#this is the first time in awhile i wanted to discuss one piece thematically. or at least in a more narrative what is this saying way

[writesailingdreams]

One Piece chapter 1104: spoilers for chapter

Okay, (1) best non-Luffy punch in the series

(2) that bit about Kuma being there (and motivated) out of sheer emotions (love) rather than any logical and conscious reason is a thematic idea I want to chew on. I'm not sure how, exactly. But that there can be emotional resonance that exceeds even the confines of a being's own self-awareness.

Something, something "we are the ones who weave history" "people only die when they are forgotten" "things will never die." I guess, in so many words, it may be something like: immaterial emotions that are strong enough have their weight in the world (and history) too.

(3) cover page was cute. You've been doing better since Whole Cake Island, Sanji.

[kallypsowrites]

Game of Thrones, The Lowest Point, and what it means for Season 8

Hello everyone. I’m here to talk to you today about ‘the lowest point’. The lowest point, for those of you who aren’t familiar, is the darkest place in the story. The moment where everything seems hopeless because a character has failed or gone through tremendous loss or died. The lowest point is one of the most important moments in any character arc because it tests our characters. Sometimes they rise stronger than ever and sometimes they succumb to their struggles. This is often what sets apart a tragedy from a drama.

In a three act structure, the lowest point typically is placed at the 2/3 or 3/4 mark of the story. You’ve probably noticed this if you’ve watched a film. With 20-30 minutes left to go the characters are often crying/moping/suffering. But then it’s more satisfying when we see them rise up to face the conflict in the final moments!

Now in a long ass TV show like Game of thrones, lowest points do work a bit differently. There are many lowest points throughout the season. But we can still identify each character’s LOWEST lowest point and see where it is in the narrative. And the show is eight seasons, with a total of 73 episodes. So we can kiiiiinda see where the lowest point fits in by using math (*gag*)In this way, we can predict what that says for each character in their final season of Game of Thrones.

So, the remaining Starks (Jon, Sansa, Arya and Bran) actually all have their lowest point at around the same place, which is thematically satisfying. Obviously the Starks have had MANY low moments, but we’re looking for the LOWEST of the low.

Sansa, for instance, is a character with many rough moments. But while Joffery is awful, her marriage to Ramsay is unquestionably her lowest point. She has been constantly losing her identity as a Stark to marriage but this is the very worst instance. This happens in season five and culminates with her being willing to throw herself off the wall of Winterfell on the off chance she might survive. Her lowest point happens roughly 2/3 of the way through the show because of that.

Arya also is a character of many bad moments from witnessing her father’s death to the red wedding! But her lowest point is when she begins to lose her very identity as a Stark in season five and six. Her loss of vision is what kick starts that lowest point at the end of season five. Roughly 2/3 of the way through the story. 

Jon lost his lover Ygritte which was sad, but his lowest point is when he DIES at, you guessed it, the end of season five. 2/3 of the way through the story. Worse than that he is BETRAYED for doing something he thought was right!

Bran is the only Stark who’s lowest point occurs in season six instead, when he surrenders himself to beoming the three eyed raven and the old Bran seems to “die”. But Bran wasn’t in season five at all, so if we just take the seasons he IS in, then his lowest point occurs around the 3/4 point of his story, so not too far off.

It’s not just the Starks who have a lowest point at the end of season five! So does Cersei! Her walk of shame marks her most emotionally vulnerable and awful moment and therefore occurs 2/3 of the way through the story. Losing her son was of course, awful, but this attacks her very sense of self. Again, often times the lowest point is not someone you love dying but when you start to lose all sense of who you are.

Tyrion’s lowest point is when he kills Shae and then his father. It occurs about half way through the story, so he’s set apart from the other five we’ve discussed here. He has tried so hard to be accepted by his family, so hard to prove his innocence, so hard to get his father’s approval. And this is the moment when he says FUCK it. He becomes a Kinslayer and he leaves King’s Landing in a box. He, at the time, seems to have forfeited the game. It’s no coincidence that the next time we see him he is drinking like its the end of the world. A lowest point at the half way mark is unconventional, but sort of makes sense in a TV show. There is Tyrion BEFORE he killed his father and there is Tyrion AFTER he killed his father. He is forever changed now.

But some characters have a lowest point that’s even FURTHER back. Let’s check out Jaime and Theon. They both have their lowest point in season three and...man...could it have to do with a loss of self? Hell yeah it does!

Jaime loses his hand in episode three of season three, about 1/3 of the way through the story. It is stated many times that his LIFE was in that hand. His sword hand. That has always been the one thing he KNEW he could do better than anyone. With that gone he has nothing. He doesn’t know who he is so he must figure it out again from scratch. And he takes a kind of long time to figure it out but we’ll circle back to Jaime in a sec.

Theon SUPER loses his identity through awful torture until he goes only by the name of Reek. His lowest point kind of lasts awhile, but I’d say the end of season three where he first abandoned his name, marks the true lowest point. A little over 1/3 of the way through the series. And he, like Jaime, takes a long time to rediscover it.

And then there’s Daenerys. Do you know when her lowest point happens? Her LOWEST lowest point?

It’s season one.

Now, Daenerys has had other lowest points of course. Locking away her dragons, being picked up by the Dothraki, losing Viseron. But none of them have been quite so intense as her season one loss. Toward the end of season one, Dany has finaly been coming into power, free from her brother. She has a plan to cross the sea and take back her throne! And she has an army willing to take her there! And, even better, she’s pregnant with a son who she already loves!

But then, in a very short span of time she loses her husband, her son and all of her armies. She is left with only a few scattered followers and she walks into a fire with the dragon eggs. At this point, her surviving or the dragons hatching is not a sure thing. This, for Daenerys, is a sort of desperate act to try to retain SOMETHING of the power she had only a few days previous. Fortunately for her...it results in dragons.

