#I mostly think about the punch in the Amy episode though. that one will always make me ill

[quietwingsinthesky]

I think a lot about Dean and how he molds love to fit around violence and control to explain his actions to himself. I think a lot about how Soulless Sam said he needed help and Dean beat him unconscious. I think a lot about Dean believing Sam’s hallucinations lured him off and how Dean greeted him with a punch to the face. I think a lot about Dean locking Sam up in the panic room to detox or die. I think a lot about how Dean hurts Sam when he thinks he’s in danger, especially when that danger is coming from within Sam.

[shkspr]

hi. on your post where you may or may not have ended on 'moffat is either your angel or your devil' did you have maybe an elaboration on that somewhere that i could possibly hear about. i'm very much a capaldi era stan and i've never tried to defend the matt smith era even though it had delightful moments sometimes so i wonder where that puts me. i'd love to hear your perspective on moffat as a person with your political perspective. -nicole

hi ok sorry i took so long to respond to this but i dont think you know how LOADED this question is for me but i am so happy to elaborate on that for you. first a few grains of salt to flavor your understanding of the whole situation: a. im unfairly biased against moffat bc im a davies stan and a tennant stan; b. i still very much enjoy and appreciate moffat era who for many reasons; and c. i hate moffat on a personal level far more than i could ever hate his work.

the thing is that its all always gonna be a bit mixed up bc i have to say a bunch of seemingly contradictory things in a row. for instance, a few moffat episodes are some of my absolute favorites of the rtd era, AND the show went way downhill when moffat took over, AND the really good episodes he wrote during the rtd era contained the seeds of his destruction.

like i made that post about the empty child/the doctor dances and it holds true for blink and thats about it bc the girl in the fireplace and silence in the library/forest of the dead are good but not nearly on the same level, and despite the fact that i like them at least nominally, they are also great examples of everything i hate about moffat and how he approached dw as a whole.

basically. doctor who is about people. there are many things about moffats tenure as showrunner that i think are a step up from rtd era who! actual gay people, for one! but i think that can likely be attributed mostly to an evolving Society as opposed to something inherent to him and his work, seeing as rtd is literally gay, and the existence of queer characters in moffats work doesnt mean the existence of good queer characters (ill give him bill but thats it!)

i have a few Primary Grievances with moffat and how he ran dw. all of them are things that got better with capaldi, but didnt go away. they are as follows:

moffat projects his own god complex onto the doctor

rtd era who had a doctor with a god complex. you cant ever be the doctor and not have a god complex. the problem with moffats era specifically is that the god complex was constant and unrepentant and was seen as a fundamental personality trait of the doctor rather than a demon he has to fight. he has the Momence where you feel bad for him, the Momence where he shows his humility or whatever and youre reminded that he doesnt want to be the lonely god, but those are just. moments. in a story where the doctor thinks hes the main character. rtd era doctor was aware that he wasnt the main character. he had to be an authority sometimes and he had to be the loner and he had to be sad about it, but he ultimately understood that he was expendable in a narrative sense.

this is how you get lines like “were the thin fat gay married anglican marines, why would we need names as well?” from the same show that gave you the gut punch moment at the end of midnight when they realize that nobody asked the hostess for her name. and on the one hand, thats a small sticking point, but on the other hand, its just one small example of the simple disregard that moffat has for humanity.

incidentally, this is a huge part of why sherlock sucked so bad: moffats main characters are special bc theyre so much bigger and better than all the normal people, and thats his downfall as a showrunner. he thinks that his audience wants fucking sheldon cooper when what they want is people.

like, ok. think of how many fantastic rtd era eps are based in the scenario “what if the doctor wasnt there? what if he was just out of commission for a bit?” and how those eps are the heart of the show!! bc theyre about people being people!! the thing is that all of the rtd era companions would have died for the doctor but he understood and the story understood that it wasnt about him.

this is like. nine sending rose home to save her life and sacrifice his own vs clara literally metaphysically entwining her existence w the doctor. ten also sending rose with her family to save her life vs river being raised from infancy to be obsessed w the doctor and then falling in love w him. martha leaving bc she values herself enough to make that decision vs amy being treated like a piece of meat.

and this is simultaneously a great callback to when i said that moffats episodes during the rtd era sometimes had the same problems as his show running (bc girl in the fireplace reeks of this), and a great segue into the next grievance.

moffat hates women

he hates women so fucking much. g-d, does steven moffat ever hate women. holy shit, he hates women. especially normal human women who prioritize their normal human lives on an equal or higher level than the doctor. moffat hated rose bc she wasnt special by his standards. the empty child/the doctor dances is the nicest he ever treated her, and she really didnt do much in those eps beyond a fuck ton of flirting.

girl in the fireplace is another shining example of this. youve got rose (who once again has another man to keep her busy, bc moffat doesnt think shes good enough for the doctor) sidelined for no reason only to be saved by the doctor at the last second or whatever. and then youve got reinette, who is pretty and powerful and special!

its just. moffat thinks that the doctor is as shallow and selfish as he is. thats why he thinks the doctor would stay in one place with reinette and not with rose. bc moffat is shallow and sees himself in the doctor and doesnt think he should have to settle for someone boring and normal.

not to mention rose met the doctor as an adult and chose to stay with him whereas reinette is. hm. introduced to the doctor as a child and grows up obsessed with him.

does that sound familiar? it should! bc it is also true of amy and river. and all of them are treated as viable romantic pairings. bc the only women who deserve the doctor are the ones whose entire existence revolves around him. which includes clara as well.

genuinely i think that at least on some level, not even necessarily consciously, that bill was a lesbian in part bc capaldi was too old to appeal to mainstream shippers. like twelve/clara is still a thing but not as universally appealing as eleven/clara but i am just spitballing. but i think they weighed the pros and cons of appealing to the woke crowd over the het shippers and found that gay companion was more profitable. anyway the point is to segue into the next point, which is that moffat hates permanent consequences.

moffat hates permanent consequences

steven moffat does not know how to kill a character. honestly it feels like hes doing it on purpose after a certain point, like he knows he has this habit and hes trying to riff on it to meme his own shit, but it doesnt work. it isnt funny and it isnt harmless, its bad writing.

the end of the doctor dances is so poignant and so meaningful and so fucking good bc its just this once! everybody lives, just this once! and then he does p much the same thing in forest of the dead - this one i could forgive, bc i do think that preserving those peoples consciousnesses did something for the doctor as a character, it wasnt completely meaningless. but everything after that kinda was.

rory died so many times its like. get a hobby lol. amy died at least once iirc but it was all a dream or something. clara died and was erased from the doctors memory. river was in prison and also died. bill? died. all of them sugarcoated or undone or ignored by the narrative to the point of having effectively no impact on the story. the point of a major character death is that its supposed to have a point. and you could argue that a piece of art could be making a point with a pointless death, ie. to put perspective on it and remind you that bad shit just happens, but with moffat the underlying message is always “i can do whatever i want, nothing is permanent or has lasting impact ever.”

basically, with moffat, tragedy exists to be undone. and this was a really brilliant, really wonderful thing in the doctor dances specifically bc it was the doctor clearly having seen his fair share of tragedy that couldnt be helped, now looking on his One Win with pride and delight bc he doesnt get wins like this! and then moffat proceeded to give him the same win over and over and over and over. nobody is ever dead. nobody is ever unable to be saved. and if they are, really truly dead and/or gone, then thats okay bc moffat has decided that [insert mitigating factor here]*

*the mitigating factor is usually some sort of computerized database of souls.

i can hear the moffat stans falling over themselves to remind me that amy and rory definitely died, and they did - after a long and happy life together, they died of old age. i dont consider that a character death any more than any other character choosing to permanently leave the tardis.

and its not just character deaths either, its like, everything. the destruction of gallifrey? never mind lol! character development? scrapped! the same episode four times? lets give it a fifth try and hope nobody notices. bc he doesnt know how to not make the doctor either an omnipotent savior or a self-pitying failure.

it is in nature of doctor who, i believe, for the doctor to win most of the time. like, it wouldnt be a very good show if he didnt win most of the time. but it also wouldnt be a very good show if he won all of the time. my point is that moffats doctor wins too often, and when he doesnt win, it feels empty and hollow rather than genuinely humbling, and you know hes not gonna grow from it pretty much at all.

so like. again, i like all of doctor who i enjoy all of it very much. i just think that steven moffat is a bad show runner and a decent writer at times. and it is frustrating. and im not here to convince or convert anyone im just living my truth. thank you for listening.

[discotreque]

LwD 1.10, “No Small Parts”

Well, that was the most fun I've had watching Star Trek in literally a quarter of a century.

I had high hopes for this series. I love TAS, largely because of its wacky outsized concepts that could only have worked in animation—not that they all did work, but the potential was so apparent to me, even as a kid reading the Alan Dean Foster novelizations—and as an adult, there's something about the imagination of Lower Decks's FX setpieces that transcends even the glorious CGI bonanzas of Discovery.

Pause for a confession. I've long pushed back against criticism of serialization in new Trek. That's just how TV is now, okay? Might as well complain about it being in widescreen. But I'm backing down a little, because I've realized there is something about Star Trek that's inextricable from at least a partially-episodic format. And while Picard was telling a different kind of story, I can't deny that my favourite episodes of Disco have been the ones with a mostly self-contained A-plot. After 10 delightfully episodic instalments of LwD, its focus on long-term development of characters instead of a season-spanning puzzle-plot (okay, mostly just Mariner, but we only have 10 × 22 minutes and she is the star) has been downright refreshing.

So here we are, at the end of the most consistent and well-executed Season 1 of a Star Trek series since, arguably, Those Old Scientists. And sure, if they'd had to produce another... yikes, 42 episodes? Then sure, they probably would have dropped a clunker or two—but they didn't, and winning on a technicality is still winning. I'm practically vibrating with excitement for Disco to come back next week, but damn, I'm going to miss this little show while it's on hiatus.

Spoilers below:

Something I've been keeping track of finally paid off this week! (Which never happens to me, lol.) The destruction of the USS Solvang marked the first present-day death(s) of any Starfleet officer on Lower Decks, the only other on-screen killing at all being a flashback in "Cupid's Errant Arrow". Which makes sense, being (a) a comedy, and (b) about typically "expendable" characters: it hasn't been afraid to flirt with a little darkness here and there, but killing people off at Star Trek's usual pace wouldn't just be wrong for the tone, it would be downright bizarre.

But... people die on Star Trek. That's one of the core themes of the show, really: space is full of knowledge and beauty, but also danger and terror, and believing that the former is worth the risk of the latter is (according to Trek) one of humanity's most noble traits. I'm the least bloodthirsty TV watcher I know, but the longer we went with a body count of nil—ships completely evacuated before they were destroyed, main characters hilariously maimed without permanent consequences, etc.—well, I didn't mind per se, but the absence of truly deadly stakes was definitely getting conspicuous.

Turns out they were saving it up for maximum impact. And holy fuck, I've never felt such a pit in my stomach watching a ship get destroyed that wasn't named Enterprise. It felt grim and brutal and somehow both much too quick and dreadfully inevitable—and yeah, it looked extremely fucking cool—and I'd like every other Star Trek property for the rest of time to take notes under a large bold heading labeled RESTRAINT.

Comedy doesn't need to do this, but my favourite comedy does, and in a way that few other art forms can even approach: lower my emotional defences by making me laugh, endear character(s) to me with goofy-but-relatable antics—then BAM, sucker-punch me in the motherfucking feels. M*A*S*H is probably the classic example on TV, Futurama was notorious for it, and even Archer has pulled it off a few times; it's also a staple of some of my favourite standup. I wasn't sure if Lower Decks was going to go there in Season 1—and wasn't sure if they'd earn it—but I knew if they did, that they'd nail it, and damn. Feels good to be right.

Last batch of notes for the season!!! I rambled enough already, so let's do it liveblog-style:

I fucking KNEW they were going to use "archive" visuals from TAS at some point, I KNEW IT :D

"THOSE OLD SCIENTISTS" ahahahahahahahahahahahaha

I like chill and confident Boimler a lot? You can really see—

oh bRADWARD NOOOOO

That opening shot of the Solvang tracking down to the red giant was extremely Discovery-esque... minus the motion sickness, that is

A lady captain AND a lady first officer? That's—oh hey, it's Captain Dayton's brand-new ship. Hahaha, that means they're totally fucked, right?.

Yep! They sure a—umm, wh—shit, okay, but—oh no—no, you can't—wait DON'T

...fuck

FUCK.

Narrator: "And then Amy needed a five-hour break."

[live-action Star Trek showrunner voice] "Gee, Mike! Why does CBS let you have two cold opens?"

Okay, yes, the bit with Rutherford cycling through all the different attitudes in his implant was transparently an excuse for Eugene Cardero to vamp while waiting for something to do in the story, but as far as I'm concerned they can contrive a reason for him to do a bunch of different silly Rutherfords in a row any time they damn well want, because that was classic!!!

EXOCOMP EXOCOMP EXOCOMP EXOCOMP

AND THE EXOCOMP IS PAINTED LIKE THE EXOCOMP IS WEARING A LITTLE EXOCOMP-SIZED STARFLEET UNIFORM

EXOCOMP!!!!!

The slow burn and now the payoff of the Mariner-is-Freeman's-secret-daughter plot has been executed so well. I'm beyond impressed with this writer's room, y'all—they are threading a hell of a needle here

"Wolf 359 was an inside job" would have been a spit-take if I'd had anything in my mouth

...how many memos do you think Starfleet Command has had to issue asking people to stop calling the USS Sacramento "the Sac"?

CAN WE TALK ABOUT HOW THEY'VE DECORATED THE SHUTTLECRAFT SEQUOIA THOUGH

Is, uh, is it weird if I'm starting to ship Tendi and Peanut Hamper a little? It is weird, isn't it. I knew it was weird...

Coital barbs??? I take back everything I said about wanting to know more about Shaxs/T'Ana.

The "good officer" version of Mariner is... kind of hot, tbh! But Tawny Newsome has done such a great job of building this character all season that her voice getting uncharacteristically clipped and martial and "sir! yes, sir!" is also deeply, deeply weird

Ah, so this is literally exactly like when TNG (and DS9) would bring in, and then blow up, a never-before-seen Galaxy-class ship, just to underscore that we're facing a real threat this week, baby. And hey, it fucking worked—my heart was in my throat, omg, for the reveal of the—

PAKLEDS?????????

The fucking PAKLEDS have been gluing weapons to their ships for the last 15 years. GREAT.

(We interrupt the SHIP BEING SLICED INTO SCRAP for an interesting bit of world-building: on Earth, the traditional First Contact Day meal is salmon!)

"I need a dangerous, half-baked solution that breaks Starfleet codes and totally pisses me off! That's an order." I'm starting to think Captain Freeman might actually be overqualified for the Cerritos, y'all—she's REALLY awesome

OH SHIT IT'S BADGEY, this is a TERRIBLE IDEA

"How much contraband have you hidden on my ship?" "I don't know! A lot!"

Awwww, Boims!!!

AHAHAHAHAHAHA, FUCK THIS, PEANUT HAMPER OUT

BADGEY NOOOOO

AUGHHHHH WHAT THE CHRIST DID HE JUST—BUT—RUTHERFORD'S IMPLANT????

RUTHERFORD!!!!!!!!!!

SHAXS!!!!!!

F U C K ! ! ! ! !

ahaIOPugdfhagntpgjrq90e5mgu90qe5;oigoqgw4ouegrw5SP;IAEHURVa IT’S THE TITAN???????????

IT'S CAPTAIN WILLIAM T. RIKER ON THE MOTHERFUCKING TITAN??????????

i'm screaming I'M SCREAMINGGGGGG​TGGGTGQER;​LBHAOIBVNV;​OAPBIJNVagr;h;​oagruipuwtnaetbaetgq35ghqet

I'M SO GLAD THIS WASN'T SPOILED FOR ME WTF

I AM WEEPING LIKE A CHILD

...

(Just a brief 20-minute pause this time)

And oh wow, seeing Will and Deanna hits different after Picard too, in a few different ways, which I may even get into later now that my heartrate is back to normal, lmao

Oh, I am always here for some jokes at the expense of the Sovereign class. The Enterprise-E sucked. They should have built a new bigger model of the D and new Galaxy-class interiors for the TNG movies, and I will die on that hill

OKAY, FINE, YOU GOT ME, RUTHERFORD × TENDI WOULD BE ADORABLE AND THIS IS ACTUALLY A PRETTY GOOD SETUP FOR IT

Awwww, Shaxs though :( Congrats on the single most badass death in Star Trek history, dude. The Prophets would—well, the actual Prophets would probably be slightly confused about most of it, but Kira Nerys would be proud of you and I feel like that probably counts for more. RIP, Papa Bear

I am here all damn DAY for the Mariner–Riker parallels, ahahahahaha

Pausing it to record my prediction that Boimler's commitment to not caring about rank anymore is going to last 3... 2...

Yep.

Bradward, how DARE YOU.

