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senadimell · 3 years

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The Mysterious Benedict Society as an adaption

So far, The Mysterious Benedict Society adaption feels very faithful to the books. There are definitely changes (Constance, for instance, has been aged up, and likely has a different background. This is understandable. It would be nigh impossible to portray her as she is in the books in live action format--for example, none of the kids in the book suspect she’s a toddler, let alone two years old). However, most changes have all felt reasonable and add to plot and pacing.

I especially enjoy the additions: showing the adult side of the team, for example, or Ms. Perumal’s growing concern about Reynie’s whereabouts, or the girls’ nighttime conversations. Some changes are more extreme. The Mr. Curtain of the books is clearly a villain. He’s condescending and rude, and the only people who like him are bullies. Mr. Curtain of the show is much smoother. It’s easy to see how he’s managed to influence people. Similarly, the L.I.V.E. curriculum is much less obnoxious in the show (not just memorizing nonsense by rote), and as a result, the school’s students seem less stupid and cruel. You can see why they enjoy attendance.

I’m particularly pleased that Number Two’s weirdness has been amplified. Mr. Benedict’s found family is delightfully strange, and I love watching their unusual rhythms. It will be easy to believe when (or if) it’s revealed that the women have been legally adopted into Mr. Benedict’s family.

Similarly, I love how they intensified the quirky feel of the setting and characters. Of course Number Two built a house in the woods in a day because she has a woodworking hobby. Of course there’s secret tunnels and drawers and compartments in Mr. Benedict’s house. Of course Milligan’s disguises and mannerisms are wackily memorable instead of just matter-of-fact. The books themselves have a stylized feel at times (they kind of remind me of Lemony Snickett’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, though with none of the grimness).

I love the overall aesthetic. When I first read the books, they didn’t strike me as being set in the past, but the vaguely vintage feeling works excellently. (I was also a fully grown adult before I realized that the Incredibles wasn’t set in the present, so...) The color schemes, costumes, and sets have distinctive feelings and coordinate well. The effect is stylized rather than naturalistic, which is appropriate and amplifies the tone of the scenes. The bright colors and rough textures of the wooded hideout and its inhabitants’ costumes contrast nicely with the clean lines of tL.I.V.E.’s vintage-pastel interior and sleek exterior.

I also enjoyed the way they did Kate’s flashback as rough home footage. Similarly, I enjoyed the way they showed four kids solving problems on the same screen, how they illustrated Reynie’s thought process with overlaid sketches of the problems, and the way words show up on the screen during the tests for emphasis. The combination of animations, showing multiple things at once, and creative angles for emphasis did a great job conveying the feeling of the tests. (Unfortunately, I lack the vocabulary to describe the techniques they used here).

There’s two things I didn’t enjoy. The first was killing Sticky’s parents to make him an orphan. It mattered in the books that he felt rejected by his own parents. Making it his aunt and uncle who (seemingly) care more about money and fame than the child they’re raising feels a little too much like the wicked stepmother trope. I don’t know why the showmakers decided that Of Course They’re All Orphans, because while most of the book characters are orphans, Sticky isn’t, which serves to show that you can feel rejected and hurt by your parents even when you’ve got an ordinary, non-abusive nuclear family. It’s about feeling isolated, whether or not you’re technically alone.

Secondly, all the wheelchairs have been removed from the adaption. I’m not sure why this was done. Sticky’s mother has bad arthritis and requires a wheelchair. In the books, this was done without fanfare; it was as normal as anything else to oil Ms. Washington’s wheelchair in damp weather, or load and unload it from cars in later books. She was more of a background character, so it didn’t affect the plot, but the casual background representation was a welcome contrast to many books that assume being disabled is strange and uncommon, and that disabilities only exist when they’re plot-significant. The aunt who replaced Ms. Washington used no mobility aids, which disappoints me, especially as the woman she replaces in the books is ultimately shown to be a flawed but loving parent who’s dedicated to making up for her mistakes.

The other person missing their wheelchair is Mr. Curtain, the villain. I’m also not sure why this was removed? It could be to avoid the Evil Disabled Villain trope, but in the book, I didn’t feel like his disabilities were treated as a moral flaw or an excuse for his villainy. He shares his narcolepsy with the unquestionably benevolent Mr. Benedict, so it didn’t feel like his condition was used to vilify him.

He and Mr. Benedict act cope with their condition differently: Mr. Benedict relies on trusted family members for support and chooses to sit on the floor and avoid positioning himself in tall places from which he could fall, whereas Mr. Curtain disguises his narcolepsy by wearing mirrored glasses and using a wheelchair that secures an upright posture, so that no one knows when he has an episode. He does use his wheelchair aggressively, banging through doors and zooming around and forcing people to jog and keep up, but it felt like his use of mobility aids grew naturally from his character.

The books also include a scene where he shocks the children by leaving his wheelchair to chase them. They assumed that using a wheelchair=completely unable to walk, a common view in US society. Importantly, I didn’t feel like the scene was framed as particularly deceptive, like he was lying to them by using a wheelchair when he could walk. Rather, it fit into a pattern of Mr. Curtain managing assumptions and expectations: he doesn’t want people to take advantage of his weaknesses, yet wants to hold a few cards close to his chest. He doesn’t have to lie to people, just let them see and hear and assume what they will.

I don’t use a wheelchair or have narcolepsy, so I’m not in a position to say whether or not the books have good representation. Maybe the fact that Mr. Curtain is evil, and also zooms around and bangs through doors, is uncomfortable. Maybe the fact that his nefarious devices are wheelchair-accessible and in fact designed around his chair sends the wrong message. Maybe using mobility aids to conceal a disability sends a bad message, or maybe it would be better if the good guy was the one to use a wheelchair to cope with his disability. I don’t know. I do know that Mr. Benedict’s condition is played for laughs in both the book and show, and that might be uncomfortable. I do think it’s worth noting that Mr. Benedict’s narcolepsy is seen less and less as funny as the books go on, and grows to be seen as an endearing quality that emphasizes how much he loves people, since his attacks usually underscore with strong emotions and convey worry for his loved ones or joy at their company.

My own sense is that both approaches to narcolepsy make sense, and neither is shown to be inherently faulty. Rather, it’s Mr. Curtain’s character that’s to blame for his villainy--his arrogance, condescension, and mistrust. Both characters feel well-developed and consistent, and their disability is only one part of them. Their disability is colorful, but it’s colorful in the same way as the main characters (Sticky’s anxiety and memory, Kate’s gusto, eye for measurement, and bucket, Constance’s precociousness, etc).

As for why Mr. Curtain’s wheelchair was cut, I’m not sure. Maybe the show writers just didn’t want to deal with the ramifications of depicting a villain in a wheelchair, and decided to cut it altogether (a lazy reason, I think). Alternatively, it seems like they’re depicting narcolepsy without cataplexy, eliminating the need for a wheelchair (a better reason).

On the other hand, Mr. Curtain’s attitude and mannerisms bear the least resemblance to his book counterpart of all the show’s characters. They’re incorporating some backstory from the other books to build a secondary plotline, and I’m not sure how it’s going to play out. From what we’ve seen of him so far, S. Q. Pedalian is also drastically different (shy, cloistered, and openly acknowledged as Mr. Curtain’s son, instead of the gregarious, bumbling, misfit Executive of the books). The TV dynamic between him and Mr. Curtain is largely unrevealed as of yet. Since these changes constitute departures from the book, I’m not sure how the future story’s going to play out around them, and what that reveals about why the wheelchair was cut when it was so characteristic of Mr. Curtain’s mannerisms while other things (like Mr. Benedict’s use of plaid) were included.

Still, it does disappoint me that two wheelchairs were erased, and no one in the show uses one, not even background students.

Overall, though, apart from the orphan and wheelchair situation, I’m very pleased with this adaption and think that the pacing works wonderfully. It’s a near-ideal format for a video adaption (I think animation would be best, but this is a close second).

#the mysterious benedict society #the mysterious benedict society adaption #tv adaption #the mysterious benedict society show #ledroptha curtain

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zinzinina · 3 years

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Hi Sam! 💕 I’ve been thinking about A Mutually Beneficial Arrangement lately, and I was wondering if you had any little headcanons, conversations, or moments that you loved and didn’t make it into the final draft? If you did I’d love to hear about them, your fic is one of my all-time faves! 💖

(Hope you’re having a lovely week! Sending all sorts of nice and good vibes your way ✨)

Aaah Jess my sweet friend this is so very kind 😭 and reading this honestly makes me a tiny little bit emo 💖🥺 thank you so much for indulging me and letting me talk about this—warning, it got so fucking long.

There's actually a ton that didn't make it into the final fic. I try to be a bit sparse with my writing even though I struggle to kill my darlings; I feel like I have a habit of waffling on with plot or psychoanalysis which I know isn't always what's best for the story or necessarily what will be enjoyable to read (especially when it's just supposed to be dumb fucking smut, lol). So the slightly bigger things that didn't make the cut were:

A plotline where they bumped into another hunter while on a job (I was torn on whether it'd be Bossk or Cad Bane) but I wanted it to be someone Boba was friendly-ish with so I could get into the actual extent of how incredibly isolated he was, even among his peers. There was going to be a little bit more of a discussion around when he worked with gangs out of necessity as a kid, the situation with Aurra Sing where he was screwed over, etc. which delved more into Jango a bit and how he worked very strictly alone—apart from Zam—and how living with his universal mistrust had influenced Boba. There was going to be a little more foreshadowing for the fact that somewhere along the line Boba had made a thoroughly shitty deal with the Empire (prior to the Vader revelation) and how the word had started to quietly spread among the hunting community that Boba was operating on his own, more-fucked-up level than everyone else and that people were steering clear of him as a result. It ended up being cut because I realised I could hit all those points more anecdotally than through the clunkiness of introducing a character to have a cameo which just consisted of exposition-heavy dialogue and then disappearing again. I also realised Boba was already talking about Jango to the reader a lot on his own (I mean, for him, that is, considering how quiet he generally is) and so it was all removed because I felt like it was redundant.

Kickback was going to return toward the end and get a slightly happier ending, but then I changed my mind about saying goodbye on Alderaan; I wanted an entirely ambiguous separation wherein we didn't really know where she went after she left, and we all know what happens to Alderaan. Also I didn't think Boba would continue working for the Empire quite so comfortably if he had reason to believe someone he cared about was destroyed by them (although I do think he thought about it; considering Alderaan was destroyed for its alignment with the Rebellion and he had no way of knowing whether she'd stayed with them or moved off on her own—more ambiguity lolol)

The epilogue went through a few different versions; one was of Boba finding Fennec in the desert and deciding to save her, another one involved Boba speaking to Din about "letting go" after he said goodbye to Grogu, and then something completely different that I won't even go into, lol. I ended up paring it right back to a few lines because I thought it would have a greater impact if I kept it extremely simple (and hopefully that came across). I ended up really happy with the silence of the ending in that he was standing completely alone; it was short and direct and I didn't want it to feel like too much of a smug closing monologue pointing out all the beats of his characterisation that I'd tried to emulate, if that makes sense—like hopefully I’ve done a halfway decent enough job that it just comes through on its own merit whether people care to pick it out or not. I always wanted to make sure he ended up essentially where he is now in canon, and that we didn't really get an answer or a tidy resolution, because I think Boba as a character isn't thematically supposed to have clean or complete things happen to him; he's representative of a kind of "chasing around" after loss, and what gets left behind after everything else is said and done.

#thank you so much for indulging me with such a lovely ask my friend #saradika #a mutual arrangement #zin answers #a mutually beneficial arrangement #i am so sorry for this longass wanky answer #if anyone made it all the way through that incoherent rambling you win a prize dskfjlsd #and also pls forgive the fact that this fic is now kind of split between two titles i promise there's some housekeeping coming soon #boba fett #writing meta #happy tings

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mc-critical · 4 years

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(Okay head’s up, I’m going to be on your blog a lot since I absolutely LOVE your takes and analysis’.) Do you think (strictly theatrically speaking, not in the non-fictional and historical sense) Suleyman really loved Hürrem? As I watched the show I found it very silly how other characters of the show would remark how Suleyman “loved Hurrem so much he refused to ever take another concubine again” because..he did? And multiple times from what the viewers have seen too. Majority of the times the concubines/other women in Suleyman’s life (Isabella, Firüze etc) were only removed from his life via Hurrem’s intrigues, not by Suleyman’s decision. What do you think?

Aww, thank you so much for the nice words! 💕 Be here as much as you wish, absolutely no problem! (there are some takes I've had in the past that are quite passive-agressive in retrospect 😅, so I might as well also give you a heads up.)

As for your question, I think yes, SS loves Hürrem, but in his own, sometimes honestly incomprehensible (even outright toxic), way.

The writers perhaps wanted to hint at love at first sight in the beggining, due to the way she fainted in his arms in the first episode and how he kept thinking about her (that Ibrahim had to tell him that where he was supposed to go was the other direction) and the wave of excitement and anticipation he felt while waiting for her. But when they spent two nights together and he truly got to know her, was where it was at. Her uncanny ability to make him laugh, entertain him in a way no one else had before, was what impressed him first. He felt calm, safe in her presence, and wanted to keep this probably forever, along with him doing whatever else he wanted in the meantime regardless.

I feel the point of contention of whether he truly loved her or not comes from the fact that, the show wanted to make their love story integral to their both historically thematic and narratively soapy story - what I mean is, they wanted to make it the central plotline. And as a central plotline, it creates and/or extends on the other plotlines, having to show the other characters' reactions in excessive detail and even center parts of their motivations around it. You see how S01 and S02 of the series played this aspect of Hürrem and Süleiman's story completely straight - it presented it as The Love, this big, (thematically and narratively) unprecedented thing, this vital aspect of the series' DNA, the very tool that moves the story forward, that is only bound to have consistent narrative opposition: and I'm not referring only to Isabella and Firuze and all the other concubine arcs that force love triangles suited for the genre, it all is also about the continuous, frequent attacks on their love, that only stopped when the show made a complete genre shift by the second half of S04 and didn't have much time left. They worked with the idea that the more this love is attacked and antagonized, the stronger it becomes and the more shall people root for it. That's where the problem comes, because in retrospect, you can honestly see that these attacks played a major part in provoking a bunch of stuff SS did for Hürrem. Mahidevran beating her to death and poisoning her? SS gives Hürrem a chamber only for herself. (the other one she shared with Ayşe.) Them accusing her incessantly? Valide complaining about her? The various attacks? He continues to care even more for her. Valide and Ibrahim arranging that attack with the bandits? He married her. And one would wonder: is this even genuine or does the writing simply use her enemies' failings to lead Hürrem to SS? Is that the only reason he actually cares? What does MC want to achieve?

There are people who say that the entire point of SS loving her was that she was so different from everyone else (and that the concubine arcs ruined it), and yes, it was like that, in the very beginning. First impression is important and he truly began to enjoy her a lot since their first two nights, for her bringing him something new. However, both of Hürrem and Süleiman's characters and their relationship overall, drastically evolved throughout the show. When the first impression had passed and Hürrem gained SS's utmost attention and she became pregnant, she very quickly started taking stuff for granted, considering him only hers (the demonstration of the ring in front of Mahi; the twinge of jealousy towards Ibrahim.) and as a parallel, him still being a Sultan, having to follow the customs anyway, and calling Gülnihal in his chambers twice. Both of their ways of living clash, because Hürrem wants a monogamous relationship and takes every sign of care for him at face value, while SS lives in an environment that wants him to do what is expected of him.

