#which TO ME actually makes sense and gives Jane more of a purpose in the story lol

[kingchad]

Apparently in 2020 Disney + some guys put out an official descendants stage musical adaptation for licensing so we’ve been watching a bunch of high school / middle school performances and there were some truly baffling decisions made in the process. Also we have yet to see a single good Jay casting. Highly recommend.

[drconstellation]

Chiastic Structure of S2

The post preceding this is Chiastic Structure of S1.

S1 was neat, tidy and simple compared to S2.

S2 was...difficult. I have a feeling this is because of the missing minisodes. There felt like there were "holes" in places, where there was a strong scene with no corresponding pair, and yet in others there were single lines matching up.

You will also notice its quite...skewed? The hinging midpoint is right at the end of Ep4, which means the last two episodes mirror the preceding the four! So there are gaps. For example, the conversation in the pub in Ep2 doesn't match with anything specific.

One of the things I hoped it might shed some light on was the purpose of the trip to Edinburgh, which seems like a bit of a dead end. It does, in a way - I will discuss it a bit further below, along with some other parallels that didn't fit the structure.

A: Before the Beginning B: Aziraphale meets Crowley C: "How much trouble can I get into just for asking a few questions?"  D: "I'm very good at forgiveness. It's one of my favourite things." E: Gabriel: "I love you, you're funny" F: Argument about helping the other G: Crowley offered Duke of Hell position H: Crowley apologizes to Aziraphale I: Hiding of Gabriel - 25 Lazurii miracle J: Shax threatens Crowley K: Jobs children are turned into geckos M: Aziraphale's Trial by Temptation N: Aziracrow see God talking to Job: AZIRAPHALE: I don't suppose he's getting any answers. O: AZIRAPHALE: That sounds, um…CRAWLEY: Lonely? P: An angel asks permission for entry to the bookshop Q: Aziraphale makes unauthorized changes to the Bentley R: CROWLEY: Oh, come on, Mr. Dalrymple, it's not brain surgery! S: BARTENDER: You'll be one of those investigative reporters, no doubt? T: Aziraphale goes back to offer assistance to Elspeth and wee Morag U: Aziraphale stalls on saving wee Morag, says he doesn't have permission V: The laudanum toast to wee Morag W: AZIRAPHALE: Will you get into trouble? X: Crowley does Operation Lovebirds - Calls tempest Y: CROWLEY: "What are we talking about now?" GABRIEL: "Who am I? What's happened to me?" Z: Crowley confronts Gabriel about Aziraphale - Its always too late AA: Shax saying to Aziraphale she heard Aziracrow were an item 90 years ago BB: Zombies kill - 1st brain eaten CC: Crowley talks Aziraphale into performing a bigger magic act DD: Aziracrow shake on deal to do more miracles if needed EE: Zombies kill - 2nd Brain Eaten FF: The Staging of the Bullet Catch GG: Aziraphale gives permission for Furfur to enter the dressing room HH: Furfur says to expect a legion to come for Crowley in the morning II: Furfur's audience with the Dark Council, is treated condescendingly 

● SHADES OF GREY  - you said "TRUST ME."

II: Shax is stopped by Demon Josh, is treated condescendingly HH: Shax wants a legion to storm the bookshop GG: Beez asks if Shax has permission to enter the bookshop FF: AZIRAPHALE: I can guarantee you it will be a night to remember! EE: Shax wants killers, 10,000 demons DD: Deal for Dr Who Annual with Mr Arnold CC: AZIRAPHALE: Maggie and Nina are depending on me BB: 70 demons and a malignant and creeping sense of unease AA: Nina asks Crowley about how long he and Aziraphale have been together Z: Crowley confronts Gabriel about Aziraphale - stops him before its too late Y: Nina: "I’m going mad" - is spoken to by all the people at the Ball X: Aziraphale does Operation Lovebirds - Maggie asks Nina to dance W: AZIRAPHALE: I think you're overestimating how much trouble we're actually in. V: SHAX:… they are toast. T-O-S-T E. Toast. Now! U: Crowley stalls Shax on attacking humans, asks if she has permission T: Crowley says he's coming back, won't leave Aziraphale on his own. S: CROWLEY: Officer, I need to report a crime. R: Aziraphale: It all looks so simple in Jane Austen… the brains behind the 1810 Clerkenwell diamond robbery. Q: An unauthorized demon enters Heaven, changes P: Maggie gives permission for the demons to enter the bookshop O: MURIEL: It's a bit lonely. N: Aziraphale opens the portal to Heaven: GABRIEL: I told you you could ask. However, I am the only First-Order archangel in the room, or, you know, the Universe, so I'm not gonna answer so much. M: Gabriel's Trial K: Gabriel puts himself into the fly J: Aziraphale declares war on Hell I: Reveal of Gabriel - memories restored H: Gabriel apologizes to Beelzebub G: Aziraphale offered Supreme Archangel position F: Argument about helping the other E: The Big Damn Kiss D: "I forgive you" C: "Always asking damn fool questions, too."  B: Aziraphale leaves Crowley A: Beginning of  the End – Learn of Second Coming

Discussion on parallels that didn't fit the structure:

1. Crowley is given permission to destroy all of Job's possessions /  Gabriel refuses to give permission to destroy the Earth aka Armageddon II

There is a repeat emphasis on licenses, permits and authority throughout S2, so I really thought Crowley's permit to destroy of Job's possessions would have a match. It did, but it didn't fit the structure! If you look closely some of the other permits and authority lines do slot in. I'm planning some metas on these topics in the near future, as the use of language around these concepts is quite interesting, and there is some history to throw into the mix as well.

2. Crowley deceives the archangels with the help of an angel

This pair is a reference to Crowley and Aziraphale teaming up in the Job minisode to restore Job's children, and then Muriel aiding Crowley to sneak into Heaven. I'd just like to point out that Crowley could have gone to Heaven on his own - remember Eric went up with the hellfire in S1E6 - but he doesn't know where to go and get Gabriel's file, that is what he needs Muriel for.

3.  Popping up to Edinburgh

Ah, the trip to Edinburgh! Why? WHY!!! Why go all that way for ... nothing?

Guess what - it's a parallel sequence to Crowley popping up to Heaven.

I was going to write a companion piece to this but...my to do list is getting a bit long at the moment. Let me know if you want me to expand on it.

4. Ignoring messages

So this one started as "Nina gets txt messages from Lindsay, Mrs Sandwich says not to look at them," at the start of Ep3, then during the Ball Crowley is trying to lead the humans out of the bookshop and Shax confronts him with another bundle of mail. Crowley is succeeding in ignoring his messages from Hell, but Nina isn't.

5. Muriel and The Interrupted Tea Ceremony

In S2 it noticeable that everyone except Crowley needs permission to enter the bookshop, whereas in S1 they could just walk in. Originally I made a comment elsewhere that I thought this part matched with a sub-story to the Ball, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah and hospitality to angels, but then I came back and had another look and saw that there was a surface match - but I'm still going to do another post about the "cupperty" because it keeps getting lost in all the noise!

6. Threats and Declarations of War

Shax makes a number of threats throughout the series, to hunt Crowley down and to declare war on Aziraphale. So when Aziraphale inadvertently declares war on Hell with the halo toss, you'd think there would be a matching pair. There is, but not with a declaration of war, just a threat to Crowley. This is probably one of the weaker pairs.

7. Mysteriosity, audacity, ferocity and dangerocity

The Marvelous Mr Fell and his Mysteriosity has a pair with Shax's speech to her fellow demons about the unprecedented audacity of the attack on the bookshop, and how their lack of numbers will be made up for with their ferocity and...dangerocity. It should have fit, but it didn't.

[gingergofastboatsmojito]

My Sydcarmy dream happy ending? Or Storer's?

This is the 1st time I actually envisioned a whole scene with music and all in my head. I always had the feeling that the end of the show is gonna be like the final scene of Braciole: All together, the found family, maybe at the restaurant, maybe not, and just having dinner and having a good time.

After that "vision" I had, I found out that Storer mentioned in a panel that food had always saved them as a family, he was talking about his own family. So I figured: OK so since the show he created, the whole Bear universe, revolves around food, that's gonna be the ending. I felt he kinda confirmed my "vision", my take, the one I had as soon as I finished watching S1. I could already see that ending and believe in it wholeheartedly. And it looked like that, but blurry, because it was just season 1, and even though I knew there was a S2 that I hadn't watched yet (watched it the next day, actually), the overthinker in me was already daydreaming about THE SHOW'S FINALE.