"Those guys had a long road, getting from there to here." OH FOR THE LOVE OF—

What a brilliant way to resolve and renew the various character arcs and relationships moving into Season 2! The writers could easily have brought everything back to status quo—chaotic Mariner fighting with her mom and being a bad influence on Boimler, etc.—and done another 10 just like these, but I suspect that wouldn't have been ambitious enough for these writers. What a blast. I cannot wait for more.

Thanks for following along, friends! Stay tuned for my (similarly patchy and amateur) coverage of Discovery, starting next week!

[docholligay]

LIVESTREAM WINNERS AND TOP POINT COMMENTS

THose of you who read the schedule already know this but the winners are:

HOLLIGAY INVOKES THE SPIRIT OF CLOSET GHOST 

and

WE COOK FOR DINNER IN THE APOCALYPSE

Please join me for both! It’ should be a terrifying, thrilling time. 

AND NOW, THOSE OF YOU WHO MADE ME FEEL THE WARMEST. Thank you to all who answered--I know this was super self indulgent and it means a lot to me that you took the time. So, literally 12 out of the 13 of you got at least one point (One person did not give any details, or even a quote) MAZEL. 

Point allocations are below!!

One point winners: 

4(?)ish years ago, you sent Jet a series of letters/cards/funeral lilies, from different Sailor Moon characters. The lilies were for Mako. One card was from Michiru, after Haruka's death. I have never been able to find them again, but I just loved the care you put into them--how they were all written specifically from the character, the fact that you even put tear stains and perfume on the cards. It was just so creative and touching, and it felt like the characters were real for an instant, mourning and living and giving you a peek at their lives. --- @kumeko (That was A Little Letter, and Mako’s was actually a separate thing for the same contest!) 

   “Before you get yourselves killed I want to go on record as saying this is the stupidest thing you’ve ever done.” Rei stood with her hands on her hips at the front of the garage- from that short story about Mina and Haruka strapping an engine to a shopping cart. You can really feel how rei must feel, the resigned exasperation mixed with genuine, but hidden, concern for Mina and haruka’s safety. I think i have said the exactsame thing before people i know do stupid shit. --- BeefSalad33  (oh ma, an oldie but, I think, a goodie) 

OH MAN. I am always thinking nonstop about that piece where Minako confronts Seiya about bullying Haruka, specifically for the line where Mina spits out "you think she'll love you for this?" and UGH that LINE. it HAUNTS me, I want to BITE DOWN ON IT AND NEVER LET GO, I WANT TO PUT IT EVERYWHERE EVER BECAUSE IT HURTS SO GOOD, AND I DON'T EVEN CARE ABOUT SEIYA. --- @wouldntyoulichentoknow (I’m so glad that I’ve managed to make both you and jetty grit your teeth and care about Seiya at some point ahahah) 

"*But flowers grow from death and decay, don’t they? That has always been true, you know that, Mako. You are a rose of perfect beauty, grown in the rich fertilizer of your loss.*

She threw the stress ball across the room, knocking over the cup on the sink, spilling the ice down the drain."

The contrast between reminding herself of how life works, and then still being bitter about it, and knowing what she is and being frustrated about it. It's a lot, when sorting out various issues- i have trauma, and that makes me better at empathizing with people, i'm adaptable long-term, and that means i can put up with some bullshit, that kind of thing, but that doesn't mean those are wholly good things. It's nice to see it put into words, and so plainly, and with such a strong reaction of it.

Roses can still grow wild, as pretentious as that sounds with how your passage resonates to me, but it's still nice to feel that. ---- @katrani (I’m so glad it resonates with you! I liked that line a lot! ) 

2 point answers:

Christmas Carol, Stave 1 - “You are a terrible person,” she jutted out her chin, feigning strength. “Fareeha deserved much better than you. But,” she took a deep breath. “I still hope she forgives you, someday. Someday, I hope you will deserve it.” It feels like cheating to use the most recent thing you’ve written, but nonetheless this section conveys so much about your take on Mercy, so quickly. She may be an idealist, the peacekeeper and builder, and she may want Pharah to have a relationship with her mother that’s not this disaster, but that doesn’t stop her from acknowledging that Ana’s been the primary factor in making it what it is and telling Ana that directly. I love how you write Mercy (and Tracer for that matter) as very warm characters who try to see the best in their situations but won’t gloss over the fact that sometimes, someone does have to be shot in the fucking face. “Good” doesn’t mean “hopelessly naive”, even with a pacifist, and I appreciate that you have characters who show that. 

Bonus, and a fringe case as technically part of the Fushigi Yuigi hateblog: “She was still trying to get home, had been unable to get Tamahome to let her poison him, and then Nakago had hugged her into his chest until she had been forced to flatten him with a punch to the nads. She was tired, she was hungry, and she was trying to have a moonlight bath to consider her options and wash the stink of a man off of her.

And then, Tamahome, again.” - Haruka-gets-dumped-into-Fushigi-Yuugi-as-Yui was a delight that entire episode, but this post was one of the best. Is it really just narrativizing your frustrations with the many, many writing choices that were made here? Absolutely. But it’s a fun little bit of comedic pacing here, especially with the utter exhaustion of Haruka that this bullshit isn’t over yet. (“Fuck my life” to the moon wondering if Usagi could help and regretting how hard it would be to drown herself are close runners-up on that front.) --- Regalli 

(Mercy is, in many ways, my attempt to write someone who is MOSTLY a pacifist that I can respect. It’s not easy for me! I often find pacifism to be cowardice, because so often in life the people I know who are pacifists are, well, not the folks in the street. So i thought, could you write someone who is very hesitant to kill, who believes that even Doomfist, even Reaper, even whoever, deserve care if they are hurt, who believes that a sword will not leave her hand free to uplift the fallen, and make her brave? And make her strong? And so was born, Mercy, who proved that, yeah that person, at least in my mind, can exist.) 

I think one of my favorite passages from your writing is from "The Rest is Commentary". Particularly the part that starts with "I am a doer. " That entire paragraph is wonderfully written, with mix of beautifully descriptive language to describe *why* you don't trust words. It's slightly paradoxical, but it also fits with the rest of the essay (?) so well. And even beyond that,  I love reading when you write about your faith. You are deeply devout woman, and a personal aspiration to me. When you write about your faith, it reminds me that there is work that needs to be done to live it, and not easy work either. But it is very much worth every bead of sweat, and every drop of blood. --- @shavedjudomonkey 

(Thank you so much! I love that people have connected so much with my Jewish writing) 

3 point answers: 

From Requiem for the Great Consummation, I adore the word play with "compose." Ie, in the line, "Michiru folded her hands in her lap and composed herself." Why? I'm a musician. So, Michiru, with her music, holds a special place in my heart. (Why Ami gets the music attacks is beyond me. WTF?)  I don't think the writers ever really understood what it takes to be a musician, and while fanfic writers often include Michiru's music, I've never really seen it done well. (I'm sure it has been. I just haven't seen it.) Music is all about structure. It has to feel free and soaring, but it can only be that because of the intense amounts of tension and structure underneath. A kite without a string plummets. When I reach for high, soaring notes, that's when I have to be most conscious of having a solid base. Making music Is constant tension. So, often when I see writers portray musicians, it's all "she never felt so free and untethered as when she sang/played the,violin/piano/whatever." And I think, "wow, really? She must have been Crap." So, back to compose/compose. This wordplay shows that tension. The "I have rehearsed this 5,000 times and am still working so hard I'm sweating standing still in this freezing auditorium so that it can look and sound completely free and easy." This is Michiru's entire life. She is composing herself. She is outlining complex rhythms and tensions and resolutions that even though you hear when the piece is played, you don't fully take in or understand, and all you consciously comprehend is 'wow, pretty.' Because that's how music works. Organs have keys that can't be heard by the human ear, and composers include them in their pieces. Why? We can't hear them! But we feel them. If you look at the score for an orchestral piece, it contains So. Many. Notes. So much going on. But when you listen, all you hear is that melodic theme. But if you take out anything underneath, things change and cam fall apart. Michiru lives her life like that. She creates herself, composes herself, and it looks elegant and free and easy, but it is so so very tightly controlled and rehearsed, and that particular wordplay showed off that side of Michiru's music, which is one I don't get to see explored much. --- @incorrecttact 

(Thank you so much for this!! I am NOT a musician, but so much of Michiru and music speaks to me, the structure of it, the discipline, the way it allows you to express yourself while hiding behind something else. And yes! I think of that double meaning so much!)

I want you to know... that this was very, very difficult. I made a notepad and collected shit I'd pulled out from your work where I could find comments where I did such, and then I AGONIZED. Here is where I landed but know it's so close with other things god. 

"Winston worked in earnest at his inventions, and Emily went back to teaching, and the two of them began to cook for each other again. Family dinners once a week resumed, grew with some of the new recruits that were being folded into their family. Pharah and Mercy’s daughter took them to the zoo, the park, out into the world. Dva had continued the game they had all been playing before Tracer died, their party picking up after the terrible and well-done loss of their beloved rogue. ***Life did not return, but it grew forward. It bloomed again.***" — A Clock's Fading Chime

I ended up choosing this one because I hate it a little when I read it. Not because it's not good but because it's SO PAINFUL. I love so much about the way you talk about love, and I think grief is all a part of that. We grieve because we loved. The idea of the grief period, especially for those in a close circle of a lost person, being like the cycle of the seasons where a flower may die but life blossoms in the soil it left behind is so evocative and perfect and everything leading up to that last line is the soil for which that line got to bloom. The slow, simple way life returns to them, that they adjust to the heavy rock in their pack (A piece of yours I revisited for this and a metaphor I will always carry with me) and start growing stronger together. And that they find it WITH EACH OTHER too just god, it kills me. But would I rather wish it wasn't necessary? YUP. FOR SURE. It hurts to think about someone who plays Lena's role dying in our own lives and trying to mend the rift between those left behind. But it brings all those possibilities and who may have gone already before to mind because it feels so grounded in the reality of what these experiences are like and shit it's just a great sampling of everything I love about your work. Beautiful prose, saying so much with so little, grounded in stuff that feels read, and ending on a banger, transfixing line. ---- @thoughtfulfangirling 

(Thank you so much! I LOVED that whole series of fics around that, as it is in the way that I often like to toy with the nature of grief, and the way that we go on. Things aren’t ever the same, but we go on. And I’m so glad you gt into it too! It’s very self-indulgent for me, basically everything with OW, so I love when other poepl like it) 

4 point answers: 

Given that I am not Jewish, I hope this isn't overstepping my bounds, but your passover Seder speech really spoke to me this year. Specifically the bits about the relationship between cowardice and metaphorical bondage: 

"This is a celebration of our freedom from bondage, but it is a also a reminder, a call that we must ensure we do not, in cowardice, return ourselves to bondage. "

Without explaining too much, and risking the kind of parasocial oversharing that you lamented the other day in a post, this particular push and pull has been at the forefront of my mind this year. The intense gravity that the familiar, the easy, the safe, can have, versus the genuine terror of pressing out into the unknown in search of something better.

Trying to change, and to do better, and to press on, is fucking terrifying, and hard. But, that is not an excuse. And I appreciated the reminder.   --- @blastoise-m 

(Not overstepping at all! I am so glad that it speaks to you, I really, really love this kind of writing, and I really should get back to doing more of my Jewish writing. My rabbi is leaving, because we apparently don’t have the money to have a rabbi! And he’s readying people to be lay leaders, and called on me to be someone who could give Divrei Torah (sort of like our sermons) because of my tendency to do stuff like this, and it’s very scary! But really exciting as that’s the kind of stuff that had me interested in being a rabbi, is picking this stuff apart and applying it to our own lives HI YOU ASKED FOR NONE OF THIS SORRY) 

"There are no beautiful deaths in this world, and am sorry that you must know it. Rei never was allowed to say goodbye. I watched Haruka grow weaker and more ill every single day. We each have been jealous of the other, at turns, but I tell you this truth now: Our lives mean much more than our deaths. You and Seiya had a wonderful love story, and you raised a wonderful daughter, and unfortunately it is very often difficult to finish a story in a satisfying sort of way. It is not the end of your story, simply of hers. For you, it is a new chapter"

I think this is still one of my top 5 fav fics that you've ever written. I still think of it randomly once in a while. It's such a small moment but it sold me Usagi and Seiya in a way never would have expected. It's such a moment of growth for both Usagi and Muchiru. A small moment of connection for two people who are so different.

This is wrapped up in the entire MaS series, which I could never separate from this work let alone this quote. The entire series is a series about love and all its many permutations. About finding meaning in a world when you think your meaning has been taken away. About carrying on when you think there's no reason to do so. And I think this quote really encapsulates all of that. 

This story, this entire series, is one the favorite things I've ever read and I'm so glad that you decided to share it. --- @madegeeky

(I truly and in all ways love how much you love this fic, it cheers em and makes me so happy every time I am reminded of it. And thank you for loving that line! I FEEL that line. It’s been true for every death that has come to me, so I love when it has meaning for others. ) 

The 5 point answer:

"God separated the sky and the sea, and that’s true, but there will always be the horizon where they blend."

I'm not much of a quote person. I'll often remember the feeling or the takeaway but rarely the words themselves. This, though, has stuck with me.

There is so much in this world, and so many people, who see everything as absolutes. Black and white. Good or bad. Right or wrong. And as I've grown and changed, that has come to bother me more and more.

This quote is such an elegant and accessible way to express how that oh-so-common point of view is a fallacy. And really it's just a lovely line that invokes both lovely imagery and feeling. ---- @seolh

I FORGOT I WROTE THIS, and like the completely arrogant piece of shit I am, when I read it was I was like, “Oh fuck, that’s a solid line.” And yes I am with you on getting older and relizing that the horizon line can be so fuzzy out there, sometimes, and this quote WEIRDLY came back to me when I needed it, a lot, and so thank you! 

[ladylooter]

ladylooter’s guide to watching Lupin III

I was inspired by @despairfiles​‘ guide to watching the Fate series as well as mutuals who have expressed interest in interacting with my Fujiko muse but were either completely unfamiliar with the Lupin III franchise or hadn’t seen any of the shows/movies/OVAs/TV specials in awhile. So I’m going to use this post to share my recommendations of where Lupin fans (and soon-to-be fans!) can start with the franchise. I’ll make a note first: these opinions are my own and there’s no ‘correct’ way to watch the various anime offerings. Some Lupin fans may disagree with me, and that’s great! Personally, I think there’s something in the Lupin fandom for every fan to enjoy, depending on your tastes. This is just my personal recommendation, based on the vast (seriously, a lot) of Lupin I’ve watched over the years.

But first, the basics:

Lupin the Third (often stylized as Lupin III) began as a manga in the 1960s by creator Monkey Punch. It spawned a media franchise featuring the manga, two pilot films, six television series, countless movies/OVAs/TV specials, video games, live action movies, a CG movie, and more. It stars Arsene Lupin III, the grandson of the original Arsene Lupin, who is considered the world’s greatest thief. He often teams up with the likes of Daisuke Jigen (expert marksman), Goemon Ishikawa XIII (expert swordsman), and on occasion, Fujiko Mine (expert seductress and betrayer). The four (though mostly Lupin), are constantly pursued by Inspector Zenigata of Interpol, who will stop at nothing to apprehend Lupin III.

A note about this guide: While the thoughts are my own, none of the images are. I tried to pull photos that represent the various recommendations I give here.

Where to watch: I’ll always advise to find legal copies of Lupin III shows and films. With so much content, there’s a variety of ways to watch. If you’re in the United States or have access to US-based streaming services, I’d recommend checking Hulu (Lupin III Part II is on there still, I believe) and Crunchyroll (Lupin III Parts I, II, III, IV and V are there). Movies and The Woman Called Fujiko Mine are a little more difficult to find nowadays, but you can often find out of print Funimation discs on secondhand sites as well as a variety of licensed Lupin movies from Discotek. But if you have your own means to track down content, I’m not going to judge you. 

Onto the guide!

Part I - I’m completely new to Lupin III…

...And I only want to watch one movie to see if I like it!

If you only want to commit to one movie, I’d recommend choosing Lupin III Episode 0: The First Contact. Lupin as a franchise has negative continuity, so there’s multiple ways the cast meets and interacts with one another. First Contact does this in a very succinct fashion while not losing a lot of the more traditional, common Lupin tropes. You’ll be introduced to the main five characters, see some heists, and get an idea of what the franchise is (mostly) about. 

In short, the plot revolves around a story Daisuke Jigen retells to a reporter about how Lupin and the gang first met. The main five members of the cast are also supplemented by interesting side characters (who aren’t just there to be plot devices. This happens a lot in the Lupin franchise unfortunately). 

I really liked this! What do I watch next? Almost any of the movies/OVAs/TV specials you want, as well as Part II or Part IV. If you don’t mind a darker take on Lupin or with more questionable plots, then Part I or The Woman Called Fujiko Mine could be for you. But I’d suggest Parts II or IV if you want to watch a TV series.

...And I want to watch a few episodes! I love humor, wacky hijinks, and don’t mind older animation.