SS both loves and hates when Hürrem stands up to his will. There have been times where she acted rashly, making borderline silly accusations (like blaming little Mustafa for the fire in E10), where she made moves out of jealousy (like stealing Isabella's pendant) and where she was complaining to him for something she didn't succeed to get (like Valide's chambers in S03). Süleiman sees her rebellious nature and goes out of his way to do moves to spite her. (this guy invited Isabella on a halvet out. of. sheer. spite and nothing else! smh honestly..) But there are as many times where he simply covers what she did (like killing Isabella) and caves to her demands anyway! Why would he cave to her demands and close his eyes on so much stuff she did, if he doesn't feel at least something for her?

The different treatment she gets also comes into play, because no matter how many times she's attacked and he seemingly stood by and watched aside from more serious cases, all it honestly does, is trigger his protective instincts. Despite of all the bumps on the road, Hürrem always was his darling, his special snowflake, whom he clearly felt something for. If anything, he wouldn't have freed her and this isn't something he would do to just anyone. (as we see how he refused to free Mahidevran when she desperately begged him to in E45.; and what's important, him freeing Hürrem wasn't provoked by someone else attacking her.) And when she makes all these jealousy fits, he listens, because Hürrem's character development represents full adaption to the circumstances of the harem, and by that, getting just like the others and learning their tricks. This has turned him off numerous times and when she shows that rebellious side of hers yet again, he couldn't help, but listen. What he said to Ibrahim after he sent off the Russian concubines, is especially telling: "No. (I don't love Hürrem as much as she loves me.) But now I fell in love with her even more." This summarizes extremely well what he thinks of her at this point, because while he's ready to cut her some slack, he's still helpless to her.

Though, later down the line, it gets very abundantly clear that if he loves her, he doesn't love her because she's different and she's rebellious, but because she's loyal to him. Infinitely loyal. She loves him this much, that she's not only ready to willingly drink poison and kill herself for him anytime, but she doesn't even want to give up his throne. It is all very well highlighted by his infamous line to Fatma: "Hürrem is not an angel, but she has something that none of you have. Loyalty! Absolute loyalty... / "She never saw anyone else on the throne but me." Over the years, SS began to live with the dramatically increased paranoia of betrayal, turning his natural ego from a strength, to an everlooming weakness. It destroyed every single relation of his, except for Hürrem. She's the only person that wasn't targeted by this crippling paranoid fear, he perhaps found piece and tranquil in her presence, because he knew that she wouldn't ever turn her back on him. And all these times he got mad at her, he had halvets to spite her, he caused her to prove to him how much he loved her, it turned out to be not only because his ego was tempered with, he wanted to test her loyalty the entire time. And all the times he prevented her from digging deeper into him and told her to stay out of political matters, now in S04 he no longer does that, since she actively joins every single conversation. Hürrem and Süleiman's relationship was put in a thorough deconstruction in S03 and S04, because after the slow Cerebus Syndrome transition began occurring and Yılmaz Şahin fully took over the script, the narrative stopped playing the love story completely straight and it put in the impression that it isn't focused on as much as it was before. So its more problematic aspects began showing even more down the line and it all lead into this very realization. The last episodes of Hürrem's life, while seeming like a cop-out, are genuine love letters for the fans and for Hürrem, with having Süleiman realize who he will lose and what will happen next, giving her the attention he never did. (I think the best Hürrem and Süleiman scenes we got, were in these episodes, along with the ones in the beginning episodes and right after the wedding, in E43-44.)

[And the episodes after Hürrem's death also make us question whatever he cares for her, because all he did there was straightforwardly betray her dying wish. Still, we should keep in mind that SS was at the peak of his downward spiral and it was Hürrem's death that sealed everything for him - losing the person who loved you dearly and was the most loyal one to you in your book, only caused catastrophic and devastating results, with SS going in her chambers in E136 and begging her to forgive him, right before the big fight between Selim and Beyezid began. There is everything else he did, yes, but losing HER is what caused him the truly neverending misery and what pushed him to such extremes, the loss of her loyalty broke him and finished him.]

Isabella and Firuze and Nazenin also add to these tests of loyalty, as well as being love triangles, added in for the drama. I feel SS did this not only to spite Hürrem, but also because he liked her unpredictability and he truly never expected for her to be this loyal in his eyes. It is possible he thought at some point due to his paranoia that she would give up on him, betray him, knowing that she also has her own ambitions. But seeing that none of that happened... perhaps all these continuous rifts in their relationship strived to show how strongly she loved him after all and maybe he came to appreciate that, even if it were too late. {note: the others said that SS loved Hü not exactly because of him refusing to take in concubines, but rather not taking concubines in for a long time. It illustrates more their hopes and beliefs (Mahidevran in E61: "Did you really think that his majesty couldn't be with other women?") and arguments presented when they need to win someone over for their cause to get rid of her. (like Hatice with Afife in S03) I always considered the Firuze arc more of a thematic tool than a dramatic one: aside from showing an actual continuous rift between Hürrem and SS, it breaks Hürrem's season two finale victory in half, enforcing even further that there isn't just any true long lasting victory that the themes won't condemn in this franchise. Nazenin was more for the parallels (Nurbanu - Nazenin; Hürrem - Gülnihal), while I never fully figured out what Isabella Fortuna was for, tbh.}

{He regarded Isabella as more of a toy, unfortunately, even with him saying that it was all somehow "a political game" with her and we had only him succumbing to his "manliness", protecting her from the snake and inviting her to a halvet only to spite Hürrem. With Firuze it was, admittedly, a bit more complicated, because he sure was infatuated with her to some extent, recited the exact same poetry to her, as well, but then again, we have the poisoning as a factor, and we have no idea to what extent it began to affect his psyche, besides him having to lay in bed in E78. I don't think Hürrem's intrigues had anything to do with the feelings he had for both of them, and I believe he would at some point have let them all go, exactly due to his ego and loyalty complex.}

I don't say that Süleiman's love for Hürrem is a healthy one, because oh noo, IT IS NOT, very far from it, in fact. Especially with the writers still keeping the status-quo with them the exact same even after he freed and married her, and for a while, it never made an actual difference. However, it is something that he didn't feel for anyone else in this harem and I would say that he indeed cherished it a lot.

#magnificent century #sultan suleyman #sultan suleiman #hurrem sultan #isabela fortuna #firuze hatun #ask #stuffandthangs #long post

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mittensmorgul · 4 years

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Did you think it's strange that Sam and Dean didn't even question Mrs B? Like they just immediately accepted her and allowed her to be alone with Jack, and then went crazy on the radar thing rather than focus on God? I liked the ep a lot, but it also kind of felt like a strange little detour away from what the Winchesters would/should normally be doing

I mean, they actually lampshaded this in the episode during their phone call, when Sam called from his room to warn Dean about Mrs. B. And then asked why Dean hadn’t called HIM when she’d locked Dean and Jack up (Dean didn’t want to interrupt Sam’s date). Dean also asked Sam how his research into wood nymphs was going, if he’d learned anything that could help them now... and they both realized that they’d both been so busy running around to random hunts and being distracted by holiday celebrations, they hadn’t gotten around to researching her.

I think Mrs. B’s prime tactic-- especially once she realized that Jack was nonhuman and therefore assessed him as an imminent threat-- was to do everything in her power to play into the benign grandmotherly service role while simultaneously keeping them all so thrown off balance and just... too busy to do anything other than accept her, you know?

The whole montage of alarm/hunt/return/holiday celebration/rinse/repeat sort of drove that point home. And then the divide and conquer-- keeping Sam and Dean from Jack while loading him up on the smoothies that sapped his power-- played out while Sam was away and Dean was left with the “mission” to kill Jack.

It’s all... so convenient. :’D

I wondered briefly if she was another tool placed there by Chuck, the way Eileen had been earlier this season, to attempt to spy on them or keep them otherwise distracted from what Chuck was up to. ESPECIALLY after Dean looked through the telescope (the interdimensional geoscope) and didn’t see anything... meaning that Chuck’s mission to destroy all the AU’s was largely complete and he would be returning his focus to their world now. The only discrepancy with that theory is that we’re being led to believe that Chuck doesn’t know of Jack’s return from the Empty yet (mentioned in this ep when Dean begged Jack not to try to use his powers because he needed to stay off Chuck’s radar, despite the fact that Jack HAS used his powers already... even if just in small ways... We just don’t really know what the extent of Chuck’s knowledge is now, and whether removing the Equalizer wound has left him fully able to “see” the Winchesters again or not. We’ll see soon, I suppose.

But as to why they allowed themselves to be distracted so badly by her...

a) I think this ep spanned only a few days. I don’t think they were at this for even a week before things came to a head

b) they said at the beginning of the ep that Cas was out looking for Amara, because Jack couldn’t fulfill his mission to even THINK about killing Chuck until they’d also found Amara, so that whole thing is in a holding pattern until they actually get a lead or further instructions or info on what to do, you know?

c) I think next week’s episode will involve at least SOME timeframe overlap with this ep, with Cas consulting “his angel contacts” for help in the search for Amara, and will make it clear that the hunt had not progressed while Sam and Dean were distracted and running in circles.

d) they were just so entirely thrown for a loop by Mrs. B’s sudden appearance and the fact she brought with her something to actually do other than sit around spinning their wheels on what was starting to feel like a wild goose chase. We see this sort of thing a lot on this show. Think back to s11 when they took several hunts just to get out of the bunker and get themselves a win while the Big Bad Plot Arc had them frustrated and demoralized. Honestly they do this at least once a season, both to give the big plotline a rest for a week and let the boys have a bit of emotional decompression, as well as allowing viewers to have that same sort of relief from the constant angst of the main plotline. Obviously this ep would’ve played differently if they’d been able to show it back in March right after 15.13, leading right into the series finale runup, you know? The fact it landed after months and months of waiting, after we have spent that time processing and coping with the gut punch revelations of 15.13, it may have felt “too light” or not urgent enough, and I get that. But for me it hit as exactly the sort of relief from trauma they needed, leading them too easily to let themselves be taken in by it all.

#spn 15.14 #spn s15 spoilers #Anonymous

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thoughtfulpaperback · 4 years

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Charmed 02x17 SPOILERS!!!!!

Okay yall havent had time to do one of these in a while. But I had time to do a rewatch and so I am ready.

Non-spoilery part of this . . . I give the episode a 9/10. The writing (on its own and I'll get into it later) was better than many episodes this season so far. I have mentioned it multiple times this season that episodes 1 to 3 of this season had a different style and scope and (imo) writing pace than the rest of the season except for some of the most recent episodes. While I did have some favorite episodes later on everything pretty much after three didnt feel as grand as far as style went. These last few episodes the writing and style just got turned up. Which is actually great and super frustrating. The writers seem to have the same problem they had last season that is proper plot development/management. We shouldnt be getting all the interesting stuff at the beginning dragging everything out and making no plot progression, then theoughing in all the interesting stuff at the end to get us to stick around. We should have gotten the more plot development throughout the season not just big info bombs ever so often with little devoplement everywhere else.

Here is the truth and I hate it, we had more meaningful screen time and character development with Mel and Abby this one episode than in the entire season. Which is a no-no in my book. The episode on it's own is solid, interesting, and I argue well written, but it should have happened earlier. The things that were good about this episode should have been implemented this entire season. I mean not show will have an A + episode everytime. There will be filler. But it has honestly felt like the writers didnt know what they were doing with certain characters development until last minute. I don't know if that's true, it is just how it has come off to me. So I can understand the frustrations people have felt with this season and its writing. I have them but this episode had me invested and on the edge of my seat. I am excited for more. Which honestly hasnt been the case for many of the episodes this season. I dont mind the last minute overused troupe. I love fanfiction and so I do not easily tire of them, but again pulling it towards the end of the season when many plotlines have been subpar or are least handled in a subpar manner . . .

But on to the spoilers. I am going to go back to the standard likes, dislikes, and episode highlights

1. Abigael character development

Like yall it wasnt much, but like it was more than this entire season so far. I still have no idea what they are doing with Abby-and for me personally it is a little too late to salvage the damage-but the development was actually welcomed. It should have happened sooner. The writers need to pick a lane at this point and just reveal what they want us to think about her (you know like they do with plot bombs) because after some of the stuff and little character development some of us have just soured to Abby. I dont actually dislike the character I just am fustrated with the poor development overall. But I mean had they been doing these little moments across the season rather than setting her up in that weird, poorly handled, and now seemingly dropped love shape with her Harry and Macy (they completely didnt need to have her in there they could have introduced julian earlier on rather than put Macy in a relationship with him after she seemed to realize she had feelings for Harry and then it wouldnt have seemed like she was using julian as much).

2. Mel and Abby moments

The plot was interesting, the development of both characters was better. I mean seriously yall Mel admitting her mom wasnt perfect!!! Given the basic Marisol worship mel had last season and the lack so far of acknowledgement that Marisol made mistakes (regarding thier lives and Marisols marriage). Honestly if they had dropped the Abby Harry crap and had more mel and abby or abby Macy (considering I felt mads and poppy had some great on screen chemistry in the beginning and played well off each other even though it was antagonistic after episode 2) moments like these I feel not only would we know the character better but wed have had better plotlines overall.

Although I think Mel is too quick to overlook all of Abby's past behavior . . . She killed innocent witches and wants to be a demon overlord (or wanted, we dont know what she wants now). But Mel recognizing her mother's flaws and being open to th possibility of being wrong (something she has struggles with both seasons and only gets slightly addressed, if it gets addressed, when it happens) I mean I am here for it.

3. Jordan

I think what has been missing this season is the wittiness of last season and also the genuine fluff. I mean Jordan's comment about kissing Aunt Viv. 10 stars clever (true and revealing about inequity in punishment and treatment of men of color when it comes to sexual assult and harrassment) His excitement over magic. I mean in a lot of ways Jordan is what Galvin should have been/tried to be, but the writers can't seem to do relationship drama and good character development at the same time so....

Jordan is the best and I hope the writers dont mess it up.

4. Julian

So I like the reveal, because I think there is still room to wonder what exactly Julian does and doesnt know. What I understood from this episode is that Julian is behind the experiments in that he started them but the the creatures with those healing powers so that he can take those and use them to heal other. My guess is through creating "more" whitelighters or maybe they og thought they'd just figure out how to raise the dead. Julian at his core (so far) wants to help as many people as possible. Does he know that the creatures die in the process? Is he utilitarian and thinks it is justified? Or is aunt Viv the head person of the actual goings on and Julian is far enough removed from all of it he can emotionally detached from that. Like how for some people it is easier to hear about death than it is to witness it. I think most people are like this but I wont generalize.

Will he change his mind or will we see a different more sinister side of Julian. Like I am interested in getting to know more about his character now, because he has sort of been there as a plot prop more than an interesting character with development. Which is on the writers, the actor is killing it.

5. Hacy

Yall dont get me wrong I think after all the bad writing and angst that the writers did for most of this season, to pull a stunt like that basically at the end of the season was soo wrong.

