#'Ah shit here we go again' Nats war flashback

[juergenklopp]

“You’re a loser fucking organization. Every single one of you.” – one-armed Bryce Harper about to flip the (Jake) Bird 

BRYCE HARPER @ Colorado Rockies (May 14, 2023)

[thessalian]

Thess vs TLoVM Ep 12

Okey-doke, here we go, finale time! I should note that the only reason I’m able to do this is that I finally have a halfway decent desk chair because this would be painful otherwise and I’d be over on the sofa, whimpering. (I have fibromyalgia and chronic sinusitis, and my neck of the woods has been hit with two back-to-back storms the last few days; the barometric pressure drop triggered both. Yay.) But I do have a halfway decent desk chair, so let’s do this.

Before we even start, who wrote this? Brandon Auman (more Marvel, TMNT, and ... ooh, Star Wars: Resistance!) ... and Sam Riegel. I may have to hug him too.

Oh for fuck’s sake, Percthax.

Go, Cassandra!

Oh, dear. Hello, Craven Edge.

Oh, cutting the intro sequence was a good move.

Ah, Scanlan. He tries. That’s as much levity as they could probably fit into there, what with the desperation and all.

Oh, the fucking GRIN as he puts the mask on is scarier than the fucking mask itself!

Well, it’s about time they figured out that Pike doesn’t talk about shit “clouding people’s souls” like it ain’t no thing. Next time? LISTEN TO THE SERVANT OF THE EVERLIGHT SO DETERMINED TO HELP YOU THAT SHE ASTRALLY PROJECTS TO YOUR LOCATION TO KICK VAMPIRE ASS! ...okay? Okay.

...HOOOOOOOOLY FUCK. I didn’t think “Take the mask off, darling” could get any better but HOOOOOOOOLY FUCK. Also, that takes that “Percy’s shadow pointing the gun to Percy’s head” thing to a whole new foreshadowing place - just not a place Orthax would want it to go. Nicely done, writing team.

And this would be Taliesin’s nat 20 to resist Orthax that ended up with Percy exorcising Orthax through sheer force of will. Which is nice that they did that.

(Also, quick aside for you FFXIV players - when I was first catching up with CR Campaign 1, I’d watched the Orthax thing a couple of months previous and @true0neutral was more or less right in the middle of it right as we were going through the endgame of the MSQ of ARR - so the base game where Taliesin was voicing Thancred. Whose name I struggle to remember because when we found out that Lahabrea was possessing Thancred, and was basically Black Smoke Dude, we remembered what Taliesin said during this whole sequence and said, in unison as we were approaching the Lahabrea boss fight, “...Therapy!” Thereafter, even though Taliesin wasn’t voicing Thancred anymore, we didn’t call him Thancred; we called him ‘Therapy’, in Taliesin’s honour. The fact that Thancred went Gunblade has done nothing to change my mind about that one, even though I don’t play FFXIV anymore.)

Oh, this whole mindscape thing is fucked up and I love it. Give me the symbolism mixed with flashback. If you ever wondered what angst I crave? This. This is it.

Holy HELL they did things with Orthax on the visual end that I hadn’t even considered. I may or may not have nightmares tonight. THANKS FOR THAT.

(No, seriously, thank you. If I worried about nightmares, I wouldn’t fall asleep on the sofa to creepy Korean horror at 3am. Nightmares are fine.)

So ... it’s Matt voicing Orthax, right? ‘Cos IMDB is failing me again. *checks X-Ray View* Yep. Matt. IMDB, GET. YOUR. SHIT. TOGETHER. Matt deserves every single kudos for this. Every last one. He refined that shit since Campaign 1. Seriously. Nightmares.

(My players are probably not thanking you. Nightmares are just another source of inspiration for campaigns for me. My players both like that and really don’t, because that’s the nature of torturing the people you made up inside your head, and then handing those tortured people you made up inside your head over to experts for more torture.)

And the barrel spins and ... ooooooooooooh fucking hell. This got darker than it was originally. And it was fucking dark to begin with. Just the thought of those empty barrels filling with names of his loved ones before anyone else, just because they ‘stood in his way’... AAAAAAAAAA.

Okay, I saw quasi-spoilers about the Desmond thing being a foreshadow but tried not to pay any attention and I see it now and also OWWWWWWWW FUCK. Do you know how many bones he just shattered?!? OW OW OW OW.

“Yes, well, thank you for not dying”. He’s had more arrows in him than a porcupine has quills and was still cracking heads; great line, exactly because of how ludicrous and yet heartfelt it is.

Yeah, they had a ‘violence and foul language’ warning on this. They ... do know that ‘gore’ is a category all its own, right? Just saying - ‘gore’ belongs there. I mean, that’s ... a throat wound. A big one. That only appropriately bled because she’d lost so much to bullet wounds already. I mean, deserved, but DAYUM.

