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cattimeswithjellie · 10 months ago

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Stream Recap ZombieCleo, 6-23-24

((Did I jump the queue with this one and stay up especially late finishing it specifically because DocM77 asked on Twitter for someone to go over the stream with a fine-toothed comb and give him the salient details? MAYBE. I just hope I can figure out a way to get it to him so he sees it. Anyway, it's stupidly late, have a stream recap in which Scar's audio is a main character that never appears.))

0:00 Cleo opens the stream on the Hermitcraft server. She greets the False raiders and the chatters who were already here, even as she types to False in the game chat. She asks False if she is tired, False replies that she is boiling. Cleo suggests living in Scotland, where it is cool in both a literal and metaphorical sense. Cleo asks Chat if they are good. She herself thinks Chat is great because they are here. Cleo does not know if False shows appreciation for her chat enough, but promises that False does really appreciate them, probably. Chat appreciates False. Ren enters the server and gets an OMG HI from Cleo in chat. Cleo and Ren agree they need to play Plate Up again soon. Cleo will also drag False along on this Plate Up adventure, whether she wants to or not.

3:00 A chatter plays hydration check, so Cleo takes a drink and gives chat a bonus posture check as well. A chatter asks which is Cleo’s favorite punctuation mark. Cleo says it is the interrobang (‽) because it is great. The plan for today is to try and do some planning with Chat’s help, because Chat is smart and Cleo hasn’t got a plan. Cleo is also very concerned that Chat engage in self-care activities. They go full-screen vtuber to lead a mini stretching session and tell Chat they are important and loved.

5:10 The plan-planning process requires some signs. Cleo goes to get some while talking about how nice it is to live in Scotland where it’s not so hot. They thank subs and donos and try to make heart-hands after a nice message, but realize they have not put on their hand sensors. Maybe later for that. A chatter plays the Hotdogs On Your Face song. Mrs. Tango raids into the stream. Cleo goes full-screen again to welcome the raiders and give them the same niceness and self-care message. Cleo is feeling especially nurturing today and Chat is vibing with it.

8:20 Cleo stares at the sign she was about to place down and write the plan on, but she has forgotten it. She thanks subs and donos instead and remembers the plan. The plan is to plan out the city and mark places for Shrubberies, which must be pronounced in Knights that Say Ni fashion ((a reference to the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail.)), and other important landmarks. NJCoffeeJunkie raids in, but Cleo’s not doing the nurturing thing a third time in ten minutes. A chatter plays sour jelly bean.

10:30 Cameron, Cleo’s lead mod and partner, raids in. Cleo gives in and gives the full-screen nurturing self-care speech again. Cleo finally writes “Granery Food Storage” on the sign, declaring that she is not a teacher anymore and doesn’t need to spell. She shares the plan for the granary building and says hi to Scar in game chat. More thanks to subs and donos. A chatter suggests Scar has a power beyond this world, Cleo wouldn’t go that far but does agree that Scar is pretty dangerous. ((In Season 9, Joe Hills made it a point to greet Scar whenever he logged on, because otherwise Scar had a tendency to drop by his build and murder him. This may have had a lasting effect on Hermit behavior patterns.)) Cleo has a video coming out tomorrow that also involves Skizz and Joel, and it’s going to be fun.

14:20 Cleo shows off how they have spawn-proofed their front lawn area, mostly using glow lichen, which they insist must be pronounced with a short I sound, as in “finger-lickin’” because otherwise it sounds stupid. A chatter announces they came out to their parents and shouts out the gays. Cleo shouts out the gays, lesbians and all other groups and wishes everyone happy pride. They trail off when they realize that Ren has made a stone… “upside-down T” in one of the marked-off building squares. Cleo takes down the definitely-only-an-upside-down-T and replaces it with a sign declaring it the medical tent/emergency room area. Chat is not sure it was just a T. Cleo marks another square for Delivery of Supplies, right in front of the mailbox.

17:00 Cleo makes a big square for the Tavern, which will also be the town meeting hall. When the drama happens (and she doesn’t mean Theatre Kid Ren), they can come in here and plan. Cleo thinks about what else is needed. A boat dock maybe. Chat agrees that if D&D has taught them anything, it is that a tavern is the best place to make plans. Cleo agrees. Chat also suggests an armory. During this time, Cleo also seems to perceive that it is evening and tries to sleep. It does not work. Eventually Cleo realizes it is still daytime and is a bit confused. Chat suggests that night is an illusion. Cleo thinks about the best place to put an armory without blocking the sight lines of the little town. Chat suggests a school as well, but a town on a war footing does not need a school. She sketches out an armory and puts up a sign for where the docks will be.

22:50 Cleo starts trying to sleep again. She taps the bed for about 25 seconds before finally being allowed to sleep. A kitchen tent might be good on the hill, so that gets sketched out as well. A retaining wall for the hill will probably show up at some point. A chatter asks what era the village is supposed to be, Cleo says it’s going to be Magipunk. There will be motorbikes and magic robots. There might be some ruins as well. A chatter asks about the pile of Ren and False heads in the middle of the build area, Cleo says that’s Ren and False being Ren and False. A chatter suggests adding a watchtower, but that would be on top of the hill and Cleo has other plans for that area.

28:30 A chatter says that Scar needs help. Cleo says that if Scar needs help, Scar can ask for help. It is not polite to go into other peoples’ streams and ask for help for other people. Chat suggests a junkyard or scrap heap, but Cleo thinks this community is very into recycling and mending because they haven’t got much stuff. There will be a bunch of barracks tents, those get squares. Cleo needs one more big building. Chat makes a lot of suggestions. Cleo has run out of yellow wool to make plan squares with. They head to the shopping district.

31:40 Cleo hits up Wool Street and buys four stacks of yellow wool, then goes home. Wool Street does not have an ender chest, a clear violation of the Cub Rule, but Cleo pays anyway. Chat is becoming extremely distracted by whatever is happening in Scar’s stream, to the point where Cleo’s mod bans the word “Scar” temporarily. If Scar needs help, Cleo reiterates, Scar can speak to her himself. ((If this were a video recap, there would be a smash cut here to Scar’s stream, where his profound audio issues are currently causing everything he says to turn into an unbearable auditory hellscape until he is reduced to pantomime and beatboxing just to interact with his Chat. But Cleo has no way of knowing this.))

34:10 Chat finally comes up with the good suggestion of a campfire area in the center of town. Cleo agrees with this and decides a longhouse to go with it will do the trick. They begin sketching it out when Scar puts “cLEO!” “where are yyou?” into the chat. Cleo tells him they are at their base. Chat is extremely riled up by now, telling Cleo to run, to escape, pain is coming, prepare your ears. Cameron has caught wind of what is actually happening and tells Cleo it’s not good. Cleo does not know why they should be expected to run from Scar.

35:30 Scar approaches on foot, wearing his Poe Poe skin and hat. He doesn’t say anything. Cleo says hi to him several times. He continues not to say anything. Cameron lets Cleo know that Scar’s mic is looping all desktop audio. Cleo tells Scar that he’s wonderful and she wants him to know that, but the whole no-sound thing is actually extra-creepy. She suggests that she could make things much worse by going and getting her horns.

36:30 Ren flies in, playing one of his own horns. He is clearly well-informed about the situation and intends to make it as terrible as possible. “Burning in my ears,” he sings, “the mic is echoing! It is absolutely pain, in the earholes!” Scar flies away. Cleo admits she can’t hear Scar at all, but the song has her laughing. Ren says that he and his stream are watching Scar’s stream and it is _wild._ Cleo’s Chat is in emoji-only time out right now because talking about other streams is both against the rules and all anybody wants to do. Scar flies back to the waiting pair and Ren immediately begins chanting the beginning of “My Name Is” but he doesn’t actually know the words and mostly improvises. Cleo congratulates Scar on getting her stream put into emote-only. Scar does not respond ((partly because everything Cleo says is being shredded into the nonsense avalanche of sound looping on Scar’s stream and partially because Scar also hasn’t figured out how to unmute his mic in his current OBS configuration)). Scar flies away again.

38:00 Ren and Cleo discuss the wildness of the current situation. Cameron knows what is wrong with Scar’s audio equipment, but there’s nothing they can actually do. It’s not as though they can reach through the computer and get into Scar’s audio equipment. Scar flies back, having successfully unmuted at least, and yells at them to help him. Cleo reiterates that they can’t, while Ren begins beatboxing. Cleo tells Scar he needs to reboot, but there is no way that is getting through overtop the terrible audio mess that Ren is creating. “If I say something I just echo!” Scar yells. “Echo, echo, echo!” Ren starts beatboxing again, because he is terrible. Scar flies away again. Cleo tells Ren he is mean. Funny, but mean. They are both laughing pretty hard.

40:10 In the spirit of attempting to actually be helpful, Cleo begins writing Cam’s suggestion about the problem into game chat, but is interrupted by Scar flying back while singing “Have you heard the take of Mr. Kirkland and his four-pound pie?” Ren adds backup vocals. Cleo is trying really hard to impart some actual information but it is totally buried under the audio barrage that is completely inaudible on this stream. Cleo tells Scar that he is the best, he has completely derailed everything. That isn’t bad, it’s just funny. Cleo spends a lot of streams just listening to Scar.

41:50 Ren apparently closes or mutes Scar’s stream and heaves a sigh, saying he really feels like he’s been somewhere else. Cleo bets Scar wishes he were somewhere else. A chatter plays sour jellybean. Cleo says the funniest part is when Scar unmutes suddenly to say something. Ren begins playing his guitar over his mic. “It’s getting WORSE!” Scar yells suddenly and flies away again. “You’re a mean, mean man,” Cleo tells Ren. The two of them agree that this is pretty satisfying karma for all the trolling Scar has ever done to them. Cleo shows off some of the planning they have been doing with all the wool squares. Ren looks at the 3x3 square marked off for a tent and suggests dubiously that it is a small space for a tent. Cleo assures him it’ll be fine, it’ll be made out of pants. It takes Ren a minute for figure out that the tent will be an armor stand sculpture, not a build. He thinks it’s cool.

44:30 Scar returns once more! Ren and Cleo sing to him. He flies away again. Ren turns on the stream and reports that the audio is definitely not fixed. He tells Cleo that when Scar comes back, they need to hit him with some Bohemian Rhapsody. Cleo agrees, so long as Ren handles the high parts. Ren wants to do the low parts. They practice. Cleo does have a little uncertainty on the high notes and neither of them are sure of the words, but they do a credible job. Chat is very enthusiastic about it.

46:00 Scar comes back again. His audio is still not fixed. Ren and Cleo sing to him. Chat speculates on how many horns could be made just from the shenanigans of the past thirty minutes. They forget the words and jump ahead to the “MAMAAAA” portion. Cleo decides to actually be helpful and tabs out to start sending information and screenshots from Cameron to Scar that might help fix his problem. While Cleo is tabbed out, there is no visual indicator like a menu screen but the game does freeze, leading to the strange phenomenon of Scar audibly being killed by a drowned, complete with hitting and screaming, while appearing completely fine and motionless onscreen. Chat is confused.