Look no further than Lupin III Part II! This Lupin series is what you may remember being broadcast on Adult Swim in the early 2000s. It consists of 155 episodes and aired between 1977-1980. But don’t worry, you do not need to watch all of them, or even watch them in order! Most plotlines are contained to one episode, so you can skip around and watch what you’d like. The content is light, most everything is focused around crime capers, and there’s a lot of humor and pop culture references (well, pop culture for the late 70s). Episodes 145 and 155 are particularly highly regarded as they were directed by pre-Studio Ghibli Hayao Miyazaki. 

In short, the best way to figure out which episodes to watch are to read the titles or see thumbnails and see if it interests you. Or you can watch from the beginning, but that’s a lot of anime to go through!

I really liked this! What do I watch next? I’d recommend the two following movies: The Mystery of Mamo and The Castle of Cagliostro. Mamo was Lupin III’s first feature film and is a bit darker and mature in tone than Lupin III Part II (as well as some rough animation), but the plot is fantastic. Cagliostro is a classic, and Hayao Miyazaki’s first feature film. It’s just a great movie in general and has one of the best car chases in cinematic history. My only advice for Cagliostro? Know that the Lupin gang (especially Lupin and Fujiko) are far nicer and altruistic than their portrayals in other Lupin media. Watch it with the mindset of it being a Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli take on Lupin and being very family-friendly.

...And I want to watch a few episodes! I love heists and capers, but I prefer more contemporary animation.

You can’t go wrong with Lupin III Part IV! Also known as “The Italian Adventure,” this series takes place mostly in Italy and San Marino. It opens with Lupin’s marriage (yes, marriage) to Rebecca Rossellini, a wealthy heiress who has way more fun being a thief. It aired in 2015 in Japan and 2017 on Adult Swim’s Toonami block in the United States. 

It has plenty lighthearted moments similar to Part II, but unlike Part II it does need to be watched in full. Some episodes are self-contained capers but there is an overarching story that spans the entire season. Luckily, it’s only 26 episodes. The animation is stunning, the main cast is very much reminiscent of the gang Lupin fans know and love, and Part IV also has the addition of a more consistent female member of the cast other than Fujiko in Rebecca (and the two play off each other rather hilariously!). 

I really liked this! What do I watch next? You could watch the TV special Lupin III: The Italian Game, but a good amount of the film will rehash content from Part IV. Instead, I’d recommend watching Lupin III Part V. Taking place mostly in France, it’s the natural successor to Part IV. While you don’t see much of Rebecca, you do get another female member of the main cast named Ami. Part V also recently aired on Adult Swim’s Toonami block in 2019.

...And I want to watch a few episodes! I want to start at the very beginning to see how the characters have evolved and changed over time (and I don’t mind older animation).

Then you should start with Lupin III Part I.  Originally broadcast in 1971-1972, it’s one of the interpretations that’s closer to the original manga. It was the first anime series in Japan with a mature feel and aimed at an adult audience, so don’t be surprised if there’s a bit more lewd humor and violence. There’s a lot more sinister organizations for the gang to rob and far less of an emphasis on the happy, upbeat Lupin portrayal that’s found in later installments.

I really liked this! What should I watch next? Lupin III: The Fuma Conspiracy. It still features green jacket (Part I, when it was released) Lupin and is overall a good movie. The Japanese dub of this will be a little jarring if you’ve watched other subtitled Lupin: the entire voice cast was changed for this specific movie only. Otherwise, I’d recommend checking out Lupin III Part II or The Woman Called Fujiko Mine.  

Part II - I’m a returning fan to Lupin III...

...And I want to see a darker, grittier Lupin gang.

The Woman Called Fujiko Mine. You will not get a darker, gritter take on the Lupin franchise in anime than The Woman Called Fujiko Mine. Tone and design are very close to the original manga and it’s the only series that has Fujiko as the main character (I’m also a bit biased: this is one of my favorite contributions to the franchise). The 13 episode series details how Fujiko met Lupin, Jigen, Goemon, and Zenigata (gotta love the Negative Continuity!), and the various missions she undertakes while she tries to outrun her past. 

You’ll get some very different characterizations for some of the main cast (especially Zenigata) and as the series is much more dark and adult in nature, it has copious amounts of nudity (mostly for Fujiko. She’s completely naked for the entire opening credits), drugs, alcohol, smoking, and implied sex (among other things that would be considered spoilers). 

Literally. I cannot stress the nudity, drugs, and sex aspects enough for this show. It’s also the only entry into the Lupin III franchise to be directed by a woman. I’d say that if you’re a fan of Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo, you’ll likely enjoy this addition to the franchise.

I really liked this! What do I watch next? You’ll want to watch the trio of films meant to follow TWCFM and have a similar art style: Jigen’s Gravestone, Goemon’s Blood Spray, and Fujiko’s Lie. None of them necessarily reference the series, but they have similar tone and design and are meant as spinoffs/continuations. They’re all relatively short films (an hour or less). If you’re already pretty familiar with Lupin, don’t miss the shoutout to The Mystery of Mamo in Jigen’s Gravestone. 

...And I want to see some great heists and overall fun that reminds me of Lupin III Part II!

Scroll up and see everything I wrote for Lupin III Part IV: The Italian Adventure. :) If you haven’t watched Lupin in awhile but love the red jacket era Lupin, you’ll want to start on Part IV. It has nicer animation with a similar feel. 

...And I want to watch some movies/OVAs/Specials! What do you recommend?

Beyond everything already recommended on this list? There’s a lot of movies out there, but here are some of my favorites:

Generally good story/art contributions to the Lupin III franchise:

Tokyo Crisis

Dead or Alive (This was directed by Monkey Punch himself!)

Voyage to Danger

Island of Assassins

Alcatraz Connection

Green vs. Red (this one is good for fans who’ve seen quite a bit of the franchise already. It was made to celebrate Lupin’s 40th anniversary)

The Travels of Marco Polo ~Another Page~

Lupin III: The First (The newest addition and the first CGI Lupin III movie! It’s coming to theaters in the USA shortly and will arrive on blu-ray in January 2021)

So bad they’re good at times:

Farewell to Nostradamus (I’m biased towards this one for a reason. Also, the opening sequence is great)

The Columbus Files: Fujiko’s Unlucky Days (Look I’m here for amnesiac Fujiko and I admit it)

Dragon of Doom (Great if you like Goemon, a little basic otherwise)

So there you have it. I hope you enjoy getting into Lupin III!

[actuallyrandomperson]

My thoughts on the Sanders Sides Spotify playlists- Virgil Edition!

Note: this is Purely me saying whether or not I like the songs, not theorising about any deeper meanings. I’ve done them all, so just click on the names to see my reactions to the others: Patton, Roman, Logan, Janus

Impressions from looking through the playlist: I don’t specifically know most of the songs (I know more of the bands), but I feel like that’ll be a recurring theme as I tend to stick within my very specific music taste and only add songs to my playlists if I hear them while I’m out and about and like them enough to find them on Spotify, which means my horizons aren’t broadened very often. The ones I do know do not surprise me that much (neither do the bands, for that matter), as they feel very Virgil

1: ‘Sunrise, Sunset’, by Bright Eyes. I didn’t mind it at first? But the chorus was a bit too,,, shouty for me. Probably Definitely a song I’d skip if it came up on a playlist in the future, as much as I liked the tune(/melody?). Not surprised to find it on Virgil’s playlist though, it gives off Angst. Was very in my face as I tried to continue reading fics.

2: ‘Lets Kill Tonight’, by Panic! At The Disco. One that I have probably heard before, as while I myself didn’t have an emo music phase, an ex friend did. I liked it more, as I expected to as I tend to like p!atd’s songs. Not one that I’d go out of my way to listen to again, but has been added to my 32 hour long playlist on Spotify (not my slightly more curated 10 hour one tho, but I mostly play the 10 hour one while doing work or while others are around soo). Once again felt like it suited Virgil, (as I imagine all of them will, so I might just call out ones that feel Odd if any do.)

3: ‘Sally’s Song’, by Amy Lee. It might shock some of y’all, but not one I’ve really heard before! I live in Australia so Halloween’s not a massive thing and I actually don’t know that many people who’ve watched The Nightmare Before Christmas. Thomas is actually one of the main reasons I know that the movie exists. I really liked it, unsurprisingly, so it too made its way to my 32 hour playlist (not the ten hour one, but only because I try to keep mostly ‘normal’ songs on there so there’s not that many songs from movies in it)

4: ‘It Ends Tonight’, by The All-American Rejects. I recognised the band, but not the title. I think I’ve heard this before though- I didn’t love it, but I didn’t hate it. I wouldn’t skip it if it popped up in a playlist at some stage in the future, but I haven’t added it to either of my playlists.

5: ‘I’d Hate To Be You When Everyone Fonds Out What This Song Is About’, Mayday Parade. Very long title (ok, I know in emo song title standards it’s not even that long but as I said I didn’t really have an emo phase so these sorts of titles always shock me) that slightly confuses me (who’s you? why is what the songs about bad for them??), but I liked it! Is now on my 32 hour playlist. I suspect that at the end of listening to all of these it will be longer than 32 hours.

6: ‘A Decade Under The Influence’, Taking Back Sunday. Another one that I liked enough that I wouldn’t skip it in the future, but didn’t add to my playlist. I just didn’t vibe with it enough. Happened to line up with Roman having a Bad Feeling™ in the fic I was reading tho so that was entertaining

7: ‘Thks fr th mmrs’, by Fall Out Boy. This was the first song to invoke feelings of Nostalgia™ in me, and I’m kinda shocked it’s not already in my 32 hour playlist. That has been remedied. This song was played a fair bit in my childhood, both on the radio and by an older sister. I imagine a lotta people my age had a similar thing. Obviously one I Love. Got me to stop reading in favour of being a doofus by lip syncing and dancing around while lying in bed (and deafening my eardrums as I turned it up louder) during the chorus.

8: ‘Be Calm’, by Fun. This was the second song that I didn’t recognise either the title or the band for. I liked it, even though the initial warped carnival-esque tune thing made me think of Pennywise. Pretty much as soon as the singing started I added it to the 32 hour playlist. It might make its way to the shorter one one day, as I actually really like it. It’s just a bit odd, and as I said I try to keep that playlist to more ‘conventionally normal’ songs as it’s designed for me to be able to play around other people without getting weird looks.

9: ‘I’m Not Okay (I Promise)’, by My Chemical Romance. Let’s be real. I would’ve cried if this song wasn’t included in the playlist. You would’ve cried if this song was not included in this playlist. If all of their songs aren’t in their respective playlists I’ll be disappointed. This song being in the playlist prompted me to go back and rewatch that episode. so many jokes originate in that ep. also we only knew one name back then? and the dark sides were barely a blip on our radars??? how????? ok back to the song- not my favourite, but I wasn’t expecting it to be. Probably won’t skip it every time it comes up in the future, but it’s definitely not my cup of tea.

10: ‘Imaginary’, by Evanescence. I laughed when I realised this was next up, as rewatching the q&a reminded me that Virgil said they were his favourite band so I’d noted that I had to look out to see if any of their songs were on the playlist. I liked it enough to add it to the 32 hour playlist, but wouldn’t go out of my way to play it in the future.

11: ‘Soft Shock- Acoustic Version’, by Yeah Yeah Yeahs. When this started my first thought was ‘oh, I think I’m gonna really like this one!’ and my second was ‘I’m kinda surprised it’s on Virgils playlist, but it feels right somehow.’ (It made more sense as I listened to the lyrics, I think I was just massively caught off guard by it being acoustic). I hadn’t heard of either the song or the band before this, but my initial instinct was Correct and it has in fact.... made it onto the ten hour playlist!! Hell yeah!! I actually liked it enough to listen to the og version as well, which I still liked but slightly less. (Also I have heard some of their music before as I realised looking at the album this came from that my one of my sisters used to listen to them, which I’m not that surprised about as we have Similar tastes in music)

12: ‘The Good That Won’t Come Out’, by Rilo Kiley. I liked this enough to consider adding it to my 32 hour playlist, and the lyrics were interesting, I just didn’t vibe with it that much. 🤷‍♀️

13: ‘Sick Sad World’, by Nervus. The bands name feels very apt for Virgil. I liked the rhythm of this one, and it was also a Certified Mood tbh. Got added to the 32 hour playlist!! Also made me wanna hug Virgil.

14: ‘Ignorance’, by Paramore. I wasn’t expecting to love this, as I don’t remember really liking much of Paramore’s music in the past even though I know I must’ve heard some, but I didn’t hate it. Didn’t get added to either of my playlists, but I probably wouldn’t skip it in the future.

15: ‘The Ice Is Getting Thinner’, by Death Cab for Cutie. I was expecting to like this one, as one of my favourite youtuber’s fave songs is a death cab for cutie song and I really like it as well. I did like this one quite a bit, but it only made its way onto my 32 hour playlist.

16: ‘Overkill- Acoustic Version’, by Colin Hay. I didn’t mind this, but didn’t like it enough to put it on the 32 hour playlist. I possibly would like the original version more, but I can’t be bothered finding it especially given my first impression is just meh

17: ‘Under Pressure’, by My Chemical Romance. I didn’t love it as much as I love the original, but it did prompt me to check if I’d added the original to my two playlists. Apparently I didn’t, even though I was listening to a Lot of Queen when I was deeply entrenched in good omens.

18: ‘Everything is Alright’, Motion City Soundtrack. I liked this one! I think I might’ve heard It before, but it’s been a while. It got added to the 32 hour playlist.

19: ‘The Middle’, by Jimmy Eat World. I didn’t recognise the title b u t I did recognise the song. Obviously. Because I’m a gen z with older siblings. It was the second big nostalgia feels song, which was made even stronger by me not immediately recognising the title (unlike thks fr th mmrs). Was added to the 32 hour playlist as soon as I realised what song it was

20: ‘Vindicated’, by Dashboard Confessional. I knew this, but mostly from a music podcast called Punch up The Jam so hearing it in full was weird. Added it to the 32 hour playlist but wouldn’t go out of my way to listen to it again.

Final thoughts: I know I said I never had an emo phase in music, but I do actually like a lot of it even tho I was never That Kid, so I was kinda expecting to at least like a lot of these songs. My favourite song was definitely Be Calm, closely followed Soft Shock and Thks Fr Th Mmrs. 12/20 got added to my 32 hour playlist, and 2 (I eventually decided my love of Be Calm was strong enough for it to be an exception) to the 10 hour one!

@thatsthat24

[thegirlwholied]

Yeah I totally agree with you, like I understand what they were trying to do with some of the stuff they did but mostly it made no sense. In the part before the finale they kept talking about how it was supposed to call back to their earlier seasons but the only callback I saw was Sam putting the pie in deans face and even that felt awkward. But then that’s maybe also why none of them have posted on their social media. I saw a post that said they also didn’t like the finale - so maybe they agree

And in the time it took me to respond, I know at least Jensen Ackles has shared a social media post with the rebar! I also watched that clip with him talking about calling up Eric Kripke to talk about the ending.

Honestly, though, a la Game of Thrones, however the actors feel, I don’t know if they’ll ever speak against it aside from maybe adding some of their character headcanons. Given how much of their lives they put into the show I’m sure they need to embrace the ending as much as possible. Kind of like how you can’t control some of lives’ own endings- they may frustrate you *forever* & it’ll still come up 20 years down the line, but you need to move on. And how the actors really feel doesn’t really change fan feeling, though I fully get both the curiosity and the impulse to want them to agree and be one of the fans on that.

...that said, my read on Jensen Ackles calling up Eric Kripke is that sounds like a Hail Mary attempt for a better ending, and it’s cool to hear he made that regardless of what we actually got.

There were more callbacks than I realize as I’ve gone through online - for the ridiculous # of times I’ve seen the pilot I cannot *believe* I did not catch “I can’t do this without you”/”Yes, you can”/”Well, I don’t want to” !, but I was very much distracted by the rebar in the moment. I appreciate the callbacks but I can’t say it makes me like the writing any better. 

...also I was scrolling through Reddit to catch callbacks, and... Reddit seems to have liked the episode? ...I don’t get it. My siblings & I are in consensus of “oh, this is yikes.” My opinion’s really not about ships (or even character happiness!) but about the writing. There are character endings that punch me in the soul but stick with me, & I wouldn’t want them changed, because of the *writing*. 

...& sometimes a character escapes death at the last second or gets some other reprieve, and my soul goes, “oh. that’s nice. That is nice. ...but also I was braced for the follow-through and now I’m a little disappointed we didn’t get it.” 

For example: the Raven Cycle (which I love & mull over that ending a lot, but also the loss promised in the first book did not *quite* happen). Doctor Who: don’t get me wrong, I loved Rose’s return & second ending in Doctor Who, but it didn’t compare to the first goodbye on that beach. Everything ever that starts with “this is how I died” and then does not really kill that character, not for keeps... I’m always torn as more than half of me is usually rooting for that character but deep down I’m looking for that follow through.  

I think Supernatural wanted both that follow through *and* the character happiness, hence the afterlife ending. 

(...I’ve since remembered Arrow *also* did the afterlife ending, so between that, TVD, & this -- and even The 100 did a weird heaven-on-earth as chosen over digital afterlife option? What’s up with all the afterlife endings, The CW?? 

