#next five episodes seemed to be loaded with plot lines

[nightowlstardust]

Might be just wishful thinking but

I really really hope that stolas never comes to know about blitz being sold to be his playmate 25 years ago. Or that blitz tried to sneak into his bedroom only to nick the grimoire.

Ok maybe that sounds wrong, and probably he is going to find out, but I hope that it happens atleast after they (maybe?) get together. Cause I know it would be very hard for stolas to digest such information, and I need to see blitz comfort him.

Gahhh i just can’t see my boy sad and depressed any more >:(

[ninja-knox-ur-sox-off]

ALRIGHTY’S I KNOW ITS BEEN A HOT SEC I’VE BEEN GONE CAMPING AMONGST THE TREES AND THEN OPENED COMMISSIONS BUT NOW IT IS FINALLY TIME TO SIT DOWN FOR ANOTHER KNOX REACTS. WHATS UP ON THE MENU TONIGHT?

MONKIE KID SEASON 5 EPISODE 3

(spoilers ahead if you haven’t seen it)

Yeah alright, lets see what we got here title be TEMPLE OF THE GODDESS. Sounds cool sounds neat, is this gonna be Nuwa’s first appearance then? or like… i assumed she’d show up later ngl if at all, sets have a habit of adding characters that never show up sometimes— AHEM

.

ACTUALLY THIS FEELS A BIT SURREAL LIKE RIGHT THERE’S MONKIE KID EPS OUT THAT’S CRAZY HELPGLKMAF;LKSDF

Let’s see how I do after two weeks of semi-fresh slightly smokey tree air—

theme song my beloved, oh yes okay the three weeks did something i’m almost used to the animation difference i think it’s settled we’re good i can react primarily to the story now WHEEZELKGJASL;KDF

OHH OHH OKAY IT MIGHT JUST BE THE TWO WEEKS BUT SANDY SOUNDS A LOT MORE SANDY NOW, hang on lemme pull up ep 2 i’m curious

ah hm and nope nvm relistened again, its like… y’know if you’ve ever gone on like a sound music app thingie like garage band or something and you up the tenor and get rid of some of the base, Sandy’s voice sounds kinda off that way, he’s more nasally and not as rumbly? HEY I’M ABLE TO ARTICULATE NOW LETS GOOOOOO

Anyway tho back to react lesgolesgolesgo

Mk, my lad, you are indeed moving from one apocalypse to the next but if it’s all leading up to destiny then i’m sure it’ll be like PSYCH IT’S BEEN THIS ONE GUY PULLING THE STRINGS ALL ALONG— or something like that that’d be funny

Hm, I wonder if the five coloured stones have a name like the Samadhi fire does.

W O O F (ouch) yeah some of the movements still make me feel like i’m sitting in front of my grandparents TV watching treehouse or something :[ It’s kinda like… it’s not bad its just very much used for a specific type of show usually and monkie kid isn’t that type of show to me so it’s claaaashing so bad AHA I AM ABLE TO ARTICULATE! Whaddayaknow the three week break did wonders for me actually we’re loving this YEAAAAAA

Wukong rubbing his head where the circlet is while he talks is MMHM <3 Wowza!!

HM! Tang sounds muffled! Once again i gotta go back and reply to understand what’s being said THIS IS TRAGIC THIS IS A NEW EXPERIENCE FOR ME USUALLY MONKIE KID IS SO CRYSTAL CLEAR I HEAR WHAT’S BEING SAID RIGHT OFF THE BAT (only mis-hearing once in a blue moon) I do like how Pigsy is shaped in this frame <3

Sniffs. I was gonna say they are indeed reusing the samadhi rings plot line again of like, wow we gotta find this thing! but hey this time they don’t have a map! It’s different [winks at camera] LOL no tho fr it’s kinda interesting to see them using the same theme in different fonts. Like the goal is different, Samadhi fire was beat the lady bone demon and the stones is seal he heavens but it is a very similar plot to have so close to the other season. I mean there was a 1 season break in-between tho so PFF that’s probably good enough MOVING ON

Okay hmhm, Pigsy’s “what about the thing where” is super like muffled to me? And quiet, like they turned down the volume on his audio and then cranked it up immediately at the “WE DON’T KNOW WHERE THESE STONES ARE.” on second listen now that i know what’s gonna be said it’s not so bad, but it also just seems very kinda slurred together almost?? It feels like it was done in two separate takes and pasted together almost. I had to pause and be like huh!!! weird!! usually there’s a bit of a pause between Pigsy’s quiet and then loud bit to my memory, he’s done this kind of thing before but the audio volume is just so wildly different—might just be my version of the show tho!

Oof yeah, the music and audio of mk talking after it are wildly different volumes, and these are my good headphones WOUGH THIS IS BRUTAL

still chilling in the good vibes tho, fresh air does a load of good

Actually, fantastic plan mk, ask someone who knows, mind blowing for these guys, when have they ever— //j/jj

Is that how you say her name? NuWAH? I do it more of like a… NAHwah? maybe? ??? NeWAH HGLKJSDF

Mk and Mei getting hyped bless <3333

….tang bro you guys have walked through lava so many times by now I don’t see why you’re loosing your mind— GHL;AKSDJFSADF

they’ve cracked the code, if you want to distract Tang from doom spiraling just ask him to info dump and you’re good!! Still whatever with the visuals of that gag ngl but i do appreciate the verbal comedy

Okay, who do those highly stylish eyebrows belong too? Actually hello?? this might be my favourite frame in the show so far it looks so nice?? I LIKE A FRAME IN SEASON 5 LESGOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

“There’s always a temple”

“Mhm, yeah, mhm”

Yeah its like all the voices lost their bass, their growl, their RUMBLE. Nah the Pigsy Mei moment was cute tho bless

Tang. You have. Been around the Samadhi fire. Yeah okay trauma fire, without getting literal ab—TANG YOU LITERALLY SAMADHI FIRE??? THAT’S LITERAL FIRE PLS HGLK;SFJA;OWIEFM AND FAR MORE DANGEROUS THAN REGULAR FIRE??? MY GOOD SIR??? Priorities—

AHAHAHA Darn right, I know Ashe likes their “LEGOOOO”’s, fantastic that is becoming part of my speech un-ironically thanks to them HGLASJDF You know what yeah this feels like Ashe’s writing “Sounds like Tang’s on board!” yeah hGLK;SJDFSD

SANDY’S VOICE ALMOST SOUNDED RIGHT THERE

GODS WE’RE SO CLOSE [clenches fist]

That little transition noise had a good base—

Wow speediy AHAHAHAHAHA STAIRS

YESSSSSSSSS

Okay, Okay mk’s little NNOOOooooooooo…. was pretty funny hGL;KJSFD;LJSADF Bro just yeah, nods nods that’s how stairs feel fr :pensive_emoji:

The music kinda drowns out what Sandy says for a second RAAAAA

ALPINE SANDYGNL;DKFMSADF

nice

Why do you need a hook the stairs are right there—

Oh pls make Tang climb don’t carry him pls make him climb plsplsplsplsplsplspls PLEASE MAKE HIM AND HIS WEAK ANKLES CLIMB I’M BEGGING YOU—

Oh

Oh yeah okay good call actually I take it back teleportation is actually a good ideaHGKL;ASJDFSDF

AS FUNNY AS TANG CLIMBING WOULD BE

.

I feel like tang’s old man back would snap under mei—

DID HE JUST UYEET THATLGKMD;LFKSD

oh he can slip it back

CHEATINGLKSDMFASLD;MF

Cant’ use magic or tracking

….. AND THEN USES HIS CLOUD GLKMDFA;OMFIWEF

CHOKINGL;KSDFMASDF

ONLY TAKES MK

I’m telling ya man Sun Wukong’s one and only priority is that kid

…. is mk and wukong ditching the rest of the crew gonna be a theme this season— HGLKJASD;FKASD

TANG N O

TANG

NO

LEAVE THE PIG MAN ALOOOOOONE

DARN RIGHT YOU AIN’T CARRYING HIM TANG HE’S HALF YOUR SIZE— (not to say that I don’t believe Pigsy is stronk and buff ask heck but STILL)

The way Wukong keeps touching the circlet is a neat detail ngl I’m STILL salty about how it went on but its FIINNEEEEE

MK

W H A T

BROTHER HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU CHEATED AT STUFF, TAKE ME BACK TO THE SKELETON KEY WHEN HE BYPASSED LEVELS IN VIDEO GAMES AND STOLE THINGS AND WENT ON A WILD CRAZY RUN WITH MEI?? I mean you could say character development BUT PLS WDYMMMMMMMM

Okay “LOOPHOLES BABY” is absolutely delightful and I will be quoting that for the rest of my life for no reason i just think he’s delightful

they almost made him squishy good effort wild brain ;-;7 i salute you

Ashe, I love your sense of humour—

“THIS PROVES NOTHING—“

Oh so the eyebrows are a BIRD ;-; ok i was like owaa new design? cool character? no :pensive_emoji: its a bird :pensive_emoji: that’s okay i’m sure the bird is lovely too ;-; TBF the bird probably would ave appeared anyways

Why is the bird growling HLGKJA;WOEFJSDF

Ooo fire blasts!

Isn’t shielding the fire using magic—?

….bro

CRACKS KNUCKLES

COOL YEAH IMPLICATIONS SINCE THAT WASN’T MAGIC EVEN IF IT HAD THE MAGIC SOUND EFFECT ITS JUST SWK USING HIS BODY TO SHEILD MK AND NOTHING ELSE YEAH I’M NORMAL AND FINE DON’T TOUCH ME

oooooo touchy wall, get pulled in, MK YOU’RE HOOOMEE <3 probably, I don’t know I assume Nuwa would be like wassup brrooo <333 since she’s the one who made him maybe its unclear still but we’ll worry about that when we get to it

Tilting my head. eh, no particular feelings over mk mimicking wukong ngl shrugs

Oooo Nuwa’s place looking a little worse for wear

Bro she’s legit a snake—

Just casually smashing things

Ooo OI TILTED ANGLE COUNTER GOING UP

Sniffs.

She made monkeys! :D Oh yeah and humans ig—

Oh come on don’t show me flying bark PLEAAASE I’M BEGGING YOU ON MY KNEES EVEN IF ITS TRACED DON’T SHOW IT TO MEEEEEE

Bro having flashes once again and going iTS NOTHIINNN DW ABOUT IIIIT

Okay big ol prophecy painting with the face scratched out that’s silly

HELPGKLMASFSAD

CLASSIC FINAL BOSS AESTHETIC HGL;KSDFMASDF

…..

Way to change the topic wukong

OH i kinda almost like how mk looks in that frame the “answers ain’t in this room” one its so close ;-;

Ig they both know who its supposed to be :T

Ahem okay so this is gonna be a prophesy destiny season alrighty cool cool cool

Sniffs. I feel like the coming down in a beam of light to people reaching up to him is probably misleading given the whole harbinger of chaos thing so maybe Mk’s like, how’s you say this… bam bam boom whack wowza rip the world ig :pensive_emoji:

WHO KNOWS

ANYWAY

Oh mk says “fair point” when monkey king says the final boss thing that’s funny OUGH I WISH I COULD HEAR AND PROCESS THIS IS KILLING ME A BIT

aw lets focus up ;-; i like him

STOMPY STOMPY

Bro those are traps—

MONKEY KINGS FACE GLKASMFSD

yeah

Mk’s steamrolling huh

BBQ’d 2.0

Indiana Jones’ing it MONKEY KING TAKING THE BR

SHUT UP HE LOOKS LIKE BURNT MARSHMALLOW WUKONG EVERYBODY SHUT UP TAHT’S MY DESIGN THAT’S MY BOY

bet you didn’t expect me to fixate on bbq’d wukong huh—

He’s just

on his cloud

MANYMANY DADS

HE SAID IT

HELPGLKMASFASDF

I’m hoping its dads and i’m not mishearing deaths hG;LKJSADF

MONKEY KING WITH STUFF STICKING OUT OF HIMGLMFLKSDF

Lava or axe’s nice

NOOO MK’S MCGUFFIN;SLDKFMA;OEFWN;AWENF;OAWG;KMFLASDMFS MCGUFFINS I’M CRYINGLKSDFMASDFS I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE ASHE YOU’RE FUNNY OKAYGLKMSFSD

Aw that’s cute

“three times actually” smug look at the camera

“first time was just the city don’t get cocky”

I’m liking a lot of the dialogue in this ep a lot more than the first two ngl feels more monkie kid but HEY ITS ASHE SO THAT MAKES SENSEG;LKSMDFSD

I love Wukong telling Mk this ngl

“look i don’t know how many times you gotta learn this—“

A lot monkey king

a lot more times— HGL;KASJDF

Seems like Mk’s getting worn down by the whole destiny thing and its probably gonna end up being something he doesn’t like or something

Monkey king: USE YOUR ABLITY TO MAKE CHOICES

Mk: :(

oUGH

OUGH

NAILING IT

ON MY HANDS AND KNEES THANK YOU ASHE FOR WRITING THE CHARACTERS I LOVE, THAT WAS PLAYING DUMB TO LIGHTEN THE MOOD DONE WELL WAILS

MAAAN

Sniffs okay okay

oooo STARS

FANCY

“I can sense it”

“What fr???”

that’s funny and also ominous

a lot of “i can feel it”’s going around here hLKG;JASDF

Bro fr i thought it’d be another map—

They’re goofy

Ohhhh OHH I get it, the bird is the

stone

yeah

that makes sense

stone bird

so all the stones are those creatures at the start

and merged together they’re that giant chimera freaky creature plus whatever snake guy lego set dude merged together

.

maybe

so stones together in fact busts stuff up fr?

AYO? WHY’S THE BIRD DOING A LADY BONE DEMON THING

OH THEY HOVERING NOW

Hi Nuwa

I’m sorry i never got to see flying bark animate you ;-;

OKAAAY I gotta process all that

So it’s definitely gonna be like a keep the universe from getting destroyed thing, but also probably a fake out of he’s meant to destroy it or something because PSYCH YOU THOGUHT WE WERE GONNA BE STRAIGHTFORWARD—or something like that final answer (its not my final answer i’ll come up with something better later maybe)

The phoenix sounds like somebody trying to sound Chinese

….

jurys still out on whether they succeeded or not

coughs

Mk sacrifice his existence?

Okay i do like the um… difference in responses from mk and wukong “—to save the world?” and Mk’s like D: and wukong’s like >:[ more like. feels like he’s going AHA YEHA NOT GONNA LET THAT HAPPEN BRO— conviction nuh-uh kinda vibe maybe

SIGHS

mEI STILL SOUNDS OFF TO ME I DON’T WANT HER TOO BUT RAAAAAAAAA Save me guys take me back to when i wouldn’t notice this ;-; make me into one of those people who everyone sounds the same to or something (pls don’t i like being able to decipher voices) MAAAN good voice acting still tho, good yell, well done

Circlet used to keep monkey king down so he can’t save mk real?

Dang they really spoiling the end of the season here—well if it actually goes like this, mk never got engulfed in fire like the lady bone demon claimed he would so this might not even happen lol

“Your hearts have been measured”

Swk: OKAY FIGHT TIME BECAUSE AIN’T NO WAY I PASSED THAT—

Swk do you need to sit down and talk about it buddy? :( ?

And poof gone==oh those are pretty big

HA

Trial after all

True true mentor stuff still stands

hmhm no thoughts!

WHY IS HIS MONKEY FORM ALL EVIL SMILEY

PIGSY YOU DID NOT CARRY HIM

PIGSY

P I G S Y

Mk: [another crisis]

Okay no fr respectfully someone needs to throw tang down the stairs GET OFF MY MAAAAN

Swk felt very silly goofy in this episode

It does kinda feel like he’s helping Mk avoid what he doesn’t want to think about now, which, is interesting!

DID TANG JUST TELL DADSY TO MUSH

TANG W H Y

I GET ITS FOR THE RUNNING GAG BUT W H YYYYYYY

This is p interesting tho, this episode definitely felt more like monkie kid to me, it’s still just MAN is it missing the heart and soul flying bark brought and I’m still having a lot of trouble processing the audio to an almost ridiculous degree of the amount of times i have to go back and replay and not to enjoy a line but to actually hear it regardless of how much i have my sound turned up so there’s still some OOF stuff but all in all the gags on this one were good and my three weeks away have helped me put enough distance between the animation and me that i can actually kinda watch it now!! LEGOOOO

Next reaction ep hopefully coming sometime this week so until then KNOX OUT BABYYYYY

[honesthammie]

From my prompt list:

4) After reaching your 16th birthday you gain the ability to see everyone's red strings of fate and on your 18th you finally get to see yours, except yours dissappears into the ground/sky.