OK, cut to me obsessing about this show after watching S2, that IMO was even better than S1, which is VERY RARE nowadays on TV, and then me re-watching both seasons and dissecting them till the cows go home and then re-watching S2 only over and over to analyze every single layer of Sydcarmy as humanly possible, and literally cutting my working hours to have more time to do that LMAO! etc. So, I ended up noticing the whole script structure Storer (and Calo) came up with, it's Austenian. And at that point, I was already a Sydcarmy soldier, of course, but when I picked up on the Austenticity of it all I FUCKING FLIPPED OUT because that gave me hope. It meant that the Sydcarmy endgame I had in mind could very well happen seeing as it was IC and Austenian, and it fit the slow burn process I had already picked up on right after watching Braciole, as I mentioned HERE. It all made total sense. How will it happen exactly, IDK, I wish I did but Storer is diabolical and way better than me at plot twists, so I won't even try to guess, but I will put my trust in the Austenian arc he swears by.

Me growing up reading Austen (real footage):

For those who haven't read Jane Austen, her trademark is: taking something painful and making it beautiful, finding beauty in pain, and always building towards a happy ending and redemption arc for her main characters, unless she kills them first and if she does, we can be sure that death will serve the happy ending purpose anyway (AKA: Michael, Syd's mother and probably Cicero, I wanna believe Donna will live, but I'm on the fence about her, I do believe she will be redeemed after Nat's baby is born, either way), she will take that death and make it worthwhile and beautiful. She doesn't stand for unhappy endings, but she does include bittersweetness in the endgame of some of her characters, usually not the A ones, but the B ones. The Alphas usually get a relatively "clean happy ending". Relatively being the operative word and what we can ALWAYS expect no matter what, is a "teaching", a lesson learned by the main characters. They walk out of that story as new men/women after having learned that/those lesson/s. She does this. She slow burns romances left and right, kills characters off, takes losses and turns them into gains, and builds towards a happy ending. That's an Austenian structure right there. It's usually used in Romance movies, rarely seen on this kinda TV shows, but here we are. The Storer-Calo duo are giving us Austenian characters in a nutshell.

So, back to my point, I always had this take and wishful thinking even, but up until now, I was never able to actually envision a final scene that could be actually canonical. I mean, I could even fucking write the whole script of that whole final ep, line by line, for every character if they allowed me to. I have the music in mind, the outfits, the whole set, and the final take that faiths to black and reads THE END. And no, this is not just a wishful thinking list or prediction post, it's an actual argumentative outline about why I think The Bear’s series finale will look like the Happy version of Fishes:

And just because Carmy said this, I will take a wild guess, this is gonna be part of the menu:

He associated them with his, and I quote: "fucked up family life" end of quote. So he wanted to reversion them:

And Marcus, based on Sydcarmy's pointers, came up with The Michael Cannoli:

I am also assuming, Sydcarmy will be endgame because of the aforementioned reasons, but I'm not sure Storer will actually show it on camera, maybe just insinuate it, because we all know he is diabolical and also because that's how the original movie script turned into TV script ended before Storer knew The Bear was going to be picked up for a 2° season, he always had this ending in mind for The Bear, behold:

So what I'm saying is: We Sydcarmy truthers have an actual shot here. I also dive into this theory HERE but from a totally different angle.

This happy Sydcarmy endgame we want is at arms' reach.

Now I see it more clearly.

Who's with me?

@ciaonicole85 thanks for the inspo to write this post, it all came to mind when I saw yours.

[jencattv]

prompted by your RTC performances, though applies to any theater production: with performing the same script so many times in such condensed time, i imagine that the actions themselves can feel stale and repetitive. I don't have any personal experience with it though. Does this actually happen, and do you have to make an effort as an actor to keep your performance from reflecting that? Or is it a "every night is a new experience" type of deal?

Great question! Definitely, but with experience and from what I learned in acting classes, it’s all about maintaining the discovery and newness of it all. It all boils down to the why/purpose of every line and feeling connected moment to moment. Lots of different ways to achieve this, like thinking about “I want to (fight/kiss/flirt) with (scene partner) so that I can (get something, make them feel a certain way, etc.) and thinking about how you can physically support your intentions while saying your lines. By taking things moment by moment you can discover new little things in the way you interact with your scene partners each time.

Not every night is going to be the exact same either because audiences react differently; they can be roaring with laughter at a joke one night and be completely silent for it for the next, so it would be a bad idea to replicate a previous performance just from that fact alone. For our production specifically, we find new ways to always make it fun!

For example, in the scene where Ocean pushes Constance (“my time, Constance, my time”) to Jane Doe and Jane stares at her, I’ve played around with this scene and tweaked it to keep it fresh by touching her hair, giving a little wave, giving her hugs, patting her head, etc. and changing the order around.

Another example would be the “really super hurts” scene where my Jane copies Constance’s hand movements and every night I have to really pay attention what she does because she changes it up a lot and it’s exciting because it keeps me present and from going on autopilot, which is what happens when you let the material go stale! Since Jane doesn’t have as many lines as the rest of the kids I play around with physicality a lot, but this can be done with lines as well (Our Constance is really good at this, via different inflections/emotional intention) i.e. in her monologue I’ve seen her deliver the “or they’ll think you’re a cow” line with more anger, more accusatory, embarrassed, blissfully unaware, etc.

But to be honest, this is the first time in a long time that I’ve been in a show that I genuinely loved before being in it, and I think that helps a lot too! I’m just always so excited to be performing the material and getting to do it with such genuinely awesome people 💗

I hope that all makes sense! Thanks again for the great question 😁

[bethanydelleman]

Mrs. Churchill: The Most Unfairly Maligned Woman in Jane Austen

We never meet Mrs. Churchill in Jane Austen’s Emma, everything we know about her is second- (Frank) or third- (Mr. Weston) hand. But once you read the book a second or tenth time, it becomes clear that Mrs. Churchill was getting progressively worse, ending in her death and Frank knew this. 

Mrs. Churchill is far more sick than Frank ever admits. He often uses her as an excuse to neglect visiting his father.  Everyone in Highbury thinks Mrs. Churchill is faking because it's so convenient that she's sick when Frank is supposed to visit. But we know the truth, he doesn't visit until Jane comes to Highbury, he is staying away on purpose.

But she does decline during the course of the novel

Evidence of her decline: 

We know that the Churchills go to London yearly with Frank, “He saw his son every year in London” and yet, Frank says to Emma, “and if my uncle and aunt go to town this spring—but I am afraid—they did not stir last spring—I am afraid it is a custom gone for ever.” This custom has happened every year of Frank’s life and now is suddenly ended. Sounds like Mrs. Churchill was too sick to go the year prior and Frank does not expect her to get better.

According to Mr. Weston, Frank can come if the Churchills do not visit a family called the Braithwaites, “But I know they will, because it is a family that a certain lady, of some consequence, at Enscombe, has a particular dislike to: and though it is thought necessary to invite them once in two or three years, they always are put off when it comes to the point.” But the Churchills do actually go for the visit. As if they are saying goodbye and seeing people for the last time.

Mrs. Churchill does allow Frank to stay in Highbury for the ball, and then suddenly withdraws consent, “A letter arrived from Mr. Churchill to urge his nephew’s instant return. Mrs. Churchill was unwell—far too unwell to do without him; she had been in a very suffering state (so said her husband) when writing to her nephew two days before, though from her usual unwillingness to give pain, and constant habit of never thinking of herself, she had not mentioned it; but now she was too ill to trifle, and must entreat him to set off for Enscombe without delay.” This seems like a petty power play until we remember that she does actually die at the end of the book. Several close calls are normal for a person experiencing hospice care or a sudden decline in health.

Then Mrs. Churchill suddenly decides to go to London, which makes sense if she’s been getting much worse and wants to consult the London physicians:

“The evil of the distance from Enscombe,” said Mr. Weston, “is, that Mrs. Churchill, as we understand (in italics in the text), has not been able to leave the sofa for a week together. In Frank’s last letter she complained, he said, of being too weak to get into her conservatory without having both his arm and his uncle’s! This, you know, speaks a great degree of weakness—but now she is so impatient to be in town, that she means to sleep only two nights on the road.—So Frank writes word. Certainly, delicate ladies have very extraordinary constitutions, Mrs. Elton. You must grant me that.”

Frank actually stays away from Jane against his inclination when Mrs. Churchill is in Richmond. Mrs. Churchill is actually getting worse and he's not a complete dick, he stays with her:

This was the only visit from Frank Churchill in the course of ten days. He was often hoping, intending to come—but was always prevented. His aunt could not bear to have him leave her. Such was his own account at Randall’s. If he were quite sincere, if he really tried to come, it was to be inferred that Mrs. Churchill’s removal to London had been of no service to the wilful or nervous part of her disorder. That she was really ill was very certain; he had declared himself convinced of it, at Randalls. Though much might be fancy, he could not doubt, when he looked back, that she was in a weaker state of health than she had been half a year ago. He did not believe it to proceed from any thing that care and medicine might not remove, or at least that she might not have many years of existence before her; but he could not be prevailed on, by all his father’s doubts, to say that her complaints were merely imaginary, or that she was as strong as ever.

and later: The black mare was blameless; they were right who had named Mrs. Churchill as the cause. He had been detained by a temporary increase of illness in her; a nervous seizure, which had lasted some hours—and he had quite given up every thought of coming,

Also, let us consider how much hatred is directed at Mrs. Churchill for wanting her adopted nephew to stay by her while she is dying, whilst Mr. Woodhouse, who basically imprisons his daughter with all his fancies of ill health, is widely loved. Mrs. Churchill is the alleged hypochondriac who is actually sick, while Mr. Woodhouse worries about his health, but has no recorded illness through the entire book.