Let’s talk about the results of the lowest point real quick. The lowest point isn’t just there to make a character suffer. It’s there to mold them and push them along their arc. It’s there to make them stronger. So how does the lowest point effect each character? Well, Jon is brought back from the dead, escaping his lowest point. And with that, he is actually able to fight for his family again--the family he always wanted to be a part of. He, as a result, becomes King in the North. But he wouldn’t have been able to do that if not for being knifed through the heart. On a personal level thought...he’s more jaded but also more focused than ever on the true threat. The Night King must be stopped. It is the only way to save everyone.

Sansa, after enduring abuse after abuse, is tired of other people deciding her fate for her. Cersei, Joffrey, Littlefinger, Ramsay. They’ve all used her for their own means. She wants to take back Winterfell, with Jon, so they can be safe. That is Sansa’s main desire at this point. Safety. And she will do anything to ensure it. The reason why its so satisfying to see her face Ramsay and tell him to “sleep well” is because she is no longer letting anyone have control over her. She’s done with that. She as become harder and smarter.

Arya, after having her eyes taken, must of course learn to use her other senses and endure physical abuse from the waif. So she gets stronger. But the real struggle here is for her identity. All throughout the arc, there’s this thread that she can’t let go of Needle. It’s what Jon gave her! Its her last piece of herself! And by the end, instead of letting herself be killed or giving up on Arya Stark, she takes Needle and kills the waif before declaring “a girl is Arya Stark and I am going home”. Perhaps she has lost everything... but she will not give up her name or her family.

Bran, interestingly, is sort of still in his lowest point. He has become the three eyed raven and at this point it is uncertain whether or not he will find himself again or whether, as Mira says, he died in that cave. That question will surely be answered in Season 8.

Cersei, in response to being shamed...fucks up EVERYONE. She blows up the sept with the faith as well as Margaery and becomes queen of the Seven Kingdoms. They brought her low and she climbed higher than ever. But this is also at a tragic cost. She loses her final child and thus becomes colder than ever. Cersei’s story is a tragedy after all, so there is never TRUE triumph for her.

Now, Jaime and Theon are frustrating character, partially because they have to be made, unmade and reborn. And that takes time. In season one and two, they both kind of suck. Jaime sucks most in season one and Theon most in season two. Then, through a dramatic, traumatic event they lose themselves and are left wandering in the dark. Jaime TRIES to return to buisness as usual as a King’s Guard, but finds himself more distant from Cersei as she too is changed. And he fails to protect TWO of his children, which leaves him feeling more lost. But really, he’s stuck with the person who brings out the worst in him, clinging to the past that he had with her until he FINALLY realizes that its over and leaves her at the end of season seven.

Theon spends quite a bit of time as Reek, likewise, and even though he escapes Ramsay at the end of season five, he still is left with the fear of him and the trauma that losing himself inflicted. For THREE WHOLE SEASONS he was with Ramsay, and that has been traumatic. So season six and seven focus on him still not truly being Theon anymore. Now, at the end of season seven, he has finally claimed his name again, bathed himself in water (reborn) and is ready to save his sister.

Jaime and Theon are both frustrating characters because we WANT to see them embrace their new selves but it takes them awhile to do so. The Starks are easier to get behind because their reaction to their lowest point is more immediate whereas Jaime and Theon stall for a bit before finally getting it. It is frustrating but like...it’s also relatable in a way.

And then, back to Daenerys. Daenerys, as I mentioned, comes out of her lowest point with three dragons. By the end of season two, she has money. By the end of season three, she has an army. By the beginning of season four, she has Mereen. By the end of season five she has figured out how to ride her dragon and she has new advisors in Varys and Tyrion. By the end of season six she has the dothraki in addition to her other armies, a bunch of allies, and is ready to sail for Westeros.

There are lowest points interspersed in these developments, but over all, she has continued to gain more and more ever sense her lowest point. As her dragons get bigger so does her power. Now, some of that power has wavered as she lost allies in Westeros and now the threat of the dead is coming...but the fact that we haven’t seen Dany lower than the end of season one? That has implications for season eight. So what are those implications?

Of the remaining major characters, I think Jon, Sansa, Bran and Theon have already hit their LOWEST lowest point.

Arya and Tyrion are a toss up for me.

Cersei, Jaime and Daenerys have yet to hit their true lowest point. 

I’ll explain. For Jon, he has already died, and even if he dies again...that’s not really hitting a lowest point. If anything, the second time he dies, it will be after completeing his mission and therefore less devestating than the first time. He certainly won’t die via betrayal this time. And, best case scenario, he lives! But this is Game of Thrones after all.

For Sansa and Theon...I really don’t think it can get worse than Ramsay. Even if shitty things happen to them, there’s just...no sinking any lower than that.

For Bran, he’s still in the midst of dealing with his other lowest point so his fate in season eight will sort of be...a reaction that that.

Arya and Tyrion are a tossup for me because it kind of depends. If Arya, at any point, chooses vengeance over family, I suspect she will hit a new and tragic lowest point. If not, I think she’s good. For Tyrion, I’m hazy enough on his motives right now, there is a possibility that he will hit a lower point.

But then there’s Cersei, Jaime and Daenerys. Cersei’s whole life has been barrelling toward this self fulfilling prophesy. And if Jaime is indeed going to be her killer, the realization of that will fucking SHATTER her right before she dies as she realizes that she has been so blind.

For Jaime, the lowest point will likely be Cersei’s death. If his hand was part of his identity, she was another part. Now of course, I’m the biggest Jaime x Brienne shipper in the world and I DO THINK at this point he has left Cersei behind. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t going to be a kick in the balls when she dies (especially if he does it).

