#Doctor Who has always been my franchise of choice because it is about KINDNESS

[khruschevshoe]

You know what really gets me about Eleven’s run? Is that it starts off with an amazing thesis statement in the Beast Below which I think sums up the Doctor as a character more than any other line ever has. "What if you were really old, and really kind, and the last of your kind?...All of that pain and misery and loneliness, and it just made it kind."

Yes, sometimes the Doctor needs to be reminded of that fact, as when Amy has Liz 10 hit the abdication button, but the Doctor is kind. He is the man that cheered that "just this once, everyone lives" and was a "coward not killer anyday" and flung away a gun and even after the Time Lord Victorious arc, died to save a single man from dying from radiation. The Doctor and his companions bring out the worst in each other, yes, but they also bring out the best.

And then comes along The Girl Who Waited and the God Complex, which are just an extension of Let's Kill Hitler and eventually Angels Take Manhattan, which are all about how the Doctor takes people as companions because he needs someone to worship him, that he can't bear to see them age and would rather see them young and beautiful, that he is vain, that he is cruel, that he is a god, and I get that interpretation but at the end of the day, the Doctor has never been about vanity or worship or needing someone to keep him in check.

Because yes, companions have reminded him the importance of being kind as part of what is "necessary." The importance of having hope. But it's just that: a reminder. The Doctor is unlike the Master and unlike the rest of the Time Lords because he is compassionate. Because he hates to see children cry. Because he is a coward who is nonetheless brave enough to keep caring, over and over again, no matter how many people die in front of him, no matter how many times he loses those he loves, because the Doctor is a love story as much as it is a ghost story at the end of the day.

And it kills me that the main themes/character arcs of Eleven’s era boil down the Doctor to someone who is not that. Someone who, as the Power of Three ending/Angels Take Manhattan imply, had to have the Ponds to keep him in check. That he could not let them go, could not respect them and their choices like Ten did with Martha. That an entire religion formed itself, kidnapping a child and making her into an assassin, just to stop him from ruining the universe, because he is a god more than a man. That he is a god just like the minotaur, feeding off of people's faith in him, taking children and companions so that he can be nourished, so that he can feel important.

Because even at the Doctor's worst in the Time Lord Victorious Arc, it has never been about worship. It was about grief and loss and love and compassion, because the Doctor has two hearts because he has too much love to fill just one, because that is the kind of person that the Doctor is.

All of that pain and misery and loneliness, and it just made him kind.

[thegeminisage]

STAR TREK UPDATE TIME. saturday we did voy's "basics part ii" and "flashback," and last night we did voy's "the chute" and "the swarm." not really last night changed bc i am writing this at fuck o clock its going up tmrw w/o me but w/e

basics part ii:

this one was fine. or rather the a-plot of this was boring, the b-plot fucking ruled

like, what do i care about the surface of this planet? ik there's a whole season that happens after this, nobody important is gonna die. even the critter was no that interesting

also, FUCK the baby not really being chakotay's. i was so fucking devastated. i wanted him to have a little guy sooo bad. they gave it to me and then snatched it away. imagine how he must feel...the whole ship in danger to save the kid that wasn't really his, and two people DIED in the process. the a-plot was terrible.

but ohhh the doctor and lon suder taking on the kazons alone. mwah.

first of all, what a match-up. the doctor can't be killed or harmed, not really, not the way suder used to enjoy hurting people. so that puts them on totally even terms

secondly, the fact that suder FINALLY almost overcame his violent impulses and now he has no choice BUT to give into them for a cause greater than his own needs (to have peace with himself)...that's juicy stuff. his struggle when he came back after killing that one guy was absolutely incredible.

finally, i love that out of any two people who could be stuck on voyager, you get the idea that these two people had the best chance of doing what they did. like the doctor is quite literally PART of the computer that runs the ship, and suder has all the violent impulses of his former life now combined with tuvok's methodical nature and his own hard-earned patience. truly a force to be reckoned with. it doesn't really push your suspension of disbelief when he takes out all those guys at once because part of him has been waiting to do that for a looong time

genuinely i'm only disappointed they killed him...a character like this could have EASILY been a regular. i'll miss him so much

flashback:

I LOVED THIS ONE.......

the undiscovered country was not my favorite tos movie by far (it ranks near the bottom actually) but i wish i had skimmed it at least before watching this. the movie footage being there was so so fun, and JANICE RAND! i'm always so happy to see her turn up, she deserved so much better, even if most of her tos scenes did annoy me to death

anyway, imagine being in a show and 30 years later they are calling you on the phone asking if you would like to do another episode of the show. star trek really is so unique in that regard, very few franchises have that same kind of staying power. m*rvel who? get the fuck out of here.

i looooooved getting more of tuvok's backstory. i think it's really hilarious that spock's parents almost disowned him when he joined starfleet but after that vulcan parents are like pressuring their kids to join to be more like him. poor spock and poor tuvok i wish they could have met onscreen just once

janeway in the old uniform!!!!!!!! she looked amazing

mixed feelings about janeway's speech about how things were different in the tos era and that's why sometimes they didn't do the prime directive. actually, it's funny because i got a little huffy at her "they were quicker to reach for their phasers" comment like GIRL NO THEY WEREN'T and then like the very next day i watched "taste of armageddon" where kirk did immediately start blasting because the disintegration chambers triggered his tarsus iv trauma and had to reluctantly forgive her

that said. spock mention.

the chute:

something lgbt happened on star trek voyager...i don't ship this couple because i'm still kirby with a gun re: tom paris, but i'm incredibly happy for people who do. i think about how i would have been if this had been chakotay and janeway instead (besdie myself) and i just KNOW the harry/tom shippers were eating

i wish harry kim got more to do...he had a little more this time but his solo scenes didn't have much meat to them, it was his scenes w tom paris that really stood out

and like i didn't hate those scenes, but the "shitty hellhole prison" plot itself also kind of bored me, because we just saw a far superior version of this happen to o'brien on ds9 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and to me one half of tom/harry is kinda boring and never gets his chance to shine, and the other is eternally on probation for being too annoying in season 1. so i had a hard time staying invested

that said it was very fun when janeway came down through the hole guns blasting. now who's playing cowboy, captain?

the swarm:

this was another one where the a-plot sucked and the b-plot ruled

i know janeway doesn't wanna add another 15 months, but man, come ON...it was very dumb not to go around. it was even dumber to not go around WHILE YOUR DOCTOR WAS BROKEN. take a few days to fix him and THEN go. also WHAT HAPPENED TO HER IDEALS? the showrunner really needed to keep this shit straight this was wildly out of character for her. that plus constantly brushing off kes...not her finest episode tbqh

the doc losing his memory was great though. kes is SO kind to advocate for him as she does and she and b'elanna were just great in general. kes even gave him a little kissy!! treat him really niceys: the episode

the other doctor hologram was really funny too although his usage of the "it" pronoun made me flash back to my rage when people did that to data during tng

it was actually so true to life how people with dementia act...kes did a great job of keeping him calm until the end :(

and the humming!!! i can't believe they left it there, but i suppose the implication is he gets it all back. and what a breath-taking spot to end it, honestly

TONIGHT: ds9's "apocalypse rising" and voy's "false profits" (i read the summary and good god someone HELP me)

[lonesomedreamer]

SNW Liveblog Stray Observations: “Lost in Translation”

I’m going out on a limb to say that this episode is one of the best SNW has ever done. But…

I just like to look at him.

…that’s not saying a lot, and it would’ve been much better without their bland, store-brand version of Jim Kirk.

“It’s the shiniest gas station I’ve ever seen.” Presumably Ortegas has never seen a gas station, since it’s the 23rd century…

I should be so excited to see my favorite character of the entire franchise—but every time Paul!Kirk shows up, I just feel…apathetic.

Do we need a pointless rivalry between the Kirk brothers? And since when does Jim Kirk—“in his class you think or you sink,” “a stack of books with legs,” “absolutely grim [as a cadet],” whose two best friends/soul mates are a scientist and a doctor, respectively—seem like the kind of guy who would disparage someone (much less his own brother!) for “wallowing in a science lab”?!

I think it’s cute that Spock wants to tell Starfleet that he’s fraternizing with his colleague, because it shows that he’s serious about their relationship! But of course we have to have drama one episode into said relationship instead…

Blood and body horror for shock value. On-brand for this show.

Even Uhura, a mere ensign, has huge quarters. They look as big as Spock’s (a lieutenant) and the first officer’s!

“I’m the communications officer.” Sorry, Ensign Uhura is the communications officer? Since when?? Technically, ensigns are officers—but afaik no Trek character ranked lower than lieutenant has ever been at the head of an entire section/division. For obvious reasons.

SNW has a huge budget, but zero extras. This Enterprise always feels like it’s got a crew compliment of maybe 20, not 200+.

An extremely bad CG body flying through space is not what I expected from this show, but…

“You’re like a space hippie.” Again with the twentieth-century language/references…

This is fairly classic Trek/scifi fare. I’m okay with it.

Not such a fan of the rushed climax and resolution, though—Pike acts without consulting his science officer or, indeed, any member of the science division at all. It’s not that Uhura’s untrustworthy! But as far as he knows, she’s on medical leave for exhaustion so severe it’s causing her to hallucinate. He nevertheless agrees to demolish a huge new processing plant for a resource vital to spaceflight immediately and on her word alone.

A totally shoehorned-in meet-cute for Kirk and Spock. I have mixed feelings.

This episode was fine. Serviceable—which I think is the highest praise I’m ever going to have for SNW. There’s plenty of nonsense (references to gas stations, hostility between the Kirk brothers/the canon-defying implication that their parents are alive, Uhura somehow being communications officer as an ensign, Pike consulting exactly 0 members of his science team about a scientific matter), but it was still fine. It had some nice imagery and a classic Trek moral. It even almost remembered that Number One is supposed to be a main character.

Good: a decent Spockstine scene—a pretty nebula—Number One actually gets some screentime—a reminder that Kirk is better at chess than Spock—a solid, if unoriginal, scifi story*—Uhura’s always good, and some Uhura/Kirk? I wasn’t expecting it, but I’ll take it (even if Kirk leaves a lot to be desired)!—I kind of like Pelia, sorry

Bad: some dialogue’s still cringe—pointless gore/scary imagery—Kirk family drama—Pike being sidelined AND being bad at his job—Paul Wesley’s Kirk overall (performance, characterization, and him being there at all)**

*As usual, even for a solid SNW episode, TOS did it better (“The Devil in the Dark”).

**Kirk’s not needed here! Literally any other member of the main cast could’ve served the same narrative purpose (the much-neglected Number One seems like a good choice, or Christine, or even M’Benga) with no loss to the episode as a whole. They’ve now made him central in two episodes of what’s supposed to be Pike’s show, though they don’t seem to know how to write Pike effectively, either, since he now spends more time in the kitchen than the captain’s chair. They also have no idea how to write Kirk—the writers are leaning way too heavily on the pop culture version of Kirk, the cocky “cool guy” AOS Kirk. (“Records are made to be broken,” really?) They need to go back and watch some episodes of TOS!

So, yeah. It’s fine when it could’ve been good. But honestly, 16 episodes in, I’ve learned that that describes this show pretty well.

[iridescent-honey]

Mysterion characterization

In my opinion, he is one of the most mischaracterized people in the hero franchise.

He is often portrayed as an angsty, edgy, and a ruthless antihero.

Although I can see how that conclusion is come to, here are my thoughts:

*TL;DR at the bottom in red*

*This information is coming from both the game and show, if I can find direct clips, I will show them*

I used the word anti hero, allow me to elaborate on that briefly. For anyone unaware, an antihero is described as “a central character in a story, movie, or drama who lacks conventional heroic attributes.” I would also describe it as someone who is fighting for good while being uncaring/unhelpful to others if it means the majority of the public is helped. Note that the definition of what an antihero is varies from person to person. Poorly characterized antiheroes are written as villains who are part of the hero’s team for some unknown reason.

The first episode we see Mysterion in is in S13E2, he is seen as a rival to The Coon, however he does not view himself that way, in his eyes, he is helping because that’s what he should do, not to spite Cartman.

I think this episode is often forgotten when people view him as an anti hero. We see him expose his identity and putting himself in danger to not have citizens caught in The Coon’s attempt at blackmail. Not my exact idea of an antihero however I digress.

Spoilers for the the game

In the game, the entirety of freedom pals aren’t introduced until the halfway point, however Mysterion, Wonder Tweek, and Tuppaware are introduced very early as opposition. After a lovers quarrel between Tweek and Craig, Doctor Timothy have an argument causing the two factions to fight. Craig is a mandatory player on your team.

While you fight the Freedom Pals, Tweek is the one doing the most talking (I say Tweek because it is very out of character for Wonder Tweek). Throwing insult after insult at Craig, even when the insults aren’t at him directly, Craig respondes as though they were. Tuppaware is not to important, he does his job and fights you, nothing too noteworthy there. But this is about Mysterion so I’ll move on.

In this fight, nearly every time you attack him or his teammates, he responds with how we are only being used by The Coon and we can do better than the Coon and Friends franchise. Also, note that when the opposition show interest in attacking Wonder Tweek he appears fearful, Tuppaware looks disgusted, but Mysterion appears surprised? Disappointed? I’m not quite sure but it’s definitely different than the rest of the Freedom Pals’s reaction. (I know how pointless it may seem to analyze the facial expression when they’re drawn, well, like that. But also consider this! I don’t care.) The best way I could describe it is as being upset/disappointed that that he is being attacked. It is my belief that this is because he doesn’t want to fight. This is countered by the fact that he is a relentless fighter. The only time he isn’t is stated before: the first time you fight him.

The second time however is a different story, he attacks you ruthlessly. He gives you one chance at the beginning of the of the fight, saying that “Fighting Doctor Timothy is a mistake beyond your comprehension.” But afterwards makes no attempts to help you, instead changing to his one liners.

This is another thing I need to talk about. I have a post made for the future where I talk about way too many of his quotes but I’ll summarize it for you.

Being angsty

Being ruthlessly

Being dark

Being concerned for his teammates

Cheering his teammates on

There are some more types but these are the most important because a lot of his lines are dark, angsty, and ruthless and tend to overshadow his other quotes. The appeal to throw in the towel and say that he’s an antihero would be very easy but I truly don’t see it. Despite his quotes he isn’t as angsty in most parts and is seen being distressed for other teammates and trying to help whoever he can.

I believe that he says his quotes only to scare the opposition. When he interacts with his teammates and civilians he stops the angsty-ness and acts as a protector. In my opinion, an antihero would not care about their perception, if the job gets done that’s all that matters. But clearly Mysterion doesn’t abide by those rules.

Although alignment charts are a gross oversimplification for explaining characterization but I think it is a very simple way to explain it. On the character sheets, the alignment is more simplified and only allows lawful, neutral or evil. He describes himself as lawful but that is not a proper alignment. I am still torn on his alignment but I will show three alignments definitions then my thoughts.

Definitions

Lawful Good

A lawful good character acts as a good person is expected or required to act. They combine a commitment to oppose evil with the discipline to fight relentlessly. They tell the truth, keep their word, helps those in need, and speaks out against injustice. A lawful good character hates to see the guilty go unpunished.

Lawful good is the best alignment you can be because it combines honor and compassion.

Lawful good can be a dangerous alignment when it restricts freedom and criminalizes self-interest.

Lawful Neutral

A lawful neutral character acts as law, tradition, or a personal code directs them. Order and organization are paramount to them. They may believe in personal order and live by a code or standard, or they may believe in order for all and favor a strong, organized government.

Lawful neutral is the best alignment you can be because it means you are reliable and honorable without being a zealot.

Lawful neutral can be a dangerous alignment when it seeks to eliminate all freedom, choice, and diversity in society.

Neutral Good

A neutral good character does the best that a good person can do. They are devoted to helping others. They work with kings and magistrates but do not feel beholden to them.

Neutral good is the best alignment you can be because it means doing what is good without bias for or against order.

Neutral good can be a dangerous alignment when it advances mediocrity by limiting the actions of the truly capable.

*I did not add lawful evil because it is so wildly out of character there is no point in talking about it.*

Breaking it down

Lawful Good

A lawful good character acts as a good person is expected or required to act.

Mysterion shows himself to be a good person without wanting payment many times. Most notably when he reveals his identity to prevent harm to other citizens, and when he shows kindness and hope to the player despite the character and their teammates showing none back.

They combine a commitment to oppose evil with the discipline to fight relentlessly.

The commitment to fight evil seems self explanatory so I will not acknowledge that, what I will elaborate on is the “discipline to fight relentlessly”. Earlier in the post, I explain how he seems to not want to fight but does so fiercely. This explains it. He is the calmest out of the heroes at nearly all times, the only time this is false is when a teammate is unjustly injured. While he does get angry, he is never seen actively trying to start a fight, but he will always end one.

They tell the truth, keep their word, helps those in need, and speaks out against injustice.

Throughout the series and the game, he never lies, however, he is never asked to tell the truth and I’m hesitant on saying that the lack of evidence is evidence. Despite that he does keep his word, his promise to protect his city, and promise to protect Karen are always fulfilled. When the Coon acts against the group, Mysterion is quick to shut him down.

A lawful good character hates to see the guilty go unpunished.

In the game, he tells us multiple times that being a hero is ugly. That the merciless don’t deserve mercy. He has made it clear that he is the bringer of karma.

Lawful Neutral

A lawful neutral character acts as law, tradition, or a personal code directs them.

Mysterion is an upholder of morals. His own ethics pave how he reacts and behaves. For the most part, he follows the law very closely, but he will break off and actions will become unforgiving if the person deserves it.

Order and organization are paramount to them. They may believe in personal order and live by a code or standard…

His origin as Mysterion was to organize the town through peace and to help stop crime. He tries to keep his team peaceful and succeeds when part of freedom pals. When the franchise was whole, the Coon could break his peaceful exterior.

or they may believe in order for all and favor a strong, organized government.