...I wonder what would have happened if Percy had been able to feed Delilah to Orthax? To her various clones, I mean.

Oh, Cassandra, clean off your fucking blade.

Okay, Scanlan, yes - now is the time we need your antics, thank you. I needed that laugh so much.

“Do you know how much that cost? How long it will take me to make ano--” OH SHIT yeah thanks for that. I’m so glad I wasn’t taking a sip of coffee at that point it would have gone entirely down the wrong pipe and I’d have to clean caffeinated bean water with sugar off two monitors, a speaker and probably the carpet.

Oh good, Whitestone has survivors! Does someone want to cut Goliath-Minion down?

Thank you for showing us that Scanlan is an equal opportunity lover! We didn’t have confirmation of that from Sam until the Love Potion Incident! Also OUCH Vax; come on, don’t be a cock-blocker. Lesser Restoration exists for a reason, right?

Aww. “We live as long as Whitestone lives” in a new and ... very good context.

Awwwwwwwwwww. And they managed to get in a reference to “And I walk away”. Ow, though. I mean, ow. Then again, given what’s coming, that ain’t gonna last long.

Okay, we don’t have Keyleth nearly getting her hand ripped off; we have an added warning that didn’t make it to the warning screen. That would not just be ‘violence’ or even ‘gore’. That transcends into fucking ‘body horror’.

N’aww. Just a lot of n’aww.

Oop! I can kind of hear, “Sun-Tree, A-Okay!” in my head. Which is nice. It doesn’t have to be there for me to have it there when appropriate.

Hello, Diplomacy!

Yes, Jarrett. EXCELLENT TIMING. That was gonna get ... long.

Oh gods, GILMORE.

Oh. The proclamation. Oh shit. Oh shit.

Okay, I do like this speech better.

Oh, so they’ll ensure that Emon stands ‘forever’, hmm? Well, Vex’s reaction says you’ve got maybe two more minutes.

So that was an epic shot to end on. Hooooooboy. So clearly we’re going directly into the Chroma Conclave arc for Season 2, then. Like, right the fuck away. Like, immediately. I mean, I guess the Fall of Emon is the ultimate icebreaker. Literally, given Vorugal...

So when’s Season 2 coming out? Well, article on HITC (which lists TLoVM as “anime” which is weird and possibly appropriative but I do know that those genre news sites are a little weird about their categorisation sometimes) says it’s definitely confirmed but no one’s given a date yet. BOO.

So ... that’s the end of that. For now. I want more, but I can be patient. Animators and voice actors and post-production people need time to work. So when I whine that it’s not there yet, I don’t really think they should go faster than they can tolerate; I just ... want it.

And I might talk a little more about specific elements later. Like, in terms of narrative structures, voice acting, etc. But for now I’ll leave it at “thank you for coming to my liveblog, and be grateful that you’re not my neighbour because most of the block-capital HOLY FUCK etc was ... literal. Like, out loud”. Then again, it’s barely gone 8pm and my neighbours across the corridor can suck it up because they keep making our end of the corridor reek of weed so they can handle my profanity.

[mianmimi]

Dude, you have the junior novel? Give us the good stuff! I actually love the novelizations because they're script-based, so you get to see what was an ad lib and what got cut. I get the feeling that most of the beautiful gay shit was purely Chiwetel and that Mordo in script is just a charmless str8 tough guy tbh lmao

This is going to take a while Nonny so buckle up and let’s go! I can’t outright screencap the novel cause of copyright so I’ll just write out brief summaries of things that were omitted from the film.

When Stephen is taking that fateful drive and making a phone call, the movie has him talking to Billy. In the novelization he’s talking with…..Claire. Now it’s not specifically stated that this is Claire Temple but like, come on. They both work at Metro-General, she’s a nurse, and nurses often float from one department to another. Also doesn’t that make you wonder if she and Christine met? :D *eyebrow wiggle*

We’ve all seen the deleted scene of Stephen and the wounded dog (that looks just like him, I see what you did there Scott Derrickson). But what didn’t make it to the screen was the scene before that. Stephen’s asking around for where KT is and Mordo notices him. Stephen comes across a kid begging for money. Stephen gives him the last bit of his money for directions to KT. Kiddo points to a direction. Stephen makes a snide remark. Kiddo speaks in English and tells Stephen that he’s the beggar not him, making Stephen smile. It’s a cute little scene but I understand why it was cut. Makes me wonder if he was part of KT and gets kicks giving different directions to people seeking it out, only giving the correct directions if the person parts with the last of their money. Just another headcanon. Who knows?

And now we get to Mordo’s great appearance. And he’s rather pissed D: Like he doesn’t come off as the calm, gentle Mordo we see on screen. He’s described as being uncomfortable talking with Stephen, and he looks annoyed with Stephen’s comments, even glaring at him. He’s more business minded here and doesn’t really give off that compassionate, soft spoken vibe when we first see him.

