male protagonist as a misogynist. The “male character is sexist or a bad boyfriend so let’s make him gay” is also a fandom trope that kind of irritates me. Not every ship has be gay or a girlboss romance either.

Argument 3: they’re kids and you can’t ship them

This is one of the least common criticisms but one that I’ve occasionally encountered. First, they’re 14 which is around the time a lot of teens start dating. Second, romance =/= sex and child/teen characters can have romantic feelings for each other. Yes, ship wars over fictional kids can escalate but there’s nothing wrong with just liking a pairing. This post about Chihiro and Haku’s bond from Spirited Away kind of applies here too.

My thoughts: why do I love this pairing?

I first fell in love with this ship because I watched the rebuilds first on Amazon Prime and didn’t know the series was on Netflix because my account, embarrassingly, still has parental controls on it. I know they’re not everyone’s cup of tea but I liked them. Shinji was a character I really connected to and so was Rei. Their relationship got me a bit emotional and the scene where Shinji attempts to save her had me on the edge of my seat, while the scene where Shinji accepts Rei Q got a tear out of me as did the apology scene in 3.0+1.0.

If I had to compare them to any other pairing, which I’ve done before, it would be Hodaka/Hina from Weathering with You which also is a bit divisive and a bit of a tearjerker. Ironically, EoE is one of Makoto Shinkai’s favorites and he considers Anno an inspiration. Everything from their bond to Hodaka’s character and Hina’s arc of a blue haired girl, blackish-blue in Hina’s case, that’s lived a difficult life and who’s only purpose is to be a sacrificial lamb, learning to pray for herself is a lot like Shinji/Rei, down the ending of WWY being a lot like that of 2.22. The scene where Hodaka gives Hina a promise ring is also a little like the “smile” moment from Episode 6/1.11.

Conclusion

In short, Shinji/Rei isn’t a bad pairing and is overhated and misrepresented by many in the fandom. It’s fine to dislike it or prefer another ship but one can do so without chomping at the bit to paint its shippers as homophobes, misogynists or people with incest fetishes or Oedipal complexes. Many of us like it because it’s one of the least toxic relationships in the series and is honestly a very powerful story. Are there some questionable elements in it? Sure, but you can like a ship even if it’s not up to golden moral standards and expecting every pairing to be unproblematic is ridiculous. Real life is much more grey than what moralistic fans claim.

[extraterrestrialechos]

Edward Teach: How to (de)Construct a Legendary Villain

The show introduces us to the legendary Blackbeard as a traditional Hollywood villain. He’s positioned, specifically, as Bond villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld, head of the global criminal organization SPECTRE. 

This character came to define the trope of the criminal mastermind, including the trope of never showing the villain’s face. The chair obscuring Ed’s body while his minion takes orders from across the desk is classic Blofeld. 

Along with Black Pete’s story, this is meant to pour in information about and expectations for Blackbeard in the short three episode buildup to his reveal: He’s big news, he’s bad news, and he’s the undisputed big dog whose underlings are cogs in his evil schemes.

Yet even in his first scene, the show begins to highlight the artifice at play and humanize Blackbeard and his subordinate. 

Izzy is doing his level best to play the sufficiently professional henchman. Edward flirts with him until he’s forced to drop the pretense, his henchman act collapsing into an exhausted and familiar “Oh, Edward, can't I just send the boys?”

And, if we look closely in retrospect, the reason Ed doesn’t turn to the camera is that his leg is elevated to give relief to its nagging knee injury. There’s a cane in the bin in the foreground beside Izzy. These stereotypical trappings of villainy are partly a product of Edward’s high seas career wearing his body down. 

On to Episode 4

Episode 4 isn’t a significant departure from any other day at SPECTRE flotilla headquarters for Edward. Yes, he meets a fun new guy. He also shows off what kind of brilliance is routinely demanded of him by his profession (of being a criminal mastermind) day in and day out, even if he hits a hitch. The emotional beat of the episode is exposing how this intense workplace grind is wearing him down. 

Next, he decides he’ll sail with that fun new guy, murder him, desecrate his corpse and take his identity. The kind of nefarious scheme a pro would expect of himself. 

The subsequent plot, then, does not come out of the idea that Ed, as Blackbeard, is any less than a man who’s achieved the pinnacle of Big Bad attainment, who in conversation with his subordinate checks off on killing entire crews as part of “the uzsh.” He really is that good, and Stede really would have made the perfect and unwitting mark Ed identifies him for. 

Two things are true at once:

Blackbeard is his world’s all time pirate villain overseeing the dispatching of countless lives (we see the population of a whole merchant vessel butchered just in Episode 5 — but laugh, because the sequence is shot through with camp), and

Ed Teach “works for Blackbeard.” 

Blackbeard isn’t who Ed is but a product of Ed’s theatrical skills. 

The show has, already, in Episode 4 cast a realistic light on the inevitable psychological toll of being the Big Bad mastermind keeping yourself at peak performance all the time. 

On to Episode 6

In Episode 6, the show deconstructs how one man, who has one gun and one knife just like everyone else, could feasibly construct such a legend.

This is, at the same time, a meta interrogation of how much effort a man like Blofeld and his infinite villainous counterparts across all cinema would have to actually put in to maintain their seemingly effortless style. 

Here, the answer is Ed is a theatre kid at heart, relying on all the same techniques the real life crew themselves are using to bring us the show.

We’re given a scene of Ed seemingly teleporting around a clouded ship, delivering cinematic lines like “Flee and survive, or face me and burn!” 

Barrels of sparklers stream flash powder into the air. The unnatural fog turns out to be the product of stagehands hard at work behind the scenes. We can extrapolate the flashes of lighting were likely, seeing as we can’t assume stage lights, the product of even more flash powder prepped in the style of old time photography. 

Ed ends up in an elaborate harness. One that Izzy’s doubtlessly removed him from countless times, as he reminds Ed if they don’t work together Ed’s balls will chafe. (Ostensibly, this all used to go smoother before stress aged their relationship to the point of its present squabbles.)

Now we can spy back earlier in the show and see even in Episode 3 they were employing theatrics. 

The smoke steaming behind Izzy as he fixes his spyglass on the Revenge isn’t mysteriously atmospheric. It’s from a big cauldron kept stoked on the deck of the ship, the handle of which peeks through. It’s a constant effort to keep the Queen Anne billowing across the ocean. 

And Forward to the End...

Ed goes through multiple phases of trying on different Eds in the next four episodes. From living as tea with seven sugars Ed, to deciding he needs to physically move on if he’s not going to ice this guy but being prompted by Lucius to explore being “being in a relationship Ed,” to us seeing Jack’s Ed and his ability to relish brotivities, to stripped down Ed on the beach, a blank slate now able to open himself to considering what to paint there, to Ed choosing what to paint there.

Unfortunately, while it’s a new work, it's a dark one.

Having been rejected by Stede and Izzy successively as they see him trying out tidying house, become upset for individual reasons, and walk out of the room in nearly identical scenes, Ed takes stock of what he has left and what capacities in his repertoire will assure his future security. 

We now see Ed pinning (stabbing) up a picture of the archetype he’s going to take on. This is Ed in his make-up trailer, looking to a character design by a concept artist and building a costume around it.

Grease paint, sword earring, jacket shrugged back on, full gloves, and, we see later, Stede's black cravat tight around his neck as @speckled-jim describes (and discusses further here) “like the albatross of Ancient Mariner fame,” reminding him that love itself can be a burden and to never allow himself to be that vulnerable again. 

This new Blackbeard variant cuts a genius, poetic, unmistakably more dangerous image than the comparatively relaxed tough biker pirate we first met.

His newer, dialed up villainous persona, the Kraken, is face revealed with, among the many cinematic variations on the trope, what tightly resembles another more recent Blofeld shot, at once telegraphing this Ed is the Big Bad again and reminding us that being any Big Bad is a high camp performance.

The seams are already fraying. Fang and Ed are both shown drinking heavily to help cast off their sympathies for their recent associates and loose their MUAHAHAHAHA laughter. Already, before this scene, Izzy’s “Blackbeard is himself again!” is paired with the manic smile of a man who knows that whoever the new boss is, it’s not the original Blackbeard and he's in over his head.

But the three of them cut imposing figures on deck, and the future will tell if the movie magic holds.

Errata

Why would they think "Blofeld"?

It might be SPECTRE's trademark giant octopus.

[crystalelemental]

Okay so I picked up another demo, now that I'm done with Unicorn Overlord demo. I am a wee bit late to the party on this, but decided to try Triangle Strategy. And this is. A very different experience.