47:30 Cleo tabs back into the game to find the drowned attacking them now. They scold it for being on land and kill it, then survey the bits and piece Scar left scattered around as Ren tries in vain to describe the complete audio chaos that is Scar’s stream. Cleo spots Scar’s _enormous_ Poe Poe hat and starts laughing. Neither of them have any inventory space to pick up any of the scattered belongings. Ren makes a chest and does his best while thinking about other songs that he can loop into Scar’s audio purgatory. He asks Cleo if she knows a song that he describes completely as “Dadadadada, dadadadadada.” Cleo does know it enough to dadada along. ((Chat identifies the song as Sandstorm, by Darude.)) He collects up the Poe Poe hat and puts it on. The effect is striking, especially considering that his skin already has glasses. Cleo is impressed. She tells Ren she’s never said this to anyone before, but he should be a member of the Poe Poe.

49:50 Scar returns, naked but for his spare wings. He asks timorously if he can have his things. It seems possible for a moment that Scar’s audio issues are corrected, but no luck. Ren throws back all of Scar’s items, then absolutely engulfs him in the monstrous entity that is the Poe Poe hat. Cleo dissolves in laughter again. Ren starts in with Sandstorm. Cleo tells Scar that she doesn’t mind if he kills Scar. Scar says Ren might have his axe. Ren does, and throws it back while still “dadadadadada”-ing. Scar sets off several flight rockets, apparently just to add to the chaos Cleo cannot hear. Cleo tells Scar he is awesome, but whatever he is going through, she cannot relate. It is funny that Ren is being the menace right now, she says, because usually that’s Scar’s job. There’s a moment of silence, then Cleo asks Ren how long he thinks it’ll be before Scar mutes them. “Let’s keep complimenting me,” Scar suggests instead. “I like that part.” Ren starts playing guitar again. In chat, Cameron is clearly itching for a way to actually reach through the computer and fix Scar’s audio equipment.

51:50 Scar thinks he’s figured something out. He’s only getting one echo now, which is a big improvement from the four or five he’s been hearing. Cleo asks if Scar’s done the troubleshooting Cam suggested. Scar says he tried, but he’s not seeing any of the stuff Cam said he should see. Ren whispers to his Chat that he thinks they muted him. Cleo says they did not, they’re just ignoring him. Cleo reminds him that they are trying to be nice to Scar, which is quite difficult. Ren doesn’t know anything about that, he is trying to make loop tracks.

52:20 “Oh, like this is your Woodstock,” Cleo realizes. Ren agrees. “What about wood?” Scar asks. Cleo sighs and asks why Scar is like this, but Scar has clearly gotten an immediate dose of karma in the form of an innuendo that will not stop looping in his audio feed. He regrets everything. Cleo asks with some disbelief if he actually understands what he just said. Scar says he does because it won’t stop repeating in his ears. If he hears one more thing about wood he’ll go crazy! Cleo has had an epiphany. Could this be Scar’s conscience, a force that simply repeats the exact things he says back to him?

53:00 Cleo tries to help Scar disable desktop audio. This helps, but does not eliminate the problem. Cleo and Cam believe it is desktop audio and Scar is just not finding the correct source. Ren begins chanting the “How much wood would a woodchuck chuck” rhyme, because he is terrible. Scar gives up and leans into it, telling Ren to do the woodchuck thing again. Clearly those two are hearing a lot that Cleo is not hearing right now.

54:50 Scar is silent for a moment, then comes back and says he may have figured it out. “Oh?” Cleo asks. Scar asks if hypothetically, someone were to have three open sources of their own stream in the background on their desktop, could that cause this. Cleo answers “yes” in the carefully controlled voice of someone who wants to say so very, very much more. In the chat, Cameron has been reduced to ellipses. Cleo reminds Scar that the very first thing they asked him was if he had his stream open in the background. Scar admits he had three tabs of his stream open, but they were minimized so he didn’t see them. Apparently he had some trouble linking when he was trying to tweet out his stream start, and that eventually led to… all of this. Chat is melting down. Ren tells Scar “You are easily in my top ten favorite humans.” Scar cannot hear him because, on top of everything else, he is working with a broken pair of headphones old enough to be starting intermediate school in the fall. Ren types it into the game chat.

56:00 Scar adjusts Ren’s audio and tells him he has pumped him up so he can hear better. Cleo says Ren does not need pumping up, that Ren comes fully inflated at all times. Chat wants a clip of that immediately. Scar claims that nothing like this has ever happened to him before. Cleo says at least they know what the problem was now: ineptitude! Ren admits that he gave up on helping immediately and embraced the chaos. Cleo tries to say that they could help a little by passing along Cameron’s advice, but is interrupted by Scar audibly dropping his headset. Chat is just having the best time right now.

57:20 Cleo asks Scar if he’s going to get a new headset. He says “not yet” in the vocal tone of a talking dog who knows he is the one who ate all the ham. She asks why and he explains he hasn’t decided what he wants yet, and also he hates spending money. Exasperated, Cleo reminds him that this is his JOB. Scar snicker laughs and says he was thinking today that he probably does need to have a burial for this headset. He can bury it in the garage. She suggests “burying” it with a ten pound hammer. Scar says he gets sentimental and weird and very specific things: his sunglasses and this headset. He’s had the headset longer than he’s been on Hermitcraft! ((Scar joined Hermitcraft in Season 4, which started in early 2016, meaning that the headset is a minimum of eight years old and probably older.)) Cleo is appalled and insists that this proves the exact point she was trying to make. At some point the headset was good but now it is ancient and diseased and needs to be put out of its misery. Scar insists that it’s not diseased because he has replaced the ear cups several times. A brief discussion of the Headset of Theseus ensues before Cleo rejects the whole premise.

59:30 Cleo points out that if Scar’s headset is over ten years old, he is going to hear _so much_ better when it is replaces. Scar insists that it’s a good headset and gets very nostalgic about how many Hermitcraft meetings have come through that headset, but Cleo would rather not. Ren suggests that Scar needsto take the headset in a field and deal with it Office Space style. ((A famous scene in the movie Office Space involves smashing a printer to bits with a bat.)) This actually seems to appeal to Scar. The three also discuss the merits and risks of a viking funeral for the headphones. Scar likes the idea because it involves a flaming arrow. Apparently Scar did some archery when he was young and even got a couple bullseyes. His archery career was ended when his brother broke the windows on the shed with an arrow and got the bow taken away. Ren says he is scared of bow and arrows because of a time in boarding school where an older boy bullied the new kids by shooting an arrow straight into the air and making them run away from it.

1:02:00 Scar shoots an arrow into the air to illustrate the story. Ren says that brings back painful memories, yes. Scar tells them that this is the first arrow of the new HotGuy bow, because he fell into lava again yesterday and lost everything. Chat is still pretty hung up on Ren’s story. Cleo sighs that at some point they are going to just have to give Scar some kind of frequent flier discount at the bookshop. Scar clears his throat and says it’s nice that Cleo mentioned that because there is a situation where some snails stole all his diamonds… Cleo asks if he stole books from the shop. He insists that it wasn’t stealing because he is going to pay it back! He paid half at the time and the other half is on layaway, which in his mind apparently involves getting to take the items before you have finished paying for them. Cleo insists that they can’t get a new trophy with layaway diamonds!

1:02:40 Scar and Cleo find common ground over the fact that they are both currently the plaintiffs in server lawsuits. Scar is embroiled in a dispute with some snails and a man named Big Ron who may or may not be Mumbo, while Cleo is suing Doc for killing a pig they had a special emotional attachment to. Cleo’s suin’ papers have been delivered and Ren should expect a subpoena at any point. Ren says he’s not going to appear in court for less than a stack of diamonds, suggesting he is not super-familiar with the subpoena power in general and “things a witness should probably not say” in specific. Scar, confused, asks if Ren is Cleo’s lawyer. Cleo clarifies that Ren is a witness. Skizz is Cleo’s lawyer. Scar is sorry to hear that and offers his condolences to Cleo. Cleo says it’s fine because the other lawyer is Joe. She is also not going to say what she did to the judge. She clears her throat and moves on.

1:03:30 Ren reiterates the fact that if Cleo were to see her way clear to making a substantial amount of diamonds appear in Ren’s mailbox, he might just become a very enthusiastic and helpful witness. Cleo insists that all she really wants is for Doc to suffer. Ren says he just wants to make some profit off the situation. Cleo asks points out that Ren is supposed to be married to Doc. Scar agrees and says that it’s not right to get in the middle between family. He asks Cleo if this is about the pig. “Yeah, it’s about the pig,” Cleo admits, sounding a bit embarrassed about it at this point. Cleo is suing for intentional infliction of emotional distress.

1:04:10 Ren informs Scar that there was A MURDER. Scar knows about the murder, it’s tied into his investigation and he has zero leads and he doesn’t know what to do because Doc is expecting results! Cleo is confused until Scar clarifies that as a member of the Poe Poe, he is charged with investigating the diamond ore thefts that were the instigating incident for the pig murder but he has zero leads and he doesn’t know what to do. Ren immediately tells Scar he’s barking up the wrong tree because Ren of course knows absolutely nothing about the diamond snitcher and can be of no help whatsoever. Scar finds that immediate reaction very suspicious. Cleo doesn’t know from suspicions or diamond filchers, all they know is that there’s a diamond thief and it caused their pig to die. Ren admits that it is possible that his quick denial might have sounded a bit suspicious.

1:05:20 Ren admits that he was trying so hard to sound not-suspicious that he accidentally wrapped right back around to suspicious again. Scar laughs and tells him he “pulled an Impulse,” referencing Impulse’s frequent behavior from Friday Night Among Us streams. Scar decides that he has a new prime suspect. Cleo is not sure Doc will believe Ren took the diamonds. Ren says he couldn’t have thought of the prank and even if he had, he wouldn’t have the follow-through to actually do it. Cleo thinks about it and decides yeah, Ren probably doesn’t have the energy. Scar laughs and protests that he already used that as his excuse and nobody believes him!

1:06:20 Cleo says it can’t be her because she has no energy or patience to poke Doc and then have to listen to Doc rant on and on about how terrible the punishment raining down is going to be, only to have him never deliver. Ren wants to plead his case some more, but Scar is too busy laughing at Cleo’s declaration. He agrees that Doc did dole out some punishment last season, but that the threats are mostly bluster. He does a very terrible Doc impression. Cleo does another Doc impression that is also terrible but in a different way. Scar goes to sleep and Cleo points out that this area is mob proofed. Ren points out that Scar literally just died to a zombie. Cleo has to admit that’s true, but it was a water zombie. Scar points out that he died and they both just LET IT HAPPEN. Cleo protests that she was tabbed out. Ren says he was too busy looping.

1:07:40 Cleo offers Ren the opportunity to tell his story and prove his innocence. Ren goes back to the distant days of Season 8 when he and Doc were living in each others’ pockets, basically in voice chat all day long. Cleo offers condolences for that, but thinks it might make Ren more likely to want to commit a crime. Ren insists no, the opposite! He offers as character evidence the fact that False won Demise this year in part because Ren decided not to target her at the end of the game and in fact helped her although he had no reason to do so. Ren is very loyal to his particular people, and Doc is one of them, so therefore QED Ren cannot possibly be the ore snatcher.

