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solitaryandwandering · 3 months ago

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A Ramble: Love in the Big City Eps 5-6

Well, @lurkingshan welcomed me into this house of pain and I set up camp with full awareness of what awaited me. And yet. And yet. I cried so sadly at the end of episode 6. Genuinely, I don't think I've been this heartbroken watching anything recently. Gyu-ho is so wonderful. He didn't deserve Yeong shutting him out like that. But in the end, they just weren't right for each other. Not with all the heaviness Yeong carries with him, now. And poor Yeong. He was never malicious, never truly wanted to hurt Gyu-ho, but he's in so much pain. He's never been in a relationship like this, which asked for so little (yet so much). And so, here are my scattered, discombobulated thoughts.

On the cinematography front, I continued to geek out over how well each director is communicating Yeong's internal and external worlds. The last section saw Hur Jin Ho start to darken Yeong's world around the edges, still taking full advantage of environment and space. In this section, Hong Ji Young is much more economical. We have tighter shots, more close-ups (especially extreme) and fewer wide shots. Since we are much more in Yeong's head we are forced more into his perspective - what he is seeing takes precedence over placing an audience emotionally in a scene. Her direction is less stylized (which is not to say there aren't creative uses of camera) but that's not to say she lacks a stylistic vision. Rather, where prior sections relied more on movement or camera placement, Hong let lighting do much of the talking.

I mentioned yesterday that this section's color palette seemed more muted in comparison. Episode 6 was brighter but saturation didn't really change all that much, at least not from my perspective. What enhanced this perspective was Yeong's clothing, which was almost austere in comparison to how he dressed in the past. He's in dark colors, usually black, with stern or severe silhouettes. I think he's in lighter colors at work but that's it? Those are still pretty washed-out. I was especially taken with his long black coat, which has to have appeared in the past but I didn't notice it like I did in these episodes. It's like he never left the funeral garb behind. His long coat actually reminded me of Yeong Su's coloring style-wise (and of the brown coat he wears during their break-up). But maybe that's just me. I just can't let go of the ways I think we're visually supposed to see him haunting Yeong, especially after that dream sequence in episode 5. His clothing just seems... older. It reminds me of both of his older partners; maybe he feels like he needs to emulate them? Maybe he feels like he's not mature enough? I could also see Yeong Su showing up in the way Yeong broke up with Gyu-ho, though I think Yeong was catching himself from fully leaning into that. He smiled, he didn't answer Gyu-ho's questions or give any empty reasons, and so on. Yet, he still achieved that same cold detachment. Yeong Su is certainly there in the way Yeong carries himself: ramrod straight. Much of his looseness or vivacity in past episodes is gone. Could not get over how dead his eyes felt in this section.

Anyway, back to cinematography. It felt like to me the lighting was creating a slightly blurred effect, like we were seeing certain things in a haze. Obviously this is in one way a reflection of his depression. Sometimes it felt like it was reminiscent of him wading through a fog, of memories, trauma, dissociation, whatever it may be. In both episodes there is also really cool use of illumination of objects, people, or scenes. In episode 5 there's a scene where he is in his mom’s (oppressively dark) place and a single shaft of light cuts across pictures on the wall. Intentional darkening is used just as often as illumination or brightening. I'm pretty sure every time we get an extreme close-up of Gyu-ho's eyes they are cast in darkness rather than light, which is what you would assume would happen if he were, like, gazing into the eyes of someone he loves. But instead, he's in the dark. In one scene he is hanging up curtains in Yeong's apartment and turns from the light outside (towards Yeong in the dark). When we cut to the close-up we can still see a sliver of light behind him which casts him in darkness. He brings light but Yeong cannot receive it. Lighting (or lack of it) in this section more than in other parts colors/represents what Yeong feels, how he sees others, what he chooses to look at or acknowledge.

In line with that, I really appreciated that this director chose not to overly-romanticize this part. I know the original author wrote the screenplay so that is in part why it didn't feel that way but I do think in a lesser director's hands it could have been very easy to lean into Kdrama romanticism. Without having read the book I was concerned this section would feel like fan-service rather than a continuation of the overall story. I am so relieved not to feel manipulated. Beautifully mundane and sad!!

And can I just say, I love what a complicated and real character Yeong is?? I love him so much even while he infuriates me. Even while he allows his past traumas to influence this relationship with Gyu-ho. And I actually wonder about his motivations in pursuing Gyu-ho? He's obviously very attracted to him and has good chemistry with him in general, so it's not that I think he went into the relationship with false pretenses. But he obviously knows it's not the right time for what he feels like he wants, which is a serious relationship. Initially as he walks away from the subway he turns to go back when girls run by him and one screams that her mother will kill her for missing the last train. Is it a “fuck you” to her that he decides to go after him? A feeling that he wants to live his life, pursue happiness in spite of this oppressive grief he feels? So much to untangle there. He's nothing if not fully human.

The last thing I wanted to get out of my head in this ramble was my thoughts about what themes I detected in this section. So here's what I’m thinking of: distance, shame, and honesty/communication.

All throughout this section I just kept hurting at how detached Yeong seemed from himself and everything around him. Completely distanced from his emotions. He goes into the relationship already with distance since he’s fresh off two horrible traumas, especially that of losing his mom. And he allows every small moment of perceived distance (mostly Gyu-ho not sticking to pre-established patterns Yeong has grown used to in his relationship to sex and intimacy) to widen that gulf. Writing is his passion but with each new rejection he allows himself to drown in it and creates even more distance. He's writing out reflections of their relationship instead of living it. Observing instead of feeling. He begins to enforce the distance he felt in his last relationship - all he wants is attention but is unwilling or unable to give it in this go-around. Even in the ways he opens up to Gyu-ho he maintains his fake-happy, carefree persona. Smiles are weaponized as a distancing tool. And in speaking with Gyu-ho he also can't resist making small digs at him about his job or intelligence. Gyu-ho is not given much opportunity to bridge distance even as they move in together. And what can Gyu-ho do when he is constantly rebuffed? He runs away, looks to fill the void with attention from other men. Returns, only for the cycle to begin again. "Constant goodbyes" as I believe Yeong puts it. As soon as their relationship begins he puts them in the rear view mirror. It's like he moves through much of their relationship as a representation of himself rather than as Yeong, himself. A shadow. When he actually places them in the rear view at the end of episode 6 he says "I guess you'll remember me as a joke you once heard a long time ago... The world's dirtiest joke."

Shame was the biggest thing coming up for me in these two episodes. For obvious reasons, of course. The reveal of his HIV (or "Kylie" which is his way of putting distance between himself and the disease, casting it in anonymity) was as shocking as it was expected. As an aside, this somewhat vindicated my personal interpretation of Kim Nam Gyu's death and subsequent empty funeral as a connection to the deaths of gay men with AIDS (including my uncle). I don't actually think they were necessarily trying to draw a line between the two but it hit me like a crowbar over the head so!

But yeah, Kylie is the obvious connection to that theme of shame. HIV in general carries a HUGE stigma globally, so much so that many countries including China (as we saw) have strict rules for travel of HIV+ folks. As far as I can tell in my brief search online, China ostensibly allows HIV-positive foreigners to come to the country but only for a period no greater than 90 days after which they will (and have) deported people. And that's just their official stance. Yeong discovered his status in maybe the worst way possible, in the military from a homophobic doctor, which colors the way he approaches it from then on. Medically discharged (as a reference, in the U.S. HIV-positive people are allowed to serve if they are asymptomatic and have an undetectable viral load, not sure how it is in Korea) he doesn't even tell his queer friends. This part made me so sad. How the queer community can shut other people out for something like this is deplorable especially considering our history. The T-aras demonstrate themselves to be bigoted in their negative regard of those with or suspected of having HIV, literally telling each other to "cover their glasses" when they see someone in the club who has been rumored to be positive. Yeong can’t wrap his head around being accepted for such a thing or as himself in general. Yeong traps himself in assumptions he makes of others and of himself. In some ways, those expectations are reinforced.

I wondered at why Yeong chose to tell Gyu-ho his status before anyone else. A part of me wonders if he intended this as another weapon of distance, so sure of this as being the thing that would cause Gyu-ho to run. I think he was completely unprepared for his total acceptance (he asks to ask for confirmation of his sincerity later in Bangkok) though it did make him happy. And once he has that acceptance he has no idea what to do with it. He is constantly pushing Gyu-ho away, only knowing how to ask for and accept the intimacy that comes with sex (which is - unprotected - what gave him HIV in the first place). He wants that easy fun he felt as a younger queer but is struggling to heal in this undemanding relationship. All Gyu-ho wants is quality time, emotional connection, a place to call home. Yeong has wanted this, needed this in the past but denied it time and time again he doesn't know what to do when granted the opportunity to have it. Gyu-ho doesn't want Yeong to be anybody except himself, gives him space and has healthy boundaries (practically non-existent in past romantic/platonic/familial relationships). He has nothing to fight against except himself and a world that doesn’t want him. Fighting against faceless rejections from publishers and bigoted HIV attitudes and restrictions are abstract battles, larger than just one person. When facing a bland job which wants a certain imagined version of him he can face off against his boss but she doesn't even show up in a way he can solidly face off against (wearing headphones blasting loud music, for instance). All he can do is fight Gyu-ho who doesn't even give him the battle he wants.

Gyu-ho is the first he tells about Kylie and it kinda feels like he’s punishing him for it sometimes? I’m not sure how much he shares about himself with him other than that. I don’t think Gyu-ho knows that his mom had just died when they started dating or about his past with Yeong-su. Gyu-ho assumes he has his life together and says he can’t understand what it is like to want something of your own. Yeong does nothing to dissuade him of the fact. He knows Gyu-ho can tell he's distancing himself and that makes him even more ashamed in himself and makes him lash out. Against the only person who knows his deepest secret and has wholly accepted him for it. How could he not hate himself for rejecting what he's always wanted?

Mi Ae shows up as another specter of his shame, using him as a prop. It is here that he becomes relegated to the "gay best friend" trope. To Mi Ae, he is perhaps the biggest representation of her "dirtier" or "shameful" past. She uses him to appear cooler to her younger sister-in-law(?) without fully claiming their relationship. The sister-in-law even jokingly flirts with him in the bar. Literally flaunting heteronormativity in his face. It does not feel as if he can fully own himself anymore. And when Gyu-ho moves in, they live together in a place Gyu-ho sees as his but was originally Mi Ae's, a place he was abandoned in, a place he tried to kill himself in. Shame festers and breeds in this space.

Honesty and communication is what bridges the gap, what heals shame. Yet, that is what Yeong cannot bring himself to do. He’s unmotivated to make a change in his approach to Gyu-ho and uses reticence as even more of an obstacle to genuine connection. He’s ashamed of himself and thinks of himself as dirty, undesirable. Yeong doesn’t even tell Gyu-ho about the HIV restrictions that keep him from applying to the job in China. Easy way out of their relationship, maybe, but it’s more about clinging to shame (is his shame is his remaining connection to his mom?). And in the end, he can’t even give him an honest break-up. His opinion of himself is so low he can’t help but prove it right. I think he sees Gyu-ho shrink into himself and comes to the conclusion he takes up too much space. ("I wonder why you sleep in silence. Maybe it's my fault. Maybe it's yours. Or maybe it was inevitable.")

In prior episodes Yeong's loves came in pairs: Mi Ae/Nam Gyu, Yeong Su/his mother. I wonder if Gyu-ho is the only love represented here. In prior sections love was more or less freely felt or offered even if toxic or lacking honesty. Unable to crack through Yeong's loneliness. Maybe the pair here is the absence of self-love. Or the absence of Yeong's ability to place his love in something external. In this section Gyu-ho shows him the love he was missing and wanted in prior sections but he is no longer open to it. He cannot show that love to himself. And maybe that's represented in the city, in Seoul. Big, teeming with potential, but also a lonely chasm where souls go to be lost.

Yikes, that was long. Largely nonsensical, I'm sure. I am terrified for how this show will end. This episode more than any other made me want to read the book RIGHT NOW (and make my brother read it). That's the sign of a good adaptation!

#love in the big city #megan watches #it's me #spoilers

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aspoonofsugar · 4 months ago

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Hello. Been a while since I last sent an ask to you. I wanted your take on why Vaggie's wing design is different from the other Exorcists. If you look closely, before and after she regained her wings, she is the ONLY exorcist with a single stripe while everyone else (including Adam, I know he's not an Exorcist but still something I've noticed) only have one.

Hi!

Thank you for the ask :) I love Vaggie's design and there is so much to say about it!

Since discussing the whole design would probably need its own meta, I will just focus on the detail you mentioned: Vaggie's wings.

I think their unique pattern comes down to our girl never truly fitting in with the exorcists:

Vaggie: When I saw your face You made me feel like a stranger in a brand new place And it felt so good to be understood

She states Charlie makes her feel understood, which implies she never felt accepted by her previous clique. This makes sense, as the exorcists are a cult, which forces its members to repress their selves. In this context, Vaggie's single black line shows she is different in two ways.

1- The exorcists' black lines mirror Adam's white lines:

Both Adam and his soldiers share two lines per wing. However, the leader's are white, whereas his followers' are black. This difference in color marks the hierarchy within the organization. Adam is white and gold, whereas the exorcists are black and white/silver. He frames himself as superior and forces the girls to be weaker imitations. Well, even in such an environment Vaggie can't completely repress who she is. So, she only gets one line on her wings, which marks her as unfitting, strange and flawed. She does not completely conform to Adam's wishes.

2- The exorcists' black and white color scheme is a metaphor of their black and white morality. Lute is a perfect embodiment of it:

Lute: Angels don't make mistakes.

Vaggie, Lute and all their sisters are taught killing sinners is holy. Angels are good and demons are bad. No questions asked. Still, Vaggie can't accept this mentality and she dares to show pity:

This kicks off her arc, which is all about overcoming the white and black vision that was forced on her. She needs to integrate her shadows:

She sees her shadow covering a terrified child and lets him go. A moment later Lute's shadow looms over her before she is attacked. Vaggie has to reconcile she is both the terrifying exorcist and the wounded child. She is both angel (white) and sinner (black).

Our Hotel Manager's new wings are a physical representation of this integration:

Vaggie gains them, as she channels her energy into love and protection instead than hate and revenge. In particular, she learns to value her own life and survival:

Carmilla: Well, look at that. You might just survive this.

She makes a step into forgiveness and acceptance. The brainwashed victim and the murderous warrior start coming together into someone new and stronger: the real Vaggie. As a result:

Her new wings are silver and gray, rather than white and black

Her new wings have a single line, which is much paler compared to her original black one

In short, Vaggie's wings symbolize her ongoing process of integration with her repressed self. They showcase her evolution and growth into someone new. From pigeon to moth :P

At the same time, something else can be said about Vaggie's stripes. Not her wings' though, but her hair's. Vaggie's hair is shaped after her angelic wings and it has two stripes on it. This is an interesting detail and might symbolize Vaggie's inner desire to belong, either with her old group (the two stripes exorcists) or her new one (the Hazbin Hotel demons). So, she has hair, which:

Hides her scars and identity, as they cover her missing eye and the spot where her wings used to be

Highlights these same things, as her hair is stylized after angelic wings and Vaggie puts an X over her missing eye. It's no surprise that Carmilla easily guesses her identity:

Vaggie: Wait… you know I'm an exorcist? How? Carmilla: You have a giant X over your eye and wield an angelic spear. It's not rocket science.

Just some food for thought! What's sure is that Vaggie's struggle with her exorcist identity is far from over and it strongly impacts her appearance.

Thank you for the ask!

#hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel meta #vaggie #vaggie hazbin hotel #asksfullofsugar #phoenixlionme

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emilinqa · 6 months ago

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hiiiiiii do you have any tips for drawing Kirk? 🙏 TvT William Shatner’s stupid face is getting every single one of my goats

to be honest i’m really not particularly confident in my ability to draw william shatners elusive face and i think he looks different every time i draw him so what i’m gonna say is less specific and more just about capturing the likeness of real people/characters or models based on a real person’s likeness

long answer under the cut but my short answer is if you’re drawing kirk and you can tell it doesnt looks right but dont know why make his forehead bigger. im serious it fixes the problem for me like 85% of the time LOL

this is perhaps just obvious advice but just having a reference collage for people/characters you draw often is really helpful. i find i often need detailed references for clothing/environment designs but the principle is the same for drawing a face. it helps to understand something from several angles, this is just a collage of references i use but if im being a hundred percent honest i almost always just skim the kirk daily or spirk daily accounts on twitter when im looking for a particular angle. LOL

also im prefacing this by saying this is not something i sat down and meticulously thought out i just draw a lot of fanart and subjects from observation. i do a lot of this on subconscious level and have just absorbed some things also from seeing what features other artists emphasize!

when you're stylizing a character, whether they are the likeness of an actor or a model or whatever it helps to just try to break down their defining features. this is easiest when you have another or several other characters to contrast against. bones and spock are the most obvious here, since the three of them are often in the same shot. for example, bones and spock are more angular than kirk, but spock looks lankier, while bones always looks a little haunched over. shatner doesn't have a very defined jawline (which is most obvious from a 3/4 or profile view) and his cheeks are fuller which shows the most when hes smiling. he has a pretty low brow too, and a wider forehead. from a profile view you can see the shadows that emphasize his sloped nose. the length of his hair fluctuates throughout the show, so i tend to just pick a partiuclar way of drawing it and stick to it lol. i like to draw the little curl that sits on his forehead and make the shorter sides slightly wavy

as far as movie era kirk goes, generally what is said before still rings true. again, it helps to have another person to compare too. as nimoy got older, his laugh lines deepened and his cheekbones hallowed slightly. again this contrasts a lot with shatner when they're next to each other because his face is fuller and i find the more defining wrinkles on his face are around his eyes and forehead. his hair is obviously a tighter curl, he often does still have one curl fall on his forehead.

other than that the biggest advice i can give is to practice... for every successful kirk i draw know that i fucked up at least three times before that.

a lot of this work in observing what features are defining on a face or what i want to emphasize is sort of intuitive to me, and sort of personal preference. its just how i do it, and you might find a process that works better for you. drawing a bunch directly from a reference and then stylizing from there is generally something i find is most helpful though

typing this all out is making me sound kind of crazy like i spend hours a day dissecting william shatners face but its kind of just the small quick decisions and comments everyone makes to themselves while drawing from observation i think... but now vocalized. which sounds a little insane all together like this. i promise im really normal i just drew him like 30 times over from various angles when i was making my tsfs comic. LOL

#my art #my trek

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drifting-pieces-blog-blog · 1 year ago

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Breaking down the comics: BEMIS. Part 1

READING THINGS SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO!