I played for about an hour and a half. Approximately 10 minutes of that was the one (1) map. The entire rest of the game was scenes, and a bit of exploration. In comparison to Unicorn Overlord, which is incredibly fast-paced, this game is veeeeery slow.

The story itself isn't bad by any means. But it's also not that interesting? Like it's fine, but I'm not wowed by much. the protagonist is fairly bland, his friends are fairly bland, Frederica is cute but not particularly interesting, your dad having Old Man Disease at 40 is tragic I guess. The background cause of the war and the fact that all parties seem pretty on the level right now is the most interesting angle. But it hasn't exactly gripped me.

Which is really weird! I'm like an hour and a half in, with barely any gameplay, and despite all this story and character stuff, I have very little to say about them. I don't feel like they're any more developed than the Unicorn Overlord crew, which wasn't exactly a hugely developed group either. It's just an odd, slowly paced experience that doesn't have a whole lot to show for that.

As for the minor gameplay I did engage in, it's fine. Fire Emblem-esque grid movement, but you only attack on your turn (barring counter skills), and positioning matters. After each turn, you need to determine which way your character faces, and the direction you attack from matters, in as much as striking from the back is a sure-crit. There's elevation tactics as well, but that didn't seem to save the cav dude who got fucking annihilated when opponents got behind him and wombo comboed his ass to high hell. Was probably supposed to use healing items but it's map 1 and permadeath isn't a thing, your ass is grass dude. I admit that I think it's a little more involved than I think it needs to be, but I did at least recruit a girl whose stealth tactics are interestingly integrated by having two actions to facilitate getting behind the opponent to attack, and what I assume is the armor knight who moves less distance having the counter skill. Oh, and if you surround them, your ally that attacks from the other side will combo for bonus damage.

The...I forget what they're called. The 3 point stock things you can spend for skills. They're...odd. For characters like Frederica and butler-man, you need 2 for your special, and recover 1 every turn, so you can't do that every turn. But then you have the protagonist's delay attack, or Heal. And these are 1 point free actions. So I seem to be allowed to do this infinitely without any kind of issue. And...maybe it's just me, but nonstop infinite heal seems really fucking good, dude. it's also very...reminiscent of Octopath Traveler, in that it very, very feels like endgame is a matter of maximizing these points for a specific character to spam their big attack to deal with huge HP values on bosses.

I did take a peek at the forge system. Fun fact, I generally don't like forge systems. I dunno, man, just trade out the weapon. The system eats a lot of money, and takes consumable resources, which...okay. Depending on the availability of resources, I might hate this one. We'll see.

I still need to get more gameplay to feel like I have a sense of how the gameplay is. And hilariously, am still waiting for the story to actually ramp up. I'm guessing that will happen at exactly the moment the demo ends.

[cozyaliensuperstar7]

Roman Reigns:WWE Legends Biography

First I want to say amazing job to Paul directing and executive producing this masterpiece about the Great Tribal Chief Roman Reigns (Joe Anoa'i).

Being a longtime fan of Roman's there were many things I knew they would cover but also I was still entertained and informed by things I didn't know. Like what was a great motivation for Joe to come back as The Tribal Chief. It was his brother Matt. Matt told him his career had a ceiling because he was too nice and if Joe wanted to be on top he had to be an asshole sometimes. People in general take your kindness for granted and sometimes you have to be assertive and let people know you're not a pushover.

Joe is doing this not only for himself, his wife and kids but for his entirely family especially those in wrestling who didn't get the opportunities they should have in the past.

Yeah the McMahons love the Samoans but they didn't appreciate them, they didn't truly respect them. Joe made them do that.

I have said before that I love the bond between Joe, Josh and Jonathan in a lot of ways they're like three brothers rather than twins and their cousin. Jon (Jimmy) getting emotional was a beautiful moment. These three in particular have done something past generations wanted to do but weren't given the chance. These three have elevated sports entertainment in a way that will not be matched. I said what I said. No one can touch what the Bloodline has done.

Josh giving credit to Joe for making him a better performer snd all around wrestler is not just a kind sentiment but an actual fact. People weren't paying attention to Jey before the Bloodline storyline. When Josh as Jey said people ask him which twin are you? that wasn't acting. That was real. Commentators, fans, even printed advertisements would mistaken Jey for Jimmy or vice versa for years. The Bloodline storyline showcased their distinct personalities. That was Joe's (Roman's) vision making them individual stars.

The delight in Paul's eyes when talking about working with Roman is like a proud uncle. He's known him since he was three years old. That part when Roman faced Brock for the first time at WM and Paul told him he was proud of him showed how special their friendship is.

Legends like The Undertaker, Stone Cold Steve Austin and Ric Flair praises Roman isn't a surprise but when Brock who doesn't say anything about anyone says Roman is a special talent that means something. When the great John Cena says Roman is the G.O.A.T. that definitely means something.

Roman needs to get more credit for bringing Sami into The Bloodline. Sami has always been a good performer and wrestler but he is on another level now because he worked with The Bloodline. Now Sami is being taken seriously as a competitor not just someone's BFF.

You can tell that Sefa (Solo Sikoa) not only sees Roman as his cousin but also one of his mentors.

I hope this biography finally causes people to acknowledge how intelligent, creative, hardworking and generous Roman is. He could have just had a goal for himself but he also wanted to elevate his family. He wants all of them to be successful.

Hopefully after seeing this biography fans, those who love him and those who don't will see how wrestlers say and do things they don't like especially in the beginning of their careers but it's a job and it's about taking care of your family like any other job. People taking what wrestlers say and do too seriously need to stop being so sensitive and critical and realize once and for all it's acting, it's not 100% reality. Being passionate about it in the moment is fine but threatening wrestlers and their families over matches, promos and storylines is just ridiculous and irrational.

Joe saying as someone who is half Samoan in a family of full blooded Samoans he didn't always feel whole is significant. Unfortunately many mixed ethnic people feel this way.

I remember when he was in the Shield a reporter acted surprised when he revealed his Dad was Sika Anoa'i and when he asked him about his Mom's ethnic background and he said she's Italian, the guy said something to the effect:

"I thought so because you don't look Samoan."

He probably went through most of his life hearing ignorant people saying that nonsense. 🙄

Joe is an inspiration because of who he is as a person not just being The G.O.A.T. of Sports Entertainment.

I really enjoyed this episode of WWE Legends but like Paul I'm biased but that's not a bad thing. 😉😁

[majaloveschris]

I live in the NYC area and recently received a local newsletter from my neighborhood showing outdoor summer movies in the local public park.

The reason I’m telling you this is bc something kind of interesting happened. One of the movies they were showing this summer is mrs Harris goes to paris.

In the neighborhood newsletter blurb discussing the movie, they mentioned Lesley manville (the star), AB, and then isabelle huppert.

No mention of Lucas Bravo, Jason isaacs, etc.

It was really bizarre to me bc AB being listed as second billing for a random local newsletter makes little sense to me as she was very clearly not the star or even second star. Lucas B technically should be bigger than her as he has a pivotal role in Emily in Paris which is still going on and hasn’t been canceled, and he was just in a romcom hit with George Clooney and Julia roberts last summer. He’s also a professional model and has been on runways and mag spreads this past year alone.

Ab had WN that got canceled and she didn’t even do any interviews for the second season. She has not been in any large endorsements or gotten any super prestigious roles since, but she did go public with a more famous actor.

If anyone is questioning if the PR is working…there’s your answer. Her name is getting out there and the search algorithm for her name is getting more and more out there as well.

Is any of this due to her own talent and success? (LOL)

Or is it more likely the huge PR boost given to her by someone else’s name?

I think the reason some ppl, esp team real, is doubtful about PR bc AB herself is not doing the legwork to put her name out there for more positive professional recognition. Her very actions/inactions seem to point to her hoping that the PR boost will do the work for her.

Many women who started dating more famous men usually had their own careers or would leverage the association to their professional benefit. Examples: Kaia gerber (mother is supermodel Cindy Crawford, boyfriend is Austin butler), Gigi hadid (already famous in her own right) and whatever her thing is with Leo DiCaprio, Hannah Davis (model) and Derek Jeter, Natalie V (works in the industry) and Henry Cavill. You’ll see most of these women have their own personas and social media and continue to do their own thing outside of being connected to famous men. Even if you feel they dated/married up or are opportunists as well, they still have their own thing going on. They didn’t just go into hiding so all ppl will ever think of is that they’re spending all their time following their man around.

By contrast, the dating rumors began for AB and she immediately pivots to ��never being seen” unless it’s to let ppl speculate she’s with him.