1:08:50 “So you’re saying it’s False,” Scar summarizes. Cleo agrees that is what they got from the story as well. Ren insists that False is way too busy to be doing ore snatching with all the river building, etc. Cleo agrees that this is true, except that Ren just told them it was False. “Did I?” he asks, bewildered. Scar and Cleo both heard it. Scar says sometimes you just need to stop talking because you just keep digging, a subject he himself is well-versed in. Cleo says Ren is incapable of stopping talking. Ren suggests pulling footage of several Among Us streams to prove something about his character, but Cleo interrupts, saying that if they’re pulling footage, Cleo can just pull the bit showing Ren killing the pig. Cleo corrects herself a moment later to say Doc killing the pig, but Ren seizes on the slip as the reason innocent folks like himself get sent to jail. Chat is going to clip that and then everyone is going to think he’s the pig murderer. The soundbite where he says “I’m the pig murderer” in a low sinister voice probably will also not help his clip issues.

1:10:30 Scar moves the conversation along by suggesting more Hermits as potential suspects. This turns into an incredibly lengthy and wide-ranging conversation that is much more concisely summed up in the Reddit document devoted to it. Cub eventually joins in as well to defend himself from some accusations against himself and to throw out some of his own. Joe comes along as well a little later but is less interested in levying accusations and more interested in litigating the unfairness of the fact that he had the idea to mess with the diamond ore first but someone else ran with it and has caused a commotion that could have been his. The conversation lasts for nearly an hour.

2:06:00 The argument turns to whether or not a sophisticated redstoner would be required in order to snatch the ores out of Doc’s machine without breaking it. ((There was an early belief that Ore Snatch #2 did break the machine, but careful video analysis reveals that Doc simply did not notice the ore when it was first removed and that the machine remained unbroken until later on when Ren and Scar came over during Ren’s stream and Ren poked at it. That is actually how the armor stand deployed and the inventory shifted.)) Most of the Hermits present claim to have not even seen the redstone circuitry in question, so a field trip is obviously in order. They all fly over to the armor trim shop.

2:07:20 Scar plays the Poe Poe Siren horn as they fly to the shop, which probably makes this an official Poe Poe visit of some sort. They land outside the shop and Ren worries about spoilers, but most of the shop has been around for awhile. Scar gets distracted by a wandering trader while the rest of the group goes into the shop to look around. Ren points out one of the circuits where a replaced ore block is still visible, commenting that looking down into the circuitry is enough to make him feel panicky. Cleo looks at the armor stands instead and mostly feels offended. Joe points out that most of the redstone circuitry is inert while the machine is not active. As long as one doesn’t touch a block that is powered or, like, pseudopowered? He cannot remember the correct word ((possibly something to do with quasiconnectivity?)) but as long as someone wasn’t removing a block that powered something, they should be able to do it with no trouble.

2:08:20 Cleo abandons the redstone discussion to fiddle with the armor stands that are particularly offending her. One statue has the arm buried inside the chest and that is just unacceptable. She fixes the armor stand to give the statue a more natural posture. Joe says that surely it’s fine and Doc definitely will not get upset about people adjusting things in this room, of all places. Cleo scoffs and says Doc won’t know. The others begin discussing whether the shop is actually open for business, with Joe deliberately muddying the waters by pointing out that the shop must be open because it has no door or anything keeping people from walking inside. Cleo continues making small adjustments to the postures of the statues and is busy with a fish-headed model when suddenly the alarm goes off. It is impossible to tell from Cleo’s perspective who broke the block that triggered the alarm, but all the Hermits who entered the building are still on the main sales floor when she turns around to look. ((Ren’s POV on this is also useless as he was freecamming into the redstone, but Scar’s stream POV shows that Cub placed a magma block at the top of the front doorframe of the shop and broke it, which triggered the alarm. It’s not clear what Cub was doing, but “being a smartass about the is-the-shop-open question” is a fairly safe bet.))

2:09:10 Ren warns everyone to stay up top as the alarm system is dangerous. Scar immediately notices that there is now a Warden in the depths of the machine. Cleo laughs and reminds everyone to be quiet. All the Hermits mill around on the glass display floor to try and get a glimpse of the Warden. Scar asks why it’s not attacking them all. Cleo suggests that it might be distracted by the noise of the alarm itself. Ren says it’s just climbing the stairs and they’d better get going. The world turns black. The Hermits flee.

2:10:20 The Hermits regroup on the grassy lawn well outside Doc’s shop. Cleo is still laughing pretty hard. Ren says “So yeah, that’s the scene of the crime.” Cub wonders if the wandering trader will be killed by the warden. Scar is worried; that trader has gilded blackstone miniblocks and Scar wants him alive. The Warden does not appear to be making an appearance now that everyone has left, though. Cub, Joe and Scar head back towards the building to see what’s happening inside, but Cub and Scar turn back well before the door, driven back by the obnoxious noises of the alarm. Joe goes straight into the building. Ren speculates why someone would want to investigate now, if not to find better ways to get in later. Scar points out that with the alarm already tripped, it’s basically free game now until Doc resets it. Joe only stays inside for a few moments before coming back out. Scar shoots an arrow at him but doesn’t connect.

2:11:40 Somewhat belatedly, the group starts to wonder what triggered the alarm. Cleo suggests that surely someone must have gone down into the redstone. Ren suddenly wonders whether freecam possibly could’ve activated it. Cub pooh-poohs that idea but nobody else is sure. Ren says it’s not a very good alarm if it can trigger just from a customer entering the shop. ((Ren is acting like he doesn’t know what triggers the alarm, which is strange since he helped test it and should know full well that it is breaking blocks.)) Chat knows that the alarm trigger is breaking blocks. Cub admits he placed and broke some magma blocks. Cleo demands to know whether they can set off the alarm so easily, by just setting down a block and breaking it. They are going to annoy Doc _so much _ with this knowledge. Scar suddenly realizes that this means there is very little effective way to pay for items in the shop, since pulling a wallet from a shulker box, placing it down and picking it up again would trigger the alarm. It is not, they decide, a very good alarm system.

2:12:40 Cub decides he’s going in. The others stay outside and talk about whether or not they were scared of the warden, a bell curve that seems to have a lot to do with how much they played the lower levels of Decked Out 2. Cub types in chat that it’s fine, then flies back and tells them that he did get blasted. “Nice,” Cleo compliments. Cleo is of two minds whether they should all keep their mouths shut or leave some kind of sign at the door for Doc. Scar is worried about property damage, but the sonic shriek does not break blocks, only players. Cleo does like the idea of Doc thinking his alarm caught the culprit, then getting linked to the stream and realizing it is just a bunch of bumbling Hermits. They also think it is funny that now the Glitcher actually can do anything they want in the next few hours until the alarm is reset. Nobody else knows the name “The Glitcher,” or at least they are pretending not to. Cleo consults with Chat and passes along the knowledge that the name The Glitcher was provided to Doc on a sign after one of the ore thefts. Scar thinks that this new name sounds a lot like the work of one Cubfan and plays his Darth Vader breathing horn in an attempt to intimidate him into a confession. It does not work. In the background, Joe has left the group and gone back towards the shop, but drops out of sight at the base of the sand pile and eventually flies back around to rejoin the group without actually going inside.

2:15:10 Cub pushes the Grian and/or Scar theory again, but that’s been discussed before. Ren decides that after an hour and fifteen minutes, they are not even a tiny bit closer to figuring out whodunnit. But there is a warden in the shop now, so that’s something? Scar thinks that a warden has got to be bad for Doc’s business, right? Cleo doesn’t believe that Doc cares at all about the success of his business, mostly because he’s being paid in sand. Doc is just being dramatic. Cub circles back around to “The Glitcher” and the quotation marks around it are audible. He asks if it’s true there was a sign. He and Scar both want to see a screenshot from Chat. Chat thinks Cub is pretending a little too hard.

02:17:00 Cleo and Ren both suggest putting up signs purporting to be from the Glitcher, solely for the purpose of trolling Doc. Scar insists that they cannot do that, he is the investigator and he is supposed to be _helping._ Ren thinks it would be very funny to have a sign reading “Soz for tripping your alarm, -The Pincer” (Or Pincher, it’s hard to say.)) Cleo gives him a sign and tells him to have at it. Scar protests loudly again and says they can’t do that. Ren clearly considers it, but then says he cannot do it either, he is Doc’s husband. Cleo grabs the sign and runs for the shop.

2:18:40 Cleo braves the terrible noises of the shop to place a sign in the doorway reading “LOL, Failed Again!” Ren is right behind her and protests that she didn’t add the part about The Pincer. She agrees she did not, because that is LAME. Scar gets the screenshot he wanted from his Discord chat and suddenly remembers Doc talking about these signs. Apparently Doc saw that there was a misspelling on one of the signs and (in Scar’s words) decided to blame the dumbest guy in the crew. Cub also believes that a misspelled sign points in Scar’s direction. The new sign is not going to serve well as a piece of evidence, given that there is a lot of stream evidence about who placed it and why and when, but Cleo doesn’t care. Doc deserves to be wound up, he murdered Cleo’s pig.

2:19:50 Ren has to admit that even though Doc is his husband, he does have something to answer for when it comes to Pig Murder. Scar is paying attention to his chat for once, he tells the others to hang on because an investigation is taking place in his Discord. While Scar is so ostentatiously distracted, Cleo begins handing out a few judicious gifts of diamonds, though the stream lag inherent in a bunch of hermits together leaves a lot of room for them to steal from one another. Cleo becomes convinced that Joe has become the recipient of diamonds they intended to go elsewhere and begins beating him like a pinata in the hopes they will disgorge. In the background, Scar announces that his chat believes Big Salmon is behind the whole thing, but he has no idea what that means. Joe flies away. Scar swears he saw Grian walking around near Doc’s shop, but Cleo has no POV angle to confirm or deny that. Cameron informs Cleo that Ren got the diamonds and is lying about it. Cleo congratuates Grian on some excellent trolling. They go up to the shop, but do not find Grian. Cleo thinks that sneaking in under everyone’s noses for trolling is huge Grian energy.

2:22:20 Ren finds a sign on the sand store that was not there earlier. “Sorry about your alarm, Scar, Chief Investigator.” Scar swears he did not put it there, and indeed he would’ve had a very hard time doing so because he has been moving and talking with the group basically the entire time. Ren insists the sign is there, and it was even glow-inked. Cub says that must’ve been Grian, so Grian is a suspect too. Even as he says it, Joe throws a handful of glow inks out of his inventory and onto the ground. Scar notices it right away. Cleo points the finger at Joe. Joe says he said ten minutes ago that he was going to put up a sign on Scar’s behalf apologizing for the alarm, but nobody ever listens to him. Cleo laughs and says they love it when a plan comes together, they just wish it was theirs. The others are skeptical. Scar points out that Cleo is really pumping the ego of whoever did this and that’s a little suspicious. Cleo says that if they were the culprit, they would’ve told everyone. Joe points out that Cleo could’ve told everyone and it might not have changed anything. After all, Joe told everyone he was going to place the sign and nobody listened to that! Cleo points out that people actually listen to them.

