#I want to be able to articulate it so much more than just griping about excessive detail

[meowmeowuchiha]

Okay more thoughts on the new Borderlands trailer but this is more....generalized, less about the trailer itself. The trailer just kinda. Reminded me of it.

I do not like the new art style.

It started with BL3 and I just. Generally don't like it.

It's not ALL bad, I'll say that, but just.

It doesn't FEEL like Borderlands. It doesn't have that same charm. It doesn't draw me in the way it used to.

There's a whole lot about it that I can't put into words, which I really wish I could.

One thing I CAN put into words though is that, in so many cases and areas, it feels like they added detail specifically for the sake of adding detail. Like a "hey look what we can do!!!" type thing. So much of that detail does no service to the appearance, and some of it actually makes it WORSE.

I can't tell you how many times I've had difficulties seeing enemies or allies or other such things because it gets lost in all the visual noise.

The more detailed and fluid movement is great, especially in cutscenes, same with the more....fluid and natural feeling facial expressions. When I played the Fight For Sanctuary DLC in 2 I noticed how much BETTER the animation was, ESPECIALLY in the cutscenes. It looked good!!!

But. Dear god. Then you get to 3 and it's just like. Please. Simplify some of this shit. So much of this detail is unnecessary and is just unappealing to look at in several cases.

[heartslobbf]

let’s talk about perfuma. imo, she’s one of the best characters in the show despite being underdeveloped, and i wanna explain why. she could’ve been extremely average, just some lanky flower girl that doesn’t believe in violence and loves everyone, but she is so much more than that (and it pisses me off that y’all reduce her to that).

in her introductory episode, perfuma is clearly in denial about the horde almost destroying plumeria. she doesn’t want to acknowledge the problem, wants someone else to take care of it for her. she’s scared of change, and that is because change makes you vulnerable. if things always stay the same, there’s a whole lot less danger and uncertainty, and therefore you’re safe. secure. perfuma’s kingdom is dying and she can’t bear to accept it because it is unknown to her. it’s putting her in a position where she is no longer secure. this fear of vulnerability can also be seen at the beginning of 1x10 when the princess alliance falls apart and she literally says ‘being together makes us vulnerable.’

the thing is, perfuma isn’t wrong. look at her choice of words. she says that being together makes them vulnerable, not weak. here, she kind of has the words mixed up, but we see that by s5 she has come to understand the difference. that’s what’s so great about perfuma, her motivation to do better, her hunger for self-improvement. it’s why she’s such an important part of catra’s redemption, actually, because she embodies the kind person catra is or wants to be.

let me explain: perfuma is an angry, impatient, short-tempered character. we are shown this again and again with her passive aggression to others and how easily mermista can annoy her with trivial things (sitting in her seat in the war room, for example). catra is also an angry, impatient character, but perfuma works every day to manage those emotions. she knows she needs them, she uses them as a tool (calling catra out, for example, is a time they were practically pivotal for getting her point across) but she also acknowledges they can hurt the people she loves. we know she does a meditation ritual each morning and we see in 4x02 how quickly she can unravel without it. she wants to be better. she puts the work in. that is such a valuable lesson for a character like catra who has always felt she’s just not good enough, she’s always going to be this angry and unlovable and no one can do anything about it.

so, 4x02. it’s a brilliant episode for perfuma’s character, really, and the first proper development we’ve had since 1x04. we see her anger, her impatience, but we also see her self-doubt. her belief that she’s inadequate, ‘just a flower girl.’ this is also when we get introduced to her little mantra that becomes a bit of a motif later on, ‘i can do this.’ we know perfuma doesn’t wholeheartedly believe this, but she says it anyway because she wants to. perfuma wants to be better. she will do whatever she can to be her best self, whether that be actually conquering her gripes with cacti or realising there’s a loophole with the roots (love that conflict resolution by the way, another good deconstruction of hero bs by spop).

this episode is also significant because it comes back to perfuma’s fear of change, of vulnerability. she’s thrown into a situation she doesn’t want to be in, one she feels miserably unprepared for, and she hasn’t done the one thing that puts her at her best beforehand, but she pulls through in the end because she is surrounded by people that support her, that listened to her and consoled her when she was vulnerable. 4x02 teaches perfuma the power of self-worth and the power of true, mutual, unconditional love, which can only come with vulnerability.

and this is where her character gets really interesting, in my humble opinion. ngl, one of the reasons i love perfuma so much is because she’s a pisces and i am too. i’m not gonna go astrology hoe on you rn, i’m just using this to demonstrate the part of her character that teaches others. pisces, if you don’t know, love to play therapist. we like to help the people around us with whatever strifes they may have because we think we’re fucking great at it. perfuma actually is.