She gives the vibes of a person who very much hopes the offers will fall into her lap bc she got her name attached to an A lister. She forgot that she is not marketable by herself and has no IT factor so ppl are still not checking for her. Being pretty on a basic level and attending one fashion show does not make you a star.

I know ATP the discussions on this have hit beyond the point of broken record. But I stand by it - she never wanted to work for fame. She wanted it handed to her, and still does. Her little friends JA and his sister also wanted to reap the benefits by association, and really believed all of their statuses would magically elevate due to their “association” with an A lister.

No wonder CE has spent this entire year mentioning the “industry” and what it makes you do. This was a hint, y’all.

This whole "relationship" definitely gets her name out there. WN was successful, but not enough to give her a name in HW or in America.

I think one of the other really good examples of how big of a boost it is for her can be seen on WN's number. So the official People article came out on November 10, 2022, exactly on the day the show's second season debuted. The first season had never been trending before that. Not when it came out, not when they announced the second season. However, after the announcement, not just the second but even the first season started trending, with the first season in 32 countries and the second season in 70. I've seen that a lot of people have said they only started watching the show because they wanted to see who the woman Chris is dating is. And I will also admit that back in, like, January 2022, I also checked the show because I was interested in who she is.

Obviously, I'm not saying those people didn't like WN or that they just watched two seasons because she is dating him. I'm pretty sure there were people who did it because of that, but I'm also pretty sure there were people who liked the show and the characters, but maybe they didn't even know about it before that. WN is not my cup of tea, but that doesn't mean it's a bad show. Not at all. But I think the fact that it started trending and that more people started to watch it has to do with their relationship. It has to do a lot, in my opinion.

A lot of Chris fans love them together, support them, and even defend her and their relationship. So yeah, the fact that her name is now connected to his helps her out big time.

It always bugged me that she never really promoted her work. I guess she did a little more when the second season of WN came out, but it wasn't anything special. She also seems reluctant to engage with her fans. They keep tagging her; they write sweet messages for her, but no reaction. Not even a thank-you or anything like that. They were trying so hard to save WN.

I just don't like her or her personality. I mean what we can see from it.

[buckevantommy]

How can a bunch of teenagers tie up a tank like Lou ?? (Outer banks)

Is there any lead that their group will be in season 4??

it does not track nonny.

i know we're supposed to be rooting for the teens and not the badguys, but i would've liked to see ryan (lou) and his mercenary bud break free and for there to be a bit more back and forth before the teens ultimately got away. but this show doesn't give too much thought to those kinds of scenes, unfortunately.

the more i've watched of season 3 the more it frustrates me how they just bend the characters to the plot - it comes off fake af and inorganic, just forcing situations that don't feel believable - let me suspend some disbelief in this fun adventure mystery ffs! and as much as i've praised the production quality of this show, i must say again that the script leaves much to be desired - like having a bunch of lanky disorganised teens somehow manage to subdue a beefy af deadly mercenary (while dozens of other mercenaries wait outside), and the trite af dialogue. they also miss numerous opportunities to do something more with the "action" scenes so they don't come off as teen-fantasy instead of reality, but they're clearly counting on a younger audience so they fudge scenarios to suit them.

also: apparently it's not based on a book?? i thought it was, bc it plays out very much like a YA series in many ways including the character focus and plot developments. the fact that it wasn't based on a book (but instead "adventure novels" in general?) is insane to me bc that means they could've tweaked various elements to elevate the plot. i would've liked to see more scenes with the badguys (they felt the most real, oddly enough). i would've liked to see more of everyday life around the island (we're trapped in a bubble with these teens and it's suffocating). and i honestly struggle to understand how they got 3 seasons with no queer characters in their SIX main teen characters plus numerous adult side characters?? and honestly i would've preferred a stronger rating in general - more blood and violence and swearing, but also more screentime for the badguys, less manufactured teen drama, and more cultural depth to the whole "treasure hunting" thing bc everyone is just after the money which doesn't sit well to say the least (give me one fucking character trying to get this historical find secured for the people instead of greedy foreigners, yknow?).

btw: i just finished the finale, and aside from charles esten continuing to be a force of fucking nature in every scene he's in this season, the highlight for me was the standoff in the jungle where ryan confronts the group (granted i'm mostly watching for lou, but still: he fucking delivered whereas the rest of the cast -bar charles- was meh). lou was amazing this entire season (except for that accent: it needs to be canned or improved, maybe ditch it for a different brit region, but i encourage the aussie/south african sound he had during his first few eps, but then it morphed). the culmination of the treasure hunt was boring af too, severely lacking, way too simple but also poorly explained with elements that made no sense, it felt rushed and surface-level and just eye-rolly lazy and uninspired.

(just adding this: the most engaging relationship dynamics this season was the main couple and their respective fathers)

season 4 has finished filming. idk why bc the treasure plot (el dorado) was wrapped up, but apparently there's a different treasure? i didn't watch the first 2 seasons so maybe they dealt more with that.

edit: oh, blackbeard's treasure is the new quest, cool. not making me miss ofmd or anything.....

[forcebookish]

Hey so you don't have to answer this if you dont have the time or anything but I really love all your takes on the show and was wondering if you had any thoughts/theories especially when it comes to mew's revenge and how you think all that is gonna go down. I'm just asking cuz I spent too much time in the tags and saw people that legit think mew is gonna sleep with boston or ray lmfao and I just need some good takes from someone that actually gets his character to drown it out.

oh, anon, i am at this level at all times,

so of course i will answer this, i need very little prompting haha (and i'm glad you're loving my only friends takes❣️) BUT OMG IMAGINE THINKING THAT MEW WOULD SLEEP WITH BOSTON AFTER ALL THAT CAN'T RELATE BECAUSE I HAVE A BRAIN LOL trying to drown him is their foreplay i guess lmao ppl are really out here writing fanfiction and calling it "predictions"🤣🤣🤣

however, as for sleeping with ray, i'm not entirely sure actually! if at all, definitely not in the next episode, although it does look like mew is going to forgive him for ruining his birthday

and my hope is that it's, in part, because ray is actually going to get sober. we've already seen that mew is maybe a little too forgiving when it comes to ray.

but i don't think that now that mew has ~lost his virginity~ he's going to suddenly jump into bed with anyone. like how falling in and out of love isn't a switch you can flick on and off, losing your virginity after being that particular isn't a dam breaking. and when it comes to ray, i think mew's got a couple reasons for not wanting to be with ray and rejecting him when he did: not only because he "can't hook up with his friend," but because ray is a hot fucking mess. mew's already gone through a lot because of ray's addiction. plus, now that he knows how long ray has been holding that torch and how hard it's been burning, mew's smart enough not to fan the flames. especially based on his attitude in the above cap.

and we have this to look forward to:

which i'm sure will be related to mew, but might be about something that hasn't even been set up yet, idk. we're only halfway through D:

all this to say, to your actual point, as angry as mew was at ray he's not going to be one of the "targets" for his revenge. boston's definitely going to get the brunt of it, and i'm hoping in the process mew will find out/realize what top's part actually was in all of this - and soon!!! it's tearing me up inside that mew thinks top slept with boston to mess with him and their whole relationship was a lie😭

as for how the revenge will be planned/play out, i've got a few of loose, disconnected ideations but nothing concrete:

sabotaging boston's part of the hostel project, specifically finding a way that he can fail without hurting mew's grades in the process (which i'm guessing may backfire)

(side-note: if nickboston are endgame at all, i don't think they're going to actually get back together but i do think that boston is going to move to new york to be with his mom/pursue photography - because i do not see him graduating without mew's help lol - and that nick is going to follow him. they may meet up with each other again, but no matter what i think it's going to be open-ended.)

leaking the audio recording and/or gap's video of him and boston, thus sabotaging boston's dad's campaign; this would definitely involve nick like book hinted, and hopefully will reveal all of what went down in the car. (there also could be footage from the photobooth where top and boston hooked up and/or security cam footage of the elevator in top's hotel, as @topapologist pointed out to me. that might be overkill though.) my guess is that mew's creepy bathtub brain-blast in the preview is going to be related to that, and after he finds out from ray where he got the recording, which should lead him to nick. and because of the full audio, mew will not only find out that top was coerced, but that boston has some kind of sex tape that "proves" mew and ray slept together. i've hidden this in the tags of some other post, but i do have a suspicion that the video boston showed top was the video gap took of them, either edited to make it hard to see or otherwise, especially since we don't see it or hear it. however, since it's been hinted that gap may still have a copy, nick might get it from there idk

something something nick is into animation something something lmao that could be totally unrelated!! but that seems to be where papang at least comes into it at least, seen here:

and my wildest, totally out of left field, am 99% sure won't happen, just for giggles prediction is that mew frames boston for arson lol

i thought i had more about the revenge but guess not🤔 i do think that the first two are going to be in tandem, but if there's anything else going on or how it specifically goes down, no idea.

