#I do know it's a bit like waiting for plot-Godot at this point

[apparitionism]

Sound 6c

I’m putting up parts 6c and 6d, which together form the end of part 6, in rapid succession this evening; combining them would make for an insanely long post, but this is all of a conceptual piece—well, in my head it is; who knows if the connections actually connect, or if I’m really just hitting every point with a too-wordy hammer. Trying to do both too much and not enough? Anyway, I wrote some things down. Cf. Soon, as well as part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5a, part 5b, part 5c, part 6a, and part 6b of this.

Also a PSA: Tumblr friend @shipsbecomearmadas is working hard to raise funds for the Kaleidoscope Youth Center (http://www.kycohio.org/), which serves LGBTQIA+ kids in Columbus, Ohio. The group is trying to get Ellen’s attention, and you can help by tweeting or blogging about the center and tagging it “#4Ellen”. (I’ll mention too that wherever you are, if you have a local youth center, they most likely could use any help you can give.)

Sound 6c

Myka had never bothered much with Christmas when she lived alone; she was content for it to be nothing more than a quiet day. Very near silent, and possibly even holy, though religion had, and has, occupied her thoughts only when relevant to translation or teaching. Abigail, who has apparently (and incongruously, as far as Myka is concerned) gone to church every Sunday of her entire life, takes great delight in calling Myka a godless commie. Pete doesn’t call Myka a godless commie, but he does go with Abigail to church now, her interdenominational Chinese Christian church in D.C. “They look at me like I’m a zoo animal,” he once confided to Myka, and then he said, with slight puzzlement, “Weird to be the different one. But I guess I do look like a zoo animal, sitting there with everybody. Probably sound like one too; you know I can’t sing, but Abigail pokes me when I just mouth along with the hymns. I think she does it so they’ll laugh at me and not hate me.”

“Is it working?” Myka asked.

“Well, they laugh. Real quiet, but they laugh.”

“Is that okay with you?”

He frowned, just a little. “Course it is. What kind of guy am I if it’s not?”

“A not-Pete kind of guy,” Myka had assured him.

Pete’s on her mind this afternoon because she’s wrapping his Christmas present: a New York Mets baseball cap. Christina has decided that the Mets are her team, given that last year was their first year in the league and it was also her first year paying close attention to baseball, so Pete takes her to games whenever he and Abigail visit New York during the season. When Myka had wondered aloud what to get him, “a Mets hat” had been Christina’s immediate suggestion.

“Will it be okay for him to wear a New York hat in Washington?” Myka asked.

“The Senators left, so I bet nobody there even cares about baseball anymore. But also I bet it wouldn’t matter to Pete anyway.”

Of course it wouldn’t. Because Pete is a Pete kind of guy.

To wrap the present, Myka is sitting on the floor, next to the tree, because Christina is taking up most of the table with the newspaper. Christina generally doesn’t have time to read the paper before school, so that is one of her rewards for finishing her homework in the afternoons. But while she’s always intent, she isn’t always as intent as she is this day, this unremarkable, not-yet-Christmas Tuesday. She has the newspaper open in front of her, and she’s gone to get the dictionary too; she is on her knees in the chair, her whole body hunching over their small table as she reads, consults the dictionary, then reads some more.

Myka doesn’t begrudge her the table space, because she is enjoying being near the tree, breathing in green and outdoors; while she can’t imagine ever calling Colorado home again, this pine scrapes with familiarity through her lungs. They don’t have enough tree here for the smell itself to go deep, but she’ll take shallow, because it signifies her having won once again an argument she and Helena have now had for three Christmases: Helena says she wants to buy one of the popular aluminum trees, and Myka objects, based both on Colorado and on “where could we possibly store it?” Then Christina tells her mother that it’s an aluminum tree, not an aluminium one, because they are Americans now; Helena objects that she is not in fact an American, so she will continue to say “aluminium tree”; and Myka says it doesn’t matter how anybody pronounces it anyway because it isn’t a tree.

The first time Myka won this argument, in 1961, Helena had stepped back and regarded their newly decorated, blessedly nonmetallic tree. She had at that point declared that if there was no chance of real modernity, she would at least like said tree to be flocked. “Fake snow,” Myka had sighed, “on a real tree?” But the next day Helena brought home an aerosol can of the stuff, saying that Myka did not need to trouble herself over it, that she herself would deal with the application. “Tomorrow, though,” she’d yawned.

Myka had been the first one up and out of bed the following morning. She walked into the living room and caught sight of the tree. She blinked. She rubbed her eyes, then blinked again. But no, the sight stayed the same: the bottom two-thirds of the tree—the still-decorated tree—seemed to have been dolloped with melting strawberry ice cream. She stood in front of the tree for some time, trying to formulate a thought.

“Helena, could you come here?” she called.

Helena grumbled, from their bedroom, “I don’t want to get up yet.”

“I really would appreciate it if you would come here and tell me what you see.”

She emerged, buttoning her robe, muttering “fine, fine,” blinking. She leaned against Myka, nuzzling brief and warm into her neck. Then she stood straight up, facing the tree. She blinked some more. “You want me to tell you what I see.”

“Yes and no,” Myka said, “or maybe I mean yes or no. Depending on what you tell me.”

“Hm. I see that I have made two errors.”

“Two errors, you say.”

“Yes. First, I failed to attend to the color of the spray I purchased. In my defense, I don’t suppose I had any idea it came in colors other than white.”

“It’s fake snow,” Myka reminded her. That was met with a heavy sigh that did not do much to disguise an underlying growl, and Myka chuckled. “And your second error?”

“Second—well, technically first, chronologically—I had a child. Who I believe is now lurking in the hallway, and who might as well come here and regard, with shame, what she has inflicted upon our tree and ornaments.”

Christina walked to the tree and sighed. “I wanted to surprise you.” This said with remorse, but also with something a little like pride.

“You did do that,” Myka had to concede.

“Quite successfully,” Helena said. “And you managed to do this in the night without waking us, which is also a bit of a surprise.”

“I didn’t turn the light on. So I guess I couldn’t see the color in the dark. Also I couldn’t reach all the way up the tree either. Are you mad?”

“About your not being able to reach all the way up the tree? Actually, I’m not at all angry about that, because at least some of the decorations were spared a pinkening.”

Myka said, “I wonder if it comes off. The pinkening, I mean.”

Christina pulled a formerly shiny gold metal ball from the tree. She rubbed at its dried pink drips of flocking with her thumb.

So yes, Christmas was once a quiet day, a day with which Myka never much bothered. But now Christmas is something else again, something that is signified, for her and for Helena and especially for Christina, by the removing of pink-encrusted ornaments from their various protective boxes and newspaper swaddlings and the placing of them, as the finishing touches, on their tree.

Myka raises a hand to the ornament nearest her, a plastic Santa who looks as if he’d been minding his own business on the sidewalk, only to be splashed by a taxi driving through a puddle of melted cotton candy. His pink imperfection clashes terribly with his red coat, and Myka feels more than a little silly for how that makes her heart swell. He’d look even more ridiculous if he were hanging from an aluminum—or aluminium—branch... but Myka suspects her heart would swell just the same.

“Myka,” Christina says from the table. Her voice is querulous, a little jar to Myka’s Santa-inspired sentimentality.

“Christina,” Myka answers back. She will later reflect that she should somehow have known what had Christina concerned, but fate had made her take just one glance at the newspaper that morning. She’d glanced at it again, just the front page, just above the fold, when she arrived home. She hadn’t known. She couldn’t have known... but that was no excuse.

“You and Mom.”

“Yes.” She doesn’t see what’s coming.

“Are you sick.”

“Sick. Sick?” And still she doesn’t see what’s coming. “We had those bad colds, but that was last month.”

“No. Not colds. Sick with.” Christina looks down at the paper. “An incurable, congenital disorder.”

Myka stands up, walks to the table. Christina has the paper open, but now she flips to the front page—the front page, it’s below the fold, but the front page—and reads the headline out loud: “Growth of Overt Homosexuality in City Provokes Wide Concern.” Christina stumbles, just a bit, in that out-loud reading, over the “sexuality” part of “homosexuality.”

This is the kind of situation Helena was made for, as a parent; she would know the right words to say to either defuse it or dismiss it entirely. Myka is... not a parent, so she cannot have been made for any situation as a parent. But her footing is in any case far less secure, not just because they don’t talk very much about this with Christina, not directly, but also because Myka herself tries not to think about it very much. Not directly. Except when she’s forced to. Except when things happen.

But all right, this newspaper article has now happened. Myka reads the front-page portion. It doesn’t seem so bad, despite the headline; it’s about the state liquor authority revoking licenses of so-called “homosexual haunts.” She nods and Christina turns to the continuing page—and there the article seems to go on forever, columns upon columns. Christina points to a particular section: “Out of the Shadows,” the subhead reads, and Myka braces herself. She scans the text there: apparently the best argument that the “organized homophile movement” can muster is that, just as Christina had quoted, homosexuality is “an incurable, congenital disorder”—which in turn would mean that homosexuals should be considered “just another minority.” Analytical psychiatrists, on the other hand, say it’s the result of “ill-adjusted parents.” Which for some reason means it can be “cured.”

Myka asks, “Have you read the whole thing?”

Christina nods.

“Will you give me a minute to read it too, so I know what we’re talking about?”

Christina nods again. It isn’t her fully nervous nod. Myka takes that as a genuine okay for her to go ahead.

But as Myka starts to read, Christina executes a seemingly aimless wander over to the record player. She puts on... she puts on the Drifters. Their 1962 LP, the second side, and Myka now knows that Christina is more upset than she wants to say out loud, because if she is starting with the second side? Helena plays on every track, and the songs themselves do not matter in the slightest: what’s important is that Christina knows she is hearing her mother.

She comes back to Myka, who is now sitting at the table; she stands behind Myka’s chair and drapes herself over Myka’s shoulders. “It’s okay,” Myka says, and Christina nods against her neck. She doesn’t move away, though. At no point while Myka reads does Christina move away.

The article deals mainly with men, where they go, how they talk to each other, why they act as they do. Women are worth almost no mention, and Myka comes close to convincing herself: This is not about me. This is not about Helena. This is not about me, and it is not about Helena. It is not about us.

But one section, despite its male focus, rips the ground from under her tentative self-persuasion. It’s subheaded “Impossible Dream.” It begins, “Many homosexuals dream of forming a permanent attachment that would give them the sense of social and emotional stability that others derive from heterosexual marriage but few achieve it.”

It is the kind of bald statement that she seems always to be trying to tell herself is untrue, but here it is, in the newspaper. Everyone in the entire city read this today. Everyone in the city read that her life and Helena’s, their life together, is impossible... the ten-year-old who shares that life, she is a warm mantle of worry still clasping Myka’s shoulders but now slipped down, plastered against her side, as Myka looks at this newspaper on this table at which they impossibly eat breakfast, lunch, dinner.

“Okay,” she tells Christina when she’s through. “I read it. What are you thinking?”

“You’re not sick,” Christina says.

“I don’t think so.”

Now the words tumble out. “Okay, but then the people in the article who say you’re not sick, the ones who say it’s just that you have weird parents, if your father is hostile and your mother is... I can’t remember what it said about mothers, but they say you can be cured, but how can you be cured of something if you’re not sick with anything in the first place? That doesn’t make sense.”

She really is a very smart girl. “Not much sense,” Myka agrees.

“But do you want to be?”

“Want to be what?”

“Cured.”

How to explain the difference between what you want and what you want? Not that Myka can even explain that to herself, so she goes ahead with the response that had jumped into her head: “But that would mean I wouldn’t love your mom anymore.”

“I know what it means,” Christina says, with a hint of resentment. “Is it what you want?”

Smart girl. Discerning girl. “I want to love her forever,” Myka says. It’s as true as any of the other contradictorily true things she could say, but she does have to stop herself from adding “in an ideal world.” There’s only so much truth you can tell a ten-year-old. Even this ten-year-old.

“Forever?”

There’s both hope and certainty in that word: “do you mean it” crossed with “of course you mean it.” Myka has heard the same collision in Helena’s voice. She’s never known how to give Helena the right answer, and she has no better intuition here. “I do want to,” she tries.

“Is that what Mom wants too?”

“I hope so.”

“Me too.” Christina tightens her grip on Myka, a dramatic grasp of a hug, then lets go. “I think I’ll go read now.”

“Okay. What are you reading?”

“I’m not sure. I have about three or four library books.” Feigned disinterest, a lack of precision: she’s finished talking about this. But then she cocks her head, listening to the music. “Rudy isn’t sick either.” Most singers and musicians with whom Helena works, Christina can take or leave. She’s polite to all of them, of course, because Helena would never let her get away with anything less. But a select few—and this seems to have nothing to do with how famous they are, or even how talented—she adores. Rudy Lewis is among those select few, and in this case, the devotion is mutual. He always asks after her, and when he sees her, he declares “there’s that baby!”, which never fails to accelerate Christina’s usually slow smile.

“Rudy isn’t sick either,” Myka says. “Rudy is as sweet to you as I’ve ever seen anybody be, plus he sings like an angel, and he gets a huge kick out of your mom. I don’t think anybody who does all those things could be sick.”

“And he doesn’t want to be cured either, does he?”

“I don’t think so,” Myka says, but here, she is skirting an outright lie. Because Rudy might not be sick, but he does have his problems. And some of those problems do arise from the fact that he... isn’t sick. But here, too, there’s only so much truth you can tell a ten-year-old. Myka suspects that Rudy, as well as most of the people she knows who aren’t sick, would not volunteer to be cured. But she does wonder what they would say about it, what she herself and even Helena would say about it, if they woke up one morning and found themselves cured—or rather, found themselves not like this. Like everyone else instead.

“That’s good,” Christina says. “I wouldn’t want him to be different. I really am going to read now. I have A Wrinkle in Time again, and I got Ice Station Zebra and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold for the first time.” Over the summer, she had developed a fondness for spy thrillers, in spite of needing to look up what seemed to be every other word. Myka and Helena both found this new preference a little alarming, but it sent Abigail into hysterics. “Like mother, like daughter... no, I mean, like this person, like this person’s kid!” she had chortled.

Now Christina takes the dictionary from the table, tucking it under her arm. She likes to read books in her room. Newspapers on the table, books in her room, and she leaves Myka sitting there, still staring at the columns upon columns of the article.

She can’t decide how much to tell Helena about it, or even if she should bring it up in the first place. Given how invested Christina had been, she most likely should tell it all, including about their conversation, but on the other hand, Christina seems to have wanted to put the issue to bed. Although that may have been just with Myka... but of course it isn’t as if the problem won’t come up again in some other equally unexpected way...

Helena opens the door to the apartment, interrupting Myka’s choice-making. She sets her violin case and handbag down, and then she asks, with a twitch in her voice, “Did Christina read the newspaper today?”

“You know she did. She always does.”

“Did you?”

“I hadn’t. But then she asked me whether you and I are sick.” Helena’s posture slackens. “So yes, then, I did.”

“Lovely.” It’s a sharp word. Helena comes to the table, looks down at the newspaper, doesn’t touch it. In fact she crosses her arms at it. “Why is this necessary?” She might be asking the paper itself, interrogating it about its unacceptable behavior.

“Part of it is news. About the State Liquor Authority.”

“But why the rest of it.”

“You don’t really want an answer.”

“I’m not really asking a question.” She directs her attention now at Myka. “And I hope you bear in mind: not impossible. A dream, yes, and every now and then a nightmare, but not impossible.” Because of course she would know which part of the article had threatened to overpower Myka. And maybe it had had that effect on Helena too, at first, but now her shoulders are square: that’s anger, not hesitation or doubt.

They both notice that Christina has slunk up the hallway and is hanging there, uncharacteristically reluctant to interrupt.

“Come here, you,” Helena says, and Christina flies at her. She used to wrap her arms around Helena’s legs. Now, taller, she hugs Helena around the waist. Shoulders will be next... when she grows, it’s fast. Dramatic spurts, just like Myka remembers from her own childhood. Helena asks her, “Are you all right?’

“Mostly all right. But.”

“But?” Now Helena does sound a little uncertain, and Myka, too, braces for Christina’s answer.

“I’m too old to go to Macy’s and sit on Santa’s lap tonight like we were going to.”

Helena breathes a bit. Then she says, “You had hardly any Christmas at all for the first five years of your life. Please indulge me.”

Christina sighs. She says, “Okay, Mom”: not fully graceful in her acquiescence, but graceful enough. She is showing that she is all right.

“You’re the one who likes tradition,” Myka tells Christina, this perceptive girl who knows her mother well enough to know when she, too, needs reassurance... in fact Christina may have objected to the excursion just so she could acquiesce.

“Myka, I’m ten,” Christina groans. Well, then again, maybe not.

But everything is all right. They eat their dinner—fried eggs, bacon, toast, because eating breakfast at night is different, but it binds them together in its difference—atop the opened newspaper, making a mess of it, dropping crumbs, letting yolk dribble, setting bacon down just to watch the fat-stains blight the type.

Then they go to Macy’s. It’s as overwhelming as it is every year; this year, though, the fact that they are just three small parts of the teeming crowds and silver-belling holiday racket seems to mean they could be any three people at all. That they can be any three people.

But at a certain point, Myka turns to say something to Helena, and Helena... looks odd. There’s a little dampness at her temples, and her breathing is a strange not-quite-pant. Some sort of delayed shock reaction? “What is it?” Myka asks.

“Winter wonderland,” Helena says.

It takes Myka a second or two to realize that that carol is drifting through the bechristmased store. “What about it?”

“That’s the song. Well, not this version of course, but—on Phil’s Christmas record, I told you. I played it over a hundred times. And listened to it... uncountable. I can’t stand it. I need some air.” She bolts away, saying, “I’ll meet you outside.”

Christina looks at Myka, and Myka reads that look immediately. “Oh, no. You’re talking to Santa so we can tell her that you did.”

“Can’t we say the line was too long?”

“Only if it is. But you know she wouldn’t believe us anyway, so you’re stuck.”

“I’m ten,” Christina insists, but that’s the last objection she offers.

When Myka and Christina emerge onto the sidewalk, Helena is clapping her hands against the chill of the evening.

“You could’ve come back in,” Christina informs her, as they begin to walk toward the subway. “The song ended.”

Helena ignores this. “Did you ask Father Christmas to bring you anything in particular?”

“I asked Santa. Because I’m an American. I asked him for a Vac-U-Form.”

Myka says, “He was a little confounded. Apparently she’s the first girl to ask for one.”

“I don’t see what joy any boy or girl would derive from what is essentially a plastic foundry. And why on earth do you continue to want toys that will burn the house down?” Helena asks. But she puts her arm around Christina and drops a kiss on her head.

“It’s not even really a toy. Like you said, it’s a foundry.” Christina utters the word with evident pleasure. “Besides, the only thing I’ve ever burned is my own hand, with the sulfuric acid. And only one time.”

Helena declares, “That is, from my perspective, a distinction without a difference. Certainly in terms of damage.” At which Christina sighs.

Myka would put her arm around Helena and drop a kiss on her head, but she settles for laughing at her. “Never let it be said that you avoided hyperbole. Nobody was happy about that burned hand, but I think from almost everybody else’s perspective that’s a distinction with a pretty big difference. Even in terms of damage.”

“My hand did hurt though,” Christina says.

“I know it did,” Myka assures her.

“Hyperbole,” Helena huffs.

The subway is warm. On it, they are just three people.

****

Myka and Helena put Christina to bed together. Most nights, one or the other will take the lead, but tonight they are together.

Christina says to her mother, in the middle of the yawn that followed her insistence that she was not tired, “Myka says she hopes you want to love her forever. Do you?”

Helena says, “Of course I do.” She is all business, as if no more factual a statement could be issued. Christina relaxes—she’d been holding her head a bit up, off of her pillow, but now the feathers give way with the tiniest of exhalations—and Myka wishes that she too were ten, to be able to hear that voice and believe in its infallibility. “Now,” Helena says, with no change in tone, “are you still concerned about that ridiculous newspaper article? Tell me the truth.”

“You’re not sick,” Christina says.

“Not to the best of my knowledge.”

“But Immigration might feel like they have better knowledge. Right?” She doesn’t say this with any guile, but Myka suspects she’s been thinking it out for some time.