Alright, I covered "Age of Khonshu" and honestly was so incensed that I had to make a post talking about it.

So let's get this other bread (and burn it).

A lot of new Moon Knight fans have heard the cry when asked what to read and where to get started. And true fans everywhere agree: DON'T READ BEMIS.

And there are long posts and screams and sobbing about why not to read it that come out to "It's so bad!"

But there are the curious out there. They want to know why it's bad. They want to know what happened. And...well...

It spans a few issues. I…I was foolish and thought “I can do this in one go! How long can this take? I don’t want to spend that much time on BEMIS.” ….I forgot that doing one of these usually takes me the better part of a day to cover ONE issue.

I’m going to break this up into Four (fuck you Tumblr) parts and cover both volumes instead of a post per issue. I don’t want Bemis to take up that much space so prepare for a few VERY LONG posts.

Let's ruin my month! (AKA: Watch me slowly descend into blind rage).

Marvel Legacy: Moon Knight. 2017. Issues 188-200.

Part 1: Crazy Runs in the Family. (Issues 188-193) Published: November 08, 2017

Written by: Max Bemis

Art by: Jacen Burrows

Editor: Jeff Youngquist

Let's start with:

WHO IS MAX BEMIS?

Oh my god he's in a band. He's the lead singer for the rock band "Say Anything".

My level of disappointment just doubled.

According to his bio: He was raised in a 'strong Jewish environment'. His grandparents survived the Holocaust. All this has inspired his music.

(I can't even begin to tell you how much actually looking up who he is has made me ten times angrier).

In 2013 he started to write comics. More importantly, he wrote for characters that suffered different mental health issues. ('Polarity' at Boom! Studios about a hero with bipolar disorder).

He then ended up at Marvel.

For his personal life: He has bipolar disorder and self medicates with drugs (Marijuana).

He also self identifies as "A Jew who is also a Christian", which he considers a "New age, metaphysical view" on religion.

Good. Great. Fantastic. Now I know who this man is and I hate him even more.

What's even funnier? Apparently his music fans ALSO hate him because he's "a sanctimonious hypocrite".

Seriously, there's a whole Reddit page on why he's a terrible person. I'm not going to site any sources because I can't fact check a lot of those claims and maybe they are false or maybe they are true. I'm not here to slander a life. I'm here to talk about Moon Knight.

I’ve procrastinated enough. Let’s go….

We open on "Ravencroft Asylum". Good start.

We see a Doctor Emmett talking to a patient in a locked cell that's stylized like a prison interrogation cell.

"You say remembering your youth is like looking through a layer of Jell-O. Were do things become lucid? When did you become yourself?"

(I already hate it).

"I learned who I was in the army, that much is clear." The patient responds.

"I get it. The army. The incident. Aside from the physical, what did you walk away with on the day you hurt them?" The doctor looks at the files.

And the patient is hesitant to speak on it, but he tells her that "In the army, I learned that there is a God."

He talks about how he saw God 'in his fire' and that non-believers, atheists, skeptics, and all that are wrong. How they can't understand how big God is.

(And now I remember when I first read this how uncomfortable this first issue made me.)

"They weren't very nice to me in the Army, but why would they be? I had to show them I was more devoted, more significant than they were."

I'm going to put a pause on this right here after just two pages. There are some Trigger Warnings that need to be discussed real quick.

I grew up in the deep south and I’ve legit heard talk like this in real life. It’s terrifying.

I knew a lot of 'born again' Christians who tried to 'save my soul'.

This comic is going to get VERY uncomfortable for anyone that has had to deal with religious trauma. Just putting it out there. Skip if you can't handle any sort of religious trauma like excessive God Talk, Cultish behavior, Come to Jesus moments, or severe Antisemitism.

On top of the religions issues, this comic is also going to have significant mental health mishandling. We’re talking about abuse from Doctor figures, use of improper terminology, abuse of the mentally ill, and severe discrimination.

OH and misogyny. Let’s not forget the misogyny.

This comic run also gets very…disgusting. I had many moments when reading this that legitimately turned my stomach. There is going to be depictions of self mutilation, gore, suicidal acts, and violence.

I AM GOING TO CENSOR THINGS. I will not blur images, but I will NOT be posting any of the comic pages that depict any of these violent, shock value, images. I’ll give a brief rundown of what’s going on and tell you that there is an image that I am going to skip. I’m telling you guys, these two runs were disgusting and curdled my stomach many times. Especially issue two.

So…Those are your only trigger warnings.

Let’s continue.

So now we see a narration by Dr. Emmett.

It is not going to paint a good light on Dr. Emmett.

She's in her office at night going over files.

"Sometimes, this job is guiltily fun... To be frank, patient 86 is @#%$ FASCINATING. He attributes his pyromania to a leap of faith. Conversely, I might argue that it was the fifth canteen full of force-fed urine that inspired him.

Sometimes I get him so fully that it's like I want to have a beer with the guy.

He wears self-delusion with so much dignity. I wish I had that level of resolve, that I could stop fixating on the...SPECTOR conundrum.

I'm just a failure of a doctor, left without a shell-shocked dissociative bipolar to shove away in a box.

In any other instance, I'd dial this one in. It's just that one nagging thing.

Lunatic joins the army. Said lunatic freaks out and ends up spiritually reborn in a near-death experience.

Sound like anyone you know?"

OH GOOD. GREAT. I just... Deep breath. Deep breath.

We’re going to play that angle. Woman psychiatrist/psychologist falls for her feminine desire to get with her patient. She can’t be expected to uphold her standards as a doctor or her doctor patient relationship. She has to dream for that exciting patient. She plays it off as wanting the award winning famous patient that makes her career into something amazing but because she’s a woman she has to play the dreamy sighing “Oh look how amazing he is!” role. And of course she’s after Marc. She can’t have Marc, so she finds this other patient that has a similar start of PTSD military based trauma and she’s going to fail to help him because she wants him to be like the other guy.

Not to mention she's using outdated terms like "Shell Shocked".

A term coined in WWI when for the first time, the world witnessed large groups of men coming back from war after encountering new aged weapons never dealt with or seen before.

Then she calls him Bipolar and links it to his Dissociative disorder.

I don't have a degree in psychology, but I do have a special interest. From what I've seen in the OG early comics by Moench, Marc Spector is not Bipolar. He does not exhibit episodes of mania followed by deep periods of depression. I'd go further into it, but trust me... He has a LOT of issues, but Bipolar was not one of them to start with.

In fact, after Schizophrenia, Bipolar was one of the most commonly misdiagnosed mental illnesses. A lot of people with DID were misdiagnosed with Bipolar disorder because of the way the symptoms presented in many cases. You didn't have another person in your brain, you were just exhibiting mania and now you're depressed.

ANOTHER THING to take issue with!

This comic is coming DIRECTLY on the heels of Lemire's run. In that run, it was the first time we dealt with Marc's official time in the army and his dissociative states.

We saw Marc wandering through the desert, dissociating and dealing with Khonshu issues.

The off handed tick about "Lunatic joins the army. Said lunatic freaks out and ends up spiritually reborn in a near-death experience."

1. The army did not lead to a Near-Death experience for Marc Spector. He joined the Mercenaries and was killed when his conscious got the better of him and his leader shot him for trying to save someone.

2. A doctor of psychology should NOT be using terms like 'Lunatic'.

3. Marc didn't 'FREAK OUT'. He had several dissociative episodes that ended up with him being discharged.

4. Marc was NOT 'spiritually reborn'. Depending on who is writing and how Khonshu himself is being depicted... An ancient god revived him as his avatar. This is not converting him in any sense of the word. Marc Spector may have issues with his Jewish beliefs and upbringing, but he is still very Jewish. He was NOT 'spiritually reborn'. He was brought back to life to act as Avatar and Marc took this to being Moon Knight, vengeance, paying for the pain he caused, and trying to be a better person. To be a different person. To be anyone except Marc Spector. Jake and Steven took this to just mean that they wanted to help people.

So... Yeah... Now we move on to the title page.

This is going well. We can already tell that Bemis either just didn’t read the Lemire run and got the cliff notes, or he just didn’t care and only took away bits without understanding the actual story it had to tell.

ON THE TITLE PAGE. Ohhhhh man you guys. ON THE TITLE PAGE.

Every title page has a little blurb explaining who the character is and what's been going on in previously connected issues. This way, people can pick it up and just go without having to dig through old comics. It's also a good reminder for people like me, who have shit memories and have forgotten what's going on after having to wait a whole month for the new issue.

I honestly have no idea who writes these blurbs. Sometimes you'll get the same blurb that lass for YEARS. (see Bendis run and how that carried over for runs and runs).

"Marc Spector. Steven Grant. Jake Lockley. Each a distinct personality of one man vying for control. Spector, the original personality, has asserted his dominance and fights to retain that control. But years ago, as a mercenary, Spector died in Egypt under a statue of the Moon God Khonshu. In the shadow of the ancient deity, Marc returned to life. From then on, Marc took on a new aspect in honor of Khonshu, dedicating his second life to fighting crime as....

MOON KNIGHT".

I want to fight someone. I don’t know who. But I want to fight someone. Whoever wrote this… This is what Marvel took away from the Lemire run. His beautiful run that for the first time, really dealt with Moon Knight’s mental health struggles. That said “They have dissociative Identity Disorder. They are a system. They have learned how to work together. They have found peace in who they are.” And whoever wrote this blurb went “Nawh, but Marc is the dominant and original personality and he’s in charge now!”

Editor in Chief: Axel Alonso

Chief Creative Officer: Joe Quesada.

Ah... These guys. These guys are to blame. We meet again Quesada...

Alright. We now see Dr. Emmett at some party (birthday party? They're all wearing party hats but they're clearly eating dinner and one guy is wearing a kippah and someone else is wearing a top hat and one guy is wearing no hat. I... I don't even know. This is all a disaster at this point.)

The group is laughing about things and Dr. Emmett is day dreaming about Marc Spector.

"Marc, my former patient. And this new one, patient 86. Traumatic experiences in the middle east. The similarity is brazen. Was there something in Marc's experience that patient 86 could..."

Her thoughts are interrupted as one of her colleagues takes a jab at her. "Still stuck on the hooded leotard guy?"

She snaps to defense and they tell her to let it go. That she can do better than 'that loser'.

Back at home, she's angry. Moon Knight is not a loser in a leotard.

And we see her shrine. Yeah... This is healthy.

Oh good. Back at work she's dealing with patient 86. She's attempting to explain how his brain works to him.

Get ready for some grade A psychology here people.

She explains that on one side of his brain is chemistry and the other is "Personality. Socially ingrained behavior. I want you to see the distinction."

He asks her that the fact that he's murdered people should label him as insane.

She disagrees. "I'm not sure the fact that you're a murderer proves anything about your nature."

Hmm.

She goes on to explain that "So many have been clinically impared by their unique brain chemistry. They needed help. We failed them. Imagine hearing audible voices that told you to eat a person. These people needed treatment."

And she points to cases like Sam, Gein, and Fish.

Yeah... Because Gein needed treatment. I'm just gonna... Just gonna.... ARGH.

"You developed bipolar disorder during your early adulthood. Moods fluctuating from mania to depression to utterly convincing delusion. Compounded by the traumatic childhood on the street, in state homes, and juvie that you barely recall. None of these things were your fault. Nor what happened in the desert."

Okay, they're just throwing out things at this point. They're just going to start listing off the sterotypical bad childhood leads to a bad kid and trauma things.

She then goes on to tell him that she understands what he did. That it was not his fault, that he was looking for something to control and fire was his answer. Not to mention God. "None of these symbols are inherently harmful. I've seen the power of symbolism redeem one of my patients who was literally split apart by trauma."

oh no. no no no no...That's not how... ARGH.

"Imagine what it could do for someone who was ready to receive help. Bipolar disorder, when tempered, can produce intense inspiration and creativity. I want to help you."

And she adds "Kurt Cobain" to the list.

I'm just going to... To sit here... quietly raging.

Alright, so now we see Dr. Emmett walking through the Egyptian exhibit at the museum.

"If Egyptian Mythology worked for Spector...It could work for my mysteriously nameness patient."

HOW IS HE NAMELESS?! HE WAS IN THE ARMY. They KNOW where he was stationed, they know what unit he was in, they know the trauma he faced and bullying, and they know the group of people he killed! OF COURSE THEY ARE GOING TO KNOW WHO HE IS.

"As I stand in front of the statue of Khonshu, Marc's main squeeze, I have a very important realization--Marc Spector may be legally insane... But he was never crazy at all.

Is every priest who hears the voice of their lord crazy? Every shaman? The damn writers of the constitution, invoking god on every page?

Marc manifested the meaning of this icon. His dissociative identity disorder simply brought it more vividly to life.

He needed an emblem of his inner bedlam and his innate need to protect victims. And the god of these qualities--Khonshu--came to him literally."

THAT'S NOT HOW IT WORKS. He didn't get DID out in the desert. He's had it since he was a very young boy! He didn't go to Khonshu to try to make sense of it! His DID didn't 'bring it to light'. It didn't make him hear the voice of god!

So she decides to pick out a god for her patient.

Cause that's healthy.

She considers Osiris, Horus, ....Imhotep...

But of course she stops at Ra.

You know what's really getting to me right now? This so called Ivy league doctor that clearly has no idea what she's doing, has zero ability to draw the line at doctor patient relationship, her obsessive tendencies, and pushing her obsession onto another patient.

Furthermore, when you look at Patient 86, you do see a man that recognizes that he did something wrong. That he needs help and is in a place to try to understand how his own brain is working. We see him clinging to her words and trying to understand where she's going with her treatment.

She explains that Khonshu is Ra's son.

"I explain my understanding of the two gods' dynamic to 86. Some of it comes from established myth, some from Freudian interpretation."

FREUDIAN. THEY ARE GOING FREUDIAN. This is a no Freud zone.

"Amon Ra represented the burning, blazing emblem of masculine virility that is the sun. In many cultures, the sun stands for the sovereignty of masculinity --logic and raw power. But in the New Kingdom of Egyptian lore it was his Adopted son Khonshu who was described as "Greatest God of the Great Gods."

(Nope. There was a brief Khonshu cult where they briefly played at worshiping the Moon instead of the sun. This was later put down and Ra resurged as the leading deity again. And it certainly wasn't the 'New Kingdom' path to look at him as the greatest of the great).

"Khonsu of the moon, a universal symbol for the redemptive power of insubordination--femininity and sensitivity. The Ras of this world resent becoming passe. It makes them angry. And they burn harder to spite their own impotence. Established society can't accept change. Can't accept that the old ways don't work anymore."

Oh good. Misogynistic teachings. Just what he needs.

"Something happened to you when you were young, dropped you into a sea of lost children. I believe what you're hiding from yourself was most likely some form of abuse."

She asks him to try to remember and he does remember abuse from the people in the army but also as a child being abused.

Now we have the utmost breach of doctor patient confidentiality.

"Finally, I reveal the tale of Marc Spector to 86. How a confused mentally unstable boy drew on the figurative power of the Moon to justify his nature.

Marc's transformation into the hero called Moon Knight...A role model for the bewildered.

I pass along all my endless research and documentation of his life since he was under my care, as well as several well-regarded books considering Egyptian mythology."

AHHHHHHHHHH.

"And madly enough, patient 86 gets it. It clicks in him. He sees how Spector, like him, was not just insane, but was truly immersed in a living myth. It was never the moon's fault that it shone so brightly."

Now we see Dr. Emmett having a nightmare.

She sits in a large empty and white office when she's suddenly attacked by mummies.

Moon Knight shows up to save her and rips apart the mummies.

But wait, it's not Moon Knight!

JESUS. I don't know why that reminded me. But this patient is purposefully drawn to resemble the white Christian version of Jesus. So that’s another contention I have with this comic.

I’m also 90% certain that that cat wasn’t white a few pages ago…

Alright, back at the asylum, we see a changed patient. He's more confident. More thoughtful.

She tells him he needs to be present and not dissociating into the void. She wants to continue his 'traditional therapy' as well as his "...studies."

He tells her that he knows who he is now.

She tells him that even if "the allegory of Khonshu brings you resolve, you still need medicine. You still need therapy."

"So, it's just a story now? I suppose Ra never let his wrath rain down on his errant son? That everything you taught me was an illusion?"

Suddenly she's back peddling. Saying she didn't teach him that. It's not what she was trying to get him to understand.

He asks her to leave. He has things to think about.

I mean, honestly what did she think was going to happen?

She has a patient that believes that he has been touched by the divine and has become godly. So she has given him a god that is involved in FIRE, the thing he is associating with god. She's basically given him a path to his own displacement!!

She FINALLY realizes that she can just go to the military hospital to try to figure out who he really is.

At the military medical facility, she talks to another doctor.

"I don't say this a lot about multiple murderers, but... If you're asking what I thought of the man, I'd have to admit he brought nothing but warmth to this place."

And that's the thing. He's a quiet and pleasant man. Introspective and not really possessing his own unique personality. He accepts what is put on him. A sort of trauma processing and self defense.

The doctor then explains that patient 86 signed up for the army under a forged alias. Okay. So that explains why they don't know who he is... But they could call him by that name instead of just 86.

While she's there, another patient runs up, having overhead who they were talking about.

He screams about how he was there and he saw what happened.