I'VE ALREADY WRITTEN TOO MUCH FOR ONE POST/ANSWER BUT SINCE WE'RE HERE LET'S GET INTO MY CURRENT PREDICTIONS JUST SO IT'S ALL IN ONE PLACE (FOR NOW):

boeing is going to show up as the ex that sand said top "stole" - i've been thinking this for a while and i would assume it's become a popular theory now that we're sure mix is coming on to the show as boeing.

the ominous music cue when mew found the toy airplane seems like a lot just to indicate that top was going to lie about it, there has to be a deeper reason than just "it was my ex's"

the obviously abridged version of the truth that top tells mew later in the episode may be related to "stealing" him from sand, to hide an ugly side of himself he didn't want mew to see (we already know that he's uncomfortable talking about stuff that happened before meeting mew, see: beam - although i will maintain that beam made him uncomfortable in general because of their sexual history and whatever trauma he's secretly got going on)

however, i also think boeing either "pursued" top rather than the other way around and/or top didn't know that boeing was taken. i've got a few reasons:

top doesn't go after people who are "taken," based on this line when he first met mew (even though mew's wristband meant he wasn't looking for anyone), perhaps because he "learned his lesson" but i don't think so

i think this line

is a red herring. it's meant for us to think that top was the one who came on stronger, right? but i think it has more to do with boeing coming on stronger to top. (but maybe i'm just looking with my top lovin' goggles😅)

relative to "coming on stronger," i think that boeing may have something to do with why top shuts down when boston gropes him and why he's instantly on his guard when beam touches him (even before seeing who it was). it may have been another case where someone took advantage of him that he blames himself for - might've been the first case.

top is going to steal mew's pain medication.

this one's pretty obvious, although i suppose since the above q photo was staged between shots, it could be a red herring (i no longer think it's a suicide attempt, although that might have been the original intent based on the pilot trailer. they deleted/privated the pilot trailer for a reason; we picked that shit apart like wild animals lol). they reference the medication, they're definitely opioids, and we already know that top's drug of choice is some kind of opioid/opiate. it looks episode 7 might pick up right where episode 6 ended, since it's the same outfit, you know, before he got shirtless lol we also know that it's going to be harder than ever to sleep without mew and who knows what his tolerance level for his sleeping pills is at this point.

i might be forgetting something i've posted about or chatted about with friends already but for now, i rest my case lol

as always, i wrote too much, but these are still only small fractions of what may play out and i find that really exciting. guessing twists is a lot of fun, but how we get there or seeing them be built up especially without really knowing what's going to happen is the most fun to me! episode 6 was a wild ride: a lot of my predictions were correct but they still only made up, like, 10% of what actually happened. there was so much stuff i never would have guessed! even when it was breaking my heart, i loved it.

hope you enjoyed these takes too, anon! <3

[poindexters-labratory]

It's now been a few days since SB Ruin released, and I've calmed down some and actually started noticing things and using my head.

So, here's an update.

(spoilers ahead)

Cassie throughout the game acts as a foil to Gregory from the base game, which makes her character really fascinating. By a foil, I mean she really loves these animatronics (except for Monty and the Music Men Army). She tries her best to fix and help the animatronics she's attached to, like Sun/Moon/Eclipse, Chica, and Roxanne. This is in direct opposition to Gregory destroying them. And the foil really shows during the elevator ending.

Speaking of the elevator ending, I'm unsure if that was directly Gregory's doing or someone acting as Gregory. The vocal clipping and editing that is demonstrated in the game shows that it's entirely possible that someone acted as Gregory once again and cut the elevator lines. But we didn't hear Gregory call to Cassie through the walkie-talkie after the credits though, we heard Roxanne.

In the game files, the 'monster in the basement' is apparently called the Grimic (supposedly a mash of Gregory-Mimic, just like how Vanny is a mash of Vanessa and Bunny.) And now that I know the actual purpose of the Mimic, its addition makes sense to the story. But the thing that I'm worried about is that Fazbear Entertainment is trying to get to it. Fazbear Entertainment created the AR system for navigating the ruined Pizza Plex, Helpi, and these Faz-Wrench systems. The AR system is specially designed to find these security nodes that are keeping the Mimic locked up from being found.

These systems were quite possibly made by Vanessa, Gregory, Freddy (??), and I think Malhare was involved as well, kind of to enforce security (unless Malhare is Vanessa's own design and Glitchtrap was eradicated at the Princess Quest ending of Security Breach. But this 'extra security protocol' can set up its own connection ports??). Whatever the Mimic's potential/power level/design/purpose is, Gregory and Vanessa do not want to let it out. At any cost.

And there could be the possibility of a hivemind (although I'm not sure since it was information that I skimmed through) and I don't know if that means multiple Mimics or that the Mimic can take control of other android technology. (If anyone has that information, I would love to have it!)

Then comes the question of who would want to have the Mimic? Fazbear Entertainment corporate executives most likely, but that thing has been down there for ages. Who knows that it's down there?

(headcanon tangent time)

My favorite headcanon is that it's Henry because if he was in the deepest part of the basement, he could've easily escaped through the tunnels and blocked off the hole to prevent anyone else from leaving. Going up the elevator, waiting for the fire to calm down to collect the machinery he specifically made sure Michael didn't destroy during testing, despite knowing that the fire would happen, to give to the people making the VR game.

Including the bits of machinery in Scraptrap that would lead to the creation of Glitchtrap.

I like to think of him as a bit of greedy business man. And it would make the FNAF story really interesting (for me at least) if Henry is kind of the ultimate bad guy of the whole story, not because he's bad but I love morally gray characters and I think they have really good uses for telling complex stories.

There could be multiple different answers that belong to separate people, and that's respectable! But this answer is my personal favorite.

(end of headcanon tangent time)

I did enjoy Ruin though, especially for the sake of now the characters are a lot more plot relevant to the story, and the more sci-fi FNAF gets, the more I wonder about the potential for perhaps a time travel based game, I think that would be kind of cool because I really enjoy those AUs. Not to mention a backstory is the thing I really want from this franchise.

If now with the power of AR technology, a person can walk through objects and teleport, the next step is obviously time travel (I'm half joking, but seriously, you can walk through objects in this game and teleport, that's a little nuts if I think about it).

[rainofdauwuand0w0]

"The Return of Midnight Sparkle" - a review

so uh hi, and um im doing this thing because my interest in this has me excited like pinkie pie on too much fucking cupcakes and I really wanted to share my entire whole thoughts of what I thought of the story for "the return of midnight sparkle" and I wanna sure them all here! Prolouge: a very lovely opening to see what kind of story we are getting into, it sets the tone pretty well in my opinion, shining a light on the many things, thoughts of the main character, and the reasons behind their future actions and thoughts, very much enjoying the idea of how sunset is used here Chapter 1: getting to see and hear your versions of the mane 7 in a sense like this, really set the scene for how things are a lil different or much of the same in some cases, love the setting of the table itself and it was amazing to see all the characters like this! Chapter 2: when you said that this was gonna be like an entire season condensed into writing, I was pleasantly surprised to truly feel like I just spaced out in an afternoon with treehugger to watch time pass by, each character showing different mini-friendship lessons to sunset (at least in my mind) that she may have to use later on in her life or have to take into consideration, especially with how the way it ended, it felt like the climax of a season and the culmination of all the lil lessons learned, and if the mane 7 were allowed to cuss or do talk about stuff more adult themes, I'd see it being pretty much like this, sure its your interpretation but I personally really enjoyed those interpretations! Chapter 3: ohohhoohoho yesssssssssssss, I love all of this, the way twilight and sunset interact, the way pinkie pie reacts (even in this version that you ended up on) is still funny, and it really feels like you elevated her clueless nature to a level that I relate to, just the interactions and emotions were so good, twilight by the end giving in and such, one last push, always the overdetermined gal Chapter 4: I love this, I love the factor of how midnight taunts and prods at everyone but sunset to a degree, how the feelings there are not only in twilight but also in midnight and that theme continues as she tries to coax sunset into becoming the other evil ruler with her, a show that deep down she is still just a crazed version of the same twilight Chapter 5: OHOHOHHOHOHOHOHOOHOHO I love this prison break scene, I love the tension as sunset does her things, giving something for everyone to do, and I actually giggled a little at the factor of pinkie's line when she was given her task, the sequence is beautiful, love midnight also having to try and desperately follow sunset, desperately as the inner battle of twilight and midnight happens, but then sunset going on, and ohhhh I swear some parts I imagined midnight and twlights worried overlapped, harmony between the two of them over the love of sunset shimmer, they did not want her to be hurt, and yet in the end, that was midnights downfall, a simple bit of the unexpected love sparked and stopped both minds in their tracks, long enough for sunset to be a badass and end it off epicly Chapter 6: and I gotta say with keeping it semi-spoiler free for the sneaky sneaks who didn't read the story and just tried to skip here for a summary or something, the ending, the way sunset and twilight interact, everything sunset gains and everything that happens, it's a beautiful way to close it all off for a official chapter, such a nice delicate ending, also mach 5 twilight inbound was not something I was expecting but the visual in my brain that I got from the description was an awesome one

[thecurioustale]

Transitions: The Spackle of Art!