But I feel that on it's own these moments of Macy confronting and admitting her feelings, the confession, and the little moments (like that face caress and holding him when they get him out of the cointainer) were precious.

That's the stuff we needed more of. Instead of the passive aggressiveness. I know some people hate the amnesia troupe but I prefer it to what they did with the abigael kiss and the jealousy love shape stuff.

Dislikes

1. Middle finger to season 1 and Galvin

Like dont get me wrong, emotional issues dont disappear from one moment to the other and some trauma takes years to overcome if it ever is overcome. But like wasnt Macy admitting she was lonely her whole life and it affected her ability to attach to people and recognize when she wanted someone the basic plot of season 1. I mean she straight up says in the last season that she was so concerned about whether someone wanted her that she never considered what she wanted. And then she says she wants Galvin and now she is saying she never realized when she wanted someone

I think a lot of season 1 has in some ways been "redone" this season. I dont like it because we came here from season 1. We recognized it was flawed. But we still invested time into it. I didnt mind a lot of it, in the beginning to be honest (maybe because I felt it was mostly scenery and vibe than actual erasing plot) but particularly in this episode it felt they were basically saying, "let's pretend it never happened" about the whole first season....okay harry.

In some ways I liked the sort of do over of some character types. I like Jordan as the "mortal in the know" more so than Galvin. I just dont think Galvin was well developed and handled last season. They are doing better with Jordan which is good because if they had messed up the writing for him too I would have been casting my "yall coming off as racist again, do better" look. My biggest fear is that they will mess up Jordan especially if they progress his relationship with Maggie. The writers seem unable to write good/healthy relationships and character development and still give good plotlines at the same time.

Episode highlights.

Macy rehearsing her break up with her sisters

Aunt Viv really trying it with Jordan

"Even white men can't do that anymore."

Abby bringing her bags the the house

#charmed spoilers #charmed remake #charmed reboot #charmed cw #charmed #charmed 2018 #the cw charmed #charmed 2018 spoilers #hacy #macy x harry #harry x macy #harry greenwood #macy vaughn #maggie vera #mel vera #abigael caine #jordan chase #julian shea #vivian shea

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thanksjro · 4 years

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More Than Meets the Eye #11- Soak the Matrix in Lemon Juice and Break Out the Hairdryers

So, small problem.

Prowl realized he was in the wrong comic run and had to split.

But not before yelling at Orion about how stupid he thinks this National Treasure bullshit he’s trying to pull is, and makes a request that Chromedome be left out of this whole mess.

Why the fuck wouldn’t you tell him that?

Bye, Prowl. See you later, I guess.

Chromedome and Roller have brought in some help for the heist from the local college. These students were super gung-ho about stealing the Matrix, not because they’re agents of political chaos, but because the Senator has his name attached to this little project. They feel a certain debt to the Senator, since he’s been doing his best to protect them from the Functionist Council.

Gee, wonder who that truck is.

We get a little rundown of our new friends, while Chromedome has a minor temper tantrum in the background.

Skids is also a member of this group, labelled as a super-learner, enough so that it may not even be a voluntary thing on his part.

In the present day, Swerve’s returned from stealing things from Trailcutter’s room, apparently totally unaware of what’s happened to his roommate. You’d think someone would have gotten in contact with him about that.

I mean, maybe? You did say you liked purple.

Swerve lets it slip that this isn’t the only story time circle Rewind’s hosted in an attempt to get Rung’s brain back up to speed… which makes me wonder just how often the medical staff on board the Lost Light actually check on their patients, if Ratchet had been surprised that this event was happening today.

Swerve makes fun of Tailgate for needing to open up the wiki so he can keep track of what’s going on, then goes over to call Rung the wrong name. Swerve is very lucky Rung is essentially in a coma right now, because that’s probably the only thing keeping him from trying to strangle our resident barkeep.

Whirl helps Rung express himself by playing with his eyebrows, a trait which, now that I think about it, probably only exists for expressive purposes, considering that his eyes are covered by his glasses and we can’t see their shape.

Rewind saves Rung from being played with, perhaps solely because he’s a historical constant.

So you’re saying Rung gets around. Nifty.

Rewind decides that they’ve taken enough of a break and it’s time to get back to the juicy stuff, completely blowing off Ratchet’s professional opinion about what to do with Rung.

Nothing gets in the way of story time.

Nothing.

In the past, Orion Pax is poking Skids in the face, specifically in his mini Matrix tattoo, which is giving him ideas. Skids is a little weirded out, but this isn’t about Skids, now is it? Chromedome goes to pay a visit to a coworker to get things set for the madness that’s about to unfold.

My boy! My beautiful boy!

Yes, Ironfist, before shooting himself in the head and having his spirit broken by the horrors of direct combat, used to be a cop. Everyone’s a cop in IDW, at least for a little while. He’s also missing his faceplate, and isn’t nearly as cute in Milne’s style, but we can’t have it all all the time, now can we?

Chromedome’s feeding into Ironfist’s fanboy nature, pretending to be just as much as a nerd as he is to call in a favor. In exchange for getting Ironfist’s Delta Magnus body pillow back from their boss, Chromedome needs to borrow Ironfist’s one-to-one replica of the Matrix.

I mean, you practically are already, but the sentiment is appreciated. We haven’t gotten to the point where we’re comfortable with thank you kisses yet, and it’ll be a while still.

While the Senator and company gush over Chromedome’s good job, Roller pulls Ratchet and Orion over to the side for a little chat.

Roller doesn’t trust the Senator. He’s done his research, weighed their options, and he really isn’t sure about this guy. Turns out that Orion isn’t the only guy who’s been modified to fit a Matrix without his consent. Honestly, I’m with Roller on this one; that’s mad creepy to be loading the bases like that.

Orion doesn’t really see it that way, though.

Only one of these things was ever a secret, my guy. You worked with Whirl, he was in your precinct for crying out loud! At least he admits to his ignorance.

Back in the present, we check in on Rodimus’ investigation. Looks like we’ve got our answer on who tried to kill Red Alert.

It was Red Alert.

First Aid explains.

Fascinating.

Rodimus fails to see why exactly Red Alert would choose to go this route, because A) he doesn’t know that Red Alert knows about the dirty little secret in the basement, and B) despite probably having depression, may not be the type to have suicidal ideation. It’s true, those types of people exist!

Oh, this is a savior’s complex thing. Nyon really fucked you up, huh Rodimus?

After Ultra Magnus gets Rodimus to stop accosting the doctor, they’re faced with a sort of moral quandary.

IDW’s More Than Meets the Eye! Come for the space adventure, stay for the rumination on whether it’s ethical to allow a mentally ill person the right to self-termination!

After consulting with Drift, because it’s always important to get a second opinion, Rodimus agrees to put Red Alert in cold storage, to remain until their quest is finished and they’re in a place that’s better for his mental health.

Anyway, back to the heist plotline.

Orion breaks down the plan for everybody: the basilica is nearly impossible to break into, but they’re going to do it anyway, because this is the past, and we as the reader already know that things go alright because Chromedome, Ratchet and Skids are still here and Optimus Prime came into being.

Roller will hack the sky spies, make things look all hunky dory, while the rest of the boys magic carpet up to the top of the building.

Looking mighty relaxed there, Glitch.

Glitch is probably sitting down to conserve as much energy as possible, because his job sucks some major chrome- he’s got to keep the detector beams off, using his outlier ability, but it really friggin’ hurts for him to do it. He’s going to have to do it for an extended period of time.

Glitch really got the short end of the stick in all this, didn’t he?

Okay, so I was wrong, Skids uses his grappling hook a fucking shit-ton in MTMTE. Today, he’s going to use it to lower Orion down into the basilica so he can crack open a cold one and steal the Matrix.

Things can never just be simple, can they?

Over on Roller’s end of the workflow, Chromedome’s irritated that he’s got to babysit the Senator. Chromedome spends a good portion of this story arc irritated at stuff, in case you couldn’t tell.

In this case, the Senator agrees that having Chromedome stay back was probably unnecessary. Or at least, he did, until he noticed that the Academy of Advanced Technology is burning to the ground on live TV.

Then the wall explodes.

Things can never just be simple, can they?

Back on the front lines, Orion tags out and Ratchet tags in, because the locks on the Matrix are mad crazy hard to undo and they just don’t have time for pussyfooting around with all that. Ratchet is apparently a master lock pick. Must be those magic medic hands.

Even the Matrix being full of Fiji water is no match for our CMO, as he makes quick work of the bomb and removes it. Hooray! Now we just need to pull him back up and we’ll be all set to leave.

Or at least, we would be, if Glitch wasn’t the dumbest bitch alive.

Ratchet braces for an explosion.

And braces.

But it never comes, because Windcharger has magic arms and zero patience for facing his own mortality.

The boys haul up Ratchet and the bomb, fly on out of there, then Orion jumps off the slab they’re floating on because Roller was supposed to call and he hasn’t. I’m going to hazard a guess and say that Roller might be a bit preoccupied at the moment, and it isn’t by the television.

That is a BIG BOY.

“Cleanse and control” was what Trepan’s idiotic tattoo said, so there’s a good chance that our buddy the Senator is about to go the way of Pious Maximus in a minute. Or at least, he would if Orion Pax didn’t embrace is inner monster truck and punch a hole in the big boy holding the Senator like Lennie does a rabbit.

Kroma isn’t one to let the opposite side have all the cards though, as he holds a gun to Roller’s head and suggests that the Senator be given to him, lest we be down a cop in this story that’s simply awash with them. The Senator, being the nice guy that he is, goes willingly to his doom.

Be a lot easier if we knew your name, bud.

The Senator is taken away, but Kroma leaves Orion with the other big boy, and he’s not playing nicely. Orion helps himself by way of domestic terrorism.

But that’s not the end of the story! Oh dear no!

After the explosion, Orion unearths Chromedome, and they make tracks for the Institute. Small issue with that though:

Well, dang.

Thus ends the tale of the Matrix heist, the mysterious Senator, and Chromedome’s awkward relationship with Prowl. Our storytelling session ends with the sound of the alarm, and everyone runs off to see just what the hell’s gone wrong now. Only Skids hangs back to take Rung to the medibay, but not before trying one last thing to help his partner in vent-crawling out.

Man, all they had to do was annoy him and everything would have been fine? Rewind’s going to feel so silly for all that work he put into this.

Back in the past, Orion’s digging through the remains of the Rodion police station, when a robot comes up to him, saying that they have a mutual friend who asked him to find Orion if he ever went missing.

The mutual friend was the Senator.

And the robot is Zeta, who would become Zeta Prima.

The Senator was really playing the field with all these Matrix reformattings.

Speaking of the Senator, he’s just arrived at a The Institute, where they’ve decided to not only shadowplay him, but also empurata his whole deal just to be assholes. He just wanted to be beautiful, on top of conniving, but I guess we won’t be having any of that anymore. Not that it’ll matter.

Because vanity is illogical.

No wonder Whirl’s so goddamn angry all the time.

#transformers #jro #mtmte #shadowplay #issue 11 #maccadam #Hannzreads #text post #long post #comic script writing

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afriendlyirin · 5 years

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Steven Universe Rewrite

So I’ve now finished my rewrite of the final arc (go read it and tell me all your thoughts), and while I’m satisfied with it in many respects, I still feel like it doesn’t properly resolve or engage with everything I’d like to, nor is it fully in keeping with the parts of Steven Universe I liked, despite that being my goal. There’s simply too much to get into and too little space to for it. To fully “fix” the narrative in my mind, I’d probably have to diverge much farther back.

I’m not interested in actually writing such a story, but I think it would be a good exercise to sketch an outline of what such a thing might look like.

I think the biggest problem is that Steven Universe has too many antagonists. The three initial Homeworld gems work well on their own – we spend a lot of time between each one, giving us time to process what’s happened before they return or a new antagonist gains focus. But with the diamonds, we don’t really get that breathing room. We barely know anything of Yellow before Blue shows up, we’re only just starting to really process them before White appears, and then the show ends. And throughout all of this, we have even more unresolved antagonists dangling – Jasper, the rubies, Topaz and Aquamarine, Homeworld’s system itself. To do justice to all of these characters at the previous pace of the show would probably have taken twice as many seasons.

My second problem, which is more personal preference, is that I don’t like how the plot ended up going epic, with Steven having to take on uberpowerful opponents with an entire empire of resources. I’d say this is also thematically confused – the show starts off making it seem like everyone is safe on Earth and the war is in the distant past, but it’s then revealed the war is very much still on and the plot becomes about Steven continuing the rebellion Rose left half-finished. My favorite parts of the show were seasons 1-3, which were much the antithesis of that – the conflicts were much more subdued, against lone actors or just interpersonal problems.

So, let us combine these things to give us a different starting state.

There was only one diamond, and she was destroyed during Rose’s rebellion. Either she blew herself up with a corruption bomb, or the shattering of a diamond is what makes a corruption blast. Down-scale the empire’s resources such that they were putting most of their manpower into fighting the rebellion, meaning that their population is utterly crippled by the fallout of the blast in addition to their loss of leadership. The gem empire still exists but as a shadow of its former self; it no longer has the manpower to invade new planets. (We can also tone down the oppression; no killing people just for being born. Whether or not that is still the case for Era 1, it’s just not possible to keep doing that with your population so crippled. Homeworld can still be oppressively conformist, but not to the point of EUGENICS EVERYWHERE.)

Right off the bat, this dodges a lot of awkward questions that are present in canon. Why did Rose stop fighting just because she saved one of many colonies, and why did she make Steven when Homeworld was still a threat that could endanger him – why, in sum, does she act like the war is over? Well, because it is, and she won.

This shifts the tone and focus of the story away from an epic rebellion plot and into one of postwar reconstruction. After the dust has settled, what happens? How do you pick up the pieces and move forward? Steven will only ever encounter pale shadows of Homeworld’s former power. Things like the Cluster become akin to forgotten landmines, echoes of a violent past that can still hurt people long after the conflict is over. He can still fight Homeworld gems, but they are lone agents acting on personal grudges; Jasper is not acting under orders, she just really wants to take a swing at Rose Quartz. (This setup even works a lot better with the threat level we actually see from canon, which is that Homeworld keeps sending weak scouts and small groups instead of bringing their full military might to bear against the Crystal Gems.)

This frees up a lot of space to just get into the characters talking about their feelings, which was always the real core of Steven Universe. In canon, Amethyst is the only Crystal Gem who really gets a full arc with a proper resolution (the battle with Jasper at the conclusion of season 3); Garnet’s gets flattened to just be about her relationship so it can be rushed through in Heart of the Crystal Gems, and Pearl’s arc gets completely substituted for something else that officially has no problem for her to resolve at all. The time spent on the diamonds and battle logistics could instead be spent on developing those arcs. With the antagonist compression, we could develop the Homeworld gems further as well, perhaps making them proper foils to Crystal Gems – something I get the impression canon was trying to go for but never seemed to really commit to.

Speaking of which, this would make the Homeworld gems much more tragic and sympathetic. Lapis’ despair over how different the new Homeworld is would no longer be about the simple passage of time, but because it is genuinely a shambling corpse of what it once was. And because Era 2 is so different than Era 1, Peridot, an Era 2 gem, would lack much of the shared culture and knowledge other gems have, justifying her naivete and social awkwardness. Finally, the rebellion destroying the entire army makes Jasper even more isolated – she is one of the very few survivors of the war, further justifying her fury at Rose and her inability to open up to her peers – she has none.