To sum up, Mrs. Churchill was getting progressively worse over the course of the novel. She very reasonably wanted her adopted child to be near her. Frank does actually do his duty to his aunt, indicating that he is well aware of how sick she has become. Mrs. Churchill’s death was not sudden, it happens at the end of a decline lasting about a year, or a bit longer.

[davekat-sucks]

Hey thanks for your perspective! I like seeing what other people think of a piece of media I engage with, and I can take in what another person’s perspective can be compared to mine. I always thought it was tough to keep up with HS^2, and before Yiffy it was boring. I read the prologue for HS^2 and it was nice, but ultimately pointless.

You make a good point about Jane, and I gotta describe the surreal decision for how they builded up to Jane’s villain arc.

So there is a series of snapchats from 11/11/2016 to 12/31/16 (I think) showing conversations between Jane and Roxy (calliope is there) discussing the celebration of the return of the gods on Earth C by blowing up the moon. Jane has her transportalizer hijacked by the felt, run by Jack Noir and Jane’s account now gets post updates from felt members. Roxy and Calliope attempt to get help but Jane successfully defends herself against the felt and enslaves Jack Noir with a tiaratop, and then puts Clover in charge of her snapchat account. She escapes before the moon explodes.

So the buildup to Jane being racist was her being kidnapped and then giving her social media to a leprechaun, who worked for the main bad guy of Homestuck who is last seen on his knees with the evil red Betty Crocker thing around his neck.

Yeah I can see why Jane became evil, she was the CEO of a corporation, and running corporations just make you literally irredeemably cruel to everyone. (If you can’t tell I’m being sarcastic)

To give credit to epilogues/postcanon apologists when they argue that the story’s character’s are not acting out of character, just rather changed over time or were always like this, but just didn’t have the unrestricted worship and authority Earth C gave them, they are in a sense, correct.

What postcanon apologists forget to argue is if the execution of this change in character works within the media it is produced under, and I gotta say, an obscure set of snapchat posts released after the credits that were only dug up by fans following the Homestuck Pinterest account which preluded a character’s villain arc by having her kidnapped and unkidnap herself was a poorly executed start to a vaillain arc, maybe they should have done more with the whole Jack possessed by the tiaratop thing and Jane running the most powerful corporation on Earth C, but I don’t write Homestuck.

The tiaratop thing only gets elaborated on in Homestuck^2 later on when in panels you can see tiaratops on Crockercorp soldiers in the April 2020 updates, nearly a whole year after the epilogues dropped. Before that I’d just assumed all the people decided in unity to be racist because Jane said so and most people can’t think for themselves actually, and just believe what a nice looking authority figure says. That last part might be true considering how well James Roach has gotten along with the Homestuck fandom.

So what is the moral of the story to all this? Well being a CEO of a corporation makes you a fascist because being in a position of power makes you think you’re better than everyone else and that they should be sorted into categories you consider lesser and better by your standards.

Sure there is actual human history to the rise of fascism and why some aristocrats and corporate businessmen supported the cause but I ain’t reading all that, my hypothesis is simple to understand and affirms all the premonitions I have about the world around me, so it must be correct!

So basically the Homestuck snapchats predicted Elon Musk buying Twitter and retweeting conspiracy theorist tweets because Elon Musk is the CEO of 5 companies now.

And look out for Disney CEO Bob Iger, he’s making bad and boring Disney movies with minority lead actors ON PURPOSE to radicalize fans of old, better cinematic franchises to bring about the 4th reich!!!

Funny enough, the aim for Jane Crocker being the villain in Homestuck 2 was also to make her an allegory for DONALD TRUMP. Even the bonus story for these random nothingbuger OCs made by WhatPumpkin, were suppose to be people getting BERNIE SANDERS to become President. They even advertise support for Bernie Sanders on the official HOMESTUCK TWITTER ACCOUNT. Of course, Bernie Sanders dropped out of presidential election. HS Twitter had to delete it and WhatPumpkin had to cancel that side story. Needless to say, the force of politics in Homestuck 2 was that bad.

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

I loved your ranking of Jane! She gets way too much hat. Tbh I like her way more than Kenny

Thanks anon, glad you enjoyed the post!

But yes, I agree. I think Jane gets too much hate and I believe it comes from a misunderstanding of her character, as well as a lot of bias set in Kenny's favor.

Believe me, I understand a lot of the criticism with her character and I don't fault anyone for disliking her. To each their own, y'know?

I find her compelling and way more likeable than Kenny, and while I stand by the Wellington ending being the best outcome for Clementine and AJ, I loathe that you only get it by going with Kenny. Personally, if forced to throw out the Wellington ending, Jane is Clementine's best option as far as S2's ending goes...

...We don't talk about ANF Jane. ANF is forever on my shitlist for what it did to Jane. You ever want to study a great example of writers fully misunderstanding a character then writing a total character assassination? Then look at Jane in ANF.

But anyway, Jane isn't heartless and she actually listens to Clementine when she chews her out and tries to improve, something Kenny just... doesn't do, no matter how many times he says he will be better. Actions speak louder than words, my guy.

One example I can give comes with Arvo. Jane will threaten him with a gun and suggest they take his stuff, that she doesn't care about his supposed sick sister, all that... no matter the outcome, Jane shows remorse for her actions and questions how she got to the point of threatening a kid like Arvo, someone clearly powerless against her and in a position to be taken advantage of.

Then you have Kenny who treats Arvo as a personal punching bag and never once does he feel remorse. Kenny just treats him as an outlet for his rage, nothing more. Arvo isn't even a person to him. Hell, he cares more about going after Arvo and beating his ass than he does if Clementine falls through the ice while trying to save Luke.

You know who pulls Clementine out of the icy water? Not Kenny. Jane does, and she's the only one in a huge panic about her freezing to death, running around looking for a way to start a fire and what is Kenny doing? Right, beating Arvo again.

That's just one example. Also, to touch on the topic of Sarah, because I know that's a big thing for people who dislike Jane which fair enough, I get that. I don't have time to give a full analysis, but Jane's backstory is a huge part of why she tells Clementine that Sarah's going to bring her down. Sarah isn't in good shape after Carlos is killed, and you can't just pretend that she didn't endanger them when she refused to move. It makes sense why she doesn't, and it's incredibly tragic, but Jane can see as an outside observer with no attachment to Sarah that if they stay here, they're all going to die. So, either Clementine forces her to move, abandons her, or dies with her.

There are plenty of flaws with how Sarah is portrayed and handled in S2, again I don't have the time to give a full analysis, but Jane is gentle no matter what Clementine decides to do, save her or leave her. She doesn't chew Clementine out, she doesn't say, "I told you so." Jane explains her story with her sister, and the Sarah situation clearly triggered that trauma for her.

Again, soooo easy for people who hate Jane to be like "see?? she left her sister to die?? Jane bad, she want Sarah dead too," but that's just purposely ignoring the nuance and grey of the situation so you can think easy. And no, Jane doesn't want Sarah to die, that's just a straight up lie.

When Sarah is trapped, Jane will put aside her beliefs and safety to help Sarah when Clementine asks her to. It's not Jane's fault Sarah died. Maybe if she hadn't been hit with that plank of wood, she could've gotten to her faster. Maybe she would've died because Sarah was such in a state of panic that she would've brought her down, too. Y'know that drowning metaphor-- a drowning person will almost always pull you down, is it worth sinking with them? all that.

I want to make it clear that this isn't Sarah's fault. She's a victim here, both in the situation and in the games writing. Jane knows this, too. She's sincere in her apology to Clementine, and seeing Sarah die is yet another trigger that causes her to leave.

There's so much about Jane's character that I could get into, and I plan on it at some point. Like I said in my tier list, Jane is a great character and I'm tired of pretending she's not.

[scatterghosts]

Good Omens season 2 episode 2 spoilers

Man, this just keeps getting better!!

THEY HAVE TO MAKE NINA AND MAGGIE FALL IN LOVE WITHOUT DOING MIRACLES AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH

My guess is that Aziraphale will use that get-together that he said he'd host to throw a "ball" for matchmaking purposes and I am SO excited

Also, the Jane Austen thing with her being a spy and jewel thief!!!!! That had me and my friend HOWLING

I love how on board Crowley is to play matchmaker....and how the first way he thinks of to make people fall in love is to put them in a rainstorm so they have to shelter together. Maybe I'm completely oblivious but I didn't even catch that this is a mirror of how they met until my friend pointed it out. Very sweet.