This is the most difficult to defend. Yes, he does feed information to the police, but only when they are passive crimes. When active crimes occur, he attempts to deal with the issue himself.

Neutral Good

This is not in line with his personal alignment identity, but this seems the most plausible. Allow me to elaborate:

A neutral good character does the best that a good person can do.

This has been explained in many places throughout this post and so I do not feel the need to repeat it.

They are devoted to helping others.

Once again, Mysterion is constantly seen putting others first: revealing his identity, handling Hindsight by himself, and risking his life and immortality to save them from Cthulhu.

They work with kings and magistrates but do not feel beholden to them.

This feels more natural than the last explanation for lawful neutral. He works with the cops in certain situations but is quick to work by himself or with his teammates if needed.

The alignments have been broken down and the evidence has been laid out, feel free to make your own decision.

TL;DR

Mysterion is not a dark antihero, he is a vigilante, a defender of peace, and beacon of hope to his citizens. He puts the needs and safety of others before himself.

Alignment possibilities: lawful good, lawful neutral, neutral good.

[fantasyinvader]

Beat Binding Blade tonight

So, right off the bat I'm going to admit. I abused the arena and save states. This is a really, really hard game. And while I enjoyed it, I'm going to give three things I didn't like about it.

1)Enemy reinforcements arrive at the end of the player phase, and can attack during the enemy phase. That is unfair, especially when I assume that parking a unit on the spawn point will prevent them (It doesn't) or my healer just happens to be in the area. I like difficult games, but when I fail at something in those I want to feel like it's my fault for doing so. When I die in Bloodborne or lose a unit in Fates Conquest, I'm willing to accept it because I felt it was fair (plus I'll just restart the chapter in Conquest anyway). I could have not died if I had played a little better. This game was not fair when it did that.

2)The supports. A lot of the stuff about the characters is locked away in their supports, since this is one of the old Fire Emblems where it throws units your way because it's assuming you didn't reset the game when one died. They don't get cutscenes to be important, and with only five supports per character (barring if one dies, then any unit that had supports with gets those supports back). And even then, getting an A rank doesn't pair up any units except for Roy. So you don't get to play love doctor here, it's only really there for the stat boosts. But in the case of my boy, he needs those supports in order for his character to fully come through.

3)I can take 8 units into the final battle, and they're the only ones who get full ending cards. Everyone else just gets a single line. Kinda weak if I use someone like Fir for most of the game, but bench her at the end to give Rutget Durandal.

Even with my cheating, I still enjoyed this game. Mostly for the story. When Fire Emblem first appeared in Smash Brothers Melee, as a kid it instantly caught my attention. Roy and Marth just looked so cool with their swords and armor (true fact: My favorite design for Link is the Skyward Sword design, simply because it has chainmail under the tunic. I get it, the tunic is iconic but SS's Link just looks practical), and I preferred Roy because I though his fully-charged shield breaker hurting him was cool. I even keep a Cipher card of his in my wallet for good luck. I wanted to know what Fire Emblem was, what kind of game it was. My friend showed me a screenshot of the upcoming GBA game in Nintendo power, which I got for the following Christmas (sadly, I didn't get Sacred Stones as I got a PS2 the following year). I loved that game, but the idea that I was playing as Roy's father always was a bit of a sour point for me. It's because of that game when I got a 2DS a decade later, because I wanted to game but kept getting pulled away from my console, I eventually went back to Fire Emblem.

And, I'm going to admit, Binding Blade hurt me because I played Blazing Blade first. It really did. I mean, Hector dies early on, Lyn is presumably dead hell a lot of my old comrades probably died in this war, Eliwood's wife dies shortly after they are married while Eliwood is more useless than ever, the kid I saved in Bern becomes a genocidal maniac, and the fact that the characters of Blazing Blade kinda caused this to happen by releasing the seals on the Legendary Weapons in their own quest... It kinda bugs me that the Legendary Weapons I used in Blazing Blade are in their trap filled storage places. Like, who returned them there? And if I have characters from that game returning in Binding, I find it strange they don't comment on needing them again. But this is a case of the game trying to be a prequel to a story that wasn't written with it in mind.

But at the end of the day, one thing just kept popping up in my mind. Binding Blade is the antithesis of the Crimson Flower route from Three Houses. I know they said Genealogy of the Holy War was an inspiration, but I can't help it. I've seen so many people try to praise that said route as some sort of denouncement of the rest of the franchise. That it's about putting power in the hands of the people (it's not) instead of having some Lord be the good king. Granted, the Mandate of Heaven seems like it's a running theme of the series, so without understanding what that is I can understand why people don't grasp what that part of the message. But Binding Blade, it just hit so many things on the nose that I needed to say something.

So without further adieu, I'm just going to bring up a few points.

With Regards to Humanity

It's interesting how both Zephiel and Edelgard come at this from different angles. Sure, they both lead wars of conquest across the entire continent, and I'm guessing Zeph didn't tell his troops what he was planning on doing once he won so there's likely a level of deception going on there as well. He really doesn't care for his fellow man, and the game goes out of it's way to show us why. Hatred, greed, or even selling out your people in the name of self-preservation. The game doesn't shy away from showing us any of this, saying that it's wrong and thus why Roy has to kick some guy's arse. Zephiel knows this, but in Edelgard's case? She's out there fighting for absolute power, destroying anyone who won't bend the knee to her while those who do out of self-preservation like House Gloucester are rewarded for it.

In essence, Edelgard is everything Zephiel saw wrong with the human race, she is why he felt we needed to go extinct. The very things he condemns humanity for are the things she reward. Zephiel would have actually handed over power to those he felt deserved it if he had won, whereas Edelgard is demonstrably shown to hold onto power until near the end of her life. One wants humanity dead, the other wants all the dragons. They even oppose each other in their classes. Edelgard is based on the red emperor archetype, she wears red, her class is the heavily-armored Emperor and her weapon of choice is an axe. Zephiel is a king, armoed but wearing purple and he uses a sword in battle.

Even if they both have screwed up history with their family's due to their father's inability to keep it in his pants, they're both presented as villains despite being ideologically opposed which goes to show with Fire Emblem the method IS the message.

Ancient Wars, Super Powered Weapons and Lies.

War of Heroes vs. The Scouring. The former is an event where the full details are shrouded in mystery, up to the player to piece together the clues and figure out the truth for themselves...or in Crimson Flower's case, ignore the truth and act out in your ignorance.With Binding Blade though, when the truth starts coming out, it hits hard. I mean, right from the beginning of the game we're told man was the one who broke the peace by attacking the dragons, but then we learn that those legendary weapons messed up the environment, resulting in dragons needing to use human forms only to be slaughtered by man. Dragons were blamed for the environment, the people who used those weapons were revered as heroes. We don't know why mankind launched their attack, but we do know that they weren't able to slay the Demon Dragon, one who had her soul destroyed in order to control her, because the Heroes felt sorry for her. It's making dragons out to be the victims here, much like the dragons in Three Houses. But Crimson Flower only serves to demonize them, acting like they can't understand humanity when the dragons in that game are a lot closer to humans emotionally than the ancient dragons in Elibe.

The Elites in comparison weren't heroes, and that lie has been confirmed as Rhea trying to make peace.

The good ending for Binding Blade is being able to save the dragon whose soul was destroyed, whereas Crimson Flower ends with slaying a dragon after you've spent the entire game triggering her (and is the ending that leads to oppressive rule under Edelgard, in addition to the only ending without sunlight. What? You thought you'd get the good ending when her final boss theme was playing on the last stage?). Also, you need all the Legendary weapons in order to unlock the final stages, which all play into the big mystery. Crimson Flower requires the player to not understand that the world-building was done to support fighting against Edelgard instead.

Merits of a leader

Let's not beat around the bush here, Roy will not carry you through Binding Blade. His bases are low, and while he has good growths he is unable to promote until the very end of the game. Even then, you need to save the Binding Blade's usage to ensure you get the good ending. Roy is also very unsure of himself, thrust into a position of leadership despite his young age. But look at what happens when he succeeds, he manages to overcome the odds and take down the mightiest army on the continent. At the end of the game, he's shown himself as more than capable of leading. Not to mention, he also believes that humans and dragons can live together, even seeing this in Acadia (and if Ninian was his mother, he's unknowingly proof of this as he is 1/4 dragon himself. May explain his poor bases). If he marries Liliana, he even becomes a King for likely much of the same reason Byleth does in SS/VW (most leaders are dead following the war, plus combining his territory with Ostia which had already taken over Lyn's land after she abdicated/married Hector). Roy learns the truth as already established.

Compare this to Crimson Flower Byleth. Byleth leads the Black Eagle Strike Force, but credit for it goes to Edelgard. Byleth never gets any recognition for this, no position of authority despite proving themselves, instead that goes to Caspar Jenkins of all people, and ends the war continuing to fight TWSITD from the shadows to support Edelgard's regime. And if you read between the lines, Edelgard is NOT a good leader, resorting to bribes, threats, cronyism, secret police, propaganda, and even TWSITD's support and later stolen tech in order to maintain her rule. Byleth lost whatever emotional development they got from White Clouds during this route, once again becoming the Ashen Demon, and is even willing to let themselves die if they can't keep their “humanity” in check showing a distaste for their own draconic heritage (showing humans and dragons can't live together in this timeline). They didn't grow into being a leader, they devolved into being Edelgard's unthinking muscle. Byleth never learns the truth in this route, falling for Edelgard's manipulations resulting in them losing Enlightened One/Nirvana status.

Not to mention, Heroes Relics have really low weapon levels. In theory, they can be used by anyone but only safely by those with Crests and most fully with a matching Crest. Legendary Weapons, on the other hand, can be used by anyone with an S rank in their type. Your characters have to EARN the right to use those things and you'll need them to deal with all the Manaketes during the final level, whereas Relics aren't exactly that level of broken.

Honestly, seeing the ending of Binding Blade and Idunn recovering put at least one tear in my eye. Crimson Flower's just made me feel like the game was calling me an idiot (which considering the Nirvana/Enlightenment thing, it kinda was). I would love if Binding Blade got the Echoes treatment, or even if they just did a GBA collection for the Switch. But after all these years, one thing is as certain now as it was when I was a kid.

In this house, ROY'S OUR BOY!

[crusherthedoctor]

Sonic Heroes: Sweet or Shite? - Part 2: CREAM

There are some heroes I like. And there are some heroes I don’t like. But why do I feel about them the way I do? That’s where this comes in.

This is a series in which I go into slightly more detail about my thoughts on the heroes in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, and why I think they either work well, or fall flat (or somewhere in-between). I’ll be giving my stance on their designs, their personalities, and what they had to show for themselves over the course of time. Two things to keep in mind:

1. These reviews will be focusing mainly on game portrayals. Though alternate media will occasionally be mentioned, it’ll be for the sake of adding onto a point if a portrayal is similar enough, or to compare and contrast if a portrayal is different enough.

2. These are just my own personal thoughts. Whether you agree or disagree, feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions! I don’t bite. :>

Anyhow, for today’s installment, it's a vast departure from the mayhem of Silver’s world. A much more down-to-earth character, it's the Chao-approved little girl who only the most Eggman of Eggmen could possibly hold in contempt... Cream the Rabbit.

The Gist: One day, Sonic was off on another advance adventure. Eggman was starting shit again, so Sonic was obligated to cause shit for him. This time though, upon confronting the doctor early on, he noticed there was an unfamiliar hostage on the doctor’s metal-fisted person, in the form of an adorable bunny girl.

This was how she was evicted from Team Sonic Racing.

Sonic may not have recognised her, but that's okay, because he's Sonic, and no Sonic that isn't the Fleetway one discriminates. With his good heart - and more importantly, his skill in breaking apart Eggman's machines like they’re made of tissue paper - he saved the day, and the bunny was eternally grateful. But all was not sorted out, as it seemed that Vanilla, her adoring mother, was still under threat...

No matter. With the help of her little Chao partner named Cheese, she would handle the problem herself.

“How the fuck did this happen?” - Eggman, Sonic Advance 2 (2003)

And... that's about it? I told you this was a far cry from Silver, didn't I? Compared to Sonic's other friends, Cream just kind of showed up without much fanfare. No elaborate backstory, no dramatic plot twists, just a girl wanting to help out.

Well, if it makes this part of the job easier...

The Design: Just like her story (or lack thereof), there isn’t too much to say here. Her design is fairly simple, but it gets the job done.

“We’re going to have so much fun when we turn our enemies into dust and make them feel inadequate, won’t we Cheese? ^__^”

The best Sonic character designs are perfect at blending the right colours together, and Cream is no exception to that rule. The mix of cream (of course) and brown makes for a suitably warm and cozy package, and the further addition of orange and yellow provide a nice contrast to the reds and whites of her older sister figure, Amy. And speaking of Amy, although it might not be completely intentional, I like that Cream’s style of clothing isn’t too far off from that of the pink hedgehog, given their close dynamic.

I know some may take issue with the fact that her ears are technically backwards, but I personally don’t care. It’s cute, it’s fiction, don’t worry about it.

The Personality: Simply put, Cream is a kind, polite, innocent soul who would feel immensely guilty in the event of accidentally hurting a fly.

“I was not programmed to d’aww...”

This is in large part because she’s a devoted pacifist by nature, meaning she would only be willing to annihilate the absolute shit out of you if she had no other choice in the matter. Not that you should push her if it came to that, since I’m not exaggerating when I say that she’d wreck your shit. No mortal should have the awe-inducing power that Cream wields. (Seriously, is there any game she’s playable in where she’s NOT broken?)

Did I mention she’s cute as a button? Cause I’m gonna mention it again.

Come on, how could you hate this bunny? Is there no place for cuteness in this franchise starring plush-sized cartoon animals and giant red springs?

The Execution: If you haven’t noticed by how shorter this is than the average Sweet or Shite review, Cream is an extremely straightforward character to describe and discuss. But is that a bad thing? No, not necessarily. It doesn’t hurt for a character to have more to them of course, but compared to being as ridiculous and as complicated as, again, the whole mess involving Silver, it’s easy to appreciate when things are kept nice and simple.

If you also haven’t noticed, I would protect this girl with my life.

“Thank you for bowing down to your superior, mister!” “Chao!”

Okay, so maybe her voice can get a little ear-piercing at times, even though I’d argue that hasn’t been the case with her most recent voice actress. Maybe her dedication to her pacifism rubs some the wrong way, since it can cause some unnecessary complications from time to time, most notably during Sonic Battle, when her (initial) refusal to fight in an intense situation led to Emerl getting beat up by Original Gammas, Do Not Steal. Or maybe she’s simply not ~radical~ enough, if you’re that sort of fan.

But me? I like her. I think she has a place, and I think she deserves to keep that place. As such, I also think it’s a tragedy that it appears as though she’s been getting phased out from a lot of Sonic products, possibly due to all these accusations directed at her. IDW has been the biggest exception to this trend thus far... but we all know what happened there, don’t we?

MFW I’m told to sign up on Bumbleking to understand a comic’s piss-poor writing.

Still, even if this unofficial phasing out continues, I’ll continue to defend Cream with the same passion I’d reserve for plenty of Sonic’s other chums. For one thing, she’s not wearing a ganja leaf.

Regardless of the game, Cream’s interactions with the rest of the cast are genuinely sweet, whether it’s Amy, Sonic, a weapon of destruction like Emerl, or a complete stranger like Blaze. She even managed to be nice and understanding to Chris Thorndyke, which is an amazing achievement considering it’s Chris Thorndyke. (Of course, even she lost her temper with Chris Thorndyke at one point, because it’s Chris Thorndyke.) Cream is not the only character who adds heart to the Sonic universe - other examples include Amy, Tails, even Sonic himself at times - but she has her place in doing so all the same... unlike Chris Thorndyke.

I’m always going on about how it’s important to acknowledge Sonic’s world for all it has to offer, rather than take one aspect of it and take it up to eleven at the expense of everything else. That belief of mine also applies here, because as much as it may be a balls to the wall playground filled with cartoon edge and badass attitude, the main star is still a blue hedgehog who rolls into a fuzzy ball, the Ultimate Lifeform with a tragic past is still a black hedgehog who wears hover skates, and the main villain, horrible and brutal as he is, is still shaped like an egg. Appealing charm is inherent to this franchise, no less so than bodaciousness. So Cream isn’t any less appropriate than someone like Shadow.

Although how she hasn’t yet been traumatized by all that she’s been through will be a riddle for the ages. Abductions, abductions of her mother, dead robot friends...

“Shit happens, kid.”

Crusher Gives Cream a: Thumbs Up!

Well, that was a refreshingly easy one. Now if you’ll excuse me, I better get out of here before Trudy takes issue with me for swearing so much in a Cream-related context... oh god, here she comes-!

[bewitching-elizabeth-olsen]

Press: Elizabeth Olsen’s 20/21 Vision

The Marvel star takes us inside her transformation to a new kind of hero

GALLERY LINKS

Studio Photoshoots > 2021 > Session 002

Magazine Scans > 2021 > Grazia

  GRAZIA: Elizabeth Olsen is a trooper. We are in a field in Surrey on the outskirts of the Marvel studios; it’s a biting minus one and she is standing in a Chanel broderie anglaise sundress and increasingly soggy UGG boots. Her feline cheekbones face skywards, but Olsen is slowly sinking into the mud, trilling out high notes to keep herself warm (possibly distracted) and of course with spirits high. “It was the wind I think, that was worse than the sideways rain,” she jokes as we trundle back to the soundstage hangar that we are using as a studio. It’s the kind of moment that could go viral on Instagram, that is, if Olsen were on social media. Yet one of the biggest stars of our current cultural moment is completely offline – and that surprising fact might just be the least interesting thing about her. If anything, it is a sign of how Olsen has come into her own as a confident, decisive star with the power to create her own universe.

On the cusp of her 32nd birthday, Olsen is fastidious and professional, yes, but also bright, engaging, creative, and collaborative. Born and raised in the California sunshine, she is surprisingly at ease in the blustery conditions that deluge the English countryside in late January – or, it’s that she’s very good at acting. “It was one of the ugliest days of this winter – just hilarious – but I knew we wanted the shot,” the 31-year-old actress says.