Fandom:Doctor who

Pairing: 13 x gender neutral reader

This is my first fic on tumblr. I know its hella long and not all of my fics will be like this. This came to me from a dream I had recently. I love Jodie and I decided to write the spider episode from a different perspective. I may have change the episode slightly to fit the reader. I am thinking of doing a part 2 but it may be a while before I do as I have deadlines and stuff to keep up with. The next part may be more fluff between 13 and yourself. I know this didn't have much but it's something. I'm also sorry to any Americans reading this, I love yas but its just the personality I put to go with the readers personality. I'm also sorry for any spelling mistakes as I'm doing this on my phone.

Summary: spider episode with a small change I'm plot to accommodate your beautiful self in this fic

Warnings: slight description of a couple of panic/anxiety attacks, swearing and a bit of angst. Long intro for small fluff. And it's a part 1 do I guess a small cliffhanger is a warning?

Beep beep beep. Your alarm starts blaring in your ears, waking you up with a start. You glare at the interrupting machine before turning it off. After such a crazy night, you did not want your sleep so rudely interrupted. Why did you have a crazy night? It's your 18th birthday today and your friends decided to visit your place for a little house party, last night, to celebrate and now you have a pounding headache.

You groaned as you realised, you would need to take some pain meds before you even think about going back to sleep. Slipping out of your bed, you walk to the bathroom and find the cupboard with all sorts of medicinal and bathroom bits and bobs. You then grab the glass that you placed there in preparation for the definite hangover. The glass was a little cold to the touch but you filled it with some cool water from the sinks tap.

You took two, just so you could have a longer sleep. You waddle back into your bedroom and just as you get comfy, you widen your eyes at the memory. You needed to see your mother today, she said she had a gift for you but she would only be at home until 11. You looked at the machine that you hated for the time. It was currently 10:05. You jumped to your feet and rush to get ready.

As you walked outside, you saw the regular red strings that you saw everyday. Why do you see strings? You honestly didn't know, but you knew their purpose, it helped match 2 soulmates together. But something seemed a little off, there was no one on the street anymore, so why could you still see one line of destiny? You decided to follow the string south, down to your own (s/c) hand which was now slightly shaking at the sight.

"Fuck. Fuck,fucky fucking fuck. Why now? Why me? What the shit is going on with me?" You curse to yourself. You could feel your breath getting rapid and your head started spinning slightly. You quickly unlocked your car and sat down to help calm you down. You took a few deep breaths and focused on your senses.

When you eventually calmed down, you decided to look at where the string led. Oh, how you shouldn't have looked. It didn't go in any way of a compass, it went straight up and past the clouds. How? You had so many questions but you had to focus on the day ahead.

You had been to your mothers house and collected your new (fave game series) and your card. You were incredibly thankful as you have been saving up to buy it for yourself one day. You had played the previous games and loved every one of them and to say you were excited was an understatement. You almost ran back into your place if it wasn't for needing the key to access the gates.

Living in a gated community helped you feel a lot safer but it did also make you a big target for thieves to practise picking locks. No one had figured out where the hidden camera that kept alerting the authorities was though. Even you have tried put of plain curiosity but you got stumped after the 10th day of searching. You were sure you looked in every possible hiding spot, yet the camera always seemed to evade you in the pointless game of hide and seek.

As you unlocked the gate, you felt a twitch on your finger. The string was moving down and at a very fast pace, almost falling speed. You looked up and saw a small black dot heading towards the ground, if thats your soulmate, they would certainly be dead the second they meet their fate. When you could no longer see the dot, you kept your eyes glued to the string, waiting for it to disappear like everyone else's did when a soulmate died.

After five minutes, the string was still there and was still as red as ever, like no harm had come to them. But thats not possible. No creature could survive that especially from that great a height! You were beyond curious and quickly went into your living room and searched on all your social media for anyone else that may have spotted the dot in the sky, yet no one had but you knew (b/f) had another massive fight with their roommate, Stella, over whose turn it was to do the dishes again.

If you didn't know that Stella was in a relationship with another, you would have sworn those two were in a relationship. You giggled at the silly thought, "if Stella ever goes through a break up with her, I'm totally gonna set those two up."

You give up on finding anything out today, maybe it'll be on the news tomorrow and you set off to go on an online shopping spree, you had a few codes and now, thanks to your wonderful mother, had a little cash to spare and you did see that gorgeous top on sale. Once you had spent the day either shopping or gaming you decided to head to bed but you couldn't stop thinking about that dot and what the red string meant for you.

When your alarm had went off, you hit it and got dressed for your new job at some hot shot posh hotel run by an aspiring American with High expectations and little experience with Sheffield. You had been told you wouldn't get to meet him much and you were beyond fine with that, you hated Americans, simply because you hated violence and guns were the big no on your weaponry list of avoidance. You didn't mind weapons in video games, those were harmless to the outside world. You didn't mind verbal violence though, it was all you had to defend yourself with and in Sheffield, that was better than nothing. You were very short tempered when it came to your anger but you found that it was either verbal or physical, you chose to be verbal.

You looked at your phone for any messages from (b/f) and had a good luck message. You replied with a smiley face and a "ill need all the luck I can get. I've heard from a few employees that he can be a real asshole for no reason and fires people just because they made eye contact for too long. It's like he suspects someone is out for his blood."

After 2 minutes you received a reply from from them. "You better be on your best behaviour then, young lady!"

"That's the problem. I wonder what the record is for the quickest a person has got fired? Because I may break that, you know me! I don't exactly do as I'm told, that's why finding a job has been so hard. Anyway, I best get ready, gotta look the part! First impressions and all!" You replied with a nervous face. What you failed to notice was the red string no longer pointing towards the sky and you were making it shorter with every step you took. You did give up on finding out about the strange dot and came to the assumption that it fell in a lake, there were plenty of them around.

You walked into the swanky looking hotel and noticed the cobwebs that definitely were not there two days ago when you had your interview, yet they looked like they had been there for weeks. You would have put it down to Halloween decorations if it wasn't for the fact that it was June. You decided to not ask in case this was some sort of strange new American trend that your boss was following to help bring in the youth. It does help make it fit into Sheffield a lot more with the run down and abandoned look. It would need some rust, water damage, mold and cracks to finish the look but it was a start. If you had to be honest, the spider webs helped bring the place together. It was way too posh for Sheffield but you had to lie and say you love it in order to get hired. Just from that lie alone you knew exactly the personality of your boss, arrogant, vain and ignorant.

"Hello, you must be my new helper! I'm Najia, your second in command here. As you can see, there are loads of spider webs so they should be priority. If you could start cleaning in the south west second floor and continue that floor, that would be amazing. Now here's your cleaning trolley and if you happen to finish the floor early, send me a little message through the walkie talkie and I'll give you another room or floor. Do you have any questions?" Najia spoke softly. She seemed lovely and it was shame that she had to be in a place that would get more damage than its worth.

"Just one question: why so many spider webs?"

"I don't know, they just seemed to have appeared, I thought it was silly string from some teenagers that managed to break in somehow but it is actual spider web. It wasn't here when I left last night. I guess I'll have to ask someone about that."

And with that you separated and got to your floor when you finally noticed a slight burning sensation on your finger, it wasn't hurtful. It was like putting the finger in a really hot bath. You looked down and noticed it now pointed downhill and seemed to be glowing a shade of gold ever so gently that you would miss it if the weird sensation didn't make you look.

You left your trolley outside a toilet to make it seem like you were in there when really you had wondered off to follow the string. You would probably lose yourself in the maze of hallways that all looked the same as the last if the string didn't help lead you to a ballroom. You opened the door and instantly screamed. A giant spider was walking towards you, however you couldn't get out, you had used a staff door which needed a key card to use from this side as the other side still needed to be fitted and you left yours in the trolley, near the toilets. And the massive spider seemed to be blocking the other way out so you were trapped.

You weren't scared of spiders but seeing them at the size of a van did intimidate you. You started shaking from fear of what it would do to you. Out of pure instinct, you put your hand out to protect yourself and the sound of 8 legs against wooden flooring had ceased. The only sound was your laboured breathing. It stayed like this for what seemed like hours but in actuality was only 5 minutes. You opened your eyes slowly to see 8 more stare right back. 8 eyes that showed fear but no intention of harm. Instead the spider gave you space to breathe by walking back a few feet. Then it seemed to be watching you, studying your next move to see if you were a threat and whether or not it should kill you.

You stayed still for a moment, wrapping your head around what had just happened before gently walking towards the creature with both hands forward to show them clean of weapons. You decided to try and speak to the spider to see if it can understand you.

"Hello. I'm new around here, I'm sorry if I'm trespassing on your area, I wasn't aware of you being here to be honest. I mean you no harm, if anything, I want to help you but unfortunately, I'm stuck in here aswell." You spoke carefully as if it was a child that was afraid. You gently put your hand in its head and it seemed to understand your good intentions and your situation as it let you pet it. Now you were close, you started to admire it and realised it wasn't poisonous or venomous, it was just a regular house spider. But you couldn't figure out how or why it got this big but it did explain the cobwebs everywhere.

You had been with the spider for hours and it seemed like Najia either didn't care or has gotten fired as she hasn't asked about you. You had spent the time talking or singing to the spider. She, as you found out after looking it up, seemed to put her body around you to protect you. You had even met a couple of her children as they gave you food from the cafeteria to nibble on when your stomach growled.

Eventually the burning on your fingers turned up massively and was causing you pain. The spider seemed to sense this and wrapped her web around your finger to help cool it down a little. It didn't help but you showed gratitude anyway as she was only trying to help in anyway she could. You gave her a small smile and her eyes seemed to show sympathy in return.

Then the doors opened again and the sound of several feet walked in. "Oh thank god. I thought I was never going to be found in here." You thought to yourself as you heard the voices mumble to each other and probably about Betty and what's the best way to get rid of her. You would have paid more attention if your finger didn't feel like it had caught fire and was tight as if your soulmate was amongst those that had walked in.

Now you were nervous. How would you introduce yourself? What did they look like? Were they male or female, not that you really cared? So many questions made you feel lightheaded so you grabbed onto Betty to keep yourself planted.

Then the door opened again and a familiar voice echoed in the hall and you knew exactly how he'd want to deal with Betty and after your bond today, you would rather die than her. She was obviously innocent here and maybe the others could see it. Then you heard the familiar click of a gun safety being taken off and your body reacted before your mind did and you jumped in front of her to stop him, although you had a feeling it wouldn't, but it was worth a shot for the others to stop him.

"Don't you fucking dare shoot that gun Dickhead! Not without going through me!" You spoke with fire in your eyes and maybe a slight mix if fear aswell. That's when you looked over at the new group of people. They all seemed trustworthy enough.

There was Najia, who welcomed you here earlier and she looked sad, so she had definitely been fired. Then there was another woman who looked a lot like her, you guessed she was a daughter or something and she was pretty and definitely somone with authority with the way she stood and held herself, maybe she is a police officer? A man who looked as though he was in his 50s and definitely did not belong in this weird group. A young man who looked of a similar age to the police woman, maybe they are friends.

Then you laid your eyes on one of the most beautiful woman, no, human, you had ever seen and would probably never see again. She had short blonde hair in a bob. They seemed to be brunette at the root. She had beautiful chocolate honey eyes that glimmers with so much emotion and age well beyond her years, like she had experienced thousands of years before this moment. You also noticed her odd sense of style but you admired her boldness and it did look amazing on her. You decided she could only be described as sunshine and rainbows.

Then you noticed her hand And a familiar red string that was also glowing a beautiful subtle gold. Like millions of tiny golden stars circled around the string in a beautiful dance of love. Your eyes started to follow the string down and back to your own. She was your soulmate. That goddess that stood before you, was to be yours forever some day.

Then you looked into her hypnotic eyes before you remembered where you were and what situation you were in. And you realised everyone was staring at you for your previous action towards a spider.

"If you want to keep your job, I'd suggest you move out of the way silly girl!" Your boss grumbled in a threatening tone.

"Nope. You are about to hurt an innocent creature that is stuck and terrified. You built on top of landfill and didn't bother to check and thought of no consequences. This is your fault. Is this how you would treat a child that was a mistake after a one night stand or something? Would you shoot a child that had no choice?" You spoke with confidence yet more nerves now she was there listening to every word. When he didn't answer you shouted "Answer me! Would you shoot your mistake of a child?"

He glared at you. "This is different. This is an animal. A pest. It needs to be killed so more can't be born! I made my mistake and now I'm fixing it!" He bellowed just seconds before a shot was made from his gun. You had expected pain but instead you heard a horrible shriek from behind you.

You quickly turned around and petted her whilst whispering sweet words as she took her last breath. You stood up and made your way over to the murderer. You couldn't stand him and you were so tempted to take his gun and shoot him with it, but you didn't. With fire in your eyes and pure hatred, you slapped him hard enough to leave a mark and maybe a bruise as a reminder of his shitty choices. "You can't fire me because I fucking quit you arrogant dick! She had caused no harm to you or I and I'm sure if you would have sorted it sooner, so many more lives could have been saved as she only had humans because flies didn't fill her anymore! She was so kind and just so afraid. I hope you lose everything you pathetic sad sack of boiled shit! You are truest one of the lowest excuses for a human I have ever met and if we meet again please be very afraid, because next time, it won't just be a slap you have to worry about! It'll be your balls as I cut them off beacuse men like you shouldn't repopulate the planet! You horrid scum! I hope your empire fucking collapses!" You spoke with venom lacing every word. You were seething and boy did his face look punchable. Instead you walked away with your middle finger proudly being the last thing he sees as you walk out the normal doors.

Once you were outside, you sat in the steps and finally let out all the emotions. You cried so hard, over your loss of yet another job and a newly found friend. You screamed at him with a string of curses that would offend just about anybody. You suddenly felt somone sit at the side of you. You knew who it was when the string was burning more than ever before and yet you couldn't feel it over the pain your heart.

"You did brilliant back there. You chose, not just your job, but your life over a creature you barely even knew! If you wouldn't have jumped in when you did, I don't think her children would've had a chance to escape to my TARDIS because he's going on a hunt right now for the rest of them. Sure, you didn't save her but you saved so many more lives than you think. And I know each one is eternally grateful for what you did. I know I would be." Her words were certain and sympathetic. They seemed to calm you down instantly. Or maybe is was the way she talked that helped with her soft but strong voice and you knew you already couldn't get enough like it was the best drug ever. You could listen to her all day and yet, she had said very little to you. It was a strange effect but you liked it.

She fell into a silence for a while just keeping you company as you came to terms with had happened.

[rachelbethhines]

Tangled Salt Marathon - Happiness Is

This is possibly my favorite episode of season two. Yet, it is also the point the where the series starts to fall off a cliff. Only that’s not something that you would realize upon a first watch; just in hindsight and only with some basic knowledge of the behind the scenes drama that led to this and the fall out with the fandom that followed afterwards. 

Summary:  Rapunzel begins to feel homesick for Corona when she finds an old letter written by her father in one of the many lanterns sent from her previous birthdays. In attempts to uplift her spirits, Rapunzel explores the island and comes across a magical idol that brings instant happiness to whomever possesses it. Rapunzel begins to hallucinate her family and friends back in Corona and soon shares the idol with the rest of the group. However, everyone starts to become obsessive over the idol, desperately wanting it for themselves. Rapunzel tricks everyone into giving her the idol, but when the Lorbs try to help Rapunzel, they fall under the idol's control and soon begin to terrorize the village.

Let’s Start with the First Elephant in the Room; Frederic 

So throughout the episode Rapunzel is struggling with being homesick. Which is fair enough, that’s an understable reaction to being on the road for months by now. However, to showcase this Rapunzel keeps seeing hallucinations of her father. There are some other characters too, but her dad is the first person she sees and the only one in Corona with speaking lines. He’s the one to tempt her with the idol. 

Did we just forget that Frederic is her abuser? 

Look, even if you accept his apology in Secret of the Sundrop and believe he has learned his lesson, that doesn’t just erase the pain he caused her. Her thoughts about her father should be more realistically complex then this. Now add in how she makes a such a clean break from her other abuser, Gothel, but still holds him on a pedestal shows a disturbing bias on the part of the writers. 

Also where’s this love for Arianna? You know the only real mother on the show? The show that’s aimed at little girls? The one parent who hasn’t flat out abused the main character yet? 