And then Daenerys. For a long time, its been a journey up for Dany. Ever since season one she has been rising. What’s the saying? The higher you go, the further you fall? I don’t know what form Dany’s lowest point will take, but I am fairly sure this season is going to be ROUGH for her and will probably have something to do with her sense of self as a Targaryen (since many of the true lowest points have looked at personal identity). On a narrative level, its been too long since the LOWEST lowest point, and its probs going to happen here.

Anyway, just a little story analysis I was thinking about this morning. Let me know what you think the season 8 lowest points will be! As always, keep discussion respectful :)

[gunterfan1992]

What Became of Marcy and PB?

I thoroughly enjoyed the finale, but I was left with one nagging question that is still bothering me: what became of Marcy and PB? I’m not talking about their relationship status. (The epilogue of the episode makes it pretty clear that they ended up as a happy couple.) I’m talking about 1000 years in the future.

In an interview with TVLine, executive producer Adam Muto noted, "I don’t want to lay out their entire future ... but there are enough pieces there that you can kind of construct what their life will be like going forward.” If that’s the case, then let us follow the hints and try to figure out what became of our two favorite (quasi-)immortals.

Reader be warned: this post is full of half-baked conspiracy theories and cherry-picked data points, all assembled in a way that vindicates my theory that Marceline and Bubblegum are still alive in Ooo 1000+. I make no claim that this is 100% full-proof. I just don’t want to believe that they are dead!

Let’s start with the King of Ooo: BMO. After Beth and Shermy question the robot about what happened to Marceline, Bubblegum, Finn, and Jake, BMO responds that they “kept living their lives.” This, combined with the fact that Marceline no longer lives in her house and the Candy Kingdom is in ruins, suggests that the two are dead. But while this answer might seems obvious, it leaves a lot to be desired.

First off, Marceline’s cave-house being abandoned is not indicative of anything too major. Remember, she used to live in the Tree Fort before eventually abandoning it, too. By the time that Ooo 1000+ rolled around, she could have easily moved to another locale. In fact, I would argue evidence within the episode suggests that sometime (probably awhile) after the Tree Fort was destroyed, Marceline gave her cave-house to Finn, Jake, and BMO, and then likely moved in with PB (given that at the end of Stakes, Bubblegum offers to let her move into her castle, an offer which Marceline initially declines, but implies she might one day take up). Not only would this be thematically fitting, as it was she who “gave” Finn and Jake the Tree Fort in the first place, but it would also explain how some of Finn and Jake’s belongings found a home at the house (1) and how BMO came to be in possession of a few of Marceline’s items, like her DARE shirt, sunscreen, or Simon’s broken glasses. These were items that Marceline probably didn’t care that much about (2) and consequently left behind when she moved.

Perhaps a bigger issue is that Marceline, for all intents and purposes, can’t easily die—if at all. She is immortal, and while she has her weaknesses, it’s unclear if they truly are lethal weaknesses: we’ve seen her survive being exposed to sunlight (“Henchman”, “What Was Missing”), cut in half (Stakes, “Everything Stays”), bombarded with garlic (”Henchman”), and poisoned (Stakes, “May I Come In?”). You might be asking, ‘The previous Vampire King was killed? Could not someone have staked Marceline, too?’ Unlikely. We know from Stakes that the Moon—the vampire from whom Marceline derived her healing powers—could survive being staked in the heart (remember, she was only defeated when Marceline absorbed her vampiric essence, not when she was staked). Marceline absorbed the Moon’s power, therefore it follows that Marceline can’t die from being staked. Perhaps Marceline had her vampiric essence removed by Bubblegum, and she grew old and died, just like her fever dreams in Stakes? While this is certainly a possibility (we know that Bubblegum can remove the Vampiric Essence from Marceline, given that we have seen her do it), it negates the main themes in Stakes, which focused on Marceline coming to terms with her immortality and learning to love her lot in life. If Marceline can die even in her undead state, then all the suffering unleashed upon Ooo during Stakes was for naught, and that just doesn’t seem like something Adventure Time would do.

And what of Bubblegum? We know that Bubblegum’s biological age is correlated with her candy biomass (“Mortal Recoil”, “Too Young”). This means that her “rate of mortality [is] decouple[ed] … from chronological age,” heavily suggesting that she is ‘biologically immortal’. This concept—which is a real thing, fyi—does not mean that she can’t die, just that she won’t die from old age (3). Thus, she likely lived hundreds of years into the future after the age of Finn and Jake, probably into the Graybles 1000+ world. This is implied by the state of the Prizeball Guardian: it looks rather pristine, in comparison to pretty much the entirety of Ooo, suggesting it is a somewhat new creation. Given that the guardian was almost certainly created by Bubblegum (I mean, just look at it), and the guardian is new-looking, it suggests that Bubblegum herself was alive at least recently (4). (This is also suggested by admittedly non-canon drawings that Steve Wolfhard made clearly showing his belief that Bubblegum is alive in the Ooo 1000+ world.)

Given that Bubblegum cannot die readily from old age, the only other thing that could have killed her, I argue, would be some sort of calamity. Ooo 1000+ looks pretty wrecked, and was not the Candy Kingdom destroyed? Yes, and in both “Lemonhope” and the intro to “Come Along with Me”, we catch glimpses of the ruins! But, if one peruses the storyboard of “Lemonhope II”, one will notice Tom Herpich’s purposeful note that the kingdom is “abandoned (not bombed out)” [emphasis added]. Indeed, the kingdom looks overgrown and desolate, but not like the site of a war zone (e.g. the main citadel is mostly intact, and a number of skyskrapers are unscathed, unlike others we’ve seen that we know were caught in the crossfire of war). This, coupled with the fact that the Prizeball Guardian exists suggests that, rather than having her kingdom extinguished in a war, Bubblegum loaded up her citizens into the Guardian, put them in what is effectively cryogenic sleep, and then abandoned her old realm (5). Why? We’ll come to that in a second.