This would also make everything about Bismuth so, so much more reasonable. Instead of reacting to the fact that Rose lost the war that is very much still on, she’s advocating for igniting a brand new one before the ashes have even cooled on the first. (For extra horror, she might not even be dissuaded by the news Rose killed the diamond after all – they may have understood Homeworld’s soldiers were only following orders and assumed they would defect if they removed the command structure… but now you’re telling her they assassinated the head honcho and they’re still loyal to Homeworld? Clearly the only solution is to KILL ‘EM ALL.) It is far more understandable for Steven to keep her bubbled in that situation, and for the Crystal Gems to agree to it.

Ultimately, I think this plotline could remain very similar for seasons 1-3; perhaps move up the “Rose shattered Diamond” reveal to around season 2, and follow it with the Cluster plot to show why that really was necessary while emphasizing that yeah, war is horrible we really shouldn’t be starting another one, Bismuth!

The major difference would be swapping out Yellow Diamond for a lower administrative gem. I thought Yellow Diamond alone worked as a fine antagonist, really, so not much needs to change – just transplant her personality into another gem. This character could function as a foil to Garnet, someone thrust into overwhelming responsibility because there’s no one else qualified left alive. We could even double down on this and make her a permafusion; that maps really well onto modern conservatism, where people who would actually be hurt by the old hegemonies still romanticize them anyway. Season 4’s arc could revolve around her; having dealt with Lapis, Peridot, and Jasper, Steven must go to Homeworld and address the problem at its source. (The events of “Raising the Barn” could happen here, giving Lapis an extra season to work through her issues.) This could actually be resolved very similarly to the White Diamond resolution in canon, but it would fit with the earlier themes much better – this gem really would have reasons to feel insecure about her failure to live up to a perfect ideal. And for bonus points, that makes her a foil to Steven, too.

It would also make it a lot more believable that these gems would need Steven to teach them what is, if we’re being honest, pretty basic philosophy. If they are technically free of the old system but still stubbornly cling to its trappings, it makes sense that they’d need an outsider to tell them to think for themselves and that this would genuinely be a radical new perspective for them. Hauntings, again – just as in real life, the system still influences peoples’ thinking long after it was officially dismantled.

We could replace the Zoo arc with something that hits the same beats. The rubies return (or someone new gets sent) and capture Greg for some reason. Instead of seeing the Zoo we get to see Homeworld society directly during the trip. The events of That Will Be All still occur, as Not Yellow Diamond, cracking under the strain, unfuses and argues with herself behind closed doors.

Instead of the gems only being caught as a joke (and having that also be resolved as a joke), it’s a choice Steven makes. We invoke the hero’s last temptation: He has everything he’s ever wanted, his family in one piece and Homeworld beaten so thoroughly they’ll never threaten them again… but to take that offer means looking away, and abandoning everyone who is still suffering on Homeworld. He looks upon the gates of Heaven, but willingly chooses to walk back into Hell.

(Connie should probably be present to witness this so we can set up the falling-out arc, which is important for deconstructing Steven’s martyr complex.)

This leads to an analogous arc to Wanted and Diamond Days where Steven navigates Homeworld until he finally reaches Not Yellow Diamond. For added tension, the gems are separated somehow and Steven spends a significant time on his own befriending Homeworld gems. Garnet converges with him for the finale so we can make it about her (maybe extend her themes to the previous arc, focus on her stress and failures as leader during the heist).

Not Yellow Diamond is a noncombatant, but hides behind elite guards and defenses that Garnet and Steven can’t handle on their own, necessitating a fusion. The theme here could be that Garnet is paralyzed by her responsibilities, unable to both mount an offense while also keep Steven protected; Steven cuts through this by taking on his own responsibility, showing Garnet that she doesn’t have to do everything herself.

Not Yellow Diamond’s redemption happens similarly to White Diamond’s, but because she’s a noncombatant it is actually reasonable for Steven to spend so long on a nonviolent solution. Possibly Garnet even tries to shatter her (this could be what makes them unfuse), but Steven stops her. Not Yellow Diamond more explicitly agrees to change things and protect Earth.

So by this point, Steven will have dealt with all extant threats… but there are still issues left unresolved. The corrupted gems still aren’t healed, Bismuth’s still bubbled, Lapis is still missing, and Pearl hasn’t had a personal arc to resolve her issues. This would then turn season 5 into something of a denouement season, tying up all the remaining loose ends. This season’s theme could be one of self-actualization, revolving around Lapis and Pearl working through their difficult mental health problems and Steven, though seeing his own issues reflected in them, overcoming his own imposter syndrome in the process.

Season 5 starts after a timeskip. Steven is trying to heal the corrupted gems but is making no progress. Make this into a metaplot, with snippets in other episodes throughout the season showing he’s continuing to try and making more progress as his personal arc progresses.

Bismuth is already unbubbled to leapfrog over that awkward conversation, but still suffers from PTSD. She gets an episode (or two) about her issues, primarily grief. She bemoans the loss of her friends, and Steven tries to assure her that he’ll heal the corrupted gems any day now. She shows him the shards and says bitterly, “Can you heal these?” Spirals into a breakdown naming and remembering all the shattered gems. Steven tries to lay down some generic platitudes like he always does, but this time it doesn’t work; Bismuth calls him out on his ignorance and innocence, that he’s never lost anyone so he has no idea how she feels. This forces him to rethink things and actually listen to Bismuth, foreshadowing that that will be the theme of this season. (For bonus points, could also have her echo Pearl’s “She’s gone, but I’m still here,” re: the shattered gems.)

This could probably happen simultaneously with the falling-out arc (though that interacts awkwardly with the timeskip since Connie would probably be upset immediately after), could draw a connection by having Steven realize or Connie point out his god complex, he wants to help people for his sake not for theirs.

After that heavy opening we can have funtimes with human friends; Sadie Killer arc happens here plus any outstanding human subplots resolve. Should probably also have an episode about Pearl that touches on her issues since that’ll be the topic of the final stretch.

Then Lapis comes back. Have a conversation about PTSD and how she needed to do it on her own time etc., Steven can show his growth by accepting this and not pushing.

If the Lion chest is important, Lapis found the key while soul-searching (it was hidden somewhere on Earth the CGs didn’t look).

Next plot episode is Steven getting frustrated over his inability to heal the corrupted gems (can have a comedy bit where he tries increasingly absurd and convoluted methods), wonders what he’s doing wrong. Something happens that leads to him talking to Pearl about Rose. Possibly he thinks whatever’s in the chest is the cure, but that seems pretty stupid even for him. Events lead to Pearl revealing that she shattered Diamond and Steven has a fresh meltdown, accuses all the other gems of secretly being shatterers and not telling him (Garnet could react really awkwardly, implying she actually has killed people), decides that’s the problem and runs off.

(If there is a similar memory scene with Pearl, it’s via hologram; Diamond literally does not get a voice.)

Either Pearl tracks him down, or someone else brings him back only for him to discover that Pearl has run off because she agrees that she is horrible and shouldn’t be around Steven. Either way leads to a deep conversation about their issues. The climax here would result in Steven fusing with Pearl as he has with the others, but perhaps this time the context is peaceful rather than it being a tactic used in desperation, affirming the idea that fusions are a way of life and not just a tool.

As a result of his growth from this, Steven finally figures out the method to heal the corrupted gems, whatever that may be. We have a great happy ending montage where it looks like everything’s resolved – Steven has forged peace with Homeworld, and all the corrupted gems are healed, including Jasper…

…who immediately attacks him. We get one final episode, or perhaps even a full arc, revolving around a final fight with Jasper. Because Steven never actually resolved her issues before she got bubbled! She is still mad, still violent, and still hurting. This is the most narratively satisfying climax, because Jasper is all the story’s themes embodied: the sins of the past come back to haunt us, the scars left by war, and the pain of grief and acceptance. She always made the most sense as a “final villain” to me. Steven’s usual approach of steamrollering people with generic feel-good platitudes would not work here; he must actually use what he’s learned and engage with Jasper on her own terms.

(If this were an actual show THIS is where I would pull the surprise season extension, lead everyone to think the Pearl reconciliation is the grand finale and then surprise them with Jasper.)

The Jasper episode, or the finale if it’s a whole arc, would be titled “Under the Stars So Bright” as a reference to Trigun and also the imagery of being under the star of Diamond.

I feel the only way to make this work would be to intercut the Jasper ep with flashbacks to her time under Diamond, much like Trigun’s final episode. Only issue is that the sudden change in POV would be really weird; Trigun worked because the hero was there for those events and we only see his perspective, but Steven has no window into Jasper’s past.

Jasper poofs all the CGs and digs a hole to the core with the intent of popping the Cluster. Steven proceeds to get the crap beaten out of him protecting and bubbling the CGs like Vash vs. Midvalley in Trigun. Make this incredibly gruesome, even with the bubble shields she cracks his gem and draws blood.

Steven tries to reason with her like he did before, and like before it just makes her push back harder. Eventually she tries to pull a suicide by cop and bait Steven into shattering her. He gruesomely rams his fingers through her face to grab her gem and draws his fist back to kill her, and then we get a flashback montage of all his family memories – but in an inversion of Vash vs. Legato, this results in him not killing her. (For bonus creepy, he could also be stopped by Jasper flashing a grin or letting slip that she wants to die.)

Maybe as a compromise, he does poof her – this would be the only time in the series he intentionally does so.

(In the fantasy world where I have an animation studio at my beck and call, this would be filled with visual references to Trigun, both the Legato and Knives confrontations.)

Ending is Jasper going to prison to face trial for trying to blow up Earth. Lapis gets to say her piece, then Steven gives a more mature redemption speech than usual, about how he can’t make her change and she has to want to become a better person but he still believes in her anyway. This can perhaps be the nuanced message that the movie… appeared to be trying to go for with Spinel, that people can have understandable reasons for lashing out and doing bad things, but that doesn’t mean you’re obligated to exhaust yourself for them; you don’t have to be a martyr.

In the final montage, Jasper reunites with other jaspers who were corrupted in the war (maybe mirrored with a montage of Bismuth hugging formerly-corrupted Crystal Gems). Final message is what the canon ending claims to be: Steven has gained a more mature and complex outlook on “good” and “evil” but he still chooses to be optimistic and believe in the goodness of people. GOOD END.

That’s my take. Ultimately, it seems Steven Universe bit off more than it could chew, or perhaps had too many cooks. The most important takeaway from this, in my view, is to keep things to a manageable level in your story. Don’t introduce elements you know you won’t have time to adequately address; a few points done well will often land better than a lot of stuff done slapdashedly.

#steven universe #su #fanfiction #su meta #steven universe meta #my posts

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blodreina-noumou · 5 years

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The Salt, 6x03

Okay, we all knew this was coming.

How and why does Bellamy suddenly trust Clarke so much that he’s willing to say “she is” to the question of whether or not she’s their leader?? (Oh man I just realized that shippers must’ve gone nuts for that 5x03 callback.) She left him to die like a week ago!! They have had exactly zero conversations about anything important in their histories, and no, the fucking radio calls do not count. It just feels so fan-servicey and wrong. I don’t know if the new writers missed all of last season or only got a synopsis of what each character has done, but a lot of people are regressing and Bellamy is getting the worst of it. I now completely see what Bob Morley meant when he responded to a fan’s question about what s6 Bellamy would say to s1 Bellamy with, “They’re not that different.”

It feels like s5 basically didn’t happen for them. Everyone else is still rightfully seething at Clarke, questioning her leadership abilities (Raven you’re doing amazing sweetie), and Bellamy’s just blindly trusting her again. They keep sharing these tender, quiet moments that, without shipper goggles, just feel unearned.

I’m worried unearned emotional moments are going to be a theme this season. We are diving headfirst into the dynamics and problems that come with Sanctum as a society and Alpha as a world. The reasonable gap for actual, meaningful conversations about these things is narrowing faster and faster. I suppose I shouldn’t have expected anything else, but I am disappointed.

On some level, I can see the writers’ attempts to make this feel genuine. All of the emphasis on “a second chance” and “a new world” is supposed to make us feel like the slate has been wiped clean. But only for Clarke, and only in Bellamy’s eyes? It’s just weird that everyone else is demanding she give better apologies, is demanding she do “good works” to redeem herself, and Bellamy suddenly understands everything because Madi told him about some radio calls, and Marper woke them up first, and yadda yadda yadda. Even Echo’s defenses of Clarke have been more practical than anything else, in line with how she tends to defend Octavia. Murphy and Raven are the only ones having reasonable reactions to things, and Murphy is now going to be distracted with trying to drink away his existential crisis. Emori has gotten 5 minutes of screentime, and while the spectacle of her breakdown was fun, it was so devoid of any complexity towards anyone but Murphy.

I’m not fooling myself, I know the B/C dynamic is the major focus of the show. But since that’s the case, I want their relationship to feel fleshed-out and fully conveyed to the audience. Bob and Eliza do some amazing work, and they have great chemistry, and thank god for that, because they’ve carried every single B/C scene alone since like, s3, on the workhorse that is their acting abilities. The writers have not helped them in the slightest. If I’d been given these scripts, I would’ve been confused as fuck.

I know it’s television, it’s a bombastic post-apoc teen drama on a network known for its cheesy teen drama. There have just been enough bright spots in The 100′s narrative overall that I expect a little better from them.

My main issue with this whole narrative is that if B and C are endgame, but if they’re not going to start forcefully moving that potential plotline forward, they are wasting everyone’s time by not actually addressing the issues between them, on-screen. And it is clear that there are still issues! Psychosis or not, Bellamy was speaking the truth when he asked Clarke how many times he’d tried to kill her, when he told Clarke he didn’t need her anymore. But everyone’s just kinda goin’ “Wow what a crazy day lol” and moving on.

I’m intrigued by Murphy’s arc, his new belief in an afterlife - specifically one where he’s doomed to an eternity of torture. I’m also anxious about how it’s going to pan out, because The 100 has rarely treated religion with any level of dignity, grace, or reverence. Even the Faith of the Flame has been stripped down to a science-fiction explanation, so far removed from the original spiritual grounder belief of “reincarnation” that everyone pretty much just accepts that Madi is walking around with a computer program in her brainstem. And yes, this show plays with the whole idea that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” but I think we can all agree that the way The Flame works is a Little Much. Even I know that, and I am a sucker for that storyline. Just knowing how it plays out makes me concerned about where this Sanctum stuff is going, and the Children of Gabriel, and how “two opposing cults” it all is.

There are a lot of things about this season I’m enjoying. Unfortunately, too many of our main characters and their arcs don’t make that list. I’m going to do my best to distract myself with the strangeness and wonder of Sanctum and Alpha moving forward, and try to lower my expectations in terms of what this show will actually do in terms of meaningful, character-driven conversations that exist to do more than just further the plot. This season has been an exposition overload, and on some level, it feels like they’re trying to distract from how quickly s5 was tied up, and how so much was left unaddressed.