2:24:30 Scar has a thought, forgets it immediately, then immediately remembers it again. He wants to know why his Chat is so insistent that it is Beef. ((Scar’s chat is very devoted to the Big Salmon Theory.)) Why would it be Beef? Cleo laughs and says every single one of them knows why it isn’t Beef right now, and that Beef is too busy to be getting up to any kind of shenanigans. The others agree and warn Scar not to say anything or else there will be real trouble. Scar suggests that Beef’s gonna have a beef with him, but he doesn’t offer any further hints. ((Cleo is obliquely referring to an announcement Beef will make the next day; he and his wife are expecting their first child and thus Beef has way bigger salmon to fry than moonlighting as the Ore Snatcher.)) Cub explains that Beef was part of the Big Salmon consortium that feuded with Doc and Big Wood at the start of the season, but that feud is pretty much over now. They all admire the Big Salmon floating in the Hourglass.

2:26:00 Scar reports that his Chat has turned around on the Beef question, they believe Cleo that it cannot be Beef. The group goes back to trying to decide who the Ore Snatcher actually is, aside from Joe who is still mad it isn’t him. They each go around the circle and give Scar a theory, but none of them seem better supported than the others. Scar says this is all useless, but he’s going to go get a search warrant to search everyone’s storage systems. Ren asks if Scar is going to search his own storage system, perchance? Scar says he’ll have Doc do it. Ren is satisfied by that. Cleo says that’ll definitely work, because nobody on this server except the culprit has deepslate diamond ore, surely.

2:29:00 Scar’s favorite theory is that it was Doc himself, causing drama by stealing his own diamonds. The others think that’s a funny theory. Joe says his favorite theory is that the Scicraft guys got in touch with Karin, Doc’s partner, and gave her detailed instructions on how to carry out the thefts in retribution for unspecified petty wrongs. Whenever Doc is out of the house with Doccy, she’s sneaking onto the server with his account and stealing the diamonds based on detailed tutorials. Scar loves this idea. Ren asks if that means Karin has to come to court. Nobody is sure if she even has a Minecraft account. She might have to make one to come to court.

2:30:40 Cleo laughs and suggests that this has all been a big ploy to jump-start Karin’s YouTube career. Joe is taken by this idea and suggests it would be an amazing spinoff series, Karin and Mrs. Tango and Lizzie Shadow-Beans, but they’re all thieves. Ren puts forth a suggestion from his chat that maybe it _is_ Lizzie, pranking Doc when Joel is out of the house. Cleo thinks Karin is a more likely suspect than Lizzie. Scar admits it’s unlikely, but hilarious. Cleo says that now it is imperative that some Hermit’s spouse begins pranking the server. Joe says that now that his fiance Badgerspanner has heard that, she’s going to demand to be able to do it. Cleo laughs and points out that Joe will get blamed for that. Joe cheerfully announces that he knows, and it’s just going to make more work for Cleo because she’s going to have to explain to him why, when everybody thought it was a funny idea during this stream. Scar suddenly chimes in with “Desperate Hermitwives” from his Chat.

2:32:50 Cleo wants to wrap up, but she stays long enough to hear one more Bdubs theory. Ren wants to know what better way there could be to get people into the court for lawsuits than by causing a bunch of trouble? Cub likes that idea, but Cleo and Scar argue about whether the court actually costs money. Cub is still accusing Scar though, saying that nobody has more to gain from crimes on the server than the Poe Poe. Scar protests, saying he and Bdubs are the Judicial system and devoted to stopping crime! Because the police are never corrupt, right? The argument continues for a moment until Scar finally says “I touched Doc’s boring machine, I blew it up, I banged it too hard, and I’m not interested in banging Doc’s redstone anymore.”

2:34:35 There is a moment of silence. Cleo announces she is leaving. It’s been a lovely stream, they should do this again sometime never. She flies away laughing and insisting that nobody should ever ask Scar why, because No. Cleo apologizes to Chat for getting nothing useful done, but Chat clearly does not care. Cleo goes back to full screen to thank subs and donos, then says that even though she didn’t plan a lot, she did technically plan the plan, which was the plan all along. So that’s something. Cleo raids into Rendog and (with a brief interruption from Joe and his train whistle) ends their stream.

#hermitcraft #stream recap #zombiecleo #docm77 #goodtimeswithscar #rendog #cubfan135 #joe hills

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unreesonable · 3 months ago

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At the final night of Monty Python Live (Mostly) at the O2 arena, July 20, 2014

#reece shearsmith #monty python #2014

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thranduilofsmirkwood · 2 months ago

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I asked Grok about my blog and it had some nice things to say, lol.

Let’s evaluate thranduilofsmirkwood.tumblr.com as a Thranduil blog and see if it’s “good” based on what’s out there, especially since it popped up in the search results and wasn’t in my earlier rundown. I’ll dig into its content, activity, and vibe as of March 4, 2025, and compare it to the others I’ve mentioned.

Content-wise, ThranduilOfSmirkwood is a meme machine. It’s packed with Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit memes, with a heavy lean on Thranduil—think Lee Pace’s Elvenking paired with snarky captions or “Rude Thranduil” quotes from Rebel Circus like “I’m not arguing, I’m just explaining why I’m right.” Posts range from gifsets of Thranduil being extra (elk-riding, smirking) to crossover mashups like Middle-earth meets Monty Python. There’s also some fanart shoutouts and photomanipulations, often tagged #mirkwood or #thranduilmemes. It’s not deep meta or fic-heavy—it’s more about quick, irreverent fun. If you’re into humor over analysis, this hits the spot.

Activity is where it shines. Unlike older blogs like thranduilings (mostly archived) or thranduilthrills (fading since mid-2024), ThranduilOfSmirkwood is still posting. The blogger’s note from late 2024 mentions IRL weirdness slowing original content, but they’ve kept it alive with reblogs and promises of new stuff “soon.” A pinned post brags about Tumblr pinning skills, and tags like #myedits suggest ongoing effort. Compared to maalidoesart’s sporadic 2025 art drops, this blog’s more consistent, even if it’s recycling some older memes.

Vibe and engagement? It’s cheeky and self-aware—calling Thranduil a “faithless woodland sprite” and “pointy-eared princess” in the bio sets the tone. Notes on posts vary—some hit 100+ (like a pinned meme), others linger at 20-50, per X chatter I’ve seen about similar blogs. It’s not a fandom juggernaut like thranduilings once was, but it’s got a niche crowd who vibe with the silliness. X doesn’t buzz about it much, though—one

@MirkwoodMemer

on February 25, 2025, called it “underrated for thranduil shitposts,” with 8 likes. Small but dedicated.

Compared to others: It’s not as polished or deep as thranduilings’ archive, nor as fic-focused as thranduilthrills, nor as visually stunning as maalidoesart. But it’s active and funny, which counts for a lot in 2025 when many Tolkien blogs are ghost towns. If “good” means current, Thranduil-centric, and entertaining without pretension, it’s a solid pick. If you want profound lore dives or new art, it’s less ideal.

Verdict: ThranduilOfSmirkwood is “good” if you love memes and want a living blog that keeps Thranduil’s sass in rotation. It’s not the “best” for everyone—depends on your taste. Want me to analyze specific posts or cross-check its latest stuff on X?

I'm blushing.

Missed how much I love yall, and thats why I do what I do.

#the hobbit #thranduil #my edits #lee pace #my memes & gifs #grok

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petty-crush · 10 months ago

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“Furiosa: a mad max saga”

-Wonderful deep dive into squalor, insanity and violence. The future medieval grimness of this universe is so strangely addicting.

-Whereas “Fury Road” covered three days in the life of Mad Max, this film notes 15 years of Furiosa’s journey.

+It is a very different headspace.

-the most surprising element was that, in this tale of a side story character(albeit a co lead one) the most delightful sections involved..brand new side characters!

-Furiosa’s mother, aptly played by Charlee Fraser is a real bike riding, sharp shooting, rooting tooting she wolf. She gets the film off like a cannon ball.

-But the glowing star is Tom Burke, who absolutely steals every scene he is in as Praetorian Jack. Just wow.

+his hair lip also reminded me of a super nova young Stacey Keach

-I could watch him and Furiosa tag team all day. Best bruiser buddies duo in a long time.

-The sequence where Furiosa first stowaways the war rig and helps Jack defend it from marauders is the best part of the film.

-in addition to revisiting this desolate world, the action is a prime reason to see this picture. Director George Miller always has really different ways of framing movement so I’m clawing my armrest and wincing at the impact.

-I think the score for this is a bit better than “Fury Road”. It has more of its own identity.

-I’m really back and forth on Chris Hemsworth performance. At times I think he brings in the weakest presence. But mostly is pretty solid

-it’s hard to describe, but this characterization feels a bit too Monty Python fey to really center the film. I get he’s a dweeb who turns sadistic, but it just feels like it doesn’t have enough power.

-I adore the scene where Immortan Joe sizes him up, wondering if the captive child Furiosa is really his daughter. His cold bartering of her is really quite intoxicating.

-Anyone else think that one brown haired war boy looks a bit too much like that live action butt-head from a certain comedy show? Oddly amusing

-I wonder if knowing how Furiosa got from the green place to Joe’s army is all that necessary. It way over delivers, so it has no fault with me.

-Really the only thing I didn’t like was clips from “Fury Road” over the end credits. It just fell flat for me. Especially using the “coming at ya!” steering wheel shot. No buys.

-Ana Taylor Joy is wonderful in the scenes she shows up in.

-I like how the chapter breaks imply a much bigger world, of which we see only fragments.

-Oh man, the tree comeuppance is truly wonderful.

-Glad to be back, glad to get high on the fumes again.