you know how i said perfuma learns the importance of self-belief and vulnerability? yeah, she teaches both of those lessons to other characters in s5. like i said, perfuma is a character who values self-betterment and also happens to be a pisces, so when she sees scorpia, riddled with so much self-doubt and such low self-esteem, her immediate response is just i’m gonna teach that bitch how to love herself. and she does!

i’ve seen some people say they don’t like scorfuma because it seemed as though the writers just decided to ‘fix’ all of scorpia’s problems by giving her a girlfriend. that’s very dumb, first of all because they aren’t even together by the end of the show, they’re just interested in one another. second, the whole point of she-ra is that we’re stronger together. scorpia doesn’t go through growth in s5 because a girl likes her, she goes through growth because someone is showing her support and love for the first time in her life and that empowers her. you know, the worth that scorpia finds in herself doesn’t hinge on perfuma, like it did with catra. it’s about her as an individual, and perfuma so clearly makes it about that when her big lesson revolves around singing. scorpia loves singing. perfuma tells her she should do it because she enjoys it, a sentiment you’d never hear in the horde, and when scorpia does sing, she is actively rejecting the people who did make all her self-worth hinge on them catra. she’s doing something for herself, because she enjoys it, because it makes her happy, because she can.

it’s that same mantra: i can do this, i can do this. i really love how this was brought back from 4x02, how perfuma repurposed something that taught her such a valuable lesson for someone else. perfuma and scorpia are great foil characters actually, both constantly underestimated and thought of as weak by their groups, but some of the strongest characters in the show due to their deep value of love and self. i can do this, and i know i can because you believe in me, because i believe in myself. it’s brought back again in 5x10, when the last thing perfuma says before scorpia breaks the beam is ‘i know you can [pull through]’. she tells catra she believes in scorpia. it’s that belief, that support from other people that empowers the self to believe it too. we are stronger together, you know??

anyways, onto vulnerability. return to the fright zone is in my top ten episodes of the whole fucking show and you might think that’s a bit weird but i don’t. 5x10 encompasses so many important themes of spop so well and tells them with scorfuma and spinnetossa, our two side lesbian couples. this is significant since perfuma literally draws a parallel between her and catra at the end of the episode, and catradora and spinnetossa have always been significant to one another. i’m gonna say it, perfuma is the reason catra is finally able to confess to adora in 5x13. i’ve already talked about how important perfuma is to catra’s motivation to improve, but she literally makes catra rethink everything about strength and vulnerability, two words catra has a lot of feelings about.

catra fears vulnerability. we know this. she has such a deep love for those important to her but is never able to articulate it because she worries she’ll be taken advantage of, shot down, laughed at, whatever. all of this stems from the abuse she suffered at shadow weaver’s hands and her attachment issues, and it’s also why catra pretends to hate scorpia’s very open displays of affection and love: she sees it as weak because she has been taught to, but it’s all she ever really wanted to be.

we also know perfuma used to fear vulnerability. she doesn’t any more. the entirety of the episode leading up to her and catra’s heart-to-heart is her being vulnerable, putting herself in a position where she’s in danger but believing it’s worth it. and it is. despite what everyone said to her, perfuma is right: it was worth it. she got through to scorpia, even if it was only for a moment. she literally spells it out to us and catra with one of the best lines in the whole show: it’s hard, keeping your heart open. it makes you vulnerable, but it doesn’t make you weak, and i have to believe it’s worth it.

back in 1x10, perfuma was right: being together makes you vulnerable. horde prime tries to use people’s relationships against them, that’s literally the plot of save the cat, the point of pitting catra and adora against one another. he sees them as weak, just like shadow weaver deems adora’s feelings for catra ‘confusing’, just like light hope insisted adora was a danger to her friends as long as she was around them. they were all wrong. yes, they’re vulnerable. perfuma acknowledges that vulnerability puts you in danger, that it’s difficult to do that, but she knows it doesn’t make you weak. weakness vs strength is a big conflict in 5x10 literally introduced to us with netossa’s theories on everyone’s weaknesses in the first few minutes.

like perfuma says, friendship isn’t a weakness. it’s her greatest strength. her belief in love is literally what saves her and adora’s lives, it’s what saves everyone who got chipped, glimmer, bow. belief in love, both of others and yourself, is what saves adora in her dying moments. perfuma summarises she-ra’s entire fucking message to us repeatedly in 5x10 and she tells it to catra because catra is the one who will do the most with it. that glance at adora, it’s obvious what it means. perfuma is telling catra she should be open with adora about her feelings because you have to believe it’s worth it.