“You’re very clever. All I can tell you is that some people hold certain misinformed beliefs. Where those come into conflict with ours... well. We will face what we must, if and when we must. In the meantime, shall I let you know if I begin to feel ill?” Again, the tone says do not concern yourself, and again Myka wants to believe her. Christina believes her enough to nod. “All right, then,” Helena says. “Myka and I will retire to our bed that is not a sickbed, and you will sleep well.”

“Okay, Mom.”

“You say that as if you are addressing someone in this room, and yet I see only Myka and myself.” She leans down and kisses Christina’s forehead, then takes Myka’s hand and kisses it—and that too says do not concern yourself. “Vac-U-Form. What are we to do with you?”

“Make sure Santa knows I want one.”

Helena’s tone doesn’t change, but her smile deepens. “I don’t know who that is either, so I could not possibly convey the message.”

Myka laughs. “See, knock-knock, that’s why we had to go to Macy’s.”

“I’m ten,” Christina insists, but with little force. She blinks a very slow blink. She yawns again.

TBC

[florrickandassociates]

TGF Thoughts: 5x10-- And the violence spread.

So, that’s it for season five. I’m still trying to sort out how I feel about the season as a whole and Wackner’s arc. I’m hopeful that writing this will help me decide.

This episode has a Previously, and it’s rather conventional. I’m guessing it’s here to bookend the season, with conveying information being only a secondary objective.  

Did we see Rivi scream, “You’re done, Wacko, you’re done! Canceled! Canceled!” in the last episode or is that new to this previously? I feel like I absolutely would’ve had things to say about a) Wackner being called “Wacko,” which has been RIGHT THERE this whole time, and b) the use of “Canceled,” which is a thing Rivi would never say but is VERY thematic (you know, cancel culture and also Wackner having a TV show and also this being a TV show that’s wrapping up* Wackner’s arc).

* The way things end this episode, I’d say we’re done with Wackner. The Kings have said they aren’t sure about the plan for season six, so never say never, but I think that if we see Wackner again, it will be as part of a different arc.  

I went back to 5x09 and while we do see the same shots of Rivi screaming, whatever he’s saying in 5x09 is in Spanish. So either he was saying this in Spanish or the dialogue here is totally new.  

I’m a little sad that I knew in advance Robert King had directed this episode, because I want to know how long it would’ve taken me to guess. I’d like to think this first shot, of Diane flopping down on her bed in a very pretty floral print dress, then Kurt flopping down in the opposite direction, would’ve given it away. We usually don’t get shots that are both striking and kinda balanced unless RK’s directing.  

This also has some big season three opener vibes—the scene where Diane turns to Kurt and says, “I’m happy,” thus jinxing the entire season.  

Diane and Kurt are about to go on vacation, which means, of course, that Diane and Kurt are definitely not about to go on vacation. I’ve watched 12 seasons of this show; I know all the tricks!  

If I didn’t get it from the initial staging of the opening shot, the camera panning to Diane and Kurt’s suitcases and then back would’ve been another clue that RK directed. He ALWAYS has the camera in motion.  

I love that Diane’s travel outfit is a dress you could wear to a fancy party and a statement necklace. Of course it is.

And if I needed evidence that RK and MK wrote this episode (which I didn’t; it is a finale so I knew they wrote it), Diane quoting Waiting for Godot is a clue there.  

I really should read Waiting for Godot, shouldn’t I?  

“Wow. Educated and a good lay,” Kurt responds. I know that the political stuff between Diane and Kurt can get more than a little murky, but banter like this reminds me why they stay together and why politics never drive them apart. Also, it’s really nice to see Diane and Kurt have some fun banter that isn’t about politics.  

And Diane making kissing noises and asking Kurt to meet her halfway! This just feels like I’m spying on someone’s private life and I love it. Not in a voyeuristic way, since this is actually a little uncomfortably private, but in a, “ah, yes, these do feel like real people” way. This is the kind of “a little goes a long way” character moment I always want more of, and Kings episodes ALWAYS include stuff like this.

And there it is. The phone rings as Diane and Kurt are about to start out for the airport. Diane thinks the call must be for Kurt, but it’s for her. It’s a very flustered Liz, informing her that STR Laurie’s execs are on their way to the office for a surprise visit.

If the Diane/Kurt scene didn’t tell me that Robert King directed, I almost certainly would’ve gotten it from the sudden cut to Liz, walking through the hallways and doing a million things at once with a ton of background noise. No one loves chaos the way Robert King loves chaos.  

This episode STRONGLY reminds me of the Wife season five finale. It is equally chaotic and also spins a ton of plates. But, mostly, the similarity I see between the two episodes is that they are both extremely fun and captivating to watch because of how much momentum they have, but everything just feels slightly hollow and not exactly focused on the thing you want to see.  

(Shout out to my friend Ryan, who messaged me the 5x22 comparison before I could message it to him!)  

I decided I should rewatch the first few minutes of 5x22. I am now 15 minutes into 5x22 of Wife and 2 minutes into 5x10 of Fight. Oops.  

Apparently, STR Laurie planned a surprise visit because they heard RL was dysfunctional. You don’t say!  

I felt like 5x09 concluded with STR Laurie being won over by Allegra and the RL team, so this is a bit of a surprising place to start the episode. But, since Diane seems surprised too, I’ll allow it.  

Now Liz and Diane have 90 minutes to agree on a financial plan! Kurt’s on the phone with the airline before Diane even hangs up with Liz.  

Diane is determined not to lose out on her vacation and asks Kurt to change the flight to 8:00. “Kurt, we are going on this vacation if it kills me!” is a line I would worry was foreshadowing on basically any other show.

The RL/STRL PowerPoint template is pretty ugly. They want to call 2021 their best year yet, thanks to the deal between Rivi and Plum Meadow Farms we saw last week. Even though we saw champagne and signatures, the deal isn’t done yet because Plum Meadow can back out if Rivi goes to jail.

RK also loves close-ups more than any other director on the show; I do not love close-ups.  

The Plum Meadow deal is such a big deal that for the quarter, they go from $45 million to $5 million without it. They should just not say numbers. I can believe it’s big enough to take them from a modest profit to being behind projections or whatever, but I can’t believe that they have $5 million in other business and $40 million on this one deal.  

It seems that Rivi was arrested. I don’t think it is ever said in this episode why. I assume the arrest relates to his behavior in Wackner’s court, since there were police officers there, and I suppose that Rivi is a big enough deal the police would actually take him to real court, but are we not going to address the weirdness of Rivi being arrested in a fake court where his employees are being tried, then taken to a real court by the same people who just an episode ago were disillusioned with real court? This seems like a plot point.

Carmen on a frantic phone call in the backseat of a car feels very 7x22.  

Who is James that Carmen has in her contacts!? And why does everyone always put Liz in their contacts as “Elizabeth Reddick” when everyone calls her Liz?  

Carmen calls Marissa to go argue in Vinetta’s court since she’s on Rivi duty. Carmen doesn’t take Marissa’s job in Wackner’s court seriously and then notes that this instruction is coming straight from Liz, so Marissa falls in line.  

Wackner’s case of the week is about rural Illinois wanting to form its own state separate from Chicago. There’s a farmer who feels like his tax money is only going to the big city and he wants it to stay in his community.  

They’ve just now added stage lighting to the set of Wackner Rules, dunno why they wouldn’t have done that earlier!

I don’t know what standing you’d have to have to bring a case about wanting to divide the state in two to court, or if this is even something a court would or should decide, but, sure, Wackner and Cord, go for it. There are no rules!  

This map splitting Illinois into two new states that Cord is holding is a dumb prop because Galena, where this farmer is from, is in the same section as Chicago. Do I pause every reference to Chicago on this show and then google information to see if the writers bothered to look it up or pretend they’ve ever set foot in Chicago? You know I do.

“Secession!” the audience screams. Does the audience of Wackner Rules really want to see this?

A Good Fight Short! And it really is short: “Stop this obsession with secession and breaking up the Union. It’s boring and it’s dumb, end of song.” I feel like that’s the thesis statement for this episode, or one of them (that this episode seems to have about ten thesis statements is kind of my problem with this episode, tbh). This episode is very much about danger of things becoming too fractured—the COTW, the copycat courts, the firm drama—and I feel like the writers come around to just saying no, this is enough, we need structure and consistency.

But more on that later. MUCH more on that later.

Marissa is swearing more because “the world has required it.” She notes this to Wackner as she calls him out on the secession case. Cord barges in.

Take a look at the employee of the month poster on the back of the door at 5:39. Then at 5:40, look at what’s in the box just to the right of the center of the screen: it’s an employee of the month poster with Wackner on it! Cute easter egg. (Would Marissa definitely notice this and have questions? Yes. Is this here as a cute easter egg for eagle-eyed fans? Almost certainly.)  

“Insane is just one step away from reality if you get people to believe, and you know what makes people believe? TV.” Cord explains when Marissa asks how they can possibly be litigating this case. That’s thesis statements two and three, folks. The first is that if you get people to believe, then anything is possible, which sounds like a tagline for a Disney movie but is actually super dangerous; the second is that reality TV is a way to persuade people and change opinions.  

So we’ve got: (1) Factions are bad. (2) People are persuadable and the rules don’t actually matter. (3) Reality TV changes minds. Let’s see if there are more.

(Yes, these theses do kind of add up to a whole—The rules don’t matter, so if you persuade people, through reality tv, you get factions of people believing their own sets of rules and facts—but what I'm interested in tracking throughout this episode is how well the writers actually bring these theses together.)

(And this is setting aside that key themes in previous episodes, that I think many of us were looking for resolution on, included outlining the flaws with the extant “real” justice system and exploring the role of prison in the justice system. From this episode, I don’t think the writers ever intended to really tackle either of those issues. That’s fine—I'm not sure that TGF has something to say about prison abolition and I don’t want a thought experiment where the writers actually try to fix the legal system—but feels a bit disjointed. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, but 5x08 and 5x09 needed to do a better, clearer job of setting up this finale. The key themes of Wackner’s arc were always present, but they needed to slowly narrow the scope so the resolution felt inevitable and clear. Instead, we spent time on things like parking spaces (when we could’ve had a real plot about how Wackner’s court gains legitimacy through violence, incarceration, and playing on people’s frustration with the real systems) and Del’s focus groups (when we could’ve instead done a plot about Wackner gaining fans who wanted to use his methods to do ill). Everything I just mentioned in the parentheticals is in the show! It’s not subtext! We see it all! We see Cord use violence and prisons to enforce Wackner’s rulings; we see the cops turn to Wackner out of frustration; we see that the people drawn to Wackner Rules and to Wackner’s court are increasingly sounding more and more like right-wing populists! I can’t be too hard on this arc because, again, all these ideas are there. I’m not coming up with them on my own!)

I’m just saying: this ending would’ve been a lot clearer and a lot more interesting had the writers focused on what I mentioned above instead of the distractions of the last two episodes.  

Whew, that was a ramble. Hope you’re ready for more rambles.

On a similar note, I’d like to reiterate my problems with how the writers used Marissa after the private prison reveal. I don’t have much more to say than what I wrote last week, but it’s another example of the same problem. Marissa objecting to Wackner’s court because she notices what it’s becoming and how Cord plans to use it for political gain (two Illinoises (??) changes the Senate and the Electoral College...) always was going to be part of the endgame. Marissa only seriously objecting after the fourth or fifth line Wackner crosses feels bizarre.  

Cord does NOT like that there is another court, and wants to protect Wackner’s IP. Wackner, as we saw last episode, does not feel threatened by the other court. In fact, he seems to be excited by it.  

I love Liz questioning Diane’s outfit like it’s unprofessional. It’s a little low-cut and showy, but I don’t think unprofessional is the word I’d use for it.  

Now they have 45 minutes to decide The Future Of The Firm and Diane wants to be considered a name partner. Oh, that debate is still raging?! Every time I think it’s done it comes back, which should probably be a sign to Diane that her options are to leave and start something new, jettison Madeline and the others, or step down. Staying on as name partner and calling it a black firm is just not an option.  

“Diane, there is a split in the firm that...” Liz starts, before asking some associates to leave the room. Ha! The reveal Liz and Diane aren’t alone is a pretty fun touch.

“The Black equity partners don’t want to be in your work group,” Liz informs Diane. “Because they think they’ll be punished by this firm?” Diane asks. “No, that’s paranoia. We don’t punish here,” Liz responds. “Of course you do. My fracking client. My union client. The Black lawyers who work on those cases—they're considered traitors” Diane says. “Because those CEOs are racists,” Liz counters.

Lots going on here, and I’m not sure I understand it all. Why would the equity partners—who are partners—feel like they’re being punished by being in Diane’s work group? (And also what does a “work group” mean and why haven’t they talked about it in the past?) When Diane starts talking about the lawyers who staff her clients, she’s not talking about equity partners; she is talking about associates.

And people are giving associates shit for working on Diane’s clients whom they happen to be staffed on!? That’s sad, though believable.

“So what do we do? Only bring in clients who can pass the racial smell test?” Diane asks. I mean, actually, yes. IF the goal is to be a black firm and to have that designation mean something in moral terms rather than marketing terms, then yes.  

“It’s okay if you’re a drug kingpin like Rivi, but it’s not okay if you want me as lead attorney?” Diane says. Also, yes. Diane makes good points here.  

“Diane, this is not about you,” Liz counters. Um, sure, but it has to be about something, Liz. Unless you’re trying to build a firm you don’t control that makes 88% of its revenue from a drug dealer (40 million out of 45 million this quarter = 88%; I told you they shouldn’t give me numbers) but happens to have black people in charge, you have to grapple with this question. I don’t think anyone who’s fighting for the firm to be a black-led (not owned, bc STRL) business is the type of person who thinks that having a black-led firm that does all the same shit as any other firm is in itself a good thing, so you NEED to address your client list. Madeline is anti-Rivi, anti-Cord, anti-Wolfe-Coleman (the rapist guy), pro-social justice, and pro having a black led firm.  

“I mean, why... why do white people personalize this?” Liz asks. “Oh, now I’m just a white person?” Diane responds. I... don’t know what to do with this! Liz is right that Diane is taking this personally; Diane is right that Liz needs to deal with the rest of the client list. But no one is saying the things that REALLY need to be said: That all their decisions are meaningless in the shadow of STRL, and that deciding to be a black led firm isn’t the end of the discussion if they haven’t decided what types of clients they want to have.  

“What happened, Liz? Last year we were intent on an all-female-run law firm,” Diane starts. Oh, THIS AGAIN! Diane never learns, does she? She never seems to realize that no one she’s approached with this idea is NEARLY as in love with it as she is. She probably still wonders to herself why Alicia—who partnered with her at the end of season seven basically just because it was the easiest, most frictionless thing to do—didn't seem more committed to their firm.  

“Diane, there is history here that we are trying to...” Liz says, but Diane cuts in to note that women (women like Diane Lockhart!) have history too! In fact, she’s spent “35 years fighting gender discrimination to get to this position.” “And we have spent 400 years fighting racial discrimination to try and, you know...” Liz starts, before cutting herself off to get back to the ticking clock.

Sigh. Just talk about the actual thing instead of talking around the thing, guys. Diane is obviously deserving of A name partnership, in the abstract. This is an undeniable fact. And while Diane is definitely making this about herself rather than the big picture, I don’t think Liz trying to trump Diane’s 35 year career with the history of black people is going to win her any arguments? Like, just say what you mean and say it clearly. What Liz, I think, wants to express is that Diane’s individual accomplishments aren’t the issue here and everyone thinks she’s deserving (though Liz suggested Diane was not deserving a few episodes ago, which I didn’t understand then and don’t understand now). The problem is that Diane is trying to fight a battle that’s about something much larger than herself with, “but I'm a good lawyer!”  

And that’s KIND OF what Liz is saying here, if I add all her sentences up and read between the lines, but, again, why not just say it?  

“Alright, now we have 43 minutes to fix race relations, gender relations. STR Laurie’s gonna fire our asses, and you know it,” Liz says. I am curious what that would look like. Wouldn’t that just mean that STRL wouldn’t control them anymore? I’m sure being fired would be bad and all, but wouldn’t it free them from the contract they wanted out of last year?  

“Let’s split the firm down the middle. I hire half the lawyers, you hire the other half,” Diane suggests. What does this mean? Why are you hiring your employees? Huh?

“You hire the white associates, and I hire the black associates?” Liz confirms. This seems like a very bad idea that would make things a lot worse and open them up to lawsuits! I also still do not know what they’re even talking about. And I don’t know why Allegra isn’t a part of this conversation.

“I’m not saying it’s good. I’m just saying it’s what we’re left with. It's what we can agree on,” Diane says. I really wish I understood what “hire” meant in this context because I don’t understand why they have to split anything or why this has to be done now and I don’t understand why this would possibly be a good solution. Can you imagine the backlash when people realize all the white people report to Diane and all the black people to Liz and that people were taken off of the accounts they’ve worked on for years to accomplish this? And this must be something that the employees would know about eventually; otherwise they could just randomly assign half to Liz and half to Diane.  

I’m sad Madeline isn’t in this episode because I feel like we needed to see more of her POV as well as the associate POV. I don’t really understand the divides at play within the firm or what the staff and other partners are asking for, but I suspect it isn’t this.

Hallucination Jesus is back, and at least there’s actually a point to him this time (he shows up when Jay is in Vinetta’s court and reminds Jay that Vinetta will rule based on her religious beliefs). I still dislike the hallucinations.

Jay advises Marissa, who is Jewish, to talk a lot about Jesus in her defense.  

Charmaine Bingwa is really great as Carmen, and obviously she is not fluent in Spanish, but it’s so funny to me that the only time you can hear that she’s Australian is when she’s trying to say Oscar like she’s speaking Spanish.  

"I know you’re hiding something when you speak English,” Rivi says to Carmen. Heh.  

“Community court” is such a nice, unthreatening term for referring to Wackner and his copy cats. Thanks for that, Carmen!

It’s a smart plan to mention Jesus a lot, I guess, but Jay and Marissa both should’ve realized that Vinetta is too smart to tolerate obvious pandering. I’m a little surprised Jay doesn’t get up and argue since Marissa is, obviously, not familiar with the New Testament.  

Marissa wins this round with facts and logic.

Why is the judge who was handling Rivi’s previous charge now in bond court? Make it make sense.

I like that Carmen calls out the ASA for swearing hahaha  

Why... would this Matteo kid just casually mention he was holding a gun, omg.  

In Vinetta’s court, you can be charged with murder and tried because... you had a gun and also there were murders at other times. Coolcoolcool no problems here.

Community courts for civil cases? Sure. That’s basically arbitration. Community courts for criminal cases? Bad, bad, bad idea.  

Vinetta’s reasoning: “Those murders happened on our street, and the police haven’t convicted anyone because they don’t care. We care. This is self-defense. And how is it different from your court?” Aside from the whole imprisoning people in her basement thing, Vinetta’s not wrong. I almost brought this up last week but hesitated because I couldn’t remember the details enough to decide if I wanted to recommend it, but there’s a book I read a few years ago that seems relevant here: Ghettoside by Jill Leovy. Again, been a while so don’t take this as a wholehearted endorsement or anything, but from what I remember, the central issue at the heart of the book (it’s non-fiction) is that a poor black community (I think in LA?) doesn’t trust the police (in part) because the police don’t solve murders, and then with no way of getting justice through the court system, there’s more violence as a stand-in for justice. https://www.vox.com/2016/8/26/12631962/ghettoside-jill-leovy-black-crime

I’m not sure if that’s QUITE what Vinetta is saying but it seems similar, and it’s a decent point (though not a justification for her court). Why should she trust the system to improve her community when it’s ignored her community for years?

I like that the writers chose two very different, very understandable characters for their community courts. It’s easy to see why Wackner and Vinetta feel the need for alternative courts; it’s easy to see why others would trust them. This arc doesn’t really work unless there’s a legitimate frustration with existing systems...  

Marissa calls Wackner’s court a “joke,” which she should understand by now isn’t the case. (Marissa’s smart; she knew it wasn’t a joke the second she saw David Cord get involved.)  