Seriously, Chris, what the fuck? 

This is a Missed Opportunity 

So part of the reason why I like this episode is that we get insights into each of the characters and their desires. As such this is one of the few episodes where the group actual feels like a group friends. However, Cass’s vision is wasted here. 

So at first glance this seems to aline with what we know of the character thus far. She loves her dad and wishes to impress him. That’s only if you take season one into account, though. Later episodes will contradict this goal. If you wanted to set up praise and validation in general as Cassandra’s motives, then here is where that should have happened. 

Show her getting a medal, have cheering crowds surround her, have her be a hero, or something. You can’t claim her relationship with her parents as the driving force of behind her later actions if you don’t actually involve one of those parents as part of the resolution to her arc. 

Either she lacking attention from her dad or she’s jealous of Rapunzel. You can’t have it be both because those two things don’t intersect. Rapunzel is not and never was a threat to her relationship with her father. 

So Umm...I Don’t Think This Plot Point Has the Impact That the Writers Think It Does 

So this hilarious, and it is intended to be funny, but it’s not for the reasons that the show gives. 

The idea is that this is some shocking revelation. That Rapunzel would never do this under normal circumstances and it’s a hint that the idol is corrupting her. 

Only the rest of the series doesn’t aline with that at all. This is just the real Rapunzel behaving as the she normally would but without the usual veneer of excuses. 

It’s funny because it’s the show calling out Rapunzel hypocrisy for what it is plainly, not because it’s out of character. 

But funny only gets you so far. The show is perfectly happy to play up Rapunzel’s awfulness for laughs, but then conventily ignore it when it comes time for the characters themselves to call her out on it so that she can grow and learn.       

The show runs under the sitcom idea that comedy excuses all sins; which then backfires horribly when it tries to be serious and mature. 

You can’t joke that the king threw a random person in a stockade for little reason and then expect us to still like him when he persecutes a child. Same applies here. 

The sitcom set up only works when there is minimal at stake and all parties involved are equally awful in their own ways. 

Then Why Not Just Go Home?

Once again, there’s nothing at stake in season two. Rapunzel has no real reason to be on this trip. Nothing is stopping her from just going home if that’s what she wants. The idol only makes her happy because it shows her want she wants, but she could actually have what she wants as soon as the next ship arrives. So what’s the issue here? 

This is why you need external conflict in order to make internal conflicts work. There’s has to be something preventing the main character from achieving her goal or otherwise she just comes across as a dumbass. 

And Now Here Comes the Second Elephant; Varian 

I have several things to talk about here, and none of them actually concern the scene itself but the creator’s treatment of the character and the show’s fan base.

For you see, Chris did a very, very stupid thing.  

He wrote the character driving the plot out of the show. The character who also happens to be the most popular person in the series. Only to then use said character’s VA and this one cameo as promotion for this whole season. 

Needless to say, fans were disappointed.   

However, the Tangled fandom is exceedingly polite; more so than most. The lack of Varian was met mostly with confusion, and maybe a few off handed jokes, rather than anger. When opportunity arose people naturally had questions concerning the character.     

And that’s when Chris put his foot in mouth. 

This Tumblr post details how Chris got kicked off the Tangled The Series Discord by bullying a bunch of Varian fans while on there. 

https://starxapple.tumblr.com/post/617852117763391488/zhantiri-uuugh-fine-since-people-are-getting

I shan’t get into it fully, but for those who discovered the show after season two had aired, this caused a massive backlash from the fandom. 

A good chunk of the fandom just walked away, and rightly so. The few that stuck around despite these remarks found themselves harassed by certain sections of the fandom who saw Chris’s bullying as permission to pursue the same behavior. However, most importantly, the ratings plummeted. 

Season one hovered around the the 1 million mark, give or take a five point difference. The first part of season two dropped to half of that, and after this episode and the hiatus it sunk even lower, down to the mid-thirties. That’s over 20,000 people who just jumped ship over this. That’s not a normal decline. 

No matter what your personal feelings are of the character of Varian or how he was handled in the show, that’s still a massive PR fassico that cost the series big time. 

To add to this mountain of bullshit, there was also a massive walk out of crew members after season one had finished production. Most of them women. They even desperately threw out ‘we’re hiring’ calls to cover this. Which given that’s it’s Disney and that nepotism is usually how one gains employment in the entertainment industry, something unusual must have happened behind the scenes. Especially if most of the people who left were women. 

We’ll probably never know what really happened. People don't usually talk about behind the scenes stuff like that due to contracts and the aforementioned nepotism. However, all clues point to Varian.   

Something changed at the last minute concerning his story. Chris himself had confirmed as much when discussing the note and the Brotherhood. We also gotten other hints that content was edited out at the last minute. Plus the writing becomes more shoddy as the series goes along, showing how slapped dashed everything is together.  

Then there’s the rumors. 

I must stress to you that this is only a rumor. As pointed out earlier, most animators aren’t in a position to talk freely about what goes on behind the scenes. Do NOT harass them over it or make things awkward by asking them to clarify this. However it’s been suggested that the female crew warned Chris that removing Varian from season two and re-writing his story, along with making Cass the villain, would be a bad idea before they left and Chris didn’t listen. Much to his folly. 

Chris is no longer a Disney employee and has yet to move on to any other projects. He says he left, but I more suspect that Disney just didn't renew his contract and no one has picked him up since. I take no joy in the idea that someone may have lost their job, but if true, then Chris has little to blame but himself. 

So What Did Change?

We don't know anything for sure. We know from discussions about the note that there was a proposed Brotherhood plot that involved Varian that was then cut. There was also talks about a Cass and Varian team up in season three. 

This was then changed to the Saporian take over, which is foreshadowed in this scene. However even that got edited down and under the flimsiest of excuses. 

One of the writers, Ricky, suggested that they thought cutting back to Corona would be too confusing for the audience; which is a load of bull. I mean how poorly do you think of your audience’s comprehension skills that they wouldn’t understand a change of scene or a flashback? Yet you fully expect them to pick up on your lazy foreshadowing involving the mirror? So much so that you sent them on a quest to find it between seasons two and three.

Then there’s this gem from Chris. 

Ok ignoring the fact that you so totally could have featured both Gothel and Varian, seeing as they serve two different functions in the story and mean different things to Rapunzel.... What guilt?!!! 

Rapunzel doesn’t ever act guilty over anything involving her treatment of Varian. 

That’s when you realize Chris isn’t talking about her feeling guilty about Varian’s predicament. He’s saying that Rapunzel feels guilty of leaving her father behind with this ‘dangerous’ criminal. Which is a big fuck you to everyone. 

That’s why Frederic is the center focus of Rapunzel’s hallucinations. Why she’s more concerned for his safety over Varian’s trauma. Chris really be out here trying to use the abused 14/15 year old orphan as a scapegoat for the grown ass dictator who ruined countless lives. Because he thinks a grown woman should feel guilty for leaving her abusive father behind and pursuing her life’s dream.

Dude, I try not to assume the worst of people just cause they write fictional characters that I dislike, but Chris really makes things hard not to when he treats his self insert this way. 

Oh but we’re not done yet. 

When Varian Fans Complain About the Lack of Varian; We’re Complaining About the Lack of a Coherent Plot. 

Certain sections of the fandom, bolstered by Chris’s BS, try to act like simply being a Varian fan is grounds for dismissal of any criticism of the show and it’s writing. As if having personal preference for something makes you automatically ‘entitled’ or some such bull. Yet doing so ignores the fundamental complaint that they are making. 

We’re not whining about our favorite character not getting enough screen time. No one would have complained about his lack of presence in season two if they had properly resolved his story in season three and had Chris not been a dick to the fans. But it becomes evidently clear as the series goes along that removing Varian left a major hole in the plot. One that makes the entire story and the rest of characters suffer as well. 

Think season two is boring? That’s cause they cut out their main villain at the last minute and failed to replace him with anything. 

Upset that Hookfoot was brought along for zero reason?  He’s the replacement character for Varian who no doubt was going to appear in season two originally. 

Wish there was more on the Brotherhood and the Dark Kingdom?  Their story impact was greatly reduced when Varian was written out.

Are you a Eugene fan and mad about how the Dark Prince plot went nowhere?  That’s cause the original Brotherhood/Dark Kingdom plot was dropped when Varian was.

Dislike how Cassandra’s character was ruined with her villain arc?  She was originally meant to be possessed but was changed last minute to be a Varian rip-off in the hopes that she would gain some of his popularity.   

Wish Zhan Tiri, Demantius, and the Disciples actually went somewhere and that ZT had coherent plan?   That plot were changed last minute to make Zhan Tiri a scapegoat for Cassandra now that her story was changed to replace Varian.

And of course let’s not ignore the character who suffers the most from lack of Varian.... Rapunzel. 

Chris’s defense for leaving Varian out of S2 is that it’s “Rapunzel’s Story” and that Varian was only ever a plot device meant to push her along on her quest.  Which means that Rapunzel no longer has anyone pushing her along on her quest!!!

All characters are plot devices. If they aren’t there to serve a story function then they need to be cut. Even Rapunzel herself serves a plot function. She’s meant to be the protagonist of a coming of age story. Which means she needs both an external conflict to face and an emotional arc where she grows as a person. Varian is the plot device that serves both of those functions but he’s now been removed and is no longer allowed to serve his original purpose. 

Chris reached into the machine while it was running and pulled out one of the main gears and acted like he always meant to do that. He legit sat there and pretended that everything was running smoothly even as smoke poured out and warring alarms blared. He then tried to shove bubble gum in its place hoping no one would notice as everything fell apart around him. 

Cause he’s the thing; no idea is without merit. It’s all about presentation. Removing Varian from season three still could have worked, but it required A.) replacing him with another foe and B.) making sure his arc still got a proper conclusion. 

I’ll talk more about Varian’s half-arsed redemption when we get to it; but for now let's focus on the more immediate problem. No one thought to give season two an actual overarching conflict in light of Varian’s absence. 

That’s a fundamental oversight that pretty much signals that season two was re-written at the last minute. You have an overarching plot in an action adventure show but no main adversary? I refuse to believe that everyone involved was too stupid to do that on purpose; but if they were rushed and lacked a crew because they walked out due to last minute story changes....yeah that’d I buy. 

Because there’s more than enough options to go around; Lady Caine, The Baron and Styalan, Hector and/or Adria, Zhan Tiri’s Disciples ect. were all options. So was keeping the rocks a threat, or have Cass start her villian arc earlier; with proper motivation this time. They could have even come up with someone entirely new. 

You had over four years to plan this shit out; why is it not more well put together?! 

How Come Rapunzel Can Easily Admit Fault to Pascal But Not Anyone Else? 

Pascal should have sat perched on Varian’s and Eugene’s shoulders giving Rapunzel ‘I’m done with this’ looks all throughout season three. It’s apparently the only thing that she responds to. 

Why is the untalkative camelanion the only one allowed to call out the main character’s BS without going villain? 

Conclusion

That’s all there really is to talk about in this story. The actual episode itself is good. It’s the behind the scenes crap that bubbles underneath its surface that needed to be discussed. That way when going forward with the marathon you’ll better see what I’m talking about when I explain how future episode suffered from the lack of planning and foresight. 

[introvertguide]

Star Wars: The Franchise

Back in the mid 70s around Modesto, California, it is doubtful that George Lucas could have imagined that his idea for a space opera would become the second highest grossing movie franchise of all time. There has been some questionable content, however, since the groundbreaking original, and the returns have not been as great. There were also some one-offs that a lot of the younger fans might not be aware of. For my own sanity and organization, here is a listing of all feature length movies in the franchise:

Star Wars IV: A New Hope (1977) -

Definitely the most successful film (heck, one of the most successful films of all time) that made almost a billion dollars at the box office worldwide...in the 80s. Amazing. The story mimics the hero's journey as described by Joseph Campbell, giving it basically the most satisfying story imaginable. Nobody except for friend of George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, thought it would be as successful as it was. This kind of popularity meant there was going to be some sequels and, since George Lucas was the man behind the whole thing, only one man was about to get tasked with future success.

Star Wars Holiday Special (1978) -

This was a TV movie that was made to cash in on the massive popularity of the first movie while the second one was in production. It is terrible. I generally try to hold back judgement and point out subjective opinions, but I think I can say that this made-for-TV movie is objectively bad. It is the equivalent of a variety show, a format which was popular at the time, and it was awful. It is widely considered to be one of the worst visual productions of all time. Just to give a hint of its awfulness, the movie follows the adventures of Chewbacca's Wookie family and they only speak in growls with no interpretation or subtitles. Laughably awful.

The Empire Strikes Back (1980) -

Arguably the best of the films as far as story and plot, this film was actually directed by Irvin Kershner with a George Lucas story adapted to the screen by Lawrence Kasdan. This film is legitimately fantastic and not just new and fun. It is so well written and directed with the famous reveal between Luke and Darth Vader. It also is incredibly downbeat at the end that perfectly sets up the next film. I personally think this is the best example of fine film in the franchise, although it doesn't have as much big action and no giant space laser. Well worth watching and makes the third film a must see.

Return of the Jedi (1983) -

Well, not as good as the first two, but still pretty darn good. This film introduced the Ewoks and the Endor moon battle. Many fans thought that the introduction of living teddy bears was a mistake that distract from the story. What really made the film, apparently, was the whole sequence at the beginning that takes place at Jabba the Hut's palace and involves Princess Leia in a metal bikini. We also find out that Luke and Leia are twins, so that kiss in the second film suddenly becomes kind of awkward. This becomes kind of a theme from here on out: should we disavow canon or put in throwaway lines and scenes to cover things that were mentioned in previous movies. It plagues the prequels.

The Ewok Adventure (1984) -

I get a lot of garbage about it, but I love these movies because I grew up with them. They are not that great and the copy that I saw over and over had ads from the early 80s throughout. Heavy nostalgia. Also, some of the Ewoks were played by established actors from what is now called Episode VI, Warwick Davis as Wicket and Tony Cox as Widdle. It was a lot of fun, but definitely a higher budgeted TV movie. It did become so successful that it got a theater release as Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure. This naming style stuck around for the spin off films that were made in the late 2010s.

Ewoks: The Battle for Endor (1985) -

Hot dang, they made a second one with Wilford Brimley! Both of the Ewok films were thought up by George Lucas and sold to ABC. Both films were also given special Emmy awards for special effects. I can't fault either Ewok film as far as visuals since both got the ILM treatment. I have stated that I liked both of these movies more than some of the prequels, and I stand by that.

The Phantom Menace (1999) -

The next three films followed the first three episodes in the Star Wars saga and are now generally known as the prequels. They are also pretty widely hated. One reason for that was the introduction of young Anikan Skywalker (eventual Darth Vader) and his growing attachment to Lord Palpatine (Darth Sidious). The problem with the prequels is that it was a path leading to a result that had been established over 20 years ago in the first film. They also introduced a character named Jar-Jar Binks who was just awful. There was a great pod racing scene and an epic Sith vs. Jedi battle that really were the highlights of the film. The music was also pretty epic, but the film was otherwise not that great. It was completely made under the helm of George Lucas and fans were suddenly starting to wonder if he was the genius they had thought him to be. What I consider to be the best YouTube deep dive movie review of all time, a group called Red Letter Media made a seven part review that explains why the movie was such a problem. You can watch the first part and it will auto load all seven here:

(1) Star Wars: The Phantom Menace Review (Part 1 of 7) - YouTube

Attack of the Clones (2002) -

Alright, here is where things really start to go down hill. There is a fine actor by the name of Hayden Christiansen that is just awful in this film. He is given nothing to do for the most part. He is supposed to be this amazing Jedi general, but he spends most of his time walking around speaking in a very monotone voice. He does have some fun piloting scenes, but he is written as such a whiny brat. There are two epic battles (the coliseum and Dooku vs. Yoda) and we get to see a bounty hunter in action. It does seem like a lot of fan service glued together by boring politics and horrifically bad acting.

Revenge of the Sith (2005) -

This is widely considered the worst of the prequel movies and generally laughable at some points. There is supposed to be an epic lava battle at the end, but it is just a bunch of screaming about a failed bromance. We get to see the end of the characters in the prequel and set up the original movies...that were now almost 30 years old. It was unsatisfying and not even slightly worth the wait. It was at this time that George Lucas said that there would never be a seventh episode that would follow the original trilogy.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) -

There was a very compelling series of Star Wars shorts in 2003 made by Genndy Tartakovsky that did very well. George Lucas saw this and decided that a lot of the most interesting Star Wars events had occurred during the time between the prequels and the original series. Lucasfilm put out an animated movie to test the waters and it was so successful that 7 seasons of great animated adventures were made to show the epic battles that were supposed to take place between the second and third episode. I honestly believe that this was the very best space action of the entire franchise.