Since October, Olsen’s been living in the leafy British countryside with her “man-guy-partner,” musician Robbie Arnett, just a short drive to the Surrey compound where Doctor Strange is being filmed. It’s a closed set, masked in secrecy as much as the socially distanced masked crew dotted all over the 200-acre studio. “It feels right being in a small city right now,” she says.

Indeed, Olsen is a modern-day Renaissance woman. Learned and dedicated to her craft, she studied at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, with a semester at the Moscow Art Theatre School studying Stanislavski. (Surely, no matter how much of a genius the Russian theatre master was, he never could have conceived of the Marvel universe.)

Approached with the concept of WandaVision, “I thought it was perfect for television, and a very original idea that made me excited,” Olsen says. Also, she was happy she would get to work with Bettany again: “He’s very precise, like me.”

In many ways, WandaVision is a love letter to the first American television heyday. Olsen, who stayed up late watching Nick at Nite reruns as a child, says it’s a bit of a homecoming in that way. “I was a very hammy, performative child,” she explains. “So, I do think I got to live out some sort of childhood dream doing the show.”

“The highlight was really getting to tell a story about these superhero individuals told in different decades of American sitcoms, trying to match the tone of those sitcoms in order to help orate the story,” she says. “But keep it playful and fun.” Little did she know just how much we’d need that.

Half-filmed pre-pandemic in Atlanta and half post-pandemic in LA – with a six-month hiatus in-between “until all the unions figured out to work safely” – WandaVision was released almost a year into the pandemic. In many ways, it is an artifact of its time: centered upon a yearning for the simplicity of earlier days, yet shot through with the creeping realization that such days may never return, and perhaps never existed to begin with.

Indeed, the weekly story of suburban superheroes Wanda and Vision has played out like a parable of our times: Wanda living in her chosen bubble, her trauma resonating in the world we find ourselves in today. Olsen appreciates a good metaphor, but feels people may be projecting a bit much. “I see Wanda as a victim of extreme trauma, who does not understand how to process it,” she explains. “She has been a human experiment.” (Not to belabor the point, but haven’t we all?)

Being summoned by Marvel is like being called to a parallel universe for an actor: thrilling, yes, but not without a tinge of terror and a dash of the unknown. Six years in, though, it’s become like family in some ways. As a member of two dynasties – Olsen and Marvel – family is key to Olsen. She checks in on her mom (who still lives in California) and, like many American daughters, is researching which vaccine mom should get.

The performative gene runs strong through her family, of course – and no, we don’t mean her sisters. Olsen’s mom was a ballerina. Still, when she first started auditioning, Olsen took special care to carve her own path – one far from Full House. “Nepotism is a thing and I’m very aware of it,” she says. “And of course, I’ve always wanted to do it alone.” She did just that, her acting credentials consistently rising as her sister’s cemented their fashion kudos. Olsen bears a noticeable resemblance to her fashion-designer older sisters and her sartorial DNA is similarly low-key. She loves The Row (of course) and NYC label Khaite’s denim and cashmere.

For Olsen, her day job is like playing dress-up. This time around, she walked away from WandaVision with the girdle worn underneath her 50s wedding dress, laughing, “I mean, to have a custom undergarment like that, I felt like it was necessary!” Her WandaVision co-star, Kathryn Hahn, also became her shopping cohort when filming.

“She’s dangerous!” Olsen says. “She has the most exquisite, minimal but expensive taste.” It was Hahn who led Olsen to the independent boutique where she found the belted Julia Jentzsch trench that she wore to our shoot.

At the rail of samples compiled by the stylist, Olsen gravitates towards a spacious linen boilersuit and longline cashmere cardigan. Has she always been a tomboy, I ask? “I think I felt uncomfortable being a child being told they were pretty,” she says of her early auditions at age 10, adding that her love of ballet and musical theater could leave her “feeling exposed” at a young age.

Speaking of over-exposure, Olsen is distinctly offline in a time when so many are defined by their social media presence. Among celebrities and regular digital citizens, the perfect balance of online and off is up for debate, but Olsen is clear: social media saturation is a choice for all of us, and everyone needs to draw their own boundaries.

“It has to be a personal decision, right?” she begins. “So, my opinion has nothing to do with what anyone else does or doesn’t do with it.” Her own journey began when she momentarily dabbled with Instagram (since deleted), while filming Ingrid Goes West, director Matt Spicer’s frightening and funny debut feature about a social stalker, co-starring Aubrey Plaza.

Up until that time, she says, “I had never touched it before. I thought, ‘This is an interesting social experiment for myself, to see if it is a good source to talk about charities or a good source to talk about small projects, or to share something goofier about myself.’ But I think at the end of the day, what I discovered was one, I’m really bad at creating a perceived identity!”

“I didn’t find it very organic to who I am as a person,” she continues. “I found some joy in putting up silly videos, but I think the main reason I stopped – not I think, I know the main reason why I stopped – was because of the organization in my brain.”

“Lots of horrible things happen all the time. Or, lots of great things happen all the time. Whether it’s something terrifying, like a natural disaster or a school shooting or a death, there are so many things that happen, and I love processing information. I love reading articles. I love listening to podcasts. I love communicating about things that are happening in the world to people around me. And what I don’t love is that my brain organization was saying, ‘Should I post about this?’ That seemed very unhealthy ….”

“And to then contribute to these platitudes that I don’t really love, you have to subscribe to two different ways of thinking,” she says. “So, I didn’t like that, and there was a lot of it that was just bothering me for my own sake of what value systems I have.”

That’s not to say that there’s any inherent value system – pro or con – in using Instagram. Olsen is clear that like any other method of expression, it’s up to the individual to use it as they see fit. “I do see a use of it and how you can use it well for work,” she says. “But I don’t think that I would like to use that tool to promote myself.”

She’s private for a millennial yes, but not prim. On the photoshoot, lockdown experiences were shared, and Olsen recounted her (hilarious) first at-home bikini wax: banishing her husband upstairs “for an extended chat with his therapist,” her trusted waxer on speed dial, and microwave set to ping! (Yes, Olsen is a trooper, as I mentioned.)

We catch up over Zoom a week later, her hair once again pulled up in a casual topknot, her cashmere turtleneck simmering in a dark claret, and her entire being suffused with covetable understatement. She chats buoyantly against an unexpected backdrop of pirate ship wallpaper in the playroom of a house she shares with Arnett, who proposed with an emerald and diamond ring in 2019.

“We first started to try to make it the gym, but it was so cramped,” she says of the jolly space. The home gym was instead awarded a larger room, where Olsen loves to maintain a varied fitness regime – running, yoga, dancing, more – though after all the intense Marvel filming, she jokes, “maybe it’s time to give up on my body?!” Being comic book fit does sound grueling or “time-consuming fun” as she anoints the “strenuous physical demands.”

Like most of us, she is longing for the spring, but she still takes a regular constitutional walk in a nearby Richmond park, whatever the weather. “The deer are incredible; every time I see them I feel alive,” she says. “We have been lucky to have nature around us in lockdown.” It’s a marked difference from her paparazzi-populated home in the Hills. “They know our walks, where we get coffee, work-out…,” she trails off.

Her haven in Los Angeles is her backyard, complete with a mid-century swimming pool and an edible garden. “It’s crazy the blackberries grow like weeds! I love watching a kid’s first reaction to an edible garden,” she gushes That has been the part of the pandemic travel restrictions she’s found hardest: missing her friend’s children growing up, and others who have been born this past year that she’s yet to meet. They will no doubt all be treated to her homemade blackberry sorbet on her return stateside.

Yet, her time on British soil will likely be prolonged, with a prospective indie commencing filming here when Doctor Strange wraps. Prompted for more detail, her firm charm kicks in. “I can’t jinx it!” she insists. Still, she will share that she’s heavily involved in the creative, and that funding smaller productions in the current climate has been a challenge.

Through it all, Olsen has remained determined and calm. “I feel patience is my superpower. But my weakness also,” she says. “I feel like it gets tested more than others who don’t have a lot of patience. If someone learns you’re easygoing or that you’re relaxed, sometimes it gets taken advantage of.” While she waits for the green light on that film, she is busy producing a new children’s cartoon with Arnett, “about loving and caring for our world,” and has also written a children’s book about to be published by Random House, all while the demands of Marvel life continue to surround her.

Indeed, Olsen is a superhero for the modern age: Multi-hyphenate, but fiercely devoted to the craft that she loves; instantly recognizable, yet thoughtfully protective of her private life; a woman with style, substance, success, and deep rewarding relationships with those around her; focused on a vision of a better world for us all.

Press: Elizabeth Olsen’s 20/21 Vision was originally published on Elizabeth Olsen Source • Your source for everything Elizabeth Olsen

[aion-rsa]

The Star Trek: The Original Series Episodes That Best Define the Franchise

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By the time my generation got to watch Star Trek: The Original Series, the episodes often were being presented in top-ten marathons. When I was ten-years-old, for the 25th Anniversary of Star Trek, I tape-recorded a marathon of ten episodes that had all been voted by fans as the best-ever installments of The Original Series. Later, I got lucky and found Trek stickers at the grocery store and was able to label my VHS tapes correctly. But do I think all the episodes that were in that marathon back in 1991 were really the best episodes of all of the classic Star Trek? The short answer: no. Although I love nearly every episode of the first 79 installments of Star Trek, I do think that certain lists have been created by what we think should be on the list rather than what episodes really best represent the classic show. 

This is a long-winded way of saying, no, I didn’t include “Amok Time” or “The Menagerie” on this list because, as great as they are, I don’t think they really represent the greatest hits of the series. Also, if you’ve never watched TOS, I think those two episodes will throw you off cause you’ll assume Spock is always losing his mind or trying to steal the ship. If you’ve never watched TOS, or you feel like rewatching it with fresh eyes, I feel pretty strong that these 10 episodes are not only wonderful, but that they best represent what the entire series is really about. Given this metric, my choice for the best episode of TOS may surprise you…

10. “The Man Trap” 

The first Star Trek ever episode aired should not be the first episode you watch. And yet, you should watch it at some point. The goofy premise concerns an alien with shaggy dog fur, suckers on its hand, and a face like a terrifying deep-sea fish. This alien is also a salt vampire that uses telepathy that effectively also makes it a shapeshifter. It’s all so specifically bonkers that trying to rip-off this trope would be nuts. Written by science fiction legend George Clayton Johnson (one half of Logan’s Run authorship) “The Man Trap” still slaps, and not because Spock (Leonard Nimoy)  tries to slap the alien. Back in the early Season 1 episodes of Star Trek, the “supporting” players like Uhura and Sulu are actually doing stuff in the episode. We all talk about Kirk crying out in pain when the M-113 creature puts those suckers on his face, but the real scene to watch is when Uhura starts speaking Swahili. The casual way Uhura and Sulu are just their lovable selves in this episode is part of why we just can’t quit the classic Star Trek to this day. Plus, the fact that the story is technically centered on Bones gives the episode some gravitas and oomph. You will believe an old country doctor thinks that salt vampire is Nancy! (Spoiler alert: It’s not Nancy.)

9. “Let that Be Your Last Battlefield” 

There are two episodes everyone always likes to bring up when discussing the ways in which Star Trek changed the game for the better in pop culture’s discourse on racism: “Plato’s Stepchildren” and this episode, “Let that Be Your Last Battlefield.” The former episode is famous because Kirk and Uhura kiss, which is sometimes considered the first interracial kiss on an American TV show. (British TV shows had a few of those before Star Trek, though.) But “Plato’s Stepchildren” is not a great episode, and Kirk and Uhura were also manipulated to kiss by telepaths. So, no, I’m not crazy about “Plato’s Stepchildren.” Uhura being forced to kiss a white dude isn’t great.

But “Let that Be Your Last Battlefield,” oddly holds up. Yep. This is the one about space racism where the Riddler from the ‘60s Batman (Frank Gorshin) looks like a black-and-white cookie. Is this episode cheesy? Is it hard to take most of it seriously? Is it weird that Bele (Frank Gorshin) didn’t have a spaceship because the budget was so low at that time? Yes. Is the entire episode dated, and sometimes borderline offensive even though its heart is in the right place? Yes. Does the ending of the episode still work? You bet it does. If you’re going to watch OG Star Trek and skip this episode, you’re kind of missing out on just how charmingly heavy-handed the series could get. “Let that Be Your Last Battlefield” is like a ‘60s after-school special about racism, but they were high while they were writing it.

8. “Arena”

You’re gonna try to list the best episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series and not list the episode where Kirk fights a lizard wearing gold dress-tunic? The most amazing thing about “Arena” is that it’s a Season 1 episode of The Original Series and somehow everyone involved in making TOS had enough restraint not to ever try to use this Gorn costume again. They didn’t throw it away either! This famous rubber lizard was built by Wah Chang and is currently owned by none other than Ben Stiller.

So, here’s the thing about “Arena” that makes it a great episode of Star Trek, or any TV series with a lizard person. Kirk refuses to kill the Gorn even though he could have, and Star Trek refused to put a lizard costume in a bunch of episodes later, even though they totally could have. Gold stars all around.

7. “Balance of Terror”

The fact that Star Trek managed to introduce a race of aliens that looked exactly like Spock, and not confuse its viewership is amazing. On top of that, the fact that this detail isn’t exactly the entire focus of the episode is equally impressive. The notion that the Romulans look like Vulcans is a great twist in The Original Series, and decades upon decades of seeing Romulans has probably dulled the novelty ever so slightly. But, the idea that there was a brutally cold and efficient version of the Vulcans flying around in invisible ships blowing shit up is not only cool, but smart.

“Balance of Terror” made the Romulans the best villains of Star Trek because their villainy felt personal. Most Romulan stories in TNG, DS9, and Picard are pretty damn good and they all start right here.

6. “Space Seed”

Khaaaan!!!! Although The Wrath of Khan is infinitely more famous than the episode from which it came, “Space Seed” is one of the best episodes of The Original Series even if it hadn’t been the progenitor of that famous film. In this episode, the worst human villain the Enterprise can encounter doesn’t come from the present, but instead, the past. Even though “Space Seed” isn’t considered a very thoughtful episode and Khan is a straight-up gaslighter, the larger point here is that Khan’s evilness is connected to the fact that he lived on a version of Earth closer to our own.

The episode’s coda is also amazing and speaks of just how interesting Captain Kirk really is. After Khan beat the shit out of him and tried to suffocate the entire Enterprise crew, Kirk’s like “Yeah, this guy just needs a long camping trip.” 

5. “A Piece of the Action”

A few years back, Saturday Night Live did a Star Trek sketch in which it was revealed that Spock had a relative named “Spocko.” This sketch was tragically unfunny because TOS had already made the “Spocko” joke a million times better in “A Piece of the Action.” When you describe the premise of this episode to someone who has never seen it or even heard of it, it sounds like you’re making it up. Kirk, Spock, and Bones are tasked with cleaning-up a planet full of old-timey mobsters who use phrases like “put the bag on you.” Not only is the episode hilarious, but it also demonstrates the range of what Star Trek can do as an emerging type of pop-art. In “A Piece of the Action,” Star Trek begins asking questions about genres that nobody ever dreamed of before. Such as, “what if we did an old-timey gangster movie, but there’s a spaceship involved?”

4. “Devil in the Dark”

When I was a kid, my sister and I called this episode, “the one with giant pizza.” Today, it’s one of those episodes of Star Trek that people tell you defines the entire franchise. They’re not wrong, particularly because we’re just talking about The Original Series. The legacy of this episode is beyond brilliant and set-up a wonderful tradition within the rest of the franchise; a monster story is almost never a monster story

The ending of this episode is so good, and Leonard Nimoy and Shatner play the final scenes so well that I’m actually not sure it’s cool to reveal what the big twist is. If you somehow don’t know, I’ll just say this. You can’t imagine Chris Pratt’s friendly Velicrapotrs, or Ripper on Discovery without the Horta getting their first.

3. “The Corbomite Maneuver” 

If there’s one episode on this list that truly represents what Star Trek is usually all about on a plot level, it’s this one. After the first two pilot episodes —“Where No Man Has Gone Before” and “The Cage”—this was the first regular episode filmed. It’s the first episode with Uhura and, in almost every single way, a great way to actually explain who all these characters are and what the hell they’re doing. The episode begins with Spock saying something is “fascinating” and then, after the opening credits, calling Kirk, who is down in sickbay with his shirt off. Bones gives Kirk shit about not having done his physical in a while, and Kirk wanders through the halls of the episode without his shirt, just kind of holding his boots. 

That’s just the first like 5 minutes. It just gets better and better from there. Like a good bottle of tranya, this episode only improves with time. And if you think it’s cheesy and the big reveal bizarre, then I’m going to say, you’re not going to like the rest of Star Trek. 

2. “The City on the Edge of Forever”

No more blah blah blah! Sorry, wrong episode. Still, you’ve heard about “The City on the Edge of Forever.” You’ve heard it’s a great time travel episode. You’ve heard Harlan Ellison was pissed about how the script turned out. You heard that Ron Moore really wanted to bring back Edith Keeler for Star Trek Generations. (Okay, maybe you haven’t heard that, but he did.)

Everything you’ve heard about this episode is correct. There’s some stuff that will make any sensible person roll their eyes today, but the overall feeling of this episode is unparalleled. Time travel stories are always popular, but Star Trek has never really done a time travel story this good ever again. The edge of forever will always be just out of reach.

1. “A Taste of Armageddon”

Plot twist! This excellent episode of TOS almost never makes it on top ten lists. Until now! If you blink, “A Taste of Armageddon” could resemble at least a dozen other episodes of TOS. Kirk and Spock are trapped without their communicators. The crew has to overpower some guards to get to some central computer hub and blow it up. Scotty is in command with Kirk on the surface and is just kind of scowling the whole time. Kirk is giving big speeches about how humanity is great because it’s so deeply flawed.