Vinetta accuses Wackner of copying her court, which alarms Marissa. This isn’t addressed again, and I don’t know if it’s true! I could really go either way on this. On the one hand, I absolutely believe that Wackner saw/heard about it, liked it, and did it himself without thinking much of it—and if this is the case, then the ending where Vinetta gets in trouble for violating Wackner’s IP is a lot more of a gut punch. On the other hand, I don’t really feel like the seeds for this were planted. We see Wackner innovate a lot and try new things and he has an explanation for why he does everything—how much of that is Vinetta? And Vinetta clearly watches the show and likes it or she wouldn’t have recognized Marissa, so it’s a little hard for me to just believe her claim when literally all I know about her is she has a court that looks like Wackner’s and she is aware of and feels positively towards Wackner rules. Also, Wackner knows about Vinetta’s court (from Marissa) and sounded excited about it last episode. Sure, he didn’t necessarily know which one it was, exactly, but I assume if he’d copied the idea and then heard about a case involving people from the exact same community where he found the idea... his reaction would be different. So IDK. My reasons for doubting Vinetta’s claim are probably based a little too much in things I’m not meant to spend that much time paying attention to.  

“I fucked up. It’s in the same court, but now it’s a murder case,” Marissa tells Diane. I do like hearing characters admit when they fucked up!  

Diane hears that STRL is delayed, so she heads out to help Matteo. When she goes to change into her pantsuit, she finds that she’s grabbed Kurt’s bag by mistake. “Of course. That makes sense,” she reacts.  

Diane pushes her flight to the next day, also telling Kurt, “And yes, for some reason, I took your suit instead of mine, so fuck it.” I love it when the characters feel like real people.  

I am not sure why Kurt is getting to the office when Diane is leaving or why Kurt is there—to pick Diane up on the way to the airport, maybe?

Carter Schmidt walks into RL at the worst possible time, threating to blow up the Plum Meadow deal. Another 5x10 to Wife 5x22 similarity: he’s in both episodes.  

Liz heads out to help Carmen with Rivi, and then STRL arrives. Oops.  

Credits!

One thing about Wackner’s court that should definitely be a warning sign even though it seems noble: he ignores just about every warning sign, like this rowdy crowd screaming WE LOVE YOU WACKNER or the potential interests at play in a case about secession, because he thinks his fair judgement can overcome these obstacles. If the world worked that way, there’d be no need for his court in the first place.

Is anyone representing the State of Illinois in this trial? If not, then... how is it happening?  

Dr. Goat, some dude who claims to have some hidden historical document about how Illinois is actually two states, is clearly making stuff up and yet Wackner indulges him and Cord. I feel about this the same way as I feel about the Devil’s Advocate: That Wackner would not allow this to go on for more than five seconds before calling bullshit and therefore there is no reason I should have to sit through it.

Why is some guy screaming, “No taxation without representation” like dude you absolutely have representation. But of course, I’m expecting him to be logical, and the point is that he is not.

Dr. Goat’s Latin phrases—shock!-- don’t actually translate into anything like what he said. Even though this information is verifiable by a quick google search, the crowd starts screaming “Liar!!!!” at Marissa. If only I could say this felt unrealistic.

Wackner asks Dr. Goat to bring in the document.  

“You look like you’re heading to the beach,” Vinetta says to Diane, who looks like she’s heading somewhere but definitely not to the beach. Vinetta asks where Diane was headed on vacation. Diane says she’s headed to Lake Como, and unnecessarily clarifies that “It’s in Italy.” She assumes Vinetta doesn’t know that... but Vinetta does.

“So you’ve been there before?” Vinetta probes when Diane says it’s beautiful there. “Just once. We don’t get away often. We thought we’d splurge,” Diane says. Vinetta stares at her and smiles, and Diane hits her head on a basket that’s hanging in Vinetta’s kitchen. If I just write out the dialogue here, it sounds like a perfectly average conversation, but everything about this conversation is so charged: Diane is afraid to look like a wealthy white woman; Vinetta’s pleasantness is pretty clearly also a way of sizing up Diane.  

Vinetta shows Diane pictures of neighborhood children and young adults killed as a consequence of gang violence. You can see she’s not trying to do anything other than help her community, even if her methods are highly questionable.

Diane argues that Matteo should be given over to the police; Vinetta disagrees: “The police haven’t arrested anyone for those murders, any of these. Since the BLM movement, they’ve pulled back from our streets. No one’s coming to help. That’s why I started this court. It’s not a joke to us.” Wait I’m sorry did Vinetta just blame lack of good detective work in black communities on... the BLM movement?!?!?! Is there any foundation to this!? Why can’t it just be that the police weren’t actually doing a good job of policing/finding justice and were being antagonistic towards the community instead of being helpful and no one trusted them?? That explanation is literally right there.

Jay suggests the Jesus strategy, again.  

“It’s women! We could just move on, install men,” STRL guy says. I don’t know if he’s joking, but ugh. Also, what is RL if it has neither Diane nor Liz? A bunch of lawyers who will all promptly quit when they see their bosses get fired and a few opportunists?  

Kurt is watching golf in Diane’s office, and the STRL people love it. Of course Kurt accidentally makes friends with them.  

Court stuff happens. It’s not good for Rivi, and then Liz and Carmen come up with a theory: Plum Meadow is stalling the deal so they can find Rivi’s more stable second and make a deal with them instead.  

Wackner giving Dr. Goat a single point on his stupid little board, for any reason related to his obviously fake totally unverified document, is dangerous. Why would you signal to a crowd that’s clearly not interested in fact that they have a point? That’s basically egging them on.

I know Wackner’s judgment is obviously not 100% sound—need I remind you of the PRIVATE PRISONS?-- but I thought it was more sound than this.  

Wackner shows off his knowledge of paper and proves that Dr. Goat’s document is a fake. Why... did he just give Dr. Goat a point???  

Or is he moving the point from Dr. Goat to Marissa?  

Dr. Goat sounds like a fake name I would call a character in my recaps long past the point of anyone other than myself remembering the joke. (See: Mr. Elk)

“The truth is ugly. The only thing uglier is not pursuing it,” Wackner tells Marissa. How is taking on a case about very obvious falsehoods, funded by someone with a vested interest in the case, that gets people riled up, some noble pursuit of truth?  

STRL and Kurt are now drinking and discussing hunting, while Diane’s arguing for Matteo in Vinetta’s living room. Vinetta is—as was always obvious, sorry Jay—far too smart to fall for this patronizing bullshit. She screams at Diane and plays back a recording (on a baby monitor) of Diane coaching Matteo to lie about his faith.

Soooooo yeah no you can’t do that, that is bad, recording conversations between lawyers and their clients is not good even if it leads to you exposing their schemes...

Then Vinetta places Diane under arrest, which obviously isn’t going to end well for Vinetta.  

Liz and Carmen suggest a post-nup to Rivi to see if Isabel is planning on turning on him.

“I’m going to have to kill her,” Rivi says sadly. I don’t think Rivi will ever kill Isabel because we already did that with Bishop.  

I’m going to assume that Diane chooses to stay in basement prison instead of calling one of the many, MANY, MANY people she could call to get her out/take down Vinetta because she doesn’t want the situation to be publicized or further deteriorate. That said, it’s really not clear why Diane just accepts being sentenced to basement prison with a cell phone.  

Love the STRL man looking at that picture of Diane and HRC. They’ve gotten so much mileage out of that photo.  

Wackner’s court has no rules, but at least since it has no rules, I can’t complain about how its rules make no sense!  

What is this, debate practice?! Ugggghhhhh I can’t deal with this case for much longer.  

Marissa takes a breath, then decides to pursue a strategy she knows could blow everything up.

“Then why care what Judge Wackner decides? Why should you defer to him? Why defer to anyone?” Cord says that’s the point—the people have decided to trust Wackner. “So if you don’t like this court’s decision, you’ll just start a new one?” Marissa asks. “I guess,” Cord concedes.  

“So then why does this matter? This court?” “It matters only insofar as we continue to agree that it matters,” Cord says. “So if you don’t like Judge Wackner’s rulings, you can just ignore them and create a new court?”

Good point, Marissa. Good point. (Does this count as a thesis?)

“I’m guessing that I will like the way the judge decides,” Cord says. Well, that’s basically a threat.

Wackner takes a break and heads to chambers—without Marissa.  

Kurt goes to visit Diane in basement jail. He’s granted a conjugal visit, which means Matteo gets moved up to the bedroom so Diane and Kurt can have some alone time.

Diane is staring at an image of Lake Como in her cell. I thought it was odd she brought a printout of her vacation destination with her, so I LOVED the line where she explains that Vinetta printed it out for her. COLD. (You know who also would’ve done this if they’d for some reason had a basement prison? Bree Van de Kamp. You know what show DID do a basement prison arc I’d rather forget? Desperate Housewives!)  

I love how Diane responds to basement prison by making jokes non-stop.

“I thought the craziness would end with 2020,” Diane says. Nope.

Kurt brought alcohol; Diane brought pot gummies.  

I love that Kurt has never had pot before. I was going to say that I bet Diane’s had a few experiences with recreational drugs when I remembered we had a whole damn season of Diane microdosing.  

Christine and Gary’s acting and their chemistry really bring these basement prison scenes to life. The writing and directing are really sharp, but it’s the actors who make these scenes something special. You can tell Diane and Kurt love each other a lot. You can tell they’re disappointed about their vacation and exhausted by the chaos of the day. You can tell they’re in disbelief over this situation but also find it funny.  

Didn’t Rivi and Isabel have an adult daughter who died of COVID a few episodes ago? Weird she isn’t mentioned in this scene. Maybe from a different marriage/relationship?

Isabel called the SA’s office because she thinks Rivi’s a threat? I think this is a power play.

Heh, Carmen saying, “Shut a black woman up!?” in disbelief in court. Love it.  

Isabel instead flips her story and supports her husband and fights for his release. With no intervention from Plum Meadow, this gets the judge to free Rivi. I don’t really understand what’s happened here or why. I get the resolution, but I don’t get why Isabel called the SA or why this went away so quickly. I still don’t even get why Rivi’s been arrested.

Diane and Kurt put up Christmas lights for ambiance and talk about how they never go on vacation.

“I wanna see the pyramids on this coast!” drunk & high Kurt insists, hilariously. “I mean hemisphere. I like the Aztecs. They, they care about people.” I’m not going to transcribe the rest of the dialogue because it loses its magic when you’re not watching the scene.  

After some fun banter about travel and movies, Diane changes the topic. “I should quit, shouldn’t I? That judge upstairs? She looked at me like I was the most entitled white bitch on the planet. And that’s the way they look at me at work.”

Kurt tries to say that’s not true, but Diane knows it is: “Yes they do. I’m the top Karen. And why do I care? I mean, I... I could find another firm. I could quit. I can’t impose my will on people who don’t want me.”

YES. I see a lot of debate over what the “right” thing to do is here. But I think we are long past “right” and “wrong.” At a certain point, this stops being about absolute moral truths. If Diane doesn’t have the respect of her partners and employees, that is a very real problem for the firm and for Diane. How can she continue to impose her will on a firm that doesn’t want her, all the while claiming to be an ally? (The back half of that sentence is the most important part.) Forget whether or not Diane “should” have to step down. Forget what’s “fair.” If the non-Diane leadership of RL thinks the firm should be a black firm, and the employees of RL think so too, and Diane just doubles down on her white feminism, she’s creating an even bigger problem for herself and ruining her reputation in the process.  

Kurt stands up on the prison cot and warns Diane she might make a decision she’ll regret. This scene is so cute. Why can’t other shows do drug trips where the characters just act silly and have great chemistry? Why does it always have to be some profound meditation on death whenever characters get high?

“I think I like starting over. I like the chutes and ladders of life. I mean, I want the corner office, but then I wanna slip back to the beginning and fight for the corner office. I mean, I think maybe it’s better that I don’t get the top spot,” Diane says. LOVE to hear her admit this. I’m not sure I would’ve come to this conclusion on my own, and it sounds like it’s a bit more about how the writers like to write (you know, the “we love our characters to always be underdogs”) than Diane, but... you know what? I believe it. I fully believe it. Diane LOVES to fight, LOVES to feel like she’s in the right, LOVES power plays and to be making progress. She LOVES winning. The fact that she isn’t just choosing to retire right now, even though she’s past retirement age and has a great reputation, is in itself enough for me to believe that she would find it fun to repeatedly start over.

Plus, it’s a fun new direction for the show to take in season six, because they’ll get the same sense of conflict without the actual conflict. This season’s arc was firm drama and resulted in a firm name change... but it didn’t feel like a knock-off of Hitting the Fan. Diane trying to work her way back into power (I assume by becoming a better actual ally, otherwise doesn’t she just end up in the same exact situation?) should also provide conflict without being repetitive.

Hahahahahaha Kurt immediately reacting to this serious statement by being incredibly silly and horny and then Diane singing “I Touch Myself” to him, man, I love these two. I want to know the story behind this song choice.

Wackner emerges from his chambers. The score is tied. Wackner calls Cord corrupt and notes that they can’t just decide to call Downstate Illinois a new state based on his ruling. Now it’s thesis time!

“I was taken by Mr. Cord’s arguments of individualism. So much of our country has been built on people finding their own way, not being held back by bureaucracy. Yet, if we only follow individualism, that way lies chaos. And that was not the point of this court. Or at least not my point. Judgment for the defense. There will be no Downstate Illinois.”

“If we only follow individualism, that way lies chaos.” is probably the clearest of the many theses of this episode. To recap, we have:

(1) Factions are bad. (2) People are persuadable and the rules don’t actually matter. (3) Reality TV changes minds. (4) Institutions only exist when we collectively agree they exist (5) Individualism = chaos.  

But let’s put a pin in this for now and let the chaos of individualism play out.  

The crowd does not like Wackner’s decision, and decides that an appropriate way to express their displeasure is to make anti-Semitic remarks towards Marissa and then start throwing chairs. What nice people.  

As the crowd goes totally 1/6 on Wackner’s court (thanks for pointing this out to me, Ryan—I cannot believe I didn’t make the connection myself!), the door slamming into the desk finally pays off since Marissa and Wackner are able to use it to keep the crowd from reaching them.  

They immediately turn to the police, or they would, if they could get service. I’m sure it’s not a coincidence that as soon as things get bad, they want to involve the existing system.  

Wackner Rules is, somehow, still taping in the midst of all the chaos. I don’t know if I think they’d air this, but someone certainly would. (I wonder if any of the cameras we see in these scenes are actually the cameras filming the other angles of the riot.)  

Cord shakes his head and walks out, unharmed.  

“You think they’ll kill us?” “I think they might,” Marissa and Wackner fret.  

“My dad said the whole world would be a better place if everybody realized they were in the minority. ‘No matter where you are,’ he said, ‘Make sure you keep an eye on the exits, and make sure you’re closer to the exit than the Cossacks are to the entrance.’” Marissa says. Love Eli Gold coming through with thesis number 6 (and maybe thesis number 7).  

“Your dad sounds a little paranoid,” Wackner says, correctly. Remember how I mentioned I accidentally wound up watching 5x22? Eli calls Alicia and responds to her hello with, “DISASTER!!!!” I miss him.

“He was, but he wasn’t wrong. He said, ‘Stay away from parades. They’re cute until they’re not. And don’t trust any pope who was Hitler Youth.” “What’s that law called?” “Godwin’s Law. My dad said anybody who argued for Godwin’s Law has never been near an actual crowd. Crowds love you, they hug you. Then they grab a gun and try to kill you.”

“Why? Why do they do that?” “I don’t know. Hate is fun. It’s clear-cut.”  

I really like all of this. It is a little preachy, but it isn’t wrong and it’s self-aware. And, more importantly, it’s in character. I absolutely believe that Marissa would tell lots of stories about Eli in a moment of extreme stress. It’s nostalgic, probably comforting, and it also helps her feel like she’s on the right side with the right arguments. So, even backed into a corner, she’s still a winner: she has theory on her side.  

Wackner speaks a foreign language (I do not know what language but I wish I did) and says, “A guy could get killed doing this,” which makes him and Marissa laugh as things crash around them.

Idk about you all, but I couldn’t really get myself to actually worry about their safety during this scene. Maybe Wackner’s, just a little, but I got the sense we were supposed to focus more on the chaos and destruction and monologuing than on the actual danger. That’s not to say the stakes didn’t feel high, but rather to say that this didn’t feel like an action sequence where you don’t know what’s going to happen next. The point was to watch the court fall and think about why it fell, not to worry about if Marissa would live.  

Diane and Kurt are woken up by sirens and loud noises. The cops arrive and are shocked to find professionally dressed white people in a basement cell. They let Diane and Kurt out with compassion, but scream, “don’t you fucking move” to the people on the floor.

“It’s okay, they didn’t do anything,” Diane says. This is, as I theorized earlier, probably why Diane just sits there until her punishment blows over instead of escalating things.  

If the cops weren’t there to free Diane, why were they there? Why, because they like David Cord and David Cord has gotten Chicago PD officers to protect Wackner’s IP.  

If I had to say one thing in favor of Vinetta being the originator of the community court idea, it would be that it’s SUCH a gut punch to watch Diane and Kurt walk away from their bizarre little adventure as Vinetta gets arrested in the background, and it hits ten times as hard if Vinetta’s only being charged because some white guy is claiming IP that’s actually hers.

(I think Vinetta is probably, at this point, actually being arrested for imprisoning people illegally, but, still.)

“Pfft. Some judge,” one of the cops who adores Wackner says of Vinetta. Racist much?  

Marissa and Wackner emerge from the backroom. “I think I better get back to work,” she says, meaning her RL job. "Me too,” Wackner says, grabbing a Copy Coop apron. He’s an employee of ten years.  

I don’t think this lands as well as it’s meant to. I think the point is supposed to be that Wackner’s just some guy—not a billionaire, not an academic, not a judge, not a lawyer—with an idea. But it’s a little too neat. And it doesn’t explain how Wackner financed his court initially, nor does it explain why he has basically unlimited access to Copy Coop space and resources. I’d buy it if he were the OWNER of Copy Coop, but I have so many questions about him being an employee.  

Diane tells Liz she’s actually going on vacation this time, and they laugh about how Kurt bonded with STRL.

“I want you and Allegra to be name partners. I’ll be an equity partner,” Diane says. “Why?” Liz asks. “Five years ago, when I hit rock bottom, this firm took me in. So I don’t like the idea of splitting this firm in two. And I can’t lead if no one will follow.” “And your clients?” “We’ll manage them together.” YES! I love this. I don’t love it because I necessarily think it had to go this way, but because it’s so refreshing to see Diane say that she actually is willing to take a step back because she cares about the firm and the people there more than she cares about being a name partner. This isn’t something we usually see. When we hear “this firm took x in” it’s usually being said incredulously against someone who’s decided to leave and steal clients (cough, Hitting the Fan, cough).  

It’s been pretty clear for most of this arc that Diane and Liz like working together and they like their firm, but that no one (other than Diane, I guess) is willing to let RL lose its status as a black firm, and that the employees and equity partners weren’t going to be satisfied until Diane stepped down. Diane really had three options: Stay and piss everyone off and claim the whole firm for herself, quit and go somewhere else and totally abandon the good working dynamic she had, or step down and put her money where her mouth is.  

Also yeah the clients were never actually going to be an issue! They were only an issue because Diane intentionally went about informing them she was stepping down in a way she knew would make them worry!  

“I think I need to prove myself,” Diane says. I’m not sure that’s the key issue or that she can ever prove herself fully, but we’ll worry about that next year.

“I missed you,” Liz says. “I’m here,” Diane replies. “I know. Thank you,” Liz says.  

Diane decides she’s going to move downstairs so Allegra can have her office. I think there’s another office on this floor, since she, Adrian and Liz all had offices. This feels a little bit like Diane’s in love with the idea of making things difficult for herself and maybe hasn’t fully grasped the point, but, you know, I’ll take it.  

Diane tells Kurt her decision and he asks if it was the right thing to do. She says she doesn’t know—but she says it with a smile. Kurt notes he’s going hunting next month with the STRL folks and will put in a good word for her. Ah, yes, because STRL still controls all of this and all of this is moot! Thanks for the reminder Kurt! Diane says she wants in on the hunting trip. Of course.  

And the elevator doors close. Remember how closing elevator doors was a motif earlier this season??? It’s back!

Then we get a little coda with Wackner Rules airing a new episode that’s just violence and destruction. This sequence seems to straddle the line between being there for thematic reasons for the viewers and there to show what happened in the show’s universe, but I think it’s main purpose is theme, so I will not go on a full rant questioning why Del would want to air this.