The Force Awakens (2015) -

George Lucas sold the Star Wars franchise over to Disney and fans got a new movie that was never supposed to happen. Once Disney came on board, the brand became much more prolific. Until the pandemic, there were plans to put out a Star Wars movie every year for a decade. The first was episode seven and was made by J.J. Abrams. It was similar to the first film (episode IV) in so many ways that fans started to think it was just a remake. It even had a lot of the characters from the original trilogy. It was much better received by fans following the prequels and introduced a storyline that was not already spoiled by previous movies. There was a lot of unnecessary fan service for those who loved the original trilogy. This makes since because it involved Lawrence Kasdan, who helped with the screenplay for episode five and six from the original trilogy.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) -

A full big budget release of a Star Wars movie that wasn't one of the episodes was an interesting idea. It was an entire movie to explain a throwaway line from the original 1977 movie. I lot of people died to get some plans for the big weapon in the first film and people wanted to know exactly how that happened. Actually they didn't. But Disney thought it was a good idea and it seemed like it would make a lot of money (it did). It gave the producers a chance to make a movie with new characters and only mentions of the famous story (this was important because the other actors where making the next episode).

The Last Jedi (2017) -

This was an interesting change of pace from the rest of the films because it seemed to drop the idea of the "chosen one" and say that anyone could be a Jedi. It is basically one giant escape story and is closer to Mad Max in space than it is to the other Star Wars films. It was given in full by Disney to Rian Johnson and it shows. This was the first episode film that had nothing in common with any of the production group from the original trilogy. No Kasdan, no Kirschner, no Lucas, all Disney. It was not very well received.

Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) -

The worst performing of any of the Star Wars live action feature length films, this was the story of Han Solo. That's it. There is not a lot of history about the character and he is so cool, fans needed to have a stand alone movie about his youth. That's a lie, Disney wanted a movie to come out between episode eight and nine. This was the best that the suits could come up with and it definitely made money, but it is lame.

The Rise of Skywalker (2019) -

Well, the movie completely helmed by Rian Johnson was not popular enough so there was a total retcon situation and this film basically picked up where episode seven left off. It was the same team from episode seven (since that film was so much more popular) and they made a final film that wraps up with a bow. Sort of. There was definitely room in the film world for more Star Wars movies to be made (it is owned by Disney) and I really don't believe it is finished as a franchise.

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

Just in case there are people who were nervous that this was the end of the franchise, there is currently a stand alone film called Rogue Squadron that is supposed to come out in 2023. Thank goodness. There was also the popular Mandalorian series on Disney +. But the franchise has been making huge films for almost 45 years now, so maybe it is time to stop. We have the MCU that has made almost twice as much money as the Star Wars universe, so most movie goers have picked their setting that they want to see. Maybe there could be a crossover (I am kidding, please no) and it would be the most watched film of all time.

[measlyfurball13]

Pacific Rim: Into the Black fucking sucked.

It’s problem isn’t that it’s different from the first movie. Look, I LOVE the first movie, but I agree that more of the same might have been boring. I respect the writers for pushing the boundaries a little and making an original story with an original tone. . . If by original story you mean “make it Attack on Titan but worse” and if by original tone you mean “cheap shock value and needless edge that adds nothing”.

Full rant under the cut. Swear warning, whatever.

This series has so many interesting and creative ideas but they’re buried under loads of blundering edgelord tropes that have been done before in every other anime ever. Taylor the protagonist is a flavorless “older brother” trope. Mei is the tsundere badass who’s been traumatized by daddy. Boy (yes, that’s his name) is the mystical superpowered child. Oh, and he pulls this whole Attack on Titan thing and turns into a Kaiju.

You wanna know why this is a problem? Because holy fucking shit it’s a problem. Because it’s stupid. Because it’s magic handwavy bullshit. Pacific Rim, for all of it’s big robots and big monsters, grounds itself in reality by having consistent internal rules. Kaiju are monsters with some occasional cool unique abilities, but they’re all based in biology. Stuff like acid, extra limbs, flying. Even the EMP pulse ability from the first movie feels plausible, because electricity is used in a biological body in the form nerves. Another consistent rules is that Kaiju are big monsters. Big. Monsters. Big monsters who stay big, because they’re established as having so much mass and bulk and presence that they can’t get rid of because they’re biological creatures. The first movie establishes that they eat and breed and even defecate and have parasites. These rules make the Kaiju feel plausible. These rules allow us, the audience, to suspend our disbelief and immerse ourselves into the universe.

So why the fucking hell did the writers throw all that out the window, pull some magic bullshit out of their ass, and make a human that turns into a Kaiju? They don’t even show us the transformation sequence on screen. Flash of blue, and now the little human boy is a Kaiju. The problem is not that it’s unrealistic, the problem is that it doesn’t fit in with the Pacific Rim universe. It’s disjointed. It’s stupid. Any questions?

Now, where was I? Oh, right, characters. Haley, the younger sister, is. . . okay. She feels like the extroverted younger sister cheerleader trope, but then they also give her this character facet (it’s not an arc because it’s never really addressed) about murder guilt? And she also mothers a lot Boy? And she also makes really stupid decisions for the sake of the plot sometimes? Out of the main three cast members, she’s by far the most interesting and bearable, at least, but she doesn’t feel consistent at all. She also gets damseled a lot, too, which doesn’t add to her likeability or agency.  

Moving on, one of the two even remotely interesting characters was killed for shock value in episode five in the cheapest, most abrupt way possible, so I can’t talk about him very much, other than the fact that I’m still pissed that the writers thought killing him off was a good idea. Nothing narratively was gained by it; his death doesn’t even affect any character’s trajectory! He had so much more to give alive than he did dead. But that’s all I can say, since he is dead. The only other interesting character was the Jaeger AI who gets maybe all of 13 voicelines in the entire season and is barely, barely even a minor character. Nothing much else to say.

Remember the part where I mentioned that this show actually has wonderful creative ideas? I didn’t just say that for flavor, and that’s the most frustrating part of this all. The problem is just that there’s so many ideas, all at once, so in the end none of them end up shining. Here’s a shortened list of the great ideas- you could base an entire show around each one:

Interrogating someone with drift technology

Altering people’s memories through drift technology

Australia gets claimed by the Kaiju and survivors have to duke it out to survive with the remaining Jaeger technology with no help from the outside world

Training Jaegers and what Jaeger academy looked like

Jaegers having sentient AIs inside of them- and what happens when to the AI when a Jaeger takes damage or even loses a pilot? Is the drift in a Jaeger technically a three-way bond?

What happens when you drift too much, with too many people? Inheriting someone else’s memories or even skillsets?

(this one is probably my least favorite, but still has merit:) A Jaeger and Kaiju fusion. How utterly terrifying would that be?

These are all incredible. I probably would have adored Pacific Rim: Into the Black if (magic Kaiju kid notwithstanding) it had focused on maybe one or two of these ideas in its meager 140-minute runtime. However, Into the Black tries to tackle all of these amazing ideas at once along with about a dozen other shitty ideas that fall flat. As a result, nothing gets the time it deserves. Fascinating ideas are quickly glossed over, never to be mentioned again despite being extremely relevant to the plot, just so the show can truck through the next portion with the same lack of thought.

The season feels disjointed. Nothing builds on anything else, and plot points don’t lead into each other. Characters make stupid decisions, take meandering courses of action and are constantly changing their mind, or, most of the time, just stumbling upon their objectives by pure chance. The only throughline that even remotely delivers with proper buildup and payoff is the aforementioned magic Kaiju boy. The one competent plot arc they develop is the one that breaks the believability of the universe. Great.

Finally, to top it all off, I’m going to speedrun my more minor nitpicks with the general plot/continuity holes. Here goes:

Multiple breaches and breaches on land. If the Kaiju have been able to open breaches on land this whole time, then how in the everlasting fuck has humanity survived at all? I mean, really- why would Kaiju waste time coming from the oceans if they can just pop up wherever they please?

Mr. McRandom nobody protagonist decides on a whim to be the fourth person ever who solo pilots a Jaeger after piloting for maybe 3 days, tops, and then succeeds. The show explicitly references Raleigh and Pentacost as it does this, spitting in the face of their achievements by implying that anybody can do it, no big deal.

This show acknowledges that Pacific Rim: Uprising exists and builds a lot of its background conflict off that, which pisses me off because that movie sucks ass. Here was a chance for a fresh start and they wasted it.

The protagonists fuck up so constantly to the point where they should have lost their Jaeger several times over, yet it always survives, because (go figure!) this is a show about protagonists piloting Jaegers. The protagonists do nothing to solve their problems and do nothing to earn their clever escapes or sudden powerups, leaving everything tensionless and contrived.

The villain has no motivation at all and is so cartoonishly evil it’s a miracle that he has any minions that are willing to follow him instead of ditching him the first chance they get.

The protagonists sometimes just kinda forget their goal and wander around until they miraculously stumble upon something that just so happens to connect to it.

A lot of edgy, horrifying, traumatizing shit happens, and it doesn’t seem to ever affect the characters in any meaningful way outside of maybe 1 or 2 throwaway lines after the fact?

The show takes place in Australia but only gives asshole characters an Australian accent. What?

So that’s it. Bad characters. Universe-breaking concept. Needless, meaningless edge. Contrived plot. Rushed to all hell. Pacific Rim: Into the Black is capital “b” Bad. I love this franchise and I want to support it, but I can’t advocate that anyone give this show their time.

[tardispowered]

Doctor Who (?) Episode Review: Mrs. Bradley Mysteries

There is nothing I like better than spotting Doctor Who alumn out in the wild. Whether it’s sitting down for a BBC cozy mystery (and they usually are with me) and seeing Davison (it usually is),  or watching a bad movie with no idea I’d be smacked in the face with Eccleston (Gone in 60 Seconds. We’ll get to it) it’s always a unique joy. Which is why this little series, because if it exists, why not talk about it?

The show in question? The Mrs. Bradley Mysteries. A sadly short lived series of a woman of a certain age in the 1920’s, running around solving crimes. Think of it as Phryne Fisher in advanced middle age. It also co-stars Neil Dudgeon who played DCI John Barnaby in Midsomer Murders (which I watched all seventeen seasons of when it was on Netflix. You may say I have a problem, I say I have a solution)

The episode in question? A Death At the Opera (which is listed as S1E1 elsewhere, but S1E2 on Amazon Prime where I watched it.) The titular Mrs. Bradley visits her old finishing school to give a lecture and murder most foul happens. As it does. The opera is, of course, the Mikado. (the opera is always the Mikado) and the Who alumn we are here for?

Max Valentine.

/joins the other fangirls in heaving a collective sigh.

Oh, baby Tennant, why are you so lithe and pretty? And looks particularly good in just a shirt and bracers! (aka suspenders. Which apparently means something entirely different over the pond. Go fig)

Max Valentine is the singing instructor and also, it seems, the general art instructor of the young ladies on the premises. It’s quite entertaining to see him directing the opera (what little of it he does) and the art class was a pretty great scene as well; as at one point the dialogue went something like:

Student: This is supposed to be a life drawing class. Valentine: Well we’d need a live model for that. Student: /looks pointedly at baby!Tennant. Me: 

Alas, Valentine does not pose, and that honor instead is left to George Moon aka Neil Dudgeon. Which is no great loss as yowza. (I love the BBC)

Throughout the episode, Valentine is a joy to watch. Even if he’s not the focus in the scene, if he’s there, you can see him looking concerned and slightly tense in the background. You also get to see him fairly angry with his business being pried into. There was also a teased ménage a trois with him and two other ladies. Though, teased in the sense that I’m not actually sure whether it happened or it was just suggested by Mrs. Bradley. You get to see various shades of Tennant here. Angry Tennant, broody Tennant, mischievous Tennant, and in a really cute scene, happy to be with someone he cares about Tennent.  

Look at this snarky bastard.

Unfortunately, however, though his character has great buildup, his actual plot line (and the plot line of the episode) fizzled out near the end and was pretty weak. I wasn’t really that satisfied by it. There were various clues that didn’t seem to go anywhere… and there was an odd scene with Tennant being reflected in a mirror as if he was listening to something, being concerned and heading away that had no follow up.

Now, the Mrs. Bradley Mysteries ran from 1998-2000 (with a whole five episodes! Oh, BBC), which of course means this is well before the tenth Doctor made an appearance. It must have been hard for Who fans at that time. The last DW thing that had aired was in 1996.  But, for anyone who tuned in to this particular episode, they got to see an old familiar face.

And let me tell you, fam, I squee’d like a banshee. (see: not problems, solutions). It didn’t help that I had just been surprised by his appearance in Vera (another BBC mystery, more on that episode later), but here he was, acting alongside Tennant

Or in this case, in front of and slightly to the left. Also you see Tennant over his shoulder almost this entire scene which is just hilarious. 

and (briefly) acting with him.

This is brilliant for three reasons.

1] A  Two for One Who Alumn! Pretty rare to see. Not to mention to see it with two Doctors at once.

2] The fact that future father-in-law was in a show with future son-in-law and just knowing what would eventually happen made the context even greater. Though I told myself if Georgia Tennant showed up I was quitting. (spoilers: she didn’t. :c)

3] Tennant’s Doctor is the fifth Doctor so in that brief two seconds I imagined a lot of inner fanboy glee. Granted, Tennant had probably met Davison before and maybe loads of times. But squee does not end where familiarity begins.

Sadly, Davison has a very short (and pretty abrupt) cameo here as Inspector Christmas. (Also, Christmas? Valentine? That is just gold). He came, he fanboyed over Mrs. Bradley. He left. He does appear in subsequent episodes (at least one so far) and seems to have the hots for her and that’s nice to see. But in this episode, he is criminally underused. Not that I am suggesting he have a starring role or anything, but make the transition a little less jarring.

 So, is this episode good? Eh, debatable. But it’s certainly not bad either. It’s a middle of the road episode with squee-worthy talent. And well worth watching if you enjoy Tennant. If you prefer Davison, however, I’d wait for the next episode to see him well utilized.

[fortisfiliae]

Against the Odds - Part 2 [James Potter x reader]

Prompt: College AU ❃ Jocks are disgusting. Too good looking, too aware of it, too drunk and too dumb. Or so you thought.

A/n: This is the second part for @marvelcapsicle ‘s writing challenge. Pic is not mine (also look at this smiling cutie). If you need to zoom in on the texts, just click on the picture to do so.

Find the other parts on my Masterlist linked in my bio!

Warnings: swearing, mentions of alcohol, mentions of needles and blood donations

Word count: 2.8k

Part 2 - My sandwiches, my soda, my blood

Sunday:

So James had texted you. He really had. Wow. And he had managed to come off even more confident by only using six words and a winking smiley-face. Douchey. But somehow still cute. How he managed to be arrogant and sweet at the same time would forever be a mystery.

You lay in bed and read those six words over and over again, your fingers hovering above the keyboard on your phone. What should you answer? Should you answer at all? Or should let a couple hours pass, to not seem like you waited for him to text you? Oh, this texting-etiquette where everyone wanted to come off as not interested at all, was a huge load of crap. Still, you contemplated what the right thing to say was. 

You weren’t even sure if you wanted to see him. Alone at least. You didn’t know him so it would be really unsafe, wouldn’t it? He could be a mass murderer after all. But he was Remus’ friend, so he probably wasn’t. It would be so easy to decline. Just a “No thanks”, or simply blocking him, like he had suggested yesterday. But there was something about him. Something that made your tummy tingle. So you kept on thinking. He wanted to meet on Wednesday. Wednesday, Wednesday... Oh damn, Wednesday! You had plans already. Convenient for the part of you that didn’t want to meet him, frustrating for the part that did.

Yikes. That sounded rough. Better add something to make it less bitchy.

Good. A reasonable explanation. Not mean, just honest.

That was... Nice! Nothing a mass murderer would say. Right? Probably not. You smiled to yourself and put the phone back on the nightstand, your attention wandering back to your laptop. You went for a couple of episodes of The Office, something light and funny. It was good, made you laugh here and there, but you caught yourself looking over to the nightstand a couple of times, just checking if a text had arrived that you hadn’t noticed. 

Some hours later your roommate Louise returned from her boyfriend’s and plopped down on her bed.

“Hey,” she mumbled into her pillow. She’s seen better days for sure.