I only sometimes watched The Originals for establishing shots in New Orleans of it all, but apparently if I had to vote for an emotionally-resonant ending in recent years on The CW, that would be my pick?!)

I realize I keep rambling about this (sorry, any followers out there wondering what’s up with all the sudden texts) but my take on Dean’s death will forever be: “cool concept, lousy execution, please see Buffy season 5 and your own season 5 for comparison”. 

I see that Kripke’s recently said:

“There’s only one scene that I haven’t done that I would’ve done for the end of the show. And I’m certainly not going to give it away, maybe one day I will. But I can assure the fans that my ending was so much darker than the ending they’re going with. So anyone who’s like, ‘Kripke should’ve ended it,’ I’m like, ‘You would’ve hated my ending!’ Because it was a horror movie and it was going to have a horror movie ending. So I can promise you the ending you’ll love much more than if you had let me end the show.”

...Goddammit. That is ominous (I don’t even like horror movies! I also did not like the secret ending Amy Palladino of Gilmore Girls held onto and teased and let drop in the Netflix special, so I should be skeptical!) and yet. I feel like that’s more the follow through I’m looking for.

It’s not about me, of course, but personal perspective of looking up to the writing of early Supernatural and cringing at the last two eps... I’d take it. It’s not that I want a dark(er) ending; but the finale managed at once to feel too dark & not dark enough in its choices, to me. & given Kripke’s Supernatural was just the right amount of darkness for me... I’d bet I wouldn’t hate his ‘one scene’. 

[zelvyth]

 From a very young age it was reinforced that my ADHD was a disability I was meant to overcome rather than a tool I could use to better myself. I didn’t even know that I had been diagnosed, and that my mother had chosen not to medicate me, until I was partway through highschool. By that point I had already begun to give up on ever truly “making it” in life. The hurdles I needed to overcome had demoralized me to the point of near total apathy. Between my sexuality and early coming out in a small town highschool, and my various mental health problems, I felt like no one in the world saw things from my point of view. The last blow to my self esteem came when my grade 12 english teacher, the true decider of fate to any young person, told me my final thesis on Lady Macbeth being one of the greatest example of the flaws in Machiavelli’s “The Prince” was brilliant, but due to formatting and scattered grammar issues, she could give me no higher than a 60%. After years of getting consistent high 90’s in my english classes as well as other subjects, I had failed this extremely crucial essay due to the idiosyncrasies of the most frustrating language known to humankind. I passed that class with a 68, and felt like my fate was sealed. No chance at getting into any University in the country without redoing 5 months of work because one person believed that following the rules was a more important indication of intelligence than original ideas and the ability to make an argument. It crushed me. I admit that I didn’t put in the effort, but I had spent my entire life being told I was incredibly intelligent. It was the one thing I held onto. I felt betrayed by the education system. Though it was also due to many other factors at the time, this contributed to the second of my four suicide attempts. Today, I reject that philosophy. 

    When a person with ADHD is thinking, they connect ideas in their heads much faster than the average person. It can be confusing and disorienting to the people around them. I constantly have to explain how I got from point A to point B because the points connect automatically in my head. It’s exhausting, so I frequently do not bother to try. It’s extremely helpful when crafting an argument, however it can be debilitating in many aspects of modern life. Things the average person doesn’t think about, can be crippling for me. Without a true passion towards something, my ability to focus becomes hazy and my thoughts become scattered. I spend the majority of the day stuck in my head having conversations with myself instead of doing “normal” things with my time. I have spent my life being told that ADHD is my weakness, today I can tell you with the utmost certainty that it is my greatest strength.

    When the international pandemic of the respiratory disease “Covid-19” truly began and the world went into full nationwide lockdown, the bistro that I had, for the most part, happily been employed at shut down. After 8 years of honing my culinary craft certain that my skills, though undervalued, would always be needed somewhere, I was out of a job. Indefinitely. So was most of the country that worked with their hands or, in some capacity, physically with other people. Unless you were able to conduct business through zoom conferences or were a suddenly “essential” employee like a fast food worker, you were left with little to do but sit and think or try desperately to distract yourself from the increasingly troubling world around you. Luckily, to my surprise, the conservative government had pledged to keep us all fed and watered as best they could. What deeply worried me was the knowledge that my friends south of the border, through no fault of their own, and already mostly furious with their government, were not being treated with the same bare minimum of respect. I knew it was a recipe for true disaster and widespread civil unrest as early as march.

    I watched while the culture of social media, at least from my own lgbt bias, slowly started to shift and I picked up a lot of the big picture through memes and personally shared anecdotes. Celebrities were being ripped apart as they tried to get our attention again from their huge mansions while people sat at home worried about how to feed their children. Using insensitive phrasing like “we’re all in this together” when they undeniably weren’t. It quickly became a social caste system. The desperately poor trying to creatively make money any way they could. The often needlessly endangered. And the upper class for whom, little had changed besides the inability to do whatever they want at any given time. The lines were very clearly drawn. While the rich bemoaned their accessibility to haircuts, the poor argued with landlords about rent. All the while another group was frequently paid minimum wage to work on the proverbial front lines; flipping hamburgers, being yelled at by the rich because you were out of everything with the supply chain so damaged, or literally saving peoples lives. The anger and frustration quickly took over nearly every form of social media. Subtly, but day by day it grew. There was only so much one could do from inside their apartments, and globally, the havenots found solace and comfort with one another. The narratives of meme culture, which had matured and specialized far beyond the early days of “lolcats” and “trollface” comics, became almost exclusively about mocking the rich and their inability to deal with slight inconveniences.

Nearly every month of 2020 was a new major nationwide crisis and people had little else to do but talk about it or ignore it. The year kicked off with serious threat of a third world war because Donald Trump was tweeting intentionally inflammatory remarks towards the fascist leader of North Korea. All while nearly the entire country of Australia was ravaged by forest/bush fire. January saw a clearly corrupt president unbelievably not be impeached. Sparking outrage among, in my humble opinion, any sane individual. This also exposed, to anyone who knew all the facts, that the systems to hold those in power accountable was clearly broken and corruptible. Towards the end of January, beloved basketball player Kobe Bryant died in a horrible helicopter accident involving his daughter. Late February leading into early March was when global fears over Coronavirus began to be taken extremely seriously by every government in the world, the exception being the United States and the Trump administration. By late April, the country had over a hundred thousand dead, and nearly a quarter of its population out of a job. The irony of this, is that the calls to reopen the country didn’t come from those that had lost their jobs, but the upper class that had grown restless deprived from their usual comforts. Meanwhile we openly mocked them on instagram, tumblr, and twitter. Trying desperately to make light of a horrible situation and bring at least a little levity to their lives. News that a new breed of dangerously fatal hornets had migrated to North America was derided as a filler episode. One of my personal favourite takes on the year as a whole so far was a comparison to the four horseman of the apocalypse. January representing War, February representing Pestilence, March representing Famine, and April representing Death. In fact a lot of meme culture started to take on an extremely apocalyptic vibe. The message for many was clear, and depressing.

Then things started to happen really fast, so fast that for many it would make your head spin looking at it from the outside. It began with a video featuring a white Canadian woman from Waterloo named Amy Cooper that went viral across the globe. In the Ramble area of Central Park in NYC, this woman was filmed by a clearly peaceful, yet insistent, black man named Christian Cooper, no relation, asking her to leash her dog. This is a bylaw of the area. The woman refused and began to become very distressed, roughly handling her dog by the collar. She started dailing 911 and accused the man of assaulting her to the dispatcher. What many understood about this act, and rightfully called her out in outrage over, is that she was using her knowledge of how police handle black people in America to threaten this mans life over leashing her dog. She has been fired, and the shelter has taken her dog back.

Two days later, as I was travelling to my family’s cottage to “get away from it all and unplug”, a friend sent me a snapchat video from Minneapolis. It was on fire. I immediately did everything I could to try to find out what had happened. That, is when I saw the video of 8 minutes and 46 seconds of a police officer with his knee on the neck of another human being. This did not shock, nor suprise me. I had followed the many accounts of police killing people on video since 2014 when I was 16. When the Ferguson protests over Michael Brown’s killing by police officers were broadcast over most of the developed world. I had seen little change, despite Barrack Obama being President. This continued to happen for the next 6 years, though there were no more protests. Some of the people of those original protests that started the Black Lives Matter Movement, went missing over the next several years. Mainly those that had been photographed.

George Floyd’s death, I feel, was the straw that broke the camels’ back. Which is how anyone who has personally experienced police mistreatment and injustice would understand watching that video. A societal contract had been broken. And Minneapolis started to burn down the city that would let this happen to their friend, their neighbour, their father, their brother, and most importantly, their son. The words that chilled me to my very core… And continue to make me cry when I think about. Continue to make me want to punch every cop I run into.The words that have caused me to continue having this argument every day with everyone I know. The words that make me want to scream and rage and burn that country to the ground….  “Mama”

In his dying breaths this man called out to his mother. Who had died 2 years earlier. Who could not come save him. The police officer casually, with his hands in his pockets, knowing he could get away with it, murdered that man while he called out for his dead mother. Suffocated him to death in the middle of a global pandemic driven by respiratory disease. If I had been in Minneapolis that night, I would have helped burn it to the ground.

Something I didn’t expect happened then. Something I didn’t expect when I saw the fires and the rage from mostly black citizens of the city. As I watched Fox News try to turn the story into a conversation about rioting and looting rather than Police accountability. Other peaceful protests started up in other cities. My entire social media feed from multiple sources was filled with people discussing their anger and vowing to protest it. I don’t like to admit that I didn’t see this coming. But on May 26th, as I ravenously tried to keep up from the comfort of a cottage on Crystal Lake Ontario, a spark of hope for humanity that I had lost a long time ago started to ignite.

Something interesting happens when you get most of your information from social media. It either makes you hyper critical of everything you’re told and willing to research anything important, or it makes you willing to believe anything your friends tell you. As the protests kicked off in major cities across America, after months of inactivity, my ADHD kicked into high gear. I used every neuron of my brain power to follow the protests from as many different angles as I could. Most importantly, I followed the story from the people who were at them. That’s what growing up in modern society makes you do. After months if not years if not decades of being lied to for personal gain constantly. It makes you pay attention to the people who have nothing to gain.

I got back to my appartment from my cottage a day later, still glued to my phone. Barely talking, barely eating, barely sleeping. I watched police officers in riot gear throw tear gas into peaceful protests in every city in America. Tear gas, by the way, is an international war crime in combat situations. I watched media with an implicitly right wing bias condemn the protests. Convincing people that looting was worth a war crime. I watched it work. It worked with my own father. It did not work for me. I watched the news from political biases of both sides but took most of it with a grain of salt. That’s what I had been taught to do from as young as 14 by the world I grew up in. The news could give me general information. However, the story was on the ground and I knew from experience that people would try to bury it so I had to watch it as quickly as possible. I watched friends of mine in the states get tear gassed and beaten while exercising their first amendment rights. I watched the news condemn the protests. I was horrified. I watched the peaceful protesters of police brutality in New York get beaten and gassed from a minimum of 30 different perspectives of the people I knew and trusted, and those I didn’t. I watched the peaceful protestors in LA get beaten and gassed from the same amount of perspectives. I watched them throw flash bombs and shoot rubber coated bullets into the faces of my friends in every city in America. I watched the President of the United States order the peaceful protestors in front of the White House to be beaten and gassed so he could have an awkward photo-op with a fucking bible. I watched this for a week straight from every angle available. Day in and day out. Every hour I was conscious, I watched fascism try to grab power in in every city in America. I watched people in powerful positions deny it.

It wasn’t just paying attention to the protests and the news of them explicitly. I wasn’t just filled with horror. I was also watching something wonderfully unexpected happen. I watched my black friends, my gay friends, my asain friends, and my intelligent friends, begin to weaponize social media. I watched them beg all of their friends to do the same. So did I, even though I felt like there wasn’t anything I could really do from cozy liberal Waterloo. I watched us all turn the algorithms against the people who made them. I did everything I could to make sure you couldn’t turn away. I told my gay white friends condemning the actions of protestors that his rights came from a riot. I watched them shrink in fear of my voice. My father told me I was getting caught up in left wing rhetoric. I tore his arguments to shreds. He told me broad angry statements don’t do anything. I told him broad angry statements create the conversation we’re having. Resistance is a highway with many lanes, and I knew my lane.

You grow up, especially in my age, especially when you’re gay, especially when you are exposed to a lifetime of stories of rebellion against tyranny, hearing about the power of resistance. As I marched in Waterloo with over thirty thousand people I didn’t know, I realized that I have never truly understood that power. How it surges through your body like electricity as you scream until your voice is hoarse. It’s a high better than any drug known to man, than any pride parade where I was pandered to by corporations for hours. It took my fear, and my anger, and my helplessness and turned it into raw power exploding from my body. I continued to watch people I knew deny reality. 

The protests grew. They spread across the world like wildfire. I went to facebook, a place I avoid because I don’t agree with the majority of people on it, and told anyone who would listen to me that this is what Pride means. What it truly means to be proud of your community. Not a rainbow flag in a store window, not a corporation asking you to buy it’s rainbow backpack. But turning apathy in face of evil into raw unbridled electricity. I watched the protests spread to Montreal and Toronto, I watched the police mishandle things there too. I watched violence perpetuated by the state against my friends, people I’ve known for years. The power I felt merely grew. It grew with every flash grenade and bullet and tear gas canister shot at my friends. It will not subside till this is over or until I die. I’m going to spend the next decade giving up the comfortable life of good food, great drinks, and fantastic company that I found in the restaurant industry. I’m going to spend a decade getting my Law degree to fight for every last one of us in the courtroom because that is a place I can make it count. 

Today is June 8th of the year 2020 and I began writing this piece at Noon, it is now 4:11 P.M. I have done zero editing and I refuse to. I submit this as my revised final essay. I want to know when you got behind the protests. Because if it was as you were reading this, I deem you unworthy to judge my critical thinking skills. If it was yesterday I think you should be ashamed of yourself. I was with them from hour one. You should have been too. How dare you spend years teaching children about racism and oppression. How dare you tell me that I’m not worthy of higher education in any form. Telling children that wikipedia is unreliable as a source is idiotic, it’s one of the most peer reviewed encyclopedia’s to ever exist. How dare you tell me and the young adults you teach that you don’t give out scores higher than ninety percent. What is the point of forcing teenagers to write in cursive. Why must I live the experiences you write about in your precious properly formatted essays. In this country a 68 is two percent shy of getting into any University.  It’s sentencing an intelligent person with an array of disabilities a life of believing they have no power. Despite my own mistakes at the time and the amount I have grown as a person since, I will hold you personally accountable for that. 

As a closing statement, to every English teacher in this province, no, to every English teacher in the great country of Canada. Think very hard about when exactly you put your full support behind this movement. Because your curriculum is outdated, and absolutely useless in the real world. And your racism is showing.

Post Script.

There is no bibliography of unbiased sources because all sources are biased. You have a supercomputer in your pocket and this should all be public information. Look it up.

[eagles-translated]

Eagles S2 Teaser Trailer breakdown

Thought I’d do a quick breakdown of the teaser trailer that just dropped because we’ve been starved for content for so long lmao

This post got a little long so I added a keep reading button for those of you who are interested in checking it out. Enjoy and feel free to reblog this post with your own ideas and impressions of the trailer! 🥅🏒

The song playing in the background of the trailer is Say We’re Sorry by Loving Caliber, which is about a broken relationship between two people that are both hurting from each other’s actions:

🎵 We hurt each other’s feelings on and on 🎵 

The chorus is about how the people in this relationship should apologize to each other:

🎵 I guess that we should say we're sorry 🎵

It’s pretty safe to assume that the song is hinting at Felicia and Ludde’s relationship, which fell apart at the end of season 1 when it was revealed that Ludde had (unknowingly) hooked up with Felicia’s best friend Amie at a party a few weeks prior to Ludde getting back together with Felicia. 

They’d also had problems in their relationship before (this is where the “on and on” part of the lyric fits in), such as when Ludde let his friends talk about how Felicia was in bed or the argument they had after Ludde got into a fight with Elias. 

Felicia’s feelings were obviously hurt by this and while I can’t exactly name any situations where Felicia hurt Ludde (maybe because they don’t exist lmao) we know that he himself was hurt when he was apart from her after they’d fought. In episode 6 during the Halloween party, Ludde is pretty depressed because of what had happened with Felicia before.

The song lyrics that are actually featured in the trailer, however, are these four lines which are the intro to the song:

🎵 It's silent now, we don't say a word We're just looking at each other Tears in our eyes from the words we said Yeah, it kinda broke my heart 🎵

They fit very well with what is going on in the trailer - there are no spoken lines as all the characters are silent and only exchanging looks. We see Ludde looking around a classroom and Amie looking behind her, most likely at Ludde:

There’s also a scene where we see Ludde chasing after Felicia (?) in the hallways and her turning around to look at him in anger. 