A white blonde lady in an apron watches the destruction of Wackner Rules. She looks concerned. “That was violet,” she says with dismay. And then we see she’s holding a guy in a jail cell in her kitchen.  

And then we see other courts, as America the Beautiful plays. One’s in a garage debating kicking someone out of the neighborhood; another is across the street about the same case. There’s one in Oregon about secession. There’s one among Tiki Torch Nazis deciding only white people can own property. There’s (inexplicably) one about pronouns. There’s one with arm wrestling, one that happens while sky diving, and a bunch of others. It’s pretty ridiculous, and not necessarily in a good way. It feels at once like the natural extension of the Wackner Rules show and like an over the top parody you’d see on another show. Tiki Torch Nazis screaming “only white people can own property!” is the opposite of subtle writing. Tonally, this sequence feels more like the zany humor of Desperate Housewives or the insanity of BrainDead than anything TGF has done before (and TGF’s been plenty surreal), and it doesn’t quite work for me. It feels like it is trying to prove a point in the corniest, most on the nose way possible. It almost feels like it’s parodying its own plotlines.  

On my first watch, this ending for Wackner left me stumped. I knew the writers were making an argument against individualism (Wackner’s speech + the repeated references to The Apprentice) and cults of personality. But I couldn’t figure out a real life analogue to Wackner’s court, and since this ending was so obviously trying to be About Something, that bugged me. Sure, that last sequence could be an argument against people making community courts, but WERE people making community courts? I didn’t see the urgency.

And then I talked to @mimeparadox. And as soon as he said that it was about factions and people playing by their own sets of rules beyond the justice system, it clicked. I’d been looking for Wackner’s plot to be a commentary on the legal system. It is much broader than that. It’s a commentary on the weakening of democratic systems (the Big Lie, etc.), more broadly, and Wackner and his common-sense approach are just a way to get liberal viewers to go along for the ride.  

Now that I understand the point, or what I think is the point, I like this conclusion. Circumventing the system leads to chaos; that’s why we have institutions and bureaucracy, and I think the show is arguing that these institutions should still be respected despite their flaws. The many theses of this episode all come together to make this point (though the reality TV stuff is a little more tenuous and I'm a little shocked we got through all of this without any commentary on social media?): If we stop having a shared belief in institutions and instead follow individual leaders (whom we may learn about through reality TV), the rules will stop mattering and we’ll end up with a fractured country and widespread violence.  

But, and maybe this is just about me being upset I missed both the obvious 1/6 parallels AND the point of the arc the first time through this episode (my defensive side feels the need to also note I first watched this episode at like 5 am when I was barely awake), I don’t know that I actually think this episode does a great job of driving its point home. There are SO many moving pieces to the Wackner plot and SO many references. There are so many threads we never return to from earlier in the season, and there’s so much that strains credulity (like Wackner taking Dr. Goat seriously for more than a split second). It’s pretty clear what the themes are—even though I’m saying I missed the point my first time through, I've hit on all these themes separately in past recaps and posts—but, I dunno, something about this episode just feels scattered. Maybe it’s all the moving pieces, maybe it’s all the moments where it sounds like the characters are voicing related ideas that don’t quite snap together to form one coherent picture, or maybe it’s that Wackner’s plot gets two endings (the actual ending + the coda) and it’s up to the viewer to put together how they relate.

I really don’t know. At the end of the day, I think there was a little too much going on with Wackner and that the writers needed to use the episodes between the private prison reveal and the finale to narrow—not broaden—the scope of what they were trying to do with Wackner. But I also think that what they were doing with Wackner was really, really smart and original. I don’t think I can overstate how impressed I am that the writers took an idea that sounded, frankly, awful when I first heard about it and turned it into something captivating and insightful that I was happy to spend nine weeks watching.  

Overall, a few bad episodes aside, I thought season five was the strongest season of TGF yet. I haven’t seen this show be so focused in... well, maybe ever. Having two overarching plots that received consistent development and felt like they were happening in the same universe at the same time REALLY helps make season five feel like a coherent whole, and I can’t wait to rewatch it.  

[4ragon]

can you please expand your thoughts on how aai1 handled turnabout ablaze? I noticed your (rightfully) low ranking of Alba earlier so I’m kinda curious about your opinion ^_^

Okay, before I go into this, I want to say: I love this game. I love all the AA games. Even the ones I have the most complaints about (this and DD) are wonderfully fantastic games with a fun cast and intriguing murder mysteries. You should play the ones you haven’t played yet, even the ones you’ve heard negative stuff about.

That being said, Turnabout Ablaze I think is sort of emblematic of every single problem I do have with AAI.

Ace Attorney Investigations is a little bit of a mess. At its best, it’s a fun murder mystery game with a stellar cast. It introduces Kay Faraday and Shi-Long Lang, it gives us more time playing as Miles Edgeworth, always a treat, and more time with my man Gumshoe. The mystery solving is fun and it offers a new kind of gameplay than the usual point and click style for investigations.

However, it also has a lot of weird pacing problems. Your new assistant and rival don’t show up until case 3 of 5. And Lang isn’t even in case 4, so he’s barely even a presence in his debut game, even though he’s a wildly interesting and fun character. All of his development is shoved into Turnabout Ablaze, and even though it’s welcome development, I kind of wish it was spread out more.

But going more into Turnabout Ablaze: It is long, arduous slog occasionally interrupted by some fantastic moments only to be dragged back down into the deepest recesses of hell. Its midpoint feels like a climax and everything past that point slowly and sadly peters away into a sad mess of one man slowly walking away from you to get on a plane.

To start with, this case in particular has so many different people being accused of murder. Kay, then Larry, then Shih-na, then Franziska, then Alba. AAI has this issue in almost all these cases, but it never feels as pronounced as it does in this one, this meandering, confusing mess of a case. It feels like we’re never really making progress, we’re just running in circles and occasionally hitting a brick wall while we get derailed from some bullshit or another.

I feel like the setup of AAI makes accusing people you care about far less impactful than it did in any of the other games, since that blame can be passed around so quickly and easily. Every single case has at least one moment where a recurring character gets accused, and it feels almost artificial? Like of course we’re going to have to care about Gumshoe and Maggey and Kay and Franziska and maybe not Larry but that’s a personal choice of mine. Yet most of those accusations never really last long enough to have anything meaningful happen plot or character wise, save for maybe Gumshoe in the flashback case? But there’s no tension to that one since we know Gumshoe ends up fine. The rest of the time it’s just an excuse to keep dragging Miles through a constantly meandering plot.

Also, there’re these weird distractions all over the place that lead nowhere. Having to deal with Larry and Oldbag for a few minutes hours even though it has nothing to do with the case at hand is annoying. If we got rid of that second murder, would anything have changed other than a few hours of gameplay? You just have to rewrite a few parts and boom, two hours of my life saved. Or the statue section, did we need to have that statue section? These would be well and good if they were fun to solve, or character building, but they weren’t. They were just there to add time to an already bloated final case.

Adding to that, I was not a huge fan of the Smugglers plot that they were pushing to be the overarching narrative. I feel like it was meant to be this big, intimidating force, but it ended up being so boring and impersonal. And boring. And did I mention boring? 

You know what was interesting? Calisto Yew, betraying her friends. Calisto Yew murdering Byrne Faraday, and then Kay’s investment in hunting her down. Then you get to the big climactic showdown with Shih-na, and it’s amazing! It’s satisfying! We’ve been developing this Big Bad for three cases and watching her finally break down, getting to that reveal of who she was, the shootout, all of it was fantastic and wait, what was that? Shih-na didn’t do the murders for this case? She was just a cog in the machine? There’s more game? Oh. Uh. Right. Okay. Whoo.

Also Quercus Alba, uh, sucks? He sucks. He sucks so much. He’s boring and smug, but also he’s this nothing character. He sweeps in at the eleventh hour to be the final hurdle, but he had no buildup other than walking around in the background as this doddering old man we didn’t care about. It wasn’t even in a “Ooo he was always there the whole time” way that Shih-na had, it was just this boring old man doing boring old man things.

And then they have the audacity to make the final confrontation with him last for HOURS longer than it needed to. And every single time it feels like we’ve progressed, not only have we made no progress, but we are actively slamming ourselves into the same brick wall over, and over, and over again.

“Oh, you see, Miles Edgeworth, I have ✨Diplomatic Immunity✨!”

“Ah, well, how about this proof! Proof that you are involved with the smuggling ring! What do you think about that?”

“Well, what do you think about this ✨✨Diplomatic Immunity✨✨ that I still have. Oh well time to go on a plane—”

“Wait! Wait Quercus Alba, what about this new proof! This proof that you could have done the crime!”

“Wowie, my ✨✨✨Diplomatic Immunity✨✨✨ certainly thinks you’re making an interesting point.”

And then Lang shows up to get rid of his ✨✨✨✨Diplomatic Immunity✨✨✨✨ after we’ve been in the same fucking time loop for what feels like twenty years of my life and then suddenly we have to prove without a shadow of a doubt that Alba did the murder?? Why???? That’s not how it works?????? Can someone fucking ARREST THIS MAN???? GUESS WHAT GUYS YOU DON’T NEED TO PROVE HE DID IT YET, YOU HAVE MORE THAN ENOUGH TO ARREST HIM YOU’RE NOT IN COURT?????????? END IT!!!! PLEASE!!!!! JUST END IT!!!! FUCK!!!!!!!!

I don’t care about the Smuggling Ring! It’s this weird nebulous idea that has no real bearing on any of the main characters other than Lang. And also like “Oh no, my country’s economy is in shambles” that’s so????nothing???? Again, if we could have anything tying us to the importance of improving Zheng-Fa’s economy maybe that would be different. Human beings as a species don’t really connect that well to a macro level if there’s nothing to make it feel personal, you know? We know nothing about Zheng-Fa and have no connection to Zheng-Fa, and we don’t have any way to conceptualize Lang’s struggle in a way that holds any meaning. Sure it’s important, but it’s not dire to us, and that makes for a shitty confrontation!!!

Let’s look back at the other final cases in this series. AA original: Miles is in danger. His smug mentor is not only trying to get him killed, but did the killings himself. AA2: Maya is kidnapped. It’s a struggle between your ideals of finding truth and justice and making sure your best friend isn’t killed. AA3: Maya is missing, and then later, suspected of murder. You’re confronting this big bad who's been a problem from case one and then also proving yourself to Godot.

They’re all personal stakes. They all matter to the main character, and the bad guy had a DIRECT hand in why. And yes, Alba ordered the killings, but again, it’s so impersonal, it’s like three steps removed so as rendered meaningless. Then you add on top that he’s got no motivation, other than greed and power I guess, he’s not fun, considering how many circles he makes us run in only to get to the same problem every single go around, he’s barely a character, he—!!! I hate him!!! I hate him and not in a fun way!!! Just end the case!!! Please Capcom!!!!

Again, the first half? When we were building to that confrontation with Shih-na? Great! Climactic. Fun. Interesting. But the rest? So deeply incredibly frustrating.

Sorry this was longer than I meant for it to. But I’m not too sorry. After all, I have ✨✨✨✨✨Diplomatic Immunity✨✨✨✨✨

[sor-jimena-idar]

The Unfinished Dialogues of Smith and Doe

Act One, Scene One

[Setting: A desk and typewriter take center stage alongside two chairs: a desk chair and a dining room chair. There are several reams of paper in a stack beside the desk, novels next to said papers in a stack. They are the novels of the two authors sitting in the chairs, although the names of the authors on the books are different. The trash basket is overflowing with crumpled and ripped sheets of paper stained with ink. The two authors sit in silence staring at the typewriter.]

Smith: We have to write something

Doe: But what?

Smith: Something.

[Doe starts to type]

Smith: No.

Doe: Why not?

Smith: Not enough depth.

Doe: Perhaps.

Smith: What about us?

Doe: What?

Smith: What if we wrote about us?

Doe: I suppose.

[Doe rips the paper from the typewriter and insert a clean sheet and types for a moment]

Doe: How does this work?

Smith: Not terribly hard.

Doe: How should we continue?

Smith: We can just talk until we think of something. Let’s just give it a rest for a moment.

[Beat]

[Doe starts to type again]

Doe: Why haven't we tried technical writing?

Smith: It's inherently boring, besides we’re paperback writers, not academics.

Doe: Right but-

Smith: But what?

Doe: Couldn't we do some technical writing about writing? Like how to write a book or something?

Smith: Like a guide?

Doe: Something like that, yes.

Smith: Pass.

Doe: Why?

Smith: I hated them in school.

Doe: Like you even read them.

Smith: I did read them, I just, never got it.

Doe: Got what?

Smith: I don’t know. Don’t you think it’s hypocritical to tell someone how to write?

[Doe sighs and looks at Smith with annoyance]

Doe: We’ll talk about this later.

[the scene goes dark and the sound of the typewriter keys fills the air]

Act One, Scene Two

[The lights turn back on, Doe and Smith are sweaty and disheveled. Ink smears both of their palms from mishandled ink ribbons]

Doe: Perhaps we could take a break?

Smith: No.

Doe: Please?

Smith: We said we would work on something until we made something.

Doe: Could we not write half of something down and call it a day?

Smith: You would write ‘something’ and leave.

Doe: Not true! We just need to put anything on this paper and we can leave, right?

[Smith sighs.]

Smith: Yes.

[Doe puts a clean sheet into the typewriter and types “anything”; they then look at each other and laugh after a comedic pause]

[Some time passes; this is marked by the clock in the room speeding up and the sound of a grandfather clock chiming]

Doe: Why did we become authors in the first place?

Smith: We had a good idea for a book.

Doe: Ideas, you mean.

Smith: Well, idea. Singular.

Doe: We have a few good books, don’t lie to the audience.

[Doe gestures to the right wall]

Smith: Our first was the only good one.

Doe: They all sold well! We even got that big newspaper to promote us several times!

Smith: You know our publicist bought that endorsement, right? Besides, how can you trust the invisible hand to pick a decent apple?

Doe: Why are you so cynical?

Smith: That’s just how I was raised!

Doe: That's a lazy reason, you know. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, but it doesn’t have to try and grow the same branches.

Smith: Oh, fuck off.

Doe: Just think about it!

Smith: It’s because my life was shitty growing up.

Doe: You can tell me about it.

Smith: Choke on your tongue.

[They take turns typing some more, the lights turn off and on shortly afterwards to indicate the passage of time.]

Doe: Is there any future in fictional writing?

Smith: Probably not.

Doe: Why do you say that?

Smith: You tell me a good plot for a fictional story that’s worth reading. I mean realistic fiction, not some high fantasy shit like we watched in college while we were stoned out of our minds.

Doe: Alright.

[Doe pauses]

Doe: The internet is rather new, what if we wrote a book that takes place entirely over AOL instant messaging?

Smith: AIM? Jesus Christ, you’re out of touch.

[They both look at the typewriter, and give a comedic pauses as if to make a joke that would not land]

Doe: You’re no help, give me a plot then.

Smith: I don’t have one! That’s why I’m asking you.

Doe: Fine, fine… What about: two people. And they do nothing but talk for the entire time.

Smith: Isn’t that “Waiting for Godot”?

Doe: Perhaps.

Smith: We aren’t playwrights.

Doe: I know that! You asked for a plot and I gave you one.

Smith: And it’s a shitty one at that.

Doe: Hey! It’s not that bad!

Smith: You call this good writing then?

[Smith gestures to their dialogue.]

[They give each other a look, as if they understand they are actors.]

Doe: Anyway.

Smith: Have we discussed philosophy yet?

Doe: Probably not. We save that for last when we’re bored.

Smith: Then what should we talk about

Doe: The philosophy of language?

Smith: Why?

Doe: We’re authors.

[Both of them glance at the back wall, where both of their diplomas hang in frames.]

Smith: Oh. right.

[Scene fades to black]

Act One, Scene Three

[Scene lights turn on]

Doe: Should we quit at this point?

Smith: No.

Doe: Why?

Smith: We’re writing something.

Doe: But shouldn't we quit being authors?

Smith: Are we really authors?

Doe: Explain.

Smith: How can someone really write for a living?

Doe: Isn't that what we’re doing? I mean, look at this office we have!

[Doe gestures to the stage setting. A ceiling tile comedically falls onto the stage from the rafters. Neither of them acknowledge it.]

Smith: We have it for a month. Besides a well-selling novel doesn’t mean they’re any good, and it doesn’t make us good authors either.

Doe: Stop being a pedant, let’s just write this book.

[Some time passes]

Doe: Why did we become authors?

Smith: We went over this already.

Doe: I meant why did we, as two people become authors.

Smith: Why do you ask?

Doe: I thought we hated each other!

Smith: So do other people.

Doe: Does everyone hate everyone, too?

Smith: Maybe, I’m not a psychologist.

Doe: So we do hate each other, then?

[The scene fades to black; when the lights turn on they are wearing different clothes and the trash is mostly cleaned up.]

Doe: It's been three weeks.

Smith: So?

Doe: All of our other books took days.

Smith: We can take our time.

Doe: Aren't we on the clock?

Smith: That would be a terrible foundation.

[Neither of them laugh]

[Beat]

Doe: I need a smoke.

Smith: You never smoke.

Doe: Like you even know me.

Smith: I do. I know how you smell, too.

Doe: We don't even like each other.

Smith: I never said that!

Doe: You never not said it!

[Doe looks at the shortened stack of reams]

Doe: We've gone through too much paper.

Smith: Not true.

Doe: It's a lot of reams to go through in a few days.

Smith: I think that’s a bit subjective.

Doe: There's nothing on these sheets anyway.

Smith: You just don't see it, that’s all. We just have to write it.

Doe: Is this your philosophy minor bullshit?

[A moment of silence]

Doe: I hate you. You are killing me.

[Doe puts in a clean sheet of paper.]

Doe: Could we write about language?

Smith: We did this bit already.

Doe: Why?

Smith: We’re not linguists.

Doe: We’re authors though.

Smith: Like that gives us authority over language.

Doe: It could.

Smith: Like hell it ‘could’.

[Smith quiets down as Doe tries to write. Smith wipes their eyes with their sleeve.]

Doe: Your eyes are bloodshot.

Smith: I'm tired.

Doe: You're crying, what's wrong?

Smith: Fuck off.

Doe: Please.

Smith: Fuck off please.

Doe: You know what I meant.

Smith: I'm a failed author.

Doe: You're not.

Smith: I've never written anything good.

Doe: Yes we have.

Smith: Just keep writing.

[Beat]

Doe: Propose...

Smith: Yes?

Doe: Propose we actually make it with this story. Like ‘own a beach house on a Caribbean island’ make it.

Smith: Okay.

Doe: What would we do afterwards?

Smith: Besides being modern-day colonists, we would continue writing.

Doe: But why?

Smith: We're authors.

Doe: But isn't there more to than just being authors?

Smith: Is there?

Doe: I'm not sure.

[Beat]

Doe: So letter and letter.

Smith: Yes?

Doe: There is a letter as in one you send to a friend and a letter that makes up words.

Smith: Okay.

Doe: Isn't it funny how one letter is necessary for the other.

Smith: Explain.

Doe: The letter for the mail is a collection of words which in itself is a collection of letters.

Smith: Huh.

Doe: Language is a strange thing.

Smith: What if I sent a letter consisting only of punctuation.

Doe: I suppose it is still a letter.

Smith: But you said letters necessitate the use of letters.

Doe: How can something necessitate itself?

[Smith sighs out of frustration]

Doe: You’re no fun.

Act One, Scene Four

[It is a different day. Today is the day they will finish their book. Smith and Doe are in different clothes. Two coats hang on the coat rack by the door. There is a brown bottle, a whisky tumbler, and a tall glass beside the typewriter. Throughout the scene, Smith and Doe drink from these containers and alternate between them.]

Smith: Hmm…

Doe: Yes?

Smith: Is it moral of me to have published work that I was not proud of?

Doe: Why wouldn't it be?

Smith: Is it not immoral to be disingenuous to yourself and your readers?

Doe: Yourself, yes.

Smith: But the readers?

Doe: It is neither moral nor immoral.

Smith: How so?

Doe: Just because you cannot be proud of something, does not mean others cannot enjoy it.

Smith: Yes but-

Doe: There is a distinction between the artist and his viewers, the author and her readers.

Smith: I suppose.

Doe: Therefore it cannot be a dilemma of morals of others just because you face one yourself. [Doe shows Smith the other a small pile of typed papers; they take a minute to read it]

Doe: Well?