“Hey. Are you okay?”

She raised her head, her hair tousled and makeup smeared across her face. “I am. Just a rough night.”

“Where have you been?”

“The frat party,” she said and scratched the back of her head. “Hey, is it possible that I’ve seen you there?”

“Um, yeah. I’ve been there.”

“Really! I knew it. I saw you sitting on the couch with these guys. First I thought it might be someone else because I’ve never seen you at the frat before. But then I saw you talking to this Remus guy and I know you’ve told me you’re friends with him once.”

“Yeah, he invited me. It was nice actually. Very loud and stuffy. But fun.”

“Are you going out with him?”

“With who?”

“Remus.”

“No. No, no. We’re just friends. He’s really nice though. Introduced me to some people.”

“Oh, I see,” she said and grinned mischievously. “Well, good. Glad you had fun.”

“Thanks! Glad you had fun too!”

“Ugh, yeah.” She sat up with an effort and went to open the drawer with her toiletries. “I smell and feel like shit. I’m going to take a shower. See you then.”

Monday:

A few minutes past 11, you were in bed already and listened to Louise breathing slowly in her sleep. Lights were out, it was completely dark in your room, you were on the verge of sleeping, but checked your phone one last time. Just in case some jock had texted you. Not that you were thinking of him, or anything. Just in case. 

Tuesday:

It’s been a long day. You were reunited with your laptop again, watched this futuristic horror-show and tried to overhear Louise on the phone, talking to her boyfriend. How much time could a couple spend together until they’d start hating each other? What did they even have to tell each other anymore? She had come to your room twenty minutes ago and was talking to him for at least ten now. That means she had last seen him about half an hour ago. Well, everyone’s talented in their own ways. You tried to push your headphones further into your ears and put the sound up a little more, to concentrate on the plot of the episode, when your phone vibrated once. 

Wednesday:

You went to the blood drive at 8.30, half an hour before it would open, so the staff could show you around once more. The red cross had pitched up a huge tent, in which you had to sit at the entry to welcome the donors. A guy in his fifties handed you the sign-up sheets and told you what questions you had to ask each person. Easy peasy. It was pretty quiet all morning. Not a lot of people could be bothered to wake up early if they had a day off of school apparently. Some freshman came, probably to skip classes, since all of them asked for an attendance note. It got quite busy around noon - the line of people got so long from time to time, that some had to wait outside.  The afternoon was when it got tiring. Not because there were more people, they came and went in waves. But you were hungry and asking the same questions all day had become annoying. You felt your concentration fading with each sheet you gave out and were looking forward to closing and go home.  It felt like an eternity had passed until the older guy, who had shown you around in the morning, came up to you and told you that there were only a few people left in line and they would be done for the day when those one’s had donated.

Finally. You didn’t even know how late it was, probably around 6 p.m., when the last person in line eventually came up to you. You looked up and saw a familiar pair of brown eyes behind some wild, black curls. James.

“Wha- Hi.” You said and caught yourself raking your fingers through your hair. “You here?”

“Hey,” he said and grinned, his hands hidden behind his back. “Last person for today, huh.”

“I guess so,” you said, a smile on your face as you slid a sign-up sheet across the table. “I got to ask you two questions.”

“Go ahead.”

“Did you drink and eat enough today?”

“I have.”

“Did you drink alcohol in the last 24 hours?”

“I haven’t.”

“Didn’t you say you had a beer last night?”

“Oh yeah. Root beer.”

You frowned. “Root beer?”

“Yes, root beer.”

“Did you really plan to come and donate?”

“I did, on Sunday.”

Had he planned it since you had told him about it? “Good.” You cleared your throat. “You need to fill this out, please. There are some more detailed questions on the list. The guy over there has to check your answers before they’ll draw your blood.”

James nodded and bent over to fill in his data while putting a brown paper bag on the table. He started scribbling his name and day of birth when he asked: “Did you donate too?”

“I wanted to do it before I’d go home, but I think I haven’t eaten enough. Practice what you preach, you know.”

He chuckled and pushed the paper bag closer to you. “I bought you a sandwich.”

“What?”

“Yeah, I thought maybe you wouldn’t have time to eat, so I figured I’d bring one. And a coke, for later.”

You opened up the bag and looked inside to see a cheese tomato sandwich and a can of soda, which looked like a five-course meal at that moment. “Oh my god. Thank you so much. You don’t know how much I need this right now.”

“No problem, darling.”

Darling. He was the only person to ever call you that. You cleared your throat again as you opened the plastic wrap of the sandwich. “Do you want some?”

“No,” he said and grinned again. “I’ve had mine on the way. Eat up. And fill out your registration. I don’t want them to stab me alone.” 

It was quiet in the back of the tent - only a few people were left to donate. They were all lying down on what looked like portable hospital beds, while five of those beds were empty already.

A short woman with curly blonde hair brought you over to two of the empty beds. “Alright, who wants to go first?”

James looked at you as if he wanted to ask if he should volunteer, but you said: “Can I go first? So it’s over faster.”

“Sure. Ladies first.”

You sat down on the bed, while James did the same on the one beside you when the woman started to arrange the needles and other props. After rolling up your sleeve and positioning your arm so she could insert the tube into your vein, you tried to avoid looking at what she was about to do. The thought of it alone made you nauseous. You let your head fall back, looked up to the ceiling of the tent and inhaled heavily.

“You okay?”, James asked from the side.

“I’m nervous,” you said. “Not a big fan of needles.”

“Alright. Look at me.”

You did and watched him pushing up his glasses on the bridge of his nose. He just sat there and stared back, looked into your eyes and tilted his head slightly with a tiny smile on his lips.

“Aren’t you supposed to distract me?” you asked jokingly.

“I am. Look. It’s all done.”

The lady nodded and handed you a small plastic ball, that you had to squeeze until the bag attached to the tube in your arm was full. She went and did the same to James, who turned to look at you, one eye squeezed shut. 

“Not my favorite thing to do either,” he admitted.

“Alright, you two. Here’s your ball, Mister. You can keep them,” the woman said. “I’ll see you in a few minutes. The devices next to the bags will beep when it’s done.”

You watched her go looking after the other donors. She seemed tired as well but was better at hiding it than you were. It was a strange sensation, squeezing the ball and feeling warmth leaving your arm. You tried to distract yourself from this thought again and looked over to James, who was looking around aimlessly as well.

“You have no idea how bad I want to drink that coke right now,” you said after a while. “Thanks again by the way. That was really sweet.”

James smiled, his eyes lit up for a brief moment and he looked like he wanted to high-five himself. “Anything for you,” he said playfully. “My sandwiches, my soda, my blood.”

Even though you rolled your eyes, it made you laugh and a minute later the devices attached to your blood bags started beeping.

“So, are you going back to your dorm now?”, James asked when you had left the red cross tent.

“Yeah, it’s only five minutes away.”

“Mind if I walk you home?”

“Uh, sure. Yeah, sure!” you said and took the can out of your bag. Finally. The low hiss that escaped when you cracked it open was worth every ounce of blood. “You want some?”

“No, it’s yours,” he said as you started walking.

“Come on, you’ve earned it.”

James laughed, took the can and had a sip. “Thanks.”

You walked slower than usual, sharing the drink after every other sip and wondered why Netflix suddenly didn’t have the same appeal anymore. Conversation ran surprisingly smooth. It was like he always knew what to say. James sure was funny, but he was really good at making small talk interesting. Maybe that’s why Louise talked to her boyfriend non stop.

You could have easily gone for another five (or forty-five) minute walk, but no matter how slowly you tried to walk, you eventually took the last sip of coke and arrived at the doorstep of your dorm.

“So,” you said and turned around to say goodbye.

“So.”

“Thank you for coming today. I really appreciate it.”

“Anytime darling. It was a pleasure to be stabbed next to you,” he answered and winked. What a dork. “Text you tomorrow?”

“Sure. Or tonight?” 

He suddenly took a step closer, a sly smile on his face - you didn’t know what was going to happen. Would he kiss you? What was he doing? Before you knew, he placed a peck on your cheek, quickly turned around and left.

James turned his head after a few steps and called: “Bye darling.”

You watched him go, grinning stupidly but unable to answer, and looked down to the can in your hand. It was crushed. 

Find the other parts on my Masterlist linked in my bio!

Permanent tags:

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[thosedamnsmoshkids]

some cdp facts

last hiatus i made the crime does p(l)ay(list), (and the one i made this arc too!) and people seemed to like that! i also referenced making this in my ‘five fun facts’ post, so, here you are!!

below the cut there are few arc one/two spoilers, so if you haven’t read cdp yet, go give it a read and then come back here!

more than half of the plot was written after chapter seven, which is why some of the characters seem a bit different in their personalities there than after. 

i nearly completely forget that Wes got beat up in ch 5 and I almost wrote him without his rib and facial injuries

CDP was originally only supposed to be ~15 chapters, as i thought that i’d have run out of steam by now. boy was i wrong.

Leo was never meant to be a heavily focused character, and he was only going to be in the ‘raven room’ chapter. the role Leo plays was originally supposed to be done by a different character altogether. the character he’s based off of is from the original plotline, where instead of Damien feuding with Leo, it’s Joven feuding with the xiaolong’s leader’s daughter, who was characterized as being very loyal to both her father and the gang. her characterization (brash, commanding, and loyal), turned into Linghun. she was supposed to threaten Joven and act as a distraction before disappearing after arc one, probably having been killed off in the gauntlet

kate was supposed to be a one off character, but i ended up loving writing for her, (and i needed a character who was involved in Mari’s crime scene clean-up), so i added her to joven’s backstory, and gave her some more personality

ryan todd was supposed to have bigger sway in arc one, and have it end with his accidental death, but i wrote a few lines for his podcast and he ended up sticking around.

sunny was also supposed to have a much bigger role, but he didn’t fit super well, and i ended up keeping him to the sidelines

the only characters that were locked in to existing were the main five, the strippers, sohinki and lasercorn, and matt raub. everyone else was written in later.

mari was the first one to get a backstory, boze was the last.

though this has been briefly (albeit not explicitly) mentioned throughout the fic, the canonic ages of each character are as follows: Mari - 26; Joven - 27; Damien - 22; Boze - 24; Wes - 26; Courtney - 25; Shayne - 23; Noah - 21; Keith - 24; Olivia - 22; Sohinki - 25; Lasercorn - 30; Kate - 26; Sarah - 29; Matt Raub - 38; Leo - 24; Sunny - 37; Tim - 32

Most of the characters also didn’t have solid ages until arc two

i actually have mockups for the official Jackrabbit logo in my google doc for the plot (might post it for fun idk). i’ve done a few sketches, but the official logo has been recorded in there. i might make something out of it if i manage to finish all of CDP

the second thing i planned out for CDP after chapter one was the epilogue chapter that will follow arc three. and i basically knew how the fic would end the moment i started it.

CDP arcs all take place over varying amounts of time, arc one roughly takes place over several weeks and arc two takes place over four months. (i’m still trying to plan out how long -time skip wise- arc thee is going to take)

CDP begins roughly in the beginning of November (due to the fact that that’s when i started writing it), but time acts differently in the story as there are never any concrete ‘dates’. Wes mentions it being january in ch 35, and damien mentions that it’s february in ch 43, but those are the only times i really gave actual months

there was very nearly going to be a christmas episode, but i felt like it messed with the pacing too much

i wrote most of the pre-CDP plot/backstory at the end of plotting out the fic

The name ‘Xiaolong’ is actually a word in Chinese. I meant the word to be ‘dragons’, but after consulting two of my Chinese-speaking friends they have both informed me that it actually means ‘little dragon’. once again google has disappointed me, but given me a nice name.

The original name for the Xiaolong was the ‘Swhi Zi Long’ which (very roughly) translates to ‘blood of the dragon’

I still can’t spell the Russian words for ‘bear brotherhood’ correctly, which is why I frequently refer to them as just ‘the brotherhood’

Kate’s number, referenced in chapter 12, is 555-0930. The final four numbers is the date Kate and Joven got married

the Jackrabbit’s address - 1301 Verloren street is a mix of two different things. 13, the day i was born, 01, the year i was born, and ‘Verloren’, which is the verb for ‘to forget’ in german

damien references something in one of his early chapters that can be seen as somewhat of foreshadowing to what happens in chapter 55

a single chapter of CDP, (which are roughly between 1,500-4,000) can take anywhere from 2-7 hours to write, depending on my focus and depth of editing

the shortest chapter of cdp is around 1,000 words and the longest chapter is 5,400 words long

there’s a base 64 easter egg in chapter 43. (the code that leo gives to damien to unlock the storage space translates to a french phrase, (la douleur exquise), which basically means ‘the heart wrenching pain of wanting someone you can't have’. and if that ain’t a mood with leo’s feelings towards damien.)

the final five chapters of arc two were supposed to be formatted very differently. the arc was supposed to end with a damien chapter, but i felt like it messed with pacing too much to add more people’s points of view. instead we got some extra stuff and some cute coze interactions and more boze backstory, so it payed off well!

unlike arc one, the plots of each of the chapters of arc two were written WAY before i published them. some of them changed based on how the characters changed, but most of them have been the same, 

the bare plot for arc one is roughly 3.5 pages long, the bare plot for arc two is 5 pages long, and the bare plot for arc three is 7 pages long

there will be 35 chapters this arc, as well as one, most likely very long epilogue chapter.

cdp will return this friday! for making it all the way through the list, have a few paragraphs from the next chapter - 56 - the aftermath

Mari’s heart was pumping out of her chest.

The ambulance sirens wailed around her as she followed closely behind in her car. The technicians hadn’t looked hopeful as they’d loaded the bodies into the back of the van.

There had been so much blood.

She’d been standing in the back, barely paying attention, trying to focus on the set numbers. Then the explosion had bloomed across the room. She had felt the sonic hum deep in her chest, and the ringing in her ears still burned, even now.

Mari slammed her fist into the steering wheel, letting out an ear splitting shriek as she let her emotions bubble over. Her friends might be dead. She had never thought that it would actually come it this.

She thought that they were safe now that the Titans were gone.

Sohinki’s words now echoed hauntingly in the back of her head.

The ambulance in front of her ripped into the hospital parking lot. Personel in white coats and white gloves ran with crash carts from the front door as soon as the ambulance stopped.

Mari found a parking spot quickly, putting the car into park before running towards the van, barely thinking to lock her car behind her. She could see them pull a gurney out of the back, moving it quickly towards the front entrance as doctors and ER techs shouted numbers at one another. Joven stepped out of the back, out of breath and sweaty, covered in blood.

[scrapyardboyfriends]

Jenny’s Belated Live Blogging - 9th November 2018 

- I quite enjoyed this episode. This has been a good week overall. 

- I love Rishi being so excited about being called ‘Dishy Rishi’ and that he’s not embarrassed by the video. I also love that Manpreet isn’t horrified by the video either, she’s just worried about him reading any less than flattering comments. It’s sweet. And I love how much Jai and Priya have embraced her and how she’s fitting into their family. It’s lovely and I’m an advocate of the Sharma’s getting any kind of story so this has been really nice. 

- I also loved getting to see the factory again today. It’s been so long since we’ve really seen people working there. And I loved Nicola telling Laurel that she’d put Kerry on toilet duty if she stepped out of line with Laurel. 

- I love that we’re finally getting back to Laurel and Nicola’s friendship too. Nicola makes her so much more interesting and fun. 

- The Bobel fallout is good. I do think that aside from the start which was pretty random and for the sake the the ‘Who Killed Emma’ Plot, that, whether I enjoyed watching it or not, they have done a good job of showing the realities of having affairs with families involved and how it’s messy and doesn’t always work out. They did well with that back in the Laurel/Marlon days too. Maybe next time, Laurel can not break up a family when she finds a love interest. Haha. 

- But today it gave us a lovely sibling moment between Gabby and Arthur that I loved. It’s been too long since we’ve seen them together. And I like that Gabby fully understands how grownups can make mistakes considering Bernice is her mum. She’s had loads of experience with that. Haha. And Laurel as well to be honest since she was old enough to really get what was happening during the Laurel/Marlon affair. 

- I also really enjoyed the Bob and Brenda scene at the bus stop. I’m still in the Bob and Brenda hey day in 2013 so I really can get behind these scenes with them. Haha. I’m glad she’s still pissed off at him and letting him know it but that she also feels sorry for him since she did/does love him. I kind of hope they at least become friends again if not more because they do work well together. 