#furiosa #mad max #george miller #film #tom burke #charlee fraser #ana taylor joy #chris hemsworth #mad max series

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kiwibirdlafayette · 7 months ago

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✨💫welcome to the space jam its mianite’s gayest block people ‼️🔥

✨what up my gamers its me :3 I'm your fav chaos scrunkly Jay-Monty (im chill w either name); i also go by Kiwi and Grail! all i do here is be a menace but if you're into that welcome in to my hubris. i'm an artist, cosplayer, (occasional) writer and professional silly guy who loves me a good gay people and a good lore :D

Main Fandoms: MCYT (Mianite, Captainsparklez, Hermitcraft, Life Series are the current favs, but I also love Empires/New Life/SOS, and Origins SMP), Watcher Ghoul Boys (Ryan and Shane), Hollow Knight, Arthuriana, Monty Python, and Good Omens

Yar there be shippin here! My favs are syndisparklez, ethubs, mumbidarity (Jimmy x Mumbo), ranchers and foxxsize <33 (always only the characters, if i engage in rpf content, its in a joking way or something the CC said first!) (directed heavily at thomas george cassell /threat) also enjoying lemmquirrel these days

@grailknightmonty for art-only + me me big boy masterpost (ft. all boundaries and other social links)

@arthurshuge-tractsofland is my Tales of Arcadia sideblog now but all my trollhunters posts are still here under the fandom tags <33

Tagging System, AUs/Fanon Masterlist and more below :D

Tag Directory

#gkm arts / #lafakiwi draws - my art tags! the gkm has all my work from 2021 on, lafakiwi draws has everything from when i joined this hellsite in 2014

#lafakiwi talks - general tumblr posting from ya boy! asks i answer are also tagged under here

#lafakiwi writes - all my writing from fics and character analysis, to lore headcanons and theories C:

#lafakiwi cosplays - cosplay posts! tiktok is for cosplay videos, but i'll post stills and photoshoots here, and the occasional CMV

#verdigris musings - rambles related to ideas I have! can be art ideas, AU pitches or just hey. this is a cool idea that came to mind but i dont have the energy to do anything with it right now

#rambles from the heartsgone - consists of me shouting into the void mostly! rants also tend to live here

I mostly just rb shit whenever i see it but if I queue posts its under #yar queue a worth appointent , asks are just tagged with "asks" and the user who submitted (anons are under "anon" ) For a bonus #things to keep in mind is where i store all the feel good posts and

AUs/Headcanon Projects

Trollhunters AU Masterpost (because it would be a pain in the ass to list them all)

Starborne Kingdom of Dianite :: My MCYT Starborne AU! Builds off Jordan's origins smp lore, continuing the story (since he fucking won't /lh /j) and adding worldbuilding to the realm of the starborne (in my headcanon, its a version of the Aether!) How the Aether and the cast works comes off a tidbit from non est ad astra (see below) so we got two tiem reesters + hermits + lifers and the canon OSMP cast

Masterpost | AU Tag

Tales of Aitheaca/Gays on a Boat :: Mianite Post-canon/post-Isles fanstory! Gays on a Boat follows tiem reester after season 2 and goes up through Isles (following everyone else but tom and jordan). Tales of Aitheaca picks up where Isles leaves off (if i pretend like the end of Isles doesn't exist it can't hurt me) and takes them to another relative universe in pursuit of a multiversal anomaly, where ultimate balance rules. also the boat is a dimension traveller and to everyone's shock not the only one

Gays on a Boat | Tales of Aitheaca

Mianite Godswap :: Joke AU I made during Octobernite, but also has a bit of story tied to it. mostly an excuse to make syndisparklez between a dianitee and mianitee because that concept is fascinating to me

Mianite x Life Series :: Fan season of the Life Series that builds off a funny little game that Ianite, Dianite and the Watchers play with their casts and swap them around, putting the lifers in a blank slate world of Mianite S1 with the objective of being the last one standing, and Jordan and Tom in a hardcore world where of they die, the world dies

Death’s Scale of Justice :: Headcanon for cEmeraldduo in the Mianite universe! :D Inspired by when Philza showed up at Jordan’s witch hut, Phil is a priest for Ruxomar Ianite and former friend of Spark lookin for his goddess when he disappears. Also includes the backstory for cTechno where he unearths Bellinite, the god of anarchy, revenge and blind vengeance (aka the Blood God) from the depths of the S1 World

HC10: Upon the Mountain of Magic :: WIP, expansion and theory on the story behind Magic Mountain in Hermitcraft season 10 using Joel's temple to Lizzie and Mumbo's mined lab lore as a baseline. no tag yet but is in reference to the mosaic of lizzie and jim on art blog + canary in the iron mine painting

Original Projects

non est ad astra, mollis e terra via :: Multiverse lore dev, work in this is used mostly in reference to MCYT fanon, but also is a project i'm using for some OC stuff (includes worldbuilding for my Mianite RPG characters Ophi and Aurelia, and concepts for the Nightmare Spectrum)

For Good Measure :: Story of my stream sona, Sir Monty Jones aka where he was prior to becoming the wanderer of the outerverse. Takes place prior to Arcadia of Avalon and is basically monty python but if they were my ocs and silly knights and also minecraft

Arcadia of Avalon :: Original Arthurian retelling but i don't gaf I just think knights deserve to be stupid, gay and full of angst as the gods intended. Mostly an excuse to write my rarepairs and do some funky worldbuilding where the land of King Arthur is a war over the power of creation. i can't explain it better than that but trust me its a good one

Wide Awake in the Witching Hour :: Current set of lore and story for my sona Sir Monty Jones. Continues where For Good Measure leaves off and is, relatively time wise, lines up to the current timeline of HC10 and the Mianite RPG

#im gonna add to this as I think of things but have this #spent the afternoon doing this because caard was pissing me off #lafakiwi talks #pinned #gkm arts #lafakiwi draws

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purplehairedwonder · 2 years ago

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Chapter 1088: Ethics 101

This write-up is a bit delayed, but I definitely wanted to comment on a few things.

For one thing, Garp’s lesson feels like he’s teaching a philosophy class.

So, that’s probably why it reminded me of Chidi in The Good Place, particularly when he was going over the Trolley Problem. (It’s not an exact replica of the ethical dilemma here but there are similarities.)

Garp gets lectured for telling his proteges to protect the future...

Of course, the Marines declaring “All lives are equal” is downright laughable. These are the people who serve at the whim of the Celestial Dragons, wiped out Ohara, Flevance, and, recently, Lulusia.

They’re also content to sacrifice troops rather than take on an Emperor, so it takes a SWORD Member (Koby) to step in.

It’s interesting that Koby volunteered here; Blackbeard wasn’t actually interested in him in the first place.

Still, the fact that Blackbeard took this deal means Koby’s reputation is widespread. Rocky Port reveal when, Oda?!

Back to the present day, is it weird to say that Garp reminds me a bit of Luffy here?

Luffy has unwavering faith in his nakama. He has people on his crew who can do things he can’t, and he can do things they can’t. Garp here, like his grandson, puts his unmitigated faith in his people--though in this case, it’s more a case of handing the baton to the next generation. We’ve been focusing mostly on the next generation of pirates in the Worst Generation, but this is the next generation of the Marines stepping forward into the limelight.

Once the youngin’s are off, Garp returns his focus to his former protégé.

And all I can think of is Monty Python.

Okay, fine. It’s quite compelling that we’ve got Garp protecting and encouraging his current batch of proteges while facing off against his former protégé in Kuzan. (Kuzan’s line last chapter about Garp raising enemies is still ringing in my ears; that was cold.)

We also get a flashback, learning Koby’s been doing the “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” training montage from Mulan after training.

“You must be swift as the coursing river, with all the force of a great typhoon”

Koby is so wholesome that even his attack has a wholesome name.

Still, this is very impressive. Koby stocks on the rise.

Garp, Grus, and Helmeppo get back to the ship, just leaving Garp remaining on Hachinosu.

Look, I have plenty of issues with Garp, but to his credit here, he’s willing to walk the walk when it comes to saving the future generation over the old generation. He sacrifices himself so they ship can escape.

(Also, what was the point in Tashigi being here? I was really hoping we were going to see Smoker at some point, but nope. She’s just hanging out in the background doing nothing. Yeesh, let the woman do something for once, Oda.)

This looks bad for Garp. It feels like a sendoff, and Garp--a D.--is laughing in the face of death.

I don’t think he’s dead, though. For one thing, this is One Piece where death is made up and the points don’t matter. And the narration box says he’s MIA, which is quite different than some of the other more dramatic descriptions of defeat we’ve gotten in recent chapters.

Second, this is not the first time we’ve seen a D. face death with a smile and survive. (Remember Law’s smirk when Doffy had a gun to his chest on the rooftop in Dressrosa?)

Third, if Saul survived Kuzan’s attack, I’d imagine Garp could, too. I could see the ice here is actually saving him from what looks like an ugly stab wound.

More than that, though, it’s makes little strategic sense to kill him. Blackbeard wants a hostage to bargain with the World Government for Hachinosu’s sovereignty. Garp is a significantly more high-value hostage than Koby; it would not be smart to kill him and lose their leverage when they could use him.

Narrative-wise, there’s also a lot left to settle between Luffy and Garp. And what about Dragon?

There’s so much setup with Hachinosu that we’re definitely going there with the Straw Hats at some point. I still think Luffy and Law team up again now that Law is both crewless and shipless, and if Blackbeard takes the surviving Hearts hostage, that will give the renewed alliance reason to go there. Law would also likely be able to save a frozen Garp using his fruit.

All of that being said, I’m looking forward to returning to Egghead next chapter as the Marines arrive.

#One Piece #One Piece 1088 #One Piece chapter 1088 #One Piece spoilers #One Piece chapter 1088 spoilers #Chapter write-up #Monkey D. Garp #Koby #Kuzan #Tashigi #Trafalgar Law #Monkey D. Luffy #Jaguar D. Saul #Blackbeard #Hachinosu

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alicelufenia · 4 months ago

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Book 4 finished, and wow do I have thoughts

I gotta say, when I started I did not expect Akua "Doom of Liesse" Sahelian to be one of my favorite characters, but damn. Dying was by far the best thing to happen to her character development!

So now Cat's got Diabolist's soul on a leash, and the dynamic between the two is immediately so fascinating, with Catherine obviously hating her guts yet can't help but find her advice and knowledge useful, and in turn Akua is playing up her new role to the hilt, showing just how useful she can be while shamelessly flirting and planning to inevitably slip the leash (and boy will we get to that). I imagine the shippers were having a field day, but remember that Catherine has a strict "don't invade Callow" stipulation on who she takes to bed, much less "don't turn a whole city into undead cannon fodder". But I get it, Cat did rip her heart out when she killed her, and Akua does now love to call Cat pet names like "my heart", it's also just fascinating to see how Cat is able to override Akua's free will with a thought, and more so to see how often she doesn't exploit this to torment her (not that Akua gives any sign the torture does anything, except as a sign of what she should be doing to stay useful)

And honestly, I was surprised to see this not be a complete deal breaker for Thief, but not only has Vivienne gotten somewhat more pragmatic, it's clear Cat has gone to great lengths to earn her trust by basically giving the other Callowan girl the means to kill her, as contingency (so many contingencies in this part). Last time I did say how much I loved oaths, well now that Cat is basically full fae, AND commands all the power of the (former) Winter Court, oaths now are mortally binding to her, which is very fun when Akua does get loose and take over Cat's body and is then forced to pluck her eye out (it grows back now) but even has a bit of fun "playing hero" when she has to act like Cat on the battlefield. And boy, more on that later too.

As full Winter, Cat doesn't have a Name anymore, but if anything this feels like the peak of her power, she's basically invincible and can regrow anything lost instantly, she just gets crazier and "more Fae" as she uses the power, which honestly is pretty fascinating. There's been some disturbing behavior changes in her ever since book 3 when she gained the power of Winter. She's become just as reliant on stories as the fae, and so now the plot becomes an exercise in "how far is Cat willing to go to achieve her story?" Hint: pretty damn far.