"We all know the truth. It was impossible. They had him tied up. Naked. How could he have possibly started that fire? No matches, no lighter. I know what he--"

The orderlies show up and of course pull him away.

At the same time she gets an emergency message from her own asylum telling her to get back there right away.

She gets back to find 's room covered in blood.

Her response?

"How could this be? Was it all for nothing? As a doctor, I believed I could make a difference. But again, I am just at the whim of the raw, elemental power of insanity."

NO. You most certainly are not at the whim of the power of insanity! THIS IS YOUR JOB. Your job is to help people who have mental health issues! Being a doctor in a mental health institution is HARD. You have the lives of people at their most vulnerable in your hands!

So what happened?

Another nurse tells Dr. Emmett: "We found him like this and immediately restrained him. So nobody else besides Nurse Hayworth could be hurt. ALso... There was no other way to retrieve her nose."

Cool. We're going Hannibal Lecter now? For dramatics? For shock value?

I'm not going to show you the comic picture here. I hate it. It hurts to look at. It's disgusting. It's clearly done for shock value.

But we see wrapped up in a restraint jacket with blood all over his face. Behind him he's drawn RANDOM vaguely Egyptian hieroglyphs in blood.

She asks him why he did it.

"When I revealed myself to her... She didn't believe me."

Dr. Emmett is confused. She thought he was a kind and compassionate man who had a terrible upbringing and didn't know who he was.

He tells her that she should know who he is since she taught it to him.

"Khonshu." She answers. Because she's an idiot.

"Khonshu is nothing next to me."

He bursts into flames, igniting the whole room.

"I wanted to speak to you before I go, but...I'll have to take leave of you now, Dr. E. Whatever made me the way I am is irrelevant. You brought me purpose. You showed me that I am--and always have been--A God."

"Dear Lord. Amon Ra."

He tells her that Khonshu is going to bow to him even if he has to crack his spine and so on and so on....

He leaves the hospital, leaving the doctor to die in the flames.

We see flashes of his past where he set fire to his abusers as a kid and again in the army. Fire caused by his own mind.

"He was always meant to become this. And now I know what trauma robbed him of his memories. Sometimes the sun gives birth to a bright brilliant Moon, changing us for the better. But sometimes it consumes us... And we burn, it becomes all we can see."

We cut to a shot of the hospital being on fire and emergency services there.

Look! They found a survivor in the flames! The commentary between the paramedics is disgusting. And the casual way they move to treat the survivor is also just disgusting.

We get to see the survivor and it's Dr. Emmett. Completely burned up but still alive. Again... shock value and I'm not going to show you the image here. But it's bad.

She is laughing and yelling about how she believes.

We see 86 walking away from the hospital down the road, happy, and also naked. I honestly don’t know why this became a thing in comics with naked guys all over the place. It’s obviously used as a way to elicit some sort of reaction from the reader. One of disgust, something to laugh at, or just “Oh no! The man is naked now!” I hate it.

Then we get a few pages from Khonshu. A recap on Marc's story.

It's not told right. But I will forgive it because it's told from Khonshu's point of view, and that asshole probably sees it this way. So... I suppose I'll turn a blind eye to how wrong the story is here.

You would see it as Marc begging, wouldn't you, you stupid pigeon.

"He became...A hero. He used my powers to fight crime. To find redemption. It only cost him his mind. You see, the criminals aren't the only thing Marc Spector fights. He also fights...

"The voices in his head. Marc Suffers from Multiple Personality Disorder."

I've said it before. It stopped being called Multiple Personality Disorder YEARS ago. This is lazy writing with no research. And coming off of Lemire's run, this is just insulting.

Also calling it 'voices in his head' is just outright pitiful.

"But given time, he has managed to make peace with those voices. Including mine. No, together, we are... MOON KNIGHT."

And that's the end of the issue.

We get an afterward from the author.

It angers me beyond words.

"Writing Moon Knight (not "a book like Moon Knight" or "Writing such a huge project for Marvel"...Writing Moon Knight) is a dream come true. I couldn't pick a better place in the Marvel U to inject my passion into, and it is the pinnacle of everything I've worked towards as a writer.

Anyone who treats a superhero comic as an easy paycheck needs to check themselves and realize why they're our most prevalent modern myths. Thank YOU (and my fam at Marvel) for letting me write this, supporting my previous work, and allowing me to make comics with someone as esteemed and talented as Jacen.

I only ask that if you enjoyed this somewhat bizarre issue, keep reading this book. I want to enjoy it with you. Maybe we can claw away at something horrible together.

It will not, however, be pretty.

-Thanks,

Max Bemis."

We also get an afterword by the artist, Jacen Burrows that notes that they are following in the wake of legends like Smallwood and Lemire as well as Ellis and Shalvey who worked hard to re-awaken Moon Knight after it's cancellation (see Bendis). They note that they are working to tell a new and defining chapter in his character and a thought-provoking, intense, and scary note in Marc Spector's life.

I'm going to go punch a wall now.

NEXT ISSUE! #189!

Here we go… issue two… Let’s get this…moldy… bread.

We open on... NYC Subway. We see a happy dude driving the subway car. As the car rolls into the station, a large man steps into the cab with him.

"Happy to have made it to Friday? The stench of your jubilance is offensive. But you're right to rejoice. Today you learn the truth."

He touches the driver's shoulder and slowly a blue beam over takes him and his eyes turn blood red and start to bleed. ...I'm not posting a picture.

"Tell me what you've learned by knowing me. I'm living in you now."

The driver starts to stammer and talk. "H...H..Humanity is perverse. Genocide is the comeuppance we deserve. There is no creator. Undebatable. Love is a contrivance. Undebatable. The white house is the death star. Twitter is a virus. And when the nukes raze everything we know...Only a fool would claim it wasn't our destiny."

Yeah... The large man calls himself "THE TRUTH" and has the ability to send these visions into the people he touches. It makes the driver hate everything and he starts up the car again, out to spread the truth.

We are back to Khonshu narrating.

"My name is Khonshu. Moon God of Egypt. I'm here to tell you a story about a mad vigilante named Marc Spector. Our tale finds us here, on a standard night for Marc, who, when dressed in all white and donning a cape, refers to himself as Moon Knight.

Marc has spent ten minutes decorating this bar with the blood of these drug dealers and slavers. The cacophony of snapping collarbones and pit-pattering plasma is like whale songs to him.

As the thud of a man being literally punted across the room sounds, Marc Spector is grateful for his life.

For the privilege of serving me. Khonshu, protector of travelers in the night.

You see, Marc Spector is crazy. But in the context of my blessing, he is, well...A 'Super Hero'."

I overlooked it before, considering it comes from Khonshu's narrative and Khonshu WOULD see things differently.... But I can't. I can't even attribute this to Khonshu. This is just tripe bullshit.

We're going to start fast forwarding here because... It just keeps going on like this. The old bird just doesn't shut up. He carries on for three pages and there is a LOT of text there.

We see Moon Knight beating up a bunch of guys to a bloody mess. Then we move down to see a bandaged up Marc heading up to his VERY run down, grungy, apartment building. He waves hello to some old lady behind the glass that runs the place.

He tells her he'll have the rent for her in the morning.

Khonshu again calls Marc having just recovered from a 'personal crisis' and taking his problems more seriously, like his struggle with 'multiple personality disorder'.

Khonshu boasts about how hard it is to live with a demigod in your head and that Marc has learned to 'live with his lunacy and wield it like a weapon'.

We see Marc ironing his Moon Knight outfit while watching TV.

Khonshu AGAIN talks about how Marc has learned to use his three distinct identities and that therapy has let him come a long way. About how Marc came to him begging to have his life saved and now Marc is his 'earthly champion'.

"Or perhaps he was a space cadet whose psychosis was triggered by being shot up and dried out in the baking middle east sun. Your call."

THIS IS WHAT YOU GOT FROM LEMIRE?! THIS?! How...How... HOW.

We now see Marc passed out in bed.

"Marc is ready to become someone else."

Yeah so… We got him ‘becoming’ Steven. Who talks to Khonshu. Sure. Fine. Whatever. Khonshu calls him Narcissistic and decadent.

FIRST OF ALL. Oh. You did NOT just come for Steven Grant. Oh we are going to have words now.

Steven Grant is a beautiful wonderful man who has dreams of charity, peace, and living the perfect life that he was EXPECTED to live as a child under his father’s role. He’s the ideal son he was supposed to be, but he keeps his eyes on what’s right and what’s wrong and has STRONG moral opinions. He takes care of the body because he HAS TO. Marc isn’t going to do it. If it wasn’t for Steven, they’d turn into a walking festering infection with broken bones and starve to death! Steven keeps them alive and HEALTHY. He is the epitome of the one that gives because he believes in living a good life as a good person.

Oh. Now you're gonna come for my boy Jake?! YEAH. YOU BETTER AVOID DISCUSSING HIM FOR NOW. I’LL BITE ANYONE THAT COMES FOR JAKE. (spoilers: I know exactly what he does with Jake later and I am furious).

Alright. Back to Patient 86, or RA as he's going to be called later for a bit.

We see him in a homeless shelter getting soup. He talks to various homeless people, prostitutes and druggies in an effort to locate someone. There are heavy implications in some of these images that he 'did things' to get the information he wanted. I’m not going to post them because of the nature of the way these people are being depicted.

Back with Khonshu and Steven. He's at some business meeting. He's made them a lot of money. Everyone is happy and celebrating. Apparently Steven goes to struggling companies and makes them VERY wealthy.

He's decided to donate his portion of the new wealth towards his "Lunar Lives" charity fund that feeds the displaced youth of New York.

Steven shrugs saying that money is boring and he finds it fun to toss it to places where it doesn't belong.

Sure, we'll go with that version of Steven Grant being a kind and charitable man.

The party is interrupted by news reports that a subway conductor committed suicide by crashing the car. The survivors of the crash are now apparently acting strange, "self mutilating" and acting violent towards the aid workers trying to help the scene.

Steven slips away from the party.

Moon Knight time.

But first, we go back to RA.

He's found the person he's looking for. He's guarded by thugs. After a little encounter, Ra sets fire to one of the thugs and heads up to meet the man.

Back at the subway crash, we see chaos as rescue workers try to put out the fire, help the injured, and deal with the ones that are suddenly acting violently.

And Khonshu is still going. It's an interesting choice. I'll give them that. Having Khonshu narrate instead of hearing at ALL from the Moon Knight system. I suppose it gives them bigger leeway when it comes to the unreliable narrator because Khonshu WOULD see things differently. An excuse to not depict Marc and the others correctly?

....But it still does swing widely and miss far too often.

"Quite familiar with all the things that make men weep and soil themselves, Marc Spector felt at home in these derelict tunnels."

We see Moon Knight walk past the crash and into the train tunnels.

"After too much time confined in a white room, the odor of dead rat fart and fungal growth actually calmed his busy brain. He was in his element-The inspector holmes of king fu madmen."

See, this is where it falls flat. If Steven is dealing with the business aspect, Marc isn't going to care about that room.

And again we get ANOTHER jab at Marc being 'insane' and liking the disgusting things and being more at home in dank and terrible places.

Perhaps Marc is more at home in sewers (there was a sewer man) than Steven or Jake... But it has nothing to do with his mental state. It's because, as Moon Knight, he isn't above things like that. He's not the perfect clean hero that Captain America or Iron man is. He's the man of the people that puts himself down there in the lowest parts because it's where he's needed.

Moon Knight rightly is able to look at the scene of chaos at the crash site and deduct that it's a psionic attack.

"Historically, he had found telepaths to generally be meek characters using their sway over the mind as compensation for physical frailty. Like sexually feeble men with muscle cars."

Unnecessary jab.

Now, as much as I dislike this art style, it's a choice and there is SOME merit to it. Look, here's a nice page.

Here’s a badly cropped version. I like the way they drew Moon Knight in the first two panels with the play of the light and shadows. That big angry dude down there is the Truth guy. And I cropped it there because under him is a bunch of guys he’s shown the truth to who are writhing on the ground, bleeding from the eyes and shouting terrible things.

Moon Knight goes in swinging and lands a few blows, trying to know him out to release the affected people from his psychic attacks.

The guy is pretty big and he takes the hits easily.

He manages to grab Moon Knight by the neck and starts to use his abilities on him.

So what truth does Marc see?

"I'm a mad circus clown... This is all for myself. There is no Moon God. Just another...Sick... Delusion..."

I...honestly can see Marc having that issue. It's an issue he's had before where he thinks this is all his own way to keep being violent and that Khonshu is just a product of his need to justify what he does.

Marc snaps himself out of the psychic attack by punching himself in the face.

And I forgot that Bemis has decided that Marc Spector is a masochist and he loves it.

Literally, it has Moon Knight yelling "Ghhh. I #@$% Love it!"

He attacks the Truth again, slicing him up with his crescent darts and landing blows.

The Truth remains standing.

Moon Knight decides to look inward for help.

"Not having a lot of luck here, Fellas. Khonshu's more of a talker and this guy's power set is the real deal. Grant's useless...Doubt the Truth is looking for stock tips."

(I forgot that Bemis considers Khonshu to be his own version of an Alter without being an alter? That he just lives in their head.)

UGH. Yep. Here we go. This is what he's done to Jake.

"I'm gonna need..." And Moon Knight lets out a scream of rage as Marc steps out and tells Jake to "Do your worst."

Apparently... Bemis has decided that Jake is the wild card, violent, unpredictable, and brutal. Worse than Marc for some reason. That Jake is the powerhouse of hits...

I honestly has no idea why he went this route when MARC of all people has always been the one to be the guy that doesn't go down and always hits back. It just makes no sense.

What even.

Jake comes right at the Truth, spits a tooth in his face, then challenges him.

"You want to step into Jake Lockley's mind, you gigantic freak? I @#$% Dare you.

You met Marc. Marc's disturbed as hell. Now imagine that he took all the worst parts of himself and let them fuse into a living person. Now go ahead and taste MY truth, you leech."

I HAVE SO MANY THINGS TO SAY ABOUT THIS.

DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY DISORDER DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY. It’s not making people out of things! You don’t go “Well I hate that I burn all the cakes so I’m going to make this person my cake burning person!” ALSO Marc isn’t that bad either! Marc did terrible things, but Marc is also the hardest on himself! Marc could burn a cake and then use it as proof that he’s the worst person in the world! And Jake ISN’T a bad person! Jake is a good kind loving man with friends and a good heart and I’M SO ANGRY RIGHT NOW.

And the whole time, you see ghostly Marc off to the side looking less than pleased at the situation and reminding Jake that "You're not allowed to kill him, Jake."

And the Truth pulls away in pain.

"Dear God. The things...The things you've done."

WHAT?! WHAT DID JAKE DO?! DRINK HOT COFFEE AND BURN HIS TONGUE?! DID HE PLAY BALL WITH ONE OF THE LOCAL KIDS AND MISS THE HOOP!? DID HE DOUBLE PARK HIS CAB!?

Truth is still reeling. "He has no idea...Does he? You blind him to your foul actions! I'll tell him, you fool! I'll tell him about..."

and Jake cuts Truth off by shoving two crescent darts into his eyes. Yeah...they got an eye thing in this run. I'm not a fan.

Jake gives the body back to Marc, who instantly wants to know what Truth was talking about.

He chastises Jake for his actions and tells him that he's going to get a talking to about this later.

And Marc makes a bad pun about "The Truth Hurts" over the unconscious Truth.

Khonshu and Steven shake their heads at him and Marc claims to be the funny man.

whoopy doo.

With the Truth gone, the afflicted people seem to be recovering now.

Back at RA's part of the story, he finally makes it upstairs to to see the guy he's been looking for.

Oh. Oh no. I forgot about this. I totally wiped it from my mind.

We see someone sitting at a chair. Ra tells him that he's been put here to destroy Khonshu.......

"As a manifestation of his father, Ra, I am offended that he continues to breathe and spread his gospel of dissent through a foul Avatar. A HEBREW, no less. I want your help to end Marc Spector."

I'm... I'm going to take a minute here.

I want to make a few things Very...VERY clear.

I don't care who the fuck is writing this, how they were raised, or where they stand with things now.

This is not okay. Not in a comic book, not in real life, and not in any sense of the word.

We have a figure who is CLEARLY styled to look like a Jesus figure that believes he is the Egyptian god Ra. We have him out to destroy Moon Knight because 1. He works with Khonshu and 2. He is a 'Hebrew'.

This is just disgusting.

And to put it in a comic. Where people of all ages read it and think that it's okay.

Maybe you had some teen or young adult that was identifying with the bad guy. It happens. They see a bad guy that came from a bad situation and they root for them or fantasize what it would be like to burn things like they do. And they start spitting hate like this. Violence towards Jewish people. You are giving them permission to hate a people too. To blame them. To look at them as inferior.

Or maybe you have a young naive kid that has never heard talk like this before and suddenly "Hebrew" becomes a slanderous hateful word. Congrats. You've just turned that kid into always associating that word with bad and disgusting things. It's only a step away from becoming antisemitic in their life.

I just... I can't. I can't even begin to tell you how much this is painful to see. To see Marvel allow this as a company. A company founded on Jewish people. To see Moon Knight as a comic, based around a Jewish system that was originally designed to be about dealing with trauma and hate and pain and finding a way to get better and continue to find the light in the dark.

Anyways... Back to the comic...

The man behind the chair is eager to take down Marc Spector, but he knows it takes more than a man. So Ra sets the place on fire to show off his skills.

The man stands up, impressed.

Oh look... It's Bushman.

A very poorly drawn Bushman that BARELY makes it past the caricature of an old racist cartoon black man. And it only gets worse from there. And as much as Bushman is the bad guy and used to (USED TO) be Marc's biggest enemy... This version of him only goes downhill from here. And we've moved on from antisemitism to racism.

fun times for all....

Oh good. This issue is done.

Can you tell I’m regretting this decision yet?

You know what? I’ve got a question for you to think about! We can all get mad at Bemis. We can point at his horrible story and all the terrible things he wrote about (and boy howdy are there more and they get worse as we go on)... But what about the art?