What makes this episode fantastic is that all of these elements come together thanks to a simplistic science fiction premise: What if a society eliminated violence but retained murder? What if hatred was still encouraged, but war was automated? Star Trek’s best moments were often direct allegories about things that were actually happening, but what makes “A Taste of Armageddon” so great is that this metaphor reached for something that could happen. Kirk’s solution to this problem is a non-solution, which makes the episode even better. At its best classic Star Trek wasn’t just presenting a social problem and then telling us how to fix it. Sometimes it was saying something more interesting — what if the problem gets even harder? What do we do then? 

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The humor and bombast of “A Taste of Armageddon” is part of the answer to that unspoken question, but there’s also a clever lesson about making smaller philosophical decisions. In Star Wars, people are always trying to rid themselves of the dark side of the Force. In Star Trek, Kirk just teaches us to say, “Hey I won’t be a terrible person, today” and then just see how many days we can go in a row being like that.

What do you think are the most franchise-defining episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series? Let us know in the comments below.

The post The Star Trek: The Original Series Episodes That Best Define the Franchise appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3qfxnii

[amandabe11man]

Okay here’s my little essay about why I think lawrence’s victory over hoffman in Saw 3D doesn’t make sense from a narrative standpoint.

I don’t claim to be a perfect storyteller or anything (like, at all), but while I like Lawrence, my bullshit-sensors are tingling every time I think about the conclusion of this franchise.

yeah I know, I'm looking really dumb trying to bring logic into the goddamn Saw-movies, but just hear me out...:

first of all, we need to talk about Lawrence in comparison to the other apprentices. I’m not the first one to point out that lawrence’s reasons for helping John are pretty much never mentioned ever. I made a post earlier on about how I felt it wasn’t meant to be that way (because it seemed like just another ‘BET YOU DIDN’T SEE THAT COMING’-twist ending) but an anon clarified that there actually were hints through the earlier movies that Lawrence would become a jigsaw-apprentice, so that theory of mine was debunked, just so we’re clear.

ANYWAY where was I? yeah, about Lawrence. just like all the characters, he’s layered. he’s a regular joe just living life, trying to be a good person while still making bad choices. he’s flawed, but again, who isn’t? that’s why it’s so whack to see him return again in 3D, all slow-clapping and obviously villainous. like- I know it’s been a few years since the first movie then, but where the hell did that personality change come from? from getting a divorce? c’mon, anyone could see that coming even back in the first movie. move on, man. and aside from that little detail + the flashback of how John took him in and made him an apprentice, we don’t get anything else about how Lawrence’s life supposedly took a dive after all that. it’s just nada up until 3D.

now, to put things into perspective, think about how Amanda and Hoffman’s reasons for helping John both made a lot more sense given what kind of people they were (I mean yeah, hoffman was blackmailed, but he killed anyway before that). amanda was a vulnerable drug-addict, bent on self-destruction. until she died, working for John gave her a new sense of purpose in life; one she thought she could handle, even though she couldn’t in the end. it wasn’t meant to be, and she even admits it. of course her helping John at all after what he did to her is illogical, but if you think about the kind of person Amanda was, you can see why she would do that. that way, it makes sense.

now, hoffman is hoffman, I get it. guy’s a douche, but this franchise has a lot of those. his corruption-arc also makes sense though, when you take into account what he’s been through. his sister was murdered, the killer didn’t get punished, and he took the law into his own hands, and he just kinda kept going after that until John made him agree to be an apprentice.

what I'm saying is: Amanda and hoffman being apprentices doesn’t feel foreign when you think about their circumstances. now, Lawrence was traumatized after the bathroom, sure. he cut his foot off and got crazy enough to try to kill Adam. he “had” to make the choice between his family or killing Adam. given how he’s a doctor, knowing that he almost killed a man must surely keep him up at night sometimes. because he’s supposed to save people, not kill them.

it’d be helpful though, if we got to see literally anything of this. give the viewer a reason to believe why Lawrence, a well-off doctor, would do a heel-turn to help a serial killer who targeted him and his family. my best guess is that after Alison divorced him (and presumably took Diana with her), he just felt he might as well not gaf about being a good man anymore, because now he only lives for himself. his family can’t be in danger if they’re not even in his life anymore, right? i suppose that sort of spite could be enough of a reason for him to go off the deep end, but it’s still a weak reason to help the serial killer who had it out for you and helped put you in that situation to begin with.

this could be the reason, if it wasn’t for the fact that the first time he met with his family again after the bathroom, Lawrence had already been made into a jigsaw-apprentice. brainwashed or not, he’d already made the choice before a divorce had even happened, so that just adds another level of confusion to all this.

so yeah, the ending to 3D happens, and we return to where this all started; the bathroom. and this time, Lawrence is the one to shut the door on someone who, in a way, deserves it. Justice is served, and all that. but when you think about it... there’s not much poetic justice in Lawrence locking hoffman in there at all. why? because hoffman wasn’t involved in the bathroom-trap back when it happened to Adam and Lawrence.

wouldn’t it have come into a much more satisfying full circle if Lawrence had locked John, or even Amanda, in there, since they were the ones responsible for his particular trap? having him lock John in there would of course be the BEST option, since Amanda used to be just another victim as well. therefore, having John be put into a trap of his own, and by one of his victims no less, would just have been--  like, so good. just mirroring john’s actions at the end of 1 where he left Adam to die, thereby giving a nice little conclusion to how Lawrence felt about that too. Adam wasn’t given a choice in the end, so Lawrence will leave John there the same way. yeah, he’s dead since Saw 3, but just imagine a scenario where he’d stayed alive somehow till the end, where he wouldn’t have been able to die on his own terms. THAT’S poetic justice, baby!

but no, instead we get Lawrence taking revenge for Jill on john’s behalf, because...? why does he care about Jill? what’s stopping Lawrence from just bailing as soon as John died? Hoffman got the short end of the stick because he just wasn’t likable to enough people, I suppose. but when you think deeper about it, he has no connection to the bathroom whatsoever. there are no parallels to be had between him and that place. if we wanna be logical about it, have him end up in a trap of his own making instead, or better yet; have Strahm survive and be the one to put him in that trap of his own making, since they had their whole cat-and-mouse-dynamic going on. they had a history and it would make sense for Strahm to finally be the one to kill him. but who is Lawrence to hoffman? dunno, bc the movie doesn’t care to tell us that little detail.

i suppose the conclusion is that I can see why they would have Lawrence shut someone in the bathroom, because parallels n shit. my issue is mostly with how the one being shut in there never personally wronged Lawrence, afaik. hoffman has done a lot of shit to warrant punishment, but not when it’s dished out by Lawrence, because he never did anything to him. still, we’re supposed to cheer for Lawrence for this, when we barely know of his circumstances. all I see is a weird favoritism towards Lawrence from john’s side.  after all, he did always respectfully(?) refer to Lawrence as “dr. gordon”, while almost all his other victims were addressed by their first names. (very weird, since John was mad enough at Lawrence to put him in a trap. but go off I guess) not to mention, Lawrence failed to (attempt to) kill Adam on time, but hey, he cut off his foot in desperation to get out, so uh... guess that makes him worthy, in john’s eyes? doesn’t change the fact that Lawrence failed his “game”.

not only did he fail in that regard, but before then, he failed in his marriage, he wasn’t there for Diana as much as he should’ve been, he failed his crazy patient, and he failed Adam by not sending help back for him for some reason (that’s a whole different post that someone else has already made though, lol). throughout the whole series, Lawrence has been rewarded when he shouldn’t have been, basically. sure, he’s estranged from his family, but that’s about the only setback that he’s endured since John let him go that first time. by the time 3D rolls around, he’s cynical, but he seems to be doing just fine anyway.

and that’s the very long reason why I think that Lawrence essentially getting the last laugh in the original franchise doesn’t sit right with me. boom

[calliecat93]

When I was fifteen years old, I found out about Star Trek: The Original Series. Back then, Star Trek as I knew was only The Next Generation, and I was apathetic about that. I found out through simple curioaity, but I had nothing to better to do so I looked into it. It sounded kind of interesting, so I found the show on Hulu and decided to give it a shot. I quit midway through the third episode. I saw it as old, cheesy looking, and dumb. Why waste my time on something old? Over the years, the more I got involved in online fandom culture, the more I would see it pop up. The more I would ehar about how having PoC inr egular roles was revolutionary just because it showed that they existed. How the show enrained so many science fiction tropes and ideals into modern Americn media in the vein as Dotor Who has in Britian. Heck a review show I used to watch went over the comic adptations of the films, and came off as so passionate about the franchise that I remembered my previous stance. Remembered how I threw it aside as a relic of the past, despite me even thn seeing the value as I valued classical animaiton and children’s media very highly.

IDK what provoked it, but in January of this year, I decided to watch the entirety of Star Trek. Maybe it was quarentine rentine making me snap. Maybe it was me giving in at last to those urges that had been prodding at me for years. Regardless, I made the choice, and it only made sense to begin with the one that started it all. I am now 28 years old. I have grown far more patient and respectful with the things that came before my time. Media holds a great deal of value and whether I understood it or not, Star Trek was vital to popular media. I was ready to give it a second chance. I expected to go in with a greater appreciation, but otherwise not have many strong feelings abou it. I got through those three episodes again with my feelings better than before, but not too different. But I was determined to keep going. So for two months, I watched episode after episode and this weekend I ended it with the original films. Now here we all at the end of the journey. How do I feel?

I felt very regretful for throwing it aside the way that I did.

I greatly enjoyed TOS. Far more than I had ever expected. It is very much a product of the 60’s. There was a limited budget and it showed, though they made the most of it. There were many ridiculous plots, rampant sexism, and hammy acting that is utterly laughable. Some days I could go along with it, other days I just wanted them to get it over with. And yet, none of it kept me away. There were ideals revolutionary for the time like PoC standing equal to others, themes of all kinds such as anti-war and humanity, great science fiction concepts that may be standard today but don’t rob them of their enjoyability, and so much fun but also many moments that made you think. But most of ll, it had such lovely characters. For me to care about a show, I have to care about it’s chracters. I knew a few things via pop culture, butt hat’s not the same as understanding them as a viewer and media can frequently exaggerate the reality. And as I found out, there was far more to them than what mdia lead me to believe.

Kirk I only ever knew as a brave captain who made out with a lot of women. While that’s true, I can’t call him a reckless womanizing asshole. He was brave, optimistic, diplomatic, and charming. He could be light-herted, but also very much a devoted Starfleet Captain whose duty is his entire being. I was shocked at how much I grew to care about him. Seeing his triumphs, his failings, his strengths and flaws, even on an off day I cared about him. Even when William Shatner hammed it up too much, I enjoyed seeing him. Spock was who I knew the most about consideirng how popular he was and I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I also grew to love him. His logic, his struggle with his dual being as half Vulcan and half Human, his loyalty to Kirk and his dedicaiton to his duty. I could see why he meant so much to people, esecially witht he level of depth and work that Leonard Nimoy put into the character. There’s s amny little things that you begint o notce and it makes Spock feel all the more real. But by far the biggest appeciaiton I grew was for McCoy. He was the character I knew the least about aside form him being a doctor and remembering the first episode. But GOD I love his character so much. His crankiness, snarkiness, and his arguments with Spock were entertaining but seieng how compassionate, devoted, and caring that he is especially when I watched The Empath ahead of time and saw his sacrifice... damn. Not to mention DeForest Kelley’s perormance with him imo being the best peformer aside from Nimoy. He gave it hus all even during the dumbest episodes and that always earns my respect. I didn’t think I’d care about Bones that much, knowing him as that guy who’s more important than the rest but not even close to as much as Kirk and Spock, and he walked away as my absolute favorite character who I will continue to give the love and appreciate that he deserves.

The others were great too. Scotty was funny, great at his job, and the amount fo times he saved thm all via some miracle is to be admired. Sulu was significant for being an Asian man as a regular and in a high position, and I just loved having his prescence. Uhura being a Black woman treated as an equal by her white male peers and being a dedicated, sassy communicaitons officer as well as her lovely musical talents made her a delight. Chekov when he came along added a nice, youthful prescence without him getitg annoying and having a Russian as a hero at that time was also a big deal. While the show struggled BIG TIME with gender and feminism, it was major at the time for presenting PoC and those of other nationalities as equal to others, and the cast clearly did their best to make them feel like actual people. I respect that a great deal. We all should sot hat we can keep improving from there.

I didn’t expect to care. I expected to get the show over with and have something to occupy my time. And yet, I do care. I care about these characters. I care about the shenanigains that they get involed in. I worry when they get into distress even though I know that they’ll be fine. There were plenty of things I knew in advance like Spcok’s deaht in the movies... and I cried anyways. I knew that nothing long-term bad would happen in the series, yet I feared for the cast and their situaton anyways. I grew invested in them. In their relaitonships. The Kirk-Spock-McCoy dynamic was by far my favorite thing and it kept me wanting to keepw atching. Not to occupy my time, but because I genuienly wanted to see what they got into and how they got out of it. To see Kirk and Spock’s mutual respect and trust in each other. To see Spock and McCoy argue over logic and emotion and be wiling to defend the other, to see Kirk and Bones joke and be at ease with each other as the close longitme firends that the are, and just having the three together... it was such a perfect dynamic. Hell I didn’t expect to ship anything aside form maybe Spirk due to knowing it’s significance to fandom, slash,a nd the LGBT+ community. And I came away shipping all three dynamics...a nd veering on all three together, but IDK if I’m quite there yet. But whether shippy or platonic, their relaitonship together is perfect and I loved it.

Now, the journey is over. Oh I plan to go back and do it all over again. I plan to pay even more atteniton. I plan on giving each episode as good of an analysis as I can give. I plan to try and seek out things like the novels and the comics so that I can have more itme with them. I plan to watch the reboot films to see what happes in a different universe. I plan to watch TNG and hope that I enjoy those charactrs that I ignored my entire life just as much as I did these. But for now, it’s over. It is a ride that I am thankful to have taken. I came in indifferen, and am leaving a fan looking forward to whatever else awaits. Thank you Star Trek TOS for this amazing two month journey. Thank you tot he cast and crew who put so much into it despite everything working against them. Thank you to the fans who watched it and kept it alive for all of these decades. And to those who read tot his point and all of my watchthrogh posts, thank you for sitcking with me. It was, without doubt, an experience that I’m never going to forget.

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #336

"get back, you’re never gonna leave him  /  get back, you’re always gonna please him”