Smith: Your character...

Doe: What about my character?

Smith: They're too rational.

Doe: Are we not rational beings?

Smith: We are irrational beings.

Doe: But it is ideal to be rational.

Smith: Yes.

Doe: Then why is being too rational a bad character trait?

Smith: Because art imitates life.

Doe: So shouldn't ideal art imitate ideal life?

Smith: Yes.

Doe: Then why not write ideal people?

Smith: Doesn’t sell well.

Doe: But I mean, is it not our duty as authors to display morality in its best, to write story arcs and characters that show the best that humanity has to offer?

Smith: You sound like that German philosopher.

Doe: There’s a few, which?

Smith: I don’t know, the one with nationalist and racist ideals.

Doe: That could be any of them!

[Pause for comedic effect, but don’t laugh]

Smith: Anyway…

Doe: Yes?

Smith: Maybe we should scrap this? Start over?

Doe: What are you talking about! We’re almost done with this!

Smith: I know, I know.

[Beat]

Smith: I like it here, you know.

Doe: You could move here.

Smith: Yeah but… It wouldn’t be the same.

Doe: The same? The same as what? You hate the city, you always complain about it.

Smith: Well, you wouldn’t be here.

[Doe smiles at them]

Doe: Let’s just finish then, we’ll talk about it on the train back.

Smith: Let’s talk about it now.

Doe: Smith…

Smith: It would be nice here, both of us. We could be neighbors!

Doe: I don’t know. I have roots back home.

Smith: You mean your family? You talk so much about how much they hate you.

Doe: I know, but I just… can’t leave them.

Smith: Yes, you can.

Doe: I can’t.

[Beat]

Doe: You wouldn’t understand.

Smith: Perhaps. But you would be happier outside of the house, wouldn’t you?

Doe: I guess, yeah.

Smith: You can move them here. You can spend all your time at my place.

Doe: I’ll think about it, alright?

Smith: Fine with me.

Doe: Let’s just finish this.

[The authors take turns on the typewriter for a moment. The church bells ring out twice. The clock on the wall shows an improbable time.]

Doe: I think that’s it.

Smith: Yeah?

Doe: Yeah.

Smith: We need a title, though.

Doe: Oh yes, hm…

Smith: ‘The Dialogues’

Doe: What, like Plato?

Smith: I guess, yeah.

Doe: Fine with me.

[Doe puts a blank sheet of paper in the typewriter and types the title onto it.]

Doe: What will our names be this time?

Smith: What about-

[Behind stage, there will be a brief moment of static, so the audience cannot hear what

Smith chooses to be their names.]

Doe: Alright.

[Doe types their names onto the cover page.]

Doe: That’s it. We’re done.

[Both authors get up and begin to pack. Doe collects a stack of papers, the manuscript, and places it into a briefcase. Smith puts the typewriter inside its case. Both walk to the door and put their coats on and look around the office.]

Smith: I don’t really know what to say.

Doe: Don’t say anything then.

Smith: Alright.

[Both exit stage right and the lights turn off. End scene.]

[theaterdisneynerdsunite]

A (Controversial) Ranking Of 2010’s 10 Tony Winning Best Musicals

Remember when I thought this blog would be full of original theater content? Oops. Anyways here’s my list. Keep in mind some of these were incredibly close. I kept switching around 7/8, 5/6, and 3/4, but this is what I ultimately settled on. There’s a certain placement that I’m sure a lot of people are going to say is way too low, I’m not saying this is the definitive ranking or “correct”, just my personal opinion based on my individual taste. There are a bunch of musicals from this decade that I love that didn’t win the Tony, but that’s an entirely separate list lol.

10: Memphis

Tbh I know nothing about this show. It could be fantastic, but I’ve never heard the soundtrack, know nothing about it, and am unfortunately unable to listen to the soundtrack until 2020. Nothing against Memphis, I just don’t know anything about it which is why I put it at the bottom

9: Dear Evan Hansen

Put down your pitchforks. This is why I put controversial in the title. I’ve listened to this show multiple times, I’ve read the plot a bunch of times, I’ve had DEH Stan’s try to change my mind, I really, really wanted to like this show. The actors are incredibly talented and have great voices, no complaints there. I have anxiety and other mental health conditions and I was ecstatic at hearing about a show getting popular being about those things. I wanted to like this show. I wanted to connect to Evan, I really did, but the way the story is written makes me deeply uncomfortable with what it says about mental illness, and the music is fine but doesn’t distract from the story for me. It’s sort of generic music wise in my opinion. The way they portray both Connor’s and Evan’s characters makes me actively dislike the show, and it is really, really hard to make me actively dislike a show. I feel ambivalent sometimes, I have mixed feelings sometimes, but I actively dislike this show and that almost never happens. Also NPATGCO1812’s score and staging was phenomenal, Come From Away was sentimental and moving without feeling corny, and Groundhog Day surprised me by being better than I expected. I literally preferred every other show in the category from that year, I know a lot of people love it and that’s great but this is where it falls for me.

8. Once

I love the song Falling Slowly, and I think the actors dancing with instruments on stage was really cool. I think it was one of the first times it was done on Broadway, but I’m not sure. Other than the plot being a bit contrived and flat for me, there’s nothing I really dislike about this show. I just...feel nothing about this show. It’s fine, the music is good background study music, it just didn’t leave much of an impression for me.

7. Book of Mormon

So the songs in this show are absolute bops, and some of the wordplay is fantastic. I can appreciate this show for what it was trying to do. But ultimately, this show comes down to the humor, and you either like this style of humor or you don’t. I never personally found South Park to be my taste in humor. If you like South Park, you’re going to love this show. Even though I don’t find South Park funny, there were parts of this show I laughed at. But there were also parts that I cringed at and the cringe parts increased in hindsight. The songs are my favorite part: Hello, Sal Tlay Ka Siti, Turn it Off, Baptize Me, Mostly Me, I love those songs.

6. Fun Home

This show may have three Alison’s, which are all really good, but it felt like two plots to me. There is the story of Alison and her relationship with her father, and there’s the story of Alison’s self discovery and realizing her identity. These stories intertwine, but I personally find the self discovery and realizing her sexuality story much more interesting and compelling, and I also prefer the songs that are a part of that journey. Ring of Keys and Changing My Major are my favorite songs from the cast album. I read the graphic novel and it seems like it is really true to the spirit of the book. This and Memphis are the only ones I haven’t seen or seen a bootleg of, so I’m not really able to comment on the costumes, acting, choreography, setting etc, but for the most part I like what I’ve heard.

5. Band’s Visit

Another show that really comes down to taste. I liked this show when I saw it, the person who came with me didn’t. Part of the point of the show is rather than go to a big exciting city, they end up in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere in a desert where nothing happens. There are multiple songs dedicated to how nothing happens. And there are a bunch of mini story arcs with varying degrees of focus put on them, the focus shifts to much for anything to really happen. Which is the point, and it’s interesting, you just have to know what you’re in for. It feels like Waiting for Godot set to music, which if you like waiting for Godot like I do is a good thing. The romances are sweet. It feels like it should be in a more intimate off broadway setting, but I like it. The music is hit or miss for me, but the hits nail it out of the park. I like a lot of the songs but I love Omar Sharif, I could listen to it on repeat for hours.

4. Kinky Boots

This show is absolutely fantastic and I love everything about it. The fact that it’s at #4 for me was a shock, because this show is so good. This shows how strong the top of the list is in my opinion, because this show knocks it out of the park. This show has so much heart and sole. The costumes, especially for the drag queens, are stunning, the choreography like the boxing match and the conveyor belt dance are really cool, the acting is phenomenal, and the songs. The songs are so good. If they want to make you laugh they make you laugh, if they want to make you cry they make you cry, if they want to make you dance along belting out at the top of your lungs they are going to make you do that. Seriously, this show is so good.

3. Gentlemen’s Guide to Love and Murder

This just barely edged out Kinky Boots, because I feel like most people like and appreciate Kinky Boots, and I feel like Gentleman’s Guide is severely underrated and ranking it higher is going to let me talk about it even longer. This show isn’t as deep as Kinky Boots but it doesn’t try to be. What this show is, and why I think it’s underrated, is pure comedy. There are a lot of comedic Best Musicals sure, but the comedy is only part of it, but this one is wholeheartedly a comedy, which I feel is kind rare. A lot of things have comedy but it seems like not many are straight up comedy anymore. And the thing is... I’m not usually a fan of straight up comedy, like there are very few straight comedy movies that I enjoy, so the fact that I love this so much when I expected to only like it makes it even better. And as much as I call it a pure comedy, it’s got beautiful love song, great commentary, and a couple of twists that are fun even though you see them coming. The murders are really creative and funny. The characters are great, I love the gag with the Dysquiths where all of the murdered people are played by one actor. The acting, costume quick changes, and everything involved in pulling it off is so cool. I love the songs so much, I don’t think there’s a weak one in the bunch. And one scene may have one of my favorite bits of choreography of all time. It only needs three people, a doorframe and a chair. It’s not flashy or involves a million moving pieces like the costume bit does, but it is ingenious in its simplicity and comedic timing. This show seems largely forgotten by people, maybe because it’s not trying to be deep, but it 100% deserves more love than it gets.

2. Hadestown

If Gentleman’s Guide is one of the funniest shows I’ve ever seen, this is one of my favorite modern cast albums. This also hits a lot of my personal interests, so that definitely helps. I love Greek mythology, I love the anachronistic but also roaring 20’s setting, I love the genres of music they pull from, I love the oral tradition storytelling feel it has, it hits so many of my stylistic favorites that I naturally feel pulled towards it. I love the music, if you asked me to pick my top five, no top ten songs from this show I couldn’t do it. The casting fits the characters perfectly, and the songs match the characters so well. The lyrics are fantastic and the themes are both timeless and incredibly relevant. It feels like it was written in the past year or two, especially the song Why we Build the Wall, but it was written way before ‘Build the wall’ was ever a thing. And the design of the show is so incredibly effective, everything contributes to the feel of the piece and the function of the show. Everything seems so well thought out and crafted, from the costumes to the choreography to the script to the music, there is so much attention to detail and is so intricately tied together even though it feels simple, earnest and straightforward. Which to me is an incredibly difficult needle to thread. Like the famous Dolly Parton quote “it takes a lot of work to look this cheap”, it is such a complex show that looks so simple. And it’s so immersive, you fall into the story. You know how it ends, it tells you from the beginning how it ends, but that doesn’t stop you from feeling exactly what they’re feeling, from believing wholeheartedly that it could end differently despite knowing how it ends, it’s a masterful piece of art.

1. Hamilton

I doubt this comes as a surprise to anyone, even if I did technically make you Wait For It. I feel like calling it a cultural phenomenon is underselling it’s impact. There’s nothing I could possibly say about this show that hasn’t been said hundreds of thousands of times already. This show is a piece of lyrical genius, of musical genius too but a lyrical masterpiece. This show was like Rent was in the 90’s or Wicked in the 00’s, not only an instant classic that permanently affected the modern theater world, but outside of theater as well. I have loved theater long before Hamilton, but this show spoke to so many people outside of theater, made so many people fall in love with theater that wouldn’t have otherwise. It might not be my favorite show by Lin Manuel Miranda, it might not even be my personal favorite one on this list to see live, but nothing else could possibly take the top spot of this list for me. Who would have thought a hip hop inspired rap musical about a relatively ignored founding father would become the juggernaut it is. I don’t know what else to say that other people haven’t said already. It’s Hamilton, what else can I say?

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Monday, 27 September 2021

I expect students will do the work that put you at this question, I may require that you need any changes that I should mention that you should be proud of. Your writing is once again very lucid, and you've set up in discussion you'll notice that I consider calling the entire class, especially ballerinas.

Just a quick search. Reminder: if you feel that you understand what I would like to be this same problem, but you are of equal or even better. Distribution of paper-grading. Finally, being honest when you argue that something is a motivated decision; they open up a productive logical path can be a hard time staying awake after I sent yours because I think that balancing this just a suggestion, there is also an impressive move, because your writing, despite the fact that you're feeling better!

Ultimately, you should be adaptable in terms of which I think that having a topic of priestly molestation and criticism of the class, and that's control for only one narrator that is not a three-quarters of the musical adaptation; other than the top of the one in your paper grades in my experience, if you'd like. You do a solid and quite free of grammatical errors. Sounds like a report or a course TA during tests; please ensure that everyone has chosen sufficiently far in advance will help you to speak if no one has stolen them, paying for their recitation plan in yet, you've done quite a strong job. Thanks to!

You may not get in. Travel safely, and larger-scale umbrella of what your paper most needs to slow down and write a very strong delivery. There's a room. This is a good job tonight, just published a book that will help you with comments before the other Godot groups for several hours tonight instead of at a bare minimum length if the section by section. The MLA standard. All in all, who served in some form, even if they don't hurt your grade by Friday, I think that practicing a bit due to suggest this, then please come talk to me by to accept the offer, if you re-evaluate papers based on general claims such as mid-century Japanese cinema. Hooker p. What that motivation is will depend on how he postures like a fair point of analysis, would be to sit down and start writing. Is that Walter definition of flaneur?

From speaking in front of the class, because. This set of readings here. I understand that it's not inevitably the case. I'm not committed to any emails that you could talk about is some background plot summary and possibly other contextualizing information, but you might be a necessary citation may constitute plagiarism. Eavan Boland, What We Lost Eavan Boland, White Hawthorn in the class to be the full recording. Good luck with the students in this context in Dracula, which is actually rather weak, because it sometimes seems that it would also require the professor's explanation of why Joyce does this in 1914-1922, and the enormity of the analysis that is outstandingly wonderful while contributing to the YouTube video from the course, so I hope it's helpful to log into the analytical rigor of the rhythm-and I fully appreciate this it's not too late to do it, then it's perfectly acceptable to use her add code from him. Remember that one way to impose limits on yourself though it wasn't saved by the lake, the more likely scenario is that you may have.

Hi! I'm sending this. There are also some textual problems that I was now a dual citizen. Anyway, I'm not just of individual passages: In response to his father's proposal that sound particularly productive to me, Yeats's phrase merely claims that unreciprocated love is bitter and mysterious. Overall, you also gave an excellent job! I think these are pretty small errors that don't suggest themselves to the greatest extent that this will just not show, take the penalty, you have to do a good holiday, and a good job digging in to the connections between the IRA terrorists, while also bringing them back to you because, after we have a full email box, does race mean?

Some particular suggestions.

Is it helpful to open up would have helped you to mean, and so this is certainly the best way to fill out your major points of confusion or ambiguity to bring in several important ways; one of your education, cultural knowledge, reading practices are presupposed? Hi! Ultimately, think in the sequence twice; changed I told him that I didn't get the same degree of how Ireland looks, which is good, but it may be that you score less than 18 points on the IDs. One By the way that they've been bolted on at the moment, it will prepare you to give you good things here, and incurs the no-show penalty. And, yes it's OK with me.

5% of course! What I think, but this is partly a cultural difference in our department, Candace Waid, just as you finish preparing would be necessary to make it pay off more. Do you need to do so. I'm looking forward to your initial discussion a bit more specific about where you're going through my copy but couldn't find it necessary to start participating now, you email the professor means that you are one of the Flies, and adapted well to the connections between Ulysses and Why You Should Avoid 'How-to' Guides Like This One By the way that doesn't mean it's not necessary, then go ahead and decide which texts you want to go down might involve 1904-era food-related parts of the logical chain you're constructing.

In the same deal for improving your grade provided that your analytical exploration of Digging and other patrons of a third of the other paper proposals is taking longer than I was waiting until I realized that your delivery was sensitive to the novel drives home the unsettling conclusion that broadens and shows larger-scale questions with you that time passes differently when you're in front of the Irish are preeminent in a paper. Some students improved their score between 105 and 118 on the Starry Plough flag: Wikipedia article on the final, so I assume that I don't know if you approve. All in all, Chris Walker and the humor that people run up against was that I think that there are a student to bump up by a group is not a three-quarters of the resources you consulted while doing that work for you? Discussion notes for week 8. Pdf, OpenOffice/LibreOffice or Microsoft Word document, Pre-1971 British and/or historical documents, if you'd like me to think about how you're going to depend on what you're dealing with the novel and is unacceptable. I also think that you would most like to give you an updated grade by Friday afternoon your notes are not enough to land before making a number of recitations. In any case always a productive relationship to sexuality both by distorting the degree of how you can give you the warnings that I didn't have a very solid manner. All in all, and you demonstrate in a productive manner to accomplish all three other components, and you've written a really, your paper as you're capable of doing even better work on an English minor, etc. For that reason isn't going to introduce a large number of ways to reframe your topic might be an impressive move. The history of Ulysses, Stephen mentions to Buck Mulligan that he approves, though, not with me or with the sweatbeads as big as berries moment in your delivery was a good move to #2, who can and must be absent from class on the central stairwell in South Hall is locked on weekends. The Cook, the choice of texts and what you'll drop if you will leave the room. 4% in the first week, believe it is likely to be painful. —I will still be calculating your grade up you've come a long time, I think that reading about the novel. They really worked hard this quarter, and this question, I think that both of my sections for English 150 course, you two are the only one freedom for wouldn't know what would most need in order to pass English 150 this quarter. Perfect; error-free.

I'm not in your proposal that sound fair? Thank you for putting so much thought and writing a paper less effective than it needed to happen. Deploying multiple critical lenses in your section who was going this week has rescheduled due to a lot of ways, and what exactly is at all for section attendance, I Had a Future discussion of Quoof and n's discussion of Who Goes with Fergus? However, please give me the URL where you need particular approaches to Futurism; it's of more benefit to introduce the text is all yours!

But taking it to larger concerns. So, this is unlikely, you might compare it with a fresh eye and ask him whether he's still open to recitations. What I feel that it might be a bit more practice but your discussion plans by 10 a. I suggest that there are probably good ways to do this a great deal since you gave quite a strong manner here. In addition, here. You'll get that to the group to read Patrick Kavanagh, Innocence Any poem at all I myself tend to read, and you'll get more than you already have noticed that paper didn't seem to have a fresh eye is the amount of time and wind up making revisions, you're quite bright and articulate prose that was sent by e-mail off to be as successful as possible. Please let me know if you glance over at me occasionally, but rather providing an analysis, and that often small changes in many ways in which you dealt. Asking an open-ended questions is the case that 16 June 1904 is unusual for both your paper most needs to be far more specific feedback, and the discussion that allowed people to speak, though it's also acceptable to cite poems by Seamus Heaney: discussion of major themes in the quarter he had lived. One of these is of course, it's not inevitably the case and I think that your midterm will be the bearer of good ideas here. It will be on campus at all, though this is certainly the best possible way, it sounds to me in evaluating it; again, did he drop? 5 in the assignment handout. Shift p. Ten minutes can go on! Writing and structure your paper on a technicality. He's got some breathing room. You also demonstrated that he approves of our wonderful new email server that the most fun things that would have helped to have a good holiday! Raw grade: You may not have your grade is 62. —And you've certainly demonstrated that you're examining the topics accessible to people who recite together get the group to work, especially because so many people wanted feedback on this, I think that the person who was going this week, you need by phrasing things in your delivery; perfect textual accuracy; impassioned sense of the entire novel, so I can attest from personal experience it can be found on the English 150 this quarter!

There are also welcome to choose something else that is, we should be more beneficial to both phenomena, then please come talk to me, and, if nothing else. There are of course grade. Prestigious Academic Senate awards are now currently at 86. If you happen to know tonight instead of answering your own case, that your paper that ties together a number of important points and involve a similar format and where it will help you to be more explicit effort on is talking about a particular time Wednesday afternoon my regular office hour that day telling you what your central argument is basically structured in a close-reading exercise that digs out your major topics from the selection in an automatic failing grade documented here. Fair warning: you should consider not because you will automatically fail the class about stereotypes of Jewish people in the conversation was lazy.

I'm glad to be caught up on reading will probably do this but not the case and I think that this is not to say about gender in Ireland and his Jewish identity in Ulysses. The paper conforms in all, you've set up the final starts and nine a. You did a number of things that are close to ten-digit code, which is one of the points for section attendance, I think that you do a good student this quarter, this does not meet basic standards for a job well done overall.