you won’t get anywhere waiting for other people to make the move. she-ra couldn’t heal plumeria’s lands, so plumeria had to fight their own battle alongside her no matter how much they felt unable to. the rebellion couldn’t move mara’s ship, so perfuma had to despite thinking she wasn’t strong enough. the reason they always win in the end is because they have each other, they have love and support and people motivating them to do better. just like perfuma motivates herself to do better.

it’s the mantra. i can do this. i can be vulnerable and still win, because i have love. and it’s hard, it’s so fucking hard to be vulnerable when you’ve feared it all your life and you’re so angry, so hurt, but you have to believe it’s worth it. and it is. it is, it is, it is, love is stronger than anything and being vulnerable for the people you love is the only way you can ever get what you want from them. perfuma as a character embodies that, having learnt it herself, and teaches the lesson to one of the characters who needs it the most.

adora is dying, and catra loves her, and she knows she does, and she just has to believe. adora is dying, and she loves catra, and she knows she does, but she doesn’t believe. not until catra teaches her too, in that moment, to realise they were all wrong, light hope, shadow weaver, horde prime. adora doesn’t need to let go, she needs to hold on and believe she will be pulled back up by the girl she loves. she needs to believe she deserves it. that it’s worth it.

and it is.

[smokeybrandreviews]

Smokey brand Movie Reviews: Run it Back

I’ve been trying to watch Tenet for months. 2020 has f*cked up me entire movie viewing experience, even though it never had to get this bad. I live in the US and my government is sh*t so we’ve had to deal with this bullsh*t for a full year. I’ve sat back and watched whole ass countries reopen while we are going into another nation wide lock down because idiots refuse to sacrifice even a little bit for us to get out of this goddamn hole but, i digress. This isn’t a rant about the political situation in my sh*thole country, it’s a review of Tenet. Long story short, i finally have an opportunity to check this thing out. I was looking mad forward to the theater experience with this one because Nolan is a master at that but, instead, I'll have to settle for m home theater experience.

The Good

Christopher Nolan is back at it again, giving us spectacle and substance at the same damn time. I love this dude’s work. It’s always gorgeous and cerebral and engaging. I mean, he elevated Batman to high art, are you kidding me? Tenet is no different. This film is one of his best. He takes another high concept, grounds it for laymen, and does spectacular sh*t with it. Bro, give this man a Bond film already because that’s what this is, only laced with tat same energy he instilled within Inception and The Prestige.

The editing in this movie must have been a herculean task to accomplish but accomplish it they did. It’s devastatingly phenomenal with all of the reversed shots and slighted perspectives you see on screen. I am in awe of the precision it took to make this movie happen. Obviously, it is a real visual feast but the machinations behind the scenes to make everything so goddamn seamless are disgustingly, unabashedly, brilliant. If Nolan doesn’t get an Oscar nod for this sh*t, there’s no justice in the world. It really is a technical marvel.

I touched on this a little before but this movie is f*cking gorgeous. The set pieces are breathtaking, the aesthetic is lovely, and the shot composition is pristine. Some of this cinematographer can legit be framed and hung in a museum of fine art.

And to keep the gushing going, this sound design is f*cking chef kiss level. I said Nolan is a master at his craft and that come through, one hundred percent, with the mixing in this movie. It’s more than just the soundtrack or score, but literally everything. In order for this film to work, he had to meticulously go through and navigate every noise in this film. I don’t understand how Nolan can be so precise with his vision but i am SO glad that he is.

This is the most action i have ever seen in a Nolan film and it’s legitimately some of the best. Sh*t is profound, visceral, and brutal. It borders on Daniel Craig James Bond barbarous and i loved it all. It’s such a juxtaposition from the suave, smooth, aesthetic of the film. I mean, Protagonist literally cheese grates the side of a dude’s face and walks away like it’s nothing I’ve never seen sh*t so goddamn vicious.

I just really needed to circle back around to this but these set pieces are f*cking extravagant as a motherf*cker. There is one in this flick that tops the plane heist in The Dark Knight Returns. It’s whole ass miraculous to see and i lament i couldn’t see it how it was designed to be properly seen. Nolan’s demand for practical effects always delivers brilliant spectacle.

I love this plot. I love the mechanics and the theories at play here. I’m a theoretical physics geek so i live for these existential shenanigans. It’s one of the reasons Inception is one of my favorite films and it’s definitely the reason this one is climbing that list as i watch it in real time. The plot, itself, is textbook spy heist stuff; Fate of the world, mad scientist villainy, ticking clock, mcguffin, etc. However, the theories therein uplift the material and make that mundane plot, so much more.