What were your favorite things to draw when you were a lil kid? When I was a very little kid, idk. But once I got into meerkats... I drew them like crazy. Do you think there is something with or around you, like a spirit, angel, ghost or something else? How does this make you feel? No. Imagine you’re a stranger looking at yourself. What things would immediately catch your eye? Ugh, let's not. When did you feel the most confident in your life? Probably my senior year of high school. I was happy with Jason with plans for the future together, I was doing excellently in school... I thought I was really going to go somewhere. Do you think love is needed to have good sex? For some people, no. For me, loving one another is an absolute must. Do you think, or want to, die in the city you currently live in? Fuuuuuuuck no, I hate it here. What is the strangest thing you have ever encountered? Probably when I was otw home from my doctor appointment and we passed a random guy in drag walking on the side of the street... That guy is an icon. Favourite soft drink? It's really strawberry Sunkist, but I love it to a degree I don't even allow myself to drink it, because I will fucking destroy that shit so quick. So I tend to just say Mountain Dew Voltage is my fave. What do you like to put gravy on? I hate gravy, period. Have you ever gone canoeing/kayaking? No, but it sounds fun. What is one thing you know about your family history you’re proud of? Uhhhh idk. Who depends on you the most? My snake. Are you related to anyone famous or historical, if so who? Yes; William Clark and Queen Victoria or Queen Elizabeth, idr which. Would you ever donate a kidney to anyone, and who? Mom. She only has one kidney, so, y'know. She kinda needs at least one. I wouldn't even hesitate. What is the main quality you think makes a great parent? Unconditional love. What three things do you think of most of each day? My weight is #1. Every second of every day, it, as well as Jason, are somewhere towards the front of my mind. The final is financial and job-oriented stuff. Does/did your high school have pop machines? It did. Do you know anyone who’s won the lottery? No. Have you ever slept in a water bed? Yeah. How often do you use Flickr? I pretty much abandoned my account; nowadays I only occasional check my friend's profile who works at the Kalahari Meerkat Project because she uploads wonderful pictures of the 'kats as well as gives interesting info about them! Who is the last child that you took a photo with? Mom took a picture of me holding my youngest niece Emerson because it surprised everyone; I NEVER hold babies. She crawled over to me and reached up though, so of course I was going to pick her up. How often do you wear hats? Never. Would you ever get a nature tattoo? Sure! Idk what, but I'm rather sure I'll get at leaast one. Is anyone in your family sick at the moment? No. Where do your siblings work, if anywhere? My older sister is a mammographer, and my younger sis is a social worker. Where is your favorite place to buy groceries? Wal-Mart, I guess. Who do you generally talk to the most? My mom. Is anyone saved in your phone under a nickname? Mom is "Mama Bear," and then my siblings are "Little Sister" and "Big Sister." Whose birthday is coming up? My lil sister has her birthday in April. Have you ever ordered from an informercial? No. When, where, and why did a needle last pierce your skin? I needed to get blood drawn for some testing. It was drawn from my inner elbow, obviously at the doctor. Have you been to an escape room? Was it a success? I never have, but it'd be fun. I enjoy puzzles. How many followers do you have on Instagram? I don't feel like checking. What’s the most recent music video you watched? Thoughts? "Mutter" by Rammstein. I picked a screenshot from it to draw, so I rewatched it to select one. It's a beautiful video, but also strange, which Rammstein is great at. Have you ever recorded a cover of a song? No. What makeup products are your go-tos? If I wear makeup, the bare minimum is black eyeliner. Are you going to school this year? No. I gave college as many shots as I could handle both sanity-wise and with finances in mind. I do NOT want to even ATTEMPT to imagine the debt I have after going to three different colleges and dropping out each time. What is your favorite water activity? I enjoy just kinda swimming around aimlessly, relaxing. What are your favorite video games? Okay, I talk about SH2 and SotC enough on questions like this, so I'll mention some others I really enjoy as well: the Silent Hill franchise in general, Spyro games, The Last Guardian, both The Evil Withins, The Last of Us, some Resident Evil games (the 4th in particular), etc. etc. I just love video games. Do you like jello? I enjoy the flavor, but the texture makes me squirm. When was the last time you gave someone "the finger?" Probably while riding in the car with Mom when a dumb motherfucker swerved into our lane. Or something like that, idr the exact occasion. Have you ever held a snake? Yesssss, I want to hold all the snakes. ;_; Most unique place you’ve ever been to? Uh. I guess maybe the Whirligig Park/"Acid Park" nearby us? It's just this large expanse of unique architecture that are mostly, as you guessed it, extravagant whirligigs. You've got to see it if you come to the town. I have some pictures on my deviantART if you wanna see a few pieces. If you were a superhero, what color would your cape be? NO CAPES! Have you ever slept out on your porch all night? Oh fuck no. I'd feel way, way too unsafe. Do you like horror movies? Yeah! What’s your favorite Coke product? Just normal Coke. Watergun or water-balloon war? Watergun. I don't like being hit with stuff. Do you know anyone that’s afraid of elevators? I kind of am. Is there anything in your room that belongs to a boyfriend, or a friend of the opposite sex? I have three plushies from Jason, Tyler, and Girt. My Marilyn Manson poster is also from Juan. Who’s your favorite Beatle? I don't know; I was never a big fan, so I don't know any of them as people well at all. Have you ever texted an ex whilst drunk? How’d that go? I've never been drunk, but no, I've never texted an ex because I was drinking. Do you have to stand on your tip-toes to kiss your boyfriend? I don't have one. The only instance where I had to do that was with Girt. Tall motherfucker. Have you ever been tackle-hugged? Yes. Those are the best. Have you ever rejected someone’s kiss before? Girt once tried to make out with me and I noped the fuck outta that situation. It was so fucking awkward. Is your mood or the overall tone of your day often affected by the dreams you had the night before? My nightmares definitely can. Do you think that there are any positive aspects or outcomes of suffering from a mental illness? If you have a mental illness, do you think it has changed you for the better in any way? I definitely believe my mental illnesses forced me to mature faster and also instilled a great sense of empathy in me. And don't forget emotional endurance. What is your opinion on celebrity culture and celebrity worship? Have you ever been guilty of putting a celebrity on a pedestal? Do you think it’s somehow more acceptable/understandable to obsess over certain types of celebrities (musicians over YouTubers, say) than others? At what point do you think an obsession like that crosses the line? It's dangerous and can be very blinding. An outsider could say I put Mark on a pedestal, but I've always been very aware that he's not perfect and really just another human, I just happen to love him a lot for the human he is, haha. As time's passed, my vision of him has become healthier though (not to say it ever reached the "unhealthy" threshold); it's gotten easier for me to judge him and stuff like that. I think an obsession crosses the line when you put on rose-tinted glasses to look upon someone and entirely ignore their flaws, or if you try to invade their personal lives, ex. being one of those creeps that loiter outside their houses and stuff. If you were to pursue a career in photography and had the opportunity and means to photograph whatever you wanted, what would most like to photograph? Ah, livin' the dream. If I had to choice and would be paid well regardless of focus, I would absolutely travel and photograph the local nature/wildlife. Is there a certain type of clothing (outerwear, activewear, loungewear, etc.) that you enjoy shopping for more than others? Shirts, 100%. Are you ever afraid to post your ideas, artwork, photography, etc. online for fear that they will get stolen or not credited? When it comes to OCs, yes, given that things have been stolen from me before. Photography doesn't worry me much because I don't think I'm good enough for someone to possibly want to steal it (and besides, I use a watermark), and I do the same for drawings. It's the unique characters I make I worry about being stolen if I share them. When is the last time you did something sexual? A few years back. Who is the last person you showered with, if anyone? I haven't showered with someone since I was a little kid and my younger sister and I would to conserve water. What do you think when you see roadkill on the side of the road? It really makes me genuinely sad, and I always wonder if it could have been avoided if the driver was more alert, slower, and thinking about more than the damage it could cause to their car... I enjoy photographing roadkill, brutal as it may be, out of respect for them and the desire to make their individual stories known and just kind of like, raise awareness of it. Too many people are just annoyed by hitting an animal versus more concerned. "Stupid deer," stuff like that. I sometimes worry that doing so can be interpreted as disrespect, to photograph and publish pictures of their corpses online, but I sure hope not. It's the least of my intentions. I just want people to see and care. Have you ever had an ex that just didn’t understand that it was over? Biiiitch I was that ex, 120%. But besides my situation with Jason, this was how Tyler was. I had to tell him about five thousand times to stop texting me. Are your fingernails currently short or long? They're always pretty short. Would you rather have big or small dogs? I like medium-sized dogs most. I'd have to pick large dogs between the two, though. What is your favorite sports drink? I'm not a fan of sports drinks. What was the last compliment you gave a guy? Yesterday, a guy in PHP shared two poems he wrote while hospitalized, and they were wonderful, so full of passion and emotion. I sure as hell told him they were amazing. He's going for his Master's for poetry, so he knows what he's doing for real. Does your jaw ever crack, pop, or lock? It's popped on very, very few occasions. Have you ever thought of how you would give your kids “the talk”? I don't want kids, so no, I've never thought of this. I certainly wouldn't wait for sex ed in school, though. I feel like it's a bit late. I feel children need to know what it's about at a younger age with how disgusting some people are... I want them to be informed on what consent and molestation are so they know to let Mama know so I can punch someone's face into a whole new galaxy if they're ever violated. Do you ever feel like you’re missing out on something? Oh, always. Do you ever write/draw on windows that are fogged up? I did as a kid, sure. Not so much now. If you were married, and your spouse’s parents became ill, would you let them move into your home? If they were truly sick enough to need assistance but not actual hospitalization, yes. I'd want my spouse to do the same for me. Have you screamed in a pillow before? Yyyyep. What do you like more, acoustic or electric? Electric. Did you actually have a cookie jar? We have a Santa one, though I don't even know if we ever used it versus just having it as a decoration. What’s worse, having someone mad or disappointed in you? Disappointed. What do you bite on more, your tongue, lip, or nails? Bottom lip. Do you think that knowing when and how you’re going to die would ruin your life? "Ruin" it seems a bit extreme, but I definitely wouldn't like it. Do you have a favorite bromance? From TV or a movie. Not really, if we're only talking those two options. Do you find flea markets and thrift stores enjoyable? Yeah, you really can find the coolest shit for great prices. What color is your wallet? Mostly red and white; it's a Harley Quinn design. Have you ever been somebody's photography subject? No. Nicki Minaj fan? I believe she's a very talented rapper, but I don't enjoy her actual music. I just don't like rap. Have you ever seen the Niagara Falls? No, I wish tho.

[javic-piotr-thane]

Torchwood Soho - the entire VORTEX article

TORCHWOOD HAS had the honour of being populated by larger than life characters over the years. We’ve met Captain Jack Harkness and Yvonne Hartman, plus Gwen Cooper, Toshiko Sato, Owen Harper and Susie Costello on television. And Big Finish has given us Mr Colchester, Ng and Orr – as well as the one and only Norton Folgate.

We had a glimpse of bygone Torchwood in 2018’s audio release, Goodbye Piccadilly, in which Norton dragged his friend Sergeant Andy Davidson back in time to Soho in the 1950s. And now we turn back the clock again to witness Norton accompanied by Andy in Torchwood Soho. Tom Price reprises his role as Andy, joining Samuel Barnett (Dirk Gently in the BBC series) as Norton. Gangsters are vanishing from the streets of Soho, there’s a deadly Nazi secret on the loose, and something’s moving in the smog. Norton Folgate should be sorting this out, but the Torchwood agent is in disgrace. Who’s going to save London this time?

Torchwood Soho – Parasite contains six stories: The Man From Room 13, Meet Mr Lyme, The Mould, The Spread, The Dead Hand and The Liberty of Norton Folgate.

Vortex asks writer/producer James Goss at what point did he think that Andy and Norton should get their own series? James explains: “Actually, everyone’s been so kind about the relationship between Norton and Andy, that it really didn’t take much arm-twisting to convince Big Finish to let us spend three blissful days in studio with Sam and Tom.

“The fabulous thing about Torchwood as a franchise is that it spans a huge period, and there are chunks of it that are just worth exploring. We vaguely glimpsed 1950s Torchwood in the Doctor Who TV episode, The Idiot’s Lantern, and this new release is a real peep under the murky, awful bonnet.”

James has been particularly pleased by the reception Norton has had from listeners: “Thrilled, blown away, boggled – and that’s just in reaction to some of the fan art on Tumblr! Seriously, it’s weird to have sort of created a Torchwood character that wasn’t on TV who the Big Finish listeners are dying to hear more of and who has a following of his own. I’d love to say it’s all down to the writing, but really it’s down to Sam’s performance and his rapport with Tom. They’re just audio magic, aren’t they?

“As it’s set in the 1950s, it was obvious to follow the rhythm of the Quatermass serials – so there are six half-hour episodes. And, in the tradition of Quatermass, we start out in an office and end with the world in peril.

“We get to see Norton hunting down alien artefacts stolen by Nazis, escaping from a timetravelling pub, and battling zombies in Margate. We get to meet Norton’s boss (played by Dervla Kirwan) and the hapless leader of Torchwood Soho (David Troughton) – who both share a terrible secret. And we get to discover why Torchwood hid the Skylon at the Festival of Britain. Norton’s also trying to avoid the attentions of a journalist (played by Joe Shire) who is determined to uncover what Torchwood is. Norton’s in a whole lot of trouble – and this time he needs Andy to help him.”

Scott Handcock has been responsible for directing the series. How did he find bringing this volume – effectively a period piece – to life? He grins: “Maybe it’s just because I’ve done a lot of Doctor Who, where you’re constantly flitting all over space and time, but I’m not sure I really register the difference! Obviously, you’re aware of the period and need to convey that in the world you build and characters you cast, but it’s the same approach as creating a civilisation of reptilian aliens in the far future. The script sets up the rules and everyone plays by them. If anything, period pieces are often a bit easier because everyone has a frame of reference. Though having said that, it also means you have to really do your homework.

“The 50s is a fascinating period. Yes, you have a bit more Received Pronunciation – especially with Norton, who throws in a dash of Polari every so often – but there’s a lovely mix of characters in this script, covering various classes and backgrounds. Belle Epoch (gloriously portrayed by Franchi Webb) is a character who you could probably only bring to life in this era. People own those identities more – a lot of them are hiding things and putting up barriers – which makes characters like Andy and Gideon more relatable as our identification figures.”

Tom Price is delighted that not only does Sergeant Andy continue to feature in Torchwood, but he’s also a series lead. He admits: “The listeners really like what Big Finish is doing with Torchwood, which means we can rock up and do more. It’s amazing that the world of Torchwood has been built on good foundations and we can keep adding to it.

“I watched The X Files back in the day, and Star Trek: The Next Generation, as they can reboot and keep going forever and ever. If something is built well, it will last, and that’s exactly what’s happening with Torchwood. It’s got a good engine, and you can tweak it here and there so we can take the cast and put them into a new setting.

“Norton is such a great personality – he was never on TV and I think Sam Barnett is slightly annoyed about that! Characters like him have just got that thing, where they’re big and funny and very memorable.

“I love our team of Scott and James. James is a magnificent writer – he has such a brilliant ear for a story and putting these worlds together. If he was writing music he would be Guy Chambers! And Scott understands the characters better than you or I do. A lot of directors throw way too much stuff at you, but Scott has a good hand on the tiller and will give you a couple of points that can change your performance. I just love going into this created world, and having such fun.”

SCOTT ENJOYS the dynamic between Sam and Tom, in particular. He says: “I think it’s fair to say that Sam and Tom hit it off instantly. Even before Ghost Mission (their first Torchwood together), they met at the recording of Doctor Who: Nightshade and it was clear they enjoyed working together – and that’s only grown the more we’ve done. There’s a shorthand between them that comes from having recorded a lot together, and that trust means they can push the material further. It also means when we get new characters coming in, and the actors see what Sam and Tom are bringing to it, they relax and feel able to give that little bit extra, which is kind of what you need when you’re projecting an entire performance through your voice.”

Scott adds: “It’s a lovely change of pace for Torchwood. I remember the old BBC Sexton Blake dramas, and that slightly pulpy, serialised style they had, so when James first mooted this I suggested we do it as a six-part serial of half-hour episodes. It moves along at one hell of a lick! And as always with James’s scripts, the humour is contrasted with some genuine horror and drama. It’s a really strong character piece and, as a director, has some fantastic set pieces that test you as you leap around the schedule. One of the biggest highlights was getting Dervla Kirwan in to play Lizbeth Heyhoe. She fell in love with the script and said it’s absolutely the kind of part she’d never get seen for on screen – and we just had an absolute blast. It was our first Big Finish together, though obviously when I had to recast Miss Quill in Class, she was my immediate first choice. She’s simply amazing. The entire cast just got it…”

And James concludes: “Honestly, it was just three days of bliss in a studio with a great set of actors.” VORTEX

[ahiddenpath]

Digimon Adventure 2020 Ep 7 Reaction

AKA:  The latest installment of the ongoing battle between Gomamon and Tentomon for the title of “Best Digi.”  

(And all I can hear is an irate: “BUT WHAT ABOUT GABUMON?!”)

Man, Jyou, I don’t even know what to say???  This is one of those episodes where the digimon received more care than the human, lol!  This whole time, I’ve been like, “Man, this show needs 100% more Jyou screaming and running in circles and trying to use destroyed telephones,” but I honestly wasn’t ready for him to bash his head against a makeshift hut while screaming his background exposition so hard that the hut collapsed...  And neither were the others.

(And how hilarious is it that Taichi, Sora, and Mimi had stronger reactions to watching Jyou self-destruct than to...  Arriving in the Digital World and fighting monsters???  Like????  How am I supposed to parse this?????)

It’s odd, because this ep was much simpler and calmer than 6, and yet, I feel like we walked away from 6 knowing far more about Mimi than we know about Jyou following 7.  However...  This ep focused on the Chosen/partner bond more than any previous eps, except maybe Agumon’s mysterious fore-knowledge of Taichi in the first ep.  And obviously, that bond is the core of the digimon franchise.

WHICH LEADS ME TO THE TRUE MVP OF EVERYTHING:  YA BOI, THE CUTEST, THE SWEETEST, THE FUNNIEST, THE CHARMING SCAMP!  YOU KNOW HIM, YOU LOVE HIM, GO!MA!MOOOOON!

So, in a move we all can expect from Jyou, he decided that studying was more important than...  Erm, saving Tokyo.  That sounds damning on the surface, but Gomamon gets it, somehow?  This sweet l’il digibub with no knowledge of the human world, presumably, somehow understands the crushing weight of pressure and expectations that Jyou is carrying.  As a 6th grader, he is prepping for his middle school entrance exams (Jyou is literally always on the precipice of a future-determining event in digimon, somehow, god bless this dumpling).  My American friends don’t have an equivalent of testing into middle school, but I’m told it’s a Big Deal in Japan, especially when you’re aspiring to join your father and brothers as a doctor.

So, when Taichi and co ask Jyou to help them...  Not only does he decline, but he tells his partner, Gomamon, to go with them.  Ouch, dude.

This clearly hurts Gomamon- his eyes glaze with tears.  But instead of reacting with hurt and anger, he explains Jyou’s situation to Taichi and the others, thinking that Jyou is out of earshot.  He says something like, “It may look like Jyou is being selfish and absorbing himself in studying...  But the truth is that he already has so much on his mind that he can’t handle another thing, especially something like saving the world.”  He then says that, until Jyou can figure his stuff out, he, Gomamon, will contribute to the Chosen team on Jyou’s behalf... because they’re partners.

THERE IS SO MUCH TO UNPACK HERE.  First of all, as someone with general anxiety disorder, BOY HOWDY DO I GET THAT.  When your hands are full and you don’t know how to handle what’s in front of you, and someone approaches you with a whole new danged thing- especially if it’s something that really shouldn’t be your job (like, uh, saving the world when you’re a 6th grader), it’s so easy to blow up and nope out.  (Granted, I’ve never smashed my head into walls, but let’s just side-eye that and move on).

AND THE OTHER THING is that THIS IS EXACTLY HOW PARTNERSHIPS WORK.  Gomamon sees that Jyou isn’t at his best.  He knows, from personal experience with Jyou, that Jyou is a good, kind, hard-working person...  He’s just struggling right now.  And when your partner is struggling, you help them...  Knowing they’ll do the same for you when you’re struggling.

AND THEN THIS OTHER THING GOMAMON SAYS?!  Gomamon explains to Jyou how excited he was to meet his partner, to which Jyou replied, “Aren’t you disappointed that it’s someone like me?” 

AND GOMAMON- THIS PRECIOUS BEAN- HE SAYS- HE SAYS!  “Not at all!  I think so myself, so there’s no mistake!”  I could be reading into this too much, but how I took this was: “Okay so supposedly there’s some kind of magic destiny thing going on here, but I choose you.  You are MY choice.”  This simultaneously indicates that Gomamon has already accepted Jyou and loves him, and that he is asserting power over this destiny/Chosen situation.  This hits so hard when you juxtapose it against Jyou saying, “Why me?” over and over while he freaked out earlier.

Gomamon knows exactly why he is involved in all of this prophecy nonsense: because he loves Jyou.  Because he wants to be here.

AND IF THAT ISN’T ENOUGH, he tells Jyou exactly what someone who overburdens himself needs to hear:  “You won’t do this alone.  Taichi and the others are here... and so am I.”

Excuse me, I’ll just be over here sobbing, give me a minute.