But before we jump into that, let me entertain the idea that Marceline and Bubblegum are dead and living together somewhere in the afterlife, say, the 50th Dead World. While a sweet idea, it is complicated by the fact that Bubblegum is the embodiment of the candy elemental, and will almost certainly be reincarnated in the future. [I now enter into headcanon territory] Also, Marceline is the daughter of the Lord of the Nightosphere, a deathless entity. Given how much he wanted Marceline to “take over the family business” (“Daddy’s Little Monster”), do you think he’d really let her succumb to a mortal’s demise? Almost certainly, he would have had a few words with Death. While this is extrapolation beyond the text, I think it’s worth thinking about.

Now, let us jump back into the main discussion by considering BMO’s collection of Ooo memorabilia. Eagle-eyed viewers will note that BMO’s trove of junk is made up almost entirely of bits and pieces from the show’s past: including Finn and Jake’s clock, a King of Ooo figurine, Simon’s glasses, Carol’s elf drawings, Ice King’s drums, and a collection of princess crowns. While a handful of the items almost assuredly belonged to Marceline (e.g. Simon’s glasses, sunscreen the DARE shirt) and Bubblegum (e.g. one of the crowns), there is one item of immense sentimental value missing: Marceline’s ax bass. Surely, if BMO were to keep sentimental reminders of previous friends (notice, BMO has both the shattered remnants of the Finn and Jake clock, as well as Jake’s favorite cup, which has been glued back together) the robot would have kept the vampire queen’s most prized possession? Its absence suggests one of four things: a) Marceline is still alive and in possession of the bass, or Marceline was killed and the bass was b) buried somewhere (a la Finn’s robot arm or as a grave marker), c) carted off by scavengers, or d) returned to the Nightosphere. All are viable possibilities, but the fact that BMO tracked down some rather valuable items (GGGG’s groovy Martian headgear, the crowns of power, etc.), it seems strange that the robot could not have also tracked down the bass, given that BMO liked Marceline (“Ketchup”) and probably knew how much the instrument meant to her (based on their interactions in “What Was Missing” and “Ketchup”).

Given all the issues above, there is one answer that I believe solves the mystery: Marceline and Bubblegum are both alive, but have chosen to abandon the portions of Ooo that we know. Perhaps they are off exploring on their own, or perhaps they have left Earth far behind. Why would Bubblegum abandon her realm? Simple. She was ‘tired’. She expressed these exact same sentiments in “Varmints”, only after her citizens had ‘voted her out of office’. Perhaps by the time Ooo 1000+ rolls around, Bubblegum was once again exhausted by the duties of office (having ruled for 1800 years), but decided to leave on her own terms. Simply abandoning her kingdom would have caused it to quickly collapse (cf. “The Pajama War”), and every time she created and/or appointed a successor, they turned into a tyrant (”Too Young”, “Goliad”, “Bonnibel Bubblegum”). Thus, the only option left was to load up her citizens in a device that would keep them safe until she eventually returned at some point in the future to resume control of her realm.

But could not the Prizeball Guardian simply be a defense mechanism in case the kingdom is attacked and/or Bubblegum is killed? Possibly, but cryogenically preserving candy citizens would do them no good if their creator—the one who could wake them up and then take care of them after some calamity—was gone (consider, for instance, that during times of war or natural disaster, governments don’t load up refugees onto buses, anesthetize them, and then drive them around in circles for decades). Indeed, the Prizeball Guardian seems less like a disaster-evasion project and more like a stasis chamber to keep the candy people safe until some future time. The storyboard for “Graybles 1000+” seems to back this up: when Crunchy is removed from stasis, he mumbles, “What time is it? Did it work?” In other words, it is as if Crunchy was expecting to be displaced in time and to be revived at some future date, rather than simply ‘saved’ (7).

The theory that Marceline and Bubblegum are still out there sidesteps many of the problems we have considered. It explains why some of Marceline’ stuff was picked up by BMO, whereas other items of greater sentimental value (e.g. the ax bass) are missing. Likewise, it nicely explains what happened to the Candy Kingdom. But where did Marceline or Bubblegum go? That is the real question. Perhaps they hopped down to the Nightosphere (unlikely), or perhaps they set off to find parts unknown. Maybe the went to Mars. (There’s even substantial evidence that they might be in the finale’s intro sequence!) The Oooniverse is pretty much unlimited, meaning that so too are the possibilities. Given that the Prizeball Guardian was designed to one day ‘wake up’ all the candy citizens, it is likely that Bubblegum (and Marceline) will one day return to Ooo, but for now, they are outies.

Still not convinced? Think I’m grasping at straws? Then let me present one final piece of evidence. Into 2016, Cartoon Network released a bonus video on their YouTube channel that features Marceline singing a song about “someone kind of special” to her. This song is a cover/reworking of the shows ending theme, "Come Along with Me”, in which Marceline lovingly intones:

Run away with me And the poltergeists and ghouls. We can wander through the darkness And play by our own rules.

Run away with me To a cavern shaped like home Where we'll build our own forever And never dance alone.

[emphasis added]

While rife with similes and rich language, the lyrics of the songs are pretty easy to decipher: Marceline cares deeply about someone and yearns to literally run off with them, living forever in a state of happiness. And what’s the name of this song? Why, the “Happy Ending Song”! While one could argue that the song isn’t canon and thus shouldn’t be considered as evidence (6), I think it nicely foretells what Marceline and Bubblegum‘s future holds. For one thing, the song is a play on "Come Along with Me", which in many ways is canonically 'prescient', as it is the song that plays during the montage depicting the future of Ooo's citizens. By alluding to and building off this tune, I would argue that "Happy Ending Song" arguably absorbs some of the original’s 'prescient' nature post facto (8). For another, the very last shot shows two feminine figures silhouetted against the setting sun, holding hands. Notice that this shot follows the lyrics and Marceline’s dialogue, subtly implying that it is depicting some future event. Ultimately, both the imagery in the video and the lyrics themselves hint heavily that Marceline and her paramour (which the series finale finally confirms to be Bubblegum) end up living together happily, free from the cares of modern society, as they “build [their] own forever” [emphasis added]. This nicely echoes what Marceline told Bubblegum at the end of Stakes: “Now, I guess we get to hang out together forever.”