I don’t think I hated it as much as a lot of people did. But I was definitely disappointed, and I’ll be relying a lot on a good plot to keep me interested, since the character moments have been so lacking, and so frustrating. Given how haphazard the plots have been the past few seasons, I’ve got low expectations. They have planted quite a few seeds for an interesting conflict, one with two distinct sides and a host of main characters who all have different motivations around which side will be best. Obviously I think the Children of Gabriel are basically the grounders in s1 again - they seem really scary now, but they’ll be friends later. And while Sanctum is beautiful, there’s a lot of potential pitfalls there. I’m absolutely expecting Sanctum folk to end up as “the bad guys” and the CoG to end up as “the good guys”.

Spill your salt, my friends. Tell me what bothered you. Air your grievances. Even if I don’t agree, I always love seeing what other people think.

#antibellarke #anticlarke #anticlarkegriffin #stephspeaks #the 100 meta #the 100 spoilers #s6 #6x03 #long post #wrong show bro wrong show #negative tw

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jarmes · 5 years

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So, I think I’m done with Rising of the Shield Hero. I tried to get into it, watched about fifteen episodes, and can honestly say that it’s shit. It’s really, really, shit. The villains are one dimensional, it’s insanely cliche, and every plot point feels forced. It’s like someone set out to create the worst concept for an anime possible and then tried their hardest to make it a good show.

Like, why would anyone make a show where a little girl becomes an adult woman overnight but still has the mind of the child and also wants to fuck her adoptive father? Who thought that was a good idea?

And, to be fair, the show tries really really hard to be good despite its premise being filled with every horrid trope possible. I would love it if it was just a chill show about a single father starting a small buisness. Hell, the idea of a hero framed for crimes he didn’t commit trying to clear his name isn’t even that bad. But when you add in things like slavery, false rape acussations, and a world where every single goddamn person is a stupid asshole who goes out of there way to make things bad for the main character because the show’s plot is as thin as crappy toilet paper, it stops being enjoyable. It becomes something that you roll your eyes at.

It took me a while to figure out why the show bugged me so much, but I’ve realized that the problem with Shield Hero is the fact that Naofumi is an awful human being.

For those who haven’t scene the garbage heap that is Shield Hero, the concept of the show is that a standard Isekai protaganist is going through a standard Isekai plotline when he is falsely accussed of rape by a woman. Said woman accuses him of rape because...reasons. Anyway, because everyone thinks he’s a rapist, no one wants to help him fight monsters. So, naturally, he does the only sensible thing: he buys a child slave.

Now, I know what some of you are going to say: he had to buy a child slave or die so he isn’t a bad person. That just means the author went out of their way to make an overcomplicated series of events that resulted in the main character dying if he doesn’t buy a slave.

So Naofumi buys a slave (a slave who physically can’t disobey him which helps him with the fact that he doesn’t trust women) and makes her a child soldier. Our hero, everyone. Sure, he eventually warms up to her and there’s some wholesome stuff with him being a dad, but that doesn’t get rid of the fact that their relationship started with him buying her and making her risk her life against her will.

And then, we get the irideemable moment: Naofumi goes back to the slave merchant. And then he goes back again. And again. And again.

Now, buying a slave when the shitty plot forces you to do so is standable. But countinuing to give money to a slave merchant so you can own human beings once you’re strong enough to surive on your own? Fucking despicable.

By the time I stopped watching, Naofumi has gone to the slave merchant on five seperate ocassions. Each time, we see the horrible conditions these slaves are kept in. We see them sitting in their own filth, barely clinging to life. It’s explicitly stated that Raphtalia (slave #1) would have died because of the poor conditions if Naofumi hadn’t bought her.

Now naturally Naofumi, being a person with a concince, is disgusted by this. As soon as he’s able to he kills the slave merchant and frees his slaves. Just kidding. Naofumi happily gives the slave merchant money then leaves without a second thought, abandoning the imprisoned slaves to die in chains.

After I decided to stop watching, I looked at some wiki pages to see if Naofumi ends up killing the merchant, or at the very least stops giving him money. Turns out, later chapters of the light novel have Naofumi buying more fucking slaves!

I’ve talked to this with some other anime fans on Reddit and they tend to downplay this atrocity buy pointing out that slavery is legal and Naofumi is nice to his slaves. Setting asside the horrible implications of those statements, Naofumi’s treatment of his slaves isn’t the issue. The issue is him constantly giving money to people involved in the slave trade. Even if he isn’t evil, the people he constantly gives money to are. Naofumi is complicit in the actions he funds.

There’s one disgusting scene that I have to bring up. A few episodes in, the show’s evil villains remove the magic spell that prevents Raphtalia from disobeying Naofumi (those bastards). Naofumi goes back to the slave merchant and give him a shitload of money to reapply the spell because Raphtalia actually likes being a slave. The fact that the writer of Shield Hero made a scene where a racial minority tells the man that owns her as property that she likes being enslaved and plays it as a heartwarming moment is bad enough, but it gets worse.

The slave merchant jokes that Raphtalia isn’t a virgin when Naofumi stops by to have the spell reaplied. He’s wrong, by the way, but that doesn’t make it any less fucked up. The slave merchant is a man who sold a child who can’t disobey commands to a known rapist, who assumes that he raped her, and is absolutely fine with this. The slave merchant is iredeemably evil. And Naofumi? Naofumi gives him money.

How many children has the merchant sold to pedophiles? How many children have died because he didn’t give a fuck about their lives? How many more slaves will he be able to buy with the money Naofumi gave him? Naofumi knows this evil man exists and does nothing to stop him. Because letting the slave merchant live is benefitial to Naofumi. Because Naofumi doesn’t give a fuck about right and wrong, only about whether or not things benefit him. Because Naofumi is every bit as evil as everyone thinks.

And, when I realized that, I couldn’t watch the show any more. If the concept of the show is a good man clearing his name, and he’s a completely evil bastard who deserves to be hated, what the fuck is the point of the show?

#rising of the shield hero #anime #rant

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sunlitroom · 7 years

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Gotham – s4e13 – Reunion

As I watched it, and some random observations here and there.

Previously on Gotham:

Barbara wore an upsetting flesh-coloured headband. Jim searched for the Doc. Sometimes we search for things we really don’t want to find. Sofia likes being queen! And she has new ways to hurt Jim! Harvey tells Jim he wants to feel clean. You’ll need a water cannon to get the muck off Jim, Harvey. Ed gloated, but Oswald claimed ‘you’re’ still there! Ivy’s changed. Lazarus water does things! Bruce has a party boy breakdown.

As always, long post will be long. There are likely to be rambling digressions. Gobblepot might appear (although I welcome all shippers and non-shippers alike :)). There will be naked favouritism and naked not-favouritism. Broader comments at the end on plotlines and parallels and general direction.

At stately Wayne Manor, Bruce is opening the case that contains his proto-Batman suit. He looks at it for a long moment, removes the mask, and throws it on the fire. Overall, It’s been a very symbolic couple of days for him. He needs to ease up a bit. Do some light housework, a bit of reading. Maybe bake something.

Harvey’s bar in the Narrows, where a man is eating a pickle very loudly. Ivy enters, and regards him with some disgust. Is it because they’re a kind of plant, or because he’s gross, or did whatever Ivy did to herself leave her senses a little heightened, maybe?

It’s hard to say whether it’s the light or the help of some Clairol, but Ivy’s hair is looking slightly redder.

She’s looking for Harvey. The cute barman says he’s not working today, but she can leave a message. Ivy says she will – she’ll use them to leave a message, all their flesh and blood and what they’ll become. She blows pollen onto them from a flower she was carrying.

(An aside. Based on what we’ve seen of her so far, Ivy is virtually the most dangerous person in the city. She kills indiscriminately, and seems completely without empathy or remorse)

At Sofia’s mansion, Lee is looking at a framed photograph of her and Mario. Lee is wearing fingerless opera gloves. That’s…definitely a style choice. I wonder if Lee’s move towards a deliberate and out-of-the-ordinary aesthetic signals a definite move from the move conventional heroic side of things to the more villainous side of the board, which is all about aesthetic.

Sofia says that still Lee is still her sister, even with Mario gone. Given that she murdered her dad, this doesn’t bode well for Lee.

Lee smiles and says that’s nice – but clearly not why she was invited. Sofia smiles back and tells her that while she owns the city, the Narrows never bent the knee. With this kind of phrasing, and Lee’s fur collar, it’s all gone a bit Game of Thrones. Lee tells her that the Narrows has never bent the knee – but Sofia replies that there’s never been anyone like her.

She wants the Narrows under her thumb – in the form of a 30% tax on all income. Lee tells her that the people there live hand to mouth, and will never be able to afford this – they’ll starve. Sofia smiles coldly, and tells her that they all have to make sacrifices, and she wants an answer by the end of the day.

Lee gets up. She offers to kiss the ring, if that’s what Sofia needs – because the 30% tax is impossible. Sofia tells her she’ll find a way. Lee remarks that she thought she was all about family. Sofia stares at her

I never said it was a happy family

At a diner in the Narrows, Alfred reads a paper. Bruce walks in – but Alfred avoids eyecontact. Bruce thanks him for agreeing to meet, but Alfred remains grumpy. He tries to talk to him about the annual foundation dinner, but Alfred is snappish

What exactly is it you want from me?

Bruce asks for his help to figure things out – he can’t do this alone. Alfred refuses. He tells Bruce he can’t just waltz in here and expect him to go back to washing his smalls and cooking his dinner. Bruce tells him he’s changed – but Alfred says there’s a difference between showing and telling. If he shows him, then he’ll reconsider.

Bruce asks how he can do that – but Alfred says that’s for him to figure out. Oh, fuck off, Alfred.

Bruce pleads – and says he’s asking him as a friend, but Alfred says he’s not his friend – he was his butler, and he fired him. He leaves, telling the waitress that Bruce will pay for the tea. Bruce looks lost.

(An aside. I’m sure I was supposed to see this as tough love, or something – but Alfred just seemed like a dick. Bruce is basically a big pile of trauma in lanky teenage form, he doesn’t need weird passive-aggressive sulking. Also – bad writing strikes in that Bruce nearly died a couple of days ago – and knowing that just makes whatever Alfred is doing here look worse.)

Presumably upstairs at Cherry’s, a desperate and dishevelled Ed is rifling through bottles of pill. Nearby, leaning against a wall, BadEd wonders aloud what Lee and Sofia’s meeting is about. He asks if Ed doesn’t wonder, Lee being the love of his life and all.

Ed impatiently tells him that he and Lee are friends. BadEd looks him over dismissively, and tells him that

The cuckoo pills won't keep me away

Ed replies that they might not – but they can stop him killing lee. Walking over to a small table, we see a pile of letters, including the one Oswald wrote last week. Ed opens it, and reads sections out incredulously.

He wants…..Can we be friends? I’ll never forgive him!

Bad Ed reads the letter over his shoulder and smiles snakily.

I think it’s a nice letter

He poses a riddle to Ed

What has two eyes but can’t see?

Ed stares at him, panicked. BadEd laughs.

Back at Harvey’s bar, where the worst investigation of a killer toxin/plant thing is taking place. Seriously, why don’t they just all make a salad out of it at this point and get stuck in? No gloves, no masks…..

Jim enters, and asks Lucius where Harvey is – Lucius tells him that he wasn’t here, and Jim helpfully reiterates what the show reminded us of last week – Harvey shot Ivy’s father. They head off.

Jim and a team of cops break into Harvey’s apartment. They see Harvey sort of spread-eagled on the couch in. One of the cops regretfully comments that they’re too late, but Jim shakes his head, and walks towards him – this is just how Harvey sleeps. Jim wakes him up – because apparently the door being bust open didn’t do that

An irate Harvey asks what the hell is going on, and tells him someone will be paying for that door. Jim tells him Ivy attacked the bar. Harvey asks about the bartender, Donny, by name. Jim says he’s sorry, and tells him that they have to think he was the target – since he shot Ivy’s dad. Harvey angrily tells him that he only shot Ivy’s dad to save Jim’s hide

So don't put this on me

Jim, nettled, responds equally angrily

I’m not putting it on you

(An aside – he’s easily nettled because he has guilt brewing about how Harvey fared due to the whole Pyg fiasco, taking shame and humiliation that rightfully belonged to Jim. At least – I hope he has guilt brewing)

They’re interrupted by a news report, which claims disturbing footage will follow. It’s Ivy, filming herself.

Plants love us. They give us food, shelter – the air we breathe. What do we do in return? Kill them. That's our nature. That's you. We cause pain. Everyone I've ever known hurt and betrayed me. I’ve always known in my heart what I need to do. I’m giving the city back to the plants - starting with the people who hurt me

(An aside - that's basically everyone – Ivy’s sensitive to slights, and also doesn’t really seem to like humans in general.)

Harvey looks worried

Starting with me

(An aside – Ivy’s improved since last week, when her entire rationale was ‘you hurt plants!’ Now that she’s referring back to her past and experiences, we get something else. She hates the whole city. It failed her – we got to see, specifically, how it failed her: watching her end up on the streets. She’ll show no compassion, because she feels she was shown none. She’s a good example of the city reaping what it sows – pun not intended)

As the news report is still playing, Jim and Harvey spot a sign in the background for an eatery they recognise, and manage to pin Ivy’s location. Jim wants to take Harvey to the precinct, but he refuses to hide – he feels responsible. Jim offers his badge, and Harvey angrily refuses. He has more contacts in the Narrows than any of them. He storms out, but then returns quickly – because he forgot to put on trousers.

Lee and Ed somewhere at Cherry’s. They’re talking and drinking. Lee is telling Ed about the meeting. She says it makes no sense: Sofia knows there no money here, Lee offered to bend the knee, Sofia was deliberately asking for something she knew Lee couldn’t give. She wants to punish her.

Ed asks why – but Lee says she doesn’t know. Ed tells her you can’t fight an enemy whose motivations you don't understand

(An aside – I wonder if this remark will become significant again later? Feels a bit like it will)

We cut away, and see Ed has hired the Baker Street Irregulars. He offers them a full set of encyclopedias minus T if they can find out why Sofia wants to punish Lee. They look unimpressed. He throws in 20 dollars, and they leap up.

Go get 'em

A police team breaks into Ivy's lair of plants and discarded sequinned evening gowns. As Jim looks around, he hears a voice.

Selina is sitting on the windowsill

What’re you gonna do?

Jim does what he does best – other than snarling and grabbing – and gets angrily judgy.

She killed four more people – and you knew where she was staying. If you’d told me, we could have saved their lives.

Oh shut up Jim. Go contemplate your own trail of dead.

Selina’s having none of him.

Or not. You couldn't stop her from hypnotising all your cops

Jim asks why she came. Because Selina doesn’t casually dehumanise and discard people, Jim? Even when they’re behaving in ways she doesn’t like or understand?

Selina says she wants to try to reason with her. Jim sneers and says she’s a fanatic – but Selina retorts that she’s her friend. Jim looks at her for a moment, and tells her that if she contacts her, then to call him, and he’ll try and bring her in quietly – otherwise, she should stay out of the way.

At that point, his phone rings. It’s Harvey with a lead.

Harvey is in a big basement? Warehouse? I dunno. There’s lots of barrels.

Harvey tells Jim that Ivy has been hiring muscle. As he says this, Ivy strolls in.

She’s beautiful, don't you think, Jim?

He points his gun at Jim. Ivy tells Jim to drop his weapon.