When Stephen gets a room he thinks the book on the table is…well, a book. But really it’s just a tablet in a case that looks like a book. KT’s keeping up with the times.

There’s a sweet little paragraph just describing a tree in the courtyard, and Stephen realizing it’s been forever since he noticed how beautiful flowers are. Idk, it was just really sweet and spoke to how Stephen’s now appreciating things he didn’t before.

Wong! Ah! Wong my man, Wong! He’s described as being a large man, a stern teacher who watches his students like a hawk as they train. Very drill sergeant like. Stephen’s one of his students, and Stephen’s trying to copy the other students trying to conjuring runes. He’s scared of Wong hahaha. Intimidated. Thinks that Wong’s powerfully built beneath those robes (Yes for you Worange otp-ers, that’s pretty much directly from the book….Stephen think’s Wong’s BUILT) Also, Stephen knows that Wong’s not someone you mess with. He too, glares at Strange.

Wong judges Stephen. Glaring, staring, eyes narrowing, his motions revealing that he’s annoyed with Stephen saying he’s already read through the books he was given. Pretty much says that Stephen isn’t funny.

This part hurt me nonnies….Mordo looked embarrassed when Stephen couldn’t conjure the portal with a sling ring while The Ancient One was assessing the students. He felt like a bad teacher for Stephen’s inability to make a portal ;___;

Super cute confirmation that the Everest Test is a favorite teaching method of The Ancient One. Mordo doesn’t like it. This part is more in line with the characterization we see on film. He was about to go save Stephen but TAO makes it clear that he won’t lift a finger. When Stephen finally returns he looks at TAO with a ton of anger and wanted to rant but he was too happy that he conjured a portal that he doesn’t.

GUYS. NONNIES. The classic training scene…..occurs with Mordo removing his shirt, leaving his entire torso exposed to Stephen. Our baby baron has a lot of scars on his skins though :( And Stephen noticed bullet wounds. Like the fuck right? And Stephen wonders what Mordo’s backstory is cause…that’s a lot of story written on his skin.

Oh god I wish I could screencap this cause man oh man….Stephen and Karl’s training is laced with a lot of flirting. It’s probably meant to be playful banter but like…I’m reading it with my shipper heart and I’m gonna say it’s flirting. Stephen asks questions about TAO and Mordo makes up these obviously silly answers like she was born from the tree thousands of years ago. Stephen actually believes him and Mordo LAUGHS and tell him he’s just kidding, only to tell Stephen another obvious lie that TAO was a hitchhiker who wandered in and never left. Once again, Stephen falls for it and once again Mordo’s…giddy XD And yes, he’s still shirtless while all this is going on.  Mordo teases him, while smiling, saying “Look at you, Doctor I-Don’t-Believe-in-Fairytales- ready now to believe anything I say!” I haven’t done sources in forever but that’s the direct line from the book, not mine.

While teaching Stephen about relics and simultaneously beating him up, Mordo and him are joking and laughing and just having a very good time ^^ They speculate what TAO’s actual name is. Stephen believes she looks like an Elizabeth. Mordo beats him in the sparring session and ends it by saying that she looks like a Catherine. Of note, fanon’s headcanon that Karl loves romances seems to have made a weird retroactive cameo her. Elizabeth Bennet and Catherine Earnshaw are the heroines of Pride and Prejudice and Wuthering Heights respectively, novels that people have headcanoned are among Karl’s favorites.

The novelization ends right after Stephen messes with the Eye and Kaecilius attacks the London Sanctum, so unfortunately we never get a description of Mordo and Stephen’s argument or Mordo leaving. The novel’s also structured oddly with a lot of flashbacks. One chapter has the time moving forward and the next one talks about what happened to lead Strange in the past. Weird but kinda fitting for the time theme.

I also have another novelization called…*deep breath* Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War: The Heroes’ Journey (Road to Infinity War). Yes my dear nonnies, that’s the entire title. Whew. It’s a long book and honestly I was only really interested in the DS section. I think they complied a bunch of other novelizations together into this big one. What I like about this book is that it’s told through the pov of side characters. Like Captain America’s section is told through Natasha’s pov. I did read this section and it made me really feel for her :( I think they kinda did her an injustice on screen. Nat’s got a very big heart y’all, and she loves Steve. Not in a romantic sense either. The vibe I get is more that of siblings/really great friends, and she wants his happiness so much.

But anyways, back to DS things…..Wong is the pov character for the DS section. He journals to unwind and de-stress, it’s his major coping skill so to speak. He rips out pages in his journal in a rage when he gets stuck or doesn’t feel like it’s good enough. Relatable as fuck. It’s heavily implied that he and Mordo were really good friends and gossiped about Stephen. So yeah, Wong knows a lot about Mordo and understands how dangerous he can be when hurt. I think Worange fans should check this novel out as it has Stephen constantly trying to make Wong smile and Wong being very -__- about it at first but slowly warming up to him :)