As MacKay said “Art can make or break a comic”. You can have the most beautiful story in the world and then have it drawn like shit. So who decided to make everything gory and bloody and shocking? Who decided to make Bushman into…THAT? Did Bemis say “I want you to make him look like this” and then pull up a 1940s comic? Or did Burrows make this call all on his own? Are there really two people to blame for these comics? Can we be angry at the artist too?

I’m already pretty pissed at the editors that let this happen… But who drew this?

Jacen Burrows started working with Warren Ellis in 2000. Ah... That explains some of the gore.

Also illustrated adaptations of Alan Moore. Yup. That explains the gore. Those two have very specific styles that usually translate into a lot of gore.

Oh yup. He's also worked a lot with Garth Ennis.

So we've got three of the four most graphic big name comic writers there. This explains a lot.

I don't have much on his personal life, or things that would show WHY he drew things this way... Perhaps it was direction or perhaps it was choice. Looking at some of his other works, they don't all look like this. So who knows?

NEXT ISSUE! #190!

I don’t want this bread. Send it back. I want different bread.

You know what? Why even bring Bushman into this?

This is a move designed to pull the old fans back in and to elicite "OH MAN" emotions from people. And it is not done well.

Bushman started as the big bad. He was the one that worked with Marc as a mercinary and the one that killed him. He's shown up a few times over the years, putting fear into Marc as Bushman threatened his friends. Then Marc killed him (and cut off his face).

So why bring him back? He's done. Marc has burried this particular thing of the past. He's a memory of a ruthless and brutal time.

And what they do with him here is just... They mock him. They make that memory into something grose and shameful.

You'll see in a bit.

So the next issue opens on some look backs at Moon Knight through the ages. We've seen this before. Other one shots and annuals have touched on the other Knights of Khonshu.

This time we see it through Ra's eyes.

"And so it has been since the days the gods themselves walked the earth. Ra and Khonshu, vengeful father and errant son. Warring for the very soul of the world, reborn again and again through earthly avatars. And in every instance....Ra is humbled. Shamed."

....Did Bemis even do mythological research? Is he just going based on "Ah yes, the sun and the moon!"

I'm no Egypt mythology expert, but I can tell you this... Khonshu (or Khonsu as it's really supposed to be spelled) is the son of Amun and Mut. Amun and Ra used to be two different gods but eventually merged into Amun-Ra when two big cities rose to power. He was then attributed with being the king of all.

Khonsu is often depicted as a child! He's drawn with a side-ponytail, which is the "sidelock of youth" and depicts youth in ancient art.

At first Khonsu was incredibly violent. He absorbed other gods' powers by eating their organs. Eventually, he was changed to a mellow god of Time, Measurement, and prosperity.

As I mentioned before, there was a brief period when a popular city worshiped Khonsu as the superior god, but it didn't last and Ra was put back in power when that city fell.

So Bemis clearly didn’t do any research into how the story originally goes. I’m not surprised.

He babbles almost incoherently about Karma and balance and how Khonshu always wins because the Sun God failed to find a proper Avatar.

He says Ra is here to break the cycle and bring order back to mankind. Because mankind needs discipline and order.

"I'm not like those who came before me. I'm not like you, victims of Khonshu's pride. I was born with the flame within me."

So apparently this is a big speech to some henchmen. Or just a bunch of guys looking to get revenge on Moon Knight? Unclear.

Ra's speech done, who is now known as the Sun King, Bushman gives his own speech.

He admits that he now lives his life dealing crack and isn't at his best.

"Marc Spector...Scares the crap out of me, simply put, I don't want to die again. I wouldn't come near Moon Knight with a ten-foot pole at this point, but with Sun King's determination and power?"

He tells them that with Sun King's fire, they can take down Moon Knight.

Sure.

Back to Mr. Spector himself... We see him meditating and holding a little talk with Jake.

Still we get Khonshu's narration:

"The inside of Marc Spector's head is a picturesque, violent landscape touched by Egyptian mythology, Judaic folklore and Fragments of his past."

I have so much I want to argue about with this that I don't even know where to start.

So we see an abstract headscape here. Marc has Jake in a boxing ring and is beating the crap out of him.

He's angry at Jake for keeping things from him and he wants answers.

And here we get a childish depiction of their argument that holds no research and insulting implications.

It's supposed to be funny. It has a certain charm to it that a much much younger me might have found agreeable, but older me has learned a lot and it just makes me tired. And upset at the character assassination that has been happening to my good buddy Jake.

I'm also upset at the implication that Jake is just 'a piece of Marc'. The parts Marc didn't want.

So they continue to fight while Khonshu and Steven watch. Steven is upset at their fighting and tries to get them to stop.

Jake takes a bad blow. "Look, Steven is the wealthy benefactor. Khonshu is our connection to the bigger picture. You're the voice of reason. And I deal in the grimy leftovers. You BUILT us this way."

I hate it. Marc didn't BUILD them. He didn't sit down one day and decide to make other people to hold things! It also depicts Khonshu as being an altar.

While I've often toyed with that idea, it's always been clear from day one that Khonshu is NOT another aspect in their head. There IS a good chance that they have someone that has been formed as a fictive or even a persecutor in the form of Khonshu... But that's an argument for another day. For the sake of this review, Khonshu himself has always been an outside force!

ALSO. Marc. Marc Spector. The voice of reason?! How do you get a character SO WRONG that you are writing a whole comic book for? When has Marc Spector EVER been the voice of reason?

Jake puts Marc in a sleeper hold and threatens to "put you to sleep" if Marc doesn't chill out.

"It's not your fault that your mind ended up like this. All we can do is embrace the crazy and let you move on with your life. Which means you need to trust me, Marc. Capiche?"

I have always been a huge fan of the implication that because of their unique mental health issues, DID, and dealings with Khonshu, along with repeated trauma and death, that the Moon Knight system has the ability to surpass expectation and use these things as secret weapons. The number of times people have attacked them mentally and just been destroyed is amazing. I love it.

THIS. This I hate. "Embrace the crazy". This is clearly the message Bemis got from Lemire's run. That they went through all that so that they could be crazier and use it as a wild card. NO. Just no.

Anyways, Marc and Jake make up and relax while Steven hugs Khonshu in the background in celebration.

We now to go the Sun King, who is knocking on a door to a fancy looking house.

And who answers the door? Marlene Alraune.

For those that don't know, Some time after Moench left Moon Knight, Marlene also left them. When Moon Knight picked up again for the Houston run, Marlene came back, but it was a rocky relationship. She left them again, saying she couldn't be with them for her own health.

Sun King poses as a charity drive door to door person and while Marlene is getting her check book, he notices a picture on the wall. He freaks out and calls in Bushman.

Marlene is famliar with Raoul Bushman. He's the man that killed her father, after all. The one that killed Marc and started it all.

Bushman notices the picture and taunts Marlene.

He calls her a damsel-in-distress. This has never been the case. Marlene has NEVER been a damsel-in-distress. As much as I harp on her from the old days, that girl could take care of herself! Half the time she was the one rescuing Moon Knight!

So to see her passive and not knowing how to fight or take care of herself? No.

We head back to Moon Knight, who is fighting a bunch of "disabled gentlemen", most of which are missing arms and legs and the such. It's implied they work for Bushman and Moon Knight is to blame for their missing pieces. hmm.

While fighting, he gets a phone call. In typical "My ex" fashion, the caller ID says "Do NOT pick up, Psychopath! Let it go!"

Hm.

He answers. Khonshu is not pleased by this but Marc can't help but answer. It says that Marc is still obsessed with her.

He's super happy to hear from her.

Marlene tells him that she's missed him and wants him back in her life.

She attempts to warn him, telling him that maybe it's best if he didn't come over, but Sun King is there and puts the squeeze on her.

Marc is far too eager to go meet up.

I'M GOING TO PUT A PAUSE ON THIS FOR A SECOND.

This is something that has bothered me for AGES and this is the run that started it. (Bemis. Always blame Bemis. But there is also another writer that messed it up too. I'll get to that MUCH later.)

Moench originally wrote that Marlene was in love with Steven.

Jake was incredibly indifferent to Marlene. ANy time they interacted, he treated her as a friend, but was more interested in headint to Gena's. Jake was not into the fancy rich life and how she wanted to live.

Marlene hated Marc Spector. Marc was violent, had a dark past, and was involved in her father's death, her brother's death, and various other tragedies.

If Marlene was going to do anything, it would NOT be Marc. OR JAKE. It would be Steven. In the whole Moench run, she always insisted in calling them Steven. She wanted them to just be Steven and give up the other lives.

BACK TO THE COMIC.

We see a flashback of Marc and Marlene on a raft.

"From the first time you saw me? Huh. Even though I was some mercenary who hadn't showered for a week?"

BULL. SHIT. The first time Marlene saw him, he was working with Bushman and had imprisoned them all, then her father had been killed. The first time she spoke to Marc I'm pretty sure she either told him off or he was dying and she was happy because she thought he'd killed her father.

He's telling her the story of when he had to kill his own brother. (he's not telling the story right). Then he talks about his dead girlfriend and other trauma from his past.

What makes me mad is that this is conceivable. We have Marc Spector (Marc, not the other two) talking to Marlene about his past, his trauma. It’s possible that over time she could have decided to get to know Marc. That she realized that Marc is not just a murdering scary man and made peace with the fact that she needs to know him if she wants to be with Steven. It’s possible that she got him to open up and tell her his trauma and what made him what he is now. It’s even possible she started to date him too. I can get behind that! It’s growth for BOTH Marc and Marlene.

And I wish this was how it was done. How it was left. I wish that they had this growth. That Marc and Marlene could become closer. That he and Steven learned to trust one another so much that they learned to be with Marlene and share. But this isn’t how Bemis does it.

We are back in the now and Marc shows up at Marlene's with flowers and a suit.

He tells her she looks great. He really thinks they are getting back together. Denial is a land that Marc Spector is king of.

And Sun King is standing in the dining room waiting for him.

Sun King pretends to be Marlene's boyfriend who has been living with her.

He tells Marc that Marlene told him all about how he was Moon Knight. It's not like this is a big secret. Marc was only mildly into secret identities. He wasn't very good at it.

And Marc isn't taking this well. While Sun King pretends to be a guy that's with Marlene, he then starts to talk about how someone else has been 'getting with Marlene.'

He tells Marc to ask Jake Lockley.

And in the inner world, Marc is a giant monster pissed off and turning on Jake.

Not how that works. But sure. Why not. Also, let’s propagate the notion that DID promotes distrust in the system and that there’s an evil alter that goes around doing things behind their back like this.

AND THIS. This is disgusting.

She claims to have never stopped loving him and was so desperate for him that she got with Jake?! Not the same person! You don't get a hankering for Marc and go for Jake instead!

And then the notion that Jake came to her telling her to keep it a secret?!

And then telling them that Jake was never "warm". That Jake has evil in him and he just didn't stand up to Marc?!

WHY IS JAKE The EVIL ALTER!? He isn't. Jake Lockley is a loving kind and caring man. He goes to Gena's every day and asks her how her kids are doing. He feeds the homeless. He makes friends with the people on the street.

And she tells Marc that she tried to break it off with Jake but it was too late and she couldn't do it alone.

And that's when Bushman shows up.

Yep. There’s the daughter. And the fact that she calls him “Uncle Jake” and not “Dad” despite the obvious implication that Jake has been in her life for a long time…

Maybe they were trying to protect her from the Moon Knight curse but not letting people know she was his daughter… But still…

Her name is Diatrice. She has pink hair.

This is the ONE thing that came out of Bemis that is kinda okay.

It isn't till MacKay gets his hands on her that I actually started to like her. She's a force.

I admit, change scares me. And I've been jaded by the "We have to introduce a child to keep it interesting!" concept that show-runners and authors seem to have. I was also so incensed by Bemis' terrible writing that I took the stance of HATING Diatrice when I first saw her.

But it was bad writing. And give her to a good writer and she can do such wonderful things.

When Jed MacKay got to put her in a story, she was smart, she was fiesty, and she embraced her dad. More so, he embraced her.

Amazing what happens when someone does something not for the shock value.

And now we move to the next issue. Good. Great. I hate the art. I hate how weepy Marlene is here. Old Marlene would have been pissed. She would not have put up with this shit. She was smart. She would have found a way to warm him. To do something. I honestly can’t tell if this is misogynistic or just BAD writing? Maybe both?

Issue #191.

So the cover is the famous picture of the farmers. It's supposed to depict family homesteading life.

In the real picture, it's not well known, but it is the farmer and the daughter, NOT his wife. Just a little art knowledge there for you.

So we are back to Khonshu narrating.

I don't even know what he's narrating. Something about gods and the power structure of gods and his moon battle against the sun. Something about the moon representing mythical and birth and creation and then sun representing the psychopath and the ground and humans.

Not even mythologically correct in...ANY culture as far as I'm aware. At least none of the one's I've read about. Maybe in some. I don't know. But I doubt very much if there is, Bemis knows about it.

He also starts talking about evil and angels and devils. Dude has got his theology mixed up.

Also, Marc should be a bit more upset about seeing Bushman here. They have...HISTORY.

(There she is. There’s the Marlene I know and care about.)

So everything is on fire. Marc grabs Diatrice and gets her out.

He tells Marlene to get out. She just stands there DESPITE THERE BEING A SLIDING GLASS DOOR BEHIND HER.

He tells Diatrice to go find a place to hide, he has to go help Marlene.

She asks him if he's crazy because you're supposed to run away from fire.

He just looks at her before going back inside.

Marlene is still standing there with a sliding glass door directly behind her and fire in front of her. I don't even....

Marc calls out Raoul Bushman while he fights the henchmen.

"You're such a %$#@!!!"

Roul shoots him in the shoulder. Marc doesn't care. He knocks the gun out of his hand and slams his face into the wall.

Sun King sets Marc on fire. Marc strips down to his skivvies and throws his burning pants into Sun King's face.

Yeah. I can see Moon Knight (especially Marc) doing this. It's a good fighting tactic. It's a good depiction of Marc's talent for hard combat with quick thinking. (See? I can see the good too. Still angry, but there is soooooome good.)

See… It isn’t beneath Marc. This guy pretends to know Marc because of the terrible psychologist and being connected to ‘Ra’. But this isn’t beneath Marc. This is classic Marc fighting.

So they now face one another.

"What are YOU supposed to be?"

"I am Ra's chosen sword. Here to strike you down. I'm the Sun King."

"....Of course you are."

"My purpose is to make your death a mockery. In fact, I wouldn't be doing my job if I just struck you down. It's gotta be so tragic that it means something."

He goes on like this for a hot (LOL) minute. Honestly, Marc's heard it all before. This isn't the first time he's fought a guy with delusions of whatever he's got going on.

At this point Diatrice shows up again and is pissed off that her swing set is on fire.

Marc grabs her and makes a run for it.

He asks her what her name is. She tells him Diatrice and that he already knows that.

Marc is just caught up in the weird name.

"Mommy let me change my name to whatever I wanted!"

Which is super just... Considering she could never even bother to get Marc, Jake, or Steven's name right... Way to go Marlene I guess?

Marc feels the same way.

It's at this point that he runs BACK into the burning house holding his child for some reason? There's a note on the wall "We have your queen."

Well, Marlene's been kidnapped. Not the first time.

Probably for the best, honestly, considering she couldn't figure out how to use ANY of the exits that were surrounding her.

Back at Marc Spector's apartment, we find Marc failing real hard at talking to his daughter.

So this means that Marlene told her that JAKE was not her dad and that her dad was a super hero. Meaning she pretty much told her that Marc was her father.

Look. I know a couple of systems that have children. How they choose to discuss their DID with their children is up to them. Some chose not to discuss it at all until the kid is old enough to understand difficult concepts like this. But they also don’t hide it. None of the systems I know hide it from their children. The kids just learn to recognize the different members of the system, and to them, they are all “Mommy” or “Daddy” because that is the role that they inhabit while present.

It falls back to the whole “Hold your system accountable” aspect of being a functioning system. It means that they hold each other responsible and they all understand that they have a child and must function as a parental figure to protect and care for their child.

So the fact the Marlene is telling her that one of them is the dad and not the other… Hiding it from one and that Jake hid it from them. There is a disconnect here that is damaging and insulting.

So we see her argue with Marc about him not being a super hero. He doesn't look or act like Captain America, he can't fly, and he looks tired and smells funny.

He declares it was an 'off day'.

But, it's what I love about Moon Knight in general. He's just a guy. He has zero powers. He's even a bit of an idiot sometimes. He's just a guy out there that takes a lot of beatings and has a lot of trauma that he works out while wearing a mask.

As they talk, we see Jake, Steven, and Khonshu in the background watching.

Honestly, fair. I have seen systems be put in situations where perhaps a member they don't really trust yet is present in a situation that could be dangerous to them in general. Perhaps a little is present when they shouldn't be. Perhaps a high trauma holder is present in a potentially triggering situation. Or perhaps a persecutor that has a history is out around a member of the family that they don't trust them to be around.

You'll have the protectors and gate keepers VERY close by monitoring and ready to step in if need be.

At least this is true in the systems I've spoken to. Feel free to sound off if you have other experiences. I love to hear from systems about their own experiences and how they handle the family situation.

So now that they've argued on if Marc is or is not actually a super hero, she asks about her mom.

He assures her that she isn't going to die because he's going to save her and "seriously hurt those bad guys".

She asks if he likes Katy Perry. He says no. He asks if she likes Dazzler.

So they put on a record of Dazzler and have some bonding time while Jake keeps watch.

We head out to a high security prison to find some guards chatting.

One of the guards is missing an eye and wearing an eye patch.

He heads to a cell and asks the person inside to head to the city and get revenge for him. He wants him to kill Bushman.

Hey look, The Truth guy is back.

Considering the Truth guy ALSO got his eyes stabbed out... I'm not sure how he's walking around like that without any training or aid or anything...