At this point, Jyou finally accepts everything with the best possible line:  “You’re my...  I’m YOUR partner,” rightfully acknowledging and accepting that Gomamon is the rock here, and he has a lot of room to grow into this partnership.

SO BASICALLY:  This ep showcases the Chosen/digimon partnership so lovingly, which has always been where Jyou and Gomamon excel.  Gomamon is the best, and we love him.  However, most of what we learned about Jyou came from exposition (Jyou screaming about his exams and his family of doctors while destroying his hut, Gomamon explaining point-blank what makes Jyou tick to the audience).  As an enormous Jyou fan, I wish his intro were as smooth and natural and compelling as Mimi’s in 6...  But clearly, this ep was more focused on the Chosen/digimon bond, and that’s so critical to the franchise.  This ep has a lot to offer!

Now, fingers crossed for Yamato and Kou-chan to join the group.  I seriously don’t remember anything about Yamato in 2020, wasn’t he just kind of... quiet and stand-offish and prone to going solo?  Big “get your extroversion out of my face” vibes.

[tabloidtoc]

Globe, January 4

You can buy a copy of this issue for your very own at my eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/bradentonbooks

Cover: Ghislaine Maxwell buying her way out of prison

Page 2: Up Front & Personal -- Gavin Rossdale playing tennis with his pup Chewy, Brooke Burke holding holiday balls topless, James Franco takes his cellphone into the sea 

Page 3: Leighton Meester surfing in Malibu, Robbie Williams, Lisa Rinna wearing two masks 

Page 4: Angelina Jolie is bracing for major humiliation after being dragged into Johnny Depp’s latest legal showdown with ex-wife Amber Heard -- Angie’s run-ins with Johnny who she starred with in 2010′s The Tourist are coming under intense scrutiny as Depp gears for a second court battle with Amber -- Angie and Johnny were so coy about their white-hot connection at the time even though their romance was an open secret but they got lucky because nobody had the smoking gun to prove it but now it’ll all come out in the open -- at the time Johnny was still dating Vanessa Paradis while Angie was five years into her doomed love-in with Brad Pitt -- there’s talk bisexual Amber was kind of obsessed with Angie so Angie is central to the plotline whether she likes it or not

Page 5: The Bachelor host Chris Harrison is worried he’ll follow Dancing with the Stars host Tom Bergeron out the door -- both these shows have been on TV forever and the world has changed around them and to keep up with Black Lives Matter and the #MeToo movement changes are being discussed and that’s left Chris fearing he’ll be the next Tom Bergeron and replaced by a woman of color 

Page 6: Aging divas Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton are caught in a bitter country catfight and long-dead Patsy Cline is the excuse -- although there’s been little love lost between the Nashville icons for nearly 50 years their simmering feud exploded weeks ago when Dolly apparently took some veiled public shots at Loretta’s BFF Patsy who was horribly disfigured in a car wreck two years before dying in a 1963 plane crash -- in an interview Dolly recalled standing in the wings of Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry at age 13 and watching Patsy perform and she remembered thinking about how awful it was that she got her pretty face scarred up like that -- Loretta was fit to be tied over the comments Dolly made about her old pal and thinks Dolly should stop running her mouth about Nashville legends like Patsy and Johnny Cash -- Dolly’s heard about Loretta’s complaints through the grapevine and brushes them off as quarantine boredom mixed with old age 

Page 8: Blake Shelton’s going bonkers after fiancee Gwen Stefani told him she wants to skip the mega-million star-studded wedding shindig he’s been planning and elope -- Blake is all bent out of shape over Gwen’s latest switcheroo which calls for them to get hitched on the sly at a Mexican resort and she’s got him so mixed up he can’t think straight because for the longest time she wanted the Hollywood-style wedding with all the bells and whistles and was very particular about details but now she’s telling him to ditch those plans which have already cost them a small fortune and book a trip somewhere exotic so they can just just get it over with -- Gwen wants to elope so they can hitched at the Riviera Maya resort in Cancun where they could swap vows on the beach witnessed by her three sons and Blake has no choice but to give in to Gwen and he’s saying he’s fine with it as long as she’s sure this time 

Page 9: Hollywood horndog John Mayer is back sniffing around old flame Jennifer Aniston after his mom gave him a shove -- John and Jen had a steamy fling for about a year before he dropped her in 2009 and now John’s mom Margaret Meyer is scolding him for letting Jen go and John’s mom is always on him about settling down and she feels that at 43 he should be married and she recently had a heart-to-heart talk with him and told him she thought Jennifer was the most down-to-earth of all his exes and because John considers his mom one of the smartest people he knows he decided to reach out to Jen and he’s always admired Jen and thought of her as a classy lady and now he’s reaching out to her again in hopes of getting her to agree to see him again once things leave lockdown 

* FKA Twigs has socked actor Shia LaBeouf with a bombshell lawsuit claiming he subjected her to relentless physical, emotional and mental abuse and gave her an STD and she also accuses him of sexual battery, assault, and infliction of emotional distress -- although Shia says she’s lying Twigs insists Shia once choked her in the middle of the night and kept a loaded firearm by the bed leaving her terrified to get up at night for fear he’d think she was an intruder and shoot her -- she claims during an incident around Valentine’s Day 2019 Shia threatened to crash his speeding car unless she professed her love for him so when he pulled into a gas station she got out of the car but he threw her against the car while screaming in her face then forced her back into the car -- Shia also had rules about how often Twigs had to kiss and touch him -- Shia has been arrested several times on now-dismissed charges including assault and disorderly conduct 

Page 10: John Lennon didn’t have to die -- that’s law enforcement experts’ explosive analysis after reviewing newly discovered evidence about the Beatles legend’s December 8, 1980 murder in NYC -- an odd series of coincidences and simple decisions put Lennon and his killer Mark David Chapman in the same place at the same time -- a review of the details concludes Lennon’s death was a strange result of flukes including his penchant for running around without protection and a missed appointment with his photographer and without these quirks of fate John would still be alive and recording hit songs 

Page 12: Celebrity Buzz -- Pink flashes her bandaged thumb after getting stitches in Santa Monica (picture), Amanda Seyfried confesses she made a terrible decision for turning down the role of a lifetime as Chris Pratt’s love interest in Guardians of the Galaxy and now she’s watching from the sidelines as the director’s second choice Zoe Saldana skyrockets in the money-making Marvel franchise, Katherine Heigl will star in the upcoming limited biopic series Woodhull about Victoria Woodhull the first woman to run for president in 1872, Big Brother alum Zach Rance has come out as bisexual after admitting a sizzling same-sex romance with his former reality show housemate Frankie Grande who is the real-life older brother of pop star Ariana Grande

Page 13: Jaime King slurps down a meal on the streets on L.A. (picture), Jax Taylor mowing the lawn (picture), Guns N’ Roses axman Slash loads up on supplies at an L.A. grocery (picture), former teen heartthrob Chad Michael Murray admits his inflated young ego got the best of him and now he looks at photos of himself and thinks what a dweeb

Page 14: Julia Roberts is headed for the small screen headlining the limited TV series The Last Thing He Told Me where she’ll form an unexpected relationship with her teenage stepdaughter while searching for the truth about her husband’s mysterious disappearance, Emma Stone is also heading for the flat-screen in the comedy series The Curse alongside Nathan Fielder about a couple starring on an HGTV-style show who are trying to conceive a child amid an alleged curse, Nicolas Cage is hosting a new series called The History of Swear Words in which he’ll delve into the origins and pop culture usage and science and cultural impact of profanely shocking expletives

* Fashion Police -- Peyton List 8/10, Sofia Carson 9/10, Vanessa Hudgens 2/10, Neve Campbell 1/10, Chelsea Handler 4/10 

Page 16: Cover Story -- Jeffrey Epstein’s madam Ghislaine Maxwell’s $30M jail break -- terrified and tortured Ghislaine risks family fortune to buy her freedom -- the accused sex predator and her fat cat inner circle are set to plunk down an obscene $30 million to buy her way out of federal prison in what outraged investigators fear is a brazen plot to cheat justice 

Page 19: 10 Things You Don’t Know About Mayim Bialik

* Lizzo is admitting she’s having negative thoughts and is hating her 300-pound body but adds she knows she beautiful

* The Spice Girls were likely liquored up on cut-rate champagne when they made their first album according to Emma Bunton a.k.a. Baby Spice who says she and her bandmates swilled the cheapest sparkling wine in the studio 

Page 20: True Crime -- a chilling message left by the elusive Zodiac Killer has finally been cracked by a team of code breakers after 51 years -- a hodgepodge of numbers, symbols and letters called the 340 cipher was sent to the San Francisco Chronicle in 1969 and lawmen believed it contained key clues to the serial killer’s identity but the truth is even more chilling -- according to the experts the message says I hope you are having lots of fun in trying to catch me, I am not afraid of the gas chamber because it will send me to paradise all the sooner because I now have enough slaves to work for me 

Page 21: Caitlyn Jenner is terrified after learning her skin cancer has returned a second time -- she was diagnosed with basal cell skin cancer a few years ago and had an entire layer of skin removed from her nose -- since then she’s been slathering on sunscreen but a new red spot on the right side of her nose popped up along with some crusty areas on her scalp but the nose patch was not cancer but hypertrophic keratosis or scaly damage from sun exposure -- however the dozen spots on the top of her head was squamous cell carcinoma which is a skin cancer that’s known to be aggressive so her doctor burned off the offending spots -- her doctor recommended she replace her 1960 Austin-Healey convertible but the chances of Caitlyn selling her prized ride are slim 

Page 23: Your 2021 Horoscope -- love, luck, health, wealth, happiness -- plus surprising celebrity predictions -- Elton John, Valerie Bertinelli, Johnny Depp, Jessica Simpson, Matthew Perry, Cameron Diaz, Will Smith, Katy Perry, Howie Mandel, Savannah Guthrie, Justin Timberlake, Carrie Underwood 

Page 30: Larry King has reached a deal with estranged wife Shawn but she’s royally peeved about the payoff -- Larry has agreed to pay her a lump sum of $20,000 plus $33,000 a month in spousal support which lasts until at least their next scheduled hearing in April but Shawn claims the 33Gs only covers a third of her monthly nut which includes $25,000 for rent on her home, $12,000 on clothes, $3500 on groceries and $4500 for hair and nails and pet care and gym 

Page 31: Kim Kardashian is reading husband Kanye West the riot act over his junk food benders that are sabotaging her healthy eating program and it’s led to more than a few arguments with no peace in sight -- he’s telling her to chill and let him live by his own terms but she can’t do that because it’s driving her crazy -- what really ticks Kim off is his junk food has totally taken over her section of fresh cut veggies, fruits and water and she wants him to get his own storage in a different part of the house where she won’t have to see it or hold her nose 

* Kardashian momager Kris Jenner’s faux reality TV home is on the market for nearly $8 million even though she never lived there -- the L.A. estate was used for exterior shots of the image-conscious family’s compound on Keeping Up with the Kardashians but it was all for show -- dubbed the Iredell Estate the house also appears in True Blood and Chelsea Lately 

Page 33: Health Report 

Page 34: Wrestling Ring Kings: Where Are They Now? Sable, Bret Hart

Page 35: Lex Luger, Steve Austin, Ric Flair 

Page 36: The Undertaker, Tito Santana, Diamond Dallas Page 

Page 37: Kane, Kurt Angle, Sunny, Mick Foley 

Page 39: Despite an astounding 30 No. 1 country music hits legendary singer Charley Pride took a haunting regret to his grave that he never made it as major league baseball star -- Charley had so much success but he died tormented his baseball career short-circuited -- Charley was singing and playing guitar by the time he was 14 but his real goal was to pitch for the New York Yankees -- Charley signed with a Yankees farm team as a flame-throwing phenom at 17 but in his rookie season he threw out his arm and was just never the same -- after he struck out in baseball he put his full energy into singing but faced an uphill battle -- Charley was the Jackie Robinson of country music and he endured a lot of racism 

Page 40: Kelsey Grammer admits he often breaks down and blubbers like a baby and it makes him feel better and he cries when he’s upset or sad or scared and it provides him a lot of relief and he believes years of tragedy in his life taught him to cry as a healing mechanism and now he sheds tears whenever he has sad feeling bottled up inside him 

* A moneybags James Bond fan coughed up a whopping $256,000 for the handgun 007 Sean Connery toted in the first spy epic Dr. No -- the disabled Walther PP semi-automatic was supposed to bring in no more than $200,000 but the unidentified American buyer who claims to have seen every Bond epic went even higher 

Page 44: Straight Talk -- Miley Cyrus is now blabbing about why she broke up with husband Liam Hemsworth after years of togetherness and just nine months of marriage and it sounds like a case of the pot calling the kettle black 

Page 45: Furious Queen Elizabeth has booted Princess Eugenie and her husband out of Prince Harry’s Frogmore Cottage home in a bit to foil Meghan Markle’s plan to completely cut him off from England and the royal family -- pregnant Eugenie and her booze-seller husband Jack Brooksbank were ordered to quit the cottage and move back to Kensington Palace just six weeks after Harry and Meghan secretly leased them the home meaning Harry and Meghan are still on the financial hook for Frogmore which was a gift from the queen and they will have to underwrite the cost of keeping up the property and it also ensures Harry has a home in Britain if he ever wants to come back -- by moving Eugenie and Jack out the queen has made sure Harry still has a place to hang his hat if he decides to come back to leave his American wife 

Page 47: Bizarre But True 

[maggotzombie]

LIEBE LIESE: ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ɪ – 𝒮𝒾𝓁𝓋𝑒𝓇 𝒽𝒶𝒾𝓇

→ CHAPTERS LIST —  PROLOGUE WORD COUNT: 3,5k

LIESE SIGHS and blows a loose strand of hair from out of her face. She’s bored out of her mind.

The association she works for is throwing a benefit gala to raise funds for the treatment of children with leukemia and research of the disease. It has been draining since she had to prepare a speech but she’s just a doctor, only good with medicine, not words. So, speaking beautiful and meaningful things in front of people and a bunch of celebrities is worse than sitting through a film from the Saw franchise.

She’s probably just overreacting, though. But it certainly isn’t fun going to events like this straight from a 13-hour shift. Liese hasn’t slept in the last nine hours, she hasn’t eaten in forever and the remaining three hours of the shift had been a hellish roller coaster. Try to do that and hold a smile while mingling around to talk about the wonders of the project. With a bit of luck, she could get two or three signed checks.

Liese approaches the bar area and sits down the empty glass of liquor. “Whiskey, neat,” She orders, glancing at the bartender before looking back at her phone.

The woman had long abandoned the champagne.

“Same as the lady’s,” A male voice says from her side.

Out of politeness, Liese acknowledges the man’s presence by looking at him and smiling briefly. He stares at her with interest as she thanks the bartender for the drink and simply moves away, without even taking a second look at him.

‘Just more thirty minutes and I’ll finally leave’, Liese thinks to herself, stepping out on the empty balcony.

It’s freezing, that’s why it’s empty, but the woman isn’t bothered by it. She walks towards the railing, resting both hands on the cold stone. The chilly wind makes her realize she’s a bit drunk which is no surprise since she’s been nursing glasses of champagne and whiskey for the past two hours with an empty stomach.

“What a lady like you is doing all alone in the cold?” The deep voice makes her turn as the man from the bar approaches.

“What does make you think I’m alone?” She asks, looking at him and accepting the flirtation. “I’m with you, am I not?” The woman raises an eyebrow, sipping the brown liquor, and he smiles.

“Yes, you are,” He agrees. “I’m Henry Cavill and I believe you are Dr. Liese Hartmann, correct?” He frowns.

“I am,” She nods. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Cavill,” Her light brown eyes stay focused on his face.

Henry gives her a warm smile. “I must congratulate you. It was a brilliant speech.”

“Oh, please,” Liese scoffs, rolling her eyes and looking away. “Now I know you really want something from me because praise that tells a lot. And it’s desperation,” She chuckles to not sound as rude as her words seemed.

The man chuckles as well, taking a step closer to her.

“Not at all,” He starts. “I can tell how passionate you’re about your work from what you’ve said.”

“Well, I’ll give you that,” The woman nods, raising her glass.

Henry clicks their glasses, and they sip their drinks without breaking eye contact. Liese licks her lips, and the man stares at it immediately as she places her glass back on the stone railing.

“So what kind of lady am I?” She asks, eyes focusing back on his.

He panics slightly as he minds go blank but before he knows, he’s talking. “You’re very smart, witty and you obviously pour your heart into your work,” The man wets his lips quickly and Liese part hers, tilting her head slightly and resting her glass in front of her chin. “Besides all of that, you’re gorgeous. You change the atmosphere of the room you’re in and it isn’t the red dress nor the silver hair,” He says. “Don’t get me wrong, they’re very interesting but you’re much more than the beautiful exterior. You’re simply genuine about everything.”

Liese keeps a stoical gaze until she cracks a side smile. “So you can read people?” She raises an eyebrow and he shrugs with a smirk. “Very well. So you understand why a lady like me sees no problem in being alone. In fact, our own companionship is more than enough,” Liese finally sips her drink.

“I do,” Henry nods.

“However, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy being with someone else at times,” The woman adds, moving to sit down at the sofa on the edge of the balcony.

“That’s good to know,” He says, following behind her.

She crosses her leg, adjusting the fabric to cover a bit more of the exposed skin from the split.

Henry simply pops open the button to his suit jacket. “Are you cold?” He frowns again, gazing at her uncovered shoulders and arms.

“I’m hungry,” She says confesses right away.

The man laughs heartily, tilting his head back, shoulders shaking and all. “Is there something I can do to help with that?” He asks.

“I don’t think so,” Liese replies, narrowing her eyes at him.

“Why is that?” He keeps the handsome smile on his face.

“Because you seem too fit,” She boldly pokes his chest with her index finger and his eyes follow it before he erupts in laughter again.

“Wow,” The man wiggles his eyebrows. “Nobody ever insulted me by saying I’m in a good shape,” He points out.