Poor Ed is sitting on his bed, breathing heavily, in some discomfort. He has his head in his hands.

(An aside – looking round, he's assembled a tidy bedroom like a cross between his apartment and lab. He’s really good at using found stuff and making it look nice. He should totally do this instead of crime – just like Jervis and party planning)

Bad Ed tells him he doesn’t look good, and that he is exceeding recommended dose. He picks up a pill bottle and starts rhyming off side-effects:

Trembling, cognitive impairment – still, how would you know?

He laughs, and Ed tells him to shut up

Bad Ed says he’s only getting stronger

Ed tells him that he won’t let him take over kill Lee. Bad Ed replies that he probably will.

(An aside - But why? They’ve really never made this clear. The implication before was that he would kill Lee because she was Ed’s last anchor to a sense of his better self. If he takes over completely, then what purpose would killing Lee after this point serve?)

Bad Ed smirks, and tells him the only way to get rid of him is to kill himself

Ed looks momentarily still as he looks at him

Well – I guess you're smarter than me

Bad Ed stares

You wouldn’t

Ed gains back a little power over him as he replies

Oh yeah

(An aside. I’m not sure to which extent I’m supposed to feel this – but I just find all this pretty desperately sad. We’ve seen since the early days that Ed fears BadEd, that he’s bullied and belittled by him. He’s trying as best he can here to maintain some control over his sense of self, and keep safe someone who has become dear to him. He’s constantly tired and agitated, and now unwell due to what seems like overuse/misuse of medication. The brief moment of calm he has at the thought of suicide just broke me.)

Back with Jim and Harvey. Ivy asks if Jim believes in fate – she went looking for Harvey, and he found her instead. Then she realised she could make him deliver Jim too.

Jim tells Harvey that she’s controlling him. Harvey answers.

I kinda like it - sweet surrender

Jim has a brief foray into compassion

You need help Ivy - let me find Selina. She wants to help you.

Ivy brushes this off and leaves. She tosses over her should that she has big plans, and tells Harvey to kill his partner, then shoot himself in the head.

Harvey aims at Jim, telling him not to try and talk his way out of it. Jim tries to distract him

Is Ivy's hair more auburn or scarlet?

Harvey mulls this, and Jim runs. They run about the warehouse, Jim taunting Harvey to get him to use up his bullets. Harvey is sore about Jim stealing his job. Jim says it was never really his and then lists his screw-ups. Harvey shoots repeatedly, angry, and Jim is able to evade him until he’s out of bullets, and knock him out.

Sirens. Bruce is looking for Selina’s help. She tells him he’s an ass and that she’s busy. He should go find Alfred. Bruce looks unsettled. Light dawns

You did, and he wanted nothing to do with you

She advises him to apologise to Alfred – whatever happened, she’s sure it was his fault. She leaves.

At Cherry’s, Lee and Ed sit opposite each other at a small table. Ed gives Lee the information he’s found - according to his spies - Sofia and Jim have been carrying on an affair

So, technically, your ex has been sleeping with your dead husband's mafiosa sister.

Funniest line in the episode – narrowly followed by the speed with which Lee responds

Yeah - ok Ed I get it

She starts to hypothesise

If Sofia’s sleeping with the Captain of GCPD it’s a power play, and one that failed, if I’m her next step. Maybe I should just just give her what she wants - power over Jim.

Ed is startled.

You would do that?

She seems pretty unmoved, and very sincere.

I’m not trying to get back at Jim, though he deserves it. My job is to make sure the people of the Narrows are safe and I will do everything in my power to ensure that.

Ed looks her in the eyes. He’s completely, totally smitten. I’m not exactly sure how CMS does that ten emotions all at once thing with his eyes, but it’s genuinely amazing. Seriously.

She smiles back at him

What?

Lee – I...

He looks away from her

I… I have to leave

He exits, and Lee stares after him.

(An aside - Lee didn’t look entirely oblivious, there – nor did she seem unreceptive. I don’t think the notion of her having feelings for Ed is outside the realms of possibility. If she’s not entertained the idea already, then she’s not outright rejecting it.)

Harvey comes round at the precinct. Jim asks if he can remember anything. Harvey says Ivy was talking about people who get rich by murdering plants. Jim remembers that she seemed to have been trying on ‘fancy clothes and shoes’ at her lair. Don’t hide your light under a bushel with those vague terms, Jim – we all remember those stunning 60s cocktail dresses your subconscious put Barbara in. You should set up a business on the side.

Jim instructs officers to ring around – try to find what fancy event is on that Ivy might be trying to crash. Eventually they figure out – the Wayne Foundation charity event. Jim tells them to assemble a strike force. Before he leaves, Harvey talks to him

Hey Jim. I spent too long putting it all on you. What happened – I’ve only got myself to blame

Not really, Harvey. But anyway.

Jim looks at him and ... still fails to own up. He says he’ll call, and leaves.

At the gala, we briefly see a photograph of Bruce’s parents. Are we ever going to hear more about Martha? Thomas is mentioned frequently, but they barely discuss Martha.

Still in his black polo neck of angst, Bruce takes to the stage. The lettering spelling out ‘Wayne Foundation’ is awful. It’s all uneven. And I don’t really think much of the ambience of the room, either. They should have hired Jervis on some day release from Arkham to arrange this. Woeful.

We see Alfred enter the room, as does Bruce, which makes him stumble over his speech. He changes what’s on the cards. He says his parents spent their lives helping people. He was proud of them and wanted them to be proud of him. He saw them murdered, but survived because someone in his life kept him going. He was everything to him: teacher, protector, and father. He hopes he can see that, and give him another chance.

Vaguely shocked applause

Bruce walks to Alfred. Alfred thanks him, and says that meant a great deal. But he then annoyingly and confusingly tells him that he can’t tell him, not until he accepts who he really is. Oh no – here it comes – ‘darkness’ chat again. Bruce needs to embrace that, apparently – but not really, because his heart and compassion are his strengths. He needs to accept altruism and darkness but it’s something he must do on his own. This is terribly confusing, Alfred. Go buy a parenting book from Amazon or something. Jeezy Creezy. No wonder Bruce ends up dressing like a giant bat.

Bruce looks let down and angry

I was stupid for reaching out

He walks away. And who can blame him?

Ivy now takes to the stage

That was quite a speech. I’m Ivy Pepper.

Panicked murmuring ensues. At least if Jervis had arranged this, you’d probably have had some really lovely hors d’oeuvres by now. And probably special folded napkins.

Ivy tells them to stay seated and her thugs chain the doors. Alfred runs.

Some empty space somewhere in Cherry’s. BadEd is ranting and enraged. We see Ed standing at a staircase with a noose in his hand

BadEd tells him he can’t do this – but Ed tells him it was his idea. BadEd tries to play for time

Ok fine - you win - you beat me. Is that what you want to hear?

Ed tiredly tells him that’s very nice, but he still has to do this.

BadEd is desperate.

Wait – there’s a way to do this where nobody gets hurt!

Ed flatly says he doesn't believe him. But BadEd insists – there’s a way to save Lee without killing himself.

Or us

I'm listening.

Back at the function - Ivy comments on the beautiful crimson flowers and tells a man he’s handsome before murdering him.

Bruce is walking away from the room as Jim runs towards it with his strike force. He asks Bruce if Ivy is in there. Bruce doesn’t think so – but the they hear ruckus, and Jim advances

There’s weeping and panic, and we see the man’s corpse flowering. Ivy looks blissed out by this, and says she’s going to turn this room into a gorgeous garden. Alfred tries to attack – but is knocked out. Ivy looks down at him

A volunteer

The strike force bursts the door open and Jim tells the thugs to drop their guns

Ivy strolls away, telling her men to kill everyone.

(An aside - What is Ivy wearing? Ivy – you are not Blanche Devereaux, and you do not have whatever it is that is required to convincingly wear sequinned palazzo pants.)

Bruce looks in at the chaos. Stealing a mask, he saves Alfred, who was about to be killed. He tells him that he’s getting him out of here. Alfred stops him though – telling him people need his help, and this is who he is. Bruce looks at him, masks himself again, and runs off.

(An aside. I kind of feel this is the problem with rushing the Batman thing along too fast. Bruce still really reads as a child. He’s tall. He has a deep voice. But he’s not an adult yet. We’ve just seen him indulging in a specifically teenage style of self-destructiveness. As such, telling him to endanger himself like this just comes off as cruel.)

Somewhere else in the building, Bruce watches from shadows, and then takes out a thug. Jim comes upon this. He yells at Bruce to drop it and, like, immediately shoots him. He might as well have yelled drop it afterwards. Wtf? Isn’t there a recognised way to do this where you don’t just immediately shoot the person? He did the same with Krank in the alley.

Bruce is fortunately wearing something bulletproof, gets up, and runs to the roof. No fucking wonder. Even if he did try to explain, Jim might just shoot him again before he can inhale and start talking. Jim chases him to the rooftop, but Bruce is gone.

Ivy’s lair. She removes the police tape that has been thrown over her plants. I’ve accidentally killed both of those specific plants in the past. One of them, a type of Calathea, is called a prayer plant – because it folds its leaves together at night, like hands in prayer. Ivy rifles through the mess and finds what she’s after - a tiny black bag.

Hear the news? Crazy Ivy Pepper attacks Wayne Foundation Dinner

It’s Selina. Ivy tells her it didn't turn out as hoped. Selina affects mock-surprise

What – you didn't get to kill everyone in there? You got out -you always were a survivor

She looks at her hands

What's in the bag?

It’s the little bag of life and death.

Nah – it’s the last of the Lazarus water.

Selina nods

So you can make more plants to kill people? Yeah - ain't gonna happen

Ivy asks if she’s going to stop her. Remind her of the old days. Tell her she’s not this person. Selina tells her they’re past words and uses her whip to trap her wrist and send the bottle hurtling away.

Ivy sneers – Selina Kyle turns out to be the hero. Selina tells her

I'm no hero

They fight. Ivy reminds her that one scratch is all it takes, and no antidote this time. Selina evades her. Ivy tells her she can’t run – but Selina was picking up the bottle. She threatens to drop it. Ivy asks her to stop – tells her she’ll let her leave. Selina mocks her generosity. She drops the bottle and puts her foot on it, not breaking it - yet.

No! How can you side with them - all the people who hurt us? You think they're innocent, they're guilty. Every person in this city – they spew out poison. How are you not choking on it?

Selina says the only thing she’s choking on is Ivy’s insanity. She breaks the bottle. Ivy screams and wraps her hands round Selina’s neck.

You shouldn't have done that. You're going to die.

Selina maintains eye contact but tells her to look down. She has a knife at Ivy’s gut.

Ivy asks her what what happens now. Do they kill each other? Selina tells her that’s an option. Ivy starts to strop a little

You always thought you were better than me

Selina replies

We were friends

Ivy says that was a long time ago, and she’s a different person now. Selina tells her that this isn’t what she wants and drops the knife. It’s a statement of trust - really, that Ivy still has a better nature somewhere, and she hasn’t altogether given up on that. Ivy tightens the grip at her throat, but tells her not to get in her way again, before dropping her hands and leaving. Selina watches her go.

The Narrows, where Sofia is meeting with Lee.

(An aside – wouldn’t she want Butch there? I know he can’t be, to facilitate what comes next, but even a nod to explain away his absence would be nice.)

Sofia sits down, placing her handbag demurely on the table before her. It’s a classic one with a clasp closure.

Lee says she has something more valuable to offer than what Sofia asked for. This turns out to be Jim.

(An aside – Lee is clever, but this is a misstep. You see Sofia’s eyes widen minutely – she doesn’t like the reminder that she might be losing her grip on him)

Lee says she knows about his other crimes. Sofia says she has her own dirt – but Lee tells her that she must need more, or she wouldn’t be threatening her. She smiles, confident, and tells Sofia to take her deal. And now the misstep is way more obvious. Sofia is quietly livid at the notion of someone seeing her slip up in any way. Her face hardens, and she tells Lee she has a better way to bring Jim to heel.

Sofia’s men shoot Lee’s guards. Lee tries to save one, and tells Sofia she’ll never get out of there alive. Sofia sneers

Your people. Who do think planted the guns?

Samson enters, and tells Lee she should have killed him. She really should have. Sofia tells Lee Samson runs the Narrows now, and points out that Lee’s failure to kill him told her everything she needed to know.

She had her men pin Lee down, and place her hand forcibly on the table. She talks out a hammer, and tells her that since she’s family, she’ll only do one hand.

Between covering my eyes and yelling ‘fuck!’ repeatdly, I could see that it was very gory – Sofia slamming the hammer into the back of Lee’s hand, mangling it, as she screamed in pain. When she’s done, she tells them to throw her on the streets and let the Narrows see its queen.

(An aside – I’ve talked about this elsewhere, but I think there’s a specific note of jealousy in Sofia’s actions, as well as her wider business concerns. Lee was loved by Mario and accepted by Carmine. I don’t know how secure Sofia feels of either of those things.)

Jim gets a call telling him about Lee. We get to the hospital and see him gazing through the window at her. A medic approaches and asks if he’s family. Jim looks tired. There’s a long pause before he replies

I'm a cop

The medic tells Jim Lee wouldn’t say who did it. Jim says she didn’t have to.

(An aside. I have to admit – Like Ed, I was surprised earlier that Lee was willing to deliver Jim even more fully into Sofia’s clutches. I assumed there were residual feelings, and they’d wind up back together, but now I’m not really so sure at all. That seems underlined here – as Jim stares at her through glass, and disavows any type of bond to her. I wonder if they have gone past the point of no return? Especially if Sofia enlightens Jim to the fact that Lee was willing to sell him out. Not that Jim doesn’t need to feel the salutary sting of what it would feel like to be betrayed - hopefully it might teach him something – but it might be a nail in the coffin)

Arkham. A frazzled-looking Ed sits at a desk. He’s signing himself in. The chief medic asks if he’s sure. Ed just looks tiredly at him

You do know who I am, don't you?

The man tells him to read and sign. As he does, Ed tells BadEd

I hate that you were right, but it will keep her safe

BadEd repeats his two eyes riddle, as we see Oswald approach the room.

(An aside – Uh, how? Does Oswald just get to wander with impunity? Did Jerome grant him his special charisma access? He didn’t seem entirely trusting of him that we last saw. If he did, does that access extend to stuff like this guy’s office? Surely pretty easy to escape if he has that, no? Oswald’s clever. Or at least – only when the narrative doesn’t need him to be stupid)

Ed is sick of this riddle, and tells him

Who cares?

You should

Oswald enters the room, accompanied by his villainous jangly music. He’s jubilant and faintly hysterical.

I knew you'd come

Ed is confused. But Oswald says he’s not talking to Ed,

I’m talking to him. I’m talking to him. He laughs. He read my letter.

Bad Ed waves the letter in front of Ed’s face.

Read the first word of each sentence

‘Please bring Ed to Arkham so I can set you free’

Ed looks desperate - cornered. BadEd repeats

What has two eyes but can't see?

Ed panics

No! I came here to save lee

Oswald laughs again – bordering on hysteria.

He read my letter

No – I am Edward Nygma. Lee believes in me and sees me for what I am.

Oswald lunges at his throat and grabs his collar.

But I see him! Lee Thompkins made Ed strong, but I see the other you. The one whose name I wouldn't speak. But because you have earned it and I need your help….