The other day I wrote some transitional passages for Galaxy Federal, connecting two preestablished scenes.

Transitional passages are like the mortar and spackle of artistic construction. They're necessary, but forever peripheral. (Though I suppose there probably are some artists who thrive in it.) For me though, writing transitional matter is an uncommon state. It doesn't come nearly as naturally to me as main scene-writing does, and I spend a lot less time doing it. When I was writing the Prelude, a lot of it also came very late in the process, as a necessity rather than a pleasure in itself. It was quite a challenge, worthy of boasting of my skill as a professional author, for me to elevate this text to make it interesting and compelling. (In my opinion anyway.)

This transcends my writing and reflects my entire personality: In composing music, I always struggle with my transitions between the prominent melodic sections. In listening to music of all genres, I almost always much prefer the main sections over the transitions. Same with reading books, watching movies, etc.

But because of its relative alienness to me, I also have a certain fascination with transitional passages. I tend to notice them, and I appreciate them when they are especially well-done. Some are so subtle and well-integrated that you can scarcely see them. Other transitions are much bigger, but necessarily worse.

Such was the space I found myself working in the other day: This particular transitional passage calls for thousands of words of text, and I obliged two-and-a-half thousand on my first pass, during which time I got to show all sorts of things happening! My highly granular, ground-level, play-by-play scenes—which comprise most of my main scenes as compared to the less common "40,000 foot narrative epic view" type—tend to flow slowly. But in a transitional passage, hours can pass in the space of a single sentence. Whole conversations can be clipped to one or two lines of dialogue. Environmental descriptions can show the progression of time rather than a moment in time. It's quite literally a change of pace for me, most of the time.

I tried to use this quality to flesh out the fact of "Cherry being a starship captain." I am greatly interested in the nitty-gritty of this; I seek to incorporate a lot of verisimilitude into the text. Virtually all editors, and most writers, would single stuff like this out as the poster child for bloated text that needs to be edited down for tightness and pacing. But I firmly reject that. I really just want to write stories about people "at the office," proverbially speaking. I think the criticism that this kind of stuff isn't interesting is true, but only provisionally: It depends upon the underlying activities themselves being boring, and/or the writer not being great at writing them.

In that sense, action and "PLOT" are a crutch that many writers depend upon to cope with limited writing skills. We've all met people in our lives who are so intrinsically interesting and good at telling stories that they could literally describe an hour of washing the dishes and we'd be hanging on their every word. We've all been there! This is a real thing.

I, myself, am not actually all that good as a yarn-spinner, bard, or anecdotist. But what I lack in a talent for gripping storytelling I hope and aspire to make up for with the stories themselves just being intrinsically interesting. I've seen other writers pull this off. If the subject matter is interesting, the writer doesn't have to be a great anecdotist.

So the question in this particular case is: Is being a starship captain...interesting?

And my answer to that is: "Yes and no, in all the ways you would expect, but to some extent it doesn't matter because no one actually writes about starship captains having 'a regular day at the office.'" The normalcy of starship captains' jobs is always being interrupted by PLOT. So it's actually quite rare to get to see a captain walking around doing regular stuff at length. That rarity gives me more room to depict realities that perhaps wouldn't be interesting to read about in every sci-fi book over and over again as a convention of the genre, but definitely would be interesting to read about at least a few times.

I put it to you that you probably don't know what a starship captain actually does in normal circumstances. You could logically deduce some of it, but have you ever really seen it play out (in fiction, obviously)? I think that would be enjoyable to read about, at least every once in a while.

Well, the transitional passage that I started writing this week definitely adds some more spackle to that curious edifice!

[scattered-winter]

back at it again with another batshit dream I had but last night I was on a beach with my sister and brother-in-law, some random background characters, and eddie fucking diaz (chris was there also) and we were just hanging out on the sand but then some prehistoric alligator-dinosaur-sharks started jaws-ing people in the ocean and eddie swam in to get chris out (he was fine) and so we all went to the hotel that was for some reason right on the beach because it wasn't a great day for swimming I guess. (my sister and her husband didn't appear in the dream after the beach and I'm assuming they got gotten by the shark things but I don't know). and then we were hunkering down in the lobby for a while until we started hearing screaming and chaos and explosions outside and we looked out the windows to see that cordyceps (tlou) was breaking out and there were zombies everywhere and some were trying to break into the hotel so we all ran into the stairwell to get away from them and from there we started fighting our way up the hotel levels (it had 7 floors) and we lost a few people and had to lock them in rooms since we didn't have any guns (but eddie and I had katanas for some reason, and so he took point in the stairwell and I brought up the rear in case anything came after us) and as we went up, we all started to get to know each other. there was a very kind elderly woman who had recently been through a nasty divorce who had gone on vacation to this beach to try and recover, and she held chris' hand on the way up the stairs since eddie was busy protecting the group from the front, and she gave everyone little peppermints from her purse to keep spirits up. there was a little kid who was learning to draw and I showed him some tips and tricks during our breaks. we were all helping each other and protecting each other and we were close-knit family by the time the dream ended (I miss them). by about the 5th floor it was pretty clear that the whole world was ending because 911 wasn't working and nobody could get ahold of anyone outside the hotel, and from the windows we could see the chaos unfold like a spreading rash. the 6th floor had the prehistoric alligator-dinosaur-sharks for SOME reason (they were hopping around on their flippers which should have been funny but in context it was TERRIFYING) and eddie and I had to slice them up with our swords so everyone could get past them. we had to fight our way through a horde (miraculously nobody got bitten or scratched) until we reached the 7th floor, and the elevator that would take us to the roof so we could get picked up by one of the rescue choppers that were flying all over. (how the elevator was working when there was no electricity, I have no idea.) we tried to fit everyone in at once because like I said, we were family now and didn't want anyone left behind, but there were so many of us that we had to split into groups. I went in the first group w my katana in case something was on the roof, and chris, the drawing kid, and a few others came with me. eddie stayed behind to go with the second group since he had the other katana, and the nice peppermint lady stayed too. we got to the roof to find a few other survivors, and sent the elevator down for everyone else, and the second group got up with no trouble, and a few minutes later the helicopters came. and the very last bit of my dream was a slow camera pan over the entire destroyed city, and the camera stopped on a view of another building (an apartment complex) a few blocks over from the hotel, where the cordyceps had first broken out. the blinds were tattered and torn, the windows broken, and there was blood and bits of gore all over the blinds and walls and broken glass. and then I woke up in my dark room feeling like a zombie or alligator-dinosaur-shark was gonna jump at me from outta nowhere and I have to just live like that lmao

[tuiyla]

Something that I still find insane with Glee is just how much professional content was put out about it, both during and after the show. They had the actual show, the concert tours, the (3D) concert movie, the reality show specifically to get cast on Glee (two seasons of it which is one more than most shows even get now), the billboard charting songs/albums, the cast podcasts, and the recent fucked up docuseries. Not to mention the insane number of "Glee Audition" YouTube videos and other fan-created content like SimGM, fanfics, covers, GIFs, etc. I genuinely cannot think of a single other show that has ever had that much going on around it. No matter where you looked or what kind of content, you'd likely run into something Glee related. I first learned about the show because my classmates would singing "Don't Stop Believing" on our bus all the time, like the entire bus would sing the entire song. No one and no where was safe.

Also books and other merchandise iirc?