The following lyric “tears in our eyes from the words we said” is emphasized when we see Ludde on the verge of tears after this hallway shot, where he probably regrets how he treated Felicia and the things he said to her back in season 1. He might also be sad because he tried to apologize to Felicia for what he did, but got rejected. In that scenario he could be crying over the words he said in the hallway that weren’t enough and made Felicia angry instead.

As for how Felicia is feeling about it, she seems to instead be hiding her sadness and either masking it with anger (like with Ludde) or with a stone-cold expression, like the case is when we see her walking through the halls and her classmates are watching her. There are a lot of eyes on Felicia since the whole school probably knows both her best friend and boyfriend betrayed her, but (again) nobody is saying anything.

The trailer finishes with the lyric “yeah, it kinda broke my heart” which is how both of them are feeling, except Felicia seems to be done with having her heart broken over and over again. We can see that in how she won’t take Ludde back and the look in her eyes on the photo above - she seems way more confident and independent than she did back in the first season. 

Right before Felicia is walking through the hallway there’s a brief shot of her (?) talking to Jack, the new character that seems to be a potential love interest for Felicia and a new obstacle between her and Ludde. I’m not 100% sure if he’s gonna be a love interest, but I’d say it’s likely due to 1) the way he looks at her here and 2) it makes sense that a new guy would be introduced right after Felicia and Ludde are broken up.

Jack does seem way older than Ludde and I doubt that his character is supposed to be a teenager - he looks a lot more mature from what we’ve seen.

This could be intentional, since Felicia might be done with Ludde’s childishness throughout season 1 in which he would always end up hurting her feelings. That, or she’s looking to rebel against her father even more? Mats was against Felicia dating Ludde and he might be even more against her dating someone much older.

The other shots I haven’t mentioned are a few hockey scenes (since duh, the show is all about hockey):

It’s a little hard to see who this is (in the words of Amie, tHeY aLL LoOk tHe sAMe!!) but I’m assuming it’s Elias. After the shot of Ludde running after Felicia, the next two shots are of Elias (probably?) and the screenshot above says NKT Arena Karlskrona in the background which is a multi-purpose sporting arena in Karlskrona.

Elias had decided to change to the Karlskrona team in the season 1 finale but we were unsure if he actually went through with it due to what happened to Felicia. The gear is different than the red Eagles hockey shirts, so I’d say it’s either Elias playing for the Karlskrona team or just a Karlskrona teammate. However - this next shot makes me doubt that a little.

Elias is in a gym (I’m guessing) and right before the shot changes,he lunges forward. It looks like he’s hitting a punching bag. Which makes a lot of sense - he does get angry easily and might be using it as some sort of aggression release or it’s simply just part of his workout routine.

The part that stood out to me though was the giant Eagle behind him - the symbol for the Oskarshamn hockey team. If he did leave team Eagles for Karlskrona, why is he in a gym with their eagle icon on the wall?

My best guess is that he is in the Karlskrona team, but perhaps had a match against Eagles in Oskarshamn. There was a similar storyline in season 1 where Eagles had a “derby” (definition: a sports match between two rival teams from the same area) against the Tingsryd hockey team.

It’s also possible that Elias came back to Eagles to be closer to his sister - we also need his character at the same place as everybody else since he sort of was a part of the whole Amie/Ludde drama. 

Elias and Amie did have a chemistry that seemed to be leading somewhere before the season 1 cliffhanger. Fans of the show also really want them to get together. There wasn’t a single shot of them together in this teaser trailer but I believe that could be the Eagles team trying to keep it secret and make the audience unsure if it ever will happen. We might see more when the full trailer drops.

This seems to be Elias fighting with someone else (?) at a party. I’m not sure since this shot was really sudden and dark, but it wouldn’t be a complete shot in the dark to say it’s Elias. He has anger issues and got into fights with Ludde last season, even losing his temper one time during hockey practice and flying at Ludde. 

Now as for the other guy... I don’t know why Tobias keeps popping into my head. Maybe it’s the shirt. Tobias appeared in season 1, episode 2 and was introduced as Ludde’s friend who was in the school band with Ludde’s older brother Andreas.

I don’t know, I might be completely wrong about this one so I’d love to hear what you guys think.

There’s one last shot I haven’t mentioned yet, of Klara nervously looking around a room with a glass (of alcohol?) in her hand. 

She seems to be at a party but unlike her party girl persona in season 1, she is now unsure and alone. She’s mostly covered up which goes against how she used to dress for parties (her mother even commented on how her shirt showed too much skin before the dinner party with Mats and Leila). 

Klara’s actress mentioned in an interview that we might change our perception of Klara’s character in season 2, so I assume we’ll feel bad for her now that she’s lost her friends and that she’ll get some kind of “mini” redemption arc.

I’ve watched this trailer so many times now that I’m out of things to say, but please send me asks/messages if you’d like to discuss more! I’m sure there are tons of things I’ve missed or haven’t thought of.

[aprofessionalprotagonist]

Red Wine, Morning Bread

Two ridiculously fluffy Hiccstrid scenes set over a decade apart. (Rated M cause it’s mostly kissing)

Hiccstrid are so much my OTP that they got me into fanfiction. Here is some ridiculously fluffy fluff.

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22721431

*****

Inspired by this poem, cause I’m a sucker for short poems that hit the feels.

A Decade

When you came, you were like red wine and honey,

And the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness.

Now you are like morning bread,

Smooth and pleasant.

I hardly taste you at all for I know your savour,

But I am completely nourished.

Amy Lowell, 1919

*****

Astrid sat on the edge of the landing platform, watching the last hints of light disappear under the horizon. Or rather she was staring at the horizon to avoid looking at Hiccup, because even though they’d kissed and his arm was around her shoulders and hers was around his waist, she had no idea what to do next. 

The whole blindness episode had escalated things between them. Her injury and sudden vulnerability led him to admit his feelings and almost kiss her, only to be interrupted by a dragon. (Of course) After she’d recovered, she’d pushed him on it. He’d finally made his move and kissed her.

Such a small kiss. He had placed his lips upon hers quite tenderly, sweetly, chastely even. And yet her heart was racing. It was different than all the times she'd kissed him. They were older. And he’d admitted to thinking about it a lot. (How had she not realized he thought about kissing her?) And it came on the heels of everything they’d said in the last few days. (There will always be a Hiccup and Astrid. Oh Freyja, she was done.) And it was <strong>him</strong> kissing her. It meant more than the quick pecks she’d given him. Her lips, her entire body even, tingled with lingering sensation and anticipation. She was terrified and excited. She wanted to run away and pull him close again all at the same time.

She shivered against him.

“It’s getting cold.” Hiccup whispered. “Should we go inside?”

She nodded, even though it wasn’t really the chill that had caused her to shiver.

They stood and Hiccup turned to go into the stables. Astrid took his hand and pulled softly. Without a word, not because she was that smooth, but because she still couldn’t articulate what she wanted, she started to walk the path to her hut. Hiccup stumbled once at the change of direction, then fell into step beside her. Trembling with a potent mix of anticipation and excitement and nerves, she opened the door to her hut and walked in. Hiccup hesitated at the doorway, but she pulled softly on his hand again.

Astrid finally found some words. “I want to kiss you some more.” She smiled up at him shyly, uncharacteristically unsure of herself. 

He grinned, big and goofy and melting her heart. 

He walked into the hut to take both her hands in his. They stood there for a moment, holding hands and smiling stupidly at each other.

“Well…” he said softly.

“Well, what?” She echoed.

He smirked, the earlier kiss and her words giving him some confidence. “I thought you wanted to kiss me.”

“I do.”

“So why don’t you?” 

He was teasing her, the arrogant little, ok tall now, ass. Astrid punched him in the shoulder. He jerked his hands away from hers to rub it, frowning and unsure of himself again. 

Astrid’s hand moved swiftly behind his head, pulling him down into a kiss. Deeper this time, lips parted slightly to enfold his. His hands came to her waist, pulling her closer. Her free hand came to his hip. Astrid’s lips felt hot, burning at the rush of new sensation. Wanting more. That burning was spreading to other parts as her body pressed close to his. A surge of bravery and desire led her hand on his hip to slowly work around to his back, driftly down until it lightly cupped his very firm backside. A backside she had been admiring for… well years to be honest. Ever since she had started to notice the very pleasant effects puberty and dragon riding had on Hiccup. She curled her fingers, enjoying the firm muscle in her palm.

Hiccup broke the kiss to look at her, raising an eyebrow. "Are you getting handsy?"

"Maybe?" She was blushing, not sure if she should be embarrassed, terrified she’d offended him. “Is that ok?”

“I like it.” He grinned at her … smugly?

And he was kissing her again, sweet and burning and intoxicating and she never wanted to stop.

*****

Astrid woke slowly with the morning sun warm on her face. 

Which was a rather odd occurrence. Usually, she woke up to a small human crashing into her room like a quaken. Usually it happened at a time that could only questionably be referred to as morning. 

Yet here she was. Morning sun on her face. Waking at her own pace. Quiet, save for the soft breathing of her husband. 

She’d been dreaming about that husband and the first time they’d really kissed. Touching her lips, she couldn’t help but smile at the memory. It had been awkward and thrilling and oh so wonderfully sweet. And over a decade ago.

Astrid rolled over and pressed her body against Hiccup’s back, throwing one arm across his bare chest. Her face burrowed into his neck, savoring his scent. Faint wood smoke with a bit of sweat, but not sour. So familiar, so like home, so hers. It was something she barely noticed anymore, so accustomed to his presence. But here, in this rare peaceful morning, she was overcome by gratitude that he was her partner. They had seen so much struggle and sorrow and triumph and joy together. 

She couldn’t resist planting a few gentle kisses along his neck and shoulder as her fingers caressed the light hair on his chest. He stirred a bit at her movement and pressed himself against her. Encouraged, she kissed and touched him with more fervor until he rolled to face her. His lips sought hers in a smooth, pleasant kiss. It was a kiss they’d shared thousands of times, and yet felt no less wonderful for its familiarity. Their lips moved effortlessly together, each anticipating the other’s moves. She no longer felt the intense burning and dizzy anticipation of their first kisses. It was now a slow building warmth, confident and comforting, but still passionate and satisfying.

“Good morning” Hiccup pressed his forehead against hers.

“Good morning indeed,” Astrid smiled and leaned into kiss him with increasing passion. 

Her hand wandered down his back to the waistband of his sleep pants. She had once told him that she would never sleep in clothes with him, but sleep clothes were a concession one had to make when small humans were known to arrive in one’s bed without warning.

With a little smirk, she dove her hand into the pants to grab at his firm backside, maybe not as firm as it had been a decade before when he rode a dragon all day, but pleasantly firm still.

“Milady!” Hiccup gasped with faked indignation. 

“What? You like it when I’m handsy.” She squeezed and pulled his hips close to hers.

“I do, but you know what happens when you get handsy in the morning.” His voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “The kids wake up. They can sense it.”

And, as if on cue, two sets of rapid footsteps sounded on the stairs. But instead of busting into their parents’ bedroom, they ran right past and into the kitchen.

Taking the slight reprieve she’d been given, Astrid kissed her husband deeply once again.

“Mo-om! Zephyr says I can’t have any of the berries!” Nuffink whined from the kitchen.

“Da-ad! I picked them! They’re mine!” Zephyr asserted.

“See. I blame your hands for this.” Hiccup winked at Astrid as he rolled out of the bed. Slipping on his tunic, he paused at the door. He gave her a long wistful look. “We’ll continue this tonight.”

Astrid stretched out in the bed, enjoying a few more moments of peace and feeling grateful for an amazing husband who rolled right out of bed to handle sibling squabbles.

Hiccup’s voice sounded from the kitchen. “No fighting over the berries. Or I’ll eat them all.”

“Da-ad!!!!!” The kids whined in unison. She heard thumps and grunts from the kids, knowing that Hiccup must be holding the bowl high above their heads as they jumped to reach it.

Astrid grinned. Gods, did she love that man.

[ettadunham]

A Buffy rewatch 7x13 The Killer in Me

aka i just want willow to be happy

We did it, guys! We made it to the last season! Also, hello if you’re new, and stumbled upon this without context. As usual, these impromptu text posts are the product of my fevered mind as I rant about the episode I just watched for an hour (okay, sometimes perhaps two). Anything goes!

And I have a lot of complicated feelings about today’s episode.

Killer in Me follows in the footsteps of Potential, taking a break from the Big Bad to focus more on some of our characters. It just does it with a somewhat more questionable execution.

And by questionable, I mean that I’m not actually sure how I feel about all of it. There’s a lot that I like here, and with the ending scene especially, I found that, overall, it worked.

You got me, show. I want Willow to be happy.

I earlier criticized Kennedy for being an under-developed love interest for Willow in the show’s last season (as opposed to Willow/Anya that was… right there, you guys, it was right there!!), but I can’t even pretend to be mad anymore. Ultimately, that’s not the point. Kennedy’s not the point. Willow not feeling constantly miserable for the rest of her life is.

And while the doomed relationships thing is basically a theme here, I think at this point the writers also became somewhat aware of the implications of having their one (canon) queer main character end the show on that note? I mean, it was 2003, we were still getting used to not connecting to the internet through dial-up, so there wasn’t as much uproar as you’d might expect today upon Tara’s death. But it still had an impact. This sort of meta acknowledgement would also coincide with having Rona earlier in the season comment upon how black women die first in movies – a trope that the show’s been obviously guilty of as well.

Not to mention that Kennedy was written with an effort to have her be more steeped in queer culture – something that the writers never really explored with Willow, and use Kennedy here to comment upon. But we’re also just talking about Willow’s experience and relationship to her sexuality in general, which is so nice???

Maybe if we’ve done this more and earlier, we wouldn’t have The Discourse in the first place…

I like the simplicity of it all too of what Willow says. She fell in love with Tara. That was it.

What makes the show strong, even when it might not be familiar with certain experiences, is that it knows its characters. That’s what they build upon with their themes too, and it’s what makes these stories work, regardless of anything else. So I like to think of this scene as a follow up on that, that also briefly ties into a greater context.

The part where Willow talks about her mom’s reaction to her coming out is also interesting, and something we’ve never discussed on the show before.

WILLOW:  “My mom was all proud like I was making some political statement. Then the statement mojo wore off and I was just gay. She hardly ever even met Tara.”

This isn’t all that surprising if one remembers Gingerbread though – Willow’s mom couldn’t even recall Buffy’s name. In season 3. So, of course she wouldn’t bother to get to know her daughter’s girlfriend of three years either.

Willow says that she didn’t mind though, saying that her and Tara were “private”. Which in a way is a callback to season 4, when Willow kept Tara and her relationship with her hidden from the Scoobies for months, saying that she wanted something that was only hers.

(“I am, you know.” “What?” “Yours.”)

But Willow eventually introduced Tara to her friends, and the latter became an integral part of their group. And yet when it came to her mom, she felt more comfortable with keeping these things separate.

…Or maybe it’s just that she felt distant from her mom in general, who never even tried to understand or connect with her.

In any case, Willow and Kennedy’s date ends up being surprisingly sweet. Especially when you consider that Kennedy essentially tricked Willow into the whole thing…

Anyway.

Let’s talk about Willow turning into Warren.

I think I already mentioned that there’s this possible interpretation of the Trio as a darker reflection of Willow in season 6, without getting too much into it.

I guess we’ll have to get into it now.

Let’s go back to the early seasons and Restless. What does Willow feel like her defining characteristic is at that time? What’s her greatest fear in college? How does she see herself even as late as season 6?

WILLOW:  “Let me tell you something about Willow. She's a loser. And she always has been. People picked on Willow in junior high school, high school, up until college. With her stupid mousy ways. And now? Willow's a junkie.”

Willow started out the show as a lonely nerd, who was motivated by wanting to be special and loved. Her and Warren were never the same, because Warren never had the self-awareness to temper his entitlement, but you can track some of the same patterns through both of them, coming from a similar place of insecurity. Like their need for control and power, and the lengths they’d go to maintain that.

And I think Willow had the self-awareness to recognize that. After all, that kind of ability of self-examination is one of the things that distances her from Warren in the first place. No wonder then that her subconscious chose this form of punishment for her upon Amy’s hex then.

The part that initially felt more clunky to me about this, was the misogynistic language. That was what signaled to us the fact that Willow wasn’t just simply appearing in Warren’s form, but was becoming him. And it felt decidedly extreme and non-Willow-y, and messed with the nuance of it all.

…Until I remembered the kind of language Willow would use in the earlier seasons to describe characters like Cordelia or Faith. It stuck out to me then as well, and in a sense, this detail now can be interpreted as a commentary on that, and Willow’s internalized misogyny.

But the crux of it all, the emotional gut-punch, ends up being about a whole different kind of connection that Willow feels to Warren.

Killing Tara.

WILLOW:  “No, she was never gone. She was with me. We should have been forever, and I let her be dead. She's really dead. And I killed her.”

Let 👏 Willow 👏 be 👏 happy 👏

See? There’s a lot of juicy stuff here to talk about and I love that. Not to mention that we finally embrace Amy as an Ethan Rayne-type of chaotic neutral villain foil to Willow, and it’s so good! So very good!