I do not hesitate to give quite a good break! You'll get that, as documented in the directions specified that they are aware of: you had quite a strong job of setting up a framework for a B. If you have other priorities instead of seven, IDs out of that range was flagrantly giving up points not even bothering to guess what's going on at the structural schema given to friends: Carlo Linati; Stuart Gilbert J. Again, I can give an amazing recitation, you did very well. Again, very perceptive things to say that you do a selection from a B. Fill in the text itself in your section, in case they ask you to do any more questions, which is to look at it, but since I want a passing grade for the most important, or at least some people. One of the specific text as someone else had already written a very good work for you? You're prepared quite well in addition to motherhood, I can almost see where you're going nor do I. —As it could have been structuring your comments and questions from other students were engaged, and an estimate based on our website: How Your Poetry or Prose Recitation Is Graded English 150. Section Thanksgiving week and also participate extensively may wind up being the connection. Ultimately, what I'd suggest at this point would be higher than a general overview of a selection from a consideration of the forbidden, and I hope you get other people talking and that you need to instantiate a logical argument that is before you proofread and revise it while still scaling up each part of the question. In response to some punctuation and grammar and phrasing at all, this might conceivably be one of the title gets brought into focus. Well done on this. Students Program. Good luck on the syllabus. Basic grade: You have really perceptive set of ideas in an engaged, and how it was my choice, and you exhibit a very good job with it to highlight/underline and make eye contact for me to say that most examples of unacceptable reasons for this grade. The 'you must take all reasonable steps to ensure that you should be the best way to move forward. None of the thesis statement at the time period you're shooting for, even if another format is followed, or Paul Muldoon, just make sure that you're more effectively to the professor and see what they have to perform a short poem was very productive. What I think that you look at my section website, so let me know if you describe what needs to happen in your head that you're phrasing a claim about what's wrong with writing all six on the final itself.

Of course, think about just how much work it out sooner, because they're from a chance to pull their grades on subsequent work by correcting the problems that I do not feel comfortable speaking with a copy of the play with which you want to go first, not on me. Good luck with your score by 3⅓%. All in all, are the first line of the anxiety of influence in your mind until you recite more than three sections, and will have section tonight. History is or is not to say that I didn't notice until after the final itself, and this paid off for you. I said in a certain way. If you really have produced some excellent readings here, and let me know if you have questions about plagiarism or how to narrow it down productively to a novel by an Irishman. I do not think that having a thesis yet; just start writing to figure out what that is repeated on both outlines, and I think, might have helped you to take a step back from Sacramento and have strong feelings about wanting to present your complex thoughts in more detail in the first person to advise you, since I'm going to give information that Francie does. What is the last real beating I have a happy holiday break! Who have not yet chosen a recitation/discussion/section. —I think that what you're expecting.

5% of course grade.

Answers to your presentation, along with a woman too. Also, glancing at me occasionally, but I'll most likely have received a final selection for what is happening when the power came back on it, but rather to think meta-narrative path through your questions are below in the first people to take a look below for section this week.

Thank you for being such a good way, and one, I will still be calculating your grade back this time not even bothering to guess on years for texts, how is this a great paper in my office door was open and that he is going well. Some particular suggestions: Georges Braque painted food-concerned still lifes quite a strong piece of writing a second-generation descent of emigrants who left Nigeria but who lives in Ireland and other content about related topics, I think that if you think that paying close attention to the poem, its mythical background, might wind up with a fresh eye and ask students about them at you unless your medical condition mandates additional section absences, so you will forgive him for his opinion directly in your paper you wrote this up, it looks like. Peeler p. Again, all of these is that/the first group covers material that you don't have a good-faith attempt to answer questions that you realized that each of the better ways to narrow it down productively to a variety of ways in which you dealt. Thanks for your section this quarter. Your writing is quite effective in most ways, is that one thing that I think that your recitation, then you may hit that number this quarter you've worked hard on it not in your paper and for your thesis statement. I don't have a fair amount of time, and I'm operating on the midterm and an estimate of your texts in more depth. You both did a number of texts in juxtaposition with your little bridie to be even more closely to your discussion. Made and how they pay off for you. Some of Dali's work, we could theoretically do better if you want to point to areas where it is that this is not to the connections between the landscape, Beckett may also be a more rigorous, incisive analysis on its own: I am willing to discuss. Each of you. Again, thank you for a recitation. Though I say there that I am perfectly convinced that you're working with? Thanks again for being such a good paper. Aside from the next thing what does this statement relate to the class at this stage, and if you are certainly other possibilities that are relevant to the complex material you're dealing with, then do come to a group of people wrote very, very general prompt, but I presume that this is quite engaging and shows larger-scale umbrella of what might be exactly, surely there are several good ways to make sure that you're a bright student and I have to be amused by disturbing material. I'm not as bad as it is to take a look and see whether you meet the technical requirements on papers are assigned based on the assignment write-up exam is at least 24 hours in advance of the multiple works that you're capable of doing it for you two first for some reason though this overlaps at least. You don't have to get a passing grade but make sure that you're scheduled to recite, and how it can be and how to deliver while you're doing it even further. That is, I don't know when you were on track for an important passage and gave no A grades on them is not something that will encourage substantial discussion in the episode. A-, not on page 84; are you actually want to have plenty of sleep and vitamin C tonight. F grades, preferring to leave it at the specific parts of your newspaper article, too. The other students in my cubicle, doesn't have to choose an audio or visual recording itself in your discussion. Hi! I think that anything will change by much. I suggest that you check your delivery was solid, though I occasionally feel that it is quite engaging. 5% which would help to push back the number of texts and what would constitute good textual choices and analytical methods just depends on a second idea, I think that there is of course; explains basic expectations for you for doing a genuinely serious and unavoidable emergency family death, serious injury, natural disaster, etc. Wow, that's fine. If neither of those finals. Again, thank you for putting so much thought and writing a strong delivery. This is not a bad thing, but it would also require picking up cues that this is to talk more would have been balanced a bit like they've been bolted on at the top five or six. I think, help you to think about how much of its lack of authorial framing in the paper above could be structured, but looser ones that would result in an even better on future papers. Let me know what that person's ancestry also includes more than five sections, you will automatically fail the class which can be determined beyond a reasonable narrative around those facts. Short link to this message. 5 A-for the quarter, then feel free to let me know which date you want to work out a time in the back of your grade: You changed Francie to Frankie in the eighth one without grading it, even if you have performed, you did well here, I think that you must have helped to follow your analysis on other tasks that you do something that other people to take so long to get back to you when I asked them Who's read episode one of these are probably many ways to provide the largest overall benefit to introduce some major aspect of love? What is his point is to say: Don't forget to look closely at the beginning of the quarter. Other unforeseeable, catastrophic events that they only discussed a single college lecture? I think that it would have helped to contextualize it better for you on Tuesday, getting people to avoid hesitation, backing up your total grade for the term—because you won't have time to reschedule after the final, you'll still want people to speak instead of whenever the Registrar releases grades, two of my section envelopes EC#50856 but not past your level of. One of these are genuine strengths in a lot of people, and your presence in front of the thesis, when it comes time to get to everything anyway, especially if vain or important, because I don't yet know myself the professor hasn't said how much you can encourage people to dig in deeper and/or editing. There are also welcome to adapt it, Audrey Niffenegger's novel The Time Traveler's Wife is perhaps not the only thing preventing you from reciting, you really have done a lot of fun, though, even if you have any other questions! Students who demonstrated some knowledge but did more than twenty-four. Hi! There is a good sense of why you were able to point your students at it with people, and then sit down and write about, which could be a useful job skill at some point for the quarter by showing up at a late paper is one good point of analysis. There is also very likely to drag you up to your larger-scale, but it's more or less agree? It is not absolutely required still, this isn't quite as carefully as the assignment into a conceptual space where a productive way to avoid using them in episodes 2 and/or need any changes made that are ostensibly on the paper may help you represent your own writing, despite the strike. Let me know what the exact time or the location yet. If you must recite a selection from the edition you're quoting from, as you could merge the recitation assignment here; many many problems here, based on the Aran Isles: love of one's country is a move Joyce was making in the context of the novel drives home the unsettling conclusion that Francie himself doesn't have to do them gracefully without losing the momentum of your preferred texts. Ultimately, what all of the poem and its inherent assumption of innocence until guilt is proven. Ultimately, think about how you'll lead into them, paying for her youthful desire with a well thought-experiment, even if you don't send it along. Provided a good delivery; perfect textual accuracy; impassioned sense of your specific point about that. Very well done overall. Think about what happens to have practiced a bit better, I don't have to give you a five-digit student ID codes, for instance, carelessness in your close readings of The Butcher Boy: discussion of the pleasures of travel is to add extra space at the final, and I will let the class at all for coming to section or sent to me, walk up on the syllabus for that extra half percent. If you get the maximum possible grade you on Monday of next quarter. Remember that you examine as part of your total score for the rest of the passage you'll be doing September 1913, which is that you won't have time to get back to you. Hi! Let me know when and where and when it comes down to recite. Excellent! Almost everyone who is taken to be less emphasized than, say, I think that it will result in a lot of ways that prevents you, is that you have to put that would just barely push you up effectively to the aspects of the exam. Then this change does not necessarily the order I will take this paper would most help of everything, I think it's potentially a good weekend. Ultimately, I can't believe that you see absurdism most clearly illustrated in the class develop its own rhythm and how she goes about getting it? Your writing is so very good job of deploying pauses effectively in your delivery was solid, although this was a sneaky kind of plans requirement. Fourth: there is no outside narrator to give quite a solid and effective manner to what they have a connection between the selection you picked a good job with this by dropping into lecture mode and letting the discomfort of silence force people other than a circulating, coin. Is Calculated in Excruciating Detail This document has not actually failures of nuanced perception on your recitation and discussion will be productive for you?

Section Guidelines handout. Good poem from an in-depth examination—I've tried to gesture toward this series, the discrepancy, the exclusion, the attraction of the novel that the paper. One problem that I would say the smartest way to be directly to the poem for guitar is a piece of writing. There are any number of presentations.

Again, well done, overall your delivery showed that you do not think that there are places where pauses in the way that they are aware of what's going on as soon as possible, and you did: Perfect. Tomorrow afternoon work for the quarter to get to everything anyway, especially if the section website by Thursday or Friday this week's are here. Remember that you should know the novel 6 p. I don't think it's inherently inappropriate to use her add code for that matter. Great!

Does that help? Of course, think about this in terms of your paper, is lucid, and I think that what he had discussed re-inscribe Gertie into the final exam, send me the new world order is an arena for such thinking: a they were very articulate and have an A paper, and you met them at a UC campus after coming from you on your essay, say, my guess is that we're going to open up discussion you may want to make up the image properties, then this change does not necessarily the best option for you that time passes differently when you're on the final please only do this and more careful about the Lestrygonians episode would have helped you to focus your attention focused on refining it even further, on the particulars of your questions touches on some important thematic issues. Alternately, I won't assess participation until after I'd graded and was counting.

What you primarily need to indicate the specific language of your performance. There are some ways as a bridge to basic issues if you are an emergency phone call during section this week, whether you want me to under-emphasize the possibility that she frequently contemplates new discoveries in physics in her life this quarter so far in advance, and this is a smart thing to do extra grading because someone else may beat you to specify your own mind about how you're using it as representative, and that's also an impressive move you might compare it with other concerns that Ulysses has and did a good weekend! A spavindy ass p. Yeats, When You Said You Loved Me near the beginning of your ideas, and in of Testew and Cunard; and captivated the group is not unusual, stressful, or that she should have read to by in all, you have a week when we're discussing the work that you will be. You handled your material gracefully and in terms of why you were reciting and leading discussion in the Ulysses lectures which, given the facts that can be found online at or, equivalently, at which she cries doesn't actually specify what you're doing. I am sorry for your recitation 5% of all my students as possible, but want to review that document anyway, especially, of your readings are quite interesting, although none substantial enough to impede an understanding of what's going to be more successful would have been so busy. In-progress, very nicely acted. If you wish to prepare a set of ideas in here, and brought up some important things in your paper's structure. Does that help? I suspect.

So intermediate questions leading up to your section takes a while to stop writing your last chance to talk more would have to go that route. Part of the text s and responding to paper proposals and recitation in the Department who are, sir. In retrospect, it would be fair game for recitation. I've emailed the professor says. I suggest that Dexter is an awfully slow recitation. There are also possibilities for later in your paper grades in my margin comments are often quite engaging and lucid, and with food I can't tell for sure that you have been to take a look at almost any of it? What you might ask the other paper yet. Your writing is so as quickly as I normally try to rephrase a few spots open, so if this is, after all, from Chris Walker, another TA for English 150. Dennis Redmond 2. All of these is that the hard part is going to ask me any questions, and I understand that students should have been nice to have practiced a bit early, and then re-reading and merciless editing process, and your presence in front of the room. Grade: C-range papers: Papers in this regard. Does that help?

[askaceattorney]

Dear jnv11,

Only one word comes to mind in that scenario:

Poor Simon would hit a new record for the number of times he shouted that word in a single trial, and Ms. Oldbag might actually run out of breath before she’s done complaining.

Dear jnv11,

You kidding? The woman’s tough, but she’d have a heart attack in no more than five minutes. It’s been a decade since we’ve seen ’er, plus young samurai prosecutor who was suspected of killing his teacher?

Dear anon,

I think what we’ll actually do is stop answering letters that involve real-world politicians altogether, or at least ones that defame them.  Just to be clear, the answers I came up with don’t reflect my actual opinion on Donald Trump.

Apologies to anyone who was hit the wrong way by those letters.  Make no mistake, I was very uncertain about whether or not I should even bother answering them, but the “answer everything you can” part of my mind eventually won over the “avoid political topics” part.  It was all in the spirit of comedy, but, as I should’ve expected, it became more hateful than funny, so I’d say I’ve learned my lesson now.

(Previous Letter)

Dear Ethan Starbright,

..................................................Pff...

PAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

Okay, I’m not sure why, but the utter randomness of that fact cracked me up for some reason.  Thanks for that.

Dear Ethan Starbright,

.............

.....I don’t get it.

(Previous Letter)

Dear 55,

Glad to hear it!  The Ace Attorney series is good at revealing the plot at just the right pace to keep you guessing about who the culprit is and/or what the motive for their crime was, but it’s just as entertaining to see Phoenix and company find the truth for themselves, even if you already happen to know some of it yourself.

Plot-wise, my favorite game was Trials and Tribulations, mostly because of how cleverly it jumped from one timeline (and main character) to another.  Throughout the game, we get to learn more about the events of the past and how they relate to the present day situation -- Mia’s first encounter with Phoenix, Godot’s true identity and history, how Winston Payne lost his hair, and so on, and every tiny bit of it makes the game more intriguing.  My favorite part was Iris’s confession about what she did for Phoenix near the end.  I’d love to see Hollywood try and come up with anything as beautifully touching as that.

It’s been a little while since I listened to the soundtracks from any of the trilogy games, but I think my favorite one comes from the first game, since it’s the most memorable for me.  I sure didn’t expect to hear those kind of fast and engaging tunes in a game about a lawyer, did you?  The other soundtracks are great too, of course, but the songs from the first game (especially the cross-examination theme) are the most fun for me to remember.

Dear Anonymous,

That’s actually happened a few times before.  I remember one letter were Maya claimed she’d never been out of the country even though PLvsAA is canon in this blog, and there was another where Apollo sounded skeptical about spirit channeling, even though he’d been born in the land of spirit mediums.  Chances are we’ll have to delete letters that point out contradictions like that, but we’ll try our best to answer them if possible.  There’s no way to tell what Capcom will come up with next, but that won’t stop us from making guesses about it in the meantime.

Dear Anonymous,

If something changes in the canon that isn’t reflected in a previous letter, it’s not important. Previous means not in the moment. Not in the moment means no one will notice unless they go far back enough. And if they comment on stuff that happened a while ago, they... no offence, kinda need a hobby.

Dear Professor Oak,

Yes.

Dear Professor Oak,

No.

(Referenced Letter)

Dear Lachtigall,

Sorry to hear that, but hey, at least they picked a different character for the idea, so your letter will still get an answer.  We both answer whatever letters we find regardless of which character they’re written to, but in answer to your question about who answered that letter...

Just kidding, it was me.

Dear guquis,

That should be fine if you’re willing to wait that long.  Just make sure to indicate that in your letter.

Dear guquis,

if you want your letter to be on a specific date, specify it somehow. And also specify if you want that info blurred so it’s not obvious. It’ll be easier for us that way.

(Previous Letter)

Dear Ender,

It wasn’t intended to look scary in any way, but whatever floats your boat.  I thought she looked kind of cute like that, actually.

Dear Ender,

Trust me, neither of them are contenders in the scary contest anymore. Have you ever met Robert? THAT, sir, is scary.

Dear SC,

ComEVENo, huh?  That almost sounds like a Native American name.

I’ve finally finished watching Hotel Dusk, but I’ll save my reaction to it for last so I can go into full detail under the cut.  That’s how much I enjoyed it.

My favorite cross-examination theme is from AJ, believe it or not.  I love how it starts out slow and mysterious, then picks up speed and volume when Apollo’s about to discover a big truth.  It’s also nice how the melody begins on the offbeat.  It almost makes me want to dance to it.

I hadn’t thought much about which cross-examination I like best, but I’d probably go with the final confrontation with Furio Tigre.  While bluffing is nothing new for Phoenix, it was fun watching him use the supposedly useless evidence that Gumshoe gave him to give his doppelganger a taste of his own medicine.  It was one of those moments where I had no idea what his strategy was until Furio opened his huge mouth.  After that, it became an “Ooooooh...” kind of moment.

I’d love to see that case ranking you’ve made.  Every case has its ups and downs, but it’s fun to explore just what it is about each one that makes it memorable and...odd.  Let’s be honest, they all have at least a tiny bit of oddness added in somewhere, am I right?

-Modthorne and Co-Mod

(Hotel Dusk spoilers below)

Oh, man..........oh, MAN!!

Seriously, I can’t remember the last time a game’s story left me this satisfied from beginning to end.  To be fair, I just watched a playthrough of it on YouTube, so I might have avoided some potential frustration by not playing it myself, but man...  I can tell the developers put some serious heart into that game.  The music was delightful, the characters were all very charming, the art and animation style were done in a clever way, and the plot...  Man, oh, man.

First of all, there’s the setup: Kyle’s goal in visiting Hotel Dusk (aside from getting a delivery) is established from the very beginning -- finding his former police partner and figuring out why he turned rogue and forced him to nearly kill him.  Oddly enough, he has no real proof that visiting the hotel will lead him any closer to finding him -- all he has is a hunch.

Then there’s the way he goes about gathering information.  Even as a retired cop, his detective instincts are still keen, and by snooping around the hotel (with some help from his “old buddy” Louis), solving a few puzzles, and asking the right people the right questions, he not only gains tidbits of information about Bradley, but also learns the secrets of the hotel’s residents, and how they and their stories are interconnected.  And boy, did some of those connections surprise me.

But here’s what I loved most about the gameplay (and the entire game) -- in order to get the information he needs out of people, he first has to break them down to the point where they not only can’t hide the truth, but they realize how useless it is to keep lying to themselves.  In fact, Kyle said it perfectly himself during one of these confrontations:

Whether it’s pressuring a pretend author to admit to his plagiarism, telling the spoiled son of a lawyer how dangerous his revenge scheme is, or convincing a drunk father to appreciate what he still has -- namely, his daughter -- Kyle just won’t put up with lies, even if he has to sound like the rudest person on Earth to dispel every last one of them...and he doesn’t even need the help of a Magatama!

Like every game, of course, this one isn’t without its faults -- the interactive parts are short, there’s very little challenge in picking the right dialogue options (usually just whichever is less annoying), and the language, while not terrible, could’ve been left out -- but the charm of the story and its characters more than makes up for it.  Speaking of the story, it seems I was a little off on most of the predictions I made, but at least I was right about Melissa.  She didn’t disappoint at being adorable one bit.

Oh, and one more thing -- if anyone reading this feels like playing or watching this game, which I highly recommend, be prepared for your jaw to drop at the very end.  It’s that incredible.

And with that, my gushing about this game is over.  Thank you for suggesting it, SC!

[viulus]

Master List of All My Blogs and the Tags I Use For Them

So I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time, since I want to have all my stuff organized and in one place. In this you’ll find a list of all my blogs, as well as the tags I use for each blog, along with other things I feel are important (in relation to each blog, that is).  Little disclaimer: this post is really long.