Long story short: I believe that Marceline and Bubblegum are still alive and kicking, but have left Ooo far behind.

Footnotes

1. For instance, the the weird diving bell that used to hang from the Tree Fort is on the porch. While Marceline certainly lived in the Tree Fort at some point in the past, it's not entirely clear why she would've hauled this item all the way to her house and then abandoned it. It's more likely that it was scavenged by Finn and Jake, who arguably had a much more sentimental attachment to the old fort.

2. But Marceline loved Simon like a father! Why would she leave behind his glasses? Likely because these glasses were the ones that Simon wore while he and Marceline wandered the wasteland (you can tell because the left lens is broken). When he was returned to his normal state, he likely got new glasses, and these older ones were forgotten about.

3. While Bubblegum fully admits in “Goliad” that she will likely one day die, it is heavily implied that she believes her death will come from some horrible accident (like the Lich possession), rather than just old age. Furthermore, Bubblegum and Marceline’s discussions about mortality in Stakes suggests that Bubblegum would outlive Marceline were the latter to turn into a mortal. Remember, that in Farmworld, Marceline lived 1000 years as a mortal before she was killed by the Mutagenic Bomb. This means that Marceline as a mortal in Ooo Prime would likely live 1000 after turning mortal again (with the 1000 years she lived as a vampire not counting, since she was essentially ‘stuck’ at age ~20). Putting these puzzle pieces together suggests that Bubblegum believes she can easily live another 1000 years.

4. Notice also that in “Graybles 1000+”, the interior of the Guardian is dark but not dusty or abandoned. In fact, it looks quite well-lived in (and the storyboard for that episode, described as “cozy”); this suggests that someone was living here not too long ago. Given Bubblegum’s love of knowledge (note that books are strewn about as if they were recently read), and the portrait of the candy kingdom on the wall, it is heavily suggested that Bubblegum herself was the one who was occupying the space.

5. You might asking: what about Neddy and his love of the Candy Kingdom tree? Is not the tree dead in “Lemonhope”? Yes, but you will also notice that on the Prizeball Guardian, there are trees very similar to that which grew out of the Kingdom’s main tower.

6. The song was neither featured in nor written for a specific episodes, per Adam Muto. However, because Muto is very good about confirming/denying what is and is not canon (e.g. “The Adventure Time comics are as canonical as a Funko Pop”), the fact that his answer does not immediately decanonize the song is notable. Furthermore, the song is sung by Olivia Olson (that is, the official voice actress of Marceline), and the video even features new footage (albeit, mostly composed of flash-edited scenes from “Marceline’s Closet”).

7. Also, consider how hopelessly bleak and cruel it would be for the Prizeball Guardian to have been destroyed in “Graybles 1000+” if Bubblegum isn’t around anymore. The candy citizens would either sleep for eternity, or die a la 2001: A Space Odyssey. Neither fits with the arguably bittersweet (but certainly not mean-spirited) world of Adventure Time.

8. Perhaps this is why Marceline ends her song by noting it is an example of how "totally deep" she can be.

* As an aside, I also like the idea that Bubblegum, before she left, gave her crown to BMO (after all, were PB to have effectively abandoned her post, she would have no longer needed the crown), jokingly anointing the robot the “One True King of Ooo”, or something like that. It’s fitting that a joke like this would be taken up by BMO and turned into a veritable legend. It would also serve as one last dig against the charlatan King of Ooo, whom we know Bubblegum hated.

[rorykillmore]

so who out of your characters do you think would have the most interesting dynamic if they hung out, good or bad?

okay first of all, cinder and villanelle would date because they’re both 25 and --

no okay let me try to think of some Real ones

bramblestar + nightcloud... almost certainly HAVE hung out off screen at some point because nightcloud was in lionclan for awhile. so. assuming bramblestar did not pointedly ignore this one member of his clan,

the thing is nightcloud always felt sort of... out of place in lionclan. and i’m sure bramblestar probably picked up on some of that and did his best to rectify it, but nightcloud would’ve always felt weird around him because he’s not her leader. not really.  and i think now that nightcloud’s left the clan, bramblestar’s probably going to at least partially feel that it was a personal failure of his because he couldn’t make her happy there.

on a lighter note, i would pay to see them interact just because nightcloud is sharp and angry as FUCK and sure she would’ve toned some of that down around a leader but like, bramblestar would’ve just been like [war flashbacks to squirrelflight being the equivalent of an edgy ten year old when she was younger]

rachel + dolores -  i’d pair these two up not just because of their shared sci fi genre but because androids are actually a thing in animorphs! it’s actually a pretty wild piece of the lore because like.  animorphs androids were built by this... extinct alien race (who earth DOGS are the descendants of, yeah) who were pacifists and who thus built their androids to be pacifists, so the question comes up a lot of like.  how do you deal with pacifism... in war and when is it okay to ask someone to change their morals. and rachel is, of course, anything but a pacifist, she thinks violence is pretty much always the answer, and so she was often frustrated by/in disagreement with the androids she knew!

so in turn, i think she’d be REALLY hardcore in support of dolores and the revolution in westworld, almost dangerously so because rachel... latches onto causes where she can channel her violent impulses and not feel too guilty doing it. and “an enslaved race fighting for freedom” is something that’s hugely thematically resonant in animorphs, obviously. it comes up a lot not only in discussing the humans vs. yeerks but with a lot of the races the yeerks have ALREADY enslaved.