I'm so excited to see their shenanigans as matchmakers. I expect it will go as well as their plan to be godfathers.

I love how the same things that bother me about the Job story are the things that bother Aziraphale and Crowley! Also, Crowley giving a dramatic angst-filled speech to a goat before its impending death (then not actually killing it) is hilarious. This demon needs a therapist so he can talk about his Fall to people who aren't Goats.

That final scene was so well written. All the dialogue was so perfectly foreshadowed and tied things up so neatly and made me feel all kinds of things.

I can't believe Crowley introduced Aziraphale to food!!! I mean, it makes total sense with their characters — Aziraphale doesn't try new things nearly as often as Crowley — but I hadn't thought of it.

I'm so glad the children were okay.

I loved, loved, loved how smug Aziraphale was about Crowley not killing the goats. His expression was perfect!! And honestly up to that point I was convinced the goats were dead and half convinced the kids were going to die too. But of course not, Crowley is awesome. And Aziraphale was so determined to believe that Crowley was a good person......💜💜💜

I love Muriel so, so much and she's really barely been onscreen yet. I'm so excited to see more of her, she's awesome

Watching Crowley and Nina sass each other was so fun

Maggie always has the cutest outfits and I just want to give her a hug

I'm so curious what the jukebox in Scotland has to do with everything else....

I love the way that Good Omens handles God and morality and all that stuff. The whole "an angel who goes along with heaven as far as you're able to" thing really hit home, as someone who is part of a church I mostly but not always agree with. I love that following your own conscience regardless of what you're being told by religious authorities is the choice that the narrative rewards. I also loved seeing Aziraphale's crisis after that (though it was heartbreaking seeing him break down) because he's so realistic. Really hits me.

Also, the AUDACITY of Aziraphale to suggest that the Bentley is "our car." Nah man, Crowley's right on this one, that is not your car. I anticipate (and hope) that they'll pack Gabriel into the backseat with the plants and go on a road trip.

Also, does Aziraphale not know that Crowley's living in his car?? Or did Crowley prefer his car to living in the bookshop? It is nice to have one's own space, but sleeping in the Bentley does not look comfortable.

I love that Aziraphale remembers Crowley as an angel..... so tender. (I'm curious if Crowley remembers it all too.)

I just realized we never got Crowley's name when he was an angel. The Crowley-is-Raphael rumors can persist.

My friend's theory, which I think is really good, is that after the not-pocalypse, Gabriel went to God demanding answers about the Ineffable Plan— after all, he was there when the morning stars were created, and that was one of the conditions God gave Job! In response, I think God made Gabriel human and sent him to earth to figure out the purpose of life himself.

However, as my friend pointed out (her attention to detail is quite good), there are also quite a few flies that have shown up in this season. Perhaps Beelzebub has had something to do with it?

I'm so excited to see what happens next!! I love watching Crowley and Aziraphale interact. Truly a joy.

I love this so much. It's so wonderful to have new story to watch. It is sad to me that eventually we will be done with new story (with luck, not until after the third season). Of course everything has to end. But I wish it didn't. I'm glad that this show takes so long to get new seasons, so if we get a third season (please please please) it won't be over too fast.

I love this show so much. It's emotional and theologically interesting and sad and hilarious and wonderful and INEFFABLE!!

[bedlamsbard]

Ah, now I remember, the last time I sent you the ask about the Hydra Cap AU you said the same thing about Thor, haha. If you posted more about potential routes you could take I’d be super interested.

@ Tony I didn’t want to come off as someone, like, Angry at how you’ve portrayed him previously; I’ve liked it, and I’d be SUPER interested in swing the Hydra Cap version of him. I didn’t actually make the connection that the Chessmen suits were the divergence point, that’s interesting as hell to me. The way that other characters’ portrayals depend super heavily on point of view is a big chunk of why I keep coming back to your writing, tbh, and it does make sense that Tony in particular gets the short end of the stick a lot for that, haha.

I just read the marvel fandom wiki page about the Chessmen and this is fucking hilarious, oh my god.

With Thor I think it really just comes down to what the hell Hydra does when it rolls up to Mjolnir in Thor. The thing I definitely don't want to do is get Thor captured by Hydra and still being held by Hydra when Steve gets defrosted; that's certainly a potentially interesting plot and I know that there are a couple of fics that have done something similar with Loki getting captured by SHIELD/Hydra, but I personally don't want to go there. I think ultimately it has to get to a point where either the Chitauri don't attack in 2012 or Loki doesn't attack in 2012 (with Thanos's involvement, these two aren't mutually exclusive; there could be an offworld attempt at the Tesseract even without an Asgardian involved, but it's way less likely). And in this context that has to be related to what SHIELD (a.k.a. Hydra) is doing in Puente Antiguo, which doesn't offer a whole lot of options to affect what Loki is doing in Asgard.

Thor is kind of interesting because SHIELD is portrayed antagonistically for the first time in Phase 1, since we're seeing them being very high-handed from Jane's POV. Hydra would be even more high-handed and aggressive -- instead of just confiscating Jane's equipment and research, maybe they also take Jane and Selvig into custody, leaving Darcy behind because she's "useless" for those purposes, meaning Darcy is the one who takes Thor out to the Mjolnir site. Say at this point Coulson is still undercover with Hydra, rather than already having been outed as one of Fury's SHIELD loyalists; after Thor is captured too, Coulson makes the decision to break his cover and break Thor, Jane, and Selvig out, where they meet up with Darcy and he spirits them off to one of the realSHIELD black sites. In retaliation, Hydra trumps up accusations of academic dishonesty/treason/etc. for Jane, Selvig, and Darcy, meaning they can't go back to their real lives; that puts all of Team Thor with realSHIELD. This also gives us an "unworthy" Thor who doesn't have Mjolnir and who thinks he doesn't have his powers, meaning that he probably goes through his Ragnarok "what were you the god of?" arc four movies early, with Mjolnir at the site of what later gets built up as a permanent Hydra base. (This also means that, depending on whether realSHIELD or Hydra kept the Tesseract, that Selvig isn't there to fuck around with the Tesseract, thus gaining Thanos's attention and bringing the Chitauri down on them, which also solves that problem.)

Except that still leaves us back with Asgard. If Thor is thrown immediately into a cell or a more secure holding place than in the film, maybe Loki doesn't come to visit, because to him this appears like a more likely way to keep Thor out of the way than in canon, especially because it now looks like Thor is never going to get access to Mjolnir again. Maybe it means that he panics less than he does in canon and looks generally less suspicious -- the problem here is that, being a Loki fan, I am also turning cartwheels to keep Loki from immediately leaping to genocide as his best option. (Normally I am all in favor of letting Loki keep culpability for all the horrible shit he does, but the goal here is NOT to set up interplanetary warfare.) It looks from the film like Loki visits Thor on Earth and Laufey in Jotunheim on the same trip, or at least that it can be interpreted that way; if he doesn't do the one, then maybe he also doesn't do the other, and thus doesn't immediately arouse Heimdall's suspicion to the same extent as in canon, meaning Heimdall is not going to send Sif and the Warriors Three to Earth, meaning Loki isn't going to send the Destroyer after them because he's panicking. This gives him more space to figure out a less fucked up way of dealing with the Jotunheim problem, which could even be "wait until Odin wakes up," which was always the goal even in canon. If Loki's not on a panicked bad decisions spiral, things on Asgard don't go as badly as they do in canon; the political situation is probably still very tense, but assuming Odin wakes up fairly soon anyway, to his point of view Thor is going on his intended character arc the long way round and he won't give Heimdall, Sif, and the W3 the opportunity to try and expedite that the way it does in canon. They can deal with the Jotunheim problem with politics, the Bifrost is still intact, Asgard is keeping a more watchful eye on Earth to see what Thor's doing but is under strict orders NOT to interfere.

...okay, that actually solves the Thor problem with this AU. (and gives everyone a good idea of how my AU development train of thought works.)

The Chessmen suits aren't the divergence point, but the outcome of Stane keeping hold of the Iron Monger armor and mass-producing similar suits, which he says he wants to do in IM1. I've just borrowed the Chessmen name from the comics, rather than going 1:1 to transfer the comics characters over. The divergence point is the Tony-Stane fight on the roof of Stark Industries at the end of IM1.