- Debbie Debbie Debbie...blah...haha. I just don’t care about anything to do with Joe at all and I’m tired of listening to her whine about stuff. I did enjoy her and Charity burning the wedding dress though. That needed to happen. Haha. I think I enjoy Debbie best when she’s being snarky with her parents. I can leave the rest. 

- I’m glad she knows about Graham having Joe’s phone though...perhaps that can move this story along now a bit. The sooner it moves on, the better. 

- ELLIS WORKING AT THE SCRAPYARD IS MY DREAM AND I’VE WANTED IT FOR SO LONG...ever since I realized Ellis was in their age bracket and not like a five year old or a teenager. I’m so happy it seems like it’s actually going ahead. I loved him interrupting them and just asking for a job and pointing out that Aaron does no work. I loved him being confused about what he needed for the job and then going out and buying all new stuff like he’s preparing for the first day of school. It’s adorable. I also feel like Aaron totally has spares of all of that stuff too so I feel like he just wanted to see if Ellis was committed. More than you Aaron...more than you. Haha. And I loved his bit with Brenda. I’m so glad he’s fitting into the village like he is and interacting with everyone. It’s great. I love him. I want to make an Ellis pop toy. haha. 

- Although I’m curious to see if Ellis really does start next week when Aaron’s not even around??? Haha. Maybe Robert will supervise him???

- And then there’s Robron. Haha. I’m happy they’ve sort of resolved things for the moment in that it’s not going to be actively angsty and tension filled...only simmering beneath the surface. I guess. Haha. I really am curious how long this will continue on and where it will go. I like that they haven’t crushed the ‘more kids’ dream just yet and that it’s more on the back burner until they’re both ready. I just hope that Aaron will come to realize that he is maybe more the one that’s not ready because having another kid won’t solve his problems. 

- I’m glad Seb got to see at least one of his dads on his birthday. That’s nice. I also liked that Robert gave Aaron every opportunity to come with because he clearly doesn’t really agree with Aaron’s new ‘hands off completely’ stance. It makes me feel better that even though Aaron is sitting there crying on the sofa while Robert goes off to see Seb, it’s not because Robert doesn’t want him there or he’s being purposely excluded or anything. Or that the show just doesn’t value the relationship enough and just didn’t bother having Aaron go. It was clearly a thing and a thing that made both of them sad and I appreciate that even if it makes me sad too. 

 - But anyway...please give me Ellis in a hi-vis vest over his bright yellow puffy jacket, rocking his safety goggles now please!

[eastergrass]

Digit

I.

Marie was on the downstairs couch, a game of solitaire unfolding on the coffee table. She had made a pot of coffee midway through The Today Show. She drank it all and chased with a pinch of Antony’s weed. She sat crosslegged, slowly losing to herself in front of the muted television.

The house was remarkably unchanged, but Marie herself was a bit different from the last time she called it home. She was quieter. She had started watching a lot of television, and had begun losing energy she didn’t realize she had. She lost touch with the global tragedies she used to worry about. She didn’t read. She heard only other peoples’ music. She was 27, buzzing on her mom’s couch, waiting for her little brother to come home so she had someone to talk to. She also hadn’t won solitaire in three days.

She decided to clean a dewy-bottomed pineapple. It left a print on the counter from sweating on the granite. She found it was easy to be centered by these methodical tasks. Marie removed the crown. She lopped off the sweet-smelling bottom. The knife had a heavy, professional feel to it. Her parents always liked the finer things. The sticky juices spread out, seeping over, under, and into the teak board.

Time passed. She had expected someone to be home by sundown, but this didn’t seem like much of a possibility any longer. The heat of summer began to die off. She carried a grocery bag filled with the bits of pineapple skin and the spiky green dome out to the trash bins. A recent invasion of fruit flies was attributed to Marie’s laziness and she made sure to be extra clean. Also Thursday was trash day, so she needed it out tonight.

II.

There were tall pines, bare to the top. Like a Christmas tree, teetering. The bins were beside the garage in a latticed alcove. The arbor, her mother called it. The smell of suffocated trash snuck out the lid before she could even open it.

Removing the lid, she was hit: stagnant rainwater, forgotten produce. There was something less familiar, though. What caught her attention was the bag at the top of the trash pile. A plastic take-out bag covered with purple orchids, with scrawling gold type: Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!

She was confused as to how someone ordered what seemed to be Thai or Vietnamese food without informing her. Antony didn’t have the money. Of course, Adrianne would have gotten her food, but then talked about the sodium content. The few leaves that had turned and fallen skittered in the driveway, clacking like dry dice.

A dismal curiosity got the better of her, and she bent into the putrid plastic maw. She tore open the sack, and a corner of a dishtowel stuck out. Marie lifted the bag out of the canister, into the darkening evening. It spun, dangling from the trussed handles. Fully removing its load, she began to discover the red. She reached some parchment paper at the center of the towels, with deep dark stains. She knew it was blood. You! the bag accused.

She heard the imperceptible hum of her mother’s mint-green hybrid pulling up the lengthy driveway. Marie tucked the bloodstained paper wads into the pockets of her sweatshirt, and turned to walk toward those crystal-clear headlights that cut the now fully-realized darkness.

Later on, her mother accosted her while she watched the 6:00 news. “Do you remember those anti-drug commercials, with the girl melting into the couch?” Adrianne perched one hand on her unmotherly hip, titled at a calculating angle. Marie stared at the television.

“You look like that.” She spun into the kitchen. A cork was drawn from bottle of Pinot Grig.

To be fair, she was correct. However, no mother should address her daughter in the way Adrianne had been for the past 27 years. She imagined her making snide remarks all her life, leaning over the edge of her crib and critiquing her large ears and thick hair. What a little gremlin, she’d cackle, tilting back her shock of black hair.

The hard-nosed news caster looked back at her from the flatscreen television set, a blurry cityscape green-screened behind his steely shoulders. “A true tragedy, we can only pray those responsible are brought swiftly to justice.” He looked off-screen, and began to say something else, when the program cut to commercials.

III.

It was a finger. Wrapped in parchment paper, wound up in Williams-Sonoma dishtowels. It was pale, yet bruised. The pale parts were the color of young ginger. The dark was a dirty purple. The finger nail seemed like it may fall off. She held it gently in the lamplight of her bedroom desk, smoke swirling out of the glass pipe she stole from Antony’s room. He hadn’t noticed, and that was a month ago. For the first time in her life Marie was afraid of her mother. Her bedroom, which Marie had not seen the inside of since she returned home, lay at the other

end of the unnecessarily large home. She was probably passed out, alone, in the bed she shared with Saul when he wasn’t away.

Marie ate a chunk of pineapple. It occurred to her that pineapple did, in fact, taste somewhat like a blend of pine needles and apples. She also considered the possibility that Antony was responsible for this. Her head nodded down, her eyelids flickered.

It lay on a meticulously folded edition of The Hartdon Bugle, occupying the spotlight of her bowed lamp. She thought it might at any minute remember where it was supposed to be, and limp off like Thing in The Addams Family, down some dusty black and white corridor and offstage. But it never moved, which is what bothered her most. Marie had always watched movies and television and wondered why nobody had contacted the police, who she assumed would arrive promptly and sort the whole thing before any damage was done. This didn’t make for good television, she knew.

She now wondered, rather abstractedly, who this finger might belong to. The coarse and bloody hairs, gritty with blood and struggle, lay somewhat flat and extremely disheveled. What would lead Adrianne to do this? Was someone else responsible, and if so, why did Marie assume her mother was?

The limp and mottled index finger – or was it a ring finger? – reminded Marie of something she once threatened to do. She had come home to live with her family after she left a man she had been with for five years. “I can do better,” is what she said.

She stayed up waiting for Antony, watching Law & Order re-runs. Each episode began with the discovery of the corpse. Somebody jogging through the park sees a foot sticking out from under a shrub. Some city workers dredge an urban mummy from a storm drain. A man playing fetch with his dog sees it running toward him with a severed leg.

Marie often found herself dissecting plot lines of T.V. shows. Back in Indiana, she was co-owner of a three-person company that built sets for community theater productions. She had always hoped she’d end up working for an NBC show or anything low-brow and high-paying. Many of the sets the company built were for plays in which people were murdered. She had long ago picked up the plot devices. “Let’s get this to the lab!” a tired detective barked down the alleyway.

IV.

A car pulled into the driveway. Self-consciously slow-moving and quiet, as if the vehicle itself were ashamed of being out so late. Antony snuck through a side door, which he closed with a click and a whisper. He must have heard the television, because he came right into the basement.

“Sis.”

“Antony. We need to talk.”

Marie and Antony stood next to the bins. They had disabled the security light, so when they went out to the arbor they didn’t attract any undue attention from their mother. Antony had laughed when she first told him the story, but stopped after he saw it himself. They passed a crooked joint between them, rolling clouds of smoke into the chilly air.

“It wasn’t her. She’s crazy, but …” he shook his head. “It wasn’t mom.”

Marie didn’t say anything, she just nodded. Antony crouched down around the trashcan, shining the flashlight on his phone throughout the gravel and on the siding of the garage. Perhaps looking for some blood-spray, or ransom note, or a wedding band that would solve the whole thing. He pinched the bridge of his nose in an overwrought expression of tiredness and anxiety.

Marie heaved a foggy sigh. “God damn it.”

That night, she wrapped the finger back up in its packaging, and put it in a gallon Ziploc bag, and placed it in the freezer of the mini-fridge upstairs that her mother never used. A hole burned in her gut. She went to bed without brushing her teeth. Her mouth tasted like stale pot smoke and a chunk of pineapple was wedged in her incisors.

V.

The next morning, Marie woke up to an empty house. Downstairs, a cooling pot of coffee waited. A note from her mother read:

Marie -

I made you coffee! Although, if you go for a run (which I pray you do) drink it afterward, in case of a BM. Could you put the bins at the curb? Get Up, Get Out, and GET SOMETHING.

wait until sundown to self-medicate.

– Mother

Friday turned out similar to Thursday. Marie sunk into the couch. Her left eye twitched, and she quickly knit her brow to correct this spasm. These eyebrows dominated her face. Her ex compared them to an actress’s in a way that raised questions. She heard the garbage truck doing its routine outside, and discreetly parted two of the venetian blinds to watch the arm dump the cans into the belly. She sank further into the couch, flexing her softening muscles inside the sweatsuit she wore the day before.

They had a nice dinner that night. The bulbs above the table hung from thick cords attached to the rafters at odd intervals: spreading like the legs of a giant spider. New houses can have ghosts as well as the old ones. They ate the leg of a lamb, smeared with an emerald blend of minced herbs. Marie ate pistachios out of a black bowl and threw the shells on her empty plate.

Antony, regardless of what he did in his free time, was actually a rather diligent student. Marie forgot exactly what they were celebrating, but all three of them were proud of his achievement. At one point Marie watched as her mother’s tight face softened in the lamplight, her elbows resting on the table, her birdlike hands clasped in an unlikely pose. For a moment, she thought she had imagined tears filling Adrianne’s eyes.

“It’s a nice, nice night. I don’t have to worry.” Adrianne went to bed shortly after letting that one slip.

VI.

Marie couldn’t find the moon. The wind blew cold from the far-off river, booming up through the pines. She looked up, and couldn’t distinguish the clouds from the sky. Depending on where she focused it could go either way.

She was sitting in what they called “Indian-style” when she was a kid. They probably didn’t call it that anymore. Across the sleeping yard, the snuffed security light was unable to betray her cautious movements. She was digging deep with a garden trowel. The earth would freeze up in about a month, so she had to do it now. The finger was in a Mason Jar, floating in a recipe for an all-purpose preservative she found online. She added a few sprigs of dill for a laugh.

Marie remembered burying a cat slightly deeper in the woods when she was seventeen. Adrianne and Saul had helped dig, as she stood by letting out the last of her tears. It was autumn then too, and she remembered the stillness of the pines and the golds and blushing reds of the oak leaves. Frowzy was about to have a bit of company, but just a bit.

She made sure she was right on the edge of the tree-line, at the foot of the sole paper birch, so she could remember the exact spot if she ever had to retrieve it. She caught the sloshing jar in the light of her cellphone one more time, the bobbing finger catching itself in the vortex of dill and brine. She set it gently into the soft, cold crater and began to fold it into the earth. When she was done, she built a cairn. The clouds separated themselves from the sky and exposed her to moonlight.

[ratemysheppard]

56) Silk Stalkings (Schemes Like Old Times)

Title- Silk Stalkings 3x7 ‘Schemes like old times’

Year- 1993

Character- Eddie Bryce

Synopsis- A rich doctor is found shot in his home, but there is more to it than there seems as the team uncover a web of blackmail and intrigue.

Medium- If you’re in the US, you can watch it here: https://www.amazon.com/TKO/dp/B000OYJ7LU/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1523269408&sr=1-1&keywords=silk+stalkings+season+3

Entirety or episode?- Episode

Overall verdict- Oh, Silk Stalkings, so 90s it’s 80s, swaggering around with the sleeves of its pastel blue suit jacket rolled up like the weird lovechild of CSI and The Room.

I sort of hate this and like it at the same time. It’s not bad by any means, this episode is actually pretty solidly plotted when it finally gets properly going – I genuinely enjoyed the way the twists played out and finding out who was behind everything and seeing the bad guys get played (and the really bad men get their comeuppance). It’s just, it’s by nature kind of skeevy and juvenile, in that teenage boy staying up to watch late-night TV in the hopes he’ll glimpse some sideboob kind of way. The acting is patchy, the scripted dialogue is often dreadful and it’s generally wall-to-wall sexism (that the female characters weirdly seem to dig) and this episode is not really an exception. But that said, yeah – it’s cheesy, daft and funny (not always in the right way) and it does entertain. Also, I do still enjoy comedy sidekick Cotton.

Serious CW for a bit of actually pretty revolting rapist dialogue right at the beginning before the credits.

Screen time- Brief

Accent- English

Mark’s character- This is Mark’s second TV role, as I understand it. Eddie is a con man and ‘psychopath’ recently free of jail where he spent five years for extortion and attempted murder. He’s ‘wiry, with a goatee’ and ‘an aroma of the jailhouse’ (I swear, that dialogue).

I mean, this is a brief role. I was watching from between my fingers because out of all the characters in this, Eddie’s dialogue is absolutely fucking heinous, and the majority of his screentime is really awkward sex scenes that I’m sure loads of people will be into but if I’m being honest I found just about the most un-arousing thing ever. Eddie’s not a nice guy at all and spends most of the bedroom scenes being a coercive, misogynistic, creepy hair-pulling bully. Here is an example of dialogue:

“Prison must really do something to crank up a man’s libido.”

“You bet it does. Five long years, I didn’t think of anything except getting next to something like you.”

“I want you to do it to me the way you imagined it in jail.”

I mean, if you can soldier through such a masterpiece of scripting as this for the chance at a glimpse of dragon tattoo, then I salute you, you’re made of sterner stuff than me.

It’s a shame that the sex scenes are so distracting, because there’s a lot of subtle ace stuff that’s easily missed. Like all the totally golden facial expressions, how Eddie rolls the body over in the first scene just so he can sass it, stuff like that. Even in the worst roles, Mr S is really very good indeed.

Highlight- Gross blackmailing rapist guy: “Take what you want, just don’t hurt me” Eddie: (shoots him) “Did that hurt?” – the five seconds where I briefly liked Eddie and thought he might be an anti-hero.

LOL DEGAS I’m getting Las Vegas flashbacks.

‘I found a pair of panties in Chris’s vegetable crisper’ was a memorable line, pass the brain bleach please.

“Fluorescent lights shrink your gonads” Why are you people so obsessed with sex?!

Eddie’s shirt at 15.19 deserves a series all to itself.

“You gotten spunky whilst I was in the joint” SAID NO ENGLISH PERSON EVER.

Rewatch?- Maybe. It grew on me.

(Thank you heaps to @rayhne for helping me track this down!)

[admittedlynotspartacus]

“Game of Thrones” Season VI: Episode 3 - Slay Queen

WARNING: SPOILERS for the latest episode below, so if you haven’t seen it and don’t know yet who dies, who fucks who, and how many costume changes Varys has, turn back now.

We begin July with a stop at my corner fire hydrant...