It's truly an insane scale. I think there were similar properties, but not at the same intersection of teen media and music as Glee was. Music really elevated it above other TV shows, in terms of revenue as well, I'm sure. I mean, what other show I could do as something as unhinged for as the singing database? They just produced so much content, and to think that the cast had to not only learn their lines and do the acting but record their songs AND learn choreography and do talk show appearances and other promos on top of that is already wild. Add to that the tours and musical appearances? It gets to a level that I'm pretty sure should have been illegal. Like, for real, the Glee cast was so infamous for being crazy overworked that it shouldn't have been allowed. Hard enough to film 22 episodes a year and that's without all the extra stuff.

And the fan stuff! That can be a tremendous amount even if the property itself isn't as accomplished as Glee was but you're right, that was - and continues to be! - impressive too. Again the scale of it, organized events and forums and popular videos like SimGM. You really couldn't go anywhere without Glee content.

I think I've mentioned this once or twice before, but I heard Landslide for the first time through the GCV. I didn't search for the Glee version; I had just read The Perks of Being a Wallflower and I wanted to know what the tunnel song sounded like. This is September of 2012 btw. So I typed landslide into youtube and the very first result, probably the second and even third, was the Glee version. So that was the one I listened to for years, exclusively, even though I had zero to do with Glee at that point. I'm sure there were other GCVs that sneaked into my life and certainly the mainstream, too. The show itself had a stranglehold on pop culture but the music was a whole new level. Glee was a machine producing so much content and I can only assume making an obscene amount of money. Idk what the cast got paid but I'd be willing to bet it wasn't enough.

Through godawful documentaries or in more positive ways but Glee's still part of the public consciousness because that kind of omnipresence doesn't just go away. Fascinating. Kinda terrifying. But very very interesting.

[warcrimesimulator]

A review of Anemoiapolis Chapter 1.

It was... underwhelming? The demo was SO good, so my expectations were high, and what we ended up getting just felt rushed and perhaps even unfinished.

I wasn't a fan of the hub area and the ticket system. I would've rather had a purely linear experience with the entire Resort section in the beginning.

Mostly I just found it was lacking in content. The demo had a few puzzles, and I would've liked puzzles of increasing complexity (and puzzles of different types) to have been a constant throughout the game. The lack of dialogue throughout the game was also a bit weird- in the Demo, the player character had commentary on his surroundings, which are still present in the Resort level but none of the others.

The Conference Hall was just involved running around empty hallways (with the occasional chair or plant) until you reach the end. I wouldn't have minded this as some kind of transition area, but it felt weird and lacking as a standalone "level." The Country Club was even worse- literally all you do is enter and you can exit right away through the same elevator. There's a golf minigame (with terrible controls) that's nothing more than a distraction and it doesn't even offer any reward. Neither of these areas really felt dreamlike the way the Resort/demo area did. I did like the Movie Theater area- that one was good.

Wasn't a fan of the changes made to the Resort area. It was still the highlight of the game, but I greatly preferred it when the lazy river led straight to the "water reservoir" area- it was a perfect transition from something so relaxing and nostalgic, to unsettling, and changing it to the area with the big slides just didn't have the same effect imo. And because the slide area has those holes in the floor, you can just drop down and miss most of the level.

Also super weird that the shadow entity only starts appearing at the Resort. I kind of wish it showed up earlier or in the very least there was something indicating that there was someone or something else down there with you.

That being said, I did still enjoy it and I'll be anticipating Chapter 2. It still did a good job of the whole liminal space concept, and the music of course was amazing.

[amplexadversary]

Utena Movie thoughts

Oh, I recognize this architecture, it's UC Davis's The Death Star, but with a little more acrophobia thrown in for good measure!

And the shadow chorus girls now have aliases and a radio show. Okay.

Also Short hair Utena? Pretty dapper I've got to say, though I'm more used to the long hair design.

Whereas Jury's hair got even longer lol

Oh, we're getting out the "Ultraman references" early, I see. (coming back to this observation, the crosses are in fact relevant later in the film)

And Utena actually knows Touga ahead of time in this one.

See, if I had given in and watched the dub, I'd probably be bitching about repetitive dialogue, but the sub merely feels like it's determined to teach me today's vocabulary word in Japanese (mind, this is a JOKE. The word is dropped so frequently because a whole lot of anime is being compressed into less tha 90min)

Ah, I see this is the version of events after Touga has an encounter with RL Stein's Cuckoo Clock of Doom; if Utena had been childhood friends with Touga in the show's timeline Nanami would have pushed her off a building.

It's a but weird seeing Anthy with her hair down outside of a worrisome emotional scene. I don't like how they straightened her hair either. And no glasses? At least she's less passive in this version?

Yeah, I don't know about the hair thing. In the original, the long-haired Utena and the shorter (appearing) haired Anthy prevented the main pairing from having too much of a butch/femme dichotomy. Anthy feels very off model throughout this entire thing (Utena too, to a lesser extent.)

Well that's certainly an... efficient level of composite-charactering from Shiori's summary. The movie really makes Shiori much more two-faced as well. And Touga less. Not sure how I feel about that.

Okay my joke about Touga being in an RL Stein book was not in good taste given just how much we're doing composite characters here, but I'm not going to remove it. That elevator scene was well done, I have to say.

Speaking of "efficient," the film does not hold on to its cards nearly as hard as the show does (proportionately speaking). I guess the intent would be for people to have already watched the show. (yeah no they were building on the end enough that they wanted to Get There as quickly as possible)

I have nothing to say about the first "scandalous tape" that I haven't already said about Nanami. As for the second... I think they manage to show a lot more while showing a lot less, particularly when you realize that that fizzy tablet is NOT alka-seltzer (I think the reason why the writers made it fizz is again to draw attention - this time to the tablet going in Anthy's drink)

----------------------------------------

Okay so we're working with a much more uh, figurative scenario compared to the show. The climax has something to say and it does so basically purely through metaphor.

The "world" here resents Anthy for getting out from under Akio's thumb, blames her for his (accidental lmao) death, because why should she get to leave? (I appreciate Shiori's dialogue here in trying to be the person who "deserves" to get out. She frames it as a competition she must win, a race, a zero sum game where only the fastest to leave gets out. When that is uh. not the case but very much how some people treat it IRL, so that's pretty clear.)

And Utena's role. She fails in the show. She does not rescue Anthy, Anthy has to leave on her own.

In the film. Uh. Utena very much goes with her. But she does so in a way where she's not able to directly help; Anthy has to drive.

Honestly I'm sure there's more to say here but I'm kind of reeling from the spectacle of Getting Changed By The Big Machine, set to a juiced up version of the Absolute Destiny Apocalypse theme song.

Look, you're not going to get an "A" essay on the first watch of a movie with that scene from someone who

Um

is really into the vehicle/body horror thing that a certain other anime has going for it.

Look does anyone honestly expect someone who gives the *non judgemental but knowing look* to the Nanami Cow Episode to not have their own deviantart-tier kinks?

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I think I see what's ultimately going on with the movie. It's asking the audience to do a LOT more heavy lifting dissecting the metaphor of what's going on, adds another layer of fantasy on top of the fantasy, and gets much farther away from the literal in order to play up how fraught Anthy's Power Word: Leave would be.

And in exchange for that we get a less bittersweet, but still open ending, and an actual Utena/Anthy kiss.

[thewheelieweirdclub]

The Tassie Trail.

This is the beginning of a different kind of love story, the kind that isn’t celebrated enough. This is the experience that kickstarted a very special bond between us, the collision of two hardy bitches. An eternal friendship started right here on the Tassie trail.

Back in September last year, Sammy and I went on a mate date to watch a small bike film festival, showing inspiring movies of people on two wheels. ‘Lets plan something epic’ we said to one another during the intermission, and so the idea to ride the Tasmanian Trail, a 500km route with 10,000m of elevation, spanning the length of Tasmania was born.

To tell you the truth, there was not a whole lot of preparation, but the stoke levels were immeasurably high. I had just purchased my first mountain bike (a dual suspension 2017 Scott Spark) less than two months prior to embarking on this mission, and Sammy had very kindly been lent a Surly ECR, which she’d never ridden before (yikes). We packed very light, using lots of hiking gear that we both already owned, and borrowing gear where we could, even down to shoes and pedals. Very little research was done into the conditions of the trail, we’re both very much of the ‘just wing it’ kind of mindset. We booked a couple of tickets on the redline coach up to the start of the trail in Devonport, and with 5 days off work, and a ‘fuck around and find out’ attitude, we set off on our merry way. 

Day 1.

Very quickly (less than 5 kilometres in), we realised that actually, there is some merit to testing  gear before a trip (I know, who’d have thought?). I had a few bag malfunctions straight off, with the saddle pack being rammed too full, sagging like a sack of potatoes and hitting my rear tyre. A few adjustments every kilometre or so and eventually we were on our way, or so we thought. 