Also, this guy was seriously not that impressive as a bad guy. He's just big and has a 'scary' design to him. I'm not impressed by this attempt to make a recurring bad guy. It's just not an impressive reveal of a returning bad guy.

So the Truth heads out of the jail easy peasy.

Back in Marc's apartment, Diatrice is asleep and Marc is holding a meeting in the head space.

You've got Marc, Jake, Steven, and Khonshu on a platform with Cthulhu in the background. I don't know. Do they think that the head space can just conjure anything based on need or emotion? Maybe it does? Maybe it doesn't? I Don't know.

Apparently this is a recurring thing Khonshu does because Jake tells him "Khonshu... Don't you be giving me that "Cthulhu" Bullshit. Not you." And Steven agrees. "He's kind of right. We can't just use squids to explain all weird things in this world."

You ready for this? I bet you aren’t.

Yeah I… I’m gonna… I am not touching this. I don't have the time or energy to sit down and type up a whole manifesto on what's wrong with this page.

And this is where the now famous line comes from:

Also let’s add some eating disorders to the mix. Why not? Do you have a disorder and feel left out? Don’t worry! I’m sure Bemis will get to that too! Not to mention there is a very underhanded homosexuality jab mixed in with that too! Blink and you’ll miss it, but this is a common way for older shows and media to take a jab at how wrong the GBLTQ world was. Make the villain have some latent homosexual tendencies, usually towards the main hero of the show.

So now we see Busman, Truth, and Sun King hanging out.

Truth is following them now, though apprently he sometimes accidentally uses his powers.

They review a map and discuss where they want to go.

Bushman tells them about a "Backwards tribe that I 'liberated' before we took over."

Yeah cause that's... Hmmm.

They decide to go t that island to start a "new eden".

Sun King tells Marlene the plan in a gloating fashion.

"You've gone so far as to tie up a super hero's girlfriend and you're bragging to her about your evil plan.

You're not profound. You're a linkless wikipedia reference waiting to happen."

Well, at least she gets that jab in.

"Perhaps that's so. But I'm still going to kill your child while her dad looks on. Just to prove the uselessness of his cause."

He tells Marlene he's going to use her to lure Marc to his doom. He also asks Truth to create an army.

Back with Marc, he is telling her about Frenchie.

Look, I've always been a big Jean-Paul Duchamp fan. I love him. It breaks my heart that things went the way they did and he eventually left Marc and they had a huge falling out. But I am happy Frenchie found love and has his own chance to be happy.

Do not bring my poor Frenchie into this world of Bemis.

…I’m sorry, did Marc just describe Frenchie as “A father figure”?! In what universe? Who are these people that think he’s a father figure to him?!

So Marc has called in Frenchie to baby sit Diatrice while he goes off to save Marlene.

I'm just sighing right now. Because it's been established that Frenchie is not talking to Marc anymore. He isn't adventuring anymore.

Frenchie lost both his legs in a mission gone wrong. He fell in love with his PT person and now they run a restaurant together. While Frenchie still misses the adventures, he also is tired of the PTSD and the pain that follows Moon Knight.

This is just shoddy editing by team Marvel.

Also this...

And this is how they ended this issue. Cliffhanger dead zombie Frenchie. Why is he in scrubs?

(It's at this point that I realized that Tumblr would only let me upload 30 images and I was going to have to break this up into more than two long ass posts. I'm so very very sorry.)

Part two will be linked very soon. Until then, I'm going to thank you for sticking around this long and hope you finish this rage filled adventure with me.

I'm going to admit that I am biased in not just hating Bemis, but also hating this art.

There are places for art like this. I've seen it utilized well in comics where the nature of the comics stands very well with this sort of art. Punisher Max for instance. For those that don't know, Punisher Max is a stand alone version of Frank Castle that was created in order to depict the ultra violence that Frank Castle is capable of in his search for justice and his never ending war.

The problem is that Moon Knight has gotten a reputation for being incredibly violent and unpredictable. You can probably thank Houston for that, but I'm sure the problem dates back to the 90s (always blame the 90s).

On the one hand, Marc is a former soldier, mercenary, and has anger issues. On the other hand, people have been using the excuse that "He's insane, of course he's going to be violent and unpredictable."

This has, most unfortunately, attracted writers like Bemis to the comic and then recruited artists that are more adept at drawing shocking gore or acts.

And even worse, this has attracted in a VERY specific fan base that reads comics looking for the gore, action, and hyper violence. They pick up an issue of Moon Knight, that has traditionally been based around dealing with mental health, classism, depression, and political issues.

These sorts of readers are easy to spot. They will list issues like Bemis, Aaron, and Bendis as their favorite issues. They will complain that newer stuff is boring or that they can't read the old stuff because it's too chatty. They want the action. they want to see Marc ripping a man's face off and biting out their throats.

Things like this are what goad on the perpetuation of Mentally I'll people being dangerous and scary and untrustworthy.

I'll touch on it more next time, but when we see things like this, it's so important that we don't put up with it. That we tell the big companies that Marvel, DC, and so on that we won't stand for this. That they are the problem. Don't put up with things like this. Don't put up with Bemis.

...Also I just really hate this art style. Every page feels SO static. Everyone is always just standing around grinning at things. Maybe I was spoiled by Bill Sienkiewicz, Declan Shalvey, Smallwood, and Alessandro Cappuccio. These people made even standing still look beautiful and full of life. They knew that sometimes just having Moon Knight standing in the rain could say more than words ever could.

PART TWO HERE.

Let's finish this bread.

#Moon Knight #Moon Knight comics #Analyzing the comics #BEMIS #This is a labor of love/hate you guys #Please it took me so long #It was so painful #I'm doing this for you #We can't just ignore it anymore #We have to understand the bad comics so that they don't happen again #We have to call this bull shit out

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moralesmilesanhour · 1 year ago

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I'd love to hear what fundamental issues you have with spiderverse... 🎤

Hm I'm just gonna rattle off a few from most to least important before I forget (note: some of my issues with spiderverse are less about the concepts or characters themselves but more about how the writers or producers chose to handle them, or even just exploring the possibilities of what could've been. I still think it's a really excellent movie and complex story.)

If you're someone that skims through longer paragraphs a lot, I've also put my most important points in italics so that you get the gist of what I'm saying :)

Making Miles' story about everyone else but Miles. I understand that Miles' whole thing in Spiderverse is that by defying the odds, he inspires the people around him. But there's a certain point where the story become *about that* and the other characters more than him and his interiority. In its efforts to focus on his growing into the mantle of Spider-Man, the films only kind of allude to the fact that he has a life outside of the mask. His mental health and relationship to his community are pushed to the wayside so much that even Ganke is only on-screen for a few minutes at most.

(This is a long one sorry) Spiderverse as a movie doesn't seem to know for sure whether it likes cops or not. It presents the literal police and policing as a concept as something that is inherently neutral, likening it to the mantle of Spider-Man where they simply have power that they have to use responsibly, and that there are just "bad apples". But the way that Spider-Society operates quite closely parallels how policing and criminality work: you have a bunch of spiders go out and detain people and send them where they're "supposed to be" under the guise that a) the order of things will essentially fall apart if you don't, and b) there is a specific way that your story is supposed to go, and you should be willing to sacrifice lives to maintain that status quo. There's also the categorization of those who break those rules as an Other (anomalies), and the fact that Spider Society reacts to the presence of the anomalies instead of addressing the thing that created them (the collider. HELLOOOO). With all that being said, Miguel and the rest of Spider Society are clearly framed as anatgonistic forces by the film and even has a punk anarchist character calling them out and being right about it. The movies simultaneously critique policing metaphorically through Spider Society while trying to justify it in the real world.

Girl where is Pavitr. His character is literally perfect for Miles to interact with, but we don't see him again until the very last scene. Same thing with...literally everyone we just met. The movie is over two hours long, where did all that time go--OH WAIT

Gwen and the scene with her dad take up wayyyy too much of the movie's runtime, I'm sorry. We spent the entirety of the beginning of the film learning information about Gwen and her dad that could've been quickly conveyed in much less time. Not to mention that, apparently, Mr. Stacy literally gets fired in the comics for letting Gwen go, so that whole plotline didn't even need to happen. Why change that? To say he's a 'good cop' that does his job? The trauma of losing Peter would've been present in her story either way.

The art style. No, this doesn't mean what you think it does. I do not have an issue with the 3D and 2D hybrid style of animation obviously. Spiderverse has literally revolutionized the field, but there are some limitations to it that were made especially clear once TMNT:MM came out. You may or may not have noticed, but isn't almost everyone in Spiderverse...kinda gorgeous? Hear me out here. Someone has pointed this out before me, and it really changed the way that I look at aesthetics in animation. In Spiderverse, everything from the environments to the way that things are shaded and colored is extremely stylized and pushed quite far...until you get to the main characters. Yes, there is diversity in features the likes of which we haven't seen 'till recently, but I'm purely talking about the style in which they're drawn. Compared to everything else, they look closer to something Disney or Pixar might produce. This is not inherently problematic or "bad", but I do wonder how much cooler and cutting-edge and comic-y we could get if it wasn't so pre-occupied with beauty. You can disregard this one, it's just a thought. Apparently the idea that not every cartoon character you see on the big screen has to be hot makes people very angry.

I think those are all the big ones. I'll reblog with new additions if for some reason I come up with new things to complain about lmao

#another long post sorryyyyy #blabbering #not tagging this bc ummm no <3

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chibivesicle · 2 years ago

Text

Trigun Stampede Episode 5 - subtle we are not; Monev the Gale, we only knew you briefly

Another Saturday morning has come and gone here and it means the next episode of Trigun Stampede. Still pushing that breakneck pace and jamming in more world building. For this week, I’ll start with the location map highlighting that we are in the Windmill Village. Which is the remains of a crashed ship that has a lot of windmills to provide power.

The episode starts with an establishing shot of the lack of wind at the Windmill Village. A man is speaking over the radio, clearly a sort of televangelist type with the fire and brimstone sort of pseudo-Christian worship. And if you’ve watched the original Trigun anime, you will immediately recognize that the radio preacher is Wolfwood’s VA, 速水奨, Hayami Shō, stylized as Show Hayami in English.

As his sermon continues there is a shot of two people kneeling in prayer before a sort of eye of god/cross banner in their home.

The two of them continue to listen to the broadcast, their hands clasped together and we get a shot of the younger child looking nervous before it cuts to the OP.

This opening segment establishes that there is a sort of hard line religious group and these two people are worshipping it, or at least the mother based on the awkward body language of the child.

Our next shot is of Meryl driving as a religious radio program is on the radio and she’s ready to change the station, also telling us that it is around 50 degrees C on this desert planet at the moment!

Don’t worry though, Roberto is here to info dump and tell us that the religious group around plant worship is newly established - only around for a few years in the Stampede timeline. While they discuss the social cultural context, Vash and Wolfwood are sleeping soundly, somehow Wolfwood is able to do so with a half smoked cigarette.

Since Roberto doesn’t want to really have an actual conversation with Meryl, he decides to mess with her and make up some story about the red desert sand around them - which of course scares the shit out of her and then she almost hits the carcass of a giant dead bug. Which when they inspect it, Wolfwood somehow is able to explain it was killed with a single one handed strike from a ‘person’.

Wow dude, way to try to cover that you aren’t an ‘undertaker’ and are a trained assassin. Are you even trying to blend in Wolfwood? I’m going to guess that Wolfwood likely knows who could have done this - perhaps not the specific individual but that he knows it was a modified human by the Eye of Michael.

They go onto investigate the ghost town further and conclude it died due to the lack of consistent wind. The entire exchange between Meryl and Wolfwood about it is just weird. What was the point of Wolfwood commenting that using wind power is dumb for Meryl to try to correct him that it is a flawed form of power if there is no wind?

The scientist in me has more of an issue with this set up of wind power is unreliable. If you don’t have a plant, your plan would be to have both wind power and solar. Since we don’t see any clouds at all on this desert planet. Additionally, when you do live in a desert it is almost super reliable that you will have wind power; I never got over how windy the desert is and how sunny it is when I lived in the desert. The solution for this plot point is a combination of wind and solar. You have advanced technology even if some of it is lost - you can have solar panels. Of course this then creates the issue of you need another piece of the puzzle to explain why plants are so important in this world.

It was always my understanding of the manga that besides generating power, the idea was that the plants also helped to stabilize the local environment for terraforming needs as highlighted in the anime episode and series of manga chapters around Little Arcadia (and the rest of the Nebraska family). Even if you had wind and solar power it was the extra special stuff that the plants helped to add to the local environment made it livable and arable for farming if one put in the time and effort. Little Arcadia implies that something from a plant sort of escaped into the land and the family that nurtured it were able to create a little oasis in the desert.

The group explore the area and Vash picks up a strip of cloth that is covered in dust before he’s shot at by gunfire. Someone is attacking him! Wolfwood rushes in with his weapon uncovered and yells at him to take an action.

I have to admit I’m missing the dramatic reveal of his Punisher from the original anime and manga, it always indicated that things are serious. Now, he’s just there and ready to go. The scenes keep flipping back and forth between the worried kid, Rollo and the action of the giant man in a mask with machine guns for arms. The kid overhears his mother talking with others about how he’s supposed to be the next sacrifice to god having been a child born on a windless day. Studio Orange is clear - being subtle is not their storytelling style in this. We know that young Rollo knows that he’s up next for some sort of weather/ritual sacrifice to save the town and of course he makes a run for it into the desert.

Vash gets cornered and Wolfwood shoots him only for the camera to make sure that we know that little vials inject something into him that allows for rapid healing. Wolfwood knows this man they are fighting has similar technology that he has so - yeah - it harkens back to his statement of punching the desert bug with a bare hand.

The two run away for the moment, with Wolfwood almost dragging Vash along. We get them in an alley catching their breath and Wolfwood is already insulting and muttering about how pathetic Vash is. And the fact that he knows that Vash is hiding something about this Windmill Village.

It cuts to what is for the first time clearly defined as a flashback. I get it, they wanted you to not be sure if you were seeing parallel actions between Rollo and Vash but with a heavy nudge that this is likely a flashback and that kid might have something to do with the giant monster chasing them and yelling “Vash the Stampede!”

Vash finds Rollo when he tried to run away from him and that he was bringing him back for his mother who was very worried about him. Rollo through his conversation with Vash is trying to decide if he should trust Vash’s [likely naive] advice and return to meet his fate of a certain death or continue to run.

Of course Vash is clueless to the dark sacrificial plot and instead promises that he will get the proper medicine to heal Rollo. Since this is full time perma-sad Vash, we know by time he completes his quest to save the kid, he would have arrived too late!

The flashback then has Rollo going alone with a lantern to some part of the structure where he encounters our fine Doctor, the blonde girl who is barefoot and is restrained by some sort of grunts for the Eye of Michael who knock him out with a drug.

The flashback has the girl stating that she’s not the same as Rollo, that she’s actually and angel and that he’s totally different. The statement that she’s angel would make me think plant, but the fact that she doesn’t have the weird markings on her bare arms imply that she’s not a plant like Vash and Knives but more of a rather confident girl.

Rollo gets strapped to an exam room table, injected with all sorts of stuff and the Doctor explains that he’ll age rapidly but won’t die of his sickness if he can regenerate etc etc.

And this allows us to learn he is a ‘successful’ experiment living at least 5 years as his superhuman form. The girl still thinks he’s a possible failure but the Doctor seems pleased enough and is using his hatred of Vash not saving him to drive his anger. I guess. The experiment scene also wants to hammer home that he is indeed Rollo, as at least 5 years later, he returns home to visit his mother before destroying their home which Meryl and Roberto inspect. We can hear the radio is still on with the Wolfwood VA talking while they look around. Interestingly, Roberto states it looks like this all fell apart 20 years ago.

If that is the case, the incident with Rollo running away from home and being rescued by Vash happened ~25 years prior, Rollo became his unnamed form, went back home 20 years ago, likely killed his mother and destroyed the place and then went back to the base?

While they inspect the rubble, Meryl finds a photograph of Rollo as a baby with Vash holding him that clearly his mother had taken. Thus, the timeline that Vash is older than he appears is being confirmed but with all the info dumping that Roberto does - he’d know that Vash is older wouldn’t he?

While Roberto and Meryl are being good investigative reporters Rollo is fighting with Wolfwood and Vash, but Wolfwood is looking a bit rough and spits out his cigarette to pop out his own regenerative vial as he watches Rollo pin Vash against the wall.

These vials don’t appear into Volume 8 of Trigun Maximum with a full explanation from Wolfwood after he rescues Vash from Knives ark after fighting with Chapel, Livio and Legato. This was after the 7 month time skip when Vash is kidnapped and imprisoned by Knives and Wolfwood eventually is able to brute force get him out of the ark through the combination of sheer willpower, a tacit understanding of Vash and the regenerative vials.

Vash is trying to get through to Rollo’s humanity which shows a shift as his facial display goes from Venom-ish from Spiderman to a regular man. The reason this character looks like Venom is that Yasushiro Nightow is a huge fan of Spiderman and designed him as such in the original manga. Vash is there pleading about his promise but it is obvious that he failed to save him.

Wolfwood then cracks open the vial, heals himself and then shoots Rollo through the head with the laser beam function of his gun. The scene shifts to Vash pleading for Rollo to wake up as Roberto and Meryl watch and Wolfwood hangs back. Wolfwood finally breaks the situation by stating that he’s dead and that he is not waking up. Vash rushes at Wolfwood to grab him by the collar demanding why he killed him to which Wolfwood replies with ‘Mercy.’

He goes on to further admit that Rollo had become a monster, lost his humanity and even if he didn’t kill him, the man would not return to who he was.

This the starts the first of Wolfwood’s lectures/philosophical debates with Vash about how it isn’t always possible to save everyone and not hurt them. Vash is someone who is able to say what he wants to see have happen but has no way to implement it in reality. However, since we are going at a rapid pace there has been no time for Wolfwood and Vash to get to know each other as just friends; their debate both in the anime and manga only happened after they spent some time with each other for it to really show the differences between them.