AMY:  “This is not about hate. It's about power. Willow always had all the power, long before she even knew what to do with it. Just came so easy for her. The rest of us, we had to work twice as hard to be half as good. But no one cares about how hard you work. They just care about cute, sweet Willow. They don't know how weak she is. She gave in to evil, stuff worse than I can even imagine. She almost destroyed the world! And yet everyone keeps on loving her? So what's wrong with having a little fun, huh? Taking her down a peg or two?”

It’s delicious. Even more delicious than the brownies Amy and Willow would bond over during Junior High.

On a less fun note, a lot of characters’ reaction to the idea that Willow would now be a boy is a bit… troubling. I’m not talking about the Scoobies here, who are mostly freaked out by the fact that it’s Warren, but things like the Wicca group’s reaction for instance. Like, they aren’t even reacting to the story of how Willow was hexed yet, they’re just being weird about the idea itself that someone they knew as a girl is now a boy. As if that was out of the realm of possibilities.

Meanwhile in one of our other side-stories, Spike’s chip is malfunctioning, so he and Buffy are trying to contact the Initiative to ask for their help (Sarah Michelle Gellar also lost her voice at some point it seems), and the rest of the gang think that Giles might be dead and the First, so they go on a road trip to investigate.

Overall, there’s plenty of flaws to be found with this episode. The themes of Willow turning into Warren don’t actually get fully explored, and scenes like Willow buying the gun are just super weird for it. Ideas like the fairytale kiss are just clunky. And yet, The Killer in Me also got to me, and provided me with tons of stuff to dissect.

So, much like with the Willow/Kennedy relationship, I can’t be too mad about it.

[thequlturecritic]

QULTURE’S TOP 20 SERIES OF 2018

20.  BUSY TONIGHT

You guys! Good energy is, like, totally in right now. And it’s never going away. You may know her from Freaks and Geeks, but I know her from Cougar Town as CC’s fun-loving, super-supportive sidekick. When you watch Busy Phillips on her cheeky, positive-vibes only E! talk show, a sense of “we’re all in this together” and “being kind to one another” is definitely a recipe for demolishing disaster. Remember how major Chelsea’s career became because of what so many probably considered a silly little talk show… well. I’m not a fortune teller or anything, but I could totally see Ms. Phillips taking over the universe. I want to be one of her minions. Cheers to another leading lady of late night! 

19. THE VOICE

I’ve always been anti-reality competition shows when it comes to singing, only because I’m a total snob when it comes to what I subject my ears to. My musical tastes are versed and varied, but I still am pretty picky about who I let in to my drums, mostly because I need it to stimulate an eargasm and coincide with my life’s soundtrack. When American Idol launched, I definitely was enamored with Kelly Clarkson’s powerful vocals, but I still kept the close mind that an artist is discovered naturally, not “created” by producers with the backdrop and illusion that AMERICA gets to vote and pick the winner. Ah, who knows, maybe they do… I would just never take the time out to vote. HOWEVER. When I found out Kelly was going to be a judge on The Voice, which is a whole separate animal than Idol, I was shitting my pants with glee, because she really is such a goddamn force of fucking nature. Her spirit is overwhelmingly angelic and I simply love everything about watching her. Last season’s competition was magical, at least for me, perhaps because it was the first time I really got to experience the message and place the show has in the universe. It really is inspiring and lovely to see how much these artists themselves care for the teams they build and the individuals they want to see grow – regardless of whether or not it leads to fame. Alicia Keys and Kelly Clarkson’s dynamic was really something special that inspired me in so many ways.

18. COMEDIANS IN CARS GETTING COFFEE

I love nothing more than a loose format, sans makeup, realistic conversation between famous people. Talk shows rock and all, but there’s something to be said for two people we all know and (often) admire, getting together and doing something that, ya know, regular people do! Like… go out to breakfast. I was never a fan of the Seinfeld sitcom, mostly because when it was popular it was kinda over my head and nothing that interested me. I’d probably be more inclined to watch and enjoy it now because of how much Veep has made me adore Julia-Louis Dreyfus and now much Jerry Seinfeld’s Netflix series about him… getting coffee… with comedians… has made me adore his admiration for vintage cars, honesty in humanity and one of the most important things we all seem to forget sometimes – which is to LAUGH! We live in such politically charged times, and while I get how important it is to talk about the very things we were always brainwashed to believe were impolite to talk about, we also need to be able to make jokes and not be so sensitive about everything. Ya heard?

17. AMERICA’S NEXT TOP MODEL

Oh how I love me some Tyra, but it seems the future is all about Ashley Graham. Yet again – another fucking beautiful superhuman. I am really starting to hate that people even think of someone as “plus size”, but hey, it’s the world we live in. All I see when I look at her is someone with a whole lot of personality, gorgeous features and a personality that you’d be crazy to not gravitate toward. She is living proof that good vibes, energy and kindness (in the fashion industry?! How dare you!) go a long way. Tyra and Co. are doing such a bang-up job sending young women empowering messages about feeling safe in their own skin by infusing all shapes, sizes, colors and archetypes. This cycle was full of hilarious moments and was totally unpredictable. Despite her Trump-loving, Republican ways and complaining about being transformed into a “fire-crotch”, I was rooting for Liberty, Rio and Jeana to compete in the Top 3. That certainly evolved as the season went on, mainly because Jeana’s insecurities were getting the best of her (she had alopecia and they convinced her to be the alien-like, bald beauty – which she looked 10X better as vs. wearing wigs) and Rio had the most off-putting temper tantrum that had me and my bestie Carlee yelling at the the TV, “Who da fuck you think you talkin’ to?!” as if we were speaking for Tyra. Be humble, girls! Beauty ain’t just skin deep. At the end of the day, I loved seeing Kyla take the crown, because her activism, big heart and growth really was something special at the end of the day. Keep up the good work! I want 1000 more cycles.

16. SWEETBITTER

Starz’s adaptation of the best-selling novel by Stephanie Danler is short, but bittersweet. Ella Purnell is a breakout star, headlining the cast of unknowns who are all as equally as fantastic. I think that’s one of my favorite things about it (Caitlin Fitzgerald, in particular, who definitely has that thing) – how naturally gifted the entire cast is. Purnell stars as Tess, an All-American girl from bumfuck who makes her way to New York City to chase the dream, even if she has no idea what it is yet. Any of you who have worked in the service industry as a waiter or waitress will appreciate the authenticity of how intimidating, grueling and chaotic the industry can be… but how much fun it can be once your shift is over.

15. MANIAC

What is Netflix’s limited, vivid, disturbing, funny, emotional rollercoaster about? My brain is exploding from trying to analyze. Typically, in each episode, I get so lost in the perfection that is Emma Stone, I’m completely enthralled by how inspiring it is to watch one of our most exceptional young talents only seem to get better and better. It’s also always a pleasant surprise to see someone like Jonah Hill continue to prove himself as truly versatile. Remember when these two were just getting into stoner cinema and taking over the shelves at Blockbuster, during their Superbad days? Justin Theroux, plus. Sally Field, super-plus. Julia Garner (also of Ozark), a star on the rise! It might make you feel a little crazy while watching, but hey, we all go a little mad sometimes.

14. SHARP OBJECTS

Gillian Flynn’s book to big screen success with Gone Girl made a lot of us anxious to see what would be translated next. Following the trend of mini-series, binge-worthy greatness and big stars coming to the “small” screen, HBO announced Amy Adams would star in Sharp Objects, a dark, sultry murder mystery set in the swampy south that co-stars the amazing Patricia Clarkson – one of my absolute favorite actors. I’ll never forget when I “discovered” her, in Lisa Cholodenko’s High Art, one of my all-time faves. There’s a similar hypnotism with the limited series which also features a deliciously naked Chris Messina, and, of course, the direction of the man I’d say is pretty much cinematic perfection these days – Jean Marc Valee. If you have not yet seen Dallas Buyers Club, and another all-time favorite of mine, Wild, you are missing out. I’m assuming you have watched all of Big Little Lies once or twice, and can’t wait for season two next year. Neither can I. These are the people doing AWESOME awesome things in Hollywood.

13. AMERICAN HORROR STORY: APOCALYPSE

So, I’m always back and forth with AHS. I always love how visually stunning it is, but some seasons either lack substance or are literally just too fucking freaky for me to engage. I can not even set my eyes on Freak Show, thought Cults was too gory and scattered (although fresh off of the Trump presidency was a possible prediction of the future if we don’t all get our shit together) and definitely didn’t even give that Roanoke one a chance. The first two seasons rocked, and Gaga slayed in Hotel, but being that I love witches (Hocus Pocus, Witches of Eastwick) I have to say Coven is my favorite season. I love every Farmiga in life, Precious’ Gaborey Sidibe always makes me laugh and Emma Roberts is a rock star. How gorgeous?! She’s also such a little asshole in the best way. She’s someone I can picture punching me in the face, and I’d invite her to. Apocalypse is the best infusion of boy/girl magic and the ultimate comradery casting wise – as what could make for a perfect finale for the series ties all of Ryan Murphy’s brilliance together. That’s just my opinion – because I think a great series needs to know when to wrap it up, but these days everything is all about milking everything to the last drop, so… idk.

12. THE CONNERS

Roseanne returning was definitely the best of the best in reboot land, until her big mouth got her fired from ABC and launched The Conners, which features the entire cast minus a dead mother. I still respect her as an artist and will always love when TV wasn’t so linked to the Twitterverse, but these days I guess everyone really does have to be super careful about the shit they say – especially when we should know better that racism isn’t cool. It’s such an odd thing, because Roseanne was always so controversial, brave with their material, and was one of the first shows to have an out lesbian comedian/actress and character (the great Sandra Bernhard)… so… idk. That Sarah Gilbert though… she’s somethin’ special.

11. THE GOOD PLACE

Kristen Bell!!!!!!! That’s all. Ok, well, that’s not all… because Ted Danson is equally as amazing. Who wouldn’t love someone married to a dame like Mary Steenburgen?! I’ve been a fan of his since Three Men (and a Little Lady!). The diversity, quick wit, modern spin on the classic sitcom and concept behind this hit NBC series reminds us of why the network is always killing it when it comes to delivering quality, quantity and maintaining its colorful edge. I’m surprised I didn’t get into this show when it premiered, as season 4 approaches and the Globes, and surely the Emmy’s now are getting into recognizing genius when they see it. This show is filled with all the good feels! Maybe Heaven really is a place on Earth.

10. WILL & GRACE

When the reboot of W&G first returned to NBC, I was a bit underwhelmed by some of the writing. It seemed forced and a bit insecure – but it just took a few episodes for them to really get back in the swing of things and season 2 of the return is really on point. Debra Messing is better than ever (congrats on a Globe nomination!), as are Eric, Megan and Sean Hayes – who I’ve always greatly admired because of, what I like to consider his “big break” – the film, Billy’s Hollywood Screen Kiss. Growing up gay, Will and Grace was a trailblazing, extremely important and relevant show to so many of us because there wasn’t much of that on TV. But I’ll always remember that adorable indie of Sean’s. He should make more movies! I love him in Pieces of April too!

9. I LOVE YOU AMERICA: with SARAH SILVERMAN

Sarah has always been my absolute favorite comedian. Jesus is Magic is probably one of the most brilliant stand-up comedy feature films I’ve ever seen (are there many of those) combining music, comedy, political satire, sexually inappropriate and explicit linguistics… nothing is off limits. From jokes about AIDS, Martin Luther King Jr. and the Holocaust, to her dead grandmother’s rape to pussy jokes about child lesbians she’s related to. On her new Hulu series, Silverman takes a tour of the great country we live in, United States of A, talking to Trump supporters, men and women of all colors, shapes and sizes and makes an honest, unbiased, non-judgmental effort to deliver an intellectual perspective on all things current and heated in the minds of many. I love her condescending approach, ability to keep her cool, remain true to herself and do something important with her career. It’s a humbled and divine dose of reality that I think we all need, as at the end of the day she’s basically trying to unite us and get people to understand that despite our differences, respect and kindness can truly inspire change.

8. POSE

First of all – watch Paris is Burning, if you’ve never seen it.

I remember when I worked for the super cool East-coast indie video chain, TLA Video, it was one of the most popular rentals in our Gay and Lesbian section, as it should be. It’s a classic documentary that captures the heart, sole and strut of African American LGBTQ culture during the AIDS epidemic, when being a queen and going to the balls would begin to define what FIERCE meant for a generation. (Play: Azealia Banks, Fierce). It’s one of RuPaul’s favorite movies and certainly inspiration for Ryan Murphy’s vivid and heartfelt FX series starring Evan Peters, James Van Der Beek, Kate Mara and a wonderful assortment of newcomers including the fetch, fierce, versatile and gorgeous MJ Rodriguez, Dominique Jackson and (MY FAVE) Indya Moore.

7. CAMPING

Ever since 13 Going on 30, I’ve known Jennifer Garner was a unicorn. She has that innate ability to charm, impress and entertain us with charisma and natural comedic talent. When it comes to the American adaptation of the Brit series Camping, developed for HBO (in part with Girls’ master Lena Dunham), the team surely arranged the most perfect blend of talent for both behind and in front of the camera. Garner brings the most complicated and hilarious nuances to her character and proves she is more than capable of leading a most diverse and perfectly perfect blend of talent.

6. OZARK

Janet McTeer!! OMG! This woman is amazing and really the force that makes the sophomore season of the hit Netflix drug smuggling/money laundering/gangsta livin’ series all the more bombastic. Sure, Jason Bateman continues to be awesome in every way, but the women on the latest season (even the creepy old meth lady who wants a baby at 99) really slay and own the show, keeping us on the edges of our seats and beyond impressed with how hard anyone with a vagina is proving that they are taking over the world these days. As if we needed more reasons to be obsessed with Laura Linney – she takes her character to new heights, getting more screen time and really being thrust into a more evolved dynamic – sort of how Robin Wright does on House of Cards. As though the audience was more drawn to the female than the male lead the series was built around. But Janet McTeer?! Holy fuck, Janet McTeer. She’ll make your skin crawl and keep you up at night… binge-watching.

5. THE AFFAIR

Showtime’s scandalous, suspenseful and intricate portrait of love, marriage and infidelity has been one of my must-see series since its debut. The entire cast is pure magic, especially the four leads – Dominic West, Ruth Wilson, Maura Tierney and Joshua Jackson. I’m constantly lobbying for Tierney, who continues to blow my mind with everything from those perfect, pouty lips to the way she can make my heart melt with a single tear. Last season, the twists and turns were so unexpected – something so refreshing these days when it comes to storytelling – that none of us could’ve ever seen coming what we now have to go into season five knowing (and grieving with, in my case). This is one of of those shows that stands tall from start to finish, and continues to inspire the way character and perspective is conveyed, as well as how we process it ourselves as an audience. I’ve always been fascinated by the same story being told through different goggles – kind of like in The Rules of Attraction, or Go. I can’t wait to see how this show wraps up, as I am pretty certain we move into the final act, which in itself is always a great quality for a series to know when to wrap it up.

4. HERE & NOW

Alan Ball, oh how I love thee. In the evidence of his brilliance, my affection toward Ball’s beautiful writing and ability to conduct such a beautiful cinematic symphony began with Six Feet Under, as it did most. If ever there were a perfect start to finish series… Rare is the artistic bird who can take such a celebrated drama and weave the social and political issues into a horror series – which is what he did with the addictive True Blood, a show that I would find myself equally hypnotized and aroused by. Ball’s latest gem is yet again a celebration of why we love HBO, his observant mind and heart, and ability to recognize genius when he sees it, in regard to casting. The always wonderful Holly Hunter and Tim Robbins headline a cast of brave, beautiful talents – including the tiny miracle that is the birth-child of Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon, Sosie, who is one of my favorite actors/characters in this captivating new drama that celebrates all the feels of our current reality. It’s a mixed blend of understanding the human condition and how people of all walks relate to one another while truggling with matters of the heart and psychological warfare.

3. RUPAUL’S DRAG RACE

For ten seasons now, Queen of Drag, RuPaul Charles has been taking her dynasty and giving it a royal upgrade every season with eye-popping elements that consistently allow this groundbreaking competition series to be one of queer and pop culture’s most celebrated. From the guest judges (Season X premiered with a Farrah Moan-esque Christina Aguilera dolled up for all the queens to gag over, which they did – myself included) to Michelle Visage’s dazzling eyewear collection to the costumes to the casting and the challenges – which get more and more innovative – Rupaul’s Drag Race has become a small empire that has the promise to spinning into so many different types of series and assure celebrity drag careers are a thing of the future, now more than ever. I loved the queens this season, especially my future husband Kameron Michaels (beautiful inside and out, boy or girl) and the well-deserved winner Aquaria. This was the second season in a row for me (I haven’t seen a lot of the previous seasons) where Ru got it absolutely perfect. I’m also a huge fan of Vice’s The Trixie and Katya Show which you should get into as well!