(An aside. This is a frightful guddle. Oswald never thought that ‘Riddler’ was a separate persona. He thought it was an absurd posey name Ed had adopted. The whole point of the grand Oswald/Ed friendship was apparently that Oswald saw BadEd and still thought that was fine and dandy. But now…..Oswald didn’t see that? Or the Riddler isn’t the combined Good and Bad Ed at all? I understand that Ed’s personality is complex – but it’s important to maintain some kind of consistency in who he is and how people perceive him – otherwise you just end up with a gungey mess like this)

Ed is frantic and begging

No - please

I need you, Riddler

Ed grabs his throat and face

Oswald waits, wide-eyed.

Poor Ed. We see several expressions chase each other across his face.

He puts the pen down

Shall we get to work?

Oswald laughs

Ed laughs

(An aside - Hmmm. It’s testament to CMS that a scene with so many wild inconsistencies plays so well. Ed realises he’s been trapped – but it’s too late. Or is it? It’s further testament to him that I think there’s some ambiguity at the end as to the precise nature of the amalgam that’s been created. It didn’t feel as instant or clean as it might.

This scene is also fairly clearly intended as an echo of Ivy and Selina’s stand-off, right down to the hands on the throat, and the appeals to the sense of history and friendship. The difference here is that while Selina genuinely wanted to help Ivy, and while Ivy showed Selina mercy – this is not the case with Ed and Oswald. Oswald shows Ed no mercy – despite his begging and pleading. Unlike Selina, Oswald wants to exacerbate his old friend’s insanity to get what he wants. I suppose you could say that Oswald owes Ed nothing, not after what he did to him – and, indeed, he doesn’t.

Still, it all seems rather ugly and selfish and sad, somehow.)

The kitchen at Wayne Manor. Alfred asks Bruce how he made it off the roof. Bruce tells him the fire escape. He then asks why he ran from Jim. Because Jim has a fucking twitchy trigger finger, Alfred, that’s why.

Bruce says he doesn’t know. He says he wants to help people, and if that means accepting every part of himself, he will - it’s what his parents would have wanted

Would they fuck, Bruce. Your parents would not want this weird psychological assault course Alfred has you attempting.

Alfred tells him his parents would have been proud of him – that he’s proud. He rises. Bruce offers him a lift back to Gotham, but Alfred tells him he’s home.

At GCPD, Harvey looks out over the desks. Jim approaches. Harvey congratulates him – he saved the day. That’s why he’s captain and Harvey’s a 50-year-old screw-up pouring shots.

Jim grimaces.

There’s a reason all right – but not what you think. I screwed up bad, and I need your help to make it right. Sofia hired Pyg - and I knew. I knew and I covered it up.

He’s teared up a little, but now he straightens up

And now I'm going to take her down

Harvey just looks at him. I’m not so sure I saw forgiveness there, if I’m honest.

(An aside – Jim’s big moment here is undermined by how quickly he leaps to the notion of taking Sofia down. It reads less like penance and making amends, and more like shifting the blame to the ‘real’ villain. But Sofia was only ever in town because Jim went to Carmine in the first place. I still don’t feel like he’s taking full responsibility for his actions.)

General Observations

Jim is making sort of vague movements towards making amends in confessing to Harvey – but it’s really not massively convincing. Harvey pointed out, last week, that Jim’s desire to confess is more down to Jim’s need to confess – rather than a genuine desire to make amends. He’s on a mission to take Sofia down, now – but, as I said, I still don’t think he’s anywhere near redemption.

Not a lot of Oswald, this week. I note that – Oswald’s desperation to leave Arkham aside, and that was there anyway – there’s not really one real repercussion of that prolonged and unpleasant storyline with Jerome here. Not one. You’d almost think it was unnecessary.

Aside from that, never mind what version of Ed we had - which version of Oswald was this? I can buy that Oswald is desperate enough to escape that he’s temporarily willing to be completely pragmatic – putting small matters like, say, digging up his father’s corpse to one side. But there are other logistical problems. Previously, Oswald thought that the whole notion of The Riddler was Ed being a poseur – but now he totally gets that the Riddler is the source of Ed’s villainous genius? And given how thoroughly dreadful Ed was on his last visit, why exactly would he think that any aspect of Ed’s dark side was being repressed? On top of that, let’s hope he’s got a back-up plan for when he gets out, because if he should have learned anything, it’s that Ed has a sadistic streak, and would betray him for laughs – or even just to make the point that Oswald does not get to summon him to Arkham to do his bidding.

As for Ed, his story just made me… sad, if I’m honest. He’s not my favourite character, but watching him desperately trying to hit on a combination of pills that will keep Lee safe and buy him some peace, watching him willing to kill himself to do the same, to escape the incessant harassment of a version of himself that he fears – it was genuinely sad. Ed’s ill, and he knows he’s ill.

We’ve seen a few points, over the years, where Ed has tried to get help. He tentatively told Kristen, on their first date, that he heard voices in his head – but she misunderstood him. He seemed to be improving in Arkham, to the point that he had apologised to Oswald for turning him away, but was still plainly ill – and looked bleakly at the doctor who told him he was sane. We see him struggle, here, to maintain control over his compulsions. But nevertheless, here he is again. Ed’s been not waving, but drowning, for a very long time.

I was honestly surprised, as I said, to see Lee willing to sell Jim’s secrets – but I guess it’s a sign of how far her story has moved on. She’s clever, and engaged ably with Sofia, but – at the moment, does not possess the ruthlessness to take her down, as Sofia herself pointed out. From spoilers, it sounds like she is going to cross that line soon. In crossing that line, there might also be common ground created with Ed (whatever version of him we have now), and as discussed above, I don’t think she seemed entirely closed off to the notion of him as a romantic option.

Selina and Ivy’s scene was one of the strongest – harking back to their shared past. Ivy is much improved now they’ve moved away from femme fatale and just made her indiscriminately lethal. A reassertion of Selina’s character was likewise welcome after getting lost in the boring catsuitted vortex of the Sirens’ storyline. It’ll be interesting to see what happens when they next encounter each other.

I’m not wildly engaged by Bruce right now. Sorry. I feel sorry for him – but the reasoning behind Alfred’s behaviour is absent.

Thoughts?

#gotham commentary #gotham s4e13 #reunion

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rahliterature · 6 years

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CBC: Three Page Paper: Select one comic or Sequential Art object that you have read in full either to series completion, or to a story arch completion, and analyze the comic for content, including one to three major themes discussed in the author lectures in Module Three. (Marvel Tsum Tsum)

One of the biggest complaints adults have in regards to children’s media is that it is too commercial. Often times television shows and movies can feel like one giant advertisement for their toys, trading cards, and video games. Some shows, like Pokémon or Yu-Gi-Oh! were created with the main purpose to advertise their merchandise. So, when a comic book that was based around a cute fluffy toy came out, it turned many people off, making them think it is just another advertising ploy. The beauty of Marvel Tsum Tsum Takeover by Jacob Chabot and David Baldeon is that this comic is not just a long advertisement for Disney’s tsum tsums. It does a good job in making the reader want to buy a tsum tsum to cuddle. Through a short four volume issue, this fun and action-packed comic not only brings a little joy and humor into a series that has become pretty dark and bleak in recent years but also questions the definition of a hero as well.

The name tsum tsum comes from the Japanese word “tsumu” which means to stack1. Tsums tsums are stuffed toys that are easily stacked hence the name. They come in four different sizes and hundreds of different characters: from classic Disney characters like Mickey and friends to every episode of Star Wars, from Disney Princesses to Marvel superheroes and villains. These cuddly things have been around since 2013 in Japan and 2014 in the United States1 and new tsum tsums are released bimonthly. In August of 2016, from the inspiration of the marvel tsum tsum app as well as the cuddly toys, comic writer Jacob Chabot and penciller David Baldeon decided to create the first volume of Marvel Tsum Tsum Takeover2. Chabot was not new to the idea of taking a child’s toy and turning it into a comic series. From 2013-2015, Chabot worked on a 6 part “Hello Kitty” comic book series3, turning a cute and cuddly cat toy into a real character with emotions and feelings. While “Hello Kitty” does have some plot and character developments in video games and a few mini-series television shows that have come out over the years, there is nothing really cohesive or a well-defined canon to turn into a full-fledged comic. On the other hand, Chabot has also worked on 74 issues of “Sponge Bob Square Pants” comic books over the years3 which has an over abundance of plotlines to turn into a comic series. Both of these different comic issues show how he is used to creating stories with either a little or a lot of source material. It also shows how Chabot is used to drawing inspiration from unusual source material that most people wouldn’t consider turning into a comic book. Prior to the comic release, tsum tsums had no plot or purpose behind them. The app, Marvel tsum tsums, was more of a “Candy Crush” style game without any real cohesive plot line. Disney has never released a back story to go along with the tsum tsums; they are simply cute toys to play with and cuddle. Chabot was able to take these cute toys and give them a purpose and a story that was unique and exciting, just like he had done with other characters in the past. He managed to craft the story in a way that uses the cute and ridiculous nature of the tsum tsum and make that tell a story, rather than telling a story about a cute toy. He was able to do so because of his past experience, both with unusual comic topics but also with normal American comic plot lines as well.

Chabot has worked on previous Marvel comics, specifically X-Men and Spiderman comics, so he knew how superhero comics in a traditional American way worked and he was aware of how dark Marvel comics have become. In the same month as the first tusm tsum volume release, 33 different issues in the Civil War II arc were released as well4. Just a few months prior, the entire world was shocked and angered at the reveal of Captain America being a Hydra agent. This was a dark time for Marvel. Superheroes were punching each other, both in comics and on the big screen as Civil War had just been released in the MCU that May as well. One of the most beloved Marvel characters had just become evil and at the time there seemed no hope of redemption for him. Marvel Tsum Tsum Takeover was like a breath of fresh air. It’s simply a fun comic. There are these cute little toys becoming miniature versions of some of marvel’s favorite superheroes, running around with miniature versions of their powers, and chaos ensues. It’s fun without being too silly. There is a cohesive plot line in the story with real character development. Although there are toys that are alive, in the comics they are an alien species, giving credibility through comic logic on how these toys are alive. The comic doesn’t take itself too serious though as there are times when other characters question whether or not the tsum tsums are toys, creating a great moment of dramatic irony in the story. The story does a good job of straddling the fine line of humor and silliness, keeping the light-heartedness of the story flowing without comprising the story. There is real character development not only with the tsum tsums but also with the human characters as well, making this a real story instead of simply a long advertisement. That growth is found, not only in the three main characters, Albert “Bert” Ergle, Holly Hae, and Duncan “Dunk” Diggs, but in their families and even in the main human villain as well. The combination of plot, real character development, dramatic irony, and the silliness that comes with using tsum tsums creates this funny comic that is just fun to read. It can reach a large audience, from children to adults, because it is so light-hearted and fun. It’s a reminder that comics don’t have to be dark in order to accomplish character and plot development; fun and light-hearted comics can deliver a message just as efficiently and maybe even better than a dark and grisly comic.

Through the light-hearted story, the comic poses the question of what is a hero and what do they fight for. The initial thought would be that the tsum tsums are the heroes of the story; after all, they are the titular characters with superpowers. In a normal comics, they would be the hero of the issue. Instead, this comic seems to focus on the three children dream of being superheroes5. They draw their own comics and do stupid stunts to try and gain superpowers. The reader, along with the Avenger tsum tsums, watch as Bert and Holly are scolded by Bert’s mother for running around and playing superhero when Ultron has been attacking the city. This panel puts an emphasis on the children as the main characters with the tsum tsums on the sidelines. This panel is also is a major turning point in the comic as well. Before, the children were focused on the superpowered superheroes and trying to gain powers like them. When they found the tsum tsum, they get swept up in the excitement that came with discovering the tsum tsum’s powers and what amazing deeds they could accomplish. Bert’s mother acts as the voice of reason, reminding the children that they aren’t superheroes with superpowers. She reminds them of the very real danger that exists in their universe, with real villains who have killed before. After this wake-up call, they seem to end their superhero shenanigans. Until something goes wrong with the tsum tsums and they don their superhero costumes, this time to help their friends instead of for glory. The children go to fight in a battle they know they cannot win, not for the glory or the chance to show-off to the Avengers but to protect their friends, the tsum tsums. They become heroes in this story, not because they fearlessly ran into battle but because they ran to help their friends even though they were scared. Fighting beside the Avengers and the tsum tsums, the children are viewed as the real heroes of the comic. The comic shows that it’s not superpowers that make a hero; someone is a hero when they fight to protect their friends and family.

It doesn’t take a dark and gritty comic to communicate a message to an audience. Even a light-hearted and somewhat silly comic can send a powerful message of what it means to be a hero to an audience. Comics can use any medium to communicate this message, even fluffy cute toys called tsum tsums. Just because something is based off of a toy doesn’t mean there isn’t a message to be learned. Creating a comic from a toy can be a great way to advertise the toy, but it is also a way to reach an audience at a level that they can relate with, both as children and adults.

Refences:

1. Graser, Marc. “Will Japan’s ‘Tsum Tsum’ Characters Translate in the U.S. for Disney?” Variety, 1 July 2014, variety.com/2014/biz/asia/will-japans-tsum-tsum-characters-translate-in-the-u-s-for-disney-1201256414/.

2. Kieranshiach. “Disney Tsum Tsum Invades The Marvel Universe.” ComicsAlliance, 16 May 2016, comicsalliance.com/disney-tsum-tsum-variant-covers-series/.

3. “Jacob Chabot (Person).” Comic Vine, comicvine.gamespot.com/jacob-chabot/4040-55702/.

4. “Calendar | Comics.” Marvel.com, marvel.com/comics/calendar/month/2016-08-01?byZone=marvel_site_zone&offset=0&tab=comic&formatType=issue&isDigital=0&byType=date&dateStart=2016-08-01&dateEnd=2016-08-31&orderBy=release_date%2Bdesc&limit=300&count=21.

5. Reviewer, Joey Edsall Best Shots. “Best Shots Review: MARVEL TSUM TSUM #1 'Removes The Doubts Imposed By Adulthood Cynicism'.” Newsarama, www.newsarama.com/30488-best-shots-review-marvel-tsum-tsum-1.html.

These are two of the panels I referenced in this paper.

#CBC #editorial #amanda #marvel tsum tsum #tsum tsum #3 page essay #sorry not sorry #I LOVE TSUM TSUMS #go read this comic it's amazing!

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thepinkseat-askthemoonbunny · 7 years

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Dumbledore Explained

Right, so I found a chapter of Harry Potter rants on fanfiction,net. And this chapter was super long and it lists almost all of the common reasons why people hate Dumbledore or they think Dumbledore is bad/evil person. So one by one, I was able to explain most of these things and have decided to compile my answers. The link to that chapter/url is here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11917130/1/Harry-Potter-Rants , and my answers to all of her points are below:

1: Dumbledore is only a teacher. He's not Headmaster, he's not an Auror, it's a Muggle orphanage and thus outside jurisdiction. He has neither the power or the responsibility to stop a kid from doing things in a Muggle orphanage because there's no direct violation.