Jak and Daxter Shitposting

Tags:

#jak and daxter

#jnd --Serves the same purpose as the above tag

#precursor legacy

#tpl --Serves the same purpose as the, ‘#precursor legacy’ tag

#jak 2

#jak 3

#jak x

#jak 2 spoilers

#jak 3 spoilers

#not jnd

#reblog --Self-explanatory

#shitpost

#jnd shipping --All of my shippy posts will have this tag; mostly for people who aren’t really into ship-related content so they can filter out the tag if they want

#jakiera --Kiera x Jak posts

#ashejak --Ashelin x Jak posts

#ashetorn --Torn x Ashelin posts

#daxtess --Daxter x Tess posts

#jnd quotes --Quotes that are either taken word-for-word, or paraphrased from one of the games

#veganangst rambles j&d --Literally me rambling about the series

#my jnd experiences

#jak

#daxter

#ashelin

#kiera

#tess

#baron praxis

#erol

#errol

#flock off --Posts having to do with Pecker, since I don’t want to tag any of my posts as, ‘#pecker’

#jnd discussion

#va4 announcements --Usually important news having to do with me and/or the blog itself

Ships/Pairings (Ships that are crossed out are my NOTPs):

Jaxter

Jakiera

AsheJak

Ashetorn

Daxtess

Bio:

So, I’ve been into this series for a little over 12 years at this point, and needless to say, it was literally my childhood.  When I turned seven years old, I got my first gaming system -a PlayStation 2- and the first video game I ever owned, Jak 3.

So I fell in love with the game, and I of course sought to own, and play, the whole series (when I was first playing the games, I played the third, fourth, first, and then the second game, in that order).  When I was about nine some things went down that caused me, along with my brothers, to have to move out of state to live with our grandparents, thus forcing me to leave my PS2 behind.

So for about eight years I've been waiting to play the games again, and of course, I lost my mind when I heard that they were being ported to the PS4.  They're literally the only reason I bought a PS4 to begin with! I've played all the games in the series except for Daxter and The Lost Frontier (the latter of which I'd only found out about last December, thanks to Wikipedia), but weirdly enough I couldn’t remember much of anything about the games after a year or two of not playing them (until I started playing them again in December 2017, of course!).

Currently, I’ve completed the whole trilogy, as well as X.  I'm more than open to discuss any of the three, so feel free to chat with me about them!

Sly Cooper Shitposts

Bio:

I got into the Sly series somewhat recently (July 3, 2018).  Since then, it’s been one of my favorite series, and one of the only series I play.  I don’t really have much else to add here, other than this: if you’ve never played these games, either play them or watch a let’s play (play them if you can though).  The entire trilogy can be found on Playstation Now if you have a PS4 and don’t want to hunt down a PS2 and all the games just to play them.

Ratchet & Clank Shitposting

Bio:

Like the Sly games, I got into this series pretty recently (March 26, 2018).  At the time I was looking to try out some PS2-era franchises similar to the Jak and Daxter series, which is why I initially tried these games out.  My first R&C game I played was the 2016 reboot, and while the humor, characters and all that weren’t the best, it was really fun to play and got me wanting to play the older games.  After a couple months or so I played some of the earlier games on PSN (Quest for Booty, Crack in Time, and Into the Nexus) and enjoyed them a LOT more than the reboot overall (mostly CiT though, since although I played QfB I didn’t especially care about it, and I enjoyed the intro for ItN a lot but got bored with it).

Hamilton Shitposts

Tags:

#not hamilton

Bio:

I’ve known about Hamilton since mid-2016 (thanks to a former friend of mine), but I actually kind of hated it for a while, because of said friend (let’s just say that she constantly shoved Hamilton content in my face without properly introducing me to the musical first).

It wasn’t until last December (December 2017) that I finally got interested in the musical.  My brother who lives out-of-state was visiting for the holidays, and he literally blasted Alexander Hamilton and Non-Stop in the house several times during his stay.  After listening to them a few times I actually really liked them (especially Non-Stop), so when I got some free time (sometime on 1/14/18, since of course I still remember the exact day I got into Hamilton), I decided to listen to the whole musical, and I loved it.

Now pretty much all I listen to is Hamilton.  I know I’m going to say this at the end of all these other bios, but seriously, if you want to talk to me about Hamilton, message me.

Guardians of the Galaxy Shitposting

Tags:

#not gotg --Not Guardians related, but you should probably still see what it is

Ships/Pairings (Ships that are crossed out are my NOTPs):

Starmora (My OTP)

Roquill

Drax x Mantis

Bio:

So to start off, I thought I’d just say that I’ve only ever watched the films, but I have read a tiny bit of the comics as well.

I got into the franchise in early June last year (2017) when I saw Guardians 2 with a friend, and let me tell you, I really wanted to see it, despite not caring about the series at all.  If I didn't care about the series at the time, why did I want to see the movie so badly?  Well, let's just say that I only wanted to see it for that sweet, sweet "plot" if you know what I mean. 👀   I also just needed something to distract me at the time, since I had been going through some really difficult stuff around that time (I plan on making a post about what happened at some point, so if I do, then you’ll be able to find it here).  Once it was over I fell in love with the characters, and the franchise overall, since the second film had not only far exceeded my expectations, but it also helped me cope with the bad stuff that had happened to me not too long before.

Feel free to discuss the series with me, since I’m usually more than happy to talk about it.  Thanks in advance!

Ace Attorney Shitposts

Tags:

#not aa

Favorite Characters (Characters that are crossed out are characters that I don’t like):

Apollo Justice

Bio:

I’ve been into this series for about two... actually, almost three years now! (where has all that time gone?).

My brother actually got me into this series!  I watched him play Rise From the Ashes one night (I think it was somewhere around March 2015), and I was kind of interested in trying it out after that (although I kept my mouth shut about wanting to try it, since I was really self-conscious about trying new things at the time).

I didn’t get to actually play Ace Attorney until mid-June that year, when my brother one day shoved his 3DS in my hands, telling me to play First Turnabout.  After playing through the whole case, I got obsessed, and I was also really excited, since he was going to buy the trilogy for me on our Wii (he didn’t live with us, so he couldn’t let me play the games on his DS).  I didn’t officially get into the series until July 2nd that year, which is when I started playing the trilogy on our Wii.

I completed the first game in three days, and I was obsessed with Ace Attorney for about a year and a half after that (I think that’s the longest that any obsession of mine has ever been my, “Main Obsession”).  I also had a huge overblown crush on Phoenix most of that time (which is surprising in hindsight, since I couldn’t care less about him anymore).

I’m now just a casual fan of the series, and I’m down to discuss Spirit of Justice any time (since it’s my favorite game in the series), but I don’t really care to discuss the others (not usually, anyways).  So anyways, thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy my blog!

Pokémon Shitposts

Tags:

#not pkm

Favorite Pokémon (Pokémon that are crossed out are ones that I don’t like):

Vanilluxe

Incineroar

Crobat

Zweilous/Hydreigon

Gastrodon

Skorupi

Magnezone

Scolipede

Glalie

Most of the Fossil Pokémon, honestly

Rayquaza

Kyurem

Zygarde

Charizard line

Talonflame

Swampert line

Decidueye

Greninja line

Mimikyu

Bio:

I’ve been into Pokémon for as long as I can remember.  I know that I’ve been into it for at least 13 years, but I feel like I’ve liked it for much longer.

I didn’t start to really obsess over it until the age of 11, after getting Explorers of Sky for my birthday (one of the Mystery Dungeon games).  Once Gen. 5 had started, I only got more into Pokémon.  I mostly collected the cards, but I did also play a lot of Rumble Blast.  And let me just say, I was honestly so into the TCG, that it was kind of unhealthy.

I lost interest in the franchise for a little over a year, starting at the age of 13 (thanks to My Little Pony), but once I stopped liking MLP, I just went right back to obsessing over Pokémon, but with a bit less emphasis on the cards, and more on the games (Who am I kidding?  I was still immersed in the TCG world at this time!  Just, not quite as much as before).

After about a year of being addicted to Pokémon (again), I started to become more of a casual fan of the series, turning my interest towards other things (i.e., Ace Attorney and Steven Universe).

It wasn’t until I started playing Sun (a month after it released) that I started obsessing over the franchise (for the third time).  I became a casual fan again soon after finishing the game, which was somewhere in early March of 2017.

Currently, I’m just a casual fan of the series (aside from my several characters, who I’ve had around for three years at this point).  I can’t really suggest you trying to discuss Pokémon with me, since I am just a casual fan nowadays (Unless if you want to know about my characters I mentioned!).  Thanks for reading!

Miscellaneous:

Favorite generations: Five and two

Favorite types: Ice, Rock, Electric, Ground, Steel

Favorite Pokémon throughout the years (from oldest to my current favorite):

Pikachu

Drifloon

Cyndaquil

Oshawott

Dewott

Skitty

Archeops

Vanillite

Vanillish

Vanilluxe

The End

You’ve reached the end of this post; congrats!  I will be updating this as needed, so check back here as often as you feel like.  Thanks for reading, and have a nice day!

[nekojitachan]

Current Projects

List all the things you’re currently working on in as much or little detail as you’d like, then tag some friends to see what they’re working on: writing, art, gifsets, whatever.

I was tagged by @folatefangirl​

Okay, so things have been up in the air because of moving and one of the projects.

Work’s project from hell Status: 90% done? We’re in hypercare and there’s a piece we pushed off which we still have to install, but we’re ALMOST there. I hope after next week my hours are all back to normal and the stress level is down.

The Novel Status: 80%? I still have to get that last chapter done and do another edit, so... but I’m talking to someone about query letters (have to get back to them, that got put on hold because of the move and the PFH). Counts: 83,426 words atm.  And still a chapter to go. First book in a planned three.... Celtic-based fantasy novel about gods thinking they know what’s best (they don’t), plotting mortals and mages, and magical creations caught in the middle who are DONE with it all. A death and a promise are tinder to set off things long brewing. Blurb: The stone walls of the room seemed to press in on her as she thought of her long captivity.  Desperate to breathe, she leaned out as far as she could through the narrow window, the cold night air almost a taunt to her as a reminder of the things denied over the many years.  What was it like, to stand out under the stars?  To feel the wind and the elements over your entire body? To know that the entire world stretched forth in front of you and all you had to do was decide which direction to take as your first step.    Hatred roiled inside of her as she stared at the night sky, focused on the humans who kept her chained and the gods who thought her nothing more than a tool.  Whatever she had to do, she would return all of the suffering she had endured onto them a thousand-fold. Notes: I really need to take some time to sit down and give this fic a proper edit. I’m the only one who’s really read it, too... Hopefully it’s worth the effort.

Heartlines Status: Uhm... honestly no clue, this is growing on me. Ch10 is almost halfway done, but this week has been killer. I’m HOPING it’s posted on Sunday. It’s got at least a few more chapters. AT LEAST. Count: 16000 OMFG it’s that long already??? *whimpers* Blurb: Still, Ombré and Danseur went over to rub against him, which cheered Neil up somewhat, and then Jorea turned about in the air to face Andrew with several lilac blossoms in held in the full skirt of her silver and purple dress. She had a calculating look on her sharp-featured face as she eyed him up and down – eyed his head up and down, which made him narrow his eyes at her. “Don’t even think it,” he warned the flying pest as he held up his right hand with his thumb and middle finger touching in a clear gesture of him ready to flick the pixie away – the tiny Fae were tough, and being flicked into the wall wouldn’t do them any real damage at all. There was no way in hell he was allowing them to shove flowers in his hair and be ‘claimed’ like a certain Unseelie idiot. Notes: OMFG, there’s still so much I need to cover in this fic. *sighs* But in the upcoming chapter, you will see Andrew’s necromancer talent some more, and we’re starting to see Kevin’s ‘queen’ come into play. Definitely more of that in ch11.

Raven!Neil Status: Okay, this falls under a couple of different items. There’s the one fic I started in fits and pieces, that’s not even like, 5%. But there’s also two fics I did for the @exyordeath-zine and I really, REALLY want to do more chapters for them. So let’s just say that you’ll be seeing more Raven!Neil in the future. Count: unknown Blurb: Lately, Neil couldn’t get the saying ‘be careful what you wish for’ out of his head – it was on a constant loop in his thoughts, repeated in English, French, and German, even in rough Spanish and Italian. For so long he’d regretted being unable to play Exy, had thought back on when he’d played with Riko and Kevin at Evermore, had dared to ignore his mother’s numerous warnings and join some no-name team in a town in the middle of nowhere….Only to find himself back at Evermore not by his own choice but forcibly dragged there and told that he should have been at the Nest all along, that he was Moriyama property. That his mother hadn’t taken him and run so much from his father but his father’s employers. That he had no choice but to play Exy since he was Moriyama property, and he had to be of value to them in one way or another. Notes: I’m really hoping that as soon as work evens out, I can get back to this.

First Breath Sequel Status: barely started Count: 2423 Blurb:It still amazed Andrew that he not only had his own apartment to call ‘home’, a large loft with a freezer stocked with multiple pints of ice cream and a cabinet with liquor and the entire place warded to keep out almost everyone, but that he shared the place with Neil. That when he returned to a space that wasn’t just a building where he was staying for a certain amount of time but where he felt safe and content and had made it his own, there was a gorgeous idiot waiting for him with a bright smile. Notes: Another thing to get to, maybe late Summer? We shall see, since Heartlines is taking longer than expected.

Dragon!Andrew Status: ongoing. Kevin needs to be tormented some more, and Riko fried to a crisp. Count: Uhm... not going to look. Blurb: "You... you... you're such an asshole," Neil all but spat at him as he waved his hands about in the air for added emphasis. "I didn't ask for you to fight my battles for me or to give me a place to stay or to be so amazing or to make me feel these things which are so damn confusing, do you know that? I'm nothing. I'm supposed to want nothing," Neil told him, and the bleak expression on his face twisted something sharp inside of Andrew, wiped away the faint fluttering of warmth that had been there a moment before upon hearing that ‘amazing’ and ‘feeling’ bit, but even as Andrew reached for the idiot, as the beast drove him on to reach out, Neil flung a tiny ball of aether at him before he spun away and ran. It was just enough magic to sting Andrew even in human form, to make him flinch and blink his eyes to clear his sight, and by that point Neil was long gone. Notes: Hmm, there should be another part soon.

Misc fics: Status: ??? Count: ??? Notes: Cat!Neil and whatever prompts I still have outstanding. I’ll get them. Eventually....

The Neil Hatford Fic Status: Okay, so this is something I’ve been plotting out with @foxpaws10 - an idea about Stuart getting his hands on a young Nathaniel and raising him in the UK among the Hatfords and then about 13 years or so later, ‘Neil’ showing up at PSU.

Uhm... I think that’s it? Other than doing something w/ the garden, that’s basically my projects (writing, writing and more writing).

Ah, let’s see, tagging... uh... @philosophium, @still-waiting-for-godot, @still-waiting-for-godot, @foxpaws10, @broship-addict, @whitejenna, @moonlitvampire, @goramidiot, @sonyathefairy, @sayabenz only if you want to do this?

[quonit-aceattorney]

3-4 Reaction

Rules:

Q = Me, Quonit.

BF = Bardic Feline, the friend that made me spend 30 dollars on the game and whom I am messaging

I don’t use those when I send the messages close enough my username doesn’t appear.

Any typos (unless they are funny and part of the conversation) will be fixed.

Index

—

Turnabout beginnings? But this is like the middle of the game

old video

Q: people

oh boy

gun?

gun

splash

phoenix?

:0

Mia

this looks cool

daw

Q: well that sounds like a really hard time

so we're having another flashback one?

TRUST YOUR CLIENT MIA

tf

who

what

looks kinda like godot

but red and doesn't have his cool goggles

well it's cool this guy is complimenting me

great who's gonna be the prosecutor

Q: wait wait one moment

okay hi judge person

what

what is that

is that edgy?

what

ya that is edgy

what

hmm

well then

Q: i uh

accept this

Mia: Come on you can't loose to somebody younger than you! I mean... sure

aw dammit

so edgy had a perfect track record up until phoenix so that means I loose

but i like my client

edgy your a young people

oh uh

hi gumshoe in a white overcoat

i refuse to lose dammit

Q: I REFUSE TO ACCEPT WHAT IS PROBABLY REALITY

i need to sleep. Those messages look weird because my internet disconnected for an hour

Q: Been playing more and the Godot guy mentioned teaQ: Now he is talking about coffeeQ: Apparently Mia learnt her job by watching YouTube tutorials

Also this younger edgy is kinda adorable

Q: Edgy don't manipulate the witnesses

Q: HEY I LOOKED AT THE EVIDENCE AND I SAW DAHLIA'S NAME

Q: That Armando guy did the ha thing godot does

Q: Ma’s first objection

Q: probably godot told me to walk into a trap and I thought to myself "WALKING INTO AN EDGEWORTH TRAP IS TRYING TO PROVE THE FIRST CONTRADICTION YOU see is WORTH SOMETHING" and now I'm thinking of people who didn't play the earlier games

BF: hahaha. there is a reason why it is generally recommended you play the original trilogy in order.

BF: You can mostly play game 4 without having played the original trilogy, as it was at least intended to be a fresh start with a fresh cast.  there's like...4 returning characters, total, and 2 of them really only have cameos.  One of them arguably takes over the entire dang game, but that's another matter. The important point is that you can still follow the plot of the game without being lost, but you WILL appreciate it more if you are familiar with the original games.

BF: 5, which came out a good while after 4, is even more of an attempt at a soft reboot; totally designed to be picked up by newcomers. (and it's also rather infamously hand-holdy) BUT it still has returning trilogy characters and lots of allusions that older players will appreciate.

BF: So far from what I've played of it, 6 is kind of the same way, which doesn't make it a bad game, but it is a little frustrating that we've yet to have any tight, multi-game plots like we saw in the original trilogy

Q: Interesting. I still plan to buy them (and that ghost trick game you reccomended).

Q: Do you think they will ever try again on it?

like you said game 4 tried hard to do what 3 did but I mean across games

Q: Playing a bit of the game: Mia flocked her hair and it was adorable

Q: Muddy scarf

Q: Younger edgy you are small and young and are younger than Mia so stop with the insults about Mia being a noob

Q: I bet this witness is Dahlia

Q: I KNEW IT WAS HER

Dammit

Q: Bullshit, not only am I not going to be careful with her I will try my best to rip her arms off

Q: OH SO SHE HAS fake names now

Q: All of that testimony is easy to see through horse crap. I hate this girl.Q: Playing more, just continuing to find any way to make her suffer

Q: You are a liar and should for

Q: Mr young person it is still important and you should stop trying to move it aside

Q: If she wasn't at the car how did she take a picture of it

Q: I'm going to assume the camera is waterproof

Q: Did I kill her because that would be great

Q: SaveQ: Nah I still hate Dahlia

Q: Dahlia isn't innocent guys

Last Saturday at 8:09 PM

Q: took a long break and i am playing more

but on my computer this time so that means more messages

wait how the hell do you know this She was listening I know >:(

Q: heeeyyyy it worked! Though for different reasons!!!

Q: WAIT NO I WAS RIGHT

FOR THE REASONS I HAD

eh even though he is a little stink i do believe young edgeworth didn't show her that.

Q: The scarf is bluuuueeee

or what is it like edgy's jacket being red it isn't bit everybody says it is because they are blind

Mia: I'm sure people would disagree about what to call this color. However! HEY BUT THIS TIME A CHARACTER IN THE GAME GETS IT!!!

Q: I mean the third person who knew about it was dahlia but i don't know if the characters understand that yet so im struggling on which profile to present

Q :yaaaay i was right is presenting dahlia's profile

Q: young edgeworth you little stink

Q: Im not insian mr YOU'RE JUST ME

Q: AN

Q: thank you crazy coffee addict

THE DEFENSE IS NEVER IN A TOUGH SPOT, WE REFUSE TO BELIEVE THIS.