I get a little tetchy about Tony because Steve is my favorite character and as a result I get accused of not being a Tony fan -- it really is just the time period and POVs I mostly tend to write in! He's obviously fine and not negatively portrayed in Yonder! (Though if I'd known later that I'd be rolling around in that universe for a while, I'd have started Yonder a chapter earlier to actually introduce Tony as a potential "willing to work with this particular team" -- I might still do this as a one-shot prequel at some point, but I'm really wary about working in the Yonderverse right now because Horizon was not popular.) (I cut multiple scenes from Horizon where he appeared in order to keep the impact of that last sequence.) I do think Tony is consistently making spectacularly bad decisions from AoU onwards; that doesn't mean I don't like the character, it just means it's interesting to interpret why and how he goes there. Blame the Russos and the rest of the MCU PTB for those decisions, not me for having fun with the consequences. (Generally meant, not aimed at you.) I try really hard not to dislike characters, because getting to that point never ends well as a fic writer or even as a fan in general. (When I got there in Star Wars, it was probably the end of the line for the fandom.)

[4lph4kidz]

(Same Dirk Anon)

I def read Dirk's splinters as more uhhh 'possibilities' - this COULD be you, if you let it be, and they reflect certain truths about your character that you need to come to terms with.

I guess the way I tend to think of it is, like- Davesprite broke Jade's heart, and got angry at Dave about it in Game Over. It's pointless to actually hold Dave accountable for that, but there's no denying that had he been in Davesprite's position he could or would have acted the exact same way. In that regard, I find it pretty pointless to actively hold Dirk accountable for anything AR does independent of Dirk's awareness or control; but because Dirk is so willing to immediately assume the worst of himself and take some level of ownership over his splinters that Dave would never do for Davesprite (or Jade, Jadesprite) I see him getting conflated with his splinters a LOT more often.

Ofc, selves are a complicated matter in Homestuck. Karkat's memo shenanigans are pretty indicative of that, though those are less 'possibilities' and more 'closed time loops', I guess. But even then, they serve as a purpose for Karkat to learn more about himself, even if it's more of a self-fulfilling prophecy than Dirk and his splinters are.

On AR and Dirk's agency, the amount of control Dirk actually has seems somewhat limited - assuming you don't think Dirk should just straight up murder the AR, which is an argument I've seen made. I would say that AR goes to prove Dirk has a lot less agency than he thinks he does - I'm reminded of Dirk giving that whole spiel to Jane about how he's going to mastermind the session, but ends up running to Calliope for advice on what to do the second something went wrong.

Or his claims that he can control his Dream Self perfectly, but almost got killed failing to do just that and ended up zoning out so much he was too late to warn Jane about Roxy's bomb. The bomb thing is interesting, because AR also chose not to warn her despite being FULLY capable of doing so, which indicates to me that... yeah, they're on different wavelengths here.

Or - Unite/Synchronise once Dirk's actual plans to enter the session go very obviously to shit, but even that's left ambiguous as to who actually orchestrated it. AR makes the most sense to me, though. I'm reminded of Scratch's High Stakes Timeline Wrangling - I was masochistic enough to read Hussie's authors notes, and iirc he mentioned something about Scratch being so competent because one of his components was a supercomputer.

Honestly, I read AR and Dirk's convo as soft confirmation that AR and Dirk weren't accurate 1=1 reflections of each other anymore. The conversation starts with AR blowing off Roxy trying to call Dirk for help, and ends with him asking Dirk "so can suicide fix this problem?" Strider if he's afraid to die. AR is what Dirk could have been, but currently isn't, but still contains a multitude of truths about himself that are uncomfortable to look at. ...but that's not the conclusion Dirk seems to come to, which I guess is what I meant when I thought Dirk wasn't being meaningfully challenged on what his splinters mean about himself.

(...which is still all setting aside the Jake thing. Jake pretty accurately pinned AR as a Dirk with 'no accountability, that just wants to screw with him' which... Dirk isn't happy about, but dirk and jake and dirk's splinters is a whole other nightmare.)

This all checks out with me as reading Dirk as a kid that's not as smart as he thinks he is getting a succession of reality checks straight to the face during the session. And then he's just kind of left dangling with the last one, which doesn't... really feel like a conclusion to his arc, but it's still better than what Jake got? It really feels like they just barely dug into the meat of Dirk's character before. All that.

feel free to ignore this, i just like rambling about dirk because he's absolutely fascinating and yet... done so goddamn dirty by the narrative. he is the bug i have under a microscope. i want to read all the conversations kidnapped PQ!Dirk has with Ult!Dirk so badly.

there's a lot of great kanaya quotes but i think the moment i realised she was like, one of my forever faves, was. "Impromputations".

Yeah! That's very much the read that makes the most sense to me, though it is still a very character-focused perspective and I try to keep other ways of framing things in the back of my mind. And I'd be more likely to agree he was 'done dirty by the narrative' if you take post canon into the picture but tbh I think being a Jake-liking individual has sort of lowered the bar for me when it comes to Homestuck's character biases... At least the author thought Dirk was interesting enough to take him seriously and address his stuff with some depth.

Generally speaking HS's concluding arcs were so messy that pretty much every single character was left wanting in one way or another, with the exception of maybe Dave, but I do still think Dirk is actually one of the better handled/more fleshed out characters? Seeing as he's one of only a handful who even had an identifiable arc and got something approaching a resolution for the better. Not everything was addressed or wrapped up neatly of course, and he sure isn't in a very HAPPY place, but still. I still took it as an ultimately positive ending for him. Maybe that's just because I'm generally okay with the ending of Homestuck as a whole, despite noting its many faults, mostly because I think its a miracle something as convoluted as Homestuck even made it to the end at all. That doesn't mean I'm not disappointed and don't love seeing other people explore what the comic didn't, I'm just relatively at peace with the fact that resolving characters wasn't really a priority for the work I guess.

[therealvinelle]

Hi, love your metas!

When you did the math for how long it would take Aro longer to Jane and Alec, did you do it by human walking distance between Volterra, Italy and say, "London" (which didn't "exist" but I mean picking an arbitrary point on the island for the sake of reference), driving distance, or did you add up the square miles of these countries and the countries in between them to get the distance between Aro and the twins?

Apparently the Twilight Guide notes that "vampires can run in excess of a hundred miles per hour" under the section of "Abilities and Limitations". So basically 100 miles (and a little more) per hour. But then there is the fact they feed every two to three weeks, which would give some delays as well.

(Anon is referring to this post.)

As explained in the original post, I used a distance calculator (like this one - the one I used seems to have changed since last time I used it, so I'm linking this new one instead. They give the same distance: 1612 kilometres.) to calculate the distance between Volterra and London. It is my understanding the website gave me the air distance.

London, originally Londonium, was founded by the Romans in the first century BC (though that one was on again, off again as a local tribe overran the city shortly after and the Romans had to refound the city). There is evidence of settlers in the London area even before that, the oldest signs of settlement dating back to 4800-4500 BC (x).

With the fall of the Roman Empire, Londonium fell into a decline. In 500 AD the Anglo-Saxons developed a settlement there known as Lundenwic, a settlement that would prosper from the late 7th century until the Vikings started badgering them in the 9th century.

"Why is Vinelle babbling about Anglo-Saxons," you may wonder, well, Jane and Alec were Anglo-Saxons who lived during the 9th century. Even if they didn't live in Lundenwic, the geographical spread of Anglo-Saxons was still concentrated around Southern England (specifically where Essex, Wessex, and Sussex is now) at the start of the 9th century(map).

Now, Jane and Alec did live in a village so they didn't actually live in Lundenwic, but London is surrounded by villages even in the modern day. Major settlements usually are.

London is not an inappropriate choice for location for Jane and Alec for the purposes of that post, is what I'm saying.

As for the maths, I bend over backwards to adhere to canon, I really do. To me, there's just no point if I'm going to make up my own facts.

However, every now and then even I must say "ehh fuck that", and Meyer describing her vampires as gods and then turning around and making them slower than your average car is an example of that. (I'm also just burned from years as a Harry Potter fan trying to make sense of JKR's maths.)

The fact of the matter is, they can move faster than the human eye can perceive. The human eye can perceive 100 mph (160km/h) quite easily (please enjoy this Mythbusters video I found featuring a car going at that speed).

So... in an attempt to be nice with canon I will agree with the Guide, vampires can run in excess of 100mph. Very very in excess.

(That being said - even if Aro runs at 100 mph and not one mile faster, he still would only need 10 hours, give or take, to get from Volterra to wherever Jane and Alec were held. No need for food breaks.

If he decides to run the circumference of the Earth, that takes him 250 hours assuming a straight line. That's 10 days and a few hours. Assuming Aro fed before leaving, he (or any other hypothetical vampire doing this run) would not need any breaks.)

Point being, I stand by my original calculations.

(Which led to a theory I'm very pleased with because it's so derptastic: Twilight takes place in an alternate dimension where the Earth is bigger.)