2. Not his job, they had tons of other teachers, Tom is not Dumbledore's problem.

3. Dumbledore DID report his suspicions. Hagrid said this, Dumbledore tried to convince people that Hagrid was innocent. Nobody believed him, and Dippet wanted to keep everything hush hush. Again, he's one guy and only a schoolteacher with none of his fame and influence yet.

4. The Ministry didn't give a damn, Hagrid was a half giant and as such they were prejudiced against him. Plus, a ghost? Really? She didn't see WHO killed her, she didn't know about Tom. She just looked into a pair of eyes and...ghost.

5. Where is this clear evidence? Dumbledore ain't psychic, what evidence did he have? Plus the book is called Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, not Albus Dumbledore and the Chamber of Secrets.

6. It's a MAGIC school. Where kids go to learn MAGIC things. Of COURSE they're gonna be around love potions and stuff. They have teacher supervision, they have to learn how to BREW these things! Dumbledore can't stop crazy kids or some random crazy people from doing stupid human things. The spells have to be taught.

7. No explanation for this, that was stupid. However, we do know why he hired Lockhart. Plus the job was cursed, he had to find SOMEBODY to fill it. And plot, these teachers gave Harry his story every year basically.

8. Dumbledore keeping Snape out of Azkaban literally won them the war. If Snape wasn't around to spy, we would've all been fucked without his intelligence. I don't know why he made him a teacher, I assume it's because he was highly skilled in Potions so that was the best job for him.

9. That was stupid as hell, but this trope has been around since the dawn of man so I don't really care.

10. He didn't know Sirius was innocent, only three people did and two of them were dead, one was presumed dead. He wasn't gonna get a trial from Fudge, they wanted to Kiss him. But he should have pushed for a trial, I agree.

11. The scar was a Horcrux, what was there to investigate about it? Plus, not his job. That scar is literally the entire plot from the books, if Dumbledore investigated it, Harry would once again have no storyline.

12. There WAS no safe way. This is stated in the books, the only way to destroy a Horcrux is to destroy the vessel. Harry was that vessel.

13. This was foul, completely and utterly foul. I have no explanation for this, but Harry COULD NOT be removed from that house, for his own safety.

14. Snape is an asshole, he chose to be an asshole. He's a grown man who should have straightened up his act, I don't know WHY Dumbledore didn't fire him but he needed him close.

15. Kids are evil little shits. You really think that he's going to be able to stop every kid in the school from being a bully? Nope, that's not the way school works. He should have done more, I definitely agree. However, Dumbledore is the principal. And in school, the principal isn't really the one who handles bullying like that. It's the teachers who take care of that stuff. Hogwarts is NOT a Muggle school. It's a fantasy school in a fantasy world, real world logic does not apply.

16. Plothole

17. Plot. This is Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, this was literally the whole story. All of that mess with the Stone was the plot, that was Harry's storyline.

18. Again, plot. See number 17 for title of book.

19. I am so SICK of this stupid theory. We literally have no proof that Dumbledore ordered Madam Pomfrey to do jack squat, and even if he did she could have disobeyed him. Harry stays at school for nine months out of the year, that's more than enough time for him to look pretty healthy if a little skinny. Most injuries heal around that time, it's not shocking to think nobody would notice. The Dursleys didn't physically abuse Harry all that much either, not many in that neighborhood knew he existed. Maybe there wasn't anything for her to find.

20. Again, plot point. NOBODY knew what was really up with Quirrell, except Harry and that was because he saw Voldemort's face himself. Quirrell was the antagonist of the first story, plot device.

21. Nobody knew where that troll came from. Nobody, what was Dumbledore supposed to do? Stalk every teacher twenty four seven? He has better things to do with his life.

22. He was a BABY dragon! Hagrid could have easily hidden him. Come on, Dumbledore ain't omniscient. He's not psychic, it's not his job to know what everybody is doing every second of every day. Hagrid isn't at the castle often, plus dragons ain't dark creatures. So no protective enchantment would have detected him.

23. Plot. Harry needed to investigate, this is his story. Plus I believe that was his detention. Magic isn't infallible, these protective enchantments aren't airtight. We need things to keep the story going.

24. Plot point. If Dumbledore had come back quickly, Harry wouldn't have had time to retrieve the Stone.

25. Who cares? It was irrelevant to the story whether they were counseled or not. The wizard world doesn't act like the Muggle one when it comes to mental issues.

26. This is already explained, Harry had to go back. What protections would you have had him enact? They're Muggles.

27. Again, maybe Harry is just skinny. It's not unusual, plus everyone probably figured he's gonna eat at school so he should be fine.

28. Dippet did the same thing. Plus the Basilisk is dead, the threat has already been dealt with. Why tell anybody, it's been taken care of.

29. The Basilisk is dead, there's nothing in the chamber that can hurt anybody now. What's the point.

30. You can't stop people from spreading rumors, people are going to be assholes if they want to be. People spread rumors about Dumbledore, he can't stop them. People are going to gossip and lie on you.

31. They HAD mandrakes, Professor Sprout had them. Plus they probably didn't have time to ship mandrakes from some foreign country, even with magic the negotiations and dealings, finding a seller would have taken too long.

32. Plot device and plus it's a magical school. Such things probably happen all the time.

33. Explained this already, the wizarding world as a whole is shit when it comes to mental illness.

34. Already explained this.

35. Plot. It's the Harry Potter series, of course Harry and his friends are going to be the ones to track down and destroy the Horcruxes. In a kids/YA story, the adults are often absent minded to give the young heroes some leeway.

36. Already explained that, there was no way to remove the scar. Dumbledore says in book one that he can't do crap about it.

37. It was a government mandated safety precaution. Dumbledore may be powerful but he isn't above the law or anybody's government. Him "caving" to the Ministry, what would you have him do? Break the law and get himself locked up?! Skeeter is not a reliable source AT ALL, and him threatening to close the school would have done nothing. It's a public school, the board of governors decides all those things.

38. Again, maybe there were no physical signs. Oh he knew, but maybe nobody else did because the physical abuse would have disappeared.

39. He didn't ignore that. He chased the Dementors from the pitch. Reporting it to whom? The government that put them there in the first place?

40. You just answered that. It would have made the whole plotline of the book moot.

41. Already explained this.

42a/b. Already explained this too.

42. Plot point, AND Barty had captured Moody. Maybe he learned how to imitate his mannerisms?

43. Plot point. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire?

44 Voldemort ISN'T a student? Students enter their own names, nobody else does it for them (Harry was a special case). Nobody would have thought of that, just because Dumbledore doesn't pull perfect solutions all the time doesn't make him stupid. And if he did that, books five through seven would have been moot, plot device.

45. Dumbledore could have done that, but people are going to spread rumors regardless. He clearly favors Harry, people would think he's lying for him. Kids are going to be dickheads.

46. Okay, so you want him to take every single student's mail and screen it? Invasion of privacy, plus it'd be impossible because that's a shit ton of mail to go through. People get secret passages, and Dumbledore can't stop hundreds of random strangers from writing letters.

47. He did, Minerva was guarding him. Nobody would have known that Fudge would be dumb enough to bring a Dementor. Plus what happened is exactly what Fudge would have done in any case, there wasn't going to be a trial. Why does everyone think that Hogwarts enchantments work like some sort of alarm system? Nothing is going to go off or beep and flash to tell Dumbledore anything, that never happens in the books.

48. To Rita?! RITA SKEETER IS NOT A RELIABLE SOURCE! Keep in mind this same Rita slandered Dumbledore in the papers AND Harry, with the Minister's help. And her slander the Ministry? She'd get arrested just like that. Fudge of course would have ignored him, he tried to cover up Voldemort's return.

49. Explained this already

50. Explained this too.

51. The books explain this, he was trying to protect them both from danger. Voldy could see into Harry's mind, this would have screwed up everything.

52. Nobody knows, this is really small and not that important.

53. This was foul and horrible and he should have done something about it.

54. The GOVERNMENT forced her on him, plus he probably didn't see anything. Harry didn't tell anybody about that Blood Quill, he only saw one instance of Um-bitch's treatment and that was with Marietta. Plus then he got kicked out by the government, so there was nothing he could do.

55. Probably didn't want to burden Harry with that. Plus then he'd have to tell Harry he's a Horcrux, and he didn't want to tell him till the very end.

56. No alternatives, Occulmency is the strongest mental shield. Snape was the best Occulmens around pretty much, he was the most qualified even if he was a dick.

57. Plot device, plus nobody wants to tell a kid all that heavy stuff.

58. Explained this already.

59. Explained this already.

60. Explained already, mind connection with Voldemort plus it's a plot device.

61. To stretch the storyline further. The books would have been over in ten minutes.

62. No it doesn't, if the government ignored most of the shit that went down in Hogwarts, one kid trying to commit murder isn't going to move them. Lots of kids join the DE, he can't stop them all. Plus Dumbledore was kind of dying, he has bigger fish to fry. This is still very bad, it's horrible. But there's the explanation.

63. This was a very personal thing for him, plus it's a plot device, the mentor always has to get killed off. That ring held a lot of private and painful moments for him, and maybe he didn't want anybody else to get hurt.

64. Harry was stuck with the fate of the world the moment his parents were whacked. Plus it's the Harry Potter series, he has to solve the problems, he has to fight Voldemort, he's kind of the protagonist.

#harry potter #hp #meta #hp meta #harry potter meta #answers #counterpoints #albus dumbledore #dumbledore defense squad #fanfiction #rants #dumbledore

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one-of-us-blog · 6 years

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Rose and Fern (TGP, Episode 13)

Today Eli is forced to watch and recap Rose and Fern, Episode 13 of The Golden Palace. When the girls are faced with a combination of missing funds and the return of a figure from the past, suspicions and passions begin flaring. Will the squad be able to solve these matters and move on before sinking into financial and emotional ruin? Keep reading to find out…

Well, I am once again embarrassingly late in getting a new blog post completed, but before I dive into things let me at least tell Drew what a fine job he did with his recap of Tomorrow Never Dies. Great job, buddy! Because of my tardiness it has been a minute since I read your post, but I seem to recall that you were blown away by the brilliance of Elliot Carver’s scheme to secure exclusive broadcast rights for China. What a villain, amiright? But for some reason, I don’t believe there were any shifts in your list of franchise faves, so we’ll just hurry up and get down to business. It’s time once again to check back into The Golden Palace!

Buttocks tight!

Episode written by Marc Sotkin, directed by Peter D. Beyt

We open to find Chuy removing a burnt duck from the oven. Apparently Sophia has been overcooking food for quite a while, but it isn’t entirely her fault as the oven is broken. Unfortunately, every time the oven repairman shows up, the only thing he services is Blanche. We also find out that Miles has been calling the hotel and leaving messages for Rose, and she laughs at the idea that he got dumped and wants her back. Still, she can’t decide whether she wants to forget all about him, get back together, or go on a Midwest ax murder spree. ‘Tis the season, I say! Blanche tells her to forget about the bum and date some new hunks, perhaps even someone who hasn’t assumed a fake identity and gone on the run from mob justice, nearly gotten her killed by a vengeful criminal, continued to live under an alias even after the truth had come to light, and then cheated on her out of the blue after years of presumed happiness. And to set up our final plot thread for the episode, Blanche speaks to Roland and is informed that he can’t balance the hotel’s checkbook, and that $300 is unaccounted for. She suggests using the “whoopsie” column to set things straight, and this should be a pretty big clue for what is to come later, but he tells her that he believes someone is embezzling money. The two of them are on the case, and agree to stay quiet about the hotel’s financial situation until they have some answers.

Blanche and Rose almost immediately begin arguing about their money problems, but thankfully a woman named Fern shows up to ask about using the hotel to host a wedding. The girls see the potential for some cash, and Rose quickly devises a cow-themed wedding to offer to the bride-to-be. For some reasons, Fern really latches onto the idea and breaks out her checkbook, as the staff of the Golden Palace prepares to milk her for all she’s worth.

Roland soon reports that another $200 is missing. He and Blanche get suspicious and interrogate Rose. She caves to the pressure immediately and admits to stealing a nickel in the third grade as part of a magic scheme that probably inspired Now You See Me. Next, Blanche puts the screws to Sophia, threatening her with one of Rose’s St. Olaf stories. Sophia knows exactly how to handle such matters, and quickly casts suspicion onto a nearby minority, but Chuy is offended by the racial profiling and storms off. Oh, and Rose mentions that she’s planning to get back with Miles for some reason, probably because she’s still making threatening phone calls to him in the dead of night, filtered through a kazoo. Or maybe she just wants to get Carboned one last time.

Fern is soon back at the hotel, and Rose lays out the details of her proposed dairy wedding theme. Miles suddenly shows up, and Rose believes he is there to win her back. But surprise, surprise, Miles is the man who will be marrying Fern, and he was unaware that she was hoping to use The Golden Palace for their nuptials. He only showed up to let Rose know that he was getting married, because why not twist the knife when you’ve already stabbed someone in the back? He was also unaware of the cow-themed wedding, but is pretty psyched about it. Rose flees the scene after hurling an insult at Miles that tips him off that she has been the late night kazoo-caller.

Chuy is looking through some cookbooks for cow-themed cuisine, and the mention of grass sets Cheech up for a fun magic brownie joke. None of the girls are able to sleep due to recent events, but they’re still planning to hold the wedding at the hotel to ease their financial woes. Sophia attempts to deliver a helpful “Picture It,” but the well must have run dry because she’s caught up to the present, and then inadvertently ventures too far into the past.

Miles talks to Rose and apologizes for this whole mess, which I assume includes acting totally contrary to the nature of the admittedly messy character previously established in The Golden Girls. She is a total professional about things, aside from the threat of a public stoning. He is hesitant to get married at the Palace, but she insists that it has to happen there. She needs to see him get married so that she can finally move on with her own life as well (at least for 11 more episodes or so).

We next cut to Blanche counting cash out of the hotel’s drawer, and Roland catches her in the act. She insists she is simply taking some of “her” money for necessary “business” expenses, but Roland points out that what she is doing is called embezzlement. She doesn’t seem bothered at all about this revelation, and even takes some extra money to buy herself a pretty new dress as a way to reward the others.

Lastly, we see Rose tearfully watching Miles and Fern tie the knot through the kitchen window. It’s a sad and upsetting end to the arc of a long-term character, but don’t worry, because we get a funny scene during the credits to show that Sophia has also stolen $100 to buy scratch-off tickets.

The End.

Well, I can’t say I was a big fan of this episode, but it’s mostly due to my dislike of the way the writers have handled the Miles situation in this show. I suppose I’m glad it’s over, if only because I don’t want to see this continue. It also seems like a total waste to bring back the character and actor again, given that he only had two very brief and forgettable scenes. But those complaints aside, I suppose it wasn’t a total loss, as I enjoyed the jokes involving Sophia’s interrogation, Chuy’s magic brownies, and everyone’s apparent love of all things dairy. The embezzlement plotline didn’t really do much for me, and I immediately called that Blanche was guilty, so I think they could have dropped that entirely. Overall, I think the most I can give this episode is a rating of 2.5 poofy hairdos out of 5. Farewell, Miles.

I’ll be back soon (I hope) with my take on Runaways, the next episode of The Golden Palace, and then Drew will return with a recap of The World is Not Enough, the next James Bond adventure. Until then, as always, thank you for being a friend, and for being One of Us!

#golden palace #golden girls #one of us

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