on dolores’ end of things though, i think it would be... complicated. because dolores’ war was just starting out, and here’s this girl, this child, who has been fighting in a war for THREE YEARS and like. not to come down on rachel too hard but it’s obviously... fucked her up a lot! maybe even destroyed a part of her! and dolores really hasn’t come to terms yet that maybe in a way, her cause would destroy her too, so... yeah it could get heavy, potentially

long story short they’d probably be a mess together, but there’s a lot of interesting ground there to cover

camille + laura - i’d also maybe like to see this one just because their respective issues kind of overlap, i guess. they’ve both struggled a lot with mental illness and apathy and self loathing, family issues and (in their own respective ways) self-harm. they’re still very different people, and the way they deal with things is different but... i dunno.

i can’t really decide whether they’d be good for each other or not! maybe not, because both of them have yet to discover A Healthy Coping Mechanism. but i think laura would at least look at camille and see someone who’s... struggling in a way similar to how she was when she was alive, and feel compelled to try to make sure camille doesn’t waste her chance to get her life back on track.

they’d probably get along, at the very least! laura is a bit meaner than camille but, they both have similar, cynical, dry senses of humor and they both come from UNBEARABLE american small towns. 

and for one more, i think i’ll go with (and this is kinda cheating cause one of these is technically a character i’ve PLAYED, not one i’m playing currently, but seeing sara on arrow again made me think about it)...

villanelle + sara  - just two assassins hangin’ out!

no but i feel like extended interaction between these two would just be fascinating because they have some really interesting parallels, but also. really different outlooks! obviously sara is haunted by her time working as an assassin to the point where she... has yet to forgive herself, if she ever can. meanwhile villanelle is like “what the fuck is remorse, can you buy it?”

but really i think sara would look at the twelve and feel. like. yeah, she knows what this is, an oppressive, power-hungry organization who recruits people when they’re young and turns them into weapons and never quite lets them go even if they want to be let go.  villanelle wouldn’t really understand sara at all, wouldn’t be able to empathize with any of the remorse that drives her, but sara... would be able to understand parts of villanelle a little too well. quite possibly to her detriment. villanelle is younger, still around the age that like, sara was while she was in the league, and sara would just look at her and see ‘girl being controlled and weaponized by men’ and probably feel kind of maternal about it and want to get her out of that situation (partially out of just, projecting, because how can she not when her own traumatizing experiences are tied to that kind of shit) and maybe not really realize how volatile and unpredictable villanelle is really capable of being in her own right.

so it would probably get MESSY. but i’m just fascinated by the ways their experiences kind of line up and also the ways that they don’t, and i’d be curious to see what sara, who has a tendency to be able to understand female violence and trauma with a lot of.... nuance, but also has never really dealt with anyone like villanelle ever, could manage to get anything out of her. and what villanelle would make of someone who’s so terrified of their own darkness not because they’ve been repressing it, but because they were once fully immersed in it

what’s the worst that can happen when you throw two disaster bisexual assassins together!,

[douxreviews]

American Gods - ‘Come to Jesus’ Review

Wednesday: "What do you believe, Shadow?" Shadow: "Everything."

American Gods finishes its first season strong, but storms brewing both in front of and behind the camera leave us with questions...

Let's just deal with the elephant in the room up front, since it sort of colors everything about this episode. If you're not the sort of person who follows behind the scenes shenanigans in TV production, allow me to introduce you to the elephant.

A few months after the initial airing of the season one finale, word came out that the showrunners, Brian Fuller and Michael Green, were exiting the show. Details were scarce, and those we did get were probably overblown to a degree, but the general reason given at the time was the traditional 'creative differences' with just a dash of 'budgetary concerns.'  The first series had come in enthusiastically over budget, which probably didn't make the network terribly happy but seems unlikely to be a deal killer on its own. Reports that Fuller and Green quit after clashes with Neil Gaiman over the direction of the show seem equally unlikely, as Neil is a profoundly decent human being and I just can't see him doing that sort of thing.

I suspect, and this is purely my opinion, that it was a combination of little things and was probably fairly amicable. It would appear, based on choices that they made in series one, that Fuller and Green saw the show more as an anthology series, with Wednesday and Shadow serving as a vehicle to explore other stories set in the universe. Gaiman was reported as wanting a more direct adaptation of the novel. The network, probably a little irritated with the overspending, came down on Gaiman's side, and so Fuller and Green moved on to other projects.

Again that's just my personal guess. What we do know for certain is that whatever happened behind the scenes led to both Gillian Anderson and Kristin Chenoweth deciding not to return for season two, which leaves a curious plot void after the conclusion of this episode.

We'll look at how this was handled when we talk about the season two premiere, but for now suffice it to say that it's impossible to watch this episode without being aware that both of them are about to exit prematurely, which definitely affects watching it now.

Whew. That's a lot of preliminary elephant.

So, after that brief come to Jesus moment, let's talk about 'Come to Jesus.'

As long as I'm breaking my own rules about what we do and don't consider in these reviews, I'll note that Jesus is notably absent in the novel. He gets a couple of mentions, but never actually pops in to have a chat. In the 10th anniversary edition there's a sort of appendix where Neil includes a portion of a chapter where Shadow meets Jesus, but notes that the interaction never felt exactly right for the story and so he kept not including it in the novel proper.

Here, almost as if to compensate, we have a lot of Jesuses. So many Jesuses that we're going to need a collective noun for a group of Jesuses, and I'm going to suggest that we call it a Faith. So, Wednesday and Shadow, and Mad Sweeney and Laura, arrive independently at the home of Ostara, aka Easter. Ostara is one of your 'harvest/fertility/spring/rebirth' sort of deities, and the nominal foundation of the holiday of Easter before early Christianity colonized it. She has the whole place tatted up for her annual celebration of herself, Easter, and is politely ignoring the many Jesuses who have kind of overrun the place.

So, no visual metaphor for the displacement of old beliefs there, no sir.