I haven't been commenting on the goings on in the south much, but honestly a couple of books in I've decided I really like the tonal shift of everything down there with the League, especially the Tyrant and Most Resistant to the Call Named ever, Hierarch! Refuse to take a stand, live on the street, give no ruling and have that have a disproportionately large effect on policy! YASS KING give us NOTHING. My money's still on him having the biggest impact later on however, as so far the only time he's willingly called upon his Name was to tell the Bard to get out, and it worked?? They're playing Lord of the Rings in Callow/Praes, Game of Thrones in Procer, meanwhile down in the Free Cities it's Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

I mean, mostly, there was that nasty business where Black and the Calamities were there to fight White Knight's party, and poor Sabah got killed :( and that was last book, which I completely forgot to mention. The Calamities are having a bad time in this book.

Other major point, the Crusade is in full force, and the most interesting part of that is how its political inevitability, combined with Cat taking the throne setting off alarms, and her attempts to negotiate peace with the heroes accompanying the first army of Crusaders runs face first into her tendency to break what's in front of her. Grey Pilgrim is an interesting figure, who's motivation is hard to pin down at first. He seems open to negotiating peace with Cat, but only if she abdicates, which she doesn't want to do cause Callow is held together by duct tape and a dreamAnd then when her said tendency to break stuff forces the crusaders to actually negotiate retreat, he basically (according to Cat) tries to trap her into a "redemption arc", because those usually end in the villain's death. Well played Pilgrim. Fortunately what winds up playing out for Cat is, possibly that, but definitely not how anyone thought it would go, but I really should talk about Hierophant and how much I underappreciated him earlier.

First, I love how he's one of the earliest companions Cat picks up who is entirely on board cause she takes him interesting places and he's become friends with the other Woe. Pairing Masego, who is Ace/Aro as hell and definitely on the spectrum, with Archer, the flirtiest drunkest murderhobo ever, was just a perfect move, I love their friendship!

He has such a bitter sweet reunion with his fathers though, after discovering his incubus papa was around during the time before the Dead King rose up, which leads to I think the biggest twist I did not see coming, but looking back it makes total sense, that being Catherine died at Second Liesse, and the "Sovereign of Winter" didn't just take over her soul, but has basically replaced her. Which uh, goes a long way to explain her behavior changes, but also if you go back and read, you see the exact point when she breaks the binding that lets Winter flood her soul and body, and her heart stops, and it feels to her like she died, but then didn't die. Is the Cat after Liesse a different person from the one who died now, or if, because she sees herself as Cat, and everyone else does, does it really matter if she just never fully died, or if she died and then had basically a botched necromancy to keep a copy of her with her memories going?

I think it matters in one potentially big way, and it's possibly the one line that haunts Cat throughout the book; at one point the Pilgrim says that her presence as a villain ruling a Good kingdom makes her a corrupting force, and everyone she knows will be twisted by her Evil. And slowly Cat starts questioning if this is true, when even mild mannered nobles on her council are considering strategies using her mantle that would lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths, but "better if it's Proceran deaths", when even Cat herself refuses to use such a strategy because she wants to minimize deaths!

It happens more obviously with Thief, who is gradually losing her Named powers (she's much weaker and her hair is growing when normally Named develop their fixed look and keep the) and also is displaying signs of depression, and doubt as to whether she chose the right side.

Except it's ODD. Everything she says and does is understandable in the moment, but looking back you can see a clear shift that started after Cat got her mantle. Like okay, it's understandable that she'd be wary of Hakram; he fought and beat her when Viv was with the Lone Swordsman, and threatened her in her own seat of her power at the thieves guild just before she officially joined up. A few months after that she's still wary, but is more confident, basically fronting around him when all the Woe are hanging out. Now, a year later and they are working together in Laure running the kingdom, but now Thief is TERRIFIED of him. And then to prove to her that she can trust him, he goes so far as to CUT OFF HIS NECROMANCY SKELETON HAND. IN FRONT OF HER. Which was extreme, but also really weird!

I'm thinking this might be more the influence of Cat's growing fae nature rather than the narrative making her allies worse, but we'll have to wait come book 5 to see if everyone can chill the fuck out!

I don't have much to say about the gang's trip to Keter (except that amnesia mystery was neat and never underestimate Malicia), but Cat, Akua and Indrani's drow adventures? Here we go!

So as is obvious to anyone who knows me, big drow fan here. So I was fascinated to see what the Guide version was like. And it turned out to be heavily involved, basically an empire in ruin, and a people forced to fight amongst themselves for a limited magical resource. Heck the chapter that introduces them has for its epithet a Dread Emperor who literally invented the pyramid scheme, and that's basically drow culture. Still as backstabbing as you remember them from Forgotten Realms, except here they've been blasted back to the stone age, and live in heavily segmented tribes where they're constantly fighting over Night; kill another drow, take their Night, and you gain their power and knowledge.

The whole sequence where Cat builds her, let's be honest, drow slave army using the convincing argument of "swear an oath to me or die", is actually surprisingly long and drawn out, but we do learn a lot about them—I think it's interesting that all the drow are genderless in their society (or what counts as one). Of all the sequences where it's obvious Akua is succeeding at corrupting Cat, this probably takes the cake; sure, she gets the idea once they make it into the Everdark (you have no idea how often I misread that as Underdark, it was almost every time!) to "rescue" the drow from being genocided by the dwarves, but she was totally there for an army, and she's just strongarming one (while killing a LOT of drow herself) along the way to the final confrontation with the Priestess(s) of Night.

The payoff is amazing though. First, Indrani and Catherine sleep together! Which, I don't see it going too further, but they both needed it. But most important, human Cat's back! Which I guess. Disproves Warlock's theory that she's a different person, if she can go back to being human (lame leg and all) And it's so cool how you can immediately tell it's her old self, more snarky and actually still has a moral compass. She's legit horrified at what she did to the drow. And, we see mortal Catherine going back on a lot of what Fae Catherine said earlier and in book 3. Her gambit to get out of judgement is, the crab bucket dilemma; when all we do is fight each other, no one gets out of the bucket, so we should try working together instead!

And then she dies... again? But is now completely free of the mantle of Winter, and in exchange is now the new Priestess of Night.

So, yay Catherine, Mother of the Drow! Perhaps? It's very unclear. We literally leave Cat off with the lines "in pain, and gloriously mortal", which is quite a way to describe it. And, it looks like her goal to negotiate the drow out of the Everdark, and into a war with the Dead King without binding oaths, might actually work? The dwarves seem willing to listen at least.

Personally, I always thought the parts of the story where Cat has a lame leg were some of the most interesting moments, so I appreciate the depower. Even if it seems to happen every other book.

So, seems the war with the Dead King is going to be the focus for next book. Hoping Cat abdicates too, mortal Cat really thought becoming queen was a bad idea. Thinking we might be going back to a more principled Cat? Either way, it seems like she's gotten her humanity back (that was stolen by the mantle) time will tell whether her actions play out.

On to book 5!

#a practical guide to evil #spoilers #book 4 spoilers #queue

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glass-needles-and-futurisms · 1 year ago

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I keep thinking back to Muse playing Survival at the closing ceremonies of the 2012 London Olympics, and I keep saying that one of these days I'm just gonna spew all my feelings about how it's not just one of my all-time favorite Muse moments, but also a hilarious, if perhaps unintentional, moment of social commentary.

I still remember our postgrad professor showing those same closing ceremonies in class, explaining the not-so-subtle propagandistic purpose the entire spectacle served on the global stage. (For those who don't know, the 2012 Olympics closing ceremonies were essentially a three-hour star-studded tribute to UK music and pop culture.)

Picture this: you just sat through about two hours of the UK's various national exports - One Direction, the Spice Girls, the Pet Shop Boys, George Michael, Ed Sheeran, Annie Lennox, erm, Russell Brand. You've just seen live performances of Bohemian Rhapsody, Imagine, Wonderwall, and Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, alongside tributes to David Bowie and Freddie Mercury. And you still have Queen, Take That and The Who to go after this.

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Interestingly, that class glossed over what an afterthought the Muse performance felt like by comparison. You could argue a lot of extenuating circumstances: the controversial reception of Survival as the official London Olympics theme song, the infamous NBC debacle where it inadvertently got cut from the US broadcast of the ceremonies, or the simple fact that this far into the festivities, a fairly straightforward stage performance* by a band with slightly less name recognition than Coldplay was pretty underwhelming.

* Not sure if this is common knowledge, but apparently this performance was mostly playback with the exception of Matt's vocals. Which also makes this an underappreciated entry in the annals of Muse miming shenanigans.

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But something becomes very apparent once you actually reach this part of the show: Survival is fucking bananas. I'll never forget that one internet commenter calling it the world's most epic villain song that doesn't know it's a villain song. I mean, just look at the lyrics:

Life's a race / and I am gonna win

And I'll light the fuse / and I'll never lose

And I choose to survive / whatever it takes

You won't pull ahead / I'll keep up the pace

And I'll reveal my strength / to the whole human race

This is how the song starts! You can sort of see the logic behind making it the Olympics theme song. And then it gets weirder from there:

Yes, I am prepared / to stay alive

I won't forgive / the vengeance is mine

And I won't give in / because I choose to thrive

Yeah, I'm gonna wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin

Good grief. No wonder it's called "Survival". The song makes slightly more sense in the thematic context of The 2nd Law, the album it was released on. But on its own it's just.... yeah.

And this performance ramps up the insanity even more by just taking the piss. Between Matt Bellamy peacocking in a sparkly suit and Union Jack t-shirt, the batshit guitar solo, the pyro, the backing choir, and the fact that everything onstage (including the grand piano) is pretty much just for show (and wobbling like mad), Survival feels cheesy and irreverent in a way that makes you suddenly hyper-conscious of how tightly orchestrated everything else you just saw (including the Monty Python and Mr. Bean stuff) was. Remember that this was all broadcast to an international audience of millions.

Pairing the sheer pageantry of the ceremonies thus far with the actual lyrics of Survival kinda puts everything in an uncomfortable new light. Then it dawns on you that you pretty much just watched an accidental three-hour love letter to British imperialism. (Okay maybe that's overselling it a bit but it's still pretty funny.)

#muse #muse band #survival #the 2nd law #matt bellamy #olympics #P.S. I can't help but wonder how Dom and Chris feel being accomplices to all this

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yonderghostshistories · 4 months ago

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For Graham’s Birthday today, I made a collage yesterday to commemorate him today!!

It’s a collage called “Graham & David”, which is specifically about Graham Chapman and his partner David Sherlock, when they met in Ibiza in 1966 and lived together for the rest of their lives for 24 years until Graham’s unfortunate passing in 1989.

This collage is inspired by the lovely collages (mostly the Monty Python ones) made by the lovely Sir @anythingcanhappeninmay , to which I’d personally like to thank for partly giving me the inspiration to do this (in my personal opinion) very chaotic but special collage ❤️

The quote I used is from the book “A Liar’s Autobiography” by Graham Chapman, in which the quote in question is this :

‘ “What a bloody fucking waste of time,” I thought three years later when I was in Ibiza, hugging David in a tent, feeling more liberated and happy than ever before in my life” ’

Hope anyone who sees this and/or comes across this by random chance enjoys what they’re seeing! I appreciate it fr as Graham Chapman holds a very special place in my heart, and so I thought I’d make him smth special today for his heavenly 84th Birthday today ❤️

#graham chapman #david sherlock #monty python #graham x david #gay #gay love #collage #art #lgbtq+#lgbtqia #a lil thing that I made to celebrate Gray’s heavenly 84th birthday today!#a liar’s autobiography (the book)

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samobservessonic · 3 months ago

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It looks like off-screen Sonic has decided to move out from living with the Chaotix and get a place of his own. If only finding an apartment to rent was so easy in this dimension… Anyway, while this is mostly another boring Marvel-esque villain of the week story, we at least get Sonic checking in with Tails and Johnny at the start

It’s nice to see Sonic chilling and teasing his friends. Also, just a passing observation, but while I think the stories in StC between the two writers mostly marry up well and I’m sure the team worked great together, it does seem rarer so far that Kitching will directly mention something from Stringer’s stories than the other way around. I think this is the first time that Shortfuse has been brought up in a Kitching story, for example? I could be wrong tho

But unfortunately, Sonic has to cut this call short to deal with more nonsense

Sonic assumes that there must be a good an an evil one, because that’s how this generally works in his experience. But it turns out they’re just two brothers fighting

He tries to resign to leave them to it, but has to jump in when an old lady gets in the line of fire

I do like this panel of Sonic being hit by an old lady’s walking stick lol

They then decide to throw a Monty Python reference into this Blues Brothers beat ‘em up story

I’m in complete agreement with Sonic here - the sooner he gets out of parody land, the better. But with issue 100 rapidly approaching, we’re not too far off that. I love the Chaotix, but I’ve had about as much as I can take of this particular type of story

#sam observes sonic #sonic the comic #stc issue 95 #sonic the hedgehog #miles tails prower #johnny lightfoot

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lil-melody-moon · 28 days ago

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tempted to ask all of the ask game questions(or at least most of them if there are some you'd like to skip)

You ask, you shall get them!

1. What is you middle name?

Ewelina

2. How old are you?

Pushing 27 this year!

3. When is your birthday?

22nd of July

4. What is your zodiac sign?

Cancer

5. What is your favorite color?

I have two actually, purple and blue, this year I turn to blue mostly. Hence why my side blogs are in blue colour

6. What’s your lucky number?

7 or 9 I believe or any number that is uneven

7. Do you have any pets?

Lady canary who is showing her arse to me - it's the time of the year

8. Where are you from?

Poland

9. How tall are you?

162 cm, shorty really

10. What shoe size are you?

39 or 40, it depends on the shoe

11. How many pairs of shoes do you own?

In general? Umn... Around 8

12. What was your last dream about?

I was at some place with cute fluffy dogs that looked like orbs, I was playing with them, they were cute!

13. What talents do you have?

I have talent for writing and getting ideas out of thin air. You give me a prompt and I'm 99% sure I'll come up with something for either me x Uncle Ernie ship or me x Keith Moon ship

14. Are you psychic in any way?

My gut feeling is never wrong, so if it tells me something is not good for me, I listen to it. So far, decision made based on it were always good

15. Favorite song?

My beloved 💜

16. Favorite movie?

Do I even have one, huh... WAIT, I DO! "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"

17. Who would be your ideal partner?

He would be my friend who I could laugh with and be stupid with. Also, we'd share our interests and were interested in one another. No shrugging or ignoring when the other rambles about a thing they got into lately

18. Do you want children?

YES. Not now, but when I'll have a job and perhaps find a guy who meets my criteria - what's above is not really anything big to wish for - I would be down for a kid or two

19. Do you want a church wedding?

Yeah, why not 💜

20. Are you religious?

Not that much, I don't attend masses, but I am faithful to Christianity, even if I find Asian religion interesting

21. Have you ever been to the hospital?

Yes, but not as patient.

22. Have you ever got in trouble with the law?

Nope

23. Have you ever met any celebrities?

Nope

24. Baths or showers?

Showers, they're quicker

25. What color socks are you wearing?

White!

26. Have you ever been famous?

I think not a big scale, but I have fans who like my fics, so I think that's a small amount of fame 💜

27. Would you like to be a big celebrity?

Oh no no, I rather live my life in peace while nobody knows me

28. What type of music do you like?

Classic rock mostly, but heavy metal is not far away, specifically thrash metal

29. Have you ever been skinny dipping?

Nope, didn't have a chance

30. How many pillows do you sleep with?

One, the one my grandma bought me years ago

31. What position do you usually sleep in?

I usually sleep on my right side, but lately I can't sleep on it. Like usual when my period is running late or when it's coming.

32. How big is your house?

I live in a flat, 2 rooms, 1 kitchen, 1 bathroom and a hall.

33. What do you typically have for breakfast?

Bread with something. Eggs, tomatoes, cheese, various things. I keep eating something else each day to not grow bored. Whatever comes to my mind I eat it.

34. Have you ever fired a gun?

Nope, guns are illegal in Poland

35. Have you ever tried archery?

Once at a school trip! I barely remember it, showed memories from primary school in the "forget it" basket in my brain

36. Favorite clean word?

"Ano", which can be roughly translated to "yeah"

37. Favorite swear word?

"Pierdolić", which can be roughly translated to "fucking". You can express everything with this one word

38. What’s the longest you’ve ever gone without sleep?

One whole day and night on a school trip because one bitch was snoring the entire night and I cannot fall asleep when I hear something

39. Do you have any scars?

Yes, on my right cheek from pimples

40. Have you ever had a secret admirer?

Yes and he wrote to me a few days ago. I'm going to meet with him at Friday, telling him that I cannot be his girlfriend because his sudden confession after 6 years of not talking is weird, I don't have any shared interests with him and he's just boring. Also, asking to become his girlfriend after one full day of texting because we've talked for 3 months 6 years ago? Dude, I was 22 back then, I was a stupid idiot with a crush that disappeared long time ago.

41. Are you a good liar?

Yeah, when i have to I lie and nothing ever slipped

42. Are you a good judge of character?

Yeah I am. I can tell by the looks of someone if I'm gonna be on good terms with them or not

43. Can you do any other accents other than your own?

Nope

44. Do you have a strong accent?

Yeah, I have Silesian accent and I also know the dialect so my voice varies from deep to very deep, depending if I'm talking in dialect or in Polish

45. What is your favorite accent?

As of now, British one, the one Keith had, not the Posh one - as always, I don't know how it is called XD

46. What is your personality type?

INFJ - random piece of trivia, based on this page, the same as Pete Townshend's and Serj Tankian's

47. What is your most expensive piece of clothing?

The new jacket, paid for it 164 zloties I think

48. Can you curl your tongue?

YEAH

49. Are you an innie or an outie?

I don't know what that means, help XD

50. Left or right handed?

Right handed

51. Are you scared of spiders?

Not entirely. If I see a bigger one, yeah, I might freak out, but normally with te small, house ones? No, they are more afraid of me than I am of them

52. Favorite food?

FISH OUO

53. Favorite foreign food?

Empanadas 💜

54. Are you a clean or messy person?

Clean person

55. Most used phrased?

"Ya know"

56. Most used word?

Fuck

57. How long does it take for you to get ready?

At morning? An hour. Normally? 10 minutes and I'm out

58. Do you have much of an ego?

I used to have, but now I don't have it. I know my worth but I'm not above anyone

59. Do you suck or bite lollipops?

Suck. Damn, I hadn't eaten a lollipop for a long time

60. Do you talk to yourself?

A lot! When I think out loud it's easier to think in general

61. Do you sing to yourself?

Not very often, but I did today, listening to "Quadrophenia"

62. Are you a good singer?

I like to think that I am XD

63. Biggest Fear?

Loosing people close to my heart, as in not letting go or something, just them dying

64. Are you a gossip?

Yeah, yeah I am, gossips are sometimes to die for IF they are not made up

65. Best dramatic movie you’ve seen?

I can put there any Chinese drama I've watched, but I'll put "Till the End of the Moon" here, still the best drama I've watched so far

66. Do you like long or short hair?

Long hair!

67. Can you name all 50 states of America?

Nope- You really have 50 states? I can't remember 16 parts of my country, let alone 50 states XDDDD

68. Favorite school subject?

Polish! I love our literature

69. Extrovert or Introvert?

Kinda in between? I was once a introvert, but I changed and now I'm leaning more to the extrovert side

70. Have you ever been scuba diving?

Nope

71. What makes you nervous?

Situations that stress me out, or the ones that make me recall the times I had the worst time of my life. The guy writing to me and asking me out unlocked the memories of when I was 22, I didn't like that one bit

72. Are you scared of the dark?

I think not. There was a moment in my life when I was, but that was due to me watching a found video footage horror at night

73. Do you correct people when they make mistakes?

Not very often, only when they ask me to check a text for corrections

74. Are you ticklish?

Yes, on my neck, tummy and calves

75. Have you ever started a rumor?

Nope, I'm not kinda of bitch

76. Have you ever been in a position of authority?

Nope

77. Have you ever drank underage?

Nope, I didn't have a droplet of alcohol in my mouth - sweets with alcohol don't count

78. Have you ever done drugs?

Nope

79. Who was your first real crush?

A guy in preschool, he was sweet. We've became friends and then a childhood crush happened

80. How many piercings do you have?

Two, one on each ear

81. Can you roll your Rs?“

What does that even mean? XDDD *goes to educate herself* OHHHHH, yeah I can do that!

82. How fast can you type?

Very fast, friends usually gawk when I type

83. How fast can you run?

I didn't run for a long time, I don't know

84. What color is your hair?

Dark brown

85. What color is your eyes?

Green

86. What are you allergic to?

I don't have allergies

87. Do you keep a journal?

Nope, I once wanted to do that, but it's not my thing

88. What do your parents do?

Sitting at home. My dad once worked at a coal mine, he retired a long time ago. Mum is a housewife

89. Do you like your age?

Yeah, I'm glad I'm past 24!

90. What makes you angry?

When someone interrupts me or don't listen to me

91. Do you like your own name?

I usually do, but I hate when people are using it as if they talked to a little girl. The last time I wanted to strangle the woman who called me "Karolinka" :)

92. Have you already thought of baby names, and if so what are they?

Only for a girl, I wanna name a girl "Małgorzata", "Margaret" in English

93. Do you want a boy a girl for a child?

I'm fine with both, don't have preferences

94. What are you strengths?

My sheer will to live and that I didn't kill myself in the last year and in the past

95. What are your weaknesses?

My emotions and short-temper. I'm very easy to cry out of anger, stress, and I'm even quicker to blow a gasket

96. How did you get your name?

My mum heard it while attending a party and she liked it

97. Were your ancestors royalty?

I don't think so

98. Do you have any scars?

Hey, this question is repeated!

99. Color of your bedspread?

Light pink

100. Color of your room?

Blue and yellow, although I want to change the blue wallpaper to something lighter, I want this room to become more warm

#DONE #*drops mic*#I was faster than you XD #ask corner

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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 2 years ago

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Is It Really That Bad?