DRAGONSTONE

Remember back in Season 2 when everyone was like, “Wait a minute, how did Littlefinger get from King’s Landing to Renly’s camp to Highgarden in like an episode?” Well, everybody seems to have taken a hit of Littlefinger’s magic fairy dust because now they’re all fucking warping all over the goddamn place. Starting with J-Snow, who’s like -

and washes up on the shores of Dragonstone right from the get-go. And P-Dinky’s there like -

And J-Snow’s all -

While Michelle is just like -

Anyway, she makes the Dothraki strip-search J-Snow and co. and then she’s like -

But she keeps getting interrupted by Davos, who’s like, “Where ya from, girl? I couldn’t place your ACCENT.” Even though literally everyone on this show is like -

P-Dinky and J-Snow are catching up, giving recaps of their seasons since the show overtook the books and P-Dinky is like, “To be honest, I was drunk for most of it.” And D&D are like -

CUE THE DRAGONS, because remember? She has dragons. And they’re all like ROAAAAAR FLYING OVER HEAD and J-Snow is all, “NAZGUUUUUUULLL!!” But Michelle and P-Dinky are just like -

Cut to Melisandre creeping from above. Ya know, as she does. When she’s joined by Varys who’s using his newly-found confidence from his off-season Jenny Craig diet to rock this tight-fitting number that’s equal parts SS officer and... you guessed it...

They’re basically like, “You’re up to shit,” “No, YOU’RE up to shit” when Melisandre is like, “I think I’m gonna peace. See the world and all that. Oh and by the way, you’re totally gonna die.”

So we come to the moment we’ve all been waiting all our lives for - when D-Baby meets J-Snow. And it’s, like, fine. Michelle is like, “Paramount Pictures presents: Studio Canal’s presentation of a Fox Searchlight production, a film by Martin Scorsese, James Cameron’s Daenerys Targaryen.” And Jon is like -

Basically D-Baby’s like -

But he’s like -

It doesn’t go well. But at some point, Varys does run in like -

Later on, J-Snow is staring off a cliff like a Britney Spears music video when P-Dinky saunters over and is like, “I came here to brood. But I don’t brood as well as you.”

Basically, he wants to help. But J-Snow is being all -

And D-Baby literally can’t remember any of her lines except for -

so P-Dinky has to totally Dick Cheney the both of them into playing nice. After which D-Baby even seems like she’s kinda -

Again, she’s his aunt. Never forget.

KING’S LANDING

Uncle Freddie Mercury is PARADING through the streets like -

and everyone is so totally stoked to see him like, “Hosanna, heysanna, sanna sanna ho sanna hey sanna ho and -”

Because the surviving Sand Snakes are being dragged around and the crowd is basically the Internet. Like, at some point there’s literally a man yelling “YOU’RE THE WORST! THE WORST!” 

Anyway, he plops them down to Cersei, who’s instantly like -

Like, so much so that Uncle Freddie is already asking sex tips from Jaime (I believe he mentions butt play). Jaime, of course, is all -

Cut to Cersei wearing the loudest lipstick you’ve ever seen.

She’s rehearsing her Emmy submission monologue for Mama and The One Who Showed Her Boobs. And we’re all like, “Aight Cersei, enough talk, we all know you’re just gonna have Frankenmountain smash their heads in and rape them, right?”

But then Cersei’s just like so fucking turned on that she goes to The One Who Showed Her Boobs and is like -

And we’re all like -

But then we get it, ‘cause it’s poison. Except guess what? D&D don’t let us see The One Who Showed Her Boobs or Mama die. 

Oh, no. They’re going to keep Mama alive. So that at any moment... if we give them too much shit... they can bring... her... BACK.

At this point Cersei is wetter than a whore sweatin’ in church, so she goes to Jaime and she’s like -

And let’s just say it might look like Jaime’s the one who likes the finger up the bum, knowhamsayin? 

Anyway, they wake up the next morning (or something, time doesn’t matter anymore on this show), and Jaime’s like, “No one can see us.” But Cersei’s just like -

WINTERFELL

Meanwhile, Sansa is running around like -

and Littlefinger’s wandering around like the kid who can’t find a table to sit at in the cafeteria, being like -

And then he starts giving her like the most anti-Buddhist message of all time, like “Be stressed always.” At one point he literally says, “Everything that happens will be something you’ve seen before.” And I’m like...

But there’s no time for nostalgia, because somebody is at the gate! And we’re all like - OHMIGOD IT’S DEF ARYA, HERE WE GO! ...

It’s Bran.

Still, Sansa is like -

But Bran is just like -

Like seriously, Sansa is just trying to be all, “Sooo... how are thiiiings?” And Bran’s just like, “You had a really nice dress on the night you were raped.”

So of course, she’s like -

And he’s like, “K. I’m gonna stay by this tree, I guess.”

OLDTOWN

National Treasure Jim Motherfucking Broadbent is inspecting Daddy Mormont, who’s just like -

NTJMFB lets Daddy go, and Daddy EVEN GETS A NEW SHIRT. Seriously, he’s been wearing that yellow one since Season 1. But Sam is NOT out of the clear, because NTJMFB pulls him aside like -

And even though we’re still kinda like, “Wait. All Sam did was read the instructions and follow them and in all the history of Westeros no one at this super smart maester academy has EVER thought to do that?!?” Even though we’re still kinda like that, we really think NTJMFB is gonna expel Sam. When suddenly he’s like -

So then we think he’s gonna turn around and suddenly be like -

But instead he’s just like, “I need a shit-ton of copies.”

CASTERLY ROCK

P-Dinky’s monologue-ing as the Unsullied march on the Rock and he keeps talking about how it’s “impregnable,” but that somebody once told him when something’s “impregnable,” “impregnate the bitch.” And I’m like, “Whoever told you that (probably D&D) needs to wash their mouth out NOW, OKAY?!?”

Anyway, Barack’s there like -

And I’m like, “This is the end, my only friend - the end.” But lo, Barack sneaks in through P-Dinky’s whore tunnels and surprises everyone. And P-Dinky’s making us think they’re outnumbered, but Grey Worm is just like -

and lemme tell ya, he’s making. It. Work. He’s just like BAM KILLING BAM BAM but then he’s like, “Wait we killed everyone.”

HIGHGARDEN

All it takes is for me to see Jaime and the massive Lannister army marching while D-Rigg watches from her tower to be like -

Jaime takes the castle. Like really easily. Like too easily.

But whatever. Because all that matters now is D-Rigg. And lemme tell ya, she’s not leaving without one last bid for that Emmy.

First she’s ripping on him, him saying there’s always lessons in failures, and her being like, “Then you must be very wise.”

And then she’s like, “Hmm that’s a nice fucking sword you got there. Whose was that, your CUNT SON?!?”

And then she gets fucking real. She’s like, “Y’know Cersei?”

“And not only that... but she’ll be the end of you...”

So then, Jaime’s had enough, he’s like, “Drink your poison and be done.” And D-Rigg being D-Rigg, she doesn’t miss a beat, she’s just like -

And then. With one foot out of this life and one in the next, she’s like, “Oh yeah... I almost forgot to mention... 

I killed your son.”

“And I want Cersei to know.”

BODY COUNT: 2, plus loads of Lannisters, Unsullied, and Highgarden troops (RIP The One Who Showed Her Boobs and... of course... D-Rigg) BOOB COUNT: 1 pair EPISODE GRADE: B+

SER POUNCE’S STRAY THOUGHTS

Friendly reminder there are only TEN episodes left of Game of Thrones.

Melisandre says, “I’ve done what I set out to do. I’ve brought ice and fire together.” But she’s never really spoken of the war in the North in those terms before, has she?

Do we think she’ll be back this season? I would say she’s gonna need some time to go to Volantis and back, but she can probably get there in 5 minutes with these new warp capabilities.

And while we’re on the subject, the show’s depiction of time has ventured beyond forgivable into problematic. At a certain point around Season 5 it became clear that each story thread was operating under its own time rules; we’d jump forward to not see Jon travel from Hardhome and back, but the other storylines weren’t necessarily running exactly concurrent to his. However, now this is becoming a problem because everything is converging again. So if Jon can make it to Dragonstone in an episode, and if Jaime and Cersei hear the news of the Freys’ death in Episode 1 mere minutes after we’ve seen Arya kill them all, then it doesn’t really make sense that it would take Arya 4 episodes to find out that the Starks have Winterfell again. It’s refreshing to see the show moving quicker, but it also means that D&D can bend time to suit the needs of their plot, which is frustrating given the realism George brought to this world. On rewatch, this is going to be a very top-heavy series. The War of the Five Kings lasted three seasons, but Daenerys has gained and lost a whole host of allies in 3 episodes.

I don’t know why I actually expected Daenerys meeting Jon Snow to be this electric moment when Emilia Clarke and Kit Harington have been the least-nuanced performers of the cast for a long time (I think you could make the case they’re two of the least-nuanced leading actors on a highly-regarded prestige drama in history). Still, it was nice to see director Mark Mylod delay having the both of them in the same shot until the end of her speechifying.

Re: “I am the last Targaren, Jon Snow,” so those who have read the books know that there is this other Aegon Targaryen character who’s either legit or a fraud. Is J-Snow the real Aegon? I guess this matters more in the book, he would delegitimize the fake one, but he must have a Targaryen name right? He’s surely not Jon Targaryen.

D&D love their torture scenes, but the one with Cersei and Ellaria was interesting simply because the victims were just as ruthless as the torturer. I even found a small amount of empathy for Ellaria and Whatever Sand Snake That Is. And kudos to Ramin for that chilling reprise of Cersei’s end of Season 6 theme.

 Did we catch Jaime saying, “No,” as Cersei went in for him before their sex scene? Very frisky, D&D.

This was a much-needed solid Tyrion episode, although all of his plans from the last episode epic-failed. I look forward to the fallout. I’m ready for him to split with Daenerys already.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Sansa will be the queen at the end of all this.

Bran can see everything... except how to explain what being the Three-Eyed Raven means.

Although to be fair, I guess his speed-sync from last season before Max von Sydow died has left him with a fragmented manifestation of his capabilities.

Daenerys’ possessiveness of her dragons is being played up more than usual this season. Expect casualties.

If the Lannister feint seems familiar, that’s because it’s the same tactic Robb used in Season 1, leaving fewer troops to die against Tywin Lannister while leading the bulk of his men to kidnap Jaime. At first, I thought this was lazy writing. But it’s actually a really cool “Jaime learned his lesson” callback.

Oh, wait, there’s literally a line about this. My bad, I forgot D&D don’t trust us to figure things out for ourselves.

The Highgarden attack? Was it un-manned? Or was this just a case of they didn’t have the money to show a full-on battle here?

A note on Diana Rigg - truly one of the greatest assets of this show, and what an exit. Both D&D and her were so locked into that character - everything she said felt right and true. She will be missed. And hopefully Emmy awarded.

NEXT WEEK: D-Baby is done with clever plans, Theon with a boat, and dragons?!? I forgot she had those!!!

[cihojuda]

TSS Project Part 6: Equipment

Warning: hella long

So.

While doing some screenshot-taking for Part Five- specifically s1e24/Where Lies the Engulfer- I started thinking about the Claw. Doc tells us in s1e1/The Kur Stone that the Claw has “spring-loaded cable, telescoping shaft, grappling hook, vaulting and retrieving functionality.” I’m not really concerned with any of that, because we see that it does what it’s supposed to do. My nitpicking has to do with the fact that, in this kids’ show about animals that don’t actually exist, I have a hard time suspending my disbelief about the function of the Claw. Take a look at its various functions:

You get even more than is listed on the package with the Claw. It does everything Doc says it can do, plus some things that Zak thought of himself- helping him throw things, letting him cut things with the talons on the Hand of Tsul Kalu (and probably the bird head thing on the other end too), etc. But mostly, what we see are the grappling and dragging functions.

Zak rescues Doyle from the demon lake. (s1e24.)

What am I saying? Well, basically: when in non-combat situations Zak just uses the Claw like one of those T-rex shaped grabby arms.

I mean, wouldn’t you? He is only twelve after all.

T-rex grabbers aside, I have serious questions about this thing. Namely the spring-loaded cable and the telescoping shaft. Let’s look at the first time the Claw is introduced.

Doc is very proud of himself. (s1e2) This is the Claw in its most basic form, ie without the Hand of Tsul Kalu in it. We never get a reference for how long it’s supposed to be exactly. It looks to be around the length of Zak’s arm, but that’s before the changes in the length of the shaft. Which raises these questions:

How does it do that?

Where does the extra length come from?

Where is the cable stored?

Where is the cable-retrieval mechanism?

Can it get even shorter than we see it in this picture?

How do the length of the shaft and the cable mechanisms interact?

It seems that it can get shorter, as we can see by the way Zak can hook it to his belt when not in use.

If it was the same length it usually is, it would swing all around and whack him in the knee and it would look decidedly less heroic. Or, alternatively, the shaft would go up his shirt; and given the amount of times this child falls over that would be a bad situation for everybody. How he never got a puncture would from that ridiculous bird on the other end is beyond me.

However, that doesn’t mean I have answers for the other questions. The shaft of the Claw is too skinny to possibly house a cable-retrieval mechanism strong enough to move a person, much less Zak and Doyle like in s1e24/Where Lies the Engulfer.

Whee! (s1e24)

There’s simply no room in the interior of the Claw for that fuckery to go on. There have been attempts to re-create classic grappling hook type things in the real world, and they all look similar to this:

which could be a real grappling hook gun or it could be a promo image for the newest spy movie coming out this year. I’m inclined to think it’s real because it has a humongous storage area for cable and fictional depictions of grappling hook guns apparently just have portals in them with unlimited amounts of cable, except when it runs out just short of where they need to be for comedic effect. The Claw has no place to house a reeling mechanism. Unless the cable inside the Claw is thinner than thread and stronger than steel, I just don’t see how there’s any room for it to be able to forcefully launch and retrieve.

Speaking of no room, let’s look at the telescoping shaft. How u do dis?

For the Claw to be able to expand and contract at will, I’m assuming that Zak has to press one of those buttons at the top. We don’t actually know which of the buttons does what on the Claw. Thing is, there are only two buttons as far as I can see- and as far as they showed us with the toy.

weird bird head and all.

Is that red bubble a button too? It could be, I don’t know. That still doesn’t answer the “what button does what thing” question. The functions that should be button-controlled are:

Opening/closing of the Hand of Tsul Kalu

Extension/contraction of the shaft

Launching/retrieving of the cable

I would think that you would want some functions and their opposites to be controlled by separate buttons, but I guess Doc is just a minimalist or something. Again, I don’t know what button controls what thing. It’s really too minor of a detail to be shown in the show at all, but I really wouldn’t mind having an overview of how it works. (I’m used to not knowing how things work. I watch Star Trek and everybody just mashes random buttons when they’re told to do something.)

But back to my point about the telescoping shaft.

The problem with the shaft works on a similar principle as the problem with the cable: Where does the extra length on the shaft come from? Usually, for something to be expandable, either there’s another layer hidden inside it or it stretches. I don’t think metal staffs can stretch, so in this case we’re using the dictionary.com definition of telescoping: “adjective: consisting of parts that fit and slide one within another.” Going off of that (and a single cursory Google search), I’m assuming that the Claw works on this principle:

which leaves even less room inside the shaft for the cable to move around. Also, it probably should make the Claw more unstable the closer it gets to its maximum length, because telescoping poles are notoriously collapse-prone. Unless the Claw can extend and stay there permanently like a police baton,

which it may, because this is Doc Saturday’s handiwork we’re talking about. I still don’t understand how circuits/mechanics can be so small and fine as to control the telescoping function without being destroyed and replaced pretty often. Is it tiny hydraulics? Computer? Air power? I don’t know! Plus, it still leaves a big question open as to how it auto-retracts. How in the fuck does that work?

I have no idea. My last big question about the Claw is about the interconnectedness of the telescoping shaft and cable/reeling functions. Since by the dictionary definition of telescoping the Claw has to be made up of smaller, sliding parts somewhere in the interior, how does the cable fit in there at all, much less a pulling mechanism? Does the Claw require a power source? I want to know these things!

Moving on to my next topic: the Firesword.

This, apparently, is what the Firesword would look like in real life.

As opposed to this- which, I know, is a hokey plastic kids’ toy; but that look could easily be achieved with the right color of materials. I guess I’m just going to have to accept that not everything in my life can be shades of orange. (No i’m kidding i accepted that in the 4th grade when my mother refused to buy me anything else orange after the horrible orange turtleneck and corduroy pants I made her get for me.)

All pedantry aside, the people from the website where I got the picture did a really good job. I think their Firesword looks really cool; but it’s not the one I’m going to be talking about.