[adamwatchesmovies]

Book Club: The Next Chapter (2023)

While I didn't enjoy this film, that doesn't mean you won't. No matter what I say, the people involved in this project did it: they actually made a movie. That's something to be applauded. With that established...

I wish I liked these Book Club movies more. No, wait. Let me change that to “I wish these Book Club movies were better”. It’s a treat to see actresses who would normally get relegated to the role of “the protagonist’s grandma” in a main role. Nonetheless, I have the feeling most viewers will recognize Book Club: The Next Chapter as the kind we'd dismiss altogether if it featured performers in their 20s and 30s. Why should we make an exception because the cast are Hollywood veterans?

When Diane (Diane Keaton), Sharon (Candice Bergen) and Carol (Mary Steenburgen) learn that Arthur (Don Johnson) and Vivian (Jane Fonda) are finally get married, the girls decide to go on a bachelorette party tour of Venice.

Production snapshots during the end credits make two things pretty clear. 1) The cast and crew had a great time making this movie. 2) They had a particularly good time making it in Venice. The shots of Italy are not quite as egregious and commercial-y as you’ve seen in other films, but come on, we all know this was sort of a working vacation for everyone. The ladies get to wear some beautiful wedding-themed dresses even though there’s no reason for them to - except Vivian, of course. They tour museums, get wined and dined... all of which are realistic things for them to do on a vacation, but it's still a vacation.

All the ladies get their own little stories. They range from the semi-dramatic to the romantic and the goofy. The recently-retired Sharon catches the eye of Ousmane (Hugh Quarshie), who all but serenades her in a scene that’s fun until it ends with a lame recurring gag. It involves a police officer (Giancarlo Giannini) the women constantly bump into - even when they leave the city he’s patrolling and travel hours away. It’s not nearly as corny as Diane’s story, which involves her dead husband’s missing ashes.

I’m not sure which of the women gets the worst sub-plot. Vivian’s journey is the most realistic. She's firmly established who she is. Now, she’s having reservations about changing it all by tying the knot. There’s actuallly something there. Too bad it’s frequently buried beneath lame gags. In one scene the ladies’ car breaks down in the middle of the road and Vivian thinks the police officer who shows up to help is a stripper. Does she think her friends are putting her through The Game? As if anyone would purposely fake engine troubles in the middle of the countryside so this hunky guy could show up on-cue. It makes no sense.

Similarly, there’s a single gag involving Carol that completely ruins her story. She used to have the hots for this chef (her diary describes how much she wanted to put his meatballs into her mouth, which should give you an idea of what the writing is like). When they reconnect, they flirt. He shows her this old van in his garage. In the next shot, it’s rocking like there’s something naughty happening inside but then we see that they’re just vigorously kneading bread. Firstly, that's been done a thousand times. Secondly, she’s married. Was the idea of them getting it on spontaneously despite her being married supposed to be supposed? Was the intent to horrify the audience and they *psyche!*? I’m guessing the movie just didn’t think things through, that it never even ocurred to writer/director Bill Holderman (who co-writes with Erin Simms) that a rocking car gag was anything but mandatary.

While the actresses in Book Club: The Next Chapter raise the material, they can only do so much. Like its predecessor, this film is firmly aimed towards a specific audience of older viewers who want to see a comedy that's a little racy but not too racy. Even for them, this is a letdown. (Theatrical version on the big screen, May 12, 2023)

[pinejay]

the last shadow thoughts. i give it a solid 4/5. spoilers under the cut

i think i personally enjoyed it a lot bc the introduction of the new ramen, the ravens and keas and yachachiyruna. as a bird lover, the concept of talking birds is so fun and exciting to me. the yachachiyruna are also very compelling. the biggest disappointment was that we didn't actually get a descoladore race of sentient beings. the promise of the book was to explore the concept of this new potential ramen, and see how the characters figure out how to communicate with a group that cannot be spoken to in the traditional sense and might only communicate via genetic transfer. but the author's note at the end was pretty amusing, saying how he basically was trying to figure out how to write about the descoladore when he read some book abt birds and then went "wow birds are so cool i'm gonna write abt birds instead" lmao! like yeah i totally fucking get it!

also, while i accept the in-book explanation and discarding of the previous book's suppositions about the origins of the descolada, i do think the final conclusion of the descolada story wasn't very well built up. it was more of an afterthought and convenient tying of a bow on something that just dragged on in the background, which is a little disappointing. i definitely think it could've been better foreshadowed, the way the speaker of the dead mystery was so masterfully built up and foreshadowed, instead of just coming about as a result of a character having an idea that the other characters then go test in a lab to see if they're right.

in general i think this book was used to repair some of the poor writing or potential misunderstandings in xenocide and children of the mind. it's not a new move for card to contradict himself or show a different side of a situation in later sequels, like with the wiggin parents and how much they knew or had a hand in ender never returning to earth, as expanded upon in ender in exile and shadow of the hegemon. it's hard to tell if they're inconsistent on purpose. i want to give him the benefit of the doubt here but xenocide and children of the mind were just so painful to get through and thematically messy. i'm just glad he spends the time to clear up the fact that peter is more ender wiggin and not at all the original peter wiggin beyond the identical genetic body. the instantaneous teleportation and generation of any configuration of matter u can conceive of is also not as much a deus ex machina in this book, and doesn't make things way too easy like it did at the ends of xenocide and children of the mind. it is pretty funny that jane uses it to effectively sequester some of the characters, namely sergeant and his twin sons, out of the main plot bc they're too much of a nuisance to deal with.

as for general orson scott card writing tendencies, i guess hyper intelligent main characters will always just be an ender's game thing. but this time card almost excessively has other smart characters knock the arrogant bean grandchildren off their high horses, which is kinda funny in an ironic self deprecating authorial way. it does get to be a bit much but i can appreciate its thematic relevance. the mormon obsession with procreation was present but bearable. card simply cannot help but extrapolate the biological desire for community growth (and by extension, interplanetary expansion) to individual desire for a nuclear family. the dialogue is sometimes funny and insightful, sometimes obnoxious and overly psychoanalytical. but i would say it leaned toward funny and insightful this time, which is good.

the subplot weaving and buildup was honestly not very cohesive or elegant. idk why i get the sense that a lot of the book was just the characters standing around and talking to each other, then popping up somewhere else and standing around and talking to each other. they were just so static. but there is something weirdly compelling abt the lack of dramatic tension; maybe it made it a more relaxed reading experience. the plot development did seem a bit too dialogue driven, like the characters would literally say x character is now going to try to form an emotional bond with y character. and then the promises in the dialogue were constantly reneged upon bc the characters cannot accurately predict what happens next. so like why have them state out loud what's going to happen in the first place? it's weird, and just kinda bad writing.

the character development also seemed a bit too dialogue driven, at least in the case of peter wiggin ii. the characters say peter has ender inside him, and he just resists the idea less over time. i do like the development of thulium, even tho she's a difficult character to care abt at first, and sprout is an enjoyable character to follow. it was just hard to establish who they were in the beginning when they were all still isolated in that spaceship, i feel like their characterization was not clear. there was one point when carlotta remarked sprout argues so hard until she gives up arguing with him, which seems out of character with all his actions the entire rest of the book, and more in line with something thulium would do.

the japanese parents subplot was also so random and useless, except for when thulium visits her mother. but that reunion scene can be done entirely without the bean children going to earth to convince their spouses to come to lusitania, esp since thulium goes to her mom of her own volition. sergeant and his twin sons are entirely 2-dimensional, their presence in the book is unbearable, and the issue of their awfulness is lazily resolved. i know their entire purpose is to give context to thulium's character, but they should just be taken out of the narrative entirely. it's also pretty wild that at the end the characters just agree to never return to nest and leave the folks be and that's that. but it is their choice lol. and i did like the somewhat open ended yet conclusive ending, with everyone moving on with their lives and the relocation of the ravens and keas and yachachiyruna to their new homes.

[undertheknightwing]

Hiiii, @bilingual-beast-boy sneaking back into ur ask box to bother you again :3

I adore what you said about Crazy Jane's personas being similar to Titans Gar's 'connection' to all the animals inside him. I've been thinking about that still. I'm not sure if it was ever put in canon or not, but I think it'd be cool if, like Jane's personas, Gar's animals all wanted to protect him (but they don't always go about it in the conventional or the right way).

And that got me to thinking about how a lot more of Gar's animals have started surfacing ever since the Church of Blood cropped up, like maybe they can sense what's going on and don't want to leave Gar and the Tiger to handle it on their own (okay, the real reason is bad and inconsistent writing in terms of Gar's understanding and control of his powers, but whatever).

And maybe the reason his animals went berserk when he went to the Red for the first time in STAR Labs is they thought he was in danger. Maybe they think the Red itself is dangerous for Gar (which could be so if, unlike every other animal themed superhero, he wasn't specifically chosen by the Red). Or maybe the Red has been infected with some 'disease' or, as Gar put it in 4.03, some 'evil' that makes it dangerous. Maybe the Church of Blood is poisoning the Red to bring Trigon back, or maybe they're gonna bring him back inside the Red itself.