“Well, I’m craving for a burger and it doesn’t seem your choice of food,” She says with a slight head shake, and he gives her a weird look. “Women don’t need to be pregnant to crave food,” Liese explains, rolling her eyes.

“I eat burgers,” Henry defends himself. “Not always, but I do,” He emphasizes it.

“Is it cheat day?” The woman smirks at him, flirting hard.

“If you want to,” He says, keeping her gaze until he stands up. “Come on, we can get it on the way.”

“To where?” She frowns, looking up at him.

“Why don’t we find out?” He replies, offering a hand.

Liese stares at him for a second before slowly opening a smirk and accepting his hand. She picks her clutch and leaves her glass of whiskey on the coffee table by the side of Henry’s before taking his hand. Once standing up, he motions for her to lead the way, and she does.

The ballroom now seems extremely too hot and it’s hard to breathe. Liese doesn’t bother to say goodbye to anyone, she simply walks towards the exit with the man following behind her.

“Dr. Hartmann,” Someone calls, and she halts, raising her head to look at the source: a photographer. “Mr. Cavill,” He says, after recognizing the man. “A photo, if I may?” He asks.

Henry looks at Liese, waiting for her answer as he puts his phone back into the inside pocket of the suit jacket. “Of course,” The woman politely smiles, back into the sweet doctor persona.

She transfers her clutch to the left hand and adjusts her skirt, making the split side of it more apparent. Liese looks back at Henry, and he gets closer, placing his hand on the small of her back. They look at the camera and a photo is taken. The woman then leans back against Henry’s body and puts a hand on her waist, sticking her exposed leg further out. This time, the photographer takes several photos of them.

“That’s it. Thank you so much,” The man with the camera says with a nod.

“Sure,” Liese smiles again.

“Very nice speech, doctor,” The photographer continues.

“Oh, you’re very kind,” She looks down, holding her skirt to not stumble upon it. “Have a good night,” She offers another smile.

“For you guys as well,” He says.

“Thanks, mate,” Henry nods at him, following the woman. “It looks like our getaway is no longer a secret,” He whispers to her, keeping his hand on her back.

She looks at him with an amused smile. “Is that a problem?”

“Oh, not at all,” He shakes his head. “I am lucky that a lady like you wants to be seen with me,” Henry keeps up with the joke, and she actually laughs for the first time.

“Well, I will be seen with you, yes,” Liese gives him a look with a smile, then motions to the expecting fans waiting outside with her head.

“Oh,” He says, looking at the crowd that hasn’t recognized him yet.

“Yup,” The woman nods, turning to face him. “Did you drive here?”

“No, but I have a car waiting. He should be here by now,” Henry replies, looking around as people start to scream for him. “There he is,” He motions to a sleek black SUV with a driver waiting outside, looking at them.

“Oh, Chris,” Liese smiles at the sight of the driver and waves, getting a small smile and a wave back.

Henry is surprised by two things: first, she knows him, and secondly, he never saw the man’s features change from the permanent scowl. Oh, and they work together for quite some time now.

Girls scream his name louder and security has to stop them from getting to him. “I’ll be there in a second,” He says to her.

The woman nods and lets him to his devices, walking towards Chris. “Dr. Hartmann,” The driver greets her, opening the backseat door for her.

“You know you can call me Liese, Chris,” She chides him but with a smile, giving him a quick kiss on the cheeks. “How are you? It’s been quite some time!”

As usual, he accepts the warm greeting awkwardly. “It does, dr Har…” He stops himself at her raised eyebrow. “Liese,” He concedes with a contained chuckle. “I’m very good, thank you for asking. How about you, ma’am?”

“Not even my mum likes to be called ma’am but I’m fine as well,” She replies and the driver chuckles more naturally.

“It’s nice seeing you,” He confesses.

“Yes, I couldn’t agree more!” Liese smiles widely.

“Uhm…” Chris pauses, glancing at the celebrity who employs him. “If you don’t mind…”

The woman interrupts him by shaking her head and waving her hand dismissively. “You know I don’t. Speak freely,” She says, looking at him with the same smile.

“Are you joining Mr. Cavill tonight?” He asks, focused on her.

“Only if you say it’s fine,” Liese replies truthfully.

The driver’s eyes almost pop out from its sockets. “Dr. Hartmann!” He says in astonishment.

She smiles. “You know what I mean,” The woman moves a strand of hair to the side. “You probably know him better than I do. Is there something that I should know?” She raises an eyebrow.

“No,” Chris shakes his head, understanding her concern. “He’s a very nice guy, humble. Definitely different from other famous people I worked with but in a good way,” He informs her.

Liese nods and smiles. “Then, yes. I’m joining him,” She confirms, and he nods. “How’s little Michael, by the way?” Liese frowns slightly.

They didn’t realize the man approaching him and, gladly, he only catches the last sentence. ‘Who’s Michael now?’ Henry thinks to himself as he walks towards the woman and his driver.

Chris doesn’t have the opportunity to answer as he looks at the actor. “Are we ready?” He asks.

“Yes, sir,” The driver nods.

Henry gives him a look. “I told you Henry is enough,” He says.

Liese chuckles at it and Chris looks at the couple. “My apologies, sir.”

“That is also prohibited,” The man says, reaching out a hand for Liese. “Let me help you in.”

She gathers as much of the dress fabric as she could, accepting Henry’s hand. He, too, raises her skirt to free her feet but careful enough to not expose her. Liese scoots over to behind the driver’s seat and adjusts her dress as Henry slides in by her side.

“How do you know Chris?” He asks quickly as the man walks around the vehicle.

“We worked together,” She replies promptly, putting on the seat belt. “He’s an EMT and a great one,” Liese adds.

His eyebrows shoot to his hairline. “I didn’t know that,” He confesses as Chris opens the door. “Chris, why didn’t you tell me you’re an EMT?” He asks the man right away.

“Oh, I thought you already knew, sir,” The man says, putting his own seat belt. “I’m also an Army veteran. That’s exactly why miss Garcia hired me.”

“Whoa. I don’t know shit,” Henry says, shaking his head and the woman chuckles. “Oh, don’t call Dany ‘miss Garcia’ in front of her.”

“I wouldn’t do that again!” Chris shakes his head, remembering what happened when he did that for the first time. Henry chuckles. “Where should I go?”

“First food for the lady and then straight home,” He instructs. “I think the only place open right now is McDonald’s, though,” He looks at the woman by his side.

“McDonald’s it is,” She says and the driver nods once again, moving the car.

“So you two met when Chris worked as an EMT?” The man asks her with a slight frown after they pull out the ballroom.

“I convinced him to become an EMT, actually,” Liese replies. “Many years ago Chris and his wife rushed to the ER with their infant son, Michael, who choked on food. I was the attending physician but Chris was the one who saved his son. He cleared Mike’s airways as much as he could until I got him.”

“Wow. And then you become an EMT?” Henry looks at his driver.

He nods. “Dr. Hartmann doesn’t take no for an answer,” He says.

At McDonald’s drive-thru, the doctor orders food for her and the two men – against their will, for the record – saying to Henry that she won’t share hers. Beside the Big Mac, the woman gets herself a mint Matchmaker McFlurry which she manages to eat it all before getting to wherever they’re going. It wasn’t planned, but she saw an advertisement and got curious about it instantly. For Henry, she gets a Big Tasty with Bacon and large fries with coke for Chris.

The car parks in front of a mews house in South Kensington and Henry hops out of it, reaching out a hand for her. Liese struggles to hold the empty foam cup as well as the brown paper bag with her food without tripping over her dress.

“Oof,” The woman breathes out, clutching on to Henry’s shoulder to steady herself on five-inch stiletto heels.

The muscular arm around her waist also helps a lot.

“Allow me to take this, Dr. Hartmann,” Chris says, picking the empty foam cup from her hand.

“Thanks,” She smiles. “Oh, my clutch,” She turns back to the car, bending over the backseat to retrieve the small purse.

“Got it?” Henry asks, trying his best to not stare at her rear.

“Uh-huh…” The woman replies before even reaching the purse. Raising her leg a little bit, she finally retrieves the item. “Got it,” She says, pushing herself back into her feet.

“Wonderful,” He says, holding her at arm's length and turning to the driver. “Thanks, Chris. Have a good night.”

“Bye, Chris. It was nice seeing you,” She says to the man, holding onto Henry’s arm.

“You too, Dr. Hartmann,” The driver replies, closing the backseat door. “The new hair color is very nice, by the way.”

“Thank you,” She genuinely smiles at him. “And it’s Liese.”

Chris chuckles. “Have a good night.”

The woman waves as he gets into the car, walking alongside Henry towards his front door. As he unlocks it, an eager dog whimper can be heard from outside and the massive bear greets them with a wagging tail. The man sustains his weight as he jumps on him and Liese slips inside the house. The dog quickly shifts his interest from his owner to her which she gladly accepts.

“Oh my God, hey!” She smiles, immediately kneeling down to pet him. “Du bist das Bärchen, nicht ich,” Liese whispers to the pet in her native language and the man frowns at it. “Nein, McDonald's kann du nicht haben. Es tut dir nicht gut,” She says as the dog gets interested in her food bag.

“Ok, Kal,” Henry starts. “Give her some space,” He says to the dog and he obeys, walking away.

“He’s so adorable,” The woman says with a smile, accepting the hand to help her stand up.

Once she gets to his eye level, Liese gasps in surprise as the man pushes her against the door, pinning her. His lips cover hers immediately and she melts into his mouth. A small moan escapes her mouth when Henry’s tongue slips into it. At the sound, he squeezes her against the wood even harder, almost feeling every inch of her small frame with his body. The kiss is slow even though they both want it desperately since they were at that freezing balcony.

“That ice cream does taste good,” Henry whispers into her lips. “Who would have thought that mint and whiskey are a good match?” He adds and Liese chuckles.

“Well, I told you so,” She says, eyes locked on his and that’s when she notices it, even in the dark. “You have sectoral heterochromia!” The woman muses, surprised to not have seen it before.

“What?” He chuckles.

“The brown bit in your beautiful blue eyes,” The doctor explains. “That’s sectoral heterochromia.”

“Oh, that,” Henry smiles, moving to turn the lights on. “I forgot you’re a doctor,” He adds, looking back at her. “You really like your ridiculously difficult words.”

“I’m a consultant physician. You should see pathologists,” Liese shakes her head slightly, making him chuckle. The man grabs her hand and leads her to the kitchen. As Henry turns the lights on, the woman’s stomach rumbles loudly. “Oh, God,” She makes a face, putting a hand over it.

“When was the last time you ate something?” He asks, watching her sitting on the countertop.

“I’ll sit here,” She informs instead of asking. “I don’t know,” The woman answers the question, crossing her legs and searching for her food into the bag. “I was working a thirteen-hour shift and then went straight to the gala.”

“Are you serious?” Henry asks, peeling off his jacket suit.

“Uh-huh,” She nods, finally biting into the big burger.

The man proceeds to take off his tie, leaving it over the sofa’s backrest, and then unbuttons enough of his dress shirt to see muscle under it. “Kal, don’t,” He says to the dog who eyes the tie in interest. “Get out of there,” Henry tells him, folding his sleeves.

The dog has ruined enough amount of his ties since Henry got him.

“Kal,” The woman whispers. “Why do I recognize this name?” She asks to herself with a frown before shaking her head.

Henry turns back to her. “Do you want anything to drink?”

“Milk,” Is the prompt answer.

He frowns. “Milk?” He says, getting it from the fridge anyway. "That's an odd combination."

“Well, I had enough of liquor today. This is supposed to make me not have a hangover tomorrow morning,” Liese explains, accepting the full glass he’s offering.

“Smart,” He leans against the kitchen island right in front of her and grabs one of her ankles.

Liese watches as he starts to unfasten the stiletto heels’ strap from her ankle. “I’m a doctor, right?” She raises an eyebrow as he looks up at her with a smile on his face.

“You say you are,” He replies, massaging her free foot with one hand while the other puts the shoe on the counter beside her. “But how can I be sure?” Henry asks playfully, grabbing her other ankle and doing the same thing.

The woman gently puts her burger down, reaching out to her clutch and getting her hospital ID from it. “How about this?” She puts it on his face as he massages her other foot. “Oh, that feels so good,” The woman moans unintentionally.

“St. Thomas, you’re fancy,” He teases her, smiling widely. “It can be fake, though.”

Liese rolls her eyes. “Okay,” She looks up, trying to think of something while chewing. “Ask me anything then.”

So he does. “Will you sit on my face tonight?” Henry looks at her with the most innocent eyes and squeezing her calf.

She laughs. “Is that what you wanted to ask all this time?”

“Maybe,” He blinks naively at her.

“Then eat your burger so you can be strong enough to bear me,” She says, motioning to the junk food sitting on the counter.

“Oh, you are this feisty?” Henry continues teasing, picking the boxed burger.

“Don’t you wanna find out?” Liese teases him too, running her foot down on his abs.

She reaches really low but never gets to his crotch then crossing her leg again in a much sexier way. The expression on his face when he looks up at her again is so amusing that Liese can’t hold her laugh.

* * *

— CHAPTER II: PILLOW TALK

[nickburn]

Things I Enjoyed in 2020 Despite Everything

Seasons Greetings! This year has felt like an eternity for so many reasons, and before it’s over, I’d like to take a look back on the distractions that got me through it. Along the way, I’ll occasionally point out where I was emotionally at the time and whether I got into a particular thing before or after the pandemic hit in mid March. I hope you enjoy this little retrospective of some of my experience during one of the worst years of human history!

Games & Mods

Might & Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven

When I was making my 2020 resolutions list late last year, one of my goals was to play more old games in my backlog and not buy many new games this year. That goal largely went on hold, because, well, I sought out enjoyment wherever I could find it instead of forcing myself to play one thing or another. But before Covid, I was really enjoying my new playthrough of M&M6. I’d made attempts at it before, but it was really GrayFace’s mod that made the game click for me. Modern features like quick saves and mouselook make the game much more accessible, and I’d recommend it to anyone who wants to try an old-school RPG. It’s a great stepping stone into a mostly-dead genre. I’m hoping to get back to it soon. I just jumped ship to simpler ventures like Doom Eternal after the pandemic hit and haven’t looked back since.

Pathologic 2

I learned about the Pathologic series late last year and have since become a little obsessed with it. Hbomberguy’s lengthy video essay on the original game really intrigued me and lead me to trying the sequel/remake in April via Xbox Game Pass. In a weird way, it was cathartic to be a doctor in an even more dire situation than our current one and still see signs of the townsfolk trying to help each other deal with a supernatural plague and little help from their local government. The game helped me express a lot of what I was feeling at the time, when I was still getting used to working from home and wondering just how long this could go on for. I’ve gone back to it recently, and I’m hoping to finish it someday, if I can find a way to stop dying. Above all, Pathologic 2 teaches you how to make choices in no-win scenarios with little information or resources and still persevere, despite the world going to Hell around you. And that’s maybe the most important thing to practice at the moment.

Overwatch

I’ve continued to look forward to weekly Overwatch nights with my friends every Thursday, and it’s really important to have something like that right now. Even if it’s just a new episode of a show airing, a new video from a favorite YouTuber, or a regular Zoom call with coworkers, it helps so much to have something to anticipate from week to week and month to month. Otherwise, it’s really easy to feel like nothing’s going on besides the entropic deterioration of the universe. Overwatch itself helps with this, because it’s such a positive, bright, and optimistic game, as only Blizzard can create. And it’s improved a ton in the past couple of years, in a lot of ways. If you haven’t played in a while, hop in and check out all the new content with your friends; I think you’ll have a great time. It’s looking more and more like Overwatch 2 is right around the corner, and I’m very much looking forward to it.

Go

I learned how to play Go after watching a documentary released this year about  AlphaGo, the computer that beat the Go world champion, and I have a huge appreciation for the game now. I think it’s even more beautiful than chess, though even more insidious to learn. If you haven’t played before, start with a 9x9 board, teach yourself the basics, and try playing with another beginner friend. I guarantee you’ll be amazed at the amount of strategy and imagination that a game ostensibly about placing black and white stones on a grid can inspire. Go’s one of several new hobbies I’ve picked up this year, and those new hobbies have really helped me pass the time in a way that feels productive as well as take my mind off whatever depressing news just got blasted across Twitter.

Doom 64

Doom Eternal was fine, but Doom 64′s where my heart lies. The PC port on Steam is great, allowing everyone to easily play the game with mouse and keyboard. Its levels are tight and colorful, often asking the player to backtrack multiple times through the same areas to unlock new ones and take on whatever new twists await down each darkened corridor. It’s a surprisingly fresh experience. Unlike many modern Doom mods that strive to be sprawling marathons, 64′s levels are short but memorable, and the game is a great entry point to the series for newcomers because of that. Retro FPS’s continue to inspire and entertain me, and Doom 64 is one of my new favorites.

Golf With Your Friends

I’m not usually that into party games, but Golf With Your Friends strikes the right balance between casual tone and skill-based gameplay. The maps are vibrant and devious, the different modes are creative and often hilarious, and the pacing is near-perfect. If you’ve got a squad itching to play something together for a few nights, I guarantee you’ll have a lot of laughs trying to knock an opponent off the course or turning them into an acorn just as they’re about to attempt a nasty jump.

Quake 1 Mods

I probably sound like a broken record by now to a lot of you, but I won’t rest until I get more people into retro FPS’s. The outdated graphics and simple gameplay can be off-putting at first, but it doesn’t take long at all to get hooked after you’ve played the likes of excellent mods like Ancient Aliens for Doom 2 or Arcane Dimensions for Quake 1. And it’s only getting better, with this year marking probably the best year for Quake releases ever. The industry even seems to be taking notice again, with many talented mappers getting picked up for highly-anticipated, professional indie projects like Graven and Prodeus. And while the marketing around the retro FPS renaissance as the second coming of “boomer shooters” should be much maligned, the actual craft involved in making mods and brand new games in the genre has never been stronger. I even contributed four levels to the cause this year, but you’ll have to play them yourself to decide if they’re any good: https://www.quaddicted.com/reviews/?filtered=burnham.