This is an even more black and white interpretation of the difference between Wolfwood and Vash. We do get excellent animation of Vash’s own shock here in his eyes which I was very impressed with. Wolfwood’s facial expressions are a bit more muted in this episode, it seems if he glances to the side that is the most he can do for any sense of remorse/frustration. Furthermore, it sort of makes it a Vash versus Wolfwood, when in reality it is Vash versus Knives with Wolfwood straddling the middle ground in life philosophy.

The group silently leave the Windmill Village as the wind begins to pick up. With the sacrificial death of the child born on a windless day, the windmills are all able to spin and begin to light up the ghost town in the night.

Back at Knives HQ, Conrad is informed of Rollo’s death by Zazie, stating that he was killed by another one of them. The blonde girl states he was Nicholas, but Conrad corrects it to the Punisher.

Which makes it clear that he was involved in the creation of Wolfwood’s current state and abilities.

The episode then ends and the credits roll. The first thing I did was double check the credits this time to confirm the blonde girl’s identity since I didn’t think to do so in other episodes if she had made a ‘hrm’ sound or not. And there at the bottom of the first page she is and she’s indeed Elendira the Crimsonnail.

So, as of this point, Elendira appears to be a young girl, but since Rollo was ‘made’ at least 25 years ago in the current timeline she can appear to be a young girl at the moment. It also looks like she will not be a trans woman either - unless we get more backstory for her.

It is clear that the terminology for the Gung-ho Guns no longer is a thing in Stampede and they are popping up in a new order.

Rollo is Monev the Gale from the manga and anime. The whole association with the Windmill Village is more than enough to make that connection as well as the events happening over 20 years ago since the original Monev was imprisoned for ~20 years by Legato. He shows up to cause total chaos in hunting Vash for Legato taking out lots of innocent bystanders in the process.

In the anime the climax of the action is when Vash shoots off his face shield and almost kills him with his hidden arm machine gun at point blank. This was such an emotional scene where it is first the we really see Vash almost lose it in the slow build up to this point.

The manga makes it even more dramatic, with the close up on Vash’s face as he holds his long colt to his face as he’d had to break his arm off to escape the handcuffs/chains.

Both tense scenes end with Vash breaking down in tears by thinking about his past relationship and conversations with Rem. With that we get the total emotional release of all of his anxiety, sadness and fears in a very cathartic scene.

What sort of hero has to hold himself in a hug as he weeps in pure frustration and loss? It really was a great reveal of how Vash’s own moral compass and code is struggling with the reality of his own circumstances and existence and he does not know what to do.

However, it doesn’t matter that Vash is compassionate and merciful to Monev, he’s eventually killed by other Gung-ho Guns several days later; crucified of course.

Things to ponder and take away from episode 5.

Honestly, I’m sort of really trying to scrape together my conclusion. In a narrative sense this episode does nothing to advance the plot. Sure, they have some themes that occur but all we did was repeat episode 4. We introduce that Wolfwood is not good and Vash is good. Wolfwood chooses violence and Vash does not. Wow.

Additionally, the lack of inner monologues and thoughts from the characters is making it harder to understand them. Apparently, we are to infer everything from these characters through their actions alone. Can a TV show do that and succeed? Yes, but Trigun Stampede is not Black Sails. The original anime and manga have a lot of inner thoughts to show the conflict and issues characters are dealing with and it is completely missing from the story telling in this anime.

Themes:

1.) Religious groups prey upon and use desperate people - this is painfully obvious the entire episode. Rollo’s unnamed mother is willing to give him up in order to save the town by bringing them wind and salvation from God. Rollo clearly is questioning his faith and runs off into the desert to save himself - by likely dying from another fate. The televangelists over the radio started more than 25 years ago and continue to do their work - though Roberto refers to them as a new cult. In the manga, we know that the ships crashed ~150 years prior to the current events and the Eye of Michael state that they are ~130 years old working in the background for most of the time humans have been struggling to survive on the planet.

It also implies that the Eye of Michael sees no issue with taking unwanted children to form them into tools to achieve their goals - though I wonder if it is actually an independent group like in the manga or something else that Knives created and set into motion in this version?

2.) A pure pacifist cannot make impactful change - Vash convinced Rollo to return to his mother and Rollo wasn’t able to verbally state his own fears to Vash dooming him to his terrible fate. Vash, you really aren’t a good listener or you can’t read people’s body language after over 100 years? Vash at least is able to fire his gun again and works hard to defensively fight Rollo shooting at buildings and structures to slow him down or distract him but by not facing him head on, he is going to lose.

3.) Sometimes you have to pick the worst option - this is shown by Wolfwood killing Rollo. Granted, since Wolfwood is on the same side, it is in his own best interest to kill Rollo to conceal his own identity - though his blunt statements aren’t really helping him to not look like an obvious assassin. This is most likely supposed to mirror the moral conflict between Vash and Wolfwood when Wolfwood shoots Zazie the Beast in the anime and Vash and him get into a very heated argument about it. We also have absolutely no context for why Vash refuses to kill in episode 5 nor why Wolfwood feels obligated to kill.

Stampede is going through the motions, using specific lines and dialogue, but it isn’t working since we really don’t get that feeling that Vash sees all life as sacred. There is no declaration of this land is made of love & peace. Or how he freaked out when he shot B.D.N.’s lackeys and had to stop them from bleeding out. The manga does a good job early on of establishing his no killing rule and the anime takes it to the next level. Meanwhile, the manga and anime establish Wolfwood as a more compassionate and complex character.

We just have very 1 dimensional characters who seem to do one thing in the plot and that’s it.

4.) The mix of Buddhist & Catholic ideology that underpinned the original work is only at a surface level - Upon my recent watching and reading of the manga, it refreshed me on how the entire series is very much using philosophical and moral arguments that are a mix of Buddhist and Catholic ones combined. There is the idea of humans by nature existing in a state of suffering and that are naturally born with sin, thus requiring a religious way to deal with that sin. That Vash struggles to live an impossible moral code and that Wolfwood has crushing Catholic guilt through his own actions and decisions to protect others. Knives is clearly a fallen angel but that Vash can’t be a hands off sort of distant angel either watching but not doing.

I’m not here to make any sort of strong religious statement, more that the original work used these to religions as the foundation for the moral and philosophical struggles that the main cast face in the story. Vash has to actually become critical of his own morals while Wolfwood sacrifices himself not only to save the orphanage but he also saves Livio. Livio then also learns that despite all the terrible things that he has done is still a person worth saving and caring for and that he too is redeemable and can be forgiven. Meryl has to learn of her fear and bias toward Vash when he protects her with his angel arm and then accept him as is. It is just all these things worked well in the story and I appreciated how they were used in the manga and original anime.

Stampede instead is adapting these concepts on the surface level. Characters are saying similar lines and doing similar actions but that doesn’t mean it replicates the original feelings.

5.) Missing those dramatic sunglasses scenes - Due to the high octane nature of the action in this sci fi series, I find myself missing the ‘I mean business when I put my sunglasses on’ scenes with both Vash and Wolfwood. Wolfwood frequently dons his own sunglasses when he has to get down to business or is trying to appear cool and collected. But when the two of them are less stressed or in non-dangerous situations, they are without their sunglasses.

Escape from Pain is an anime only episode, but it highlights how Vash did his mock kill to allow Julius and Moore to escape. Wolfwood steps on his sunglasses that Milly slapped off of his face, likely because he himself is upset that Vash upset Milly. He won’t allow Vash to put them back on to hide his own emotions and look serious when he hurt Milly’s feelings through his fake actions.

Which is then balanced out with the humor where he reaches over, grabs Vash’s gun, pops out the bullets, squeezes it to show it is a rubber bullet before he rapidly reloads it with one, and shoots Vash at point blank range.

I’ve also realized how much I liked Wolfwood’s reveal of his own personal tools in the anime. You want to take me on, allow for me to show you that I mean business.

Characters, comments & observations:

1.) Vash - continues to be passive; but finally is spurred into feeling some sort of rage when Wolfwood kills Rollo. He apparently tries to do everything himself and trusts all adults at their word. However, since this version of Monev didn’t kill and harm countless innocent people, we don’t get the full emotional breakdown of Vash. This makes it hard for us to connect with his pain and suffering that his personal code has caused him. It doesn’t make us feel how much of a struggle it is for him to continue to hold himself to his impossibly high standards. Instead, he just looks sad and passive. Furthermore, I feel the longer they don’t have him explain his moral code the more muddied it becomes; they missed their chance to have him clearly state “I will not kill!” which is sort of ironic with how blunt the story is otherwise. This also fails when Wolfwood was a priest and Vash could always give him shit with “Thou shall not kill!” and he actually did not kill. 2.) Meryl & Roberto - do their best as the senior/junior reporter team. We don’t get a lot of development from them other than that Roberto knows how to scare her and she’s decent enough to find a pristine photo of a younger Vash. They honestly don’t do anything to advance the plot since they hide during the shoot out and are both info dumping for us. I’m also starting to get tired of Roberto’s perpetually half untucked shirt look. I get it, he’s supposed to be messy but can you at least switch between it being the right side, the left side or both? Instead, it has been consistently the right side for the first 5 episodes when we know they’ve at least had time to clean up a little. This isn’t a low budget anime from the 80s and 90s where you have no choice but to animate something out of order (I’m looking at you bus in Muder Machine where Wolfwood’s cross is on the top of the bus before they pick him up in the desert). At least the bickering between Meryl and Wolfwood is minimal at best, but they were only together for a short time during the episode.

3.) Wolfwood - is not doing a good job of hiding he’s a trained assassin with similar tools and tricks that Rollo/Monev the Gale had. We know that some religious organization that worships plants clearly recruited him as a young child and he was subjected to treatments and experiments. Hopefully, it will at least reveal that he was not directly involved with team Knives. With the obvious nature of this work, they will likely beat us over the head when we get to Wolfwood’s backstory as an orphan taken into the Eye of Michael and trained to work for them. However, since he doesn’t seem to be a compassionate and likeable guy trapped between his own unfortunate circumstances, who tried to escape his teacher and therefore those obligations it is hard to feel for him. He’s just angry, aggressive and bitter lashing out at everyone.

4.) Rollo/Monev the Gale - we only knew you briefly. This version gave us a new backstory for you. You are an explanation for Wolfwood’s own background and the technology behind the assassins. Does this work for me? Sort of. Rollo achieves the goal of being someone who knew and trusted Vash in the past to only be hurt by those actions; like Hopper the Gauntlet and Leonof the Puppet Master. But his character also has to do double duty to explain that there is biotechnology that can turn children into super killing machines by physically altering them, giving them rapid regeneration skills at the expanse of aging them quickly and we know that Wolfwood is using it as well.

What is lost in Stampede’s version is the humanity of Monev the Gale and Vash’s inner conflict to not stoop to the level of killing. Monev had no issue with killing innocents and lambasts Vash for not fighting him head on, civilians be dammed.

But it is when he’s defeated that Monev begs for his life that his humanity is shown to still be there - despite being forced to train in isolation for 20 years. Was he a deep character in the original manga or anime? No, but his own mortality and that realization of his own actions turned the tables on him showed that he still very much had basic human needs and emotions.

Instead, Wolfwood puts Rollo out of his own misery by killing him and we never get to see if he still had those human emotions only by him revealing his real face behind the mask as Vash apologizes. Which doesn’t have the punch the barrel of a gun to the eye socket does as you cry out for mercy.

My two cents on the rapidly aging sci fi aspect of the story

Anime Wolfwood was a normally aging guy who trained as a child to about adulthood before he fucked off to do his own thing for a number of years, but based on how he acts and looks it is safe to say he’s late 20s to early 30s.

Manga Wolfwood suffers from unclear retcon with a wishy washy timeline for his backstory. One reading is that he was recruited 6 years prior to the 2 year time skip - so, 4 years before the start of the manga he joined the Eye of Michael when he was 11-ish and did stuff and got shot enough to age him up to mid-20s ish when he first meets the group in the desert. This very condensed timeline for him means he dies around 17 or 18 at the end since the kids don’t recognize him. However, there are flashbacks with the young girl who Livio liked and we see her as a clear adult in the manga when Livio protects her implying that they were likely older when they entered the Eye of Michael and started the rapid aging bits. With this information it means Wolfwood and Livio are in their 20s instead. I’ve found support for both of these interpretations in the manga so I’m just not going to take one or the other and keep it unclear since it is vague.

Honestly, between these two scenarios, I preferred anime Wolfwood since his actions and words made more sense coming from a normal aging adult than a young kid who sounded so world weary at times it broke my immersion from the story when reading the manga. But that is my opinion. I’m not against the idea of him having a regeneration serum that has a karmic tradeoff. It was almost overkill when you realize he was a religiously trained gunman from a young age and trapped by his circumstances. Tug at your heart strings more that Wolfwood dies even more tragically young. . .

Anyhoo, that took me off course.

Predictions for the future: 1.) Another bad guy of the week for episode 6. Who will it be? Who knows? The introduction of all the characters is not the same as the original anime or Maximum so your best guess is as good as mine. Elendira, Zazie, Livio, Legato, Grey - any of them are possible. We still have a ways to go to reach July on that map and there is an orphanage at the halfway point. Does this mean Wolfwood will die by then? 2.) Characters likely dropped. Dominique the Cyclops, Rai-dei the Blade, Midvalley the Hornfreak. I very much liked all of them and how chaotic they were. Oh well, they would seem too campy in this sleek sci fi series.

3.) Moar action! Move frantically forward with no character development and only action. Action action action. Please let the story breathe - at least have them stop for donuts? Or have Vash mistaken for a cat? Or fight Wolfwood for spaghetti? You can’t keep up this level of depressing without some humor - that was key to the Vash-Wolfwood dynamic as well.

All in all, episode 5 was weaker than episode 4, which was weaker than the first three. This episode has not advanced the plot, explained anyone’s motivations beyond that Vash is running away and now sort of heading towards July, that Meryl and Roberto want their story and that Wolfwood has to make sure he gets there. I’m not sure who the intended audience for this is, but I’m pretty sure I’m not it.

Studio Orange continues to demonstrate extreme technical skills with their animation but the lack of a coherent understanding of narrative structure, character development and world building are killing this for me. The story lacks any sort of emotional core or heart. Just slapping a known series onto 1D characters and making them look pretty. And without character inner monologues we have to take what characters say at face value when interacting with others.

#trigun anime #trigun stampede #trigun manga #trigun maximum #vash the stampede #nicholas d. wolfwood #meryl stryfe #roberto deniro #monev the gale #rollo #elendira the crimsonnail #zazie the beast #meta #trigun stampede meta #trigun stampede episode review

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rowanthefierce · 3 months ago

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all right so I've played 6 hours of veilguard so far, here are my initial impressions!

stuff i am enjoying:

very pretty. the world and environments are gorgeous. i love walking (or lightly jogging, in the bioware tradition) around and just marveling at the sky

i really do like the level design. i'm not super clued in with gaming trends, but it reminds me of both "modern" god of war games, which i played and enjoyed: fairly linear levels from point a to point b, almost always with areas to come back and unlock once you're progressed in the story or character skillset. the pseudo-open world level design, if you will. personally i am a fan. it keeps me going and focused, knowing i can always come back to grab whatever the thing is behind puzzle door #3

the amount of customization for difficulty and settings is great

i appreciate that they dropped level requirements for gear

the blight??? is so gross. way grosser than inquisition (how was it in prev games? someone lmk). and i dig it. it is the right level and pitch of horror and gore / grossness. even if i go "yuck!!" every time i see it

stuff i am neutral on:

character designs are fine. they look more stylized, but like? who cares. they don't look like pixar characters to me. i think that's a over-simple exaggeration. they fit into the world, they look decent, and that's all it really should be imo.

dialogue is fine. i don't even know if i was expecting anything here. people talk about the dialogue like it's horrible, and yeah, it's a little basic or the text on the wheel doesn't align 100% with what Rook says, but it's not trash. do people expect disco elysium level lines to be coming out of these characters?

stuff i am 'meh' to displeased with:

combat is ok. the one thing i didn't really like about the new god of war games was the combat, esp ragnarok. this is a very personal one because i have always historically struggled with any sort of precision or timing-based input (why i don't play fighting games). precision parries and so forth are usually things i don't ever accomplish or build on. veilguard is (so far) not at the same level as gow but i'm already a lil frustrated with it. again, this is highly ymmw. once i figured out inquisition's combat, for ex, i was having a blast, so maybe i just need more time with veilguard (and i did 100% the first god of war despite my griping)

the varric narration. was this in any earlier games? i am not sure i like varric doing voiceover wink wink nudge nudge at me for plot development stuff. the art is beautiful for these sequences, but i can't say i'm a fan so far of him chiming in after quests and conversations. feels a bit jarring. sorry, varric!!

looking forward to playing more! overall, it's fun and a comforting sort of game, and i am very drawn in by the plot

#rowan speaks #rowan the rook #dav spoilers #someone lmk which tag is best for spoilers lol

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shirogane-oushirou · 9 months ago

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↓↓ the stinky. the silly. the baby. he's so little and adorable. don't make fun of his early-game no-money-limited-choices clothes, he'd be sad T-T also, top one is the lake where adult!ren and i meet if i choose galar as the setting :3c

anyway idk if i'm playing any more despite not even reaching the first gym AKJNDSKJN

[ venting about having a bad time playing pkmn sword + talking around the dex.it Thing]

not me going "lalalala i wonder how many of our pkmn i can use to put a team together for my ren file in swsh?? teehee~~" and looking up the unobtainable pkmn list.

guess how many pkmn from our COMBINED teams i can get in the base game?......... three (3). one early game, two mid-to-late game. i could get 3 more in the post-game dlc, one through raids only, but idek if i'd WANT to replay the dlc...

then i looked at SV's unobtainable pkmn to see if i should play that instead, and it's a similar story. hell, both unobtainable pkmn lists have a LOT of crossover, which feels A Little Fucked to me. just how many people got shafted TWICE on the switch???

and suddenly i was hit with the force of how exhausted i was w this game after my first run-through... so now i'm instantly turned off from playing again jskdnjfJNSFJKN.

if i can't access half of my favs in EITHER mainline switch game, and the wild area feels this awful and overbearing to even RUN ACROSS through without catching anything, nevermind it being the core pkmn catching area... i have other games i can play instead :) and i'll just have to hope and pray that my babies show up in legends Z-A 😔

ugggghhhhhh. at least i got to make my little freak and scope out wedgehurst, and while i did want to see some of the places i think ren would want to study... maybe i can find an LP as a refresher. i think that's all i need from the game.