Easter is kind of a crystallization of a couple of things that have been going on over the course of the first season. For one thing she's the final instance of Wednesday individually seeking out an old god, wherever they might have ended up, and making a sales pitch for them to join his upcoming war. The fact that he appears to be successful in this case is deeply entwined with the other plot thread which she represents. Namely, the various ways that many of the old gods have or have not been co-opted and suborned by the new gods who have replaced them. Czernobog was never suborned, he was forgotten and left to rot. Vulcan allowed himself to be redefined completely, substituting bullets for volcanoes. Wednesday was offered the same deal as Vulcan and turned it down. Sweeney was never important enough for the new gods to even bother with – he'd been co-opted by General Mills long before. And Bilquis... well, we'll come back to Bilquis in a moment.

Easter shows us yet another variation on the theme; instead of being redefined, she's allowed herself to be overwritten. Christianity came along and claimed her special day, and pretended that the bunnies and the eggs had been part of their thing all along. And over the centuries, as the focus on her special day turned more and more away from her and toward whichever Jesus you happened to root for, she became more and more entrenched in her self delusion that it was really still all about her, deep down. They still followed all the old practices with the egg hiding and the rabbits, so she couldn't have been forgotten. Kristin Chenoweth did a great job here showing us a woman whose illusions are being brutally stripped away. She's made herself comfortable behind a layer of artifice, and once that's gone she faces the situation and reclaims her power. That's the point of her elaborate hairstyle coming undone and her hair falling wildly around her shoulders while Media's hat blows away. It's the pagan forces reasserting their power over the forces retraining them.

That said, while I appreciate what's happening thematically, and Mr. Wednesday is clearly successful in convincing Easter to reclaim her power and force humanity to worship her again, I'm almost positive that if Kentucky had a huge crop blight humanity's first response probably wouldn't be, 'Oh, I guess we should probably pray to Easter to take care of this.' Call me cynical.

Women being disempowered by men who fear them was a pretty strong theme all around this episode, and nowhere more so than the story of Bilquis, as told to us by Mr. Nancy. The visuals of Bilquis were great, particularly the fade from her ancient face makeup to her disco face makeup. I really like that we saw her in pre-revolutionary Tehran in the 70s. It's a period that American schools say absolutely nothing about, as if we talked about it we might have to discuss our own unfortunate involvement. Generally, I expect that US audiences know next to nothing about what Iran was like before the revolution, and that may be partly what made the incoming revolutionaries shooting up Bilquis' disco such a strong image for the female disempowerment metaphor they were building.

Watching Bilquis slowly deteriorate in the new world was heartbreaking, and it made perfect sense that she'd fall in with the new gods after Technical Boy offered her a new altar in the form of hook up aps. She doesn't seem to happy to be working for them now, however. It'll be interesting to see where that goes.

Which brings us to Laura, yet another woman who men are attempting to disempower. In this case it was Mr. Wednesday, via Mad Sweeney who had her killed, or as Sweeney puts it, 'sacrificed,' for no other reason than that he needed her out of the way so he could get to Shadow. And because it was a god who had her killed, Easter can't give her back the gift of life, which is convenient from a storytelling perspective. It also presented a great opportunity for the story to have Laura find out that Wednesday had her killed and sabotaged her casino robbery. Although I feel like we as a people need to accept that the 'eye holds the last image before it's death' trope is kind of tired at this point. Maybe let's rest that one for awhile.

So, ultimately season one was all about two things. Getting Shadow to a place where he is ready to believe in the existence of Odin and the other gods, and getting Mr. World to a place where he's willing to publicly commit to going to war against the old gods. Thanks to a prodigious sprinkling of Jesuses, this episode accomplishes both. I could have lived without Wednesday running over the bunnies though.

Quotes:

Mr. Nancy: "We should start with a story." Wednesday: "Oh Jesus, Nancy." Mr. Nancy: "I’m gonna tell you a story." Wednesday: "We haven’t got time for a story. Just do the f**king work." Mr. Nancy: "Let me tell a goddamn story!"

Mr. Nancy: "So long as I’m still alive, I can adapt. I still know what I am."

Technical boy: "Worship is a volume business. Whosoever has the most followers wins the game."

Wednesday: "Do not confuse confusion for anger."

Shadow: "I love Easter." Wednesday: "Many do. Some for the rabbits. Some for the resurrection."

Wednesday: "Believing is seeing. Gods are real if you believe in them."

Jesus: "I… feel terrible about this."

Technical Boy: "Hands free, honeypot. I have no intention of spending the rest of my days feeding your soul from the vagina nebula."

Media: "We popularized the pagan. We practically invented brunch."

Laura: "I will squeeze them straight out of the sack. It’ll be like shucking peas. I swear to Jesus. He’s right outside."

Media: "Put a pillow over that feeling and bear down until it stops kicking."

Bits and Pieces:

-- Jesus, sitting cross legged on the surface of a swimming pool with a drink sets his glass down next to him. The glass immediately sinks to the bottom of the pool. I get why they couldn't resist that sight gag, but there was really no reason for him to be sitting on the pool otherwise. Still funny, though.

-- So, after killing Vulcan, Mr. Wednesday and Shadow went directly to Mr. Nancy's place so that he could make them dapper new suits for the Easter party. Nancy knows that Wednesday killed Vulcan, but Easter believes the lie that it was the new gods who did it. That whole plotline is a little muddy.

-- What exactly is Mr. Nancy's relationship with the spiders? Are they his friends? Does he control them? I have so many questions.

-- I really hope Orlando Jones is enjoying his wardrobe for this series, because I certainly am. His outfits get more and more fabulous.

-- Are the bunnies all CGI? They have to be CGI, right?

-- One of the available Easter cookies was a sugar cookie in the shape of a hand, with red jelly in a neat circle in the center of the palm. I watched this episode four times before getting that.