2. THE MARVELOUS MRS. MAISEL

All of the hype surrounding the Golden Globe & Emmy winning Amazon Prime series starring the incomparable Rachel Brosnahan as Mrs. Maisel, is the type of perfection that isn’t all-talk. Everything you’ve heard about this hilarious gem of a binge-worthy comedy is true: the costumes, the production design, the brilliant performances, directing and top-notch writing is on trend with celebrating everything we love about women in the world right now, and the time capsule reminds us of how far everyone has come marching to the beat of optimism and fighting for equality. I’m so happy the great Alex Borstein has been honored and been receiving praise for her work, and rightfully so, as she steals scenes from the great Maisel herself in the latest season. It’s truly one of the best watches out there, so get into it!

1. SCHITT’S CREEK

What started out as a little Canadian sitcom from a then unknown Pop TV, has since become a pop culture phenomenon and one of the small screen’s most celebrated, quoted and adored comedies out there. In Season four, we continue to follow the Rose’s on their journey of personal growth, going from riches to rags in a small bumfuck town where they clearly stick out like a redneck tooth fairy for plenty of good reasons. We already knew Catherine O’Hara and Eugene Levy were totes brilliant, but every season I grow more and more enamored with how crazy talented Dan Levy & Annie Murphy are. Their nuances, the way the arcs of their characters have evolved… it’s like their learning from two comic legends and its working for them every step of the way. This is truly already an iconic, feel good show that is spreading such messages of love and beauty throughout society. Loves it!

[aion-rsa]

How HBO’s The Nevers Explores a Very Different Vision of Victorian Girl Power

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This article contains spoilers for THE NEVERS episode 3.

On paper, the idea of a steampunk superhero show that mixes period-set grittiness with ladies punching things seems like it should be a slam dunk. After all, most narratives about people gifted with sudden superhuman abilities are really just stories about power in fancier than usual dress. Shows like these examine who traditionally possesses power, who is allowed to wield it, how it is often used to prop up the privileged that already have it.

And where better to explore these issues than Victorian England? The foggy nineteenth-century streets of London work so well as a frequent backdrop for stories that explore magic or other otherworldly themes – think Penny Dreadful, The Irregulars, and Carnival Row – precisely because this is such a fascinating, specific time of transformation. Innovation spreads through the worlds of science and industry at a speed that often feels indistinguishable from magic. And despite the strict, traditional societal limitations imposed on the female populace, a woman sits on the throne of England and rules in her own right. Surely anything is possible – or should be.

That’s part of the appeal baked into the premise of HBO’s The Nevers, a story of a gang of (mostly) misfit Victorian women who acquire strange abilities thanks to a mysterious celestial event. In theory, or at least so this sort of trope usually goes, these women – marginalized and undervalued by the society they live in – gain the agency and freedom that has otherwise been denied to them thanks to their special gifts. 

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In actuality, The Nevers turns out to be something much more complicated and uncomfortable. (And not always in a good way.) Part of that is due to the generally icky feeling that the involvement of known dirtbag Joss Whedon leaves hanging over proceedings – and whether we like it or not his voice is glaringly apparent in these early episodes – but it’s also because The Nevers refuses to take the easy way out when it comes to its heroes, admitting from the jump that, for a lot of these women, just because they’re suddenly special, it doesn’t mean their lives are any easier.

If we’re honest, what most of us want when we look at The Nevers is a show where a marginalized and perennially disadvantaged group of people get their own power back, where women are given the ability to stand up against those who oppress them and literally fight the patriarchy. And though what we’re getting definitely includes a variety of scenes in which lead character – and primary wrangler of the Touched – Amalia True (Laura Donnelly) gleefully punches people, The Nevers never pretends that achieving women’s empowerment by way of giving female characters literal powers is a panacea for a world so thoroughly steeped in misogyny.

Read more

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One of the most interesting – or frustrating, depending on how you view this twist – aspects of The Nevers is that while the Touched are all given a variety of special abilities, most of their “turns” are actually kind of lame. Amalia can see the future – sort of – but her “ripplings” come in random spurts and feature brief snippets that are most easily recognizable after they’ve already happened. Her partner Penance Adair’s (Ann Skelly) ability to see potential energy helps her build cool gadgets, but it’s hardly what you might call an especially active or splashy ability. I mean, I guess she invented the electric car? So that’s cool, I guess. But I still can’t tell you what’s up with the villainous Maladie’s (Amy Manson) powers, though they appear to be tied up in her experience of pain if the fact that her eyes glow gold whenever she’s repeatedly physically harmed is anything to go by. (Yikes?) 

One young Touched girl becomes a polyglot, another grows to giant size, and both are powers that turn out to be awkward and limiting more than anything else. (Where are they finding these supersized dresses anyway?) For every Bonfire Annie (Rochelle Neil) who can literally generate flame, there’s a Mary Brighton (Eleanor Tomlinson), whose magical song is so specialized only a particular group of people can hear it and none of them know what it actually says.

Why give women power like this, if it’s not going to be the kind that can really change their lives? If all it achieves for many of them is a life of greater persecution, more pain, or even further degradation? Or if their powers, like Lucy Best’s ability to break the things she touches, kill a loved one by accident?

The Nevers seems to hint that the answer lies not in the individual abilities of the titular women but their collective togetherness and understanding of what it means to be other. Despite the fact that the Victorian era meant important progress for many people on many different fronts, women weren’t generally part of those groups. Yes, a woman’s on the throne of England for the first time in a century, but Victorian morality was highly repressive and a gulf of inequality separated both rich from poor and men from women. It’s not an accident that the show keeps pointing out that no one of “status” was gifted with Touched powers, nor that many of the residents who seek refuge in Amalia’s orphanage are also those who were already persecuted or discriminated against in some way. 

In many (most?) other superhero stories, those who are gifted with special abilities tend to already exist in a space where power is familiar to them – Bruce Wayne, Tony Stark, and Charles Xavier are all already rich long before they become heroes. But The Nevers specifically elevates those for whom that position would be most alien and, in doing so, asks us to imagine a very different type of Victorian power structure. One that has space for the poor, for women of color, for sex workers, for immigrants, for those traditionally deemed hysterical or freaks.

The shockingly brutal murder of Mary, a kind young woman who tries to literally pull the Touched together with her song, reveals that there are plenty of elements in this new world that look uncomfortably and horrifyingly similar to the old one. But the aftermath of her death not only serves as the catalyst to bring dozens of Touched women out of the shadows, but it also makes them all just a little bit less helpless than they were before – by uniting them as a group. Granted, they’re unlikely to form a Victorian X-Men with matching corseted uniforms anytime soon, but Amalia, Penance, and the rest are certainly on the road to becoming something greater together than the pitiable unfortunates Lavinia Bidlow trots out to entertain tea party guests.

What that will ultimately look like and how this group will choose to deploy their powers to protect and help their own is anyone’s guess. But whatever happens, The Nevers seems uniquely positioned to explore a radically different interpretation of what having superpowers could mean – for those who’ve never had much of anything at all before. 

The post How HBO’s The Nevers Explores a Very Different Vision of Victorian Girl Power appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[milquetoast-on-acid]

Sanctuary City p2, A Reactionary Post

Lacking Faith

Major Crimes, S6xE2: Episode Review What this episode is about: Provenza's Printer Pricing & Prickly Page & Knowledgeable Nolan The Question of Father Jonas' Guilt Rusty goes to Stepdad Looming threat of Stroh Sharon's Office & Fish Art Two Mothers The Morgue & The Church: Sharon and Sarah Fire & Water: Dealing with our emotions Sarah & Mateo Garza Sharon & Andy Conflicting Missions Sharon & Father Stan The Ending Scene(s)

I really enjoyed this episode, more so than the first part. I see the first part as exposition and this part as the start of the emotional meat to the episodic arc. There is a lot to unpack in this episode but it's focus is on emotions this time.

Hyphenated Nation: Mike Pointing out the Hypocrisy in people Mike gives me life. I love it when he points out hypocrasy in people. "What about Irish American's or German Americans?" "Doesn't seem to come up."

"Michael" I don't know why but hearing Provenza shout out Mike's full name gives me life. When the team serves the search warrant at Ian’s house. Like when have we heard anyone call him Micheal? About as rare as we hear Louie, Andrew, Francis, Fernando and Russell. Page punching Ian was pretty badass, though. 

The News Vultures Can I love how each of the news casters have their own spin on what's going on since the police haven't released any information on the Joseph's three.

This one is obviously Fox news.

Sanctuary City I love when Sharon lits into Vega and gets on her soap box. Love the rant so much. Her pointing out that them threatening deportation is going to get them no where. 

"I'm not giving up my jurisdictional authority over this case without cause." Sharon was not happy when Mason negotiated their case over to the FBI if it was a kidnapping. If it does end up coming to that you can bet damn sure that Sharon is going to fight tooth and nail for it back.

Provenza's Printer Pricing & Prickly Page & Knowledgeable Nolan

Last week I thought that the printer was new because I had thought it was white. And then this episode went and proved that was not the case. "Look you just have to do it." I love how, Wes doesn't even know why everyone has to pay Provenza to use his printer.  And takes the moment to tell Page about everyone's various quirks and how to work around them. Not that he can understand why they are the way they are. He has just learned to go with the flow - so to speak. He does get a bit snarky when he tells Page she really shouldn't interrupt Sharon.

Question: Does Page only express one emotion? Why does she always have this dower look on her face?

"This is a new federal tax." This scene reminds of when Provenza made Taylor pay ten cents a page instead of five cents. And as everyone knows five cents is the friends and family discount. Except here he's really pushing the price up really high for the feds.

Mason as a Leader "Commander Raydor leads or we go our separate ways. The End." I love this and another comparison to Taylor. I don't think I would have ever seen this much support for Sharon (as a leader) in Taylor. Taylor usually humors the FBI but didn't ever put his foot down quite like this. "Uh ever hear of money laundering?" "Uh ever hear of house flipping?" I do love this moment of the FBI thinking they found some really good information only having it turn out that it was just how the couple made their money.

The Hollywood Strangler Buzz is really terrible at coming up with an on the spot story. And I can't believe the FBI actually bought it.  And I wish Andy would have given one of the FBI agent's the cursed desk.

The Question of Father Jonas' Guilt I wasn't so convinced about about Father Jonas in the last episode but now he's looking very suspicious. Especially with him flying the coop right as the kid he had so much feeling for was found dead and they hadn't even determined if he'd been killed or not. Especially since Father Jonas is someone the kids would go with willingly and would definitely be someone who'd leave Lucas at the church. Not to mention him moving to five different diocese in six years. Some things that could be alarming... "Ryan is not interested in Kelly Garret that I can promise you." "My bond with Ryan is more intense." Both statements sound soo creepy.

"This is exactly the ending I want to avoid." Father Jonas is kind of stuck in the 50's. And as much as I want to blame Provenza, Wes and Page for their pushy interrogation. I have to put some of the blame at Sharon's feet. They are the wrong detectives to interrogate him. I would have sent either, Mike, Amy or Buzz in there. The three of them have a much gentler touch that was needed for him. Provenza hates the Catholic church, Page doesn't know subtly if it hit her in the head and Wes is a bit of a snark king.

While everyone is preoccupied with Ma Garza's explosion over the death of her son. It seems that everyone is missing the most important thing that's happening at that moment. Father Jonas seems just a little too close to Miss Rojas. "So Ryan didn't do it. Thank God." Sounds like she inadvertently told the cops that Ryan killed his step father.

Rusty goes to Step Dad "Why ask me about a gun instead of Sharon?" The answer to that question is that Rusty knows exactly what he's doing. And knows that he's got a much better chance of getting the gun and a concealed permit by speaking to Andy first. This way Rusty has someone else on his side about getting the gun. If Rusty were to go to Sharon first she'd be much more likely to say no. He's got someone as a buffer to Sharon and that will help soften the blow for him. And I also love Andy's reaction. "What!" "At least your not completely crazy." "Oh my god."

Looming threat of Stroh

Sharon's Fish Artwork and her Office

In my review of pt1 I talked about one of the kid's book Moby Dick that Sharon had on her desk and how that symbolizes Stroh and Sharon's relationship. Sharon's new artwork on her walls. One of the paintings is of a giant whale being caught by a tiny fishermen. MC is very deliberate with it's details this not a coincidence. Especially considering this really isn't the kind of artwork you would think Sharon would have. It isn't anything like any of her other artwork. And when has she ever talked about her love of fishing?

Not to mention that since Sharon's office has blown up all of her furniture and artwork is completely new. Her furniture is very sixties vintage looking to me. While the condo might have a touch of that this it's much more so prevalent here. I also really like the colors they choose. Lots of soft blues and a few splashes of bright yellow. Blue is a very calming color and Sharon would want to feel comfortable in her office. A space that's a home away from home to her. The yellow gives it a bright vibrancy to the room but there's only a small touch of it. To the point that it wouldn't overwhelm you, it's an inviting room. 

Andrea Hobbs and her slightly awkward speech about her feelings on Rusty Can we talk about how awesome this little speech Andrea gives Rusty. Her I didn't like you because I don't like kids and you were annoying but now you're an adult and mostly have out grown that annoying. Is pure awesome. And I love how she gives this speech because it's her worrying over him because he doesn't want protection. 

I don't understand why Sharon doesn't compromise. She loves making deals. I could see her making a deal with Rusty. He can get a gun and a CPL if he accepts undercover officers. And I am kind of surprised that Sharon didn't put her foot down more about the protection. I get that it's been a few years since Stroh was around - but this is Sharon we're talking about. She knows how to negotiate. I think the only thing I can think of is that...

1. Rusty is older and wiser. Rusty has grown up since season 3. He's not the same person he was before and he's not as naive as once he was. 

2. Sharon ordered undercover officers without Rusty knowledge and she saw the effects of that from a different perspective. And how something like a mother's obsessive protectiveness ended up putting a wedge between a mother and her child. 

3. Rusty is an adult. Who is capable of making his own decisions. 4. If he doesn't accept police protection he's going to need some kind of way to defend himself. 

5. Seeing that Lucas died because he didn't have access to food or his insulin. Prompts Sharon into thinking that Rusty should have a gun. In case he's separated from Protection. And this sound an awful lot like foreshadowing to me. 

Wait...Is Rusty tracking Stroh's kills? huh....why?

Shooting Range Seeing Sharon load a gun is such a contrast to Rusty firing the gun. She's instructing him but all the while she's completely focused on the gun. Rusty's confidence isn't his problem but focus might be. He certainly needs a lot of practice that's for sure.

Fire & Water: Dealing with our emotions

Sarah & Mateo Garza

This arc really seems to make a huge point in the way that Sarah deals with her emotions and grief verses the way Mateo deals with them. Sarah is volatile and angry. She feels her emotions very intensely and often lets them control her. Look at how she explodes with anger at everyone closest to her when confronted about her sons death. Her husband, priest and her son's closest friend's parents. When the search warrant is executed at their house in part one. That's the first time we get some intense emotions coming off of her. She explodes with anger at Mateo, yelling at him. Which gives the detectives a sense that there are some real problems in their marriage. 

Mateo on the other hand doesn't deal with his emotions at all. He's intensely repressed. It's not that he doesn't feel the same emotions. In fact I may argue he may feel them more intensely which may explain why he's an addict. He doesn't want to feel them. He doesn't want to feel out of control. Especially his behavior at the morgue. He was so numb almost like a walking corpse. The way he talked about his son, about how they removed his organs and stitched his body back up. In such a clinical detached way almost like he was talking about a doll or a car. 

I find it interesting that these two are married, yet so very different. It's obvious that things aren't rosy between the two of them. There's so much going on with Mateo that he's not dealing with and may even feel that he needs to hold it together to deal with Sara's volatile moods. They are such a spot light in these episodes with their emotions and the way the deal with them that they are most definitely a mirror to...

Sharon & Andy Sharon and Andy are two very different people. Something all of us fans know very well. Like Sarah Garza, Andy is an intense ball of emotions. He feels and acts first and thinks second. There have been many times when Sharon (most often) has had to hold Andy back from his emotions. Like in "Heart Failure" when the killer punched Sharon in the face. Sharon had to yell at Andy to defuse his emotions. Like Mateo, Andy is also an addict. Fortunately for Andy, he's sober and clear enough to feel his emotions. 

Since we really don't know what it was that caused Andy to drink so heavily. I suspect that it was a combination of different things. The stuff that you see as a cop could drive anyone to drink. And since Andy feels his emotions so deeply there might not have been anyone he could have talked to about them. It was also suggested in "The Ecstasy and The Agony" that Andy may have drunk because their was an emptiness inside of himself that he was desperately trying to fill. 

Sharon is much like Mateo Garza. Repressed and reserved. She feels emotions quite deeply but does not express them very easily. She takes her time in dealing with her emotions, usually by herself. Sharon is similar to Mateo in another way in that she desperately does not want to feel out of control. She has a hugely hard time feeling vulnerable in front of others. So much like the way she dealt with shooting Dwight Darnell. She detached herself from her own emotions. She was cold, probably more cold than we'd ever seen her. It's a defense mechanism for her, in that she's trying to protect herself from the intensity of her feelings. 

Unlike, Sarah and Mateo. Sharon and Andy have a much healthier relationship. They have managed to balance themselves out with the other. In a way that I can't see Sarah and Mateo ever getting to. Sharon is still Sharon and Andy is still Andy but the two of them are better people for having been in a relationship with the other. 