...i just realized this fits ren's lore too KJANKJDNKSJFNK omfg. ren starting his journey and having some fun (routes 1 and 2), suddenly getting overwhelmed and realizing very quickly that he's more interested in non-battling activities during his travels (looking at the scenery like the route 2 lake), so he quits his gym challenge to focus his attention elsewhere (him: spore research, photography, foraging... me: idk playing more of x or digging into my otome game backlog LOL)

i have so much more i could rant about w how uncomfy game.freak made this game (ex the pokedex constantly popping up to show you what you should catch instead of just... letting you play at your own pace...), and i have some positives (i think this was the right direction to go wrt the stylized character models and vibrant environment colors), but i'll stop here kjsnfkjn. i don't want to go full hater mode on a selfship post LMALSKDN.

#my feelings on dex.it have fluctuated so much ksjndkjn like. i was anti-dex.it bc i was sympathetic to the overworked staff #but then all of that evidence came out that the reasoning was all lies and they were reusing the old models and animations #(which doesn't mean the labor issues arent present -- it just means pkmn company found a way to cut corners to push a game out #instead of taking their time and treating ppl at game.freak better to make a better game)#and now with SV out we can see how many pkmn they've left out in BOTH games which like....#if i were at the company i would be ABSOLUTELY SURE to include every pkmn not included in swsh???? to appease dex.it people????#man. idk. 3ds > switch pkmn once again. i just wish i had it in me to continue IF ONLY to dress ren up like a fashion doll LMAO #let me transfer ren into my og save file so i have access to all of the stores and have tons of money ;w;#(tbc i'm not poopoo-ing the characters in these games. i only have a couple of specific character complaints in the switch games #and i have just as many issues w characters (if not more) in 3ds and earlier games. this is purely from a gameplay standpoint)#📌 [ my posts. ]#💭 [ my thoughts. ]#🐸 [ look ahead. ]#vent -

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agandar · 1 year ago

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nwos ramblings time

first of all WOOHOO YAHOO WAHA NEW TRAILER YIPPEE!!!

second of all. 2025. puts head in hands it's fine it's cool im patient it's not that long <- exploding

third. actual trailer thoughts.

it looks GREAT i REALLY LIKE IT

i really adore the artstyle they've used for the 3d models, they aren't as jarring as the old ones (which i didnt like at first but they grew on me) and still look real nice and stylized - a little nit picky but sometimes the mouths look? odd?? but like eh whatever. the noses too sometimes but again. eh whatever.

i will say though. i like the artstyle but. laytons new model. im kinda. iffy on it. at least right now it's prolly gonna be the old 3d models situation again where i gotta adjust then i can appreciate them in their own way but as of the moment. im kinda. hmmmm. i'll need to see them more in action too of course but right now he just feels. off. at times it looks fine and then others it looks odd. there's the outfit change, sure, which i wasnt the greatest fan of but i hardly hate it - i just prefer his big ol thick coat and sweater. that's fine, that isnt the problem, but he just. his whole shape language just feels! off! that man is a cylinder!! rounded squares!! reassuring and reliable!! in this he kinda looks like a triangle! maybe it's just the one idle pose cus we didnt see much STILL. part of what i liked about him is that this man is a TUBE. he is the cardboard tube that cain killed his brother with. now though he's looking less tube and more rolled up carpet with a rubber band on. but then again who knows these are just my initial gut reactions! maybe layton just decided he wanted to go to the club in which case slay king go for it also his head just looks like a touch too big but maybe that's also just my brain imagining things

also. luke's model. perfect no notes fantastic bowtie

the 3d cutscenes looked really nice which im pleasantly surprised by BUT i really hope they wont be used to like. replace 2d cutscenes. i dont imagine they will since they're a staple of the series but still.

kinda hope it stays like what we saw in the trailer where it's just layton's musings and lukes thoughts on things, maybe interspersed a bit throughout the gameplay where they need to be like 'look he picked up a thing here's a quick shot of it!' just yknow complimentary stuff and little moments. then again though i'd love for them to prove me wrong i just still have miracle mask cutscene ptsd

either way i like them so far and i hope this might mean we get a few more cutscenes where we can just see layton and luke interacting with stuff more. and also give us more swordfighting because i mean. layton swordfighting. it's the first time we've seen him in ages i'd be there trying to shove as many layton swordfights in as possible, finally give him a sword to just have on him at all times so that every single cutscene there's always the potential he'll just whip it out

the 2d art we have seen FANTASTIC i LOVE IT it's GREAT and the environments (or environment we've only seen like one) is DELIGHTFUL im so glad to see that good ol layton architecture im so excited to see more, ive always adored how environments and backgrounds are stylized also LITTLE LUKE AND LITTLE LAYTON SURVEYING THE SCENE!! THEY ARE JUST. IN THE CORNER. THEY ARE LOOKING!! it's a really small detail but it's GREAT i really hope it wont be just the one area

i also really like the hud we've seen so far, it looks clean without being obstructive or distracting - was a bit worried how they'd make it work on switch but so far it looks good still a bit worried about the memo just cus i know i will be playing mostly docked and memo functions with joysticks are. eck. but like hey im the one thats gonna opt out of using a stylus so that's on me, hopefully we can just stamp some stuff like circles and numbers maybe and that'll be enough

lastly though THE MUSIC!!! YEAHHH LAYTON MUSIC!!! layton music is always good this is no exception, absolutely looking forward to eventually having this new puzzle music ingrained in my mind after staring at a puzzle for 4 hours really been liking what we've been hearing so far it's got the good ol Layton Rhythm and the signature accordion but with a new twist i like, more brass instruments it sounds like man i cannot WAIT to hear what the title theme will sound like they always manage to pop off with the main theme

ok well anyway. managed to write a small opinion piece of a 3 minute trailer so that goes to show the grip this has on me. maybe this will finally spur me into finally doing art like ive been meaning to for uhhh checks watch. over. a year now. uhhhh anyway i think i've been writing this in snippets over the course of like an hour as i thought of more things to add but i dont have anything more at the moment so i am going to let this post go now to live in the wilderness. be free

#professor layton #long post #woe. 900 words be upon ye #whoops #it isnt that terribly long but still longer than intended #still thinking about professor layton and the snatched waist #and also the snatched nose in the new puzzle solved sequence #no nose layton haunts me

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fris--blog · 1 month ago

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S1 Episode 10: Steven's Lion

Again SU really knocks out the debut episodes for characters. Much like Connie, Lion has always been a favorite of mine. A lot of intense power and mystery surround him, even to this day to some degree, and yet even with all that he's just a big silly cat. Very aloof, very funny, but always there when you really need him.

The villain of the week is also very good. Another sort of Gem Structure rather than a corrupted one. The gimmick of an object that just creates things without any order is a really fun idea, sort of reminds me of a more toned down SCP-184 and its infinite rooms.

Whether it be from some corruption or just lack of attention for so long, it constantly making and unmaking meaningless stares and pillars is very cool

One aspect that especially stuck out to me was the different color pallet done in the sandstorm. It reminds me a lot of MLATR and how it changed pallets and colors to fit whatever environment. Its something you don't see all too often, especially in such a stylized way here. The green Gem keeping its color is a really nice touch as well, makes it feel more powerful than otherwise would.

Another really great one. I forgot how good the early stuff was, its often been written off over the years.

Up next: Arcade Mania!

#steven universe #su spoilers #su rewatch

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ethannaickersblog · 8 months ago

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statement draft

The sins in all of us

I will portray a guy, but he will be portrayed with each of the seven deadly sins and in the end will show that each sin is a part of him.

I will try and portray these themes and ideas through the use of colour as well as graffiti stylized art that will be collaged onto the photos.

Everyone has all the different sins in them, so to ignore that would be foolish, and if one acknowledged their demons, you could fight them.

You don't need to villainize sin or blame sin for bad actions but to accept they are a part of you, but that doesn't define you. The unique approach will be to have the character as all the sins but each as different part of the character and have the final image being him with all the sins.

One thing i have unique access to is a gothic mirror which I plan on being the main subject in the shoot. The reason for this is that there are a lot of tropes with mirrors being able to view a person's soul. There is a mirror in harry potter that show a person greatest desire which is something that I am taking inspiration from. The mirror also is a way to show the person but to view them in an alienated way.

The title of my photo book will be called The Sins in Us. I think the title I have chosen the audience will view the photos with a different lens. Instead of looking at just the photos they will try to look for the deeper meaning that the title suggests. As well as compare it in relation to their lives.

I would like the view to feel a sense of connection a disgust for sins themselves but the realization that the audience and the subject are the same. I would like to feel a sense of reflection at the final photo. The main object is to get the viewer to think and reflect when seeing the photos.

The role of the text will be to guide the audience in the right direction. It won't flat out say this is pride but rather “built by ego” will be the title so that view can form the connection by themselves. They work together to back up each other by reinforcing the idea of each sin.

I will only require One shoot; the shoot just needs to be a well-planned outshoot. On the Potential that it does go wrong, the location is a closed environment with convivence to get to the location.

The main gear that I will need will be a tripod, as well as all the props that are required, which includes a gothic mirror, seven sets of clothes as well. The plan will be to arrange a time with my actor around midday and positioning the mirror while the actor is getting ready. After the actor is ready, I will position them in view of the mirror and guide them on how to pose. The process will be repeated seven times to capture the Seven Deadly Sins. The angles will have a slight change and change from horizontal to vertical.

For the software pipeline I will try to limit the amount of software so there is less error, I will start off in adobe bridge the move to photoshop. After the editing process I will do a mock layout on PowerPoint then move to fliphtml5.

My research will be to investigate photographers who use collage in their work to understand the unique spin on photography and will enable me to understand what I find desirable or not, as well as practical research by trying out the collage aesthetic with previous photos that I have taken. Three of the photographers I have found that influenced my work are John Stezaker, Hannah Höch, and Robbie Ewing. Stezaker and Hoch use the collage style that I plan on using for my final images. Ewing uses the bright bold colours that I found convey feelings really well through his images.

Saatchi Gallery https://www.saatchigallery.com/artist/john_stezaker

hannah-hoech-escape-1931_content https://iggh.ch/agenda/hannah-hoech-montierte-welten-fuehrung-mit-gebaerdensprach-dolmetschdienst/

Robbie Ewing photography https://www.robbieewing.com/

In order to understand photobooks, I read a book by Paul Ernest Michael Edwards called The Photobook World: Artists' Books and Forgotten Social Objects after reading it I understood my vision of what I would like my photobook to look like.

The only decisions that are not yet made are what images I will be using for the collage effect. I understand that I want a graffiti art styled collage. I think the way I solve this will just be to take the photos and then find the stickers naturally and see what fits and what doesn't.

References

Paul Ernest Michael Edwards, The Photobook World: Artists' Books and Forgotten Social Objects, (Manchester University Press, 2023)

With this draft i was given advice to be more in-depth so i will add more and increase the academic level of writing i will also go more in depth as to the relation that I have with this topic.

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rubykgrant · 2 years ago

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honestly, I feel like certain things can't totally be adapted "realistically", because the styles just don't vibe... you could totally make a version of Flounder (and the other sea creatures) from the Little Mermaid that keep certain aspects of their original forms but translated to stylized CGI,and they would look fine! However, beside live-action people, it would still be sort of "odd" in this context, and you might as well make an entirely CGI re-design of the entire movie, including Ariel, Eric, and the other humans/merfolk. Which would be an interesting concept, if only to see the creative capabilities to add different details and such within CGI (but this depends on artists and animators actually being able to fully realize their imaginative ideas and executing them in a healthy work environment, which almost no animation studio is right now, but that's a whole other can of worms).

For the purposes of creating a live-action Little Mermaid, which would obviously still use CGI as well as practical effects, I think two potential options would have worked better than... what we actually got. One, create new designs for all the talking sea creatures (who were previously anthropomorphised to some degree) into variations of merfolk. They have human actors, and thus upper bodies/faces/hands of people, and lower halves of different sea creatures. For example, check out these illustrations from a Spiderwick Field Guide about different kinds of "mermaids"-

Sebastian might not literally be a tony crab anymore, but he would still have crustacean features, maybe even one hand would be a claw while the other had fingers, and he's still fairly small (thus allowing for the scene in the kitchen). OR, option two, the sea creatures are just. Sea creatures. Even more "realistic" than the final version of Flounder above. If this was the version used, the entire movie would need a different tone, in which it is slightly more "serious" (not a grim-dark adult version that has the famous seafoam ending), the sea creatures don't outwardly speak, but Ariel and other merfolk would "hear" and react to them. Ursula's eels "speak" because she herself has enchanted them to talk for her, and when the contact Ariel, it is actually Ursula speaking through them (making it extra creepy, because their mouths don't move, the voices just come out... and this would reflect later, when Ursula steals Ariel's voice; her mouth moves, but no sound comes out). An example of how this would be possible is the 1996 live-action 101 Dalmatians movie (the only "mistake" that movie made was changing Roger's profession, making him a video game designer instead of a musician, thus eliminating the Cruella de Vil song).

ANYWAY, they had options, there could have been different ways to go about this. The artists/animators/writers who work on these things aren't treated right. Halle Bailey was wonderful as Ariel. That's all

detective pikachu came out four years ago why did no one (except sonic after ugly sonic) take notes

#character design #the little mermaid

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maruzzewrites · 1 year ago

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Commission for @catallarii of their amazing OCs (go check them out!).

There are some joys, and some details, one cannot appreciate and ponder upon unless they travel. The way the mind stores information, however, is feeble and escapes the folds of the brain like sand in the wind. It is difficult to really embrace the size, the magnificence of everything filling one’s eyes and the way it settles in the forest, or on the mountain, or perhaps alongside the river or the lake.

Melheim knows how to commit the memory to paper, trace forms and lines that compose complex shapes, layered shadows and lights, covered in natural colors. His hand can know the outline of any object just by observing the minutiae and the way it sits in the bigger picture. Every map he makes gives the viewer an idea of how to move around the environment; the paths, the configuration of the soil, the way the hill raises in that direction and then falls into an ample pasture, maybe how the valley narrows in the middle of the two mountains.

And then Callan, with his usual nonchalant behavior, walks up to the table where Melheim is working on a project. An expedition they have taken together, more often than not, to lands they either know or need to chart better. He points his finger to one point on the paper, speaking about how he remembers the way those rocks stacked in the angle or how the breeze sounded as it danced through the leaves of the trees.

Callan raises his eyes, then, with a loose smile on his lips and a playful tone moving his words. Melheim watches the fingers walk up the stylized paths as Callan returns to the same expeditions with his mind; he describes the same places they have visited together with such different words, sensation Melheim has barely enough ability to describe and his words fill the world with something new he has never felt before.

“Do you remember the way the light was shining on the grass?” Callan’s question is simple, and lingers in the air like a promise of another story. Melheim observes him, and he is unsure how to answer. He does remember it being bright and warm, but he didn’t pay much attention to how the surfaces reflected the light.

Callan sighs when he receives nothing back, “You were so busy measuring everything up…”

It’s the usual advice he gives Melheim, to enjoy more than only work and get the most out of every exploration. Perhaps he should just enjoy sceneries and feelings, rather than elaborate all the ways and all the possibilities to translate what he sees to paper. So that everyone else can see.

Callan may not understand it, but Melheim wants everyone to see what he does. Words and descriptions don’t do the trick as often as he would like, so the meticulous job of tracing the shapes of mountains, lakes, rivers, deserts, forests, seas, is the most objective way to give people something to imagine. One day, perhaps, they will manage to find the same place and marvel at the grandiose spectacle of the nature around them; meanwhile, this world is fleeting.

“Do you remember the pattern of the trees or how the cliff would climb up?” Melheim isn’t trying to sound callous or sarcastic, it is simply a method to make Callan rethink or reconsider. It would be okay to have their visions of the world being different, even radically so, but it’s important to consider the other’s point of view and respect them.

Callan thinks once more, raising his eyes to the sky as if to recall information. Then he grins at Melheim, lighthearted and easy, before he speaks, “I would love to see everything from your eyes. Better yet, I would love you to narrate it. There are few pleasures like the sound of your voice.”

A tinge of the usual teasing flirtation colors Callan’s last words, and they seem to leave a splash of red on Melheim’s ears and cheeks. Or so he feels, with the way his skin heats up and he has to resist the urge to clean his throat to relieve the tension. Not that the air was tense at all: Callan seems to be satisfied with the reaction, judging by the way his lips stretch into an even bigger, toothier smile.

Melheim knows it comes from no dark place, Callan simply enjoys his reactions and he wants to think his colleague is just testing boundaries, playing just to let the air hang a bit lighter in the room. However, there is a sort of awareness born from the care and affection of some of Callan’s actions and words – through the years they became more and more filled with a strange sense of purpose and intention.

With these thoughts circling inside his brain, Melheim cannot really concentrate. It should be frustrating and infuriating, but it’s a tender of a feeling. No malice, no bitterness, just the quiet knowledge someone is there to probe and tease with amiability. To know someone wants to care for the more stubborn sides of his personality, to the point of teasing him is a playful habit, it’s an odd type of flattery.

Or perhaps Melheim is thinking too much, as always. Is it that wrong to abandon himself to the care he is given, for once, though? He may try to let the door open just enough for Callan to look inside, and perhaps he will ask for more and never try to close that opening again.