History lesson, for those who never read the Cartoon Network website and may not remember the throwaway line about how Drew got the Firesword: it was given to her by the monks in Tibet who took her in after the Yeti killed her parents. We learn about the monks in s1e7/Van Rook’s Apprentice, but we don’t see them until s2e9/And Your Enemies Closer. That’s also the episode that tells us that V. V. Argost was actually the Yeti in disguise the whole time, which was all very convenient plot-wise. How do we learn this? Drew, Doyle and van Rook- and, for some reason, Zon- go to visit the temple where Drew grew up.

pew pew (s2e9)

The monks fire on van Rook, Zon and Doyle because they’re strangers whose intentions are unclear. We can infer from the fire that either the monks have laser weapons or they also have Fireswords like Drew’s. Most of us had probably assumed that the Firesword was a completely unique weapon, but this shows us that there’s a possibility of there being more. I mean, what’s more likely: that Drew’s Firesword is the only magical fire-shooting sword in existence and the monks just happened to give it to a magical orphan child they adopted (Jesus Drew you’re so anime) or that a remote religious sect that has little contact with the outside world has a security system that they probably commissioned from Tony Stark?

So the monks have their own Fireswords.

Now, I don’t really have any issues with the way the Firesword works. I can accept the fact that it’s a magical sword much easier than I can accept the lack of space in the Claw for a reeling mechanism. Why? I’m like Zak. I know how to toe the line between magic and science. In science you have to look for rational solutions to things, and with magic there’s sometimes an explanation and sometimes you just have to accept that it’s just “because magic” and move on. (see also: the entirety of the Harry Potter series.) We’re never going to know how and why the Firesword can do what it does. But don’t think that that doesn’t mean I don’t have questions!

How does Drew tell it to shoot fire?

Was it blessed by a god or cursed by somebody?Was it consecrated by the monks?

How old is it?

Where do the retractable blades at the end come from? How does Drew tell the sword to retract the blades?

Are there other, similar weapons?

Is there any real difference between using light from the sun vs. light from the moon or is that just aesthetics?

Does Drew know the answer to any of these questions besides the ones about making the sword do what she wants?

I also wonder about the circumstances surrounding Drew being given the sword.

How old was she when she first started learning to sword fight?

Did they start her off with a wooden dummy sword first?

Was the Firesword a going away present? We know that she left the temple to go to college, and obviously then got married to Doc and had Zak and whatever whatever.

Unfortunately we aren’t ever going to get to know anything about Doc, Drew or Doyle’s backstories. *sad trombone* I need to know these things, dammit. For science.

This post is going to be long, so I’m going to cut it here. Coming up next: Doyle’s jetpack and the Power Glove.

[thegrvoflightning]

It’s Been Too Long

You know how sometimes there’s this one episode of a show that leads you to go to “I quit. I’m not supporting this show any more!”? “Not All Dogs Go to Heaven” was that episode for me in regard to Family Guy. 

Now as I seem to enjoy reviewing things that lead to anger, stress and utter contempt. How about I review Not All Dogs Go to Heaven! Sound good? Great. Let’s begin this utter disgrace of an episode. 

I’m fifty seconds in and I ALREADY am starting to hate it. This line “where once a year, sci-fi buffs take their lips off the barrel of a loaded gun and spend half a day adjusting their eyes to sunlight.” is a disgusting ‘joke’. Suicide has never been and never will be funny. Maybe it’s because I’ve had a former friend of mine commit suicide that I take it so personally but ignoring that for a moment.  I question, was there not one person in the writers room who thought maybe that ‘joke’ went slightly too far? 

So it’s then revealed that the only reason that the family is at the Star Trek Convention is cause Peter has been waiting for it all year upon being kicked out of the last one for asking a question regarding a cast members weight. 

Ok. I know I’m nitpicking but... Why couldn’t Peter go by himself and then have a subplot featuring everyone else! 

Stewie then fanboys over Patrick Stewart and Brian asks if Stewie’s queer. Ok. You want to indulge in gay jokes. Fine. At this point considering what’s coming up later on I’ll just accept it knowing it will get worse. 

Can I not be correct in regard to it getting worse. I mean seriously, A KLU KLUX KLAN joke. Please stop getting worse! 

There’s then a joke about fans asking questions completely unrelated to Star Trek to the CAST OF NEXT GENERATION might I add and Stewie getting madder and madder each time. 

If you want to portray fans as asinine enough to ask stupid questions of a cast of something they’re invested in, go ahead. You are outright proving you aren’t comedic or charming. You just wish to appeal to the lowest common denominator while pissing off everyone else. Well. Mission accomplished. 

Then we proceed to dick jokes. Maybe if I was 13 I’d find this comedic. But at 16. No. I find it low brow and uninteresting. 

Then we get a joke about a plane crashing into a mountain and exploding (presumably killing everyone on board) due to shampoo getting in the pilots eye. You’d think they wouldn’t go lower. THEY WILL. BELIEVE ME ON THAT. 

Then they reference Calvin and Hoobes. NO. I’M NOT FALLING FOR THAT. You’re too awful to let a reference to my favourite comic cloud my judgement. 

Then a fart joke... You’d think at this point maybe they’d stop getting lower. 

So. Peter suggests because this is a Meg episode we change the channel. I won’t because this is only 14 and a half minutes more of misery compared to hundreds of pages. 

Meg has became a born-again christian and becomes an obnoxious preacher. (I’m sorry to every christian who reads this blog, I know most of you aren’t like Meg in this episode. Hell I’m an Athiest myself and this episode offended me despite it trying to forward the ideal of Athiesm.) 

The next joke is Stewie completely messing up the pronunciation of Will Wheaton. 

Cue Meg trying to force religious views on her family followed by Brian coming out as an atheist. Lewis then says the following “No. Brian, it's one thing to bash organized religion, but we believe in God in this house. I mean, an atheist? That's just about the worst thing a person can be.” 

YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS! RAPISTS, MURDERERS, PEDOPHILES. THERE’S THREE THAT ARE WORSE THAN ATHIESTS. YOU WANT TO SUGGEST I’M THE WORST? GO AHEAD. ALL YOU’RE DOING IS PROVING TO ME THAT I SHOULD NEVER INDULGE IN THIS PROGRAM AGAIN.

Peter than states: Shut up, beast. I have dominion over you. And I command you to believe in God.

YOU WANT TO FORCE BELIEFS?! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?! (Why do I even ask that regarding Peter... EVERYTHING IS WRONG WITH HIM.) 

Upon entering the Sub-Plot of Stewie with the cast of Star Trek, the show enters back to main plot... With Meg tempting Brian to grab a cross by making him fetch it... Upon Brian later making clear that he won’t be converted and Meg saying she just wants Brian to feel the joy she does and Brian making clear why he’s an Athiest. Meg outs him on the news with the headline “WORSE THAN HITLER” used to describe him. 

Whoever suggested that joke should’ve been fired, the executive who allowed it to air should’ve been formally cautioned. 

I can find humor in many things. Comparing an Athiest to Hitler, I never will. 

Later they have the mayor say they’d rather have a TERROIST living in their midst. Ok. Now I want the executive that allowed the Hitler joke fired for allowing such sickening ‘comedy’. 

Finally the show switches back to the sub-plot making a racial and boob joke just seconds after each-other. Only five minutes left... I’d best hold it together. Brian finally fakes a turn to god and then sees a book burning of everything that goes against god and soon goes on a speech destroying god. Which I can’t accept in any standard. 

You know what. I’m an Athiest and I don’t accept this. Believe WHATEVER YOU WANT. So long as it isn’t hurting anyone it’s perfectly fine to believe whatever you want to. That is all. Family Guy is my most hated western cartoon if it wasn’t obvious. 

(Just a note. No longer gonna put what the next review is at the end of these posts. Every review is now a free choice. Cya next time.)

[canvaswolfdoll]

CanvasWatches: Dagashi Kashi

How did this get a dub?

Don’t get me wrong, I am thankful it got a dub, of course, since I enjoyed Degashi Kashi, but… how did an anime about Japanese Penny Candies/Snacks earn itself a dub? It’s so niche, so obscure, and so unlikely that American audiences would experience any of these foods for themselves,[1] that I wouldn’t even dream of it receiving a a Sub-only Release, let alone a dub. Heck, my even knowing about it was a combination of vaguely recalling some random bit from LoadingReadyRun discussing its upcoming release, and accidentally finding it through Funimation.

And it’s second season is also getting a Simuldub, which makes this series even more inexplicable, as it doesn’t strike me as a show that would inspire a revival.

Why does Dagashi Kashi have a dub? How does any of this happen?

I love anime.

(Spoilers below the page break)

Degashi Kashi is a slice of life comedy about a young boy who kind of wants to be a Mangaka, but whose dad wants him take over the family business: a Japanese Candy Store.[2] The young boy would rather not. Then a quirky, Degashi-obsessed girl arrives looking to recruit the father for her family’s snack company, but the father will not take the job unless his son will take over the family store.

Hilarity ensues. Also lot of trivia and history lessons about the Dagashi and its surrounding culture.

It’s a charmingly odd show that makes the most out of having only five cast members. There’s Kokonotsu (the noted son) his father Yo, Hotaru (the girl seeking to get Kokonotsu to take over the store) Saya (Cafe operator crushing on Kokonotsu) and Tou (Saya’s brother who looks like Dave Strider).

There’s pretty much no major plot to speak of, with only enough premise to carry the episodes between various Dagashi lessons.

Also some pretty tame fan service. And odd character designs.

The eyes are weird. Kokonotsu’s are mostly fine, as far as generic protagonist designs go, and Yo and Tou don’t have their eyes visible often enough for comment, but the girls have pretty out-there eyes.

Hotaru’s eyes are concentric circles, making her look a little crazed and possibly unearthly. Her design over all is pretty eccentric, as she’s dressed in a simplified gothic lolita style and is the only one without natural hair and eye color, but that I’m broadly used to, because… anime. She sticks out like a sore thumb, but that fits her role so I’m okay with her design.

Also, her dub voice is… unconventional. There’s a usual timbre and speaking pattern that I’ve grown to expect from female characters. Usually sweet and light, but able to range into comedic anger. A little wiggle room for personalization, but mostly samey.[3] Hotaru can have that quality, yes, but when she really gets going, it’s usually a little lower pitched, and there’s this vocal quirk that’s… very difficult to put into words, where she’s not actually putting on a mocking tone, but is next door to it in pattern.

Please try and find examples of this dub voice. I was surprised at first, but I quickly grew to like Tabitha Ray’s performance for sounding very distinct.[4]

Returning to eye criticisms, Saya looks constantly crazed.

Her irises remain constantly tiny. The thing about giant anime eyes is it allows space for fine tuning emotions. Normally, the pupils/irises take up about 40-60% of the total space, allowing space to make them grow to show interest or more emotion, or (as is more to the point) shrink to show shock or extreme anger or just a loss in mental stability.

There’s an expressive language one learns as they watch anime, and Saya is locked in the tiny iris end, so she looks like she’s supposed to be crazy, possibly planning on burning you alive with a scalding pot of coffee at any moment.  But that isn’t her personality at all. Sure, her introductory scene was pretty textbook Tsundere, but she quickly eased into the Childhood Friend archetype, and either way, her shrunken eyes are unjustified. I got mostly used to the eyes, but it’s still poor design, since (ideally) character design should tell you something about the character, or at least be deliberately misleading.

Which leaves one last topic to discuss: Fanservice!

The portrayal of sexual elements is important for creators to consider. Good Art should hold a mirror to the human experience, and how an artist approaches the subject can say a lot.

Still, cultural norms and the ebb and flow of societal expectations, as well as the desire to draw in the target audience, makes the execution of fanservice fascinating to me. Where are the lines, on both a community level and personal level? Does the medium itself have an influence? Because a single misstep in fanservice can bring forth harsh criticism.

And, let me remind you that Avatar: the Last Airbender, one of the best animated series to broadcast on an American children’s television station, dedicated an episode to showing cute girls (and Zuko) at the beach in bathing suits. The oldest of whom was 16.[5]

So, Dagashi Kashi, to its credit, doesn’t feel fanservice-driven. Sure, some situations might be a little contrived (mostly surrounding Hotaru), but like the comedy of Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun, the show at least shows the steps that bring forth fanservice. And, to be honest, it’s pretty tame after the first episode. Mostly rain or sweat making Hotaru’s white shirt a little sheer to show off a little frill of her bra. Then the camera takes the perspective of Kokonotsu, who takes a very quick glimpse before averting his gaze.

Now, before I go further with my analysis, let me be clear: if the show cut all the fanservice scenes and took the maybe five total minutes they took (in twelve episodes) and expanded the Dagashi lessons, there would be no real loss. It’s superfluous material. But the fanservice shots also aren’t distracting nor derail the plot. They’re also mostly tasteful, and work is put in so the fanservice does work in context.

The element to execution that I think is most important is that it’s viewed through the the lense of youths, particularly Kokonotsu. No one’s ages are explicitly stated (not that I noticed, anyways), but there’s enough mention of homework that points to at least Kokonotsu, Saya, and Tou being school aged, most probably High Schoolers.[6] Hence, some awkwardness on the subject of romance and sex. So, yes, there will be some curious glances when the opportunity is presented.

Second, beside one scene concerning Saya, no one’s particularly victimized. The concept of fair consent is… curious when applied to fictional characters and the audience. It’s a debate that’s plagued superheroes for literal generations, and I’m not so foolish as to take a firm stance at this point.

So, setting aside arguments that fictional characters are inherently in a relationship of power imbalance with their writers,[7] in what cunning ways do you write a character (male or female) as being okay with a level of objectification?

You could have a character say they lack a nudity taboo, but that breaks the ‘Show, don’t Tell’ rule, and doesn’t clear accidental slips.

Dagashi Kashi manages to establish Hotaru’s lack of care in a such a blaze of insane glory that you don’t actually realize what the writers pulled until you’re writing a review spending an awkward amount of time discussing the show’s fanservice.

In the first episode, Saya meets Hotaru when the former sees the latter laying in the rice paddy she crashed into, coating her in mud. Being neighborly, Saya lets Hotaru use her shower. After which, Hotaru shows a casual disregard at being fully naked in front of both Saya and Tou. This is the most explicit scene in the series (in a PG-13 way) and is such obvious pandering, that you don’t even notice the show has taught you that Hotaru carries no reservations, so when the show very briefly shows off her body through the rest of the show, the audience knows Hotaru isn’t a victim.[8]

It’s a blatant, pandering scene that still serves a mechanical purpose. So that’s worth studying.

The only time either girl is victimized, it’s a transgression by Tou against Saya, when he uses a sticky hand to flip up her skirt. Credit to the direction, the camera stays firmly in front of her, where her skirt remained in place, and the audience sees nothing. Tou is also violently punished.[9] So the show went out of its way to show there’s a line: “accidental” fanservice from the indifferent Hotaru is kosher, intentional malice towards the unwilling Saya will not be justified by the camera.

I mean, obviously I’m not telling my fellow writers to showcase what they don’t think is okay to show, but I will say this: establish what you’re comfortable portraying and what you’re not, and try your best to inform the audience what the extreme is so they can decide if they’re on board.

Say whatever cynical thought you carry, I appreciate that many animes tend to front load the most egregious fanservice in the first episode, so after one episode you know what to expect.

Dagashi Kashi is a fun show, very educational about niche Japanese culture, and rife with things to overthink. Or not. The Japanese Snack trivia is a delight if you just want to watch at a surface level.

If you enjoyed this… frankly rambling navel-gazing review, consider supporting me on my patreon, checking out my webcomic or other works, or even just sending me questions or comments. Any support is nice. Helps me feel firm in following managka dreams instead of taking over the family candy store.

Except my family doesn’t have a candy store…

Man, why doesn’t my family own a rural candy store? That’d be cool.

Kataal kataal.

[1] Internet markets and subscription boxes aside. [2] Specifically a Degashi store, which seems to be a genre of Japanese snack foods. I cannot give further context, I’m afraid. [3] If I may have one quick dig at Japanese voice acting, girls always seem to have obnoxiously high pitched voices. [4] I should see if she’s done anything else. [5] A fact I present not as condemnation, but to provide an interesting perspective. I never see any debate over “The Beach”, which I think is also interesting. [6] I assume. Then again, Usagi of Sailor Moon is in middle school, so you can’t always trust your eyes. [7] Because it’s not a real person, and trying to apply such parameters to creator and creation is ridiculous. [8] And they don’t break the suspension of disbelief like Funimation did with Luccoa. [9] Now, the fact that this is a brother harassing his sister is a kettle of fish I will not dive into.