Andy has his anger issues but he's become a much calmer person that he was before. A lot of that has to do with his own work on himself and a lot of that has to do with his relationship with Sharon. And how her calm personality and influence temper the flame inside of himself. Like wise with Sharon. She's still very reserved and always will be but not like she was before. Andy's bright and passionate personality has helped to push Sharon much more out of her shell. She is able to enjoy life more now that she has a supportive partner.

Two Mothers

The Morgue & The Church: Sharon and Sarah

The way the morgue was lit and shot. Felt like another funeral scene. The stark colors, the natural light. The organ/funeral music that has played very subtly throughout both parts. I don't think we've had music quite like that on MC ever before. Most of it's pretty standard stuff so to me to have it so tailor made for an arc is something that stands out. 

The morgue scene is very similar in tone and the way it's shot to the ending of part 1. But where's the church scene focused on Sharon's emotions. The morgue focus' on Sarah's emotions. Lucas' mother.

Conflicting missions

Sharon & Father Stan

Anyone find it odd that Father Jonas Alcaraz has a full name but Father Stan is just called Father Stan. And I don't even know if that's his first name or last name. Maybe Father Stan has only one name. You know like Cher. 

"Are you suggesting are mission's conflict?" I also really like how Sharon talks to Father Stan in her office. Notice that she doesn't take him to her conference room or an interrogation room, the break-room or the murder room. It's her office she talks to him. Why? Because it's her inner sanctum and the place she feels most comfortable. Her office really represents her heart. 

Sharon bares her soul to him. Sometimes in matters that even Andy doesn't know or understand (as we have seen in White Lies). Father Stan is one of the very few people that she trusts to be open and vulnerable with. So got to be extremely troubling for her to find herself on the opposite side of him. 

Sharon being pulled in two different directions by challenging her faith in the catholic church verse her belief in the justice system. Is about a million times more interesting of an arc for her than her being sick. I am so jazzed about the next few episodes and seeing how she's going to have to struggle in dealing with being on the opposite side of her priest/church. This is a position that she never expected that she would ever be in but somehow has found her way to. She has dealt with the church before but this is different because this is not just any church and not just any priest. 

Speaking of Sharon being sick....whatever happened to that storyline? It's such a odd thing for them to subtly hint about it in pt1 and not doing anything with it in pt2.

I love how Sharon speaks to Father Stan after Father Jonas leaves their interrogation. Almost like she's talking to a little boy and leaving out the part that they pissed him off. I mean I understand what she was trying to do. Trying to talk it down and smooth some edges before he hears Father Jonas' side of the story.

Unfortunately for her it doesn't work. 

"We have nothing to hide." Father Stan goes from being open and very cooperative in the beginning of the episode. But by the end of the episode only a court order will force him to let the police into the church's private rooms. I find it interesting that he tells Sharon that there's no need for them to have a search warrant but he won't let them in. Neither did he tell them that Father Jonas had left until Sharon asked him. He knew what they were there for. And I understand his need to protect him but if Father Jonas hurt those boys he needs to answer for it. And While I don't think it was Father Jonas that took the boys I do think he it very likely he was molesting Ryan. 

It's also interesting that since Sharon is so open to Father Stan with herself and her own heart. He's not as reciprocal when it becomes too tough for himself. And by that I mean his emotions regarding Father Jonas. Sharon let him into her heart and now he won’t let Sharon into his. 

The ending scene(s)

I really really love what their doing for the Sanctuary City arc. The first two episodes and I'm guessing their going to continue doing this throughout the arc. Each ending scene is an poignant moment for Sharon. Part 1 features a Sharon who is almost blown away by the death of a child. To the point where she had to take a moment for herself before she broke down in front of her team. Part 2 features Sharon as she has to battle her own priest for access to a potential suspects room. And if we want to boil down the emotions that Sharon expresses in each scene. It would be...

Sadness (or depression) Anger

Could each episodes's ending express a different emotion in the stages of grief? Interestingly there are five of them and their are five episodes in this arc. Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. 

I don't know if I'm reading too much into it but I think it would be kind of cool if they did that. What is becoming clear is that Sharon is at the focus of these very poignant scenes. And do you know how much I love that!

Speculation: Let's gather what we do know. Lucas may not have been murdered and his death looks like the result of him not getting insulin to treat his diabetes. He did not have access to food or was not allowed to have any. He was left at the church, wrapped in a blanket and left on the flower bed. The boys were not coherst into the car that drove them away from the field trip.  All three boys had family issues. Two with father issues and one with the looming threat of deportation. Father Jonas Alcaraz left in the middle of the missing boys not being found. 

What does this information tell us? The person who took them was someone they knew and trusted. The person who dumped Lucas' body cared about him. Probably someone with a connection to the church. Like a member of the church or one of the parents. 

Which makes me think definitely not Marvin Garret or Ryan's father. Both of them wouldn't think twice about putting Lucas' body at the church. Garret wouldn't care where he would have left his body and Ian doesn't have enough care for Lucas to put his body there. My new suspect, Ryan's mother. Miss Rojas.

What I don't like: Lots of over acting. While I like the contrasting between the two parents, Sarah's extreme emotional outbursts verses Mateo's calm almost corpse like manner. And I talk about the reason why their portrayed the way they are but Sarah was just was just too over the top. If they could have held her back a bit on that I think she would have nailed it. I think for the case with The Garza’s mirroring Shandy the point could have gotten across the same but with more subtly. I'm all for annoying FBI agents doing their job in a shitty way and MC walking all over them. But the two of them are written so brusque that they could be scaled back a bit too. 

the face of crazy

What I do like: Sharon getting an emotional arc! Sharon battling her own priest in her own church. Makes it so intensely personal for her and I love it so much! The Garza's as a mirror for Sharon and Andy's relationship. The ending scene, the morgue scene. Rusty going to Andy about a gun. Because he's smart and also because fathership. Every time I view this episode I like it more and more. And I am really excited to see how the rest of this arc is going to play out and what it will ultimately do to Sharon's psyche.

[keyofjetwolf]

Jet Wolf Summarizes Act 41

The manga and I kind of hate each other. This is unfortunate, but still, I’m determined to come out of this with something. Rather than spend energy on a liveblog that’s increasingly negative, I’m reading each manga act (mostly) silently, and then writing up summaries at the end. I won’t pull my punches. There’s going to be criticism and snark about the manga, either wholesale or in details. If that isn’t a thing you feel like reading, please skip this post!

Rei gets a chapter! I NOW KNOW TRUE FEAR. My nights are still haunted by the spectre known as “Casablanca Memories”. I’m in no rush to compound the screams.

So we start with Pegasus! Ah yes. I feel better already.

Chibi-Usa is tearfully running away after her last encounter with Pegasus, proving once again that she’s the most relatable character in the entire manga. She admits she feels bad for running, but she just couldn’t handle how Usagi was so much better than her. She doesn’t add “and gets everything while I don’t even have my own name or Senshi title or fucking BIRTHDAY”, but that’s okay, I thought it for her. Chibs wishes she could be the one to help Pegasus, and I just want to reach through the pages and be “Oh, honey. No you don’t.”

This seems the perfect time for everything to get really creepy! Pegasus shows up and kisses her in her moment of existential child angst. Ew, right? Oh no, it’s okay, because mid-kiss, he turns into a 10,000 year old teenage boy! IT’S TOTALLY LESS CREEPY NOW.

WHAT ARE YOUR HANDS WHAT ARE THEY DOING WHY AM I HAVING TO LOOK AT THEM AND POSE THESE QUESTIONS. He says he’ll still come see Chibi-Usa all the time. HOW COMFORTING

Pegasus is also still captive though, and Nehellenia taunts him. She never petulantly smacks his cage, however, and I feel this is a missed opportunity.

Blah blah bad guy stuff.

At TA, Rei is practicing archery.

Because she doesn’t get a bullseye, the instructor is “Holy shit, Hino, what the fuck?” to which Rei doesn’t reply “YOU DEIGN TO SPEAK TO ME MALE I WILL SHOOT OFF YOUR TESTICLES AND WEAR THEM AS EARRINGS”, but I think we all know that was in her heart.

Turns out Rei really is distracted though. There’s all this Senshi shit, plus her grandpa is sick, so she has to step it up at the Shrine, and hey, wasn’t this the background set up for Episode 30? She refuses to hire any help for the most glorious of reasons, so Minako suggests Rei get married instead for free slave labour.

Finally, someone’s talking sense.

Before Minako can offer herself as son-in-law, the plot deliverers cats show up and order everyone to the Dead Moon Circus to investigate. Rei checks in on grandpa first, giving him the opportunity to lay down some context for the events to come because gods know there was no possible opportunity to consider building these characters in the forty issues leading up to this.

Rei thinks about her future, wanting nothing more than to stay at the shrine. Grandpa watched episode 152 and feels differently. Also, in flashback, we see Rei naming Phobos and Deimos after two seconds at Hikawa. THIS IS THE THIRD SCENE WITH THE CROWS TODAY GOSH I WONDER IF THEY AND THEIR CONNECTION TO REI WILL BECOME STARTLINGLY RELEVANT LATER

At the circus, they discover that front row seats are a hundred bucks a pop and-- NO NO “AND” WHAT THE SHIT THIS IS THE MOST RIDICULOUS YOU NEED PEOPLE TO POWER UP YOUR DOOMAFLITCHY WHOSITS THING AND CONQUER THE WORLD WHY DO YOU ALSO NEED CASH YOU’RE AN IDIOT ZIRCONIA

They all split up to look around, by which I mean Usagi, Mamoru, and Chibs shed the dead weight as quickly as fucking possible. Rei gets distracted and also leaves the others, captivated by the Mirror Funhouse. She goes inside and the door disappears behind her. Phobos and Deimos are not happy. DID I MENTION THEY’RE HERE TOO I KNOW THIS WAS IMPOSSIBLE TO FORESEE

The others meet back up before the show’s going to start. They notice the cats are missing before they notice Rei, but when they DO notice, they also don’t give a shit, which I think seems like a totally reasonable course of action when you’re infiltrating a suspected enemy lair and one of your friends disappears. THERE MAY BE ACROBATS INSIDE YOU GUYS FUCK REI. The show starts to get weird though, and Mamoru notices there’s no way out. I too feel this way when you’re on-panel, Mamoru.

Meanwhile Rei wanders through the mirrors when they begin to “reflect [her] true self”, a disembodied narrative voice tells her and us.

Neither of you are yelling at the other for asking stupid questions, so I frankly don’t think EITHER of you are you.

“Rei Hino, this is your life!” littler Rei says, mentioning how her mother died and her father was a fucking asshole, and Rei’s never felt happiness despite wanting to. Her friends take advantage of her, Little Rei says, and she’d be better off making out with Tiger’s Eye.

REALLY THAT’S THE CONCLUSION REACHED

LET THIS BE A LESSON TO YOU KIDS: IT CAN ALWAYS GET WORSE

Rei snaps out of it and ofudas him though, turning him back into a tiger, but that only makes PallaPalla pour on the magic. PallaPalla hates narrative convenience. They renew the marriage angle, and I have to admit that I enjoy the purity of Rei’s response.

“THIS IS BULLSHIT AND I WILL BURNING MANDALA MY WAY OUT OF HERE”

It doesn’t work though and she ... faints or gets a power backlash or knocks herself out by walking into a mirror. It’s unclear. She’s down though, and PallaPalla’s like “YOU’RE A TIGER SO EAT HER”, and honestly this is the most direct and efficient I think a Sailor Moon villain has ever been.

Meanwhile, the cats are pouting (they weren’t allowed in the big top) and notice Phobos and Deimos are losing their shit. “Huh, weird! Oh well,” say the cats. “CAW CAW MOTHERFUCKER” say the crows, and they divebomb the funhouse, busting through the roof and then turning into Archangel from X-Men for a minute as they fling their feathers like fucking shuriken and impale Tiger’s Eye. Hey, so, uh, you guys remind me to not forget to put food out for the crows EVER, okay.

All that’s cool, and I’m glad, because when we go back to Rei, everything is awful.

Oh you have got to be shitting me.

PHOBOS AND DEIMOS AREN’T REALLY CROWS THEY’RE TWO TINY LITTLE WOMEN IS REI MOTHRA WHAT EVEN IS THIS

Good fucking god I hate Takeuchi’s thing about turning animals into people BUT I NEVER KNEW SHE DID THIS TO REI’S CROWS THIS IS NOT CUTE IT’S FUCKING WEIRD

THESE GIRLS OR SPIRITS OR WHATEVER HAVE BEEN TRAPPED IN THE BODY OF GODDAMN CROWS SINCE REI WAS LIKE FOUR AND MAYBE LONGER

NOT TO EVEN GET INTO WHO THE FUCK THEY REALLY ARE AND WHY AND HOW THEY’RE HERE AND HOW THAT WORKS WITH LITERALLY ANY OF THE BACKSTORY THIS IS SO POORLY THOUGHT OUT AND EXECUTED AND I’M SO IRRITATED BY IT

WAS IT BECAUSE I WAS DARING TO ALMOST ENJOY AN ISSUE WAS THAT WHY

Ugh, anyway, watch how fast I dismiss every last inch of this fuckery.

Rei powers up, and then “remembers” an inspiring speech from Michiru, which as we discussed last time with Ami and Pluto is grade A bullshit. But if we assume this is all just a dream by Rei -- AND I ASSURE YOU I DO -- then it becomes hilarious. Rei conjuring up some hazy Michiru ideal, specifically to fluff up her ego.

OF COURSE MICHIRU, THE WOMAN WHO SPEAKS ALMOST ENTIRELY IN IMPLICATION, WITH NO WORDS OF EFFUSIVE PRAISE FOR ANYONE BUT MAYBE HARUKA HAVING A VERY EMOTIONALLY FRAGILE DAY, WOULD GIVE A REI A SPEECH THAT BASICALLY AMOUNTS TO “Why yes, Rei, being near flawless and of impeccable class and breeding, I can confirm that you are in fact superior to literally everyone you ever have or ever will meet, and it was vitally important that I and I alone communicate this truth to you.”

TELL ME YOU CAN’T SEE REI’S SUBCONSCIOUS GOING EXACTLY HERE

At any rate, Rei conjures up her Mars Flame Sniper and fucking explodes Tiger’s Eye, and whatever else I have to say about the manga, this was an infinitely more satisfying end to the character than the anime gave me.

Rei is also so amazing, she breaks the spell that had trapped everyone in the Big Top. So that’s a miniboss down and herself + everyone else saved, not by Usagi, not by Mamoru, JUST ALL REI. Rei even gets the final “THOSE GUYS ARE AWFUL AND FUCK THEM” speech.

While I don’t think Takeuchi is completely putting her heart behind it, this does feel like a grudging personal apology. I ACCEPT JUST AS GRUDGINGLY

For today, if only for today, we have an accord.

I leave you with Rei wearing the cats and carrying Tiny Kitten, because yes.

[contrivedcoincidences6]

26, 35 & 41 for MSR asks :)

26. Season 7 headcanons: -Well first to me they had sex after Millennium. I mean seriously. After that episode they are all over each other. I think Scully didn’t really know what she wanted until All Things though. Like in my mind Mulder was all romantic and saying I love you and stuff but Scully needed a little extra push cause she is more closed off. But Mulder knows that and gives her time. - Super intense grief sex in Sein und Zeit of course. One of my favorites. - Angry sex after En Ami. But for that episode I want to punch Mulder in the balls in the end and I think most people don’t give Scully enough fight in fics. I think she’d eventually reach a breaking point and go off on him about the million fucking times he left without a word for what he believed was the greater good and left her to follow his bread crumbs. Then the sex of course. - Finally since there is a huge time gap in Hollywood A.D. I imagine that they spend like a week in LA just taking time for the two of them having tons of sex and doing fun stuff. 

35. Sexy time headcanons: - Well naturally that Mulder loves cunnlingus and is very good at it. But I think pretty much all of us are for that. - I think Scully likes to be on top and in control and he lets her for a while and then (maybe during En Ami? or Sein und Zeit?) He takes over and she finds it exciting. She still is pretty take charge but every now and then she needs Mulder to tell her what’s what in bed. - Mulder is obsessed with Scully’s breasts (like the rest of us) - They mostly do Scully on top but Scully has a particular fondness for being taken from behind. - Scully tries to set rules about no fooling around in the office but of course they break those rules. - She also tries to set rules for on the road but that doesn’t work out either.- There have been others who have said it and I agree that the two of them (especially Scully) might not be into being tied down in any way because of past experiences and PTSD type stuff. (one example: Scully’s abduction) - I think there are times when Scully gets too much into her own head and has a hard time being brought to orgasm. (I know my stories have yet to reflect that) It’s such a common problem and Scully would be someone who thinks too much. Luckily Mulder has ADHD and get hyper focused and loves to make her come. 

41. Ultimate MSR playlist: So I may or may not but definitely do have my own playlist that I am always working on here: Spotify (It’s called MSR. If you look it up you’ll find it with the picture being of them from Hollywood A.D.) These were fun!!!