What a silly thought. Or languid, depending on which part of his brain takes hold. Logic is steady, but it can lead towards theories that have no foundations or start from wrong starting points. Intuition is just as useful in method and, today, Melheim will lean into the curiosity of the explorer rather than the perfectionism of the cartographer.

“Yes. Narrate it, I could do that for you. Next time we find a place we need to map out, I could tell you what I see.” His observation comes out with less candor one would imagine, and he is immediately self-conscious over the invite he is offering. He sees the smile on Callan’s lips widen, his eyes crinkle at the corners with genuine fondness, and he seems to want to speak about this newfound boldness. But Melheim attempts to punctuate what he said with something typical of him, something professional, “It is a great strategy to pick out the details one would oversee.”

Those words float around the space left between them; Callan leaning over the work table and the maps, Melheim with his notes and pencils and pens scattered, yet in composed order. Another person may get offended or rethink their position if they heard those words, but Callan only lets a little chuckle fall from his mouth, onto Melheim’s ears. It is a form of intimacy hard to give up once felt for the first time, the benefit of the doubt over the way he accepts affection and care.

Melheim’s chest feels heavy, but in a tender way. It’s the same sensation of when your stomach is full, or you lay your head on the pillow after a day of work, the satisfaction and comfort coming from something you needed, you waited to accomplish. Callan had to work to dig his place into Melheim’s chest and weight in such a beautiful way, longingly yet awaited with trepidation.

“Be sure to tell me every little…” Callan steps aside for a second, sits down on a chair he purposely dragged nearby the table. His eyes trail the lines and the drafts on the map, the graphite of the pencil incomplete as Melheim was trying to calculate, record or note this or that quadrant. Then, suddenly, his eyes are on Melheim, his smile as well, “...Detail.”

That single word is a promise, for the future days. For the next expedition, probably alone, in order to gather more information before the zone sunk into the ever-shifting world. For the time being, strong with the promise, Melheim continues his meticulous work and Callan watches the skill translating into the paper.

Callan’s head lazily rests on the palm of his hand, his elbow supported by the thick wood of the table, while Melheim’s eyes try to absorb all the light the window and the lamp can give, until it’s deep into the evening and the night, until Callan stands up and distracts him again. He gives him a goodnight, a wink, and he leaves the words from before to remind Melheim to be ready one of these days.

It’s early. The sun barely peaks from the cold clouds, the sky has the pastel tint of the morning, and barely any life comes from the houses around. Yet, Callan and Melheim are awake, the former stretching his arms above his head, the latter checking he has everything he needs for another expedition.

Traveling comes natural to both of them, yet they face it in such different ways. Melheim has an objective in mind, he needs to reach the same place they had seen days prior and finish his current map, while Callan walks with a relaxed pace yet meaningfully. Perhaps the terrain under his feet will shift and change soon, and he has to commit to memory the way his feet move, or the hues that paint the background, or how the paths would lead into the horizon.

But he stays behind Melheim, never faltering and never stopping too long to admire something. The journey isn’t too long, they had worse before, but they reach the right location when the sun burns brighter and harsher, when the clouds melt into white, gold, and gray.

An open, immense field of green nestled in a frame of rocks and mountains, with trees breaking the surface of grass now and then. They separate the field from the world further away, the other path leading away from this small valley is filled with tall, sturdy trees that make one’s eyes lose the trail.

It is how Melheim remembers it, the image he had in his mind now follows the same outline his eyes are seeing. He could lose the entire day flying away with the mind and imagining how it would look from the top, so he could better draw it again on the map. However, he came here because Callan invited him to narrate what he sees and how he sees it.

For better remembering the details, he clarified, but he knows he wants Callan to be impressed. Or perhaps tell him his vision changed his own. Is it about sharing something or just being acknowledged by him? Melheim has a difficult time tracing the line between the natural need for approval and the specific want to appeal to Callan. Either way, he should start, so that they may work through most things.

“The mountains…” His voice reaches Callan, who was lost in contemplating the view, but he is quick to divert his attention towards the captain of this excursion. He is listening, at least, still with that loose smile. Melheim points towards the rocky side climbing up, and up, his voice lost in the immensity, “You divide it, by height. Scientifically, the air is different on the peak and the vegetation will be different from the base. It is a good method to show altitude, using a gradient of green, until you have to use white.”

Callan follows the motion of the finger, as Melheim points to one hundred meters, then two hundreds, three hundreds of height. His fingers and his mind follow the imaginary path that leads to the peak, cold and covered in icy snow, barely visible as it mixes with the clear sky. The entire way, Callan nods at every word.

“Would be interesting to see the world from up there,” Callan looks around the slope, observes and takes deductions as his eyes hug the entire length of the wall he and Melheim are watching. Then he, too, points, but at a specific location, “You could climb from there, for example.”

“Mh?” Melheim looks the same way, humming with curiosity. He didn’t think of climbing for real, of course, it would take time and resources they didn’t have at the moment. Perhaps another day, for another reason, “We don’t have time to do that.”

Callan now returns his eyes to Melheim’s face, a hint of questioning lingering on his features. He shakes his head ever-so-slightly, then speaks, “I didn’t mind we should do it. I was pointing out that you may add it, perhaps someone will want to find a way up while looking at your map.”

Melheim blinks at that statement. Or request, he juggles the interpretations as well as he can to decode the intention. Perhaps Callan wants to be useful, or offer a new point of view the same way Melheim wishes to do for him. Adding such information on the map, he has barely done it, yet it could be a new use for it. Not everyone who will look at it will be an expert cartographer, some will see it with the same eyes as Callan did and does – and hopefully always will.

A tool to explore, rather than a way of recording. Letting it roll on the table so that you may know where to walk, what to bring alongside with you, not just remember the place and its conformation. Melheim has his pencil between his fingers already, the notebook where endless numbers and notes crowd the pages open on a blank one, and he walks the distance between him and Callan.

“Excuse me, could you repeat where?” He looks deep into Callan’s eyes. He sees something new now, something he only catches a few times sporadically. Callan seems surprised, almost like he is holding his breath back, then slowly letting out all the air in his lungs with soft and long exhales. His skin, at the level of his ears, where his cheekbones are, flushes just slightly; and his smile seems to hang lower and bigger compared to his placid usual.

He, then, clears his throat and raises his hand again to point towards a specific part of the slope where the incline is softer, “Right there. You can probably start from there, at first glance.”

Now, Melheim must have been blind for so long, because that same behavior he has seen countless times before. In doubt, he never gave too much thought, but he sees now the way Callan gets flustered and light when he asks that question. Why is that? What could be the reason? He asks himself, and he asks him, “Why are you so red? Do you feel well?”

Callan smiles still, but it has a more shy note now. He is so sincere and open usually, at least with how words. But even he can be caught in a moment of weakness when he has to admit his emotions, nude and bare under the high sun and the curious gaze of others. Yet, he answers, “You have a passion in your eyes, cap’.”

It’s the best thing about you, goes unsaid. His eyes speak, but his mouth stops at the nickname and the compliment. Maybe Melheim is reading too much into it, maybe he just wants those words to be truly fighting to crawl out of Callan’s lips. There is something, however, telling him that he isn’t wrong, and he wants to explore it with the same ease it feels wandering the immense world of new and old landscapes.

Instead, he nods and acknowledges the statement, he whispers a polite thank you, and he is observing the mountain raising again. He notes down the position of the climbable portion of the slope, and he thinks the best way to show it in the map – perhaps color, perhaps adding a symbol to the legend.

After the fact, they pace around the grass. Melheim keeps his strides steady, taking the opportunity to understand if his scale was correct last time he measured it, and Callan imitates him when he is told the reason for his awkward steps. It manages to get a smile out of Melheim, and he writes down the difference between the two of them in his notebook. It could be useful – it will probably be just endearing, for each time he will reread it.

Then Callan asks Melheim how he shows the difference in terrain. Melheim lightly scolds him, for all the times he had to see a map and still didn’t notice the details; Callan tells him he’d just write notes at the bottom of the paper, so that people may read and understand, but Melheim corrects it by saying it would be a clumsy method. He uses different lines, hatchings or colors: most of this field is simple, plain and easy to walk around, but there are places where the terrain is wet or harder, so he doesn’t use a solid color, but stripes of green and brown, or gray and white. Callan seems to wonder about it, but he does confirm he remembers those techniques, and he wonders how someone who didn’t know the meaning behind those choices could understand. And once again, Melheim tells him off lightly forit, explains that there is a legend of all the symbols, short-cuts, techniques they use for each map, in the corners.

Callan does what he does best, take it in stride and chuckle about it. He apologizes for the superficiality first, and then he simply covers it up with admiration, “Good thing I have you besides me or I’d be lost.”

Melheim knows that it’s untrue, he is aware of the ability and skill Callan has. He is a great explorer, he is better than him in practical survivor skills, yet he doesn’t rush to show off. He is tranquil and even-tempered, and truly shines when someone requires his help. At the same time, that sentence makes Melheim feel that same comfortable weight he experiences so often lately, now warm and snuggle between his ribs. It is not that Callan would get lost, but he would feel lost, by his words – or maybe Melheim just wants to hear that meaning.

His fingers grip the notebook harder, the skin under his nails becoming lighter, and he feels the tip of his ears burning red. It is so easy for Callan, bouncing from flustered to adoring, that Melheim wishes he could give back in the same way. He has no experience, though; mapping people has been harder than the straightforward way someone can just record the shape of the world.

He has to try, though. It is not by standing around and waiting for Callan to do all the work, to push against the walls Melheim has up. Anyone would tire of attempting without feedback or answer, so perhaps Melheim should try – he wants to. One step in his direction can be enough for a day, “Your help is always appreciated. You… Opened my eyes to something.”

There is a sort of temptation to simply say more, to deflect and point towards the mountain with the back of the pencil while scribbling something without meaning to appear busy. However, Melheim forces himself to commit, to be honest with the sentiments whirling inside of him and letting the rush of thoughts run. Unprofessional, a little voice in his head declares, but Melheim sees out of the corner of his eye the way Callan grins and looks at his feet, seemingly content.

Before he can magnify the worries it can bring, Melheim reaches into the well of his passion for mapping and remembers he is on an expedition that is as much work as pleasure, it seems. He raises his eyes to the field welcoming his gaze and he counts again the trees, then groups them by density, by size, by patterns or species. He is not an expert in biology, he can describe them with the same ignorance of someone who sees nature everyday, and he actually asks Callan if he knows more.

“I know those trees usually grow near water,” he seems pensive. He springs behind Melheim to look over his shoulder and peek at the information on his notebook, thinking out loud, “See, you wrote there is a specific type of terrain around them. Seems like there is an aquifer somewhere.”

It is a good theory. Perhaps Melheim should ask his grandfather to bring along an expert, to analyze the soil and find the water. Maybe build a well, too, so that it may function as a landmark to recognize the same place once it will move far from them. He reserves the right to pencil it down, so he may ask later, and compliment Callan’s deduction. He seems proud, once he hears those words.

“This makes me think, Mel,” he continues after watching the way letters dance into reality with light strokes of the pencil. It still has the notes of something thought rather than said, yet Callan shares it with him freely, “If we ever find this same place again and it is on another side of the world, maybe the sun is hotter and it becomes a desert…”

A question many have asked before. How much the shifts and changes influence the external existence too, if the sun moves with the waves of the moving lakes or the wind runs all around the globe so as to return to the same forests it loves. Or perhaps they mutate with the weather the static stars bring, and that’s another entire study: there are theories that put old maps together with new ones, calculating and layering so as to prove the same zone changed through the years. A difficult thesis to support, and many experts are still debating on the validity of it.

However, Melheim isn’t there to debate the theories surrounding the mapping of the world. He is just content to hear Callan’s curiosity, he can only answer eagerly, “Maybe. If that’s true, all we can do is find it again and study it with the same zeal we are employing now.”

In a way, Melheim can hope that every part of the world mutates with the movements. On one hand, it is simply fascinating from the point of view of his job, but on the other hand, the prospect of sharing diverse experience with Callan adds an enchanted feeling to something so enmeshed in his being as work.

The infinite combinations that it could create, this field green and lush could be frozen over or weight heavy on the ground as sand. And Callan would tell him something else, he would point out that by the first thing they should do on blistering sand is set camp for shelter, rather than record the way the dunes trace lines into the horizon, or how dew collects between the leaves when it’s morning, instead of wondering if the trees they’re under are evergreen or will lose its crown.

There are so many answers he could give Callan, Melheim thinks, after this hurricane of considerations and images in his head. He isn’t good with words, or expressing emotions, vulnerabilities or desires. He has worked, for others, for himself, for humanity whole, and that slowed the need to process sentiments such as these or the necessity to reveal them. Still, change and innovation come from daring, curiosity can only be satisfied by attempting, and why do it if not for someone so deserving of openness?

“There are many theories, it’s not a known fact. It could be,” he starts. He needs to stumble before learning fully, he needs false starts to lose his balance and make the first definitive step. Now it is the time to dare, so his voice doesn’t stop, “But if it is correct, I know we would be together and I trust your intuition to recognize this place.”

For the sake of his emotions, Melheim doesn’t turn around to face Callan and see his face. However, he is aware it is changing just like body shifts and moves behind him, taken by the sudden energy of his words. Was he as filled with contrasting and strong sensations? The same ones that are asking him to take refuge in usual stoicism, while still hoping and waiting for the moment everything will come to light?

He has little time to think about it, though, as Callan simply talks, “For sure, Mel. You have a lot to teach me, you wouldn’t want me to slack off on the job.”

Each syllable plays a lighthearted note, whimsical and without care, as he is used to. Words seem to come easily to Callan, especially those that carry a bit more levity, but Melheim senses the tense work under them in that specific moment. It is almost like offering an out and asking for actual confirmation at the same time, so that Melheim may simply say he wants to work with Callan or state he seeks companionship over simple work relations.

At that, Melheim does turn to face Callan. Still with his loose smile, but with light and clear eyes of someone trying to read the situation. Melheim nods, “Your help is always appreciated, even if it comes at your pace. You’re invaluable.”

“I must be something special if you tell me that.” Callan loses no time in answering, with his hands reaching up and brushing through his hair in a way to diffuse the emotions he is feeling. It took a long time to understand, but there are movements that show Callan to be nervous too, in a way, and Melheim wants to map those out the same as he does with terrains and stars. So that he may read the signs and predict, or interpret, or react to the best of his abilities.

But there is beauty in the search too, Melheim discovered. Not just in finding the same, exact place recorded years ago or perhaps finally completing the project he is working on – those are joys and accomplishments he will never tire of, sure. But even today Callan showed him that there is value in listening and learning something new, that you may give back love not just with words, but also sharing your inner world with the recipient.

It's in the way someone points at the new and shares it because there is intimacy in looking at things the same, but it’s also setting your pride aside so you may listen to something different than what you know. It's right now, with Callan deciding to break the ice by pointing out how the grass parts to show traces left by animals. He looks at the size, the weight to leave on the soil, the shape so he could make suppositions.

But it’s also in the way Melheim does some calculations, based on the knowledge he has now of the area and the places connected to it thanks to the last expedition. Callan listens as he points his pencil towards one of the ways leading away from this secluded valley and says, with some margin of error, how the herd of animals probably followed that direction. It is difficult to estimate the true aim of the animals, in a world that changes so radically, but Callan listens to the explanation, to the hypotheses he draws based on the evidence, and then he says he will give more precise data once they’re back – and he can look again at the notes, at the maps.

Callan says he can’t wait, with a smile. Then he walks soft and slack towards one of the trees, Melheim right behind him. The twirls on his heels, sitting down with surprising flexibility between the roots that poke out of the terrain. A cozy nook, but Melheim looks over and isn’t sure how to react. Usually, he would scold Callan for slacking off and not taking his duties as seriously as he should, but then his companion pats the terrain besides him as an invite.

“Cap’, I know you would love to work more, but you need to reset your mind a bit.” Callan’s hand rests on the ground where he is inviting Melheim to sit, the grass bends under his fingers and springs up between the spaces. He seems content when Melheim does motion the intention to sit down as well, much more calmly and slowly.

He doesn’t put away his notebook, letting it stay open on his legs and the pencil loose between his fingers. Callan playfully complains he will fuse his brain by working so much, as he slips slowly in a more, and more, relaxed position. One leg over the other, bouncing slightly, he grins, “It’s a perfect day out. You will think better if you do it while resting.”

It’s almost like Callan knows Melheim can hardly repose, but he desires to see him treat himself anyway. Perhaps he cannot just close his eyes and wander with the mind, like he does, but Melheim can compromise by sitting under the cool shadow of the tree, with light filtering through the dancing leaves, and elaborate his data search in peace and quiet.

Maybe out of the office.

Melheim looks at Callan from the corner of his eye. He is relaxed, humming just low enough that one could think he was imagining it. Did he plan for Melheim to get work done away from the four walls of those rooms, breathe in some fresh air and see the shining sun above? He could believe it.

And he can appreciate it. He will treasure this time, as Callan relaxes, he will run some numbers. He doesn’t notice when the other man laying almost entirely on the grass turns on his side to look at him focus on his job, head nestled against one of his arms – and eyes softening like the clouds as they stretch with the passing hours upon seeing the passion he so dearly adores.

Callan must have closed his eyes and drifted off at some point. He wakes up when Melheim lightly shakes him awake, with a hint of bashfulness in the flush of his skin, and he tells Callan they should return soon.

Callan looks him over, noticing the signs of the tree pressed on his cheek, somewhat red and marked. He wants to imagine Melheim napped as well, for a few minutes at least, but it may simply be because he rested his head against the tree. The traces left behind would indicate he had his head turned towards Callan.

He feels his grin grow wider, but he decides not to comment on it for now. He gets on his feets with ease, stretches just enough to feel his muscles move again, and then he follows Melheim towards home. He will fill the silence soon enough, but for now he mentally says goodbye to the place who made him glimpse into his captain’s heart a bit more.

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