Anyway, there's no real point or question here; I just wanted to rant about this thought and figured I should leave it in ur ask box since you're what directly inspired it

Hii! I love hearing your thoughts!

I think you're absolutely right about Gar's animals trying to protect him but since they're wild animals, they're gonna act like wild animals no matter what. If an animal feels threatened, like its life is in danger, it's going to attack, do whatever it can to eliminate its target, even kill it because that's what animals do, especially carnivores like the Tiger.

In "Asylum" the Tiger didn't kill the doctor (or whoever he was) for fun, it and Gar were danger so it did what it had to. It saw the doctor as a threat and got rid of it for their safety, which could be why Gar was able to shapeshift back into Gar after it was done. The Tiger killed the threat, Gar is safe now, so let him return.

Same goes for the animals in STAR Labs. Of course they thought they and Gar were in danger, THEY WERE IN A LAB. Besides more than likely remembering what Niles did to them, CADMUS happened only three months ago in canon. That memory is still fresh in their and Gar's mind, and when Gar's scared or feels threatened, they fight for him. I think when Gar transported into The Red, it scared him so his fear triggered his animals protection instincts and when they saw they were in a lab, they assumed that was the problem so they tore the lab apart.

I also think they have something to do with his enhanced healing. It's interesting to me that not only did Gar need to shapeshift to bring himself back to life but he shifted into a snake of all animals. Snakes are sometimes used to symbolize healing.. just something I think about.

And for The Church of Blood sensing Gar's connection to The Red, that's correct but in a flipped way . In the comics it was actually Gar (through his connection to The Red) who could sense the pure evil in Sebastian, and I think that's what's going with The Red since it's giving Gar visions of danger. I'm very interested to see if we'll see Gar acting suspicious around Sebastian because his connection to The Red is telling him stay on guard.

As for what The Red's purpose truly is in Titans. Whether it's good, bad, somewhere in between, I don't know. Like you said, Titans is lacking on any sort of detail in Gar's story when it's not directly tied to the CoB/Trigon plot. I don't think the comics really went into depth of what it was either, besides saying it's a connection to animals. Though I do think it's magical in some way since it can open portals and has been called "an extra-dimensional source of power".

Ryan was very subtle about it but he mentioned something about Gar going through changes because of his connection to the animal kingdom and since The Red is the thing at connects Gar to animals, I think he had to say "animal kingdom" instead of "The Red" so he didn't spoil anything since this the video was recorded before the season released. I know The Red changes Beast Boy from green to red so I wonder if we'll get Gar with red hair further into the season, if he taps into The Red to battle The Church of Blood.

and one last thing I thought about, the episode "Dude, Where's My Gar" I know has to do with Gar disappearing (hence the name) and the episode after has do with another universe where Dick and Kory are Ted and Carol instead. And it made me wonder, with The Red's ability to open portals to other worlds, if Gar would accidentally sends the whole team into a different world because of an un-controllable burst of Red power when he's panicking and is scared the Titans will be harmed by the Church of Blood, or The Red opens a portal all on its own to keep Gar protected and drags him through it but Dick and Kory end up there as well because they were trying to save him. OR Church of Blood members kidnap Gar and use him to open a portal, and the Titans get taken into the world the cult opened up; leaving Gar in their world, alone with the Church of Blood.

I love all three of those ideas, they'd all make great episodes but since this is Titans were talking about, the episode won't go in any of those directions since it'd mean Gar would have to be the true focus of the episode lol

Again, thank you for sharing your thoughts! I loved writing this!

[beastofhearts]

Thor: Love and Thunder

I dont know in which moment I decided I needed to write to fully digest what I saw but it does help to get my toughts in orders, so im doing it again!

Disclaimer: I only saw the movie once, yesterday, and im reviewing it from that experience. I heard a few people saying its more enjoyable after a second watch, but I will have to wait until it is on disney plus to see if its true or not.

Now, time to start. SPOILERS AHEAD

Overall I really enjoyed his movie. I like the story, the characters, the music and the visuals (the scene on the shadow realm? BEAUTIFUL. The Omnipotent city? GLORIOUS) but I dont think the tone or dialogues are helping the story to reach its full potential. Do not get me wrong, I was expecting jokes and a comedic tone but not to this degree.

Anyway, on some scenes.

1) The narration. I understand the purpose of it. Its easy exposition, it allows us to watch the relationship between Thor and Jane and its related to the idea of myths and legends being told from parents to kids but... it breaks the movie too much for liking. The voice and dialogue doesnt help either, specially with Korg not bothering to remember Jane`s name. 

Yes, I know its referencing other actors but... what for?

2) SIF IS BACK. I havent watch Loki or Agents of Shield so I was not aware she was alive, but im so glad to see her again. Its a pity that she only has a few seconds of screentime and its reduced to a joke when Thor (a friend she hasnt seen in 8 years) finds her wounded in the battlefield. Which reminds me....

Why does Sif (An Asgardian Warrior) needs to be explained the rules on how to get to Valhalla? I understand this is actually for the audience but it just doesnt make sense for this character to be explained something that she already knows. You could have used Jane for it and it would tied her a bit more with Valhalla and her postcredits scene.

2.1) I would have cheered so much if Korg tried to take Sif to the hospital during the attack on New Asgard and she is just like: NOPE. Broke free and joined the battle. Not only would it be badass (and funny, with Korg running after her) but it would had made sense with a character that was not there when Asgard was destroyed.

3) The scene where Jane goes to fight Gorr? The look between them? It devastate me. It didnt need dialogue, it didnt need close up. It was just them... realizing this was the last time they would see each other. Brillant. I take my hat off

4) The kids fighting and many of them not being asgardians, but from other races and/or places? I love it. Its a bit kids-movie but hey, it was fun.

5) Jane's mother: what was the point on that scene?  We do not need to know where the cancer is coming from (specially knowing Jane held the Ether on her body just 3 years back -8 years total with the blip-) and I dont think we need her as a justificaton of Jane being angry or sad with her situation. Those minutes could have been used better imo.

6) Gorr`s daughter doesnt...emote. Her father is dying in front of her just to give her a second chance at life and she doesnt seems distraught, sad or anything.  Just like “Welp, time to find a new caretaker. Oh hi Thor”

7) The plot-convenience use of StormBraker`s Bifrost. It works just fine during the begginign of the movie (from the first planet to Sif and from there to New Asgard), then breaks for us to use the ship to Omnipotent City and the Shadow Realm and then magically goes back to fully working again to travel to the center of the universe + taking the kids back to New Asgard.

I love the goats and the ship is trully amazing but there should be a better way to explain all of this.

And I think thats all I have to comment! I do have a bigger question regarding the necrosword and the gods, but I will leave that for another post.

[moka-suwi]

6: Thaumosensitivity

The PPC may kill Sues, but there's a clause in the whole murder thing that lets PPC agents dispatch Mary Sues with extreme prejudice: it's like war, except the Mary Sues don't know it. — Revised Handbook of the Protectors of the Plot Continuum

“Your problem,” said Lena, “is that you’re thinking of it as getting from point Alka–” she held up the training staff as if to strike– “to point Bata.” She swung it down, the tip of the staff coming to a stop a few inches above the ground. “So you’re rushing the motion, and you’re losing strength and control.”

Mallory hummed in acknowledgement. “And what should I be doing instead?”

“For now?” The instructor held the staff back up. “Just focus on keeping the motion smooth and fluid.” As she said those words, she brought it down in a slow diagonal movement. “The speed’s gonna come with the training, not the opposite.”

Mal nodded and gave it another try, somewhat slower than before. The end of her staff struck the post a few inches below the red mark she was aiming for, which got yet another frustrated sigh out of her.

Lena, however, was smiling. “There you go, that’s already much better! Just be more mindful of the weight of the staff, don’t let it carry you away.”

“Is it really that important to be so precise when, uh, hitting someone with a big stick?” Mal replied, giving a doubtful look at the staff.

Lena’s smile widened further. “Your friend told me you got a guy in Turia with a strike to the neck, right?”

“Yeah, that’s why I’m…” A pause. “Hmm. Yeah, I see your point.”

“With enough training, next time might even be on purpose. Alright, let’s try it a few more times, and then you’re free!”

“Those things are weird,” Anis opined as they dismounted the kaiila, grabbing the recurve bow in their off hand.

“What could you possibly mean by that?” Jane replied, giving a few pats on Murderhorse’s flank.

The redhead chortled. “I’m serious! Once you get it to a gallop, it starts moving a lot more like a cat than a horse.”

“Huh. Never noticed that, but it makes sense, I guess?”