Streets of Rage 4

I had not tried Steam Remote Play before this year, but it works surprisingly well if you have a decent internet connection. Because of Remote Play, I was able to complete Streets of Rage 4 with my friends, and it was very close to the experiences I had as a kid playing brawlers like Turtles in Time on the Super Nintendo. The game is just hard enough to make you sweat during the boss fights but just easy enough that the average group of gamers can complete it in a night or two, which is ideal for adults with not a lot of free time.

Hard Lads

Hard Lads is a pure delight of a game by Robert Yang about the beauty of a viral video from 2015 called “British lads hit each other with chair,” which is even more ridiculous than it sounds. It made me smile and laugh for a good half hour, and I think it’ll do the same for you.

Commander MtG

The Commander format for Magic: the Gathering is one of my favorite things, and in 2020, I dug into it more than any other year. More so even than playing or watching it being played, I created decklists for hours and hours, dreaming up new, creative strategies for winning games or just surprising my imaginary opponents. I sincerely believe this little ritual of finding a new legendary creature to build around and spending a few days crafting a brew for it got me through the majority of this summer. I didn’t have a lot of creative energy this year, but I was able to channel the little I did have into this hobby. Especially during the longer, more frustrating or depressing days at work when I had nothing else to do or just needed a break, I could often dive back into card databases and lose myself in the process of picking exactly the cards that best expressed what I wanted to do for any given deck. And it’s nice to know I can always fall back on that.

Yu-Gi-Oh!

I played a lot of Yu-Gi-Oh! growing up but never had the cards or the skill to be particularly good at it. I just knew I enjoyed the game and the 4Kids show, but I quickly them behind when I got to high school. Fast forward to 2020, and the game and franchise have evolved substantially, not always for the better. But I do find it so intriguing, with a skeptical kind of adoration. It’s not nearly as well-supported as Magic, but what it does have are gigantic anime monsters on tiny cards with enough lines of text to make your head spin. And it’s so interesting to me that a franchise like that can continue to thrive alongside more elegant games like the Pokemon TCG and Hearthstone. And the further I’ve delved into how the game has changed since I stopped playing, the more invested I’ve become, going so far as to start buying cards again and looking into possible decks I might enjoy playing. An unequivocal win for Yu-Gi-Oh! is Speed Duel, which seeks to bring old players back to the game with a watered-down, nostalgia-laden format with fewer mechanics and a much smaller card pool. So if all you want to do is pit a Blue Eyes White Dragon against a Dark Magician, that’s 100% still there for you, but the competitive scene is still alive, well, and astoundingly complicated. And I think that’s kind of beautiful.

Black Mesa

I wasn’t expecting to have the tech to play Half Life: Alyx this year, so Black Mesa seemed like the next best thing. And it really is a love letter to the first game, even if it’s far from perfect. I even prefer the original, but I did very much enjoy my time with this modern reimagining. If you’ve never played a Half Life game before, I think it’s a great place to start.

VR via the Oculus Quest

Around halfway through this year, I started to get really stir crazy and yeah, pretty depressed. It seemed like I’d be stuck in the same boring cycle forever, and I know for a lot of people, it still feels like that. So VR seemed like the perfect escape from this dubious reality where you can’t even take a safe vacation trip anymore. And you know, I think it works really well for that purpose. The Oculus Quest is especially effective, doing away with cords or cables so you have as much freedom as you have free real estate in your home. I don’t have a lot of space in my studio apartment, but I have enough to see the potential of the medium, which is completely worth it. Next gen consoles are neat and all, but I’ve got my heart set on picking up the Quest 2 as soon as possible.

* Beat Saber

I was most looking forward to trying Beat Saber on the Quest, and I was not disappointed. You’d think rhythm games had reached their peak with Rock Band and DDR, but the genre keeps on giving with gems like this. It’s hard to convey if you’ve never tried it, but the game succeeds so well in getting your entire body into the rhythm of whatever song you’re slashing through.

* Half Life: Alyx

Again, I really did not expect to be able to experience this game as intended this year, and I still don’t think I really have. The Oculus Link for the Quest is admittedly a little janky, and my PC barely meets the minimum specs to even run the game. And yet, despite that, Alyx is one of my top three games of 2020 and maybe one of my all-time favorites. Even as I was losing frames and feeling the game struggle to keep up with all the AI Combine soldiers running around, I was still having a blast. For me, it is one of the best reasons to seek out and own VR and a pinnacle of game design in its own right.

Hades

For me, Hades has mostly been similar to every other Supergiant Game that I’ve played: fun and well-polished but ultimately not engaging enough to play for very long. And there’s always this sheen of trying to be too clever with their dialogue, narration, and music that rubs me the wrong way. But Hades is certainly their best game, and I can’t deny the effect it’s had on people, much like Bastion’s reception back in 2011. And I’m really hoping Hades gets more people into roguelikes, as a more accessible and story-driven approach to the genre. Timing-wise, I wish it hadn’t come out around the same time as Spelunky, because I think it did make some people choose one over the other, when the best choice is to play both and realize they’re going for very different experiences. The precise, unforgiving, arcade-like style of Spelunky isn’t fun for everyone, though, and Hades is thankfully there to fill in that gap. I’m really glad I found more time to play it this year at least to succeed on one escape attempt; it’s a fun game to think about in a game design context. And I do think the game has a lot of merit and is doing some clever things with difficulty that the studio likely could not have honed nearly so well without the help of Early Access. The most impressive part of the game to me is not the story or the music or the combat but the massive amount of contextual dialogue they somehow found time to program, write, and record at a consistently high level. All of this is just to say, Hades is obviously one of the best games of the year, and you should play it if you have any interest in it at all.

Spelunky 2

I’ve spoken a lot about this game on Twitter, so I’m not going to rehash much of that here. For me, it’s been a journey of over 1,000 attempts to learn the intricacies and secrets of a deep and demanding game that’s been as frustrating as it’s been rewarding. But it remains a constant source of learning and discovery as well as mastery and pride for me, and I still have hopes of reaching the Cosmic Ocean and getting all the trophies someday. It’s been a joy to watch other Spelunky players too, even as some fair worse than me and others fair far better. And the Daily challenge keeps me coming back, because seeing my name high up on the leaderboard just makes me feel so damn good (or at least I’ll get a good laugh out of a hilarious death). At its heart, Spelunky is a community endeavor, and I think it succeeds at that better than almost any other game this side of Dark Souls. I think it is my Game of the Year or at least tied with Alyx, I really can’t decide. If you don’t think you’d enjoy it, all I’ll say is, the frustration and difficulty are integral to the experience of discovery and surprise, and your brain is better at video games than you think.

Chess

Okay, yes, I watched and enjoyed The Queen’s Gambit, but I think 2020 had already primed people to get into chess this year regardless. Like Yu-Gi-Oh!, chess was a childhood pastime of mine that I really enjoyed and then quickly left behind as I discovered things like music and the internet. If I had to assign a theme to my 2020, it would be rediscovering old hobbies to remind myself how good life actually is. And now I’m more committed to chess than I ever was before. I’m watching international masters and grand masters on YouTube (as well as the incomparable Northernlion), I’m playing regularly on Chess.com, and I’m even paying for lessons and probably my own theory books soon. Like most fighting games, chess is a complicated form of dueling a single opponent with zero randomness, so mistakes are always on you. And modern chess platforms offer extremely good analysis tools, showing you exactly how, when, and why you screwed up so you can do better next time. Like Hearthstone, it’s a quick, addicting, tense, and rewarding way to train your brain and have fun. And it seems more popular now than ever, in part due to a certain Netflix original TV show...

TV

The Queen’s Gambit

I think a lot of people want to be Beth Harmon, even if they know they shouldn’t. It must feel so good to be the best at something and know you’re the best, even while under the influence of certain substances. It’s what makes characters like Dr. Gregory House so fun to watch, though you’d never want to work with the guy. For me, anyway, I always wanted to be a prodigy at something, and what little success I’ve had made The Queen’s Gambit very relatable to me. More so, it’s easy to relate to growing up in a conservative environment with few real friends and fewer outlets of expression, only to realize you’ve finally found your thing, and that no one can take it from you. That’s mostly what I’m going to take from The Queen’s Gambit anyway, more than chess or the Cold War commentary or the problematic relationships Beth has with her cadre of rivals/boyfriends. The show gets a strong recommendation from me for fans of chess as well as lovers of optimistic coming-of-age stories.

March Comes in Like a Lion

Similarly, March Comes in Like a Lion features a protagonist who is scarily close to a version of myself from like eight years ago. My best friend has been urging me to watch this show for years, and I’m still only a few episodes in. But I love how it portrays a young person who’s moved to a big city away from home for the first time, with nothing more than some meager possessions and the hopes of becoming the best in the world at something. And Rei is not confident in himself or outgoing at all, he’s extremely depressed despite pursuing his dreams and trying to distance himself from his somewhat toxic family. It’s a great reminder that the smallest kindnesses can often change our entire perspective on the world, and that even the people that seem the most well-equipped to handle life often still need help. I’ve been very fortunate to have people like that despite mistakes I’ve made, and I hope to be that person for others too.

Umbrella Academy

I’m pretty burnt out on superheroes, but UA put a good enough spin on them that they felt brand new. The show is rough in places, but it’s surprising in some really clever ways. And the comics are some of the wildest stories I’ve ever read, like Hitchhiker’s Guide meets Watchmen.

HunterXHunter

I binged about 100 of the 148 episodes of HxH this year, which I recognize is not a significant number in the wider world of long-running shounen anime, but it’s quite an undertaking for me to finish a show of this length. The series goes places I never expected and made me care so strongly for characters I thought I’d hate at first. It’s the smartest and most endearing show about a band of misfits going on crazy adventures and punching people for the good of the world that you’re likely to find.

Hannibal

This is the rare show that’s simultaneously comforting and nightmare-inducing if watched for extended periods. I can remember nights after binging a few episodes where I couldn’t get many of the disturbing images out of my head. Fair to say, Hannibal is not for the faint of heart, nor is it without some low points. But for those who enjoy gory thrillers or gritty detective dramas, it’s a must-watch. 

Yu-Gi-Oh! Original Series, English Sub

You can probably imagine my surprise as I discovered this year that the Japanese version of the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime is not only much better than the 4Kids version we got in the States, but it’s actually a decent show. The plot makes much more sense, it’s more interesting, the stakes are higher, the voices are better, and overall it’s just more enjoyable to watch. I don’t know if I’ll stick with it long enough to finish it this time, but this is definitely the way I’d do it and would recommend to others.

Fargo Season 4

It’s a miracle we even got another season of Fargo this year, let alone on time and of the same high quality as the first two seasons. It has a great setting, cast, and conflict. I love Chris Rock, and it was so cool to see him act so well in such a serious role. There’s a Wizard of Oz homage episode that is nearly flawless. And the post-credits scene at the end of the season is just the cherry on top. If you haven’t checked out Fargo by now, you are really missing out on some of the most interesting stuff happening in TV. I can’t wait to see what Noah Hawley does with the Alien franchise.

Movies

Cats

I had to include this one because it was the last full movie I saw in theaters before the pandemic hit. I technically went to Sonic too, but my friends and I walked out after about 30 minutes. The less said about that movie, the better. Cats, though, is a strange and curious beast (pun intended), adapting an already unruly animal (pun intended) to the big screen and yowling to be recognized (pun intended). But for every awkward or embarrassing scene, there’s one of pure joy and magic, like the extended ballet sequence or Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat. The film knows exactly what it is and leans into it hard, like a familiar yet slightly insane feline begging to be stroked, which I imagine is exactly what fans of the musical wanted.

Children of Men

There’s not much I can say about this film that probably hasn’t been said better elsewhere. I was intrigued to watch it when I learned it was one of my friend’s favorite movies. And I have to say, it’s really profound in a prescient way. Clive Owen gives one of the best performances I’ve ever seen. You should watch it, but only when you feel like taking a severe hit to the feels.

Basic Instinct

Vertigo is probably still my favorite film, so when I learned this year that Paul Verhoeven made a bloody, sex romp homage film to it in the 90s with Michael Douglas starring, I simply had to watch it. And you know, it’s not bad. It’s nowhere near as good as Vertigo, and you can see the ending coming a mile away. But what it does have is the immaculate Sharon Stone, who you cannot take your eyes off for the entire movie. And the movie knows it, making her look as alluring and suggestive as her character is to the detective investigating her. You could do worse than to watch it, just don’t expect any of Hitchcock’s subtlety or looming dread to seep into the final product.

Books

Dune

I finally finished Dune this year, and I can genuinely say it lives up to the hype. It’s not the easiest book to get through, but it’s by no means one of the most difficult either. I’m still bummed that the new film was delayed, but it might give me time to read the rest of the original book series.

The Fifth Season

Another fantastic piece of fiction, I cannot recommend this book enough. N.K. Jemisin is one of the best living authors of our time. If you want an original setting with a brilliant magic system and complex, compelling characters, look no further.

Video Content

Northernlion

I’ve been a fan of NL for years, though I’ve never been that into The Binding of Isaac. He just has a charismatic intelligence to him that sets him apart from most “Let’s Play” YouTubers to me, and he’s very funny to boot. I guess I’d say he seems a lot like me or the person I could picture myself being if I were a professional video content creator. So I was really excited for NL’s series of Spelunky 2 videos, and I still watch them every day, months later. And now he’s teaching me how to get better at chess, being a good 600 ELO higher than myself at the moment. His sarcastic and improv-laden banter have withstood the test of years and gave me some much-needed comfort and laughter in 2020. Somehow, the man even found a way to keep up his prolific output this year while raising his firstborn child. There are those who said it couldn’t be done...

The Command Zone - Game Knights

Josh Lee Kwai and the rest of the crew at The Command Zone continue to put out some of the most well-produced tabletop gameplay videos on the internet. It’s perhaps no surprise, seeing as how Lee Kwai created trailers for such blockbuster films as Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World and Jimmy Wong had a supporting role in the live action remake of Disney’s Mulan. But the crew around the two hosts are just as important and talented, and it’s clear that they all share the same singular vision for the channel’s future. They’ve carefully crafted a team of expert editors, animators, cosplayers, and voice actors to deliver one delightful video after the next at a consistently high level. If you’re into Magic: the Gathering at all, you simply need to watch Game Knights.

Cimoooooooo

I found Alex Cimo’s channel shortly after the algorithm learned I was interested in Yu-Gi-Oh! again, and at first, I was less than impressed with him. But it’s clear to me now that he not only loves what he does, he’s an expert Yu-Gi-Oh! player and analyst. Plus, he’s very good at explaining some of the more complex concepts in the game in a way that newcomers can understand. I’ve watched every new episode of The Progression Series and The History of Yu-Gi-Oh! so far, and they’re the best way I’ve found to learn how the game developed and changed over the last 20 years.

Team APS

This is another great Yu-Gi-Oh! channel, focusing more on skits, gimmick videos, and casual games rather than analytical or theoretical content. Mostly, they seem like a really great group of friends that just have a blast playing Yu-Gi-Oh! together, and their love for the game makes me want to play more too.

Tolarian Community College

Somehow, a community college English professor’s channel went from a quirky little deckbox review platform to the most popular Magic: the Gathering channel on YouTube in only a few years. But it’s easy to see why when Brian clearly loves what he’s doing more than most people ever will. He’s not only a fantastic reviewer and MtG scholar, he’s one of the most outspoken voices for positive change in the community and the game. Is he too hard on the Magic team at Wizards of the Coast? Perhaps, but without his measured and well-reasoned takes on all things Magic, I think we’d be much worse off.

IRL

Cooking

Even I get tired of eating the same things every day, so I’ve taken it upon myself to learn how to make more dishes, mostly out of sheer boredom. And I know I’m not alone in that, but I have to say it’s been a rewarding and fun adventure. It’s really surprising what you can throw together with a decent recipe and a little creativity in a modest kitchen when you decide to break away from the microwave for once.

Chinchillin’

Like many people, I felt that I needed a pet to survive this year, and I’ve always wanted a chinchilla. So I took a risk and bought one from a seller on KSL a few months ago, and my life has definitely changed for the better. No longer simply alone with my thoughts all day, I have a furry little companion to commune and bond with. And it’s more difficult to find time to feel sorry for myself when a basically helpless tiny creature depends on me for almost everything. Not to say it’s been a perfect experience however, people don’t say chins are difficult to care for for nothing. And I have learned more about them than perhaps I ever cared to know before, but that’s only made them more interesting to me as a result. Overall, I would recommend them as pets, just be prepared to give them a lot more time and attention than you would to say, a fish or a hamster. I’ve seen the commitment compared to that of a large dog, and I think that’s fair, though chins seem far more difficult to train and are far less cuddly. Basically, imagine a fluffy, super fast squirrel that can jump half your height, shed its fur at will if grabbed too tightly, that sleeps all day and bathes in dust, and that cannot get wet or too hot or eat 99% of human foods without serious complications. And they get lonely, and they all have their own surprisingly distinct personalities, some shy and mischievous, others bright and social, and everything in between. But I’m glad to be part of my little buddy’s life and hope to make it a long and enjoyable one for him. Part of why I wanted a chinchilla so badly is they typically live between 10-20 years, much longer than the average rodent or even many cats and dogs. And they’re sadly endangered in the wild, poached for their incredibly soft fur, which is why I believe it’s critical that we care for and learn more about them now. And above all, I adore my chinchilla’s antics, even when he continually tries to dig up and eat the paper bedding below his cage when I’ve provided perfectly edible hay and pellets for him in much easier to reach locations.

And that’s all, folks...

If you’ve read this far, know that I really appreciate it and hope you learned something new about yourself, art, or the world. And please do let me know what’s kept you going the most this year too, as I suspect I’ll still be searching for new distractions next year, even after I’m able to get a Covid vaccine injection. As Red Green would say, we’re all in this together, and I’m pullin’ for ya. <3