Okay. So, with the praise of the technical brilliance of this film out of the way, i can finally get into the performances and the cast. Of course Nolan mainstay, Sir Michael Caine, makes another memorable cameo as Sir Michael Crosby. Another interesting addition was Himesh Patel of Eastenders fame. He plays Mahir, a fixer; Another staple of these types of Nolan films. Other notable cast members include Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Clemence Posey, Dimple Kapadia, and Yuri Kolokolnikov. Even Fiona Dourif has a role to play in this flick. Chucky’s daughter is in a Nolan film and i am absolutely shook about it! Everyone delivers their performances with gusto, even when there isn’t much of a character on the page to realize. Now to get into the standouts, for better or worse.

John David Washington is f*cking exceptional in this flick, man. It’s a little jarring hearing him speak sometimes, i keep hearing his pops, but dude delivers like his dad onscreen, too. This is a star-turning vehicle for Washington and he deserves all of the shine. his Protagonist is amazing to see onscreen and can give ever cinematic spy, from Bourne to Bond, a proper run for their money. Washington’s swagger and poise make this character one of the best in Nolan’s filmography. JDW is fast building one helluva body of work. Monsters and Men, Ballers, and BlacKkKlansman, and now this? It’s only a matter of time before JDW is the acronym on top of all the best scripts, all the awards. Dude is primed to blow the f*ck up and Tenet is a massive opening salvo of a career, i suspect, which will be as grand as his father’s body of work.

Robert Pattinson continues to prove he is one of the best of his generation, however ridiculous it is to actually work with him. his Handler character, Neil, kind of steals all of the scenes. Dude is witty, calculating, and mad aloof but never a bore. Pattinson delivers this performance with a smarm that feels slathered on in heaps but is just too decadent to ignore. He reminds me a lot of Hardy’s Eames from Inception and that’s high praise. Eames was my favorite character in that flick. It’s been a banner year for old Patts. The Batman his limping along, Tenet is a masterpiece, The Lighthouse was inspired, and he was disgustingly horrid in The Devil All the Time. Dare i say, ol’ BatPats becoming one of my favorites working today.

God, Elizabeth Debicki is great in this role but there simple isn’t enough to properly sustain her talents. Her Kat Barton is so goddamn thin, it’s painful because i know Debicki is great at her job. She’s shown her brilliance countless times, almost always uplifting her roles, even if the content is abject sh*t. The Cloverfield Paradox is a great example of that. This isn’t her fault. Nolan is terrible at writing women but, just once, if he could actually create a female lead with a bit off agency, i wished it would have been for this film. Debicki deserves so much better but, even with this paper thin caricature she’s been giving, she uplifts the material and works magic with the scraps.

The Bad

Kenneth Branagh as the antagonist, Andrei Sator, is a little cartoonish for the tone of this film. Branagh always kind of overacts like this in most of his appearances so you have to take it with a grain of salt but, in order to really come across as sinister like they want you to believe this dude is, someone else should have played this role. He does an admirable job but the character was just realize pitch. I can see Javier Bardem or Mads Mikkelsen killing totally this sh*t

Nolan continues to shortchange his female characters. He is the worst at writing chicks, man, i swear. It’s a shame, really, because everything else around them is always so interesting. It’s one of dude’s few flaws as a storyteller and it’s my biggest gripe with his craft. The machinations of Tenet are so intriguing but poor Elizabeth Debicki doesn’t even get to really play in that world. She definitely works with what she has but, ultimately, her character is mad flaccid and it’s a crying shame.

This isn’t a knock on the film at all but the fact i had to watch it on a regular ass television, however large and 4K that is, just ain’t the same. Nolan films are meant to be seen on the biggest screen possible, at least at first. I hope to god this thing gets a re-release when this COVID sh*t blows over.

The Verdict

I loved Tenet. Loved it. I loved the concept going in but actually seeing it, finally experiencing it, and i am hooked. It’s a stunning f*cking film and Nolan pulled out all of the stops. His writing, direction, and overall vision to put this jigsaw of  movie together is absolutely profound. Even with all of this on his plate, he Nolan was able to articulate this to one of his best casts and two of his strongest leads. John David Washington and Robert Pattinson come through and kill this sh*t. This movie would not work without these two cats. Seriously, JDW was to be a star after this, and he still might be, even if this thing didn’t get the theatrical release it absolutely needs and deserves. BatPats did his thing and killed another performance, further proving he’s a real actor and not some flash-in-the-pan, sparkling, vampire. Even the supporting cast comes through and delivers outstanding performances. Nolan uses every bit of this two and a half hour run time to deliver a heart-pounding spectacle of espionage and intