#neither of the live action versions were cute enough or looked like real animals to me

[egglygreg]

I wanted to have a go at my own version of a realistic Appa

[soft-hard-peaches]

Reaction: Ateez Letting You Sleepover

~fluff~~a bit of smut~

Warning: brief make outs

Kim Hongjoong

After a long night of benging on the new Netflix series, you two lost track of time. Seven episodes ago it was only 5 o’clock now but the next thing he knew it was nearing midnight and there were still a few episode left in the season. You’ve gone this far and giving up is not an option. 

After you skipped the opening credits to the next episode, you get up to stretch your stiff joints from the prolonged sitting. Hongjoong lets out a deep yawn then clears his throat. He’s been thinking about asking you this since proposing the Netflix hangout, not for something like “Netflix n Chill” but because he genuinely likes hanging out with you and hates saying goodbye.

“It’s pretty late, how about I gets some extra blankets and pillow?”, He tries to say nonchalantly.

You smile and plop down back beside him, “Like a slumber party?”

Trying to hide his excitement, he hurries up to fetch the supplies for his favorite person and him.

Park Seonghwa

Late night practice can be pretty grueling for anyone and the boys were about tapped-out at this point. Seonghwa, San, and Wooyoung were off to the side taking a breather till they heard the door open and Jongho shouting, ”Y/n brought food!!” Within that instant Wooyoung abandoned the two to get the food from you and the rest gave their thanks. San accompanied Seonghwa watching the boys mood isntantly lightened from the gift but Hwa’s mood illuminated for a different reason.

Seonghwa has been working up the courage to ask you out for months but with promotions and other scheduling, he hasn't found the time. But seeing you here to take care of him and the boys, even when it’s this late, made his heart swoon. “Hyung, you should make your move before one of them do.” That thought put a fire under his butt and he felt like he had to do something soon to at least let you know he was interested.

“Hey Y/n?” Seonghwa pulled you aside. He thought he was ready until he caught your deep soulful eyes and fumbles, “Uh, It’s late so you can spend the night with me-- I mean us-- I MEAN on the couch... at the dorm. The silence fills the distance between you both but you smile confusedly, “Are you sure?” Are the guys okay with that?”

“Of course, Seonghwa hyung would love for you to stay the night!”, San boldly stated, embarassing the poor hyung and the rest of the boys agree with their mouths full. 

Jeong Yunho

“Of course she said yes! Who could say no to this face?”, he expresses as he plays with his hyung’s face all while Yunho silently thinks about what he just did.

Neither of you have stayed over at each other's house, I mean you have had late night rendezvous and 3am hangouts but this seems so much more real for him. Not that being sexual intimate wasn't real enough for him but having you officially stay the night, hanging out without having to sneak around or sneak out feels so grown up to him.

"If Y/n is gonna sleep in your room, you better straighten up. You're messy.", Seonghwa jabs at him, waking him from space. He always kept his room as clean as he could or was willing to clean and he and his roommate San aren't necessarily filthy guys but the though of you staying in a pigsty was unacceptable.

Yunho bults up and makes a bee line to his bedroom as the boys laugh at his actions, "Gotta go! Gotta CLEAN!!"

"Yah! Hyung don't forget your jerkoff sock!", San finishes off as Yunho slams the door in response.

Kang Yeosang

"Ok so what should we do next?", Yeosang asked you with a stiff smile.

He was so excited to have you over for the first time. So much so that he's been planning this night for a week. He bought boardgames, 2 player video games, snacks, and drinks. He even went out and bought a big warm blanket to cuddle in. Everyone cautioned him to keep it cool so he wouldn't try so hard but the little bundle of energy could not keep it cool. I mean he loves you so much that he wants you to feel at him in his home. But you blew through the boardgames and neither of you are any good at the video game so he's at a standstill.

Though glum, he tries to hide his antsy anxiety that you're not having a good time. He takes a big gulp from the cola can infront of him to hide his nervousness. "Wanna play another game?", he ask without looking at you. "No, I wanna go to bed.", you return. The response hurts his pride with all his effort. "Oh... Okay", he forgets to hide his sadness.

But you place your palm on his upper thigh and lean in to initiate a long wanting kiss on his lips.

Your lips unlock and eyes finally meet as he repeats with a different emotion, "...Oh...Okay."

Choi San

San had missed you so much that he didn't want you to leave so he did what any boyfriend would do and invited you to stay. Of course you weren't going to say no because you missed him too. But to top your excitement was his when he saw you in his hoodie. All the more reason why he brought you straight to his and Yunho's room.

The dark room fulled with soft moans and kissing sounds. San's hand slides up from for thigh to grip your hips slightly then up to find his way under your hoodie. He halts the makeout session to nuzzle his head in the crook of your neck. Once breathing heavily is now slowed and peaceful as you two cuddled in the dark.

Snuggled perfectly on the valley of your breast while you comb your manicured fingers through his hair, "I love you, Y/n." Your breath hitched slightly but you hope he didn't noticed. Before you could return the sentiment a tall figure burst through the door making his way to his bed. "Yah, I'm not sleeping on the couch to get you layed.", Yunho whispered loud enough so you both could hear. You both tried to cover your snickers over the situation.

"Good night, hyung."

"'night, Yunho."

Song Mingi

You walk out of the bathroom, face freshly washed, teeth brushed, amd donning dark and light blue, checkered pyjamas. You walk into the kitchen where you last left your boyfriend Mingi but you only see Jongho and San. "Where'd Mingi go?", you asked the boys. With a hint of woe in the salty maknae's voice, "He's in the room that I am not aloud in for the night.", he spits at you but you pay him not mind. "Goodnight guys.", you thank them as you head back to the room.

Greeting you is the long bodied dork that makes you smile like no other, "Yo, you found me babe." Seeing that he heard your whole ordeal searching for him, you don't fill him in about your trip to the kitchen. Mingi gestures you to come to bed by patting the space he made for you and you obey his call, snuggling up in the comfortably warm sheets that pleasantly smell like him.

You turned around to the nightstand to turn off the lamp but stops from the sudden feeling of Mingi's arm wrapped around your stretched out body. You chuckle at him trying to pull you back so you shut off the light and quickly nuzzle against him.

"I'm happy you're with me, Y/n."

The dark room hides your blush. "I'm happy too, Mingi."

Jung Wooyoung

"Wow, you really dressed up for this playdate.", San jokingly poked at Wooyoung's pyjama set and headband. Wooyoung retorted with a taunting laugh, "it's not a 'playdate' It's a sleepover." And you're just jealous that Y/n is coming to see me and not you." Wooyoung felt a bit prideful that you like him enough to spend the night watching movies with him. At first it was always Wooyoung, San, and you so he hardly got any one-on-one time with you but San agreed to leave you two be so Woo could woo you.

A few hours after you arrived and Wooyoung is as lively and energetic as ever. This was the first time Wooyoung had seen you in casual home attire. He thought you were so cute in your favorite oversized hoodie and pyjama bottoms. His smile was bigger than usual tonight.

After the first movie ended, you two made your way to the kitchen to raid for snacks. Wooyoung leaned on the counter with a snack cake in his mouth and a cup of juice in hand, watching you enjoy a box of cookies. Almost giddy, he hoped you were having as much of a good time as he was watching you.

"Yah, Y/n, what should we watch next?" Wooyoung asked smiling, taking a sip of his drink.

Choi Jongho

With Jongho sprawled on the floor scrolling through his social media and you on his bed above him playing Animal Crossing on your Switch, you two spend another evening enjoying each other's company. Jongho likes that he doesn't have to try too hard to entertain you. You like him for him and respect his quite disposition so calm hangouts like this are a normal occurrence.

"Hey Jongho?", you gained his attention as you flashed your screen at him, "I made you." He flashes a shy gummy smile as he sees a mini game version himself. Smiling at his smile, you look up at the clock to see it's later than you thought, "When did it become 9?!" Jongho looks at you with a blank face as he sasses back, "Sometime after 8". You hopped off his bed, ignoring his comment, to gather your stuff, "I already miss the first bus. Now I have to catch the late one home."

Jongho gets up and place your stuff back down to grab your hand, calming your frenzy slightly, "How about you stay the night and I'll walk you home in the morning?" His suddeness stops and flusters you. "Seonghwa hyung, can Y/n spend the night?", Jongho shouts out his door with Seonghwa shouting back, "Yah! I'm not your mom!"

"See, it's okay.", the forward boy reassures you as mingi walks out from the shower, "Hyung? Can Y/n sleep here tonight?" Mingi sizes both you up and walks away chuckling, "Sure I'll hangout in the living room.

Jongho looks back at you and places his hands gently on your shoulders, "See? It's okay." You give him a reassuring smile and lay back down on his bed. He leaves the door ajar and lays down with you.

[hamaon]

JGY or WWX?

I feel like a fair disclaimer to give before getting to Wei Wuxian is that I watched the Untamed despite, not because of, wangxian! I originally checked out the beginning of the animated series because someone I followed was getting into it, but I already had an inkling that the main romantic relationship in this romance wouldn’t be my cup of tea. The Untamed followed, more than half a year later, really only because I had hit the gorgeous soundtrack on youtube.

How I feel about this character Part of the reason I presumed I wouldn’t be into wangxian was because neither of the main players really spoke to me, and on this account I am happy to have been proven wrong! When I finished the show, Wei Wuxian was probably my favorite character. There's something very satisfying about a surface-level heroic main character hitting his absolute lowest points and starting to be actively harmful to himself and others. “This is all I’ve ever wanted for the class clown type of character”, I think I said at some point. Let it all burn.

I go back and forth on whether I find the flightier parts of his personality charming or annoying, but it’s a spectrum. The Untamed version is my favorite, character-wise.

All the people I ship romantically with this character Nie Huaisang, in the sense that, what with their roles in the plot, it would be fascinating to see how things would play out if this was the main romance, instead. Especially because romance would not be Nie Huaisang’s priority. What would the relationship trajectory even be, teenage sweethearts, ending with a definitive breakup by the finale? I've never sat down with the idea long enough to do anything with it, but sometimes it comes back to me. The main reason I'm into it is because hey, it's the main character & the main driving force behind the story! this is an intellectual puzzle to work out!, but they also had nice, easy chemistry when they were young and seemed to enjoy each other's company, which was something that was... not present in the actual main ship as far as I could see, and apparently my only kink is obvious mutual interest and stability in a relationship. I don't think they really had romantic/sexual chemistry in particular, but hey.

Wen Ning. I just think ningxian is cute. Also has lots of potential for difficult and uncomfortable exploration re: consent and autonomy.

But I think at the end of the day, the only relationship he has that just by the actual shape of it would be something I'd be interested in seeing turn into a romantic and/or sexual relationship is with Wen Qing, which, uh. Yeah. The fond push-and-pull, the two leaders, it’s good stuff. Just a physical relationship during their hunkering together time would be fun, too.

My non-romantic OTP for this character Jiang Cheng. I remember originally being pretty peeved about the fact that the romance (censored or not) is treated as the main focus when the Yunmeng duo is, to me, the real heart of the story. Let Lan Wangji be a supporting character.

I'm not sure if I really want a reconciliation between them, personally, but I want to note that it’s not because I think it would be fundamentally impossible, or because one or both of the characters is genuinely better off without the other. I think it would be very good for them if they managed some sort of genuine healing together!

I don’t want a reconciliation because thinking about their complete and total failure to communicate and consequently never making up makes me experience genuine agony in a very satisfying way. I have in the past gone into people's tags for the two of them and managed to work myself into a sobbing mess within five minutes. It is extremely cathartic.

My unpopular opinion about this character That time when he walks into a Jin party and starts throwing threats 3-2-1, part of me is going “fuck yeah” and part of me is looking at all the collateral damage servants trying to stay out of the way in the background, who never asked to be terrorized by this very powerful man. It’s not something that makes me dislike the character in any way or form, as stated before if anything it just makes him more interesting to me, I just don’t think that it was an uncomplicatedly ‘cool’ moment.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon The man should be actually responsible for his own misdeeds. I’ve heard people say that this was a censorship thing, but I have no sources on that.

And A-Yao gets to go under a read more.

How I feel about this character Continuing down the nostalgia lane, my initial reactions were “this man smiles very deliberately” and, towards the end, “man, fuck the gentry, you should get to win”.

I, hm. It feels sometimes like there are two kinds of opinions that fans have, and I don’t connect with either of them! There’s the “this character is an unrepentant asshole and I’m proud of that, you don’t need to make up sympathetic motivations for villains” which, while I agree that he can justify a lot to himself, just doesn’t ring true to me. I think that many of his actions were either forced by the circumstances, or understandable, or sympathetic and made with decent intentions, or not particularly bad compared to shit that other characters and their society as a whole gets to.

Obviously there are all these breakdowns about the specific acts of altruism that he does that in-universe are rare from someone that high up in power, and those are great, but even without all of that, he was a stable, peaceful, competent ruler who wasn’t doing any large-scale nasty shit after a series of complete nightmares on the throne, and upsetting that long-standing balance should bring about repercussions for several social classes that does more harm than anything he was individually doing at any point.

As for the other take, there’s the “oh no he’s so small and so cute and should be pampered so much” which I don’t... get, emotionally, and additionally it is reaaal hard for me to see the character as someone who either wants or would even particularly enjoy being the one being taken care of. Usually my response is-

There’s that part during Nie Mingjue’s capture in Empathy where he’s just, running the whole show? Like, on one hand it is very important that he’s probably the weakest person in the room, and might lose in a direct confrontation against even the random soldiers standing to the sides, and if he plays his cards wrong or even sub-optimally one of the two big strong cultivators in his vicinity is going to pulverize him, and also aware of all of this at all times and living in low-key terror. But also -- he pulled it off.

If I’m working myself toward some emotional response with “A-Yao small” it doesn’t end with “someone should hold him 🥺” but with “and doesn’t that just make it all the sweeter that he sat on that throne”. (I have two kinks, and the other one is power reversal.)

All the people I ship romantically with this character Only Lan Xichen, really, but there are some tentative side paths to take!

Qin Su, in that the initial attraction would be fun to explore, and then it becomes less about the relationship dynamic and more about the underlying horror.

Nie Huaisang, in a not-particularly-serious, one-sided, never-happened-and-now-it-never-will kind of way. The ideal would be Jin Guangyao thinking of Nie Huaisang as a tiring but cute little brother figure (he doesn't have those, all of his family relationships sans mom take a weird turn at some point! this one sure is about to!), while Nie Huaisang has a lil crush, and then it goes all the way to hell. ...And I know that I set “won’t happen” as a precondition, but I guess if there was a character who keeps the (fierce or not) corpse of the late Chief Cultivator close in an effort to feel alive post-canon, Nie Huaisang is the one I’d want for that role.

Jiang Cheng, because that family unit is so under-explored in canon, and because out of a handful of favorite characters these two are usually my number one, so watching them interact with each other can be fun just because of that. But in my heart of hearts I want Jiang Cheng to stay forever single by choice, and really I'm just here for platonic family shenanigans with Jin Ling. (I've written some of this, but out of everything it's probably the least likely to ever see the light of day.)

But really only Lan Xichen. When I was watching the early episodes and didn't remember the characters well and in my head these two were only “the disturbingly handsome older brother” and “a bit part soldier (lol) from some other sect” I really imprinted on that goodbye scene, like damn, look at these characters who are friendly with each other and showing obvious interest. It's only the circumstances that are getting in the way! If I were to ever read fic from this show, it would be these two. (This was all a counter-reaction to early wangxian haha.) But increasingly it goes to show that what I'm really into is people having mutual and mutually recognized affection for each other, the negotiated part in the relationship being less about whether it'll happen and more about how to go about it. More romances that start with getting together instead of ending there.

I am laughing at my past self here though, after actually finishing the show my thoughts on xiyao were that it was nice that it was both there and stable (until, you know) and unknowable, whatever the shape of their relationship in private they are aware of it and have made their peace with it, and that's all I need to know, and now I'm sitting here with several WIPs, wondering if this is what finally pushes me to start publishing fanfiction.

My non-romantic OTP for this character Lan Xichen. No, I’m not interested in a non-romantic* read on their relationship, yes, I just want him here, too.

Also, the only other relationships of note here are with Meng Shi, Jin Ling and Qin Su, and using ‘non-romantic OTP’ for any of those feels off to me. Meng Shi and Jin Ling are at too much of an uneven level, Qin Su doesn’t reach OTP levels even if the romantic filter is off. Su Minshan and Xue Yang might be a better fit, but again, OTP level is too high. Early-canon Nie Huaisang... maybe.

*non-sexual is fine. never officially getting together w/mutual acknowledgement is fine.

My unpopular opinion about this character I think I already went off, so. The hat is fine, and the hate sounds performative and weirdly ignorant at times. I don't love the Untamed version, but it’s fine and the ones in other adaptations are fantastic, even. The warm yellow-brown combination looks really nice. More of the characters should wear hats, actually! Which I realize is an opinion influenced by historical Japanese and Korean dramas, which are of a different genre altogether (also not Chinese, but hats in official settings are a constant in all of these cultures). Nevertheless.

I wish it was used only post-timeskip in the Untamed, too, though, for more variety in costuming and to further differentiate the pre- and post-timeskip versions of the character.

...................................and a specific xiyao pet peeve also: I am becoming increasingly wary of the... either super common or I just happen to keep finding these, take where he’s some sort of unwilling/particularly hesitant participant in this relationship. Like I went back to watch parts of episode 4 (to figure out why it was that I was so sure Meng Yao would be swinging a sword around in future episodes and my conclusion is: because everyone else was swinging theirs) and even the initial interactions in the goodbye scene are like-

Meng Yao literally runs up to a guy waaay out of his league like “Hello I am bringing myself Forth because I have the audacity to assume you might Personally Want to Know that I am leaving and here are some pretty personal reasons why (gosh you really are lovely)”

Reactions I’ve seen to this: look at the little dude running away from his emotions

Me: w h a t

And then the natural conclusion here is that Lan Xichen is there to love him (with his dick and/or sunny personality) until he’s forced to accept it [serene face emoji] and it makes me. Not enjoy it much.

Ofc this doesn’t include normal human hesitations one might have about... anything and everything in life, really, but when it’s treated like this automatic character/relationship hurdle I’m just hhhh

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon I'm pretty satisfied with things as they stand? Just like the relationship between Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian makes me feel cathartic agony, Jin Guangyao's fate makes me feel cathartic rage. Look at the low-born bastard child go down the stairs of life, one last time!

......Sometimes I have my weak moments and do wish he had gotten away in the end, though.

[that-shamrock-vibe]

Movie Review: Birds of Prey (Spoilers)

Spoiler Warning: I am posting this review a week after the movie airs worldwide, so if you have not yet seen the movie do not read on until you have.

Characters:

Harley Quinn:

This is most definitely Margot Robbie’s signature role. Just like Johnny Depp has Jack Sparrow and Gal Gadot has Wonder Woman, Margot Robbie is Harley Quinn and I am not just saying that because she’s the only cinematic version we have.

I really enjoyed the “Galentine’s” movie angle as this movie was released around the traditionally loved-up holiday and Galentine’s is an anti-approach to it. But showing how Harley bounced back after being dumped by the Joker with the traditional break-up tropes of a bad haircut, partying, drinking and generally hitting self destruct was a lot of fun, particularly from Harley’s perspective.

Also the link with her roller derby hobby at the start of the movie showing how she’s moved on to the end of the movie when she uses her roller derby skills in a positive way was really great, and one of the few things I really like about her comics redesign.

As I said in my non-spoiler review, I thought Margot Robbie’s comedy as Harley Quinn had greatly improved from Suicide Squad to here, whether or not that’s better writers or Robbie’s own performance I don’t know. But Margot Robbie, to be fair to her, is funny when given the right material. Just look at how she delivered Brad Pitt’s acceptance speech at the BAFTAs.

But she had a lot of great one-liners and even character moments where it was just physical acting or face acting that just make me laugh every time I watch the movie, and I so far have seen it three times.

My favourite funny lines from her are “Run piggy run!” when she’s gunning down the GCPD officers with glitter rounds, “Does she have to keep running?!” when trying to chase Cassandra through the evidence room while also battling with the mercenaries looking to claim Sionis’ bounty, and when she is explaining why the main women of the movie need to team-up in the most realistic way possible ending with “...so unless we all want to die extremely painful deaths and let Roman go finger fondling around the kid’s intestinal track...”.

In terms of her silent comedy, I loved when she ran for the truck she used to blow up Ace Chemicals, Margot Robbie is a good drunk actor. The way she ran with her arms out but then momentarily stopped seeing the actual driver before continuing anyway, I’m cracking up now just thinking about it.

Also whenever she came across someone who was after her or she had an idea, the way she would sign or look confused or have her trademark devilish grin was fantastic.

In regards to her character development, I am beyond thrilled that they let Harley be Harleen in this movie.

During Suicide Squad she had one or two moments where she did analyse the team and especially in the extended cut she went through the group.

Here though right from the start with Roman in his club she lays out his psyche in front of him and in turn I believe throughout the movie analyses all the main players with the exception of Zsasz.

It did weigh in to the comedy but the fact she had an analysis for everyone so unique to them; Sionis with his insecurities, Canary being a harlequin of sorts, Montoya being stuck in the past, Huntress and her childhood trauma. It was all superb and exactly what I want from Harley.

Even psychoanalysing herself when explaining herself to Cassandra, how she was a psychologist working at Arkham before falling in love with her patient and helping him escape, then being arrested herself and becoming a member of the Suicide Squad, but escaping before being dumped. Serious and professional Harley is just as important to me as the wacky Harlequin of Chaos.

Also the fact she is still a dangerous character both with her actions and unhinged mind. She is a very calculating individual and that’s again a lot to do with her psychological background.

When she manages to save her skin (literally) with Black Mask by telling him she can get his diamond back from Cassandra Cain, the fact she’s clearly hesitant from just turning her over and simply wants the diamond, you can see the frustration in her when Cassandra originally refuses to hand it over before admitting she ate it.

Speaking of what I want to see from my Harley, her action sequences were so good. Harley is an acrobatic character and while we saw shades of that in Suicide Squad, here not only was she doing kicks and flips, but the way she used that baseball bat and her roller skates was everything for me.

Yes Harley with a mallet and a form of firearm will always be Harley, but this is old-school Harley and it works so well.

While I do think Margot Robbie’s storytelling style could be considered all over the place, in the context of Harley Quinn it is such a good narrative because Harley’s mind is all over the place.

I love me a cute animal sidekick and, while neither animals in this movie are cute (or real), I thought Bruce the Hyena was a great addition despite not really doing anything. If you’ve seen him in the trailers you’ve seen him in the movie.

I am hoping that some day soon they could afford to render two hyenas so we can finally get Bud and Lou on the big screen because Harley with her hyenas is such a great partnership.

Harley with a beaver on the other hand...I am just glad it wasn’t played up and used in cheap inuendos. It is slightly annoying that when her apartment was blown up, she had to save the beaver and even at the end of the movie, once it was revealed that Bruce was safe, the beaver was also there. I just don’t get the fascination with it.

Black Canary:

Jurnee Smolett-Bell, as I said in my non-spoiler review, is the breakout star of this movie for me. I know Black Canary quite well thanks to Injustice 2, the Arrowverse and even some animated properties, but seeing her in a more realistic setting rather than the suited up version was very refreshing.

Even the smaller moments for Dinah worked really well thanks to Smolett-Bell’s acting. For example, when that one guy roufees Harley and tries abducting her, the look on Dinah’s face as she’s deciding whether or not to get involved or not was really great.

Giving Black Canary some good action sequences was also the right thing to do because that’s partly what Canary is known for. Not only did she have some great kicks but it was just her attitude and her bravado about how she engaged in her fight choreography.

Also allowing her to sing, I haven’t talked about the music in this movie because while I do love some of the songs used here it wasn’t a lot to rave about, “Man’s World” may be slightly too on the nose for this movie but Smolett-Bell delivered it very well.

And let’s not forget the other way her voice was used, we have our Canary Cry and I am thrilled...mostly. Having it used once at the end of the movie and that’s it does seem like a bit of a waste, but it does make sense with in the context of this movie.

Black Canary is the only metahuman in this movie and on the team and so if she used her power all the time there would be no need for Huntress or even Harley.

However, the fact she fainted after using it once I found interesting. I am not taking the same approach as some by saying it was stupid because I feel the way Dinah’s story is told in this movie that she may not use it a lot and so she may not be vocally trained or durable enough to sustain.

On that note, the nod to Dinah’s mother, aka the original Black Canary, originally being a vigilante with the same Canary Cry as Dinah I also felt played into Dinah’s character. She knows what her mother was like and the fact she died, so of course she didn’t want that life and so didn’t use her power which is why it’s so overwhelming for her.

I do wish her outfits had been more Black Canary-esk. I would have loved more fishnets and definitely a leather jacket rather than that weird disco suit jacket she had on for a lot of the movie.

However, the gold trousers and matching boots were fabulous.

Black Mask:

Ewan McGregor can do no wrong for me really, there is just such a charm and charisma about the actor that I can’t help but like him in everything he is in.

That being said, I will say I know nothing about Black Mask from the comics other than he is a psychologically damaged crime lord. I do not believe he is this campy but I am sorry it works for the movie.

I did like how the movie played up Black Mask’s insecurities which Harley diagnosed at the start of the movie. When that one woman was laughing and he thought it was at him so decided to humiliate her, then later on when Zsasz revealed that Dinah betrayed him and he just flipped.

I’m not entirely sure if Black Mask is this misogynistic in the comics but it seems to be that every woman in this movie was at his mercy. At the start of the movie he clearly had a begrudging relationship with Harley because of her association with The Joker, however, after it was revealed that she had been dumped it seemed like he wanted her but then it’s revealed he just wants to kill her.

Bottom line, Roman Sionis was definitely a dangerous individual and Ewan McGregor played that brilliantly, but there was also a campy and somewhat sadistically comedic edge to him which gave way to a rather brilliant DC villain.

However, the very fact that his tenure in the DCEU is short-lived given that he was literally blown up at the end of the movie, it is sad that we will never see him going forward.

Also on the subject of his actual mask, I know it’s supposed to be welded to his face or something, I’m kind of glad it wasn’t but do wish we had seen it more throughout the movie. Also I feel it would have popped more with the white suit rather than the black, just saying.

Huntress:

While Mary Elizabeth Winstead was a great choice for Huntress here, I do feel that the movie missed a trick and a way to bring other strong female characters into the movie.

Alright so the movie honours Helena’s origins of being the daughter of a crime boss whose entire family is murdered and so she trains to become an assassin and comes to Gotham seeking vengeance.

However, how great would it have been if, rather than Sicily, if she was trained by either the League of Assassins or even Lady Shiva herself.

I know that this is more of a Cassandra Cain origin, which they still didn’t do, but it would have been a great way to tie-in these characters and also show a bond between Helena and Cassandra being raised by the same woman maybe.

Then also, if Black Canary and Huntress do get their own spin-off, Lady Shiva could come in as an antagonist and it would see Huntress going up against her old mentor.

I do think that Winstead did a good job with what she had, I am hoping that Huntress is meant to be socially awkward because that’s definitely the vibes I got from her.

I appreciated her tracksuit attire because Gotham is meant to be in New Jersey and it’s a very gangster Jersey attire.

I hated her last outfit though right at the end, loved the mask but that actual outfit was hideous.

I do see a future for Huntress going forward which is great, I’m not as disappointed with the character as I thought I would be.

Victor Zsasz:

This was an interesting conundrum of a character for me because, like the other two left on this list, if you don’t read the comics or watch the TV shows with these characters in, you’re not going to know who Victor Zsasz from this movie.

I will say, having seen the actor’s transformation from how he normally looks to his Zsasz look, it is a very impressive change and does fit in with the Suicide Squad level changes made to the characters.

Unfortunately though this is where the impressiveness stops. Yes, Zsasz is an assassin and I did like how they confirmed that he works for various employers, despite the fact it seems that the crime boss who had the Bertinellis killed was in fact working for or with Sionis so was Zsasz just on loan?

But the misogyny of the character was so cringe-worthy and at times unnecessary that it actually makes me side with the fans who put misogyny as this movie’s biggest problem, despite knowing logically that is not strictly true but I do accept it is one of the big problems.

For instance, it is implied that Zsasz only cuts himself to tally the number of women he’s “set free” as opposed to everyone he kills...that is not how Victor Zsasz is supposed to operate. He gives himself a point for every person he kills, that’s what makes him such a terrifying and grotesque adversary.

Okay so I know Anthony Carrigan on Gotham also didn’t go deep into that side of the character, but they didn’t have that Zsasz single out women either.

Also, when he paralysed Harley with that dart and then was effectively playing with her while she was unresponsive...I get she was still aware but even so where I thought that scene was going to go was both unnecessary and only added to why fans were laughing when Harley started repeatedly stabbing Zsasz with that same dart despite him already being dead.

I did like the subtle LGBT representation they tried to showcase with him and Sionis, because even if Sionis wasn’t reciprocating, this was a case of one guy crushing hard on another and feeling he knew what was best and wanting to protect him. That I liked and they played that rather well in my opinion.

But overall, I just didn’t feel that threatened by a supervillain who is essentially the living embodiment of torture porn. I know he cut off people’s faces and had visible scars, but there wasn’t a lot of anything else to make me believe this was the same Victor Zsasz that can easily inspire nightmares just by looking at him.

Cassandra Cain:

I’m just going to put this out there, I don’t know that much about Cassandra Cain. From what I have been told, she was someone who became Batgirl, I know in Young Justice she is in it as Orphan despite I don’t think ever speaking or having her real name revealed, and I know her mother is Lady Shiva.

Which brings me back to a potential storyline going forward for a Black Canary/Huntress TV series to feature Lady Shiva which could also include the return of Cassandra Cain...because I don’t think we need to see her again in the movies.

It is very harsh to judge a child actress, but much like Zsasz honestly if you are unfamiliar with Cassandra Cain as I am you would not really have much takeaway from the character based on this movie.

I also recall there being reports that Margot Robbie stole Cassandra Cain from the upcoming Suicide Squad as a plot point...but now I want to know what the original plan was for Cassandra Cain in The Suicide Squad and if James Gunn would have handled her better.

There just wasn’t a lot of depth to her character. She had a broken arm, potentially from her foster parents, but other than that she was just so angry all the time. She tried being sassy particularly with Harley but it fell flat.

Then in the climactic battle, she is the girl everyone is after to either kill or protect, but in that fun-house scene, as cool as the action was, Cassandra was essentially a hot potato going from character to character and it reminded me a lot of The Jungle Book when Baloo and Bagheera were trying to keep Mowgli away from King Louis and the monkeys.

I don’t really see the point of Harley having an apprentice either, I like the idea that she’s a free agent with no ties. Now that the Birds of Prey are formed she can float between helping them out and doing her own thing or going on another Suicide mission but the point is she rides solo...how are we going to explain where Cassandra is in The Suicide Squad?

Renee Montoya:

I continuously keep calling Rosie Perez’s character Maggie Sawyer because, in my opinion, this is who she is most like, not Renee Montoya.

Renee is young, determined and the woman who can stand alongside Jim Gordon and Harvey Bullock. She comes from the same origin as Harley Quinn which is Batman: The Animated Series. Yet so far the only incarnation to get her right outside of that has been Batman: Bad Blood where she had a minor appearance as Batwoman’s love interest...which is actually supposed to be Maggie Sawyer.

I said how Cassandra was played as angry, Renee was simply one of these rather aggressive soccer mom characters, especially in that final battle.

She had her funny moments and I do understand where the movie was coming from in trying to show how she was hard done by because of her male colleagues always stealing her glory, but this is a character who again led GCPD missions when Gordon and Bullock were detained in the past, yet I am not getting that essence from this character.

Also Renee, like Maggie Sawyer, is an LGBT character, but while her ex-girlfriend was shown here, if it wasn’t for Harley narrating that fact you would not know they had that history.

I don’t understand why she also became a founding member of the Birds of Prey, I get that in the comics she has been a liaison between them and the GCPD, but to actually quit her job and fight alongside Black Canary and Huntress? There is a third member needed in that line-up but Renee Montoya is not it.

DCEU Connections:

I will keep calling this universe the DC Extended Universe because until DC itself makes up its mind I am going to stick to what I know.

So in the wider scope of the DCEU, this movie definitely is a follow-up to Suicide Squad, not only because of Margot Robbie’s Harley and the flashbacks we saw of her diving into the acid vat from Ace Chemicals, but also the cheeky Easter-Egg of Captain Boomerang’s wanted poster at the GCPD.

I don’t understand why Captain Boomerang is wanted by the GCPD particularly when he is supposed to be a Flash rogue but I just loved seeing Jai Courtney getting some love.

Also, when the women are suiting up to fight Black Mask and his army, we see Black Canary equip herself with Harley’s Good Night bat from Suicide Squad but also Renee pick up Harley’s “Daddy’s Little Monster” shirt from said movie which Harley takes back as “sentimental value”. I love little connections like that.

In terms of where this movie could branch out to, again I do see a Black Canary/Huntress series in the future maybe including Cassandra Cain and Renee Montoya as guest characters, but movie-wise aside from Harley returning, I don’t see any of this lot coming back.

Also, despite Arrow severely screwing this over, the Black Canary/Green Arrow relationship I could see happen in a TV series but the way they have developed this version of the character I do not see Dinah needing an Emerald Archer in her life.

Overall I rate the movie a solid 7/10, I know I rated Suicide Squad the same and have said this was a better movie, but with everything that DC is pushing recently like Wonder Woman and Aquaman I expected something at that level rather than Shazam! level. Maybe if we got a Gotham City Sirens movie the mark would be higher.

So that’s my review of Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn, what did you guys think? Post your comments and check out more DC Movie Reviews as well as other reviews and posts.

[personalityarchive]

Edgar Valden 4w5 ISFP

[[16 September 2020

Originally written as a comment thread on PDB]]

While we all seem to agree that Edgar is undoubtedly a 4, it seems that there has been some debate over his wingtype; based on the newly released information for him, I would argue that Edgar is a clear example of a 4w5. In fact, his enneatype also feeds into the disagreement over his MBTI (and vice versa).

To begin, here is a direct translation of his character summary, also featured as the brief description on this profile:

“The only son in the Valden family of aristocrats, Edgar showed an interest and high talent in painting from childhood. Praise from his family and the public has led to his eccentric character. His perception of the world around him led to his belief that nobody else is worthy to speak to him about art.”

A surface-level look at this may suggest to some a 3 wing, for the simple fact that “praise from the public” is mentioned. However, the key here is that it has resulted in his becoming an “eccentric character”, a label the 4w3 is less likely to be assigned than a 4w5. The influence from the 3 gives the 4 a bit more awareness of social expectations and appearing “acceptable”, but a 5 wing gives the 4 an even more deeply introspective and self-referential worldview. Any enneatype can receive public praise; it’s how the person reacts to it that truly indicates their personality type.

This description of his character also pairs well with Fi > Fe, as in (an unhealthy) use of dominant Fi in the ISFP; Edgar displays absolutely no Fe. He is not interested in the feelings or opinions of others. In fact, what frustrates him is that nobody else seems to understand how he feels, which in his mind is obviously the only correct way to see and understand art.

His character trailer only further cements the interpretation of an emotionally-driven, authenticity-seeking 4w5 ISFP:

“All that is beautiful in this world; once upon a time, that was the inspiration for my paintings. But slowly, they stopped looking so cute to me. The plebeians, you see, they do not revere art, because they will never grasp it. Hypocritical and double-faced, avaricious and insatiable, obstreperous and useless. None amongst you can speak with me on the true essence of art.”

“And when this place can bring me pleasure no more I can only hope that that paradise will bring me yet unknown inspiration.”

His arrogance is not the pride of a 3 wing; it is more in line with the sense of pseudo-intellectual superiority of a 5 wing. He feels that the people around him cannot possibly understand the depth, the “true meaning” behind art. We can see this further reflected in how he describes the “plebeians”:

“Hypocritical and double-faced, avaricious and insatiable, obstreperous and useless.”

Here, there is a clear emphasis on the values of the 4 — authenticity, deep feelings, a sense of meaning — alongside an outright rejection of the 3’s social masking. The passion of the 3 is deceit, which manifests as molding the self into the vision of “success” or being “productive”. A 4w3, especially a less healthy one, struggles to balance the inner need to express themself and the desire to maintain appearances or be in style, one way or another.

The 4w3, because of the assertive Hornevian type of the wing, is also more openly competitive and ambitious, and tends to be more socially extraverted than a 4w5. With a 3 wing, Edgar would be driven to not only express himself creatively, but would also desire success — he would self-promote in order to gain recognition. His character trailer clearly expresses that his struggle is not lack of praise for his work; rather, it is a feeling of hopeless longing, of having a rich internal world that nobody can understand.

This aspect of Edgar’s character is far more the struggle of the unhealthy 4w5. With a doubly introverted frame of reference, the 4w5 is more prone to getting lost in the fantasy world they have constructed; anything that doesn’t meet this set of expectations is derided as being “inauthentic” and discarded. Moreover, even the choice to describe people with words like “two-faced” and “obstreperous” points to a 4w5. We see in the first adjective the 4’s concern with presenting only one’s inner truth, and in the second an aversion to loud and aggressive mannerisms, as well as a discontentment with others’ expectations.

His distaste for hypocrisy is presented to the viewer, and is not then followed by an ironic twist where Edgar himself is shown to be engaging in such behavior (as in other character trailers); therefore, it’s safe to say that he presents himself true to his beliefs, and is generally neither loud nor demanding. Again, with influence from 3, we would expect to see some of these traits reflected in his character; their absence, along with the presence of the more ruminative melancholy, make clear a 4 with an influence from 5.

Edgar’s reverence of art and its “true essence”, on top of the stylistic choice of the trailer itself, further lends towards such a reading. While the artistic direction of the animation could simply be because he’s an painter, this idea could easily have been conveyed using any number of alternate techniques. The choices made were deliberate — or at least, in such productions, should be — and as such, can be taken thusly.

As always, the trailer is in the first person, and is meant to reflect his own perception of the world. By framing Edgar’s entire life as being contained within various paintings, of being defined by the abstract or intangible “essence”, the video suggests that he is living inside his own head, with all external input being filtered through his own personal values and beliefs. This is both the realm of the 4 (especially wing 5) and an ISFP using unhealthy Fi.

Further support for this can be found in the word choice of the original Chinese: the version of the pronoun “they” used in the opening lines:

“All that is beautiful in this world; once upon a time, that was the inspiration for my paintings. But slowly, they stopped looking so cute to me.”

This version of “they” in Chinese is only used for people, not objects or a concept. However, the handling of the “they” in question is the same way one would talk about something non-living. In other words, Edgar sees people primarily as objects of inspiration for his own creativity; the things he experiences in the real world are heavily filtered through Fi, and (before his further deterioration in health) shaped into whatever he needs them to be to inspire him to create.

From this quote, we also know that his primary extraverted function must be perceiving. His natural instinct was to draw his inspiration from direct observation of the physical world around him, rather than being able to generate it fully from within. When describing his motivation for going to Oletus, Edgar says:

“And when this place can bring me pleasure no more I can only hope that that paradise will bring me yet unknown inspiration.”

This supports both the 4’s search for that “missing something” and an ISFP’s need for Se input to support dominant Fi. Furthermore, as an artist, Edgar uses his Se not only to take in sensory information, but also as an outlet for his Fi. By creating art, he’s able to express his emotions and intangible inner landscape in a way that others can experience, and hopefully, understand.

He does not search for connections between ideas or people like a Ne-user, nor does he focus on making quick or logical decisions like a Te-user. Sure he’s judgmental, but it comes purely from a place of emotion, not reason or anything more concrete than that he finds humanity as a whole to be ugly and worthless. This points to unhealthy Fi and inferior Te.

Edgar’s focus on the “true nature” of art and his feelings of disillusionment with humanity is the result of his dominant Fi and tertiary Ni; together, his Fi and Ni create for him a bottomless well of emotions where he holds a sense of art’s essential “essence” and a need to find meaning in everything he experiences. Without these things, he has no inspiration, and therefore must seek out a new external environment (Se) to feed his internal one. With unhealthy Fi, Edgar has gotten so deeply entrenched in his own vision of the world that he has let it overwhelm him, and his Fi interpretation of his Se has become excessively negative.

The Fi’s need for authenticity and confidence in its own internally-held ideas can come across as equally harsh as a dominant or auxiliary Te-user’s criticism. The key difference here is that while the Te’s aggression comes from a frustration at others’ lack of logic or practicality, the Fi’s hostility comes from feeling misunderstood or personally attacked. While Edgar may have Te, it is clearly his inferior function. Not only is he not primarily driven by external decision-making, the way he does use Te is to serve his Fi. In ISFPs, the Te is relied upon when their Fi holds an opinion strongly enough that they feel they must take action on it. This is especially true when under stress or defending against perceived threats; when in such a state, ISFPs can become incredibly critical of others, and will state their Fi beliefs in a matter-of-fact, Te style of speaking. In Edgar, this is what has created his attitude of “None amongst you can speak with me on the true essence of art.”

Further evidence for Edgar having the ISFP function stack is held within his third external trait:

“The Painter focuses on the sensations behind real objects. Therefore, he is not afraid of progress when sitting on a rocket chair. When a Painter is put on a rocket chair for the second time, the progress in sitting on the chair continues from the moment he was last placed.”

Aside from meaning that he can be chaired four times, this external trait is interesting in its title. The Chinese characters used for the first word confidently translates into “sensitive” (as in emotions), while the second word can be translated two different ways. The second word is used to mean either “direct observation” or “intuitive”. Therefore, a full reading of this trait can be either “emotional sensing” or “emotionally intuitive”.

Furthermore, the trait description itself lines up with a function stack that leads with Fi: “The Painter focuses on the sensations behind real objects.”

This is just shy of having “Edgar leads with feeling” outright stated. Moreover, it supports auxiliary Se, where he uses his Fi as the primary way to understand the external stimuli he receives. This more internally-focused way of engaging with reality once again supports a 4w5 reading over 4w3; Edgar is not driven to use his creativity in a way that would generate professional success. He is creating for creativity’s own sake, to express something that is true to his vision of art.

Also in Edgar’s profile are the character traits “arrogant, paranoid, neurotic”. Coupled with his “eccentric character”, this solidly places Edgar as a 4 with a 5 wing, with a clear influence from the 5 in his paranoia and neuroticism. While Edgar seemed to enjoy the praise heaped upon him, this does not automatically indicate a 3 wing. The 4 is just as capable as the 3 of basking in praise; after all, it feeds into the 4’s need for specialness just as much as it does the 3’s need for outstanding achievement. However, we see for Edgar that this praise was not enough; ultimately, the attention was worthless because nobody could understand the true essence of his work, or grasp the deeper meaning behind it.

Edgar’s emotional rejection of his adoring public continues to support a 5 wing. At average to unhealthy levels, 4w5s retreat into an at times bizarre fantasy world that to them appears real. The elitist and eccentric nature of the 4w5 leads to an ever-intensifying internal search for an expression of the genuine and unique self. They can appear to “push the edges of sanity” in pursuit of this, which ties into Edgar’s description as being “neurotic” and “paranoid”.

As the 4w5 decreases in health, the feelings of emptiness and isolation grow, and their image of the world becomes increasingly bleak. Just as in Edgar’s trailer, the world, once rose-tinted and romanticized, is slowly transformed into a grotesque or ugly place; humanity becomes a breed of irredeemable, ignorant or sick creatures. There is a wallowing in the hopelessness and magnification of feelings (that then get bottled up inside) resulting in a negative feedback loop. This is the sort of state that the letter finds Edgar in, and what draws him to Oletus.

The trailer makes it clear that Edgar’s acceptance of the Manor’s invitation is based entirely on his desire to complete a work that will satisfy himself, and only himself. He is not interested in gaining recognition for it. Rather, he sees it as a cure for his own sense of longing — nothing has been able to satisfy him.

On the other hand, the 4w3 tend more towards social extraversion, and are more likely than 4w5s to directly share their overwhelming feelings. Even at decreasing health levels, the 4w3 has more of the performative nature of the 3 than the withdrawal of the 5. The 4w3, when under stress, attempts to magnify the emotions they identify as “genuine”, paradoxically losing touch with their true feelings. There is a theatrical quality to their emotional displays not present in the 4w5; this serves to cover up their inner feelings of an emptiness that can’t ever be filled. Rather than an attachment to a fabricated inner landscape, the 4w3 exhibits a clinging to the external expression of manufactured emotions.

One of the few things I can think of in terms of how Edgar could be mistaken for having a 3 wing is that he has so in his instinctual stack; however, even with this, Edgar is sp/so, which in theory should make his 5 wing more obvious. As for how his enneatype and MBTI can cause mistyping in one or the other, I do have a few ideas. When exhibiting the highly critical and arrogant nature of an unhealthy 4 — especially with a 5 (mind center) wing — a character may have Te ascribed to them. However, their strong words and actions are ultimately tied to emotions, not logic; with auxiliary Se serving unhealthy Fi, the choices made are impulsive (Se) rather than decisive (Te).

Additionally, I can perhaps see some mixup regarding his sweeping statements about art’s underlying nature. This can be seen perhaps as him being a Ne-user, or either a dominant or auxiliary Ni-user. In fact, this ties back into the 5 wing; the 5 is interested in creating a mental theory of the world, or some particular part of it. This “big picture” thinking is characteristic of strong intuition users. However, we see with Edgar that of higher importance is his own subjective values; art has a certain essence because he believes it to be so. This sense of what art “truly is” cannot be Ne, because it’s derived entirely from connections made between his own internal feelings and “gut sense”, rather than between things in the world around him. It is not dominant or auxiliary Ni, because his Fi is much stronger. Once again, this ties back to Edgar’s 4 base, and to his unhealthy use of dominant Fi.

In short, Edgar displays none of the traits or motivations characteristic to the 4w3, and has a function stack that even at a cursory glance simply cannot lead with thinking or intuiting. Given the information provided by both his trailer and the Chinese character profile, I cannot see Edgar as being anything other than a 4w5 ISFP.

[superchartisland]

Super Mario All Stars (Nintendo, SNES, 1993)

Any overall roadmap for this project (and my brother’s related predecessor) is very lightly sketched, but this is a useful point to reflect on it. We grew up playing Dizzy games; part of what we’re doing is trying to reclaim video game history as we and many other Brits lived it, to demonstrate how the American-led received wisdom is a rewriting of the record. All of my research suggests that we were in the majority there -- in the UK the NES didn’t get a look in, and we’re not going to properly encounter the Game Boy until it’s a decade old.

Even this first Nintendo direct encounter is somewhat of a guess. Super Mario All Stars was a documented best-seller for the SNES, but in an absence of evidence I don’t know for sure that it was big enough to be an overall UK #1. I remember hearing about it a lot at the time, and by then the SNES had had a chance to build an audience, but remember that this blog covers games which were a #1 but not necessarily always the #1. Yet at the same time as I refute the story that Nintendo swept in to replace a dying industry -- neither happened like that in the UK -- we’re pretty keen on many things Nintendo. I have a NES Classic Mini, SNES Classic Mini and a Famicom Classic Mini sitting under my TV: loving recreations of consoles which I never owned.

In the internet era, this kind of adoption of history is probably more common. When I wrote the first version of this post I had recently watched the period piece music video for Satellite Young’s “Don’t Graduate, Senpai!” and was overwhelmed with contented nostalgic feelings, left with the power of a glimpse into a familiar and loved past. All that despite the fact I’ve hardly ever listened to the Japanese genre that it takes after, City Pop, or watched shoujo anime, and never when I was growing up. The person who it is precision targeting isn’t me. But it needn't be. There can be a feeling that is just as real, but second hand, a gravity exerted on adjacent culture that was invisible until something made me look over and notice its force.

There are lots of ways that the influences on the song and video reached me. My partner did grow up with a lot of Japanese pop culture in Hong Kong, and talking with her about that and having watched a couple of episodes of Creamy Mami means having a feel for her fond memories. I have years of happily browsing tumblr gifsets of Sailor Moon, absorbing love for it and its place in culture. I can still get good use from a “but you didn’t do anything!” meme even if I’ve never actually watched the show. I’ve listened to 80s referencing music elsewhere, and modern Japanese music taking cues from City Pop, and that has added up to giving the sounds of the song a similar personal gravity.

And all of that has been made easier by the world getting smaller, by the internet giving providing an easy route to interests you share with people elsewhere in the world and from there to interests they share that you don’t. Look at it negatively, and it means a winning narrative can travel faster and become more comprehensive than ever, reaching into places where it doesn’t belong. But at the same time, it gives us a Japanese band and some Swedish animators uniting in their shared nostalgia, and it reaching out to me through next door culture which I’ve taken in via friends from all round the world, and me having feelings shared with those friends. That’s an amazing thing.

In common with most people I knew, we didn’t have the internet when Super Mario All Stars came out, and the world was still huge. Nintendo had other tools to work with, though. Their games were successful enough to reach out and have an outsized cultural impact beyond the limits of people actually playing them. 

When I started primary school, before football stickers, there was a craze for Nintendo sticker books, and friends and I collected images of all of their games. People tried to negotiate enhanced swaps for stickers of Game Boy screenshots by maintaining that they were gold stickers, even more valuable than the special silver ones. I knew more about the characters and background for Mario through Saturday morning cartoons, and I remember watching American TV programmes where people competed through playing Super Mario Bros. levels. I assume it made it to the UK’s own Gamesmaster at some point too. And of course, many of the European games we were playing took their own influence from Nintendo. I may have been unaware of Metroid until years later, but hours spent playing Turrican still gave my first impressions of it that nostalgic gravity.

Mario was Nintendo’s most successful reach out to the wider culture, and that wider culture drove people back to Mario’s original form. That could work better for Nintendo if Mario games were easier to access, and so we get Super Mario All Stars. What to do when moving on from the NES to the SNES? Reissue, repackage, re-evaluate the games! Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 2, and Super Mario Bros. 3, now brought together in one place. With an extra track, no less, in the form of Japan’s very different Super Mario Bros. 2, new to the rest of the world and hence called The Lost Levels. From 2019 the very idea of levels being lost feels faintly absurd – someone will dig it out in a mod, or you can just log onto your alternate Japanese online console account, surely? I guess a handful of British people probably did own imported Famicoms even in 1993, but everyone else got their cross-fertilisation of culture mediated by Nintendo’s eccentric international release schedule. 

Super Mario All Stars presents each game in its entirety, complete with newly upgraded graphics. Yet, in some way, the games seem to shrink in the transition. The act of selecting a game to play from a menu, turning them into pinned specimens labelled by year, emphasises the overall history and starts you off with a reminder that each world is only a part of a newly defined whole. Maybe that's why there is no Super Mario All Stars on the SNES Classic Mini, an assessment that the bird-inside-a-bird effect of featuring a retro collection on a retro collection would be that bit too spookily recursive. 

And that idea of recursion is where the realisation struck me as I played Super Mario All Stars. It wasn't the first version of Mario I played, (it was the first Super Mario Bros. 3 that I ever played, though, the briefest of enchanting glimpses). But it feels absolutely right as my version of these games, even for Super Mario Bros. 2 where I'm pretty sure I'd never played this version before. The very sense of diminished scale, the way that All Stars exists as a Mario game aware that not only each individual game, but the games as a whole, are but a small part of the Mario out there in the world, feels totally fitting. The feeling runs through everything. The upscaled renditions of the music which expand on it but nonetheless can't escape how iconic the basic originals were. The decision to put Super Mario Bros.’ underwater waltz on the title screen with the new confidence that duh, it rules. The little portraits of what to expect that have been added to the start of each level, not spoilers but cute reminders. This is a Mario for the late to the party, an artefact of the games' immense second hand cultural gravity, reflected back into the games themselves. It's a sign of so much to come.

In reflection of it being the first time these games have come up on my route through history, here are miniature entries for each of the four games on Super Mario All Stars, pinned to one place:

Super Mario Bros.

It’s all about the movement. Specifically, the jump, the balletic means of progression which sits at the tempting boundary of predictability and control. It is not the only game jump, it was not the first game jump, but it is somehow still the Jump. When you press the jump button the moment stretches in time, a repeated joy that resounds slightly differently from Jump to Jump. Sometimes the Jump is relaxed, sometimes the Jump is tense, sometimes the Jump is a celebration of achievement. Gravity and momentum make their claim on you, and you must not reject them or bow to them, but turn towards them, take their hands, and dance. Only when you are the lead in the dance can it proceed in its full majesty. All of the subtle design, killer music and cleverly revealed secrets play their part too, of course. The richness of the world, day and night, water and dungeon, clouds and green groundclouds, isn’t to be underestimated. The dance wouldn’t be as kaleidoscopically beautiful without all of that. Fireworks might not always be necessary, but they are still fireworks. And yet it is the dance of the Jump that gives meaning to it all.

The Lost Levels

It’s common in games for many a character or object to be accompanied by its inverse, its mirror, its shadow. Maybe it’s a product of how games are made, were made, of the commonality of repetition and the short distance from repetition to repetition with a twist. Super Mario Bros. 2 (“The Lost Levels”) introduces one such shadow as almost its first move with the poison mushroom, power-up turned to power-down. It takes that to a whole new level with the negative warp zones: welcome to warp zone, now a trick on you. The whole game, in fact, is a cruel mirror held up to Super Mario Bros., a reflection that looks right but doesn’t wave back. Much of its cruelty comes from luring players into familiar actions and then turning them back against them. This game is a dance too, but it’s one where the floor is trying to throw you off, where the steps and flow that you have learned are not only impossible to use but will quicken your downfall. But for some people who already know the dance back to front, perhaps trying to freestyle your way through some spiky math-rock is an enjoyable next step.

Super Mario Bros. 2

It’s common in games for many a character or object to be accompanied by its inverse, its mirror, its shadow. Maybe it’s a product of how games are made, were made, of the commonality of repetition and the short distance from repetition to repetition with a twist. Super Mario Bros. 2 (“Super Mario Bros. USA”) is the Waluigi of early Mario games, a mirror of a mirror. It doesn’t focus on the shadows of objects and characters, though, but whole shadow worlds. Pick up a magical potion and you can open a door anywhere, take a subtle knife to the fabric of the universe, walk through the doorway and find yourself literally in shadow. Even outside of that mechanic, there are doors everywhere, and each one could go anywhere. This is the world of the subconsciousness, where possibilities extend to such things as a playable princess and gliding across the world on a gravity-resistant egg. Super Mario Bros. 2 is barely even a Mario game, and handles more awkwardly than one. Yet among all of its doors, it opens one to one of the series’s futures, platforming which is first and foremost a series of puzzles and doors to unlock.

Super Mario Bros. 3

This is the game where Mario learns to fly, tail flapping, on unseen wires in front of platforms casting shadows on a sky painted on sheets. The game is a show, and it’s some production. It has a cast of thousands and is the introduction point for almost as many iconic series images as the original. Its brilliance as sequel and as theatre is in taking the solid and dependable gameplay and mechanics of the original and using those as building blocks, the platforms of its stageset, then rearranging them. Each world rejigs and relights them and makes them interact with new props and characters for a set of dramatically different scenes. Water levels go from brief distractions to an entire world; the desert and an idyllic grassland emerge; World 7 turns off all of the lights to interact with the bare mechanics of pipes. The transitions between levels feel like curtains down and a chance to move things round. And then occasionally it breaks all the underlying rules and throws you into giant world or climbs up through the clouds, and there is nothing to do but laugh in delight. This is the game where Mario learns to fly. 

SNES chart, Edge 004, January 1994

[cherry-valentine]

Spring 2019 Anime Season

Here’s what I’m watching: Gunjou no Magmel is definitely my favorite new show of the season. It has a fun setup that lends itself well to lots of different stories: a mysterious new continent suddenly appears one day, full of new animal and plant life and inspiring people across the globe to explore it. Of course, the place is incredibly dangerous, which is why many people work as professional “rescuers” hired to go and retrieve those who have been lost or trapped in the new continent. The protagonists of the series are a pair of rescuers: the highly skilled and unflappable Inyou and his tech genius sidekick Zero (who doesn’t physically go to the continent but instead controls a drone). Right away the series provokes a feeling of adventure that reminded me somewhat of One Piece. The new continent, known as Magmel, is beautiful and teeming with life. The series wisely presents it in a neutral light. There are dangerous creatures there, definitely, with some seriously horrific body horror imagery (much of it veering into nightmare fuel territory), but the series is quite clear about the fact that these creatures are just behaving naturally. There’s no malice there. In fact, the only truly malicious and cruel actions are performed by the humans who go to Magmel to take advantage of the creatures there for their own profit. Inyou understands this, and is generally sympathetic to the animal and plant life, while still prioritizing the preservation of human life. It’s an interesting balance. It’s also interesting that a show with the above mentioned body horror and nightmare fuel is presented with bright, cheerful, cartoony art and peppy, upbeat music. This is an adventure series, not horror, and sometimes there’s even a degree of beauty in the terrors seen in the mostly standalone episodes. The two leads, Inyou and Zero, are entertaining and have a fun dynamic between them. They act more like family than anything else, with no romantic tension at all so far (and I hope it stays that way). Currently sitting at the top of my watch list.

Ace of the Diamond Act 2 is the sequel series I’ve been looking forward to. The original series was a favorite of mine, with a fairly realistic portrayal of baseball and a team of fun, quirky characters, including Miyuki, the only character that springs to mind when I think of the term, “husbando”. He’s a fan-favorite and incredibly popular for a reason. He’s sharp-witted, the most skilled player on the team, and also has a rather twisted sense of humor (he’s the kind of guy who, upon realizing a new member of the team doesn’t like him, is totally delighted and thinks of how fun that’s going to be). Miyuki gushing aside, the show has great art that rarely goes off-model and somewhat smooth animation. The music so far is okay, nothing special (the opening and ending themes were hit and miss in the original series as well). Main character Sawamura is still annoying (like Asta in Black Clover, he tends to scream rather than speak) but his underdog status and genuine love of the sport and his team make him endearing enough to overlook his negative traits. My only real gripe with the show is its tendency to recap that last several minutes of the previous episode in each new episode, making you wait quite a while to get to the new content. This would be a much bigger deal in marathon viewing, but on a weekly basis, I can deal with it.

Hitoribocchi no Marumaruseikatsu is a cute series about cute girls doing cute things. This is a genre I’m generally not fond of, mainly because the girls in these types of shows tend to be sexualized in a creepy way and their “cute antics” tend to be banal and annoying. In this show, however, neither of those two problems are present. In fact, if the show had a male love interest, it would feel very shoujo to me. The focus of the story is on a shy girl with severe social anxiety trying to make friends in her new school. She’s a bit awkward but cute and earnest, so watching her attempt to talk to strangers is funny but also heartwarming. The small circle of friends that begins to form around her is made up of equally cute and funny girls, each of whom have distinct personalities and character designs. Surprisingly, considering this is based on a manga aimed at male readers, none of the girls seem specifically designed to appeal to a male audience. They come across as genuine, well developed characters. The art and music are cute, but not very notable. My only complaint is the subplot involving a young teacher who takes one look at the blonde, tanned Nako and immediately judges her as a juvenile delinquent and is thus afraid of her. It’s meant to be funny, I suppose, but I find it annoying that a teacher would be so judgmental, especially considering Nako is a quiet, well-behaved student who gives absolutely no indication that she’s a delinquent. Ah well, it’s a relatively minor subplot so I can overlook it.

Bungo Stray Dogs Season 3 was hotly anticipated after a strong season two and the amazing Dead Apple movie. Following a group of supernaturally “gifted” members of a detective agency and their conflicts with other “gifted” groups (including the ruthless Port Mafia), this show is one of the best series of the past several years. It has a bit of Durarara!!’s cool vibe and style, but with a more straightforward story. This is a series that handles all of its various story elements very well, from the action scenes to the heartfelt moments to the comedy, and looks great doing it. I still prefer the comedy and characterization of season one, but only because they were done SO well. The more serious, plot-driven arcs of late are still fantastic. The music is great too, with my favorite opening theme of the season (and there were some outstanding ones this season, so that’s saying something). 

Kimetsu no Yaiba might just be my second favorite new series. Every season has a new show that gets a lot of hype, and in my experience around half of those shows actually live up to that hype. This show is definitely in that good half. With fluid animation, excellent music, and an interesting setup (a young boy’s family is slaughtered by demons, leaving only one sister behind who has become a demon herself, so he trains to become a demon slayer and find a way to turn her back into a human), this series seems primed to become a hit. The protagonist, Tanjirou, is a fairly standard kind-hearted hero training to join a group and accomplish his goal. The series doesn’t tread a lot of new ground in that respect, but it does everything so well that it’s easy to forgive it for not being the most original story. The most interesting aspect is the sister, Nezuko, who instead of being a delicate young flower for him to constantly protect is a demon herself who, in an early scene, literally kicks another demon’s head clean off. She’s a powerful ally in battle, which is refreshing. The other characters haven’t had much screen time yet, but seem fun so far. Overall, it’s a very well-done, if somewhat unoriginal, show. Highly entertaining and high on my watch list.

Midnight Occult Civil Servants is much better than it seems at first glance. Protagonist Arata joins a particular group of civil servants that deal with mythological creatures called “Anothers”. They range from fairies to gods to Japanese-based creatures like Tengu (this mishmash of mythology actually reminds me of Shin Megami Tensei). Arata quickly realizes that he’s the only member of the team who can understand the languages used by the Anothers, and so he becomes a valuable tool when dealing with them. The show presents a variety of creatures with a variety of behaviors. Some Anothers are friendly to humans and mean no harm, while others are outright malicious. Others still are just indifferent. At first, it seems like the show is going to be about Arata clearing up misunderstandings that his fellow team members have about the Anothers, but then the show lets us know that not all Anothers are friendly, and being able to understand their words doesn’t mean Arata can understand their motivations or can do much to stop them from doing bad things. The episodes are often inspired by real life urban legends, and overall has an air of mystery. The art is fine, with interesting, varied character designs but animation that’s just okay. The music is above average though, with my favorite ending theme of the season. It’s not my favorite new show, but it has a secure spot on my watch list.

Attack on Titan Season 3 Part 2 really doesn’t need much of a write-up, since it’s just a continuation of a season that was delayed (and that I already wrote about). I’ll just keep it brief and say it’s still great, is finally getting into one of my favorite arcs from the manga, and has a gorgeous opening theme.

Mobile Suit Gundam Origin is the tv series version of an OVA that details the origins of one of the Gundam franchise’s most popular characters (and one of my all-time favorites): Char Aznable. I never watched the OVA (despite intending to for the longest time) so this is all new content for me. What I find most interesting is the visual style, which looks very much like the classic Gundam art style of the original late 70‘s tv series but with more modern, smooth animation and some CGI mixed in. There’s a strange awkwardness to the art style that feels oddly natural. It was present in the old tv series and it’s present here. It’s kind of hard to explain if you haven’t seen it yourself though. Art aside, the story is definitely interesting. While Char’s basic history had already been revealed years ago, we didn’t really know the details. Char is a complicated character, which explains his popularity several decades after his debut. He was ruthless, cold, and calculating even as a child, but he loved his family very deeply and was surprisingly emotional. There are also badass lady characters to enjoy (who also appeared in the original series - I’ve always found it interesting that a show made in 1979 had more complex, strong, and generally well-written female characters than more modern Gundam series like Wing, Seed/Seed Destiny, and Iron Blooded Orphans). The music is fantastic here, and it’s overall a very solid show. Now I wish they’d remake the original series with this kind of animation (and cut out some of the filler).

Shoumetsu Toshi is, honestly, at the bottom of my list. The animation quality is just okay, with questionable character design choices (for the first few episodes, there were two unrelated female characters with such strikingly similar designs that it was very confusing). The story is a bit of a muddled mess. It mostly follows a young girl who survived a bizarre event where a whole city full of people suddenly vanished (later dubbed “The Lost”), and the young man who has been hired to help her return after she receives a message from her father, who was one of the people that vanished, telling her to come back. The setup is actually very interesting and mysterious. The problem is that the series throws too many concepts and ideas at us way too quickly, and explains none of it. It might be because the show is based on a video game, and the writers assumed people watching the anime would be familiar with the game and its various elements. Already in the show we have time travel, undefined magical powers, totally different powers that allow people to summon the souls of the vanished victims to fight for them like Persona, shadowy organizations doing human experiments, fancy artifacts that grant even more abilities, phantom thieves, idol groups, hackers, detective agencies, and double agents that have infiltrated the police. There’s just way too much going on, and as a result, the core plot that was actually interesting gets crowded out and choked. I’m still watching because the show is still entertaining in a strange way, but it’s a shame that it wasted a lot of its potential.

Carry Over Shows From Previous Seasons: Black Clover

Best of Season: Best New Show: Gunjou no Magmel Best Opening Theme: Bungo Stray Dogs Season 3 Best Ending Theme: Midnight Occult Civil Servants Best New Male Character: Inyou (Gunjou no Magmel) Best New Female Character: Nako (Hitoribocchi no Marumaruseikatsu)

[lightsandlostbells]

Druck episode 8 reaction

just making my way through the tumultuous lives of German youth! some of this is outdated since I fell way behind

Episode 8

Clip 1 - Hanna and Mia = so happy together

Hanna resting her head against Mia’s shoulder = awwwwww. Also cute is Mia hyping up her musical taste and getting Hanna to join in.

Here comes Alexander to ruin the moment!

For some reason it’s hilarious that he offers to sing with them. What if Mia was like yeah, let’s harmonize, show me what you got?

AHAHAHA OK, I know people want there to be a hint of ~flirtation and ~attraction on Mia’s part but you know, I fucking live for her just tearing into him and telling him off and that she’ll report him for harassment. Resounding applause!

On the other hand I cannot buy her falling for him in the slightest. By making her so firmly against him they’re making it an uphill battle convincing me that they’ll get together, especially since Mia seems perhaps the most outspokenly feminist remake Noora.

Hanna smiling and being like, “You’re so cool, Mia,” and Mia all like, “Thanks, I read this thing in an article about pickup artists using the wrong names for women to make them feel submissive!” And then the two of them happily go back to singing? This version of the scene is incredible.

Like Mia read some PUA bullshit about men trying to make women feel small, and she turned it back on a shitty man who treats women like crap! How can you not appreciate that?

Also I take back what I said previously about Mia and Hanna not being flirty compared to this pairing in other Skams. The end of this scene was total girlfriend goals.

Clip 2 - Nein, Kiki

Amira and Sam - the cutest. I would pay to see them operating that canine squad.

Well, I kinda hate Kiki again. That was a hell of a segue from her Amy Santiago-ing the party security setup to talking shit about Hanna.

I do love Hanna telling Kiki to drop it. I feel like we’ve begun to see more of a backbone on her. And Mia coming to Hanna’s defense, of course.

The reveal of the Hanna and Leonie friendship breakup is underwhelming compared to some other versions. It’s more focused on Kiki being an asshole than Hanna’s internal anguish. However, they did throw in one detail, about Hanna snagging Jonas at Sarah’s birthday party which I liked, because I’ve always wanted even more details about how they got together. I can’t remember, but did we ever hear about Leonie crying on Hanna’s shoulder while Hanna and Jonas were sneaking around behind Leonie’s back? Or is the implication that they hooked up at the birthday party and Leonie found out pretty soon, and that was that?

“Honestly, Hanna, you shouldn’t be surprised that everyone’s calling you a slut.” What the hell, Kiki. She delivers it so smugly.

Mia and Amira defending Hanna, I sure love these girls. And while Sam’s comment about “slut” being a compliment is not really the best thing to say considering the context, she was trying to be nice.

Mia also points out that it takes two to tango, it’s not just Hanna’s fault, and then Kiki says something spot-on despite her general unpleasantness in this scene - she mentions Jonas (not just Toilet Sam) for being a “slut” too, which I don’t think anyone in any of the Skams has yet done. I think it’s usually focused on the P-Chris character also being slutty? Not that I agree with the “slut” terminology specifically, more than I don’t think anyone ever singled out Jonas as a cheater, and I mean, I love him but it’s true. It’s not fair at all that the Evas have to bear the burden of the homewrecker label alone, especially when Jonas was the one already in a relationship.

Sam’s comment about “I don’t care about Jule, and Leonie is a bitch. And Jonas and Hanna are way cuter together” almost feels like commentary about the audience. Because that’s how it would be - we know almost nothing about Jule except she attacked Hanna, so who cares about her, and we’ve seen Leonie only through Hanna’s POV as an aggressive mean girl. And well, Jonas and Hanna are twelve kinds of cute. But of course that’s only one side of the story. Jule and Leonie are both wronged parties here and feeling hurt and betrayed for valid reasons even if they don’t express it in the best way. Kiki is right, Leonie is the victim here, whatever her other faults.

And again, Sam says this to help Hanna, it’s just not that helpful.

“In your Muslim gangster world, wouldn’t she have been attacked by acid by now or something?” WOW WOW. I sorta liked Kiki, but I’m definitely wanting to retract that statement.

Really, she unleashed that on Amira for absolutely no reason! Amira was just sitting there, not saying anything!

I think Kiki is lashing out like a wounded animal though. She’s trashing her friends with a viciousness that I don’t think Vilde had.

I love love love Amira though. Really, I would love to see S4 about her (with heavy rewrites, heh). You can tell that she’s really hurt by what Kiki has just said and needed a moment to compose herself.

Amira’s prayer alarm going off right then was a good clincher to that moment, a reminder of Amira’s Muslim-ness just to rub it in for Kiki, and probably to twist the knife a little for Amira, tbh. People will always judge her on her religion.

Also, great moment from Sam asking Kiki why she always needs to fight. It’s a big difference from Chris just sitting out this scene in awkward silence and trying to avoid conflict. But you can tell that Sam was trying to help out Hanna and perhaps neutralize the tension in this scene, she just doesn’t always know the right thing to say. I think it’s consistent characterization for her to ask why Kiki needs to be confrontational.

Lol, Kiki left her stuff behind when she marched out.

Clip 3 - Hanna and Jonas being sad together

Ahhh, it’s Jonas playing the guitar! Is that an existing song or just a tune he made up?

There’s a slight shift in context to having them sit in a bedroom (an intimate location) but far apart at first when they have this discussion, rather than in a public place like a skate park, but with seemingly less distance between them. The skate park is more like a neutral ground for them to meet. This is Hanna going into Jonas’ private space and being unwelcome. She knew it and started off putting space between them. It felt kinda uncomfortable. 

Also, major props to the Druck team for making Jonas play the guitar, which is clearly something the actor does in real life, and not a skater just because original Jonas/Marlon Langeland was a skater. I like when they can adapt the characters to the actors’ strengths.

The Jonas actor is doing a great job of conveying his hurt, and not just because he has a guitar to air out his sads and to use whenever words aren’t enough. Hanna too - she looks still and like a shell of herself as he questions her entire character.

Nice detail about Hanna suddenly being into the bands Jonas likes, as a way to add support to the “she doesn’t have her own opinions” line of development.

This scene really got across the theeeeme/message and showed how hurt they both were - of course it’s not nice for Jonas to say that, but you can tell he’s genuinely confused and torn about what she’s doing and he’s not just saying it to lash out at her, and of course Hanna is devastated because it always hurts to be told you don;t have your own personality, plus Jonas just laid out the reasoning in front of her.

Clip 4 - Menstrual message

Lol, not that this is funny in context, but I think Hanna’s the only Eva who throws the note in the trash instead of dropping it on the floor? Good for her, that way no hapless janitor or other student has to come across someone’s period blood in the hallway. Though I certainly get the instinct to drop it, I mean ... ewww.

(By the way, am I the only one who has questioned whether this letter, in any/all iterations, was really written in menstrual blood? Not that I would interact with the letter long enough to find out, if it were me, but is it possible it’s just paint or something and was called “period blood” just to get some extra intimidation for Hanna?)

They kept in this conversation with Kiki which is good, though she doesn’t clarify that she’s left the party because she thinks the girls hate her. I think if you didn’t know the plot, you could assume even worse of Kiki and think that maybe she quit to rid herself of the girls, the school slut and the scary Muslim. Her departing lines to Hanna do feel rather brusque.

Clip 5 - Matteo trying to do damage control

The music sounded a little upbeat for what’s supposed to be a low moment for Hanna, though the lyrics are melancholy. But it cracked me up that Matteo’s presence was announced by what sounded like a skateboard and yet Matteo did not appear to have a skateboard.

I love that they have this conversation in person, though. Matteo sought her out to sit down and tell her that it’s unfair everyone hates her so much. Even though, you know … he caused it. But I think it’s a mark of how much he regrets his actions already.

I noticed he did the trademark Isak reptilian lip-licking at one point. Common enough gesture but I am always gonna associate it with that duplicitous Norwegian.

Matteo’s message didn’t seem to sink in during the conversation as much, with Hanna getting frustrated more than anything, but it’s great that he tells her it’d be a pity if she left right before he leaves.

Clip 6 - Hanna, Leonie, and Jule

We didn’t get the scene with the older girls, or with Mia/Amira telling Hanna that it was Leonie who hooked up with Sam. I guess because Leonie didn’t actually hook up with Sam in this version. Actually, it’s great that Hanna confronts Leonie without using the knowledge that Leonie made out with Sam as leverage; she just does it on her own in order to make her school situation more bearable.

Also, there’s no incentive for how the situation will impact the other girls, neither Hanna nor the other girls think the rest of the school is retaliating against them all for their association with Hanna. It’s just Hanna acting independently. Kudos.

As with the Jonas scene, we have Leonie sitting down against the wall closed off to what Hanna’s going to say, and Hanna at first puts distance between them but later tries to lessen it. This time a little more successfully.

Hanna talks about how at her old school she was the “fat girl that everyone bullied” - that adds a lot of pain to her backstory. In OG it was that when Eva switched schools, no one wanted to talk to her because of her accent and Ingrid was nice to her, I don’t recall any talk of bullying prior to that. This detail makes Hanna’s situation even worse. Especially if you think about she was planning to switch schools again this episode, and that this would be the second time she has switched schools due to bullying. At least I think that’s implied although she could have switched schools the first time due to a mundane reason, like moving. But it would also add some extra weight to Matteo’s talk about running away when things get difficult, and support why she would choose to confront Leonie on her own like this.

This is a pretty stark conversation with the lack of accompanying emotional music and the echo from the mostly empty room. Everything comes from Hanna baring her soul, basically.

Lol, Leonie just gets up and leaves at the end, which is fine, I guess. She’s not chased out by Jule about to beat her ass. Hanna discovers on her own that it was Jule who sent the threat letter, so good for her for connecting the dots.

Unfortunately they rushed this conversation with Jule, although at least they got the right points, with Hanna saying that she didn’t know Samuel had a girlfriend but apologizing for it anyway, and pointing out that it isn’t fair for Jule to be mad at her but not him. It was definitely disappointing that Jule wasn’t humanized that much, though, and that she walks away still having a chip on her shoulder, plus the reveal that it was Matteo felt forced.

I do love this closing song (”Devil’s Whisper” by Raury). A great RUN BOY RUN song to lead into Hanna realizing she needs to throttle Matteo.

General Comments

It’s too bad that they left out some very strong parts of the source material. For example, the older girls giving their wisdom to Hanna aren’t there at all, though I can see how with the changed context why it might have been hard (why would the older girls give a shit about ostracizing the kids working security at their party). Also Jule just doesn’t get the amount of time necessary to make us feel better about her. I think Druck has done a decent job of some of the Girl Power moments and those probably would have been executed well if giving the right amount of time.

Tbh this episode is full of material where that lays out for me why it’s good to have younger actors in these roles. They make so many mistakes and there are such little moments of hurt and frustration, and it just seems more real when you can fully absorb that these are kids. 

I don’t speak German, so if I misunderstood something, feel free to correct me.

If you got this far, thank you for reading!

[petiteredlady]

End of the year 2.5D Butai/Musical Asks

I found that allyyyyy0619 made an “End of the year 2.5D Butai/Musical Asks” list, and it looked fun and interesting, so I wanted to do it. Some questions were challenging, but I liked answering !

1. Firstly, how did you manage to find out about 2.5D butai/musical? Which butai/musical was your first and your impression of it? In 2003-2004 a friend was studying in Japan. Being a Prince of Tennis fan, she discovered Tenimyu, and showed me her DVDs ! I think the very first I saw was the Dream Live 1st, and then I saw them mostly in chronological order. After that there were Bleach musicals, Hunter x Hunter, and by Air Gear I realised that adapting things into musicals was a thing. (Somehow I only learned about Sailor Moon later O_O)

For my impression of the first Dream Live : what the fuck. Just what the fuck XD I loved it because it was just so funny, but so many actors couldn't sing very well, the plot(?) was insane and several people were just OOC... but it was really fun and I liked it.

2. Who was your first favourite 2.5D actor/actress? Why? Hm... It was probably Takigawa Eiji, because I remember debating whether or not to buy his idol DVD^^" I'm not sure why, because he wasn't a good singer at the time... I guess his charisma alone was enough ? XD He made me laugh as Tezuka (despite actually playing him well), was pretty good-looking and he seemed like such a nice person IRL. (Unfortunately at the time I didn't find anything else he had played in so the "favourite" thing ended at me just really liking him...)

3. Top 3 (or more) favourite butai of the year? I haven't actually seen that many stage plays because I usually prefer musicals XD If I'm not mistaken, I've seen six stage plays this year so.... yeah.

1) Tsumuru Ookami Kuroki Kamo, without a doubt. Probably the best stage play I've ever seen. The staging was amazing, transitions were smooth and clever and easy to follow, I loved the music, I loved the costumes, the characters were amazing (even those I hated)(looking at you Shinpachi), and the story pushed so many of my buttons it's ridiculous. But even objectively, I think it's a really, really good stage play. 2) Yowamushi Pedal Shin Inter-High hen - Heat Up. I had only watched one other YowaPeda stage play so I didn't really know what to expect, but MY GOD. For a stage that had neither my favourite character nor my favourite actors, it was amazing. I loved the staging : everything was very dynamic, the amovible stairs were very cleverly used, and wow you really think they're pedalling. The acting was great and it was really funny, plus there were more songs than I expected ! 3) Haikyuu!! The Summer of Evolution. I wasn't fond of the first stage play and hadn't seen another, so I didn't expect to like it, but wow they have improved SO MUCH. The different choregraphies, for playing and dancing, were insane. I love their use of music to represent different techniques and formations. I really liked the acting. What I liked less was all the yelling, talking at the speed of light and everybody talking at the same time +_+ Like, please people, live Japanese is hard enough as it is XD

4. Top 3 (or more) least favourite butai of the year? By default they're going to be the other three I've seen XD It doesn't mean I didn't like them, but I liked them less and it wouldn't be fair to not answer this question.

1) Mononofu Shiroki Tora. I still liked it because it dealed with a lot of subjects that are dear to me, but honestly it was so confusing +_+ I really had a hard time understanding what was the present and what was the past, and which side the background characters were on. There were several characters I didn't connect with at all, too. It was still funny and horribly sad, but after watching it I just wasn't convinced. (Which is why I waited months before watching Tsumuru Ookami Kuroki Kamo.) 2) Messiah - Yuukyuu no Toki. The best stage play that came out of the new Messiah series. I wrote my impressions after watching it, but to summarise : there are still too many characters, too many plots at the same time, and I'm tired of people being related for no reason. I also thought the whole issue with Ariga and Itsuki was very dumb. But at least Yuukyuu focused more on its characters than Akatsuki, so I ended up liking them more. And returning characters were less OOC in my opinion. And my goodness, action scenes were great. 3) Messiah - Akatsuki no Toki. I was so excited for it and was terribly betrayed. There were a thousand ways to deal with Hirose Daisuke's absence, and they went with an insane plot so far-fatched I can't bring myself to take it seriously. I found the characters very, very OOC and didn't connect with or care for any of them. The new kouhai were not at all what I expected and I found them cringy at best. There are very few things I liked. Mostly the relationship between Ariga and Itsuki <3 I sort of squeed when Ariga called Itsuki by his name, and then at the end Itsuki did the same and it was cute and adorable.

(Messiah has been a letdown this year, it's pretty sad...)

5. Top 3 (or more) favourite musical of the year? I've watched a lot more musicals so this is going to be really hard XD (But I'm not doing more than 3. Ranking things is hard enough like that.)

1) Ribbon no Kishi (2015 version). It blew my mind when I didn't expect it O_O I was watching it for Aoki Tsunenori, but everyone was just so, so good. THE SONGS. MY GOD. ALL OF THE SONGS ARE GREAT, ALL OF THEM, AND EVERYONE SINGS SO WELL !!! The women especially had amazing voices. Everyone played they roles so well, with some being so very over-the-top and kitsch. I loved it. And this is part of being Ribbon no Kishi, but I loved the costumes and the fairy tale atmosphere that was very positive. I have issues with the story, but honestly that's not why I was watching it, so all in all it was a great experience. 2) Sailor Moon - Le Mouvement Final. JUST. AMAZING. Everyone was so pretty and cool and talented, the costumes were full of glitter, and the singing and acting really touched me <3 I may not be 100 % objective because I've loved Sailor Moon since I was a little girl and the last arc always makes me very emotional, but still. The transformations were great, the light effects were really cool, the music was good and all the actresse were amazing. If it hadn't been the last day of the performance I'd have tried to get another ticket... 3) Patalliro!. They don't call it a musical since they're lip-syncing on stage, but as a viewer the experience is basically the same so I've decided it counts. I had read a bit of the manga and watched a bit of the anime to have some context, and it really helped me understand some scenes. What I found most amazing is that the musical looks good while keeping all the weirdness from the manga XD They all acted so well, and managed to create a great story with very few characters. I liked that everything, from characters expressions to every plot point, was very over-the-top and dramatic XD I laughed a LOT. And the songs were really good and catchy. I liked it way more than I expected !

6. Top 3 (or more) least favourite musical of the year? Once again : it doesn't mean I didn't like them. Either they didn't live up to my expectations, or I simply liked them less.

1) Bakumatsu Rock - Climax Live. While I liked the interactions between the characters and liked more songs than I expected, I still feel this live didn't use all its potential. I mean, sure, it's a live, but maybe there could have been more of a plot ? Transitions were good and sketches were funny, but an overarching plot tying it all together would have been nicer, in my opinion. 2) Show by Rock - Shinen no Cross Ambivalence. This is very, very, very personal, but I think ShinganCrimsonZ didn't act enough like themselves. I know they weren't the focus of the plot, but... Rom had only like one speech that made the others cry, they didn't bicker about food, they didn't sing their jingle and Crow almost never called us "cattle" T-T Actually the focus was all over the place so I feel like no band really had time to shine. (And that's ever more personal, but the one and only reason I wanted to see Show by Rock was to see TakiEiji.......)(Obviously I'm not blaming anyone O__O) Overall I liked it, but not as much as I wanted to. 3) Touken Ranbu - Bakumatsu Tenrouden. The expectations/reality ratio was way too high for this one XD I still liked it, but not as much as a Shinsengumi fan should have, I guess XD First, I don't like Yasusada that much. And I'm getting really tired of his and Kashuu's issues with Okita. WE GET IT. We even had them all over Hanamaru. They're pretty popular anyway so WE KNOW ALREADY. I was more interested in Nagasone and Hachisuka's issues, but I think they were only superficially addressed. And Nagasone angsting about Kondou was only at the end with little build-up so it just felt weird, while it had the potential to be a heart-wrenching scene. And honestly, Kane-san and Horikawa felt like secondary characters T-T I'd have been much more interested in THEIR dealing with their owner's death. I also think they didn't have great singers and their voices didn't really work together, even though I liked the songs. So this musical was more of a miss than a hit, for me. (But I liked the previous one so much it was hard to top.)

7. Top 3 (or more) favourite actors/actress of the year?

1) Rachi Shinji. I've developped a real appreciation for him after being initially put off. When I first saw the Bakumatsu Rock musical his voice was so different from anime Ryouma that I thought he couldn't sing... haha =_= It got better the more musicals I saw in this series, then I saw him in Sayonara Sorcier *o* He was so, so perfect for the role *o* Now I really want to see more of him ! 2) Kanda Airi. I was very impressed by her performance in Ribbon no Kishi, and then I saw her in Sailor Moon *o* She was more than amazing. She appeared late, but she was so at ease on stage ! She was very in character, very into her dancing and singing, and she felt much more experienced than the adult actresses. Honestly, it seemed so very natural for her to act, it was hard to look at anyone else ! (And I don't even like Chibi Moon that much so it's really impressive.) 3) Teruma. I think he's one of these few actors who can really change who they are when they play different characters. I just find that very impressive, and since I've been seeing more and more of him, I ended up noticing. He has really improved his singing, too ! (And he does play very different characters while you could expect him to have a type XD)

8. Top 3 (or more) rookie actors/rising actors whom you’ve high hopes for in the future? ... I usually follow actors I know so that means they already have a career XD But let's try !

1) Takano Akira, Toumyu's Hizamaru. He's not exactly a newbie as he's done a number of things, but mostly in 2016 so I guess it counts. I've only seen him in Shinken Ranbu Sai 2017 (I'll see the actual musical in January), but I was SO IMPRESSED. Honestly, despite the huge cast and lots of other actors and characters I loved, he managed to stand out ! His acting was great, his dancing JUST AMAZING, and he was so into his role, it was a pleasure to watch. 2) Ooyabu Taka. I only saw him as Marui in the 3rd season Tenimyu Seigaku vs Rikkai, but my goodness he was perfect. Probably the best Marui so far, definitely one of the best and most charismatic actors of the musical ! It's not even a character I care about much so I'm not biased, and I did hear other people talk excitedly about how good he was. I don't think I'll be closely following his career, but I'm definitely interested in seeing more of him ! 3) Sakiyama Tsubasa. He has been in a number of plays for the past 3-4 years, but I think it's only recently (thanks to Toumyu) that his popularity skyrocketed. The more I watch him the more I like him, and he's one of the very few people who made me buy their CD, so that says something ! I definitely want to see more of him in the future !

9. Top 3 (or more) favourite butai/musical related drama/movie of the year? The original question said it could be a drama that has a butai adaptation or an unrelated drama with butai actors in it (who made us want to watch it). The thing is... I don't watch that many dramas ? Not anymore, at least. When I like a butai actor I like to see what other butai they're in XD There's always tokusatsu, but it's not ONLY for the actors. Oh well, let's try...

1) Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters. Amazing show. Predictable, but everything made me feel good, from the characters to the plot. It was on my list because of Matsumoto Hiroya and Baba Ryouma <3 (Then I realised Jinnai Shou was in it too !)(Now that I think about it they happen to play my favourite characters...) 2) Yowamushi Pedal. It was one example listed in the original question so it feels weird to answer that, but it's true. From the preview I didn't think it'd be anything worthy of note, but it's actually so, so well done. Even the bike races. And the cast is just so good, I love how they play the characters. 3) Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger. A bit cliché, but I loved it. The main characters were great, the villains too, and I love dinosaurs. And I decided to watch it because of Saitou Shuusuke !

(Yeah that's two sentai but honestly I've already gone through all the Kamen Riders that have butai actors in it...)

10. Top 3 (or more) actors/actress that you think have the best singing voice? Now that's very unfair and I can't do it XD Why I like someone’s singing depends on so many things, and I may not like everything that person sings... But I decided to answer these questions so I WILL >< (This will be more like "hey I consistently like these people singing" rather than "they're objectively the best singers")

1) Katou Kazuki. He was amazing in Tenimyu, I actually listened to his original songs when he released a CD, and when I heard him recently I thought he had improved AGAIN O_O I don't think there's any limit to how good he can get. (And I love deep voices like his.) 2) Kimeru. Such a powerful voice. I think he can sing anything and make it awesome. He's sometimes a bit over the top, but I love listening to him. 3) Sakiyama Tsubasa. When I first heard him in Toumyu I wasn't convinced, but he's improved so fast ! I love his calm and soothing voice <3

(4th place is for Rachi Shinji because my god just like Kimeru he has such a powerful and beautiful voice *o* Just... less my style.) (And I'd like to mention Spi somewhere because while I haven't yet seen Mihotose no Komoriuta, I was SO IMPRESSED by his singing in Shinken Ranbu Sai 2017 he deserves a spot. His singing was amazing.)

11. A (or more) butai/musical that you didn’t initially love, but has/have grown on you?

Bakumatsu Rock (the first one). It was such a shock to transition from anime to stage, I didn't take it well. The seiyuu are pretty amazing, and the musical tried to have actors with very different voices try to sing like the seiyuu... and it doesn't work at all. After re-watching the musical, though, I got a better appreciation for the actors’ singing. It's not that they're bad, they're just made to sing things that were not made for them^^ And some songs are still pretty good despite that ! And in later musicals I think they better adapted the music.

12. Top 3 (or more) anime/manga/game that you would love to see being adapted into a butai/musical in the future?

1) Anything by CLAMP ? I mean, why is there no Card Captor Sakura musical ? It would be perfect. Or Wish !! Wish would be so cute. Or Clover *o* (Honestly any manga works. Even the 'heavier' ones like X or RG Veda. These two would have amazing group songs *o*) 2) I'm not sure I'd "love" it but honestly after three Tenimyu seasons it's time to be brave and adapt New Prince of Tennis. 3) I haven't seen it yet but when I read the question I immediately thought "Ballroom e youkoso needs an adaptation" XD

13. Top 3 (or more) favourite fandom on the year?

1) Tenimyu is still a pure and amazing fandom. Honestly seeing people still passionate about it nearly fifteen years later amazes me. 2) Touken Ranbu fans are very impressive, collecting so much information and following every single actor's other projects XD 3) The Hakumyu fandom sprang back into existence, it seems XD With motivated people sharing and subbing. I'm glad to see the fandom is still alive and happy despite the lack of new musicals.

14. How long have you been in the 2.5D fandom? Honestly I wouldn't consider myself "in the fandom" these days... I interacted with other fans much more when I was younger, and then there was a period when my interest in butai faded. But if we count from the first time I got involved... it's been about 13 years.

15. Lastly, what is your overall opinion of the 2.5D fandom so far? As I said, I'm not really "in" it so it's more like an outside opinion...? Honestly, I feel that now that buying and sharing DVDs is so easy, the fandom has grown so big it has become difficult to really interact with people ? Maybe I just don't put enough effort in it, though XD But having so many fans with different interests mean it's more difficult to find someone who matches your interests who is also interested in talking to you specifically while there are so many other fans out there. (But yeah, maybe it's just me. I used to be in small French fandoms, maybe I'm just not cut out for big international ones.)

And yet it amazes me how much people help each other : getting tickets, getting goodies, subbing... (Like, SUBBING ?? When I was younger I never thought about anyone ever subbing butai, fansubs were something anime fans did, I never considered it could apply to butai too XD So I'm always in awe when people sub butai.)

[todokori-kun]

WELCOME BACK!

 <3 I really missed you, and it’s so great to hear you had fun! (and omg yes so ready to see all those beautiful pics)

Yaaayyyy join me in MCU feels hell. And oooh, you have a ship for the fandom now! Like, Stoki’s still my favorite Steve pairing but Stony’s really cool too…you know I ship almost everything XD (also am I the only person who sorta hated almost everyone by the end of CW? Like, of course they’re still my favs and there are still some cinnamon rolls, but, come on. Why couldn’t you all just get along ;-;)

Speaking of Illumi, do you know that Hisoka/Illumi is an incredibly popular ship in the HxH fandom? Probably because both of them are so horrible that they have like 0 friends other than each other. Nobody else wants to hang out with these losers. (Chrollo tolerates Hisoka and the adults in Illumi’s family seem to spend enough time with him to give him orders, but that’s about it.) It’s a trash ship with two trashy people and tbh I love it XD

So continuing with the eye jokes, imagine. Hisoillu version of Helpless. Hisoillu version of Satisfied.

“Look into his eyes and the sky’s the limit”

“Intelligent eyes in a hunger-pang frame”

(I know you did thise one before but still) “But when I fantasize at night, it’s Illumi’s eyes”

just, I’m imagining animatics for this with the ‘camera’ zooming in on Illumi’s dead fish eyes every time the lyrics mention them. It’s hilarious and also mildly terrifying

(though I guess if we’re actually making a Hamilton AU Hisoka’s way more likely to do something like Say No To This…)

idk if I’d want to be a parent either really LOL. Kids are adorable but I don’t think I’ll ever be responsible enough to raise one…

If Ishida makes a plot twist or something about it being someone else pretending to be Hide I'm actually gonna get mad. Dude. Not only would that bring the Hide feels right back it’d just make absolutely no sense omg

(also you read the new chapter, right? So, let’s talk about Juuzou and that huge death flag)

I’ve heard of Soul Eater and considered reading it but it’s not really the kind of thing I’m into…artwork’s cute, though, and Death the Kid seems like an interesting guy so maybe someday XD

AGH I’M ACTUALLY SORTA JEALOUS BECAUSE WOW I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA HOW TO WATCH THAT LEGALLY HERE IN KOREA. (unless I ask my dad for help but he doesn’t like manga/anime at all, so…) But yes, I’m really happy Lizzy finally got her moment this time! Now anime-only fans can’t complain about her being a ‘shallow’ character so hopefully there’ll be less fighting over Lizzy in the Kuro fandom :D

FINALLY. Fellow Death Note fan <3333 Who’s your fav? Do you have any ships? Are you done with the anime??? :D (also do you know…you picked a really interesting time to join the DN fandom. The American live-action movie just came out and it sucks so freaking bad, like I haven’t even watched it yet and just from the reviews/clips, here’s what I got:

-They turned Misa into this Harley Quinn-type character. Only without any depth.

-Light/Misa is an actual canon ship, like, it’s not abusive or one-sided like it is in the anime/manga, it’s just…a thing. Light loves Misa. Misa loves Light. It’s like every cringey high school romance movie ever, only with more murder

-They freaking bent the Death Note rules just so Light could get away with all sorts of ridiculous stuff

-L cries, L rants, L is overly emotional

-Light tells L where he hid a page from his Death Note. Light doesn’t deny being Kira. Light shows Misa his Death Note when they like barely know each other and she’s still a complete stranger to him. Light acts like an idiot.

-Oh sure, he’s Kira, God of the New World, but he still cares about going to prom with his girlfriend and making stupid faces as they pose for pictures

-So much unnecessary gore. Heart attacks are Kira’s thing, Light isn’t that emotional about his kills, he doesn’t care as long as the 'villains’ are dead, so why???

-Apparently Rem does not exist. Sayu doesn't exist either. Light’s mom is dead (probably so he can angst over her)

-Light Turner. Light TURNER. Out of all the surnames they could have chosen…

-And now, for the most unforgivable sin:

How dare they not include the Potato Chip scene)

And then random things: JJ and Light have the same voice actor. Yurio and Mello (imo…have you met Mello yet?) could be long-lost twins.

Also:

I’ve fallen into Steven Universe hell and now I’m imagining so. Many. Gem AUs. Have you ever heard of SU?

(look:

1- don’t stress about the messages, and come on, I’d never get mad at you over something like this! You’re way too awesome.

2-  I don’t really know what to say 'cause I’m bad at comforting people, but ugh, it sucks to hear that school’s tiring you out! Queen Luna’s gonna get through this, though. I mean, you’re great at so many things and you’re freaking smart and…this is awkward but maybe you understand Evans Language by now? XD Guess I’m just trying to say that I’m sure you’ll do great, and if you ever need someone to talk to I’m (almost) always free *hugs*

3- Um. So, other than tumblr, I think the only way I can talk with you right now is if we email each other? The email address I used this time is my real one (or rather, my dad’s, since I don’t have one of my own yet…) so maybe we can talk about this more through email and find a better way to contact each other? If that’s ok with you can you send me a message there?)

P.S:

I’ve started college and have no idea what I’m doing

*slams head against keyboard* guess who managed to get sick. It’s only been a week since school started. Whatever, I’m still going to school, but I woke up breathing like a fish on land, bc asthma. Yay.

I’m definitely gonna upload the pics today!!

Okay, but one thing I’m wondering about, is How? Not in a malicious way or anything, I’m genuinely curious to why you ship Stoki (and where it began). Was it that redemption fic you told me about or did you ship it before? 

Tbh, I didn’t hate the characters in CW, I hated the situation. Because there’s so so much pointless conflict that could easily be solved if everyone sat down and talked like normal people. But nooo we have to go around attacking each other. ((ALSO CAP’S LETTER TO TONY, I AM DEAD))

I’ve already learned (and experienced) that shipping is a very weird and unusual thing, so I’ll be honest and say I’m not even surprised that ship exists. At least it has some basis XD

I’m actually tempted to go through the lyrics of the whole musical and find every single eye line there is, only to replace it w Illumi’s eyes.

Not only zooming in on the eyes, the word itself is louder than the rest XD man if only I could draw…

Tbh I’d say I’m responsible enough (HA, that’s more or less a lie), but I’m honestly way too irritated with the little ones to be able to have one of my own. My cousin recently celebrated her 3rd bday and I was stuck looking after her during the party, bc all the adults were talking among themselves and I swear to god, I haven’t moved that much since I had to run 2km for PE. Where do they get their energy. Not to mention the adults thought it would be a good idea to leave me w her, because I’d already drunk 3 glasses of wine (i was bored and not allowed to do anything other than stare at emptiness or look after a 3yo). Turns out my tolerance isn’t that bad after all.

Lol let’s be honest, Ishida would totally do that. He knows the fandom would riot and that’s the whole point.

All the death flags. Tbh I don’t know how I feel about it. It’s obvious that either Touka or Juuzou are probably gonna die and I wan’t neither (If I have to choose tho, I’d rather Juuzou survives.) Also Naki. HNNNNNNGH

I think you’d actually like the manga? It takes a pretty dark turn compared to the anime and deals with lots of mental issues (the whole theme of the later volumes is Madness). Also, lots of death XD Well, the artwork changes drastically, so which one are you talking about XD

The girl in the coat (left first pic, middle 2nd) is the same person for reference. Death the Kid was one of my first anime crushes. The guy has OCD and is a total badass. 

MUHAHAHAHA I think someone uploaded the Lizzy fight to youtube so you can probably find it there, but I am in love. The animation is beautiful, so that’s also a huge plus. All in all, it was handled really well.

Death Note

So last I’ve watched is ep 25, aka the one WHERE L DIES. And i am not okay. I am nowhere near okay. Nope. Not at all.

Oh i’ve heard all about the adaptation. Tbh I find the whitewashing hilarious. Setting the movie in America removes so much of the series’s logic, so why? L being the way he is is probably my favourite mistake. They took the best character and ruined him completely.  POTATO CHIP SCENE NOOOO But my question is: did everything go just according to the keikaku?

Have fun w SU! I’ve watched it for a while, but gave up at some point. I might pick it up again if I have the time ^^ Word of advice, watch out for the fandom, they’re among the most toxic ones I’ve ever encountered. One time, they almost drove an artist to suicide because she didn’t draw Rose ‘thick enough’. So yeah.

What did I do to deserve you as my friend TT^TT Thank you so so much, those words mean more than you can imagine.

Um. Looks like we’ll be staying here, because I never, ever check my mail, despite getting school assignments there, so yeah. If we used mail, you’d probably get a response every leap year.

How does the education system work in Korea? Like, at what age do you start going to which school?

Also, I’ve told you about Mystic Messenger? I think you’d like the newest update, because damn, it’s creeping me out. Also, it’s in Korean, so + ((My thoughts during the prologue of the new route: Nani the fuck))

[stacks-reviews]

New Releases 7/24/27

Happy New Release Day!

In Books --The Backstagers volume 1 by James Tynion IV and illustrated by Rian Sygh “All the world’s a stage...but what happens behind the curtain is pure magic literally! When Jory transfers to an all-boys private high school, he is taken in by the only ones who don’t treat him like a new kid, the lowly stage crew known as the Backstagers. Not only does he gain great, lifetime friends, Jory is also introduced to an entire magical world that lives beyond the curtain. With the unpredictable twists and turns of the underground world, the Backstagers venture into the unknown, determined to put together the best play their high school has ever seen.”

I love everything about this. I hope it’ll be as good as it sounds. I mean, a magical boy band. Or at least a boy band that will travel to a magical world. What’s not to like.

--Daughter of the Burning City by Amanda Foody The Gomorrah Festival is a traveling carnival of debauchery, catering to the strangest of dreams and desires. Sorina has spent most of her life on the borders of the festival as an illusion-worker, the only one to be born in hundreds of years. She creates illusions that you can see, feel and touch, that even have personalities. Sorina’s creations are like her family even though she knows that they are not truly real. At least until one of them is murdered. Desperate to save her family Sorina will venture into the most sinister corners of the Festival to unravel the horrifying truth.

I started thinking about Cirque de Freak by Darren Shan the moment I read the description. Purely because of a creepy carnival. I’ve never read that series by him but I have read a few books of his series The Demonata. 

I’m really enjoying Sorina’s illusion powers. I like how she can make them touchable. I’m already debating if she might somehow be summoning her ancestors, maybe even pulling people from other dimensions, or just being so creative that she can create almost anything and make it real. Or even unknowingly putting a bit of herself into each creation, giving them life that they may grow and develop on their own. Either way it sounds like it would be pretty good. I’m curious to see what all powers might reside deeper in the carnival. And just what kind of power is able to kill illusions.

--Descending Stories: Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju volume 2 by Haruko Kumota Yotaro has been accepted as Yakumo’s apprentice and a member of his household. Taking in this young man forces Yakumo to confront his past and promises that were left unfulfilled. He thinks of his friend and rival, Sukeroku. He remembers growing up in a Japan changing after the war. And of a woman named Miyokichi.

The second volume of the manga that the hit anime of the same name is based on. Although this series is about Yotaro and Konatsu (a woman who would like to perform rakugo but is stopped by her legal guardian; Yakumo, because he believes in the old style that prevents woman from peforming rakugo) learning rakugo and performing. It is also a tale of Yakumo as he confronts his past.

--Fairy Tail volume 61 by Hiro Mashima “The meaning of family. As the most powerful wizards of Fairy Tail face off against the remaining members of The Twelve, their hearts, relationships, and skills will be put to the test. The battle between Erza and Irene reaches an emotional conclusion, Gray shows how far he’s willing to go to save his dearest friends, and the love of a father sparks a shocking revelation from August. As Natsu and Zeref’s showdown approaches, both enemies and friends must ask themselves who their true family is!”

Honestly, I have fallen behind on Fairy Tail. The last volume I read was 54. I’m slowly trying to catch back up. It’s not that I don’t like the series anymore, although I don’t know if I could still call it one of my top current favorites. I had to cut back due to when I left one of my part-time jobs. Although the one I kept had fewer hours, it allowed me to focus on college and my homework more. I don’t really know what is going on currently, except for the fact that it is near the end of the final arc. I want to be all caught up by the time the final volume; 63, comes out. 

--First We Were IV by Alexandra Sirowy “It started for pranks, fun, and forever memories. A secret society - for the four of us. The rules: Never Lie. Never tell. Love each other. We made the pledge and danced under the blood moon on the meteorite in the orchard. In the spot we found the dead girl five years earlier. And discovered the ancient drawings way before that. Nothing could break the four of us apart - I thought. But then, others wanted in. Our seaside town had secrets. History. We wanted revenge. We broke the rules. We lied. We told. We loved each other too much, not enough, and in ways we weren’t supposed to. Our invention ratcheted out of control. What started as a secret society, ended as justice. Revenge. Death. Rebellion.”

The first time I looked this book up, I wasn’t too crazy. Labeled it as a maybe. I don’t know if Goodreads had a different description or if I just liked it more the second time around. It sounds like it could be a pretty good mystery. My guess right now, is that by creating IV they might have gotten the idea from a old group who called themselves the same. And somehow in the process maybe committed some kind of magic ritual that maybe activated some old ghosts from the previous group. I hope it has something to do with an ancient civilization.

--Generation Witch volume 1 by Isaki Uta One percent of the population is made up of witches. Some look up to witches, some envy them. But these abilities can sometimes be more of a curse than a blessing, as any witch knows. Growing up requires a lot of luck and effort for a teenager, so what happens when you throw spirits, magic, and broomsticks into the mix?

I couldn’t really find any information regarding this manga other than the description. It appears to be pretty new. It sounds like a cute coming of age story and it kind of makes me think of Flying Witch; which I have neither seen nor read but I would like to, and Kiki’s Delivery Service. In terms of a young witch trying to learn her craft throughout her day to day life. 

--Strange Practice (paperback) by Vivian Shaw Greta Helsing uses her family’s highly specialized, and highly peculiar, medical practice as a doctor to the undead. Keeping the supernatural community not-alive in London has been the Helsing’s specialty for generations. She treats vocal strain in banshees, arthritis in barrow-wights, and entropy in mummies. It’s a quiet, supernatural-adjacent life Greta’s been groomed into since childhood. Quiet until a group of murderous monks appears, killing human and undead Londoners. It’s up to Greta to use her unusual skills to stop the cult if she hopes to save her practice and her life.

I’m a fan of seeing supernatural creatures just trying to live their lives. Where not all of them are necessarily evil. Some just want to live. I’m gonna point the blame at Inuyasha on this one cause I think that’s the first place I ever ran across the idea of not all monsters are evil. I think. Plus, I just like seeing the twist of a Helsing helping supernatural creatures instead of hunting them.

In Movies --Gifted A story of a man raising his very intelligent niece after her mother died so that she may live an ordinary life. His mother finds out where they live, believes her granddaughter’s talents are being wasted, and tries to gain custody of her. 

It was a really cute story starring Chris Evans. And Mckenna Grace was adorable as Mary. I loved their characters relationship in the film. It was a very touching movie.

--Ghost in the Shell This entry will contain some spoilers at the end about the end of the movie. You have been warned.

The live action adaptation of the amazing manga, anime film, and anime series. On IMDb the description of the live action version is as follows: “In the near future, Major is the first of her kind: A human saved from a terrible crash, who is cyber-enhanced to be a perfect soldier devoted to stopping the world’s most dangerous criminals”

Really just putting this up because I’ll be getting it someday to be able to finish my collection. That’s about it. The effects of this movie were very well done. I really appreciated the fact that there were references to each form of this series. I remember seeing scenes that I know were only in the manga, some scenes that were in the original film, some scenes from S.A.C., and some nods to Arise. I had some issues with what they did to the story. I love GitS. The anime is easily one of my top favorites and I have a lot of respect and love towards Major Motoko Kusanagi. I tried my very best to see the movie as its own universe. Easy enough since each form has been its own universe. But there were just some things here and there that I couldn’t get past. Which I could go into all the details but that should probably be on a post more dedicated to it. But I will mention that I was slightly disappointed that she was not shot in the head at the end. In each other version, that happened at least once. And they ruined my OTP. Due to plot, I gathered that the Major is really aged somewhere between 16 and 18. While Batou looks like he’s in his 30′s. I can’t approve of it. They ruined my ship in this version and for that I will never forgive them.

[princesssarisa]

Beauty and the Beast (2017): How It Could Have Been Better

Let me start by saying this: I like the live-action Beauty and the Beast. For the most part, I think it’s well done. It can’t replace the animated version, but it’s good. That said, there are a few things I wish had been done differently. With a few changes, this version could have come even closer to equaling the animated version. If I had been given the screenplay to write a final revision before the movie was made, here are some of the changes I would have made.

1. Put more emphasis on “Belle the inventor.”

For something that got so much emphasis in the press, this aspect of the “new” Belle gets surprisingly little emphasis in the actual movie. It’s just used in one sequence to highlight that she’s “different” and give the villagers a way to bully her. My revised version would highlight it more. I’d include a more extensive scene of her building the washing barrel before she uses it. I’d have other inventions of hers in use around her house. I’d have the villagers and Gaston disapprove of her being a female gadgeteer. Instead of having the villagers bully her for teaching a girl to read (which, as many people have pointed out, has no real basis in 18th century France, where most women were literate), I’d have them bully her because they think her washing barrel is a ridiculous invention and will lead girls into trouble by giving them too much free time on their hands. Instead of Maurice going to the market to sell his own music boxes, I’d have him take an invention of Belle’s to a fair, highlighting how fully he supports all she does. This could also reinforce his new arc of learning to be less overprotective of her: she could beg to come along, since it’s her invention, only for him to insist she stay safely at home. But most importantly, I’d incorporate her inventiveness throughout the movie, not just the beginning. Why not let her escape from the castle after the West Wing incident by climbing down the ladder she made from Mme. de Garderobe’s gown? Why not let her, not Maurice, figure out how to pick the asylum wagon’s lock? (The callback to Maurice’s music box-building scene is cute, but still…) Near the end, why not show Plumette and the other castle maids using Belle’s invention to do laundry, freeing them to join the dance? I’d just like to give this new aspect of her the same emphasis onscreen that it got in the pre-movie press.

3. Have Gaston, Lefou, and/or the villagers say some nasty things about Maurice early on.

I have nothing against the new version’s less-wacky characterization of Maurice, but it does feel a bit less natural that Gaston should so easily convince the whole town that the new Maurice is insane… especially since until he makes his claims about the Beast, there’s no hint that anyone considers him odd the way they do Belle. So I’d like to have some equivalent of Lefou’s “That crazy old loon!” line from the original. Someone disparaging Maurice as a silly “starving artist” who needs to get a “real” job, or something like that. I think I’d especially like this disparagement to come from Gaston and Lefou, as per the animated version, and have it figure into Belle’s rejection of Gaston. Instead of just warning Belle that she’ll be left penniless if her father dies before she’s married, I would have had Gaston (or Lefou, in an attempt to help him) argue that he can provide for her better now than her “starving artist” father can. I don’t mind the fact that the new Gaston is less overtly boorish and more of a Nice Guy™ at first, especially since it helps deflect accusations that the Beast is a Nice Guy™. But judging by some of the comments I’ve read about the new Gaston online (“He actually respects her in this version!” “She’s so rude to him!” etc.), the writers might have made him a little too likable for his own good. More reason to dislike him from the start wouldn’t hurt, especially if it helps to set up Maurice’s later scenes too.

3. Give the Beast back his early hints of inner decency.

I appreciate what the movie tries to do with the Beast – keeping him almost as mysterious to us as he is to Belle at first, letting us warm up to him along with her, not before her, and giving neither her nor us much reason to believe in his inner goodness until the game-changing scene where he saves her life. But as a side effect, we lose one of animated versions’ best defenses against accusations of Stockholm Syndrome: the fact that the animated Beast never really treats Belle like a prisoner. With only minimal urging from Lumiere, he gives her a comfortable bedroom, lets her go anywhere she likes except the West Wing, encourages her to think of the castle as her “home,” and assures her that his servants will attend to all her needs. Not to mention his guilty expression when he sees her crying and his instant remorse after he scares her away from the West Wing. Even the “You will join me for dinner!” incident is more of him treating her as an underling than as a prisoner, per se. I would have liked to see the live-action version keep all those things intact.

4. Make the Beast’s backstory less stereotypical.

Unlike some people, I don’t mind the fact that the Beast’s new backstory “woobifies” him, but I do mind how stereotypical it is. “His good, loving mother died or left when he was small and he had a dysfunctional relationship with his father” is THE stock backstory for troubled, moody young males, from Prince Zuko, to the young Ebenezer Scrooge, to James Dean (granted, he was a real person), to various YA novel examples, and more. And do we really need another Mother in the Refrigerator besides Belle’s?

In my version, we’d learn that his parents both died young (in the same plague outbreak that killed Belle’s mother, though we wouldn’t learn that detail until later). Mrs. Potts would reveal that she and the other servants were left to raise him, but that they treated him like their master instead of like a child, giving him neither enough discipline nor enough love, and did nothing as they watched him turn hard and bitter. Then, instead of showing the young Prince at his mother’s bedside, the “Days In The Sun” flashback would show him standing in front of his parents’ tomb. This would still be a tragic backstory, but a little less clichéd, and it would give even more guilt to the servants to explain why the Enchantress cursed them too.

5. Slightly revise Belle and Maurice’s backstory.

I’d portray Belle as five or six years old when her mother died, not a baby. The flashbacks in the “Paris of My Childhood” scene would feature a montage of her growing from a baby with the rose-rattle to a child living happily with her parents, reading a book with her mother, socializing with their friends, etc., but then show her sobbing “Maman!” as Maurice carries her away from her mother’s deathbed. The lyrics to “Paris of My Childhood” would feel more fitting if she were singing about a childhood she actually remembered. Portraying her as having partly been raised in Paris, not just born there, would also give her more reason to feel misplaced in the small provincial town.

Last but not least, I just don’t think “Maurice has never told her how her mother died” was a necessary plotline. I’ve seen so many amateur critics complain that they were expecting the reveal of how she died to be some startling, dramatic twist, not just “the plague.” It feels as if the screenwriters were just trying to make the trip to Paris extra meaningful to Belle by having her not know until then… as if it wouldn’t be meaningful anyway. Or maybe they wanted to give Belle and Maurice’s relationship more “depth” by adding some mild conflict to it via his secret-keeping… as if they hadn’t already done just that by making Maurice’s overprotectiveness the reason why Belle is trapped in a dull, stifling provincial life. In my revision, Belle and Maurice’s conversation at home would end along these lines:

          Belle: Why can’t we go back to Paris? Maman felt free to be herself there! All three of us were happy there!

          Maurice: True, but it’s where we lost her too.

Much later, after the Beast finds the plague doctor’s mask, Belle would say, “Yes, that’s how my mother died,” and the Beast would reply “Like mine.” And in the wagon, instead of telling Maurice that the Beast helped her learn what happened to her mother, Belle would tell him that the Beast’s parents died of the same plague as her mother, which would only humanize the Beast further in Maurice’s eyes, leading even more naturally to his supporting Belle’s choice to go back to him. These would be small changes, but all good.

6. Actually incorporate the magic book into the plot or leave it out altogether.

I agree with most of the criticisms I’ve read about the magic book, so my revision would do one of two things:

Choice #1: Use the book in place of the magic mirror. Having the Enchantress leave the Beast with two magic “windows to the outside world” feels redundant. This version of the book would have the power both to show you visions of different places and to actually transport you there. Belle would also use the book to instantly travel back to the village to save her father, as so many critics insist she should have. Her dialogue with the Beast beforehand would go along these lines:

         Beast: You must go to him.

         Belle: (after an astonished pause) I’ll come straight back as soon as he’s safe.

         Beast: No. Stay with him. I release you. You are no longer my prisoner.

         Belle: (awkwardly) But… what about your book?

         Beast: Keep it, so you can always look back and remember me.

Later, in town, Belle would use the book to show the Beast to the villagers and Gaston would use it to find the castle, though not to teleport there since Belle wouldn’t have shown him how. Meanwhile, Belle would steal a village horse to ride after the mob.

Choice #2: The opposite of the above – eliminate the book and use the mirror in its place. Have the Beast introduce the mirror to Belle earlier and let them use it just to see a vision of Belle’s childhood home in Paris, not to actually visit there. The scene could still be just as effective this way. The only downside is that we’d lose the moment when Belle says “Let’s go home” and the Beast smiles as he realizes she just called the castle “home.” But a similar effect could be achieved this way: Belle cries as she looks into the mirror. The Beast places a tentative consoling paw on her shoulder. She turns to him and leans her head against his chest – their most intimate physical contact so far. He looks shocked for a moment, then accepts it and gently holds her. The rest of the movie would use the mirror normally, with Belle and the Beast’s dialogue after the ballroom dance only slightly tweaked to reflect the fact that Belle already knows about the mirror. Also, Belle wouldn’t have the rose rattle from Paris to show Maurice; he’d have to trust her word alone about the Beast’s goodness, as in the animated version.

7. Add more dialogue to Belle and the Beast’s scene after the dance.

I have mixed feelings about the line “Can anybody be happy if they aren’t free?” I appreciate the blatant attempt to avoid accusations of Stockholm Syndrome. But nothing is physically stopping her from leaving the castle, nor has the Beast ever threatened any retribution if she leaves... nor, unlike the animated version, has she promised to stay. In the original film, it’s her promise that keeps her there; not the Beast, but her own sense of honor. But in the remake, she seems to feel like the Beast is forcing her to stay against her will, and it’s not clear why. I’d like to add some dialogue (partly inspired by Megan Kearney’s webcomic) to clarify that she’s making some wrong assumptions about the Beast, in this vein:

        Beast: We’re friends now, aren’t we? If you want to leave... then why haven’t you asked me?

        Belle: Because I couldn’t bear to hear you say ‘no.’

        Beast: (putting on his sassy facade) Or why haven’t you run away? You did it before.

        Belle: Because you would come after me and drag me back, like you tried to do that first night.

        Beast: What are you talking about?

       Belle: Isn’t that why you followed me?

       Beast: Belle, I behaved shamefully that night, and through most of my life beforehand too, but I would never have brought you back against your will. I saw the wolves surrounding you from the castle and I came only to save you.

       Belle: But how can you have seen me? I was already miles away when the wolves appeared!

       (lead-in to the reveal of the magic mirror and Belle seeing Maurice in it)

Between further addressing the Stockholm Syndrome issue, further clarifying the Beast’s behavior in a positive light, and providing an effective new lead-in to the mirror scene, this would have been a vast improvement, IMHO.

8. Let Belle change into practical clothes before riding off to save Maurice.

This only applies if the movie uses the above-mentioned Choice #2: replacing the book with the mirror. If Choice #1 is used and the mirror replaced with the book, then Belle can teleport to the village in her ball gown. But if she’s going to ride her horse through the snow, then she needs to wear something she wouldn’t freeze in! It seems to me that the only reasons why they kept her in the gown were (a) to highlight her urgency, which the animated version never seemed to lack even with a change of clothes, (b) so the yellow would stand out against the snow as the Beast watches her from afar, and (c) to give her the ham-fisted “anti-princess culture” moment of ripping it off and leaving it on the ground when she rides back to the castle. But even if my revision were to use Choice #1 and keep her in the gown and later her underclothes, then she would need to realistically be shivering when she arrived back at the castle and throw a cloak or shawl over her shoulders before the rooftop confrontation. No immunity to snow!

9. Take the castle’s crumbling to its logical conclusion.

The castle’s crumbling a little bit each time a petal falls from the rose would seem to imply that when the last petal falls, the whole castle will crumble to smithereens. But no such thing happens. It really does seem as if the castle only crumbles at all because the writers wanted Gaston to shoot the Beast instead of stabbing him, but needed him to somehow fall to his death without the Beast knocking him off balance while flailing in pain. I say let the whole castle start to crumble after the last petal falls, with Belle sobbing over the Beast’s body all the while, either not realizing or not caring that she’s about to be crushed to death! Yes, that would be dark for a Disney movie, but I don’t think it’s much darker than some of the other new details (Gaston trying to kill Maurice, the Enchanted Objects all “dying,” etc.). Especially if it only lasts a moment before the Enchantress saves everyone.

10. Include some lines and details from the animated version that were cut.

Just a few here and there, please. I can accept that “I just don’t deserve you!” would be out of character for Emma Watson’s Belle, but couldn’t she at least say “Gaston, you are positively primeval!”? Couldn’t they have found some place for Cogsworth to say “If it’s not Baroque, don’t fix it!” too? And why shouldn’t the Beast say “I release you. You are no longer my prisoner” when he lets her go? That line makes it clear that he’s sacrificing all his hopes and doesn’t expect her to come back! Also, why did the writers feel the need for Mrs. Potts to say “Because he loves her” instead of letting the Beast say “Because I love her”? And why did the set designers place Belle and Maurice’s house within the village, not on the outskirts in keeping with their misfit status? I don’t understand these small cuts and changes whatsoever.

11. Add some dialogue to the final scene.

This is a change I wouldn’t mind in the animated version either. Some pre-dance dialogue about the future between Belle, the Prince, and either the servants, Maurice, or even the now-friendly LeFou, to show that Belle and the Prince plan to do more than just be royal. I’d like us to actually learn what the movie storybook says – that they plan to turn the castle library into a school for children. Then Belle would mention that they plan to travel or see the world too. When asked how they’ll possibly have time for that, she’ll reveal that they still have the magic book or mirror and plan to use it. This way, no one will accuse the movie of sweeping Belle’s dreams of adventure aside in favor of romance.

None of these improvements would drastically change the script, but I think they would all be worthwhile. 2017’s Beauty and the Beast is a good movie as is, but with this handful of differences, I think it would have been even better. If anyone else has any other ideas for script revisions, I’d love to hear them!

[theliterateape]

I Shot My Dog in the Eye and All He did was Love Me More

By David Himmel

Today would have been my dog’s 11th birthday. He died on Oct. 29 from prostate cancer. I had his likeness tattooed on my arm in February.

 The plan was to leave early in the morning. That would get us out of the city ahead of the holiday traffic and down to central Illinois to Katie’s parents’ house where we would spend three days leading up to Christmas Day.

The night before, Katie and I hosted our first annual Holiday Party. We called it a “holiday party” because we celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas in our home, and calling it a Christmakkah Party is a stupid thing to do. The party followed the closing night performance of Christmas in Chicago, a comedic musical year-in-review show I co-wrote for the Fine Print Theatre. The party, like the show, was a success. People laughed. People got drunk. We’re 99 percent sure one friend fucked her extremely drunk boyfriend in our bathroom in between bouts of him vomiting in our toilet. Around 3 a.m., we had to politely kick people out.

Because we wouldn’t be home together for Christmas, Katie and I started a tradition that night of opening our gifts to each other and our dog, Eddie, the night before leaving for Christmas with her family. Everyone has a Best Gift of Christmas each year. In 2013, mine was the Retaliator, a totally awesome NERF gun that I think more school shooters should consider using. I was overcome with excitement upon unwrapping it, and immediately took to ripping it out of the box, loading the spring-action clip and blasting Eddie’s stuffed animal toys like the love child of Lee Harvey Oswald and John Rambo.

“Please be careful,” Katie warned. “Don’t shoot Eddie.”

“I’m not an idiot. I’ve handled real guns safely* before, I can handle a NERF gun.” After a few minutes of childish violence with my new toy, we called it a night. We had an early morning and a three-hour drive ahead of us.

When we woke, we were half-way between still drunk and hungover, but we knew we had to get a move on. I took the first shower, then Katie. While she rinsed, I grabbed my new gun. I set up more dog toys around the apartment. Eddie, always the willing playmate, was by my side. He snorted and barked at the toys, and me as they held their positions and I took my aim.

POP! *cock* POP! *cock* POP! *cock* POP! *cock* POP! *cock*

I knocked down every insurgent with extreme prejudice and Wilkes Booth-accuracy. Eddie barked at each shot fired. I cocked the gun one last time and took off down the hallway from our living room — where the carnage occurred — toward our bedroom — where a different kind of carnage occurred (See what I did there?). Eddie was on my heels.

And then he yelped. Screamed, really. You know that horrific sound dogs make when they’re hurt? That’s what Eddie did. I stopped dead in my tracks and turned back to him. He leaped into my arms as I knelt down. Eddie was only 18 pounds but he nearly knocked me over from the force of his jump, then nearly tipped me over from how hard he was leaning into me. As immediately as it happened, Katie, who had been in bliss inside her steamy shower, whipped open the bathroom door and bounded out into the hallway naked as the day she was born, dripping with steamy water and soap suds. Her motherly instinct in full Hulk Mode

“What happened?!” she shrieked.

“I don’t know,” I said. He just—”

“What happened to his eye?!”

I didn’t see it at first because of the way he tucked himself into me but his left eye was alarmingly red and swollen shut.

“Oh God!” I said.

I didn’t mean to do it. Really. It’s not like I took aim at his face and pulled the trigger. Here’s what must have happened: We had slaughtered all the insurgents — me the sniper, Eddie the spotter. We fled our nest and while running down the hallway I accidentally fired off a shot. It either ricocheted off the floor and into his eye or struck him directly from the barrel. Either way, I had shot my dog in the eye and all three of us were in a panic.

Katie grabbed him from my arms. As she carried him into the bedroom, I could see how bad the redness and swelling had become. His right eye — the good one — conveyed his emotions: Scared, hurt, but comforted in mommy’s arms.

Eddie had been through traumatic experiences before. As a puppy, he broke his leg chasing a tennis ball. While living in the South Loop, he got caught in an elevator going up, leash still attached with Katie not in the elevator. Katie would budget one big injury in the vet column of her annual spending spreadsheet for an Eddie mishap

During the latest incident, Katie was calm, cool, collected. She had me get a cold compress — I soaked a washcloth under the kitchen sink faucet. She held it to his face. She and Eddie crawled back into bed. She spooned him with the compress on his eye. She lifted it every few minutes to gauge its progress. When it became clear there was none, she called the vet.

Our instructions were to keep the cold compress on his eye. If the swelling and redness did not go down in an hour, call again, bring him in. It was the longest hour of my life.

Eddie didn’t let out any more yelps. Didn’t cry at all. Katie kept her cool, too, though she was understandably upset with me for accidentally shooting her dog in the eyeball with a NERF gun. I say “her” dog because at that point, Katie and I had been dating 16 months and we had only lived together four months. Eddie and I always got along. But he and Katie had been mom and pup for five years before I came into the picture. We had spent a lot of time together while his mom and I dated but neither of us had become comfortable with him being considered my dog or me his dad.

I didn’t like him much. That’s probably because Eddie was exactly like me.

When Eddie and I first met, I thought he was the strangest looking thing I’d ever seen. He had these long, skinny legs, a pointed snout and, was neurotic and clingy to his human-mother. I didn’t like him much. That’s probably because Eddie was exactly like me. The first time Katie brought him to my apartment, she cooked me dinner while he and I played fetch with the tennis ball. Eddie loved only Katie above his tennis balls. I learned that night that he could play fetch for hours. And part of the game for him was not giving you the ball so you could throw it again. Fetch meets tug of war was how Eddie rolled. He would bring it right to you then sit there with it in his mouth, not letting you take it. I told him to “drop it.”

“He won’t do that,” Katie called from the kitchen, down the long hallway of my bachelor’s apartment to my living room where Eddie and I negotiated. “It’s part of the game for him.”

“I’ll get him to drop it,” I said with a new boyfriend’s confidence.

A half-an-hour or so went by of this struggle of will between Eddie and I. Him withholding the tennis ball, me telling him to “drop it.” Katie brought dinner — a personalized version of my favorite dish from the restaurant where I worked in high school. As we enjoyed it, Eddie and I kept playing the game.

“You have to tell him ‘Night Night’ and just stop playing with him, or he’ll never stop,” she said.

He shoved his tennis ball-stuffed mouth into my hand. “Drop it,” I said. Eddie dropped the ball, took a few steps away from me and sat down. He looked at me with confident eyes and waited for me to make my move.

Katie’s eyes bulged from her head. “What?” she said.

“I told you,” I said with proven new boyfriend’s confidence.

I tossed the ball down the hallway toward the kitchen, and he ran after it, scooped it up off the bounce against the cabinet where I kept my pots and pans then ran it back to me. “Drop it, Eddie.” Dropped. And again, we played our game. Eddie and I were pals from that point on. He was less strange looing, cute even. Handsome. And though still a mama’s boy and neurotic, it was the kind of neurotic I could appreciate.

Katie and Eddie would stay at my place. She’d get up and go to her agency job, Eddie and I would hang back and work from home. He’d sleep on the couch. I felt weird the first time I kissed him on the head. He didn’t seem to mind. We were, after all, pals. At first, I made Eddie sleep in a makeshift dog bed I had fashioned out of an Amazon delivery box, and an old blanket and pillow. I didn’t want him in my bed because I didn’t want dog hair in my bed. What I didn’t know at the time was that Katie was sneaking him into the bed after I’d dozed off then sneaking hi out before I woke up. He was small enough that he didn’t crowd us so I never knew. Eventually, of course, I lifted my dog ban, but I still lint rolled and vacuumed the sheets each morning. They both thought I was crazy, and rightfully so. They should have run for the hills. What kind of man doesn’t let a sweet dog sleep in the bed?

But they didn’t run. They stuck around, housebroke me and convinced me to move in with them. Katie found us a great apartment. My half of the rent was less than what I was paying on my bachelor pad, and I was getting a parking spot, in-unit washer and dryer, garbage disposal, separate bath and shower with jets in both, and so much more than my other place — though I loved it — had to offer. And how did I repay them? I shot Eddie in the eye with a NERF gun.

An hour later, Katie pulled the compress away from Eddie’s eye. What I saw horrified me. The redness and swelling had gone down but the eye itself was a fucking mess. A creamy whiteness filled the area, his pupil was off to the left and it looked like a half moon. I had shot his eye loose in his head. It was floating around like the answers in a magic eight ball at best, a cheap, plastic googly eye at worst. I broke the dog. I began to panic.

I leaped out of the bed where we had all been relaxing and nursing each other. Pacing at the foot of the bed, I spewed fear and regret. Tears filled my eyes.

“I broke him. I broke Eddie. His eye is loose in his head. He’ll never be able to take a cute photo again. He’s a freak! He’s broken! He’s probably blind. This is why… Do you see? This is why I can’t be a father. I’m going to break my kids and I… I can’t handle that. I can’t handle this. OH GOD! Eddie! I’m so sorry! Katie! I’m so sorry! I’m SO SORRY!”

Katie laughed at me.

“Why are you laughing?!”

“Because it’s cute. You love him. And he’ll be fine.”

“How do you know he’ll be fine? Look at him!”

She called the vet again. Katie was concerned about the floating eyeball in her dog’s head, too, but had to keep cool during my meltdown. Nothing good comes from absolute panic. Someone must always be in control despite the madness and fear. This was her time at the helm. Vet told us to come in. I pulled myself together and held Eddie on my lap in the back of Katie’s car as she drove.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I love you, boy, I love you. I’m sorry,” I whispered to him along the way.

The vet examined Eddie. Light in the eye, and all things that you’d expect from an eye exam. “It’s just irritated,” she said. “A little red and swollen but he’ll be OK. Just to be safe, let’s give him some antibiotics. Two drops daily for a week. If it gets worse or doesn’t get better, call us.”

“Wait,” I said. “What about his loose eye?”

“His what?” the vet said, severely confused.

“His loose eye.” She looked at me like I’d just shot heroin through my dick hole. “Look at him. It’s like his pupil is rolled back into his head. Look at all that whiteness in front.”

She looked again. “I don’t see what you mean.”

“How can you not see it? His eye is all… googly. Look! All that white, that white, creamy area, and his pupil is only like showing a quarter as much. What about that?!”

She used the light and reexamined him. She concluded something and stood back for a moment, processing my madness. “Do you mean his third eyelid?”

Katie and I pulled our breaths in. “I don’t know,” I said sternly. “Do I mean his third eyelid?”

The vet pulled Eddie’s eye open for us. “This milky area here? That’s what you’re asking about?”

“Yes!”

“That’s his third eyelid.”

“Dogs have a third eyelid?”

Yes. It comes out when they’re fighting or when distressed. Think of when you have something in your eye and you squint. That’s what their third eyelid does. His eyeball isn’t loose. He’s fine.”

So apparently, dogs have three eyelids. Take note, y’all.

We, of course, didn’t leave for central Illinois as planned. This was my second Christmas with Katie’s family and I didn’t think I was setting a good example of the kind of person I was. Or, perhaps I was setting a highly accurate example: an immature, emotional lunatic who knew fuck all about dogs’ eyeballs. Christ, Katie’s sister-in-law was a vet tech. I was a fool.

After the vet, we returned home and continued resting. Katie and I began a three-week long binge of The Wire. By that evening, Eddie was feeling much better and his third eyelid had receded back into his head, wherever the fuck third eyelids live. We managed to take a photo of the three of us with our Christmas tree. If you look closely at it, you can see Eddie in a half-wink. That’s because his left eye was still a little sore and swollen.

I was careful not to claim Eddie as my dog. He and Katie had been together five years. I was the new guy. But Katie, by the time we moved in together, was OK with it. I mean, we did split his vet bills and his food bills and his toy bills. And I was the father figure in his life. Katie will tell you that he even started playing differently after my influence took hold. He growled more. Good or bad, that’s my doing. Thing is, Eddie saw me as his dad — or owner, if you want to avoid the personification of animals.

Before heading off for a week-long road trip to Toronto, Katie and I attempted to leave Eddie in the care of a dogsitter. We stopped by a few days before takeoff to test the waters. While Katie was talking to the sitter, I hung back and watched Eddie engage with the other dogs. One big bastard started fucking with him. Eddie was a tough dude in his own territory — our living room, yard and local dog park. No fear. Total badass. But he was, like his human mother, in new situations shy at first, sometimes unsure. And this dog rubbed Eddie the wrong way. Usually, Eddie would bolt to mommy because he was, through and through, a mama’s boy. Instead, he ran to me. He saw me as his defender, the guy who would keep him safe, even after I shot him the eyeball with a NERF gun.

We didn’t leave him there. He spent the week with friends who had a dog Eddie appreciated and vice versa.

Eddie and I became best pals. My grandfather had this thing with us grandkids called the Pals Club. It was created as a way to form a behavioral alliance, and it worked. I have carried on the tradition, though I’ve turned it into less a controlling club of exclusivity and more a club of true friendship. Eddie was my best pal and VP of our two-person/dog Pals Club chapter. There were times when Katie would get jealous of our time together. She was always number one in his world, but I was a close third, behind the tennis balls, of course. Eddie joined me on walks when I was stressed. He came to (dog-friendly) bars with me to drink. He watched Marvel movies and PBS documentaries with me. He snuggled with me in bed and on the couch in my office. A couch that was my grandfather’s and smelled of his pipes that Eddie loved — a couch that has become just as much Eddie’s as it was my grandfather’s. I’ll bury my nose in that couch now and smell both my grandfather and my dog, and it’s wonderful.

Eddie was there when I married his mom. Unrelated, Eddie was there when I hit a terrible turd of depression and wept into his neck and back for at least 45 minutes before I could come up for air. And he just sat there, hugging me, not moving, just being there. He was exactly what was needed. Eddie helped me come to terms with being domesticated and was always a moral compass when Katie and I would have a fight. Eddie was absolute righteousness.

That’s the thing about dogs; they are both your babies and your best friends. And you are both their parent and their best friend. You don’t have that with anything else. It’s a complicated but inherently simple relationship.

I had a dog growing up, and I loved, and still love, that dog incredibly. But Eddie was different. Where Max was my brother dog, and lived among a family with parents and three idiot boys, Eddie was my responsibility. He was my child. And yes, I know how annoying that sounds. Keep in mind that I’d never, ever call him a “furbaby.” That kind of shit is awful. But he was more than my child, and I was more than his dad. He was my dog and I was his person.

That’s the thing about dogs; they are both your babies and your best friends. And you are both their parent and their best friend. You don’t have that with anything else. It’s a complicated but inherently simple relationship.

When I met Katie and Eddie, I did not want love or domestication or marriage or children or responsibility. They broke me. I don’t know that Katie could have done it alone. Maybe, but it would have been a lot harder for her, which is saying something because I did not make it easy

I realize it’s a stupid thought, but whenever I imagined mine and Katie’s future, Eddie was always a part of it. Through the birth of our kids to their graduation from journalism school to my disappointment that they followed in their father’s footsteps to the birth of our grandkids… Eddie was always in the picture. Of course, dogs die. But Eddie was such an integral part of Katie that to consider her without him was to deny Katie’s existence in those imaginations. Katie and Eddie were E.T. and Elliot. Sympatico. Beautifully co-dependent.

That’s part of what remains so special about Eddie; he was Katie’s heart. My god, the two of them… The universe rose and set for them both around the other. If you ever saw them together, you know just want I mean. Since Eddie died, this house, as much fun as we might have, as much joy as Harry has brought to it, it’s not the same. Eddie is always missing.

Dogs are something special… All of them. Always. Eddie was more to me. More to us. Some might laugh. I don’t care. Fuck ’em. They never played tennis ball fetch with Eddie or taught Eddie to dig or made him into a boat dog or snuggled with him or watched how he gazed at Katie or tried to insert himself in human activities like gin rummy card games. Anyone who thinks I’m silly never knew Eddie.

And they certainly never saw how I shot him in the eye and only then did both of us realize that we were best pals, trusted confidants, human-father and dog-son.

My first — and currently only — tattoo is of Eddie. An illustration Katie made 10+ years ago when he was just a puppy. When I miss him, I look at my forearm and I see his face. And I see all our times together. I can hear him and feel him and smell him. Sometimes I smile. Sometimes I cry. Because I miss Eddie.

I miss his silliness. I miss his companionship. I miss him and Katie. I am sad that Katie is without her heart. And yes, I’m comfortable knowing that I’ll always be second chair in her heart. It goes Eddie; Harry, our son; me. As more kids come along, maybe they bump me. I doubt any dogs will, but maybe. And when those new dogs come, they’ll be loved. But they won’t be loved like Eddie. Not any less, just different. Because those dogs will have Katie and I from the start. They’ll have Harry. Harry… You better believe we have photos of Eddie in Harry’s room. He needs to know who Eddie is/was just as much as he needs to know his great grandfathers and his aunt Jenny and his dad’s best friend Mike who are also gone from this mortal world.

Eddie and Harry did know each other, sort of. One night, the two of them had a kicking match against Katie’s belly. Eddie on the outside, Harry on the in. It was hell for Katie but a riot for me. I like to think there was serious conversation happening. Yeah, it’s silly to think that way, but it makes us feel better, so blow me.

Eddie would have been 11 years old today. He shares a birthday with two really good friends. Today was the same day my first book was published. It’s my brother’s birthday. It’s four days before my birthday. Eddie and I shared a birthday celebration. I liked that about us. It was perfectly Himmel as this time of the year is busy with Himmel birthdays.

Our days are filled with threats and bad news and confusion. Among all that, if you can get your hands on an Eddie, you might not feel so bad. I wish everyone could have an Eddie. The world would be a better place with more Eddies. In my experience, Eddies are heart warmers. Heart healers. And my Eddie was my best pal. And I miss him terribly. Eddie loved with his entire being. He was sometimes choosey about who got it, but when he gave it, he gave it all, otherwise, he was perfectly polite and charming. Eddie remains my emotional support animal. And because he’s tattooed on my arm, I have no trouble bringing him with me wherever I go. 

And because he’s tattooed in my heart, well… That just makes everything easier. Eddie was special not because he was a dog, but because of the dog he was.

Still, I miss my boy everyday in terrible ways and am so grateful I got to know a dog like Eddie and that Katie brought him to me and that he let me fall in love with Katie. And that he he let me fall in love with him. And so grateful that he fell in love with me, too.

*Never mind that one time I almost shot my grandfather in the back with a .410 shotgun.

Watch Eddie in an episode of the award-winning webseries, Greetings! From Prison.