The track notes had mentioned somewhere that it is useful to get a key for some gates that we would inevitably come across, to which we replied ‘that sounds too easy, how do we make it harder?’. Well, the answer is to lift your bike and all the attached gear over multiple head high gates. All of this whilst trying not to wet yourself from laughter. Yes, this is the trip that made me realise that I need to work on my pelvic floor muscles, to avoid having to wear incontinence pads every time I’m around Sammy P. Damn that girl makes me laugh so hard I pee a little. And what better time to figure this out, than when wearing the same pair of bib shorts for 5 days in a row. 

Now, some would say it would be smart to have some bike mechanical knowledge when embarking on a mission this big, and they would be correct. About 30kms in, and pretty much in the middle of nowhere, I could hear an odd hissing sound coming from my front tyre. This is my first bike running  tubeless tyres, and therefore I had no idea how to manage them. But with a can do attitude (something Sammy and I possess to a detriment), I managed to use the force of gravity and some interesting positioning to seal the hole, whilst Sammy provided the laughs. 

By now we had ridden 40km (huge right?!), so it would’ve been rude not to stop in the first town we came across for a big old feed. Burgers and milkshakes seemed to set the theme of the food to come on the trail, which feels good at the time, but in hindsight chicken and banana are not flavours you want to be simultaneously repeating on you whilst pedalling uphill. “I FEEL SICKY”, we yelled to each other in both disgust and amusement, and that wouldn’t be for the last time either.

Old forestry trails opened our eyes to how much logging goes on in Tasmania that we don’t see. These led us to our first camp spot perched on the bank of the Mersey river, opposite some cows. We set up camp, notified our family and friends of our safety with Sammy’s SPOT GPS tracker, and tucked ourselves in (which for Sammy, involves blocking out the entire world with earplugs and a face mask). 

UNTIL about 4am, when I was suddenly woken by bright headlights illuminating the inside of the tent. “Hello, it’s the police, you’ve set off your GPS tracker” I heard coming from outside. I shook Sammy awake and we crawled out of the tent, Sammy still donning her eye mask on her forehead. The police very kindly notified us of our quite large mistake. Sammy believed she had been pressing a button that would send a little wave to the mission followers at home, when she had in fact lifted a flap to press a button that conveyed that we needed non emergent help. This had sent a text to Sammy’s swimming friend Rod, not once, but 7 times. Rightly so, Rod had become concerned and contacted the local authorities, who had sent two police officers on a 78km mission from Devonport to come and find two peacefully sleeping women unaware of their mistake. Not only this, but they had to swap their regular vehicle for an off road golf buggy so that they could tame the trails. Sammy apologised profusely, whilst I giggled equally. Lucky for us, the police officers were incredibly forgiving of our mistake, and informed us that if they hadn’t received the call then they would’ve been sleeping at station with nothing to do (which I’m not sure is such a bad thing at all). 

Anyway, it would certainly give them something to laugh about at station, and we received an education on how to actually use the SPOT tracker. We waved the policemen off and went back to bed, whilst they made the long, complicated journey back to Devonport. 

Day 2.

We probably should’ve know from the start, that today was going to be anything but smooth sailing. Instead of getting our butts out of bed after the whole police debacle we chose to return to slumber until 6am, an interesting choice given the day ahead. We hadn't quite managed to streamline the whole bike packup process and it took us nearly two hours to get the show on the road. We had camped on the northern side of the river, saving the crossing for first thing. I was convinced that there was an easy way across further up stream, so we loaded up the bikes and rode a little up river. I was wrong. Not a good start, but we rode back to where we had started and unpacked the bikes. We crossed first unladen, wading through to find out that the river was waist deep, but luckily not very fast flowing. We returned to pick up all of our gear and carried that across, and then once more to bring our trusty steeds to the other side.

I had my first aqua poo, but we don’t need to delve too much into that.

From here, it did not get easier. For the first hour and an half of the day, we travelled 5km. We were met with steep, unrideable hills, many a fallen tree, and a cheeky bush bash to get us back on track after getting a tad lost. We would later find out that this section of the trail was actually closed due to it’s poor condition, and a tiny bit of track note reading/planning may have informed us of that, but where’s the fun in that, right?

Somewhere along the trail this morning Sammy started to have some knee troubles. She had the bright idea of calling the guys at the bike shop, who tried their best to provide a bike fit over the phone. Somewhere amongst this stop, someone (we won’t mention who) said to us that they knew we were never going to be able to complete this massive challenge, and that we were a little crazy for thinking it was possible in the 5 days we’d given ourselves. This of course stoked the fire within, as there’s nothing that pushes us two more than being told that we can’t do something.

The roads were a very welcome sight, it felt so good to pedal and cover some ground with minimal effort. 80(ish) km into the day and at around 4pm, we arrived at Bracknell. Nothing could get in the way of our ‘can do’ attitude…

…Except for maybe the realistic ladies that worked at the Bracknell petrol station.

We decided to stop and get some absolute treats, including the obligatory flavoured milk. The women working at the convenience store were curious to know what these two dishevelled, hungry, smelly, blood covered (I fell off my bike) girls were up to . ‘We’re cycling to Miena’ we confidently replied, and the reaction we got makes sense in hindsight. This negativity was like pouring petrol onto the flames, but in fairness these ladies weren’t entirely wrong.

We called ahead to the Great Lakes hotel in Miena. The fabulous manager (James) was stoked on our stoke, albeit somewhat mystified at our current location and today’s goal. He offered us the last room with the promise of a hot shower and a chicken parmy at the end. With that, we set off on what we thought was just 40 more kilometres (there was very limited signal to do any research on what lay ahead).

We thanked the ladies for their positivity and set off. A little further down the road, we managed to get some more signal. 40km was in fact correct… if travelling by foot or horse, and there would be a lot of hike-a-biking if this route was chosen. We stuck to the road and came across a road sign to Miena. 59km and 1500m elevation left. So at 6:30pm with the best drum and bass playlist to exist (thanks Josh), we started the gruelling climb up the poatina highway, with spirits as high as the mountain that lay in front of us.

After having already ridden a fair way that day, to say the body was a bit tired is definitely an understatement. After about 2 hours of climbing I had to start breaking it up into half an hour chunks of riding. Sammy P didn’t have any trouble at all, but was happy to pull over every half an hour and allow me to rest a tad. My legs were screaming a me, it felt like I was pulling/tearing butt muscles. I had to get off and walk the bike up the hill a few times. We maintained our positive attitude the whole way up the mountain, a little broken when we reached the top. Still, there was no time to think about that, as we still had 40km to get to Miena and it was already 9pm.

This was probably the longest 40km we’ve ever done. The last 16km seemed never ending. Sammy’s knees hurt so much from climbing that she couldn’t unclip to stop. I felt like I was going to vomit. Despite this, there was an incredible moment during that grim night of riding, where I looked up at the stars and saw the clearest night sky, then saw this kickass ‘yes-girl’ next to me, and thought ‘how lucky am I?’.

At 12:30 am we rolled into Miena, and nearly collapsed through the door of the Great Lakes accomodation. And there they were, such a magnificent sight, two chicken parmies and chips in the oven staring back at us longingly. We deliriously inhaled the food and treated ourselves to a shower (and even washed the knicks). We climbed into bed and set a late alarm for the next morning.

Day 3.

We woke at 8:30 feeling anything but rested. Sammy and I both suffer in the sleep department the night after an epic day on the tools, but we knew we had to keep chipping away at the beast that we’d started.

What better way to start the day than with a milkshake and a big breaky roll. This is the moment that Sammy started making me order food first, due to some ongoing food envy and decision regret. I like to get creative with my order, I couldn’t possibly make it easy for the folks working at the road house. And by difficult, what we’re talking about here is mixing banana and chocolate syrup in a milkshake… I’ll give you a second to recover from this mind blowing flavour combination.

Anyway, after the breakfast that was better than porridge, we treated ourselves to another shower, packed up, and set off for the day at around 11:00am. Within the first 500 metres Sammy and I agreed that we both felt absolutely fucked. Not just body tired, but brain tired too. The fact we were even able to sit back on the bikes was a Christmas miracle. Sammy was not particularly inspired by the start of this ride, which was gravel road through the countryside. I enjoyed seeing the vastness of the landscape, which Sammy described as ‘barren’. We stopped a few times to adjust Sammy’s cleats, in the hope that any small intervention would assist with her knee pain.