-- I'm old enough that I remember it firsthand, but it seems just unfathomable that there was a point when smoking on airplanes was a thing.

-- Media seemed genuinely sad to lose Easter as a friend.

-- There's an adorable moment when Easter primps herself in her reflection on the sword while Wednesday is giving her his sales pitch.

-- Do ice cream trucks automatically play music when they're in gear? Because TV shows are unable to resist the music playing in inappropriate circumstances.

-- Sweeney still didn't tell Laura what he sacrificed for her last episode, even when she had him four feet in the air by his balls.

-- It was a serious mistake for Media to take the hard line with Easter over Mr. Wednesday's offer. That's what ultimately made up Easter's mind.

-- Technical boy comes up as 'The Man' on Bilquis' phone. You just know that he programmed that himself.

-- Genre fans should note, the primary Jesus we see here is played by Jeremy Davies. He's as good as you're imagining.

A really strong finish for a really strong year. Easter and Media are going to be missed.

Three and three quarter out of four CGI Bunnies. Is that allowed?

Mikey Heinrich is, among other things, a freelance writer, volunteer firefighter, and roughly 78% water.

[thebewisepodcast]

January 22nd, 2016~La La Land (2016) by Damien Chazelle

Greetings one and all, I've come to you today to discuss a musical and also one of the most magnificent trips to the cinemas. Well to my first point, I guess it is more along the lines of "a particular kind of musical" to be truthful. I believe it is in that very vain of truth, that lies the ever-balanced beauty of La La Land (2016) and the beauty is what can be defined as a certain kind of musical as opposed to a flat out musical like some would assume it to be by its marketing and press. At least from my perspective. First and foremost, I must preface my statements by saying that musicals do not inherently make for bad or unwatchable films even though the general movie going population would say otherwise (prior to this film I assume).  Two of my favorite films are musicals, Lés Miserables (2012) and Singing in the Rain(1952) but as far as musicals are concerned this film strangely enough is not those but is still very satisfying in that way. It kind of finds itself hovering the space of a classic Disney movie, where the music adds to the overall whimsy as opposed to the music being the heart of the film itself.

Damien Chazelle is a talented, young filmmaker who directed one of my favorite and arguably one of the best films of the year 2014, Whiplash (2014). In a brief summation, Whiplash (2014) is the story of a studious jazz drummer who has the dream of becoming one of the best jazz drummers to ever pick up a pair of drumsticks. The thematic element about Chazelle's lens that carries over into both Whiplash (2014) and La La Land (2016) is that there is a dream within us which mirrors  main characters as that they strive desperately to accomplish their own aspirations and are met with a heartbreaking difficulty that is always creeping in to halt that success. The thing about Chazelle's first film that I enjoyed is that it was pure choreographed chaos which took me by surprise multiple times even when he used some storytelling conventions to execute his art. That is Whiplash (2014), a chaos that Damien Chazelle was able to rein in and focus like a beam into my psyche. I related directly to THAT particular film while with his most recent foray, I merely appreciated it for the tale it told. I appreciate Chazelle for telling this story of struggling late twenty-somethings (Gosling and Stone) who just want to make it in LA. As many have said this is a love letter to classic Hollywood, but I don't feel the need to retread those sentiments. I believe that it is more accurate for me to describe this film as a pamphlet for modern day dreamers. Interestingly enough, I felt as though that this was not a direct musical, because halfway through the film Chazelle seems to abandon the genre for conventional dramatic storytelling, though he does come back to whimsical song after awhile within the film.

Lets talk about the thing that makes this movie unique: the performance pieces. The jazzy song and dance numbers are very intricate allowing the motion of the plot to seamlessly flow back and forth from musical beats to narrative as both Emma Stone as well as Ryan Gosling equally carry the weight of this film on the back of their ability to engage the audience by the strength of their charm, talent, and charisma separately, along with as a tandem.  On the topic of the musical numbers by themselves, I wasn't all too impressed by them sonically except Emma Stone's final song in her pivotal audition and Ryan Gosling opening performance where he entrances Emma Stones character of Mia with his talent for the first time. From a visual standpoint, however, the musical beats take on a different meaning in the space of the story altogether.  One of the most beautiful things that this film lends to the viewer is the refreshing color palette that Damien Chazelle uses to amplify the performance pieces and the film as a whole which symphonically grants this film a  near timeless quality. It is simply stunning in that way. Chazelle emphasized style by matching the colors of the costuming with both small and large objects of the set design. 

Usually I don't like to talk about the issues I have with films inside of my journal entries because I think that is a problem that the current state of movie criticism faces. I'm only left with questions as to why the director made his or her own particular choices, not because it doesn't agree with my sensibilities but because certain moments inspired genuine creative curiosities within me. One of which is the decision to make the film rather straightforward. The film has no subtlety. What you see is what you get. It is a film made for viewers to enjoy universally and Chazelle is brilliant in that way, but I can't help but feel that Damien played it particularly safe with the narrative. Yes, in the current cinematic climate making a musical is a daring undertaking in itself yet within the narative itself Chazelle took as little risks as possible, possibly to focus on the execution of the musical elements of the film. 

My personal measurement for whether or not I LOVE a film is simply based upon how much I think about it immediately after seeing it for the first time coupled along with my burning desire to watch it again. Regardless of the creeative curiousities that the film left me with, I can't help but to appreciate this film for the magic that is present within it. I do in fact want to see it again as it is a beautiful tale rooted in the premise of staying true to oneself and always following your true aspriations until the end. But when is that end? La La Land (2016) doesn't offer up a answer to that question. Love and its purest capabilites are also seminole pieces examination inside of the film which in everyday life are in themselves hard to define. 

I think this film is a great watch. Its a lush and romantic film which could quite possibly be the most enjoyable filmic experience of the year. It is a feel good movie through and through. 

Namaste.