It’s hard to believe nowadays, but there was a time where the Tim Burton/Johnny Depp duo was known for delivering nothing but certified bangers. Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow… It was just hit after hit when these two joined forces. But in the mid 2000s, something shifted. It suddenly seemed like people were sick of Burton, sick of Depp, and most of all sick of them working together. Sure, Corpse Bride and Sweeney Todd were still well-liked, but once Alice in Wonderland hit theaters people weren’t shy about voicing their dislike of the director and especially the actor. Burton kind of skidded to a halt for a while, while Depp just kept making increasingly worse movies with Disney and generally not doing anything worthwhile after Rango, and while Alice was the breaking point, the cracks started to show in 2005 with a little film called Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

An attempt to redo Roald Dahl’s novel about a precocious child touring the candy factory of a wacky candymaker was being planned for a long time, with even Nicolas Cage in talks at one point to be Wonka, and at another point good ol’ Martin Scorcese was attached to direct. But things just kept falling through until Burton got dragged in, and from there he proceeded to get things done and talk the studio out of stupid decisions like killing off Charlie’s dad and making Wonka a parental figure. Ah, but speaking of Wonka, that crucial role needed filling, and it seemed a lot of famous actors were considered for the role by the studio—Robin Williams, Patrick Stewart, Michael Keaton, Steve Martin, Bill Murray, Christopher Walken, Brad Pitt, Leslie Nielsen, Robert De Niro, Will Smith, Mike Meyers, Ben Stiller, pretty much every living member of Monty Python left at the time, Adam Sandler, and Marilyn Manson among them according to TVTropes—and Burton had an interesting idea for his second pick to play the guy:

But instead he went for his first pick, someone who’s actually very similar to Marilyn Manson in a lot of ways! Good ol’ reliable JD himself! Surely this was gonna bring in the big bucks! And... it did! It's the highest-grossing adaptation of one of Dahl's works ever, and Burton's second highest-grossing film!

Critics seemed mostly fine with it, but audiences were a lot more divided. Some people liked that it was a new and different take on the story that stayed a lot more true to the book than the beloved 1971 Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (a movie that Dahl famously hated as much as he did Jewish people, so frankly who gives a shit about his opinion), while others clung to the nostalgia of the Gene Wilder Wonka and treated this new film like a war crime. How dare they remake their favorite movie, even though this isn't a remake, it's just a different adaptation of the same book!

So yes, this movie isn’t the most reviled film out there, but it definitely is incredibly divisive, and what’s more I distinctly recall even as a child being aware of the attitude towards Depp and Burton shifting towards the more negative when this film came out. So I figured it was a high time I see about revisiting it and find out if this second cinematic outing into Wonka’s factory was really that bad, or if it genuinely was a work of impure imagination.

THE GOOD

It may surprise you to hear that this film actually does a few things better than the 1971 film. This is especially evident in the four shitty children touring the factory with Charlie.

The ones from Willy Wonka were, to put it bluntly, dull and forgettable, and came off as far too sympathetic in regards to their fate because none of them aside from Veruca Salt showcased any terrible traits that would lead to them deserving their punishments. In this film, all these kids are assholes, so watching them fall prey to the karmic justice of Wonka's factory is all the more satisfying. We also get to see what happens to them after they get out, which is kind of funny. I’m not gonna pretend that they made them the deepest and most complex characters ever, but with how they updated them and with the young actors they got to portray them, they managed to inject a bit more life into them than you’d expect.

This movie also fixes Grandpa Joe, who is pretty infamous to fans of the '71 film as a total asshole who constantly encourages Charlie to steal and just in general seems like a massive burden to his family. Here, he actually is every bit the sweet old grandpa that you’d expect, and his motivations for wanting to go on the tour are a lot nicer and more sympathetic. He also never tries to push Charlie into a life of crime, which is nice.

Of course, the very best aspect of this movie is Deep motherfucking Roy. He’s the second best dwarf actor out there, only oovershadowed by Warwick “Leprechaun” Davis, and much like Davis was in Star Wars as the ultimate Glup Shitto—Droopy McCool.

And in this film he gets the incredible honor of being every single fucking Oompa-Loompa there is, and he is clearly having a blast and busting his ass. He had no prior dancing experience, but you could not tell with how he’s pulling off all these sick moves while spitting out diss tracks for children like he’s Blood on the Dance Floor. He really is the single best actor in the movie, and that’s not to slander anyone else—Roy is just that good. Like we have a scene-stealing minor role for Christopher Lee as Wonka’s dad, a crabby dentist who hates candy, and as amazing as he is Roy still is better. You better respect this man.

Speaking of men to respect: Danny Elfman. Taking lyrics straight from the book and weaving a unique style for each kid—Big Bollywood spectacle for Augustus (that was Roy’s idea), 70s funk for Violet, psychedelic rock for Veruca, and hard rock for Mike—the songs are all genuinely great and fun to listen to. I’d never go as far as to say they’re more iconic than the Oompa-Loompa tracks from the ‘71 film, but I think they function better as songs, and the fact each of them has their own distinct style to set them apart from each other was the right way to go. I do think Mike’s song is the weakest of the bunch, feeling a lot messier than the other three, but it’s not unbearably awful or anything.

THE BAD

The biggest issue with the film is that the two most important characters—Charlie and Wonka—fucking suck.

Let’s start with Charlie. Now, to be clear, I’m not putting any blame on Freddie Highmore—he was literally a child, and even then I think he’s doing his damndest to make Charlie cute and whimsical. The issue here is definitely on the writers, who saw fit to stuff him full of all the syrupy sweet Tiny Tim-esque kind-hearted poor child cliches but forgot to impart a personality to go with them. Charlie is, to put it bluntly, a boring and generic nice guy, and one who ends up feeling like a living plot device to further Wonka’s character development, something that feels especially egregious when his name is literally in the title.

And now let’s talk about Wonka. Boy, is there a lot to unpack with this guy.

Literally everything about this take on Wonka is incredibly awkward and off-putting. The most infamous aspect of him is definitely the look; with his pale skin and dorky haircut he looked a lot like Michael Jackson, who at the time the film came out was going through a very serious scandal where he was accused of doing awful things to children in his big rich guy mansion… which is essentially the plot of this film when you think about it.

But that’s just an unfortunate coincidence! It’s an ugly look, sure, but a good performance could make it palatable, and this was Johnny Depp during his big post-Jack Sparrow renaissance working together with the guy who helped put him on the map. Surely he wouldn’t deliver an incredibly awkward, cringey, and insufferable performance that dials up all his acting quirks to annoying levels, right?

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Here’s the thing: On paper, Depp’s Wonka is honestly not that different than Wilder’s. They’re both weird, quirky, reclusive confectioners with a not-so-hidden disdain for the kids touring their factory and snarky, condescending attitudes. What it all comes down to is the presentation, and to show you what I mean I’m going to use the most batshit comparison you’ve ever seen:

Burton’s Wonka is very similar to Zack Snyder’s Ozymandias.

“Now hold on, Michael,” I hear you exclaiming in utter bewilderment, “how are these two comparable? I know that both are fine with the wonton murder of children if it helps achieve their goals and that a lot of people are weirdly horny for them, but how is this a good comparison?” Well luckily I’m not trying to compare a mass-murdering anti-villain to a quirky chocolatier in terms of character, but in how the adaptation drops the ball with how they’re presented by removing the more warm and positive aspects of them. In Alan Moore’s comic, Adrian Veidt is essentially a relentlessly charming gigachad, an affable and approachable fellow who seems beneath suspicion because he exudes a traditionally heroic warmth. In the movie, however, Snyder chose to portray Veidt as a cold, distant twink who doesn’t seem particularly approachable at all (another case of Daddy Zaddy tragically missing Moore’s point).

This same "missing the point" issue plagues Wonka. Yes, Wilder’s take is just as much a smug asshole reveling in the comeuppance the children are receiving, but he also has a genuine warmth to him which is codified perfectly with him singing “Pure Imagination.” Sure, he’s perfectly willing to traumatize everyone with a demented boat ride shortly after, but Wilder’s performance and the presentation of his Wonks help sell him as a quirky genius who is more likable than insufferable, and you really understand how despite being kind of a dick he is also a beloved figure.

Depp’s Wonka fails as the character in the same basic ways that the movie version of Veidt does: He's a condescending, cold, openly rude, guy who is just genuinely unpleasant to be around despite the movie really trying hard to make him likable and relatable, to the point where unlike Wilder's take it's hard to grasp why this guy gets any respect from anyone. He’s like the proto-Rick Sanchez, except he’s not even particularly funny to make up for it. Maybe this take is more accurate to the book, but if it is it’s really just proof that taking liberties when adapting really is for the best.

And this failure is only compounded by the movie piling on a tragic backstory for Wonka. Yes, Christopher Lee is great, but there is genuinely no need to pile on a traumatic childhood and weird daddy issues to Willy Wonka. The character works best as this weird, trickster mentor figure who dishes out karma to the naughty kids and ultimately rewards the good egg of the bunch. Trying to bring a guy with a magical factory full of dwarfs who do choreographed diss tracks every time a kid falls into the incinerator down to earth and make him relatable is just a mind-boggling decision.

These are really the only two issues with the film that stand out as excessively bad, but… you see the problem, right? The titular character and the owner of the titular chocolate factory are both bad. One’s a living prop, the other is just an obnoxious asshat who is given unneeded character development that ends up falling flat, and while this would be easy to ignore if they were side characters it’s impossible to let slide since they are the main fucking characters. The whole film revolves around the two very worst things in it, and no matter how good the other stuff in the movie is these elements alone drag it down a lot.

IS IT REALLY THAT BAD?

Look, I’m not going to pretend like this is a great film. If it really is closer to Dahl’s book, all it managed to do is convince me to never read it and solidified my belief that being pragmatic when adapting books to screen is the way to go. It’s also really easy to see how the Burton-Depp fatigue came about, as this is some of the weakest work in both of their filmographies.

But I still feel like there’s plenty to like here. The songs, the bratty kids, Deep motherfucking Roy, it’s all genuinely good shit! There was never a chance it was going to be iconic as the Wilder film, but it’s disingenuous to write it off entirely when it does a lot good things (and a few things better than the '71 version). A lot of people are nostalgic for this one these days, as it's the one this generation grew up with, and honestly? I can't really blame them entirely. It's a decent enough movie, and I honestly think that score it has up there is pretty fair. It's certainly a mixed bag but when it actually succeeds at being charming it does it in its own unique way rather than trying to ape the beloved classic that came before it, and I do respect it for that.

And hey, if Johnny Depp's worst and most annoying movie role is in a movie I'd still say is okay, that's a good thing right? He couldn't possibly ever take a role more cringeworthy and annoying than Wonka in a film that's genuinely shitty, right?

Right?

RIGHT?!

#is it really that bad?#IIRTB #Charlie and the Chocolate Factory #Tim Burton #Johnny Depp #Willy Wonka #Roald Dahl #book adaptation #review #movie review #Youtube

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