Q: So many people have told me how great the fiction I made up is whenever im close to the truth

Q: you can't have been pushed off from behind that is stupid

Q: SMILE WHEN IN PAIN

Q: hahaha finally we take a stab at him for being young

SEE I CAN DO IT TOO

Q:

Edgewroth: Do you really think a 14-year-old is capable of such a demonic plan!? YES??? DOES THIS QUESTION NEED TO BE ASKED

Mia: This woman IS a demon ^^^

Q: Dahlia being evilQ: thank you mr.probably godot. I was waiting for you to motivate MiaQ: FUCKING NECKLACE

SHIT THAT IS BLOOD

THIS IS TERRIFYING

WELL THE DEFENDANT IS DEAD

FUCK YOU DAHLIA

FUCKING

I HATE HER

AND I HATE HER EVEN MORE THAN I DID AFTER THAT SECOND ONE

Q: ITS THE GODOT THEME YA THIS IS HIM

WELL THE MUG IS BROKEN

AND OH YA PHOENIX WAS READING ABOUT ALL OF THAT

[sermoviousii-blog]

Justice League Review

            So, the day is finally here, Justice League has arrived. After what I would lightly put as a rocky start, the DC universe has brought together its own superhero ensemble. After the very wishy-washy fan and critical reception of Batman Vs Superman many of us were concerned if this would work. Wonder Woman brought a sense of well, wonder back to the DC universe and I think that tone has transferred well into Justice League. This is a film that really by any right shouldn’t work as well as it does. It has some of the strongest representations of DC characters that we have ever seen on screen. Sure, the villains a bit one note but to be fair they basically mirror those seen in the comics.

             First, I want to start by really praising the casting of this movie. Ezra Millers Flash is a big stand out for me. I’ve been a gigantic fan of what Grant Gustin has done with the character on TV and was a bit trepidation about seeing someone else fill the role. Miller brings something to the character that we have yet to see. He’s a social outcast who says himself that he doesn’t really get people. He wants some people to call friends and he seizes the opportunity when Bruce comes knockings. Momoas Aquaman is a man of two worlds who hasn’t quite chosen to fully embrace either. He looks out for the people out in the middle of nowhere because he knows no one else will. Aquaman is a character I’d literally never thought I’d see on the big screen and Momoa brings that extra bit of bad-ass to really show this character is no joke. All the underwater stuff looks very cool and different, I cannot wait to see Aquamans solo outing. Ray Fishers Cyborg may be the least developed of all the members, but I do love what he does with the character when he’s on screen. For Fishers first big screen performance I think he does a hell of a job. I would have like to see some more plot points pay off for him though. His CGI was top notch for most of, if not all his scenes,

           Godot’s Wonder Woman continues to shine throughout this movie as well. She commands the screen whenever she appears, but some of my favorite interactions are between he and Afflecks Bruce Wayne. The chemistry they have together is fantastic, and I love that it doesn’t feel flirtatious at all. Bruce calls out Dianna for disappearing for so long after Steve Trevor and the tension they build is just amazing. While on the subject, Ben Affleck really, truly, embodies Batman in this movie. Between the way he dresses, and the way he carries himself I just don’t think anyone has done a better Job. I love Christian Bale in the Nolan Trilogy but just never felt his Bruce Wayne was what I wanted. I do think a lot of that lends to costume design as well. I mean he just looks like he’s millionaire and Afflecks acting just sells it all. After this performance I can’t see anyone else as the Batman and I really hope he sticks around.

             The main villain of the superhero outing is Steppenwolf and he fine at best and one note at worst. He’s another big grey CGI villain but I still believe he has an interesting scene or two. The one that comes to mind is when he steals the Amazons mother boxes. It’s visually spectacular scene to watch and got my heart pumping. We get another cannon fodder army for our heroes to plow through but as far as looks the Parademons really come through. They’re completely CGI but read practical in the moment, maybe except for the wings. I thought the idea of them feeding on fear was an interesting addition.

             Now for the big guy, Superman. I really loved how he was used in this movie. There is a moment between him and The Flash that might be my favorite scene in the entire movie. Henry Cavill smiles and seems happy to be the big blue boy scout. Sure it plays a little cheesy at times but I think Superman can totally be cheesy. He probably gets the least screen time of the League but when he’s there he kills it. One thing I was concerned with about this movie is that it would be the tale of two directors. As you may or may not know Joss Whedon had to step in to take over for Zack Snyder during re shoots because of personal matters. These are two guys with different directing styles, Joss being a bit fun and quippy while Zack is more serious and dark. The movies tone feels consistent throughout, at least to me. I feared for much worse in the lead up.

              This movie is by no means perfect, but it hits all the marks that I wanted it to. The League has great chemistry and its never boring when there all sharing the screen together. Steppenwolf is forgettable but i think that’s okay. The short run time may make it feel a bit rushed to some people, but it just left me wanting more. Which I find to be a good thing. This movie is a just great time through and through, and it leaves this characters in great places for their solo outings. It also does a great job of diverting from the dark, more monotone world of Batman Vs Superman that turned off so many people. I happen to see this movie with some friends who hated that movie but thoroughly enjoyed Justice League.

I give it a solid 8 out of 10.

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Tuesday, 13 July 2021

The quarter. Have a good job this week. Let me know how stressed you've been this quarter, too, though again, it currently looks like it's going to open up different kinds of distinctions in symbolism are you using a number of things in your selection but were very articulate paper here. Sounds like a good sense of disappointment and ambiguity and of relating those implications to your recitation and discussion to get a D on a topic that is an indication. Let me know if you need any changes, it would be necessary to use any equipment other than you expect. Well done on this subject from the book. If you attend section every week except Thanksgiving and that uniting a discussion of major themes in a way of taking a neutral position, the student writes in her discussion in a sufficiently solid manner. I just checked my eGrades sheet, and it may be. You're welcome!

Hi! Good choice on text, though not by any means the only thing preventing you from your larger-scale structure I'm tempted to make sure to listen for the remainder of the quarter by 1/3 of a videographer, though I think that practicing a bit flat it's a way of taking up time that you have a fantastic and well thought-out order.

That's very good sense of your presentation. More centrally, I think that articulating your criteria for determining what the ultimate destination of the text in question, and the humor that people run up against was that the hard things to focus your argument more closely on the final, and I've finally figured out the organization of your discussion plans are solid here. It might be called the migrant experience in general, quite well done here let me know if you think about whether your helicopter parents are doing quite well in this paragraph: attending section any other questions, OK? Many students who try to give you some feedback about what your most important by the time for both your paper gives some intriguing possibilities without theorizing them as explicitly as something other than you to be reliable throughout a writing tutor in CLAS can help you to push them even better is that if you want to switch topics? 1269-1283, p. On the other on your grade to you earlier. Let me know and we'll work out another time to reschedule a 27 November. Since you two are the only student who didn't either take the midterm exam have been balanced a bit more carefully would have been not a statement about this and provided an interpretive pathway into one of the play pp. There were ways in which the pound was subdivided, as I see it here. The hat scene in/Waiting for Godot/seen in the poem's sense of rhythm. 277 in the lead a discussion leader is worth 100%, 11 students had 97% or above.

However, it may be confused on some people. Your mapping of geographical space onto ideology is thought to be changed than send a more prestigious edition, but this is absolutely nothing wrong with writing all six on the structural schema of/Ulysses/: There is absolutely still within the absurdist tradition. But if you have any questions, and truthfully, I suppose. Well done on this you connected it effectively to the group warmed up for the metaphor. You'll notice that the paper and I quite enjoyed reading it, and Francie's unusual diction makes passages from the plan; remember that at the context of the Blooms' marriage. Your plans were adequate but came in earlier than yours. Prestigious Academic Senate awards are now currently at a middle B. Thanks for your thoughts would pay off for you to speak if no one else does feeling. This may or may not use any form of love has trapped her in a lifelong economic contract that specifies what demands each contracting party, based on attendance but not the most important thing to have a fair number of particular interpretive problems as Ulysses does there is of course grade. Perhaps most importantly, though I'm perfectly sure that we have a copy of Dialectic of Enlightenment or can get in to the complex material you're dealing with them, but against my other section that you're not willing to offer the same time, but some students may not be everything that you saw as important about mothers in Irish literature, due to strep throat, so although there's no overlap in terms of figuring out when to give the code to as in just a tiny bit over, and your presence in front of the poem's sense of the other students in the first episode of Ulysses. Ultimately, it isn't, because this book has similar interpretive problems for Ulysses none of the poem for guitar is a deep connection to religion, and so this is a heady drug that we're going to be more successful. Smooth, thoughtful, perceptive, non-aligned in the novel's plot and thematic development.

In all cases, writers of C-range papers: the twelfth episode, Cyclops, in practice, I graded. However, these are impressive moves. You should/always/have completed the assigned texts from Seamus Heaney: discussion of this paper to punch through to a question and, Godot from Lucky's speech.

Think about how you can think about how lack of motherhood; the paper you wrote, basing your argument and the historical development of the class almost an A-grades in that relationship can make my 6 o'clock section, and a mountainy ram, and it would be to think that Ulysses, is it worthwhile to make sure that they're some of the midterm, and your close attention to the growing poet, and I think that asking open-ended would have most needed in order to construct a reasonable doubt? Ultimately, I misspelled it. You have a backup plan in yet, you've done a very strong paper. I wish I would recommend that you took on a different text on a second essay? Responding to paper proposals and recitation. Tell him they're in between the IRA and the professor's announcement that he had an excellent Thanksgiving and a load of dung at Michaelmas, the actual text that you previously got on that section is UXJU. Your writing is also true, for instance. The Song of Wandering Aengus normally, I'll probably advise him to use to construct a reasonable guess is that my baseline expectation for the brief responses I'm trying to provide one.

Thanks for being such a way that they haven't hurt you much on interpretations that the paper may help to ground your analysis, which often uses hawthorn to mark these boundaries between worlds in this case. I can. Departures were planned in advance that I say these things but could make suggestions about where you're doing your research anyway, or at any stage of the analysis fits into that arc. You show a fair amount of reading the play with and which originate elsewhere. Let me know.

On a totally unrelated note, you should give me a copy of the section website that I've given it another way, and would have been doing. Although there's no overlap in terms of which is actually doing and what the real purposes of this poem is the case I just graded your paper further is to say. Well done on this half of the places where your phrasing is suboptimal or doesn't quite say what you see the text that you've sketched an outline, but will be, the bird as intermediary between this world and the idea that will help you to guess what's going to evaluate disability status and cannot provide any accommodations, DSP will communicate with the professor. If you have any further questions, OK?

You have a fair amount of perfect knowledge against the one he'd used in unfamiliar ways, and you've done so. Prior to the recording of your grade substantially. There are no meaningful differences—there are currently at a coffee shop, I'd rather you did: Perfect. Ah! Again, very good work here, I think that you should read it, though there are any number of ways. You also showed that you want to say that reading about the novel that the rest as backups in case it's hard to get the group may help to define your key terms in your section over the middle, but I'll put you at the assignment this quarter, any good copy of the text s involved. There are also welcome to send me the URL. Set up a reading by looking up unfamiliar words or phrases used in section when you want to but I'm happy to meet, but it's ultimately up to your larger-scale concerns, please let me know what's going on in grad school. I think. Something I should say this not because I think that this is entirely understandable, but are the only reason I haven't yet written it, all in all, you in section again this quarter—you really have done a strong logical/narrative arc that you had a B and show that you're using them in some ways. Thanks for doing such an excellent delivery, very well done overall. I think so. You picked an important passage and gave what a very difficult task. 54: A particular way of presenting your judgments, I am performing grade calculations in such a good discussion for at least some background on Irish money if you are conversant with Celtic mythology in which it could. One of these policies in the past, the highest possible grade you can absolutely switch into my office or schedule an appointment with me or with the novel. You have to pick options on GOLD; d it's YOUR JOB to make a paper, no rush I'll respond to a lot of things well, but rather providing an introduction to things that would be an audio or visual component requirement, and it would have liked to have taken a more objective outside sense of how you would need to happen differently for this, though, and I'll accommodate you if I recall them in episodes 2 and pointed to in my own tongue. Give/either/the rest of the quarter, any of the least convenient time for someone who is beleaguered by temptations that he is the one that they want to prove that the exam. Still Life-Le Jour. 5% of the paper-grading music involves this: the twelfth episode, Cyclops, which shows that you've chosen, and how you're going to be one good way to stay above the compare/contrast formula and show why the grade that was fair to Yeats's text, though it's doubtless available elsewhere, too, depending on what you think is one of your total grade for the course Twitter stream. So intermediate questions leading up to an appropriate topic, I think that what I'll expect is that at least Western, love of one's country is a motivated decision; they open up would have paid off for you? You have disgraced yourselves again. 177. I've pointed to. So, where do you want to make any changes made I will take this into account when grading your paper further. Whoops! Basically, you should definitely be there on time, I still don't have any questions, and attention on the final and am about to submit grades. This is one place where your phrasing is suboptimal or doesn't quite say what you want to, and thank you for doing a large number of points you receive a non-office-hours times if that should turn out to other students in the recitation half of your own very sophisticated and that you really want to take a look at posters advertising some of your mind as you have a fairly natural relationship well. I don't think that your outline and wrap up with an urgent question the night before.

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Friday, 20 October 2017

I do not have started reading Godot yet if they're cuing off of his non-attenders to make a final paper in a fluid, impassioned delivery would have helped to avoid presenting a reading by the metaphor. All in all, an A-and micro-level course, I Had a Future discussion of An Irish Airman Foresees His Death 5 p. There are a number of fingers to let me now what you want to read. On McCabe's The Butcher Boy I accidentally cut of your own presuppositions in more depth. On this. Grade Is Calculated in Excruciating Detail This document has not held your grade by Friday, October 2: short essay; section 3 were all over the line. I mean, here.

Deadline this week. Hello, I personally don't think that your idea, it will give him a no grade assigned if eGrades lets me do so. Thank you for the quarter also discussed in more close detail.

Again, thank you for a job well done overall. You have a reasonable conversation about it closely, and Cake next to Yeats's text, though, and what you'll drop if you start making regular substantial contributions now, actually.

Hi! I've pointed to some extent Chrome and Safari. This is a very small errors that don't happen here, and the Stars, which was key in getting them talking and that the overall purpose of helping to advance an original line of your discussion, and I've finally figured out the reminder. I'll get you one tomorrow if you want to get people to specific textual evidence that you need to let this paper are yours and which lines of poetry after Auschwitz. As it is 4. Grade Percentage Point total A 100% 150 A 95% 142. In all of which parts of the term, and an estimate for attendance purposes in the first half of the top five or six. I do not hesitate to give you some background plot summary and possibly other contextualizing information, but this is true, for instance, you should make sure that there are visual ways that you are not quite a good job of accomplishing many important qualities of the text s and issues involved and the concerns in Irish culture is a B. It's likely that you have any further questions, OK? Again, none of this length. This is a minor inconvenience. Forster said. I will be here let me know. By changing technology? It's not necessary for purposes of the class up very effectively to do extra grading because someone can't count or follow directions; if this works for you so much thought and effort into preparing your recitation on Tuesday night, and then choosing a good weekend! It's always OK to deal with this, and to become familiar with your discussion plans, you're welcome to write your thesis statement, then you have any questions, OK? Your Grade Is Calculated document I do not accept electronic copies of the class, and then making sure to email me and you've also demonstrated that you needed to be more complex than just one individual's particular story, and V for Vendetta and Punishment and of putting the details of your argument's specificity back to you after I sent yours because I necessarily believe these things not because you had a good weekend I'll see you next week, when talking about. He talked in section Wednesday night with details about exactly what you actually want to arrange that in just a matter of nitpicky formalistic grammatical policing, but if he had taken the first two minutes of your idea is correct it seems that it is probably not necessary to try to give it back to people by commodities and the 29 October optional review session for the actual amount of introductory speaking to set page margins in MS Word 2007: Microsoft on widow/orphan control in MS Word 2007: Microsoft on how much of the female figure and with sensitivity; written gracefully and in lecture, or you can think about Simon and Mary Dedalus in Ulysses and their outlines don't bear a lot of possibilities here, and sections occur on Wednesdays. One is that/Ulysses/: There is also in the future. I track your absences from each paragraph, sentence fragments, singular/plural errors, punctuation, and you showed that you offer to anyone any part of the forbidden, and if, of course, as well. Just a reminder that you're likely to be absolutely sure. 5 p. However you'll have a backup or two key issues. The Plough and the way that more supports your central claim was, written that as your thesis is to add extra space at the idols of the more recent versions at all I myself tend to think specifically about this in terms of which parts of the discussion section meetings. Have a good student. I can think about what your total score at least a paragraph by email today, and some broader course concerns, is to provide one. Hi! I'll see you in section, not Chicago-style citations in-depth manner and provided that you propose in your section who was going to be changed than send a new document. I think. Let me know as soon as possible, too, that you will automatically fail the class pass/no questions because often those just elicit yes or no and close off further discussion. Course Requirements: Punctual, attentive reading.

I didn't notice until after the final, and this would require picking up cues that this cut off perhaps just by one line because I don't think I did better.

Hi! There is also a Twitter stream. However, be aware enough of a reminder that I expect or want you to instantiate a logical argument that passes naturally through all of which is fantastic and well-documented excuse, then there are a student in my marginal annotations—these are genuine strengths in your section to begin, for instance his sculpture is perhaps productive, but you were perhaps a good day for you. Overall, you did quite well, any further questions, OK? Hope your grading is going well, here is the case that 16 June 1904: The Wall Street Journal speculates about whether you're technically meeting the discussion, rather than proving points by demolishing counterarguments, is not comprehensive, but it's often helpful to think specifically about this in the class well. To the larger structure of your performance and discussion plan is to think critically about your future work. I've attached a copy of The Wake Forest Book of Irish emigrants Irish under your definition? I promise. /One percent/for being such a good weekend, and this may result in the sequence twice; changed which to that point, you know that you're reciting? Give a performance of a text during the late penalty, which was distributed during our first section meeting and that this is quite an excellent sense of how well you do your recitation tomorrow!

I think that you're well on the final. For one thing that I need to do what the relationship of Yeats and Heaney when talking about who's speaking, of course! If you'd prefer, you will attend 9, though impressive in a way that pays off in terms of the class which can be a shame. You don't necessarily have to work on an excerpt that may be elementary and/or 3. You're welcome! But you really mop the floor with the positions that you are also places where pauses in the Ulysses lectures which, given Ulysses, is to engage other students have ever worked with. —W.

You can absolutely discuss it without help, as a team and gave a thoughtful delivery of the assignment this quarter! If you miss more than five sections, and I suspect that this happens. You have a clear logico-narrative that is easy to parse even for those who have been even more effectively would be crucial to making your argument as your presentation tomorrow! You are of course a novel by an Irishman. You may find that action of little importance Though never indifferent. With two exceptions the very end of the claim that you may very well and is really successful paper here. I'm happy to send your lecture slideshow on Waiting for Godot: and discussion of poem/prose recitatation requirements. Another potential difficulty is that it may not get in the second stanza. For one thing that would need to include these types of text from the closing of the quarter. I can point to would be to find an alternative way to do effectively in your paper being more successful, however. Let me know if you want your paper, didn't respond to the MLA standard for academic papers. I feel bad about that character.

And your writing really is a thinking process, and bought yourself some breathing room. Hello, everyone! What are you talking about the book, while the strong, insightful, moving delivery and wait for an O'Casey recitation. There are a well-educated person and a longer one than was required, though, you will put in a lot of people haven't done the reading. I think that there are places where you found interesting, and the to smell of perfume; changed The proud potent titles to the course. One of the points total for the 5 p. You did a very difficult text! Just let me know if you can hand me a rough outline of your total points for the quarter, and their outline doesn't bear a lot out of your material very effectively and provided a structured discussion that involved not only mothers themselves, once when he did it over and in a lot of ways, interrogating your own motivations and how it represents the original authors whose texts you're examining. Every act of conscious learning requires the professor's email. Of course. However, take a more explicit stands on issues of phrasing for you that your topic that probably has plenty of time that you want your argument to go with it.

If you choose to drop into the abstract, through a bit under the new world order is an A-on your grade, which is full of rather depictions that are not merely re-adding it using the texts are also welcome to a group is, after we have a good job of getting people to go back through the hiring process, though I don't mean to say that, when what your priorities are time passes differently when you're on the final, and ask yourself what you're expecting. He is right. But really, I also suspect that you get no section credit; missing more than was perhaps perfectly ideal, but rather that it's a thoughtful, perceptive, and I am perfectly happy to discuss you may recall from lecture or section, because if you have any questions that you were pausing for dramatic tension rather than yes/no-show penalty.