We pushed on, deciding that 2 hours of pedalling was enough to justify a lunch break. Let me tell you, this was also the best beef and gravy roll I have ever had, but it also could’ve been down to the fact that delirium had clearly kicked in by this stage.

We ended up taking an accidental detour (we can’t navigate) post lunch, which brought us along side a pretty beautiful lake. This gravel segment didn’t appear to be ridden (and strava’d) by many women, and saw us joining the leaderboard with our Tassie cycling idols, Sofia T and Flukesy.

We had another quite long break on the side of the road, and decided this was the perfect spot for coffee and a chat with Mr B. One hour later and we hauled ourselves back onto the bikes. Soon after doing so, we came across another group of keen blunnie-wearing bikepackers. They told us how hard they had heard the approach and climb was in the direction we had just travelled. We confirmed that they were in fact correct, as this was what we had done just the day before. We got a little ego boost from how impressed the guys were of our achievement, which fuelled our spirits to get us into Oose.

Then came probably the most beautiful part of the trail, and my description probably wont do it justice. The next section of the trail we started as the sun was coming towards the end of its day, low in the sky casting a yellow hue and beautiful long shadows on the path ahead. The trail was marginally technical single track, flowey and mostly downhill. This brought us to the farmland gravel roads that wound through magnificent rolling green hills. Sam wanted to use a ‘pencive’ (Harry Potter, if you know you know) to capture this moment forever, and after she explained to me what that was, I decided that I wouldn’t mind using one of those either.

At the end of the day we rolled into Oose and set up camp in a field next to some cows, proud of our efforts given how depleted we felt at the beginning of the day.

Day 4.

So if there’s one thing I can do well, it’s procrastinate, or ‘fanny around’ as Sammy likes to say. I’m a chronic faffer, its in my DNA, but I know Sammy loves me regardless. We woke up very puffy and quite sore again this morning, looking and smelling like a foot (sexy, right?).

We started off the day relatively positive, but within the first couple of kilometres it became apparent that Sammy’s knees were not so keen on the task at hand. Now I know that this girl is capable of a huge amount, and neither of us like to complain at all. So when I saw Sammy in tears whilst riding up one of the first hills, I anticipated that we were very soon going to have to make some hard choices.

With a huge day ahead of us, and what looked like a few remote sections of trail, we knew we needed to call it fairly early on if it was going to be called. After only 6kms down for the day we perched on the side of the road and had the hard chat. It was the end of the road for the dream team. Sammy’s naughty knees couldn’t be pushed any more. I felt as if I still had gas in the tank and something to prove, so I decided to embark on the remainder solo. I loaded up the bike with all the essentials that had been shared thus far, and with a few tears, waved goodbye to my new best friend Sammy.

Another 7km down the track and the trail had other plans. There was another river crossing, but this one appeared a lot faster flowing and deeper. I unpacked the bike, knowing that it would be easier to cross it without baggage like before. First I tried to find a path across empty handed and failed. The river was too fast and too deep, it took an hour of trying to get across, and me falling in to realise that this was a bad idea and also quite dangerous given I was without signal and now alone. I backtracked 5km and found an alternate route along a gravel road. Down this road I came across a couple of lads that had just flipped their Ute going too fast around a corner, and realised had I been there a minute or so earlier, the day might not have ended so well for me.

I continued onto the sealed main road. It was here that I realised that the highs and lows shared with Sammy were what had made this trip so special, and that it was going to be a lot harder nudging it alone.

I continued on the road through Westerway and ate my feelings in the form of a milkshake (for Sammy) and too many chips. I ducked off road as soon as I could (after being told off by a police car for not being visible enough). This took me through some farm land. Now if you’ve seen black sheep then I want you to imagine how ridiculous the next section was for me. I had to ride through a farm in a field of sheep, but there were hundreds of them, and the more I rode the more they became densely squashed towards the gate I would inevitably need to open. But I was brave and cleared the images of sheep mauling humans from my mind, as I pushed through the literal sea of wool to pass through the gate.

I got back to the road and next came one of the most grim climbs of the trip so far (mentally). The ascent before New Norfolk was unrelenting. I put drum and bass in my ear holes but it just wasn’t hitting right without my partner in crime. So I did what I needed to do and gave her a call. And with that got a much needed pep talk, but also felt like I was still sharing the experience with her, which was funny given she now smelt a lot less like a foot and was the other end of the phone. But this helped spur me on and keep on climbing the beast of a hill. I tell you what, all that climbing was worth it for the descent into town.

In new Norfolk I grabbed an ice cream from the local shop, where I met a fellow cycling frother working behind the counter. The guy there ended up telling me he once rode for 24 hours straight just to see what his body was capable of. This definitely spurred me on and put my negativity in check. I called dad who was with my grandparents and they ended up joining me for the last 10km (on the phone), bringing me into Lachlan. It was here that I made the decision to save some time by sleeping on the park bench in town. It would mean that I would have a much faster pack down for the early start I had in mind for the last day. I was also grateful for the shelter because it rained a fair amount that night. I tucked myself in tried not to overthink what tomorrow would hold, knowing that there was 100km and 2500m elevation left to conquer.

Day 5.

I set my alarm for 6am, and boy did I feel sicky! I slept for a maximum of 3 hours overnight, due to nervousness at what lay ahead, mixed with the fact I was sleeping in a public park in very plain sight. Knowing that I had to get some food down to succeed at today, I took an anti nausea medication and consumed what I could of some more sad porridge.

Now today started uphill and felt like it never ended. I was treated to 6km of fairly well maintained gravel road and then it literally disappeared off the face of the earth. Then what lay ahead was sticky, severely rutted out clay channels that were once driven by cars decades ago. This road was a car graveyard, with carcasses of the fallen strewn along the side of it. The aforementioned ruts were minimum knee high, filled with water and fairly unrelenting. The only break from that was a few sections of 36% uphill gradient. This was the definition of type 2 fun. I was not having the best time during the experience, falling several times straight into the mud. But even writing about it now, I am longing to get back onto Jeffrey’s track and not ride it all over again.

So by 4 hours into today I had ridden a mere 16km, another slow start to the day. And of course this started off the plague of self doubt. There was plenty more ground to cover today if I was going to get this done. I descended down into Judbury and realised that I had nearly burnt through all of the charge on my phone and power bank, and without the map on my phone, I had next to no idea of where I was going.

The Tassie trail is not the easiest to navigate. You’re lucky to find a marker here and there, but it seemed they rarely popped up when you actually needed them. It’s made up of a complex network of old forestry roads, fire trails and sealed roads and relies heavily on having a digital map of some form.

This meant that I would have to endure the next two big climbs without music, and my brain was holding onto that small tool of distraction from discomfort. I ate an old chicken sandwich on the park bench and received another pep talk from Sammy, who I think at this point definitely believed in me more than I did (the angel).

After the refuel and rest, I continued on from Judbury to Geeveston. Now since day one of this trip, when Sammy and I realised how inconvenient bib shorts can be when it comes to peeing, we started to test our ability to pee standing up whilst stretching the leg to one side. Whilst we had convinced ourselves that we’d perfected the technique, we absolutely had not. And it wasn’t until today that I had come to this realisation. So picture this (but not too hard), there I am pedalling, feeling fairly maxed out and leaving it until the last possible second to get off the bike to pee. I disembark and attempt to pull my shorts to the side whilst adopting the required standing position. Flow commences and then almost as quickly, I accidentally let go of the material in my hand. It’s too far gone and this pee is absolutely not stopping for anything. So there I was, half way through the day in essentially a very full adult nappy and I can tell you I was very grateful to be alone at this point (although I know the humour would not have been lost on Sammy).

I continued on, and so did the theme of forestry and walking up steep hills for the day, eventually leading me to Geeveston.

A little pie break in Geeveston at around 4pm filled me with hope, and the realisation that I was very close to the end of the mission. This injected a new (and final) burst of energy into me. Along the trail, about 10km from the end, I came across a lady called Dory embarking on the Tassie trail. Dory had no idea what she was getting herself into (she told me so herself), and was not sure she was going to even enjoy it. What I admired about her was that, although sceptical and a little unprepared, she was giving it a red hot crack, and that’s how my mountain bike got it’s name.

The final descent was the best descent for me. It was an endless down hill, the legs no longer had to do any work and my fate was handed over to gravity. What made it even better was I knew that two of my favourite humans were waiting for me at the end.

What an overwhelming sense of achievement I felt at the end of this epic journey. Mainly because this trail had tested my physical ability, but also my self belief. I know Sammy can relate to this too- my love for bikes became much deeper, and the bar of what I can put my body through is set just that little bit higher after the incredible adventure that was the Tassie Trail.