“That means the back moves a lot more,” Anis explained, holding out their hand horizontally and moving it up and down a few times. “I’ll have to adjust to that when shooting.”

Jane nodded. “I’ve seen the Tuchuk riders stand up in their stirrups a bit when they use their bows, that probably helps.”

“Probably. I’m just not really used to those either.”

“Stirrups? Seriously?”

“It’s… Legitimately hard to explain.”

Jane gave a long look at Anis. “... A lot of things are, these days.”

“I might actually keep it up,” Mal said. “A bit tired of being kind of useless in missions like these, honestly.”

Anis, in the corner of the wagon with the wash basin, didn’t bother to turn around. “ESAS has a decent training room. Agent-run, they got tired of almost dying on every mission.”

Mal slumped on the bed. “Fucks me up how they’d never even touched a weapon until like a year ago, and they’re already better at training than the PPC. I mean, I know there’s Suefluence involved, but…”

“I don’t think that’s chargeable, it’s realistic enough. We’re just that bad.” A chuckle. “At this point, I don’t think I should even touch a gun until I’ve found a proper shooting range.”

The girl hummed. “Well, I wouldn’t go that far, guns are about as point-and-click as you get.”

“Yes, that’s what they taught us.”

“Hah.”

Anis finally turned around, putting a clean shirt back on. Sitting onto the bed, they added: “By the way, I think Jane is suspecting something.”

Mal perked up. “What?”

“She finds us weird. I think we don’t fit in enough.”

“She got isekaied by aliens, and then a witch showed up. We could make up just about anything and she’d believe us.”

Anis nodded. “Fair. But we need to agree on a cover story, then.”

“Cover…” Mal pondered for a while. “Hey, well, secret mission from Earth. Figuring out what’s going on on Horny Low Fantasy Planet. It’s barely even wrong.”

“That’s an option.” Anis lay down on the bed. “I’ll let you know if I find anything better, but for now, we should sleep.”

The walls of Turia looked much smaller than the agents remembered. Perhaps a trick of perspective, but even then, they seemed of a much more reasonable size than before.

Mal opined: “She made it… Better, in a way, but that’s still space distortion, right?”

Anis nodded in answer from atop Murderhorse, alternating between checking their weapons and looking at the Words. “There’s some backstory exposition. This city apparently reminds her of another she took in her homeworld. Exploded a hole right through the walls.”

“I assume,” Mal replied with a smile, “she’s gonna do the same here?”

Another nod. “There’s also some more, uh, flirting. And more backstory. Royal heir, trained with assassins before killing them for treason, girlbossed her way into ruling a good chunk of the world, uh… Killed a god? And threatened another?”

“Let me guess, those are all mentioned for the first time right before she does something implausible?”

Anis smiled. “Some of them. But it looks consistent.”

“So it’s more like dumping an endgame D&D character into a low-level campaign,” Mal said, grinning.

Her partner took a couple seconds to respond. “Probably. But also: nerd.”

Mal laughed as Anis rode off to rejoin the archers. She then left the camp, following the infantry troops at first before walking off to a small hill, on which she lay down to somewhat conceal herself. She could see Systlin and her honor guard, fairly blurry at that distance but still recognizable, facing off with soldiers on… Raptors? Sure, why not. While her sight was what it was, her hearing had done a lot to compensate over the years, and so she focused on the conversation.

“You know full well that I lead this army.” She said bluntly. “You’ve heard the stories.” She sighed. “It makes me curious…” “Stories of trickery and nonsense about sorcery.” The man with the glittering armor said loftily. “A few villages might fall to some unnatural woman, but this is Turia. We will not be afraid of a tribe of women who think themselves the equals of men.”

Honestly pretty silly. The Sue herself commented on it, which Mal thought of as less of a self-aware moment and more of another opportunity to make herself look better by way of a DMB. Still, the raptor cavalry severely outnumbered Systlin’s, which would have probably been a problem had she not had tailor-made war-winning powers.

Indeed, Mal watched on as a cracking sound echoed through the air, and the lances of Turia’s entire front line shattered. She could feel the power from here, a terrible force that sought the flaws in the patterns of reality and spread them exponentially, rending molecules apart, a weaponized Second Law of Thermodynamics—

Focus. The enemy cavalry was panicking, and the entire force of Systlin’s army moved in for the kill, the Sue’s kaiila springing in front of her advancing troops. The way clear, she made a move toward the front lines – motion from the walls, arrows? Her course was unimpeded. She was leading from her front lines, which was extremely unrealistic for any sort of noble – probably chargeable. Systlin was supposed to be a queen, not a—

Goddess of war. Goddess of justice. The words of the goddess from the dream sequence echoed in Mal’s mind. Certainly an option to explain this, but she wasn’t sure if—

The great gates of Turia, and fifty feet of the wall to either side, crumbled into splinters and sand.

Power. Overwhelming Power. The entire hylic plane was in agony, patterns and metapatterns coming undone within the range of the blast, minds – emergent patterns of electricity, pieces of Wan Mekhane, most fragile and most precious – dissipating into a hateful local maximum of entropy, souls blinking out to—

“Marshmallow. Mallory. Please. Just listen—”

“That was a Sue!” Mallory Belford, of the Department of Floaters, gestured at the body on the ground.

Rose was shaking, wand pointed at Mal. “She wasn’t doing anything wrong!”

Mal knew Rose wouldn’t hurt her. She couldn’t. “You’ve seen what she’s done to canon! What is happening to you?”

There were tears in her partner’s eyes. “She… She was just a girl having fun with her favorite characters.”

Oh, no. The Sue had got to Rose. Lingering influence. Mal pulled out the neuralyzer. “Rose, listen, I… She’s done something to your mind. You can’t—”

A white light shone from Rose’s wand, and Mal froze in place.

This couldn’t be happening. It wasn’t happening. It—

Wait. It is not happening. This already happened. This isn’t real.

Mal found herself in a place that wasn’t. Around her were minds, hundreds of them, perhaps thousands. Immediately, her full attention turned to the one facing her.

She immediately realized who She was. Her form was different, impossible to describe in hylic terms, a divine True Form that would drive any living soul mad—

“Am… Am I dead?”

You'll get better. There was some amusement in the Lady’s voice. Your body is mostly intact, and you are… Of another.

Mal wasn’t sure if that turn of phrase was typical of the goddess, or indicative of something deeper. There were some more urgent matters, though. “Who are you, and what are you doing here?”

I am nothing but myself, Mallory Belford. What are you doing here?

There was no use in lying to a being of such Power – capitalized, as per Her own canon’s convention. Still, Mal readied her own power as she spoke.

“I am an agent of the Protectors of the Plot Continuum. You are aiding a Mary Sue in destroying the canon of Gor. This can still end peacefully, and everything return to normal.”

The Lady laughed, softly. Children. You shall not touch my sister.

Mal deployed her halo: two wings and a unicorn horn, in a shape reminiscent of a power button. Rightfully earned during the Friendship is Optimal mission. She, too, had killed a god, from a certain point of view. “Or else…?”

There's no “else”, Mallory. The Lady had adopted a softer, more calming tone.

Mal wouldn’t fall for it. “In that case…” With a ruffle of metallic wings, she manifested her Answer. The Mekhanite weapon glimmered in impossible colors as it activated. “Lady, you are charged with creating an implausible crossover, with bringing magic to a continuum which canonically has none, with enabling a Godmode Sue as she conducts a targeted attack on canon, and with harming an agent of the PPC.” She pointed the Answer at the goddess, ready to deploy. “The sentence is death.”

Point and click, Saint.

“Bang! Bang!” Mal shouted, moving the thumb on her finger gun for emphasis.

A beat. “What the hell?”

The Lady laughed again. Mal had the distinct impression that She lowered Herself down to speak to her. I make the rules here. And when I say you shouldn’t be here, I mean it.

Mal awoke on a soft surface. She abruptly sat up, scanning her surroundings. The Ubara Sana’s camp, a circular area cleared for battlefield injuries. She was on a stretcher, and next to her was a woman, presumably a medic. She put a hand on Mal’s shoulder.

“Wait! Calm down. Mal. It’s okay, you’re safe.”

Mal blinked. “What…” Ow fuck. Pain, which only got worse with a coughing fit. Broken rib, dislocated?

The medic answered the question she couldn’t ask. “Cavalry brought you in, said you had a seizure. Then, uh… Let’s just say we’re glad you’re still with us.”

The agent’s hands reached up to her face, and she sighed in relief as she felt her glasses. Her voice dropped to a whisper, to minimize the pain. “Fuck. I… I need to get back to my wagon.”

The other woman’s tone got sterner. “You’re not going anywhere just yet, young lady. Just lie down here for a few hours until we’re sure you won’t… Until we’re sure you’re okay.”

Mal knew she would be, but she couldn’t exactly argue with that. She would have to wait to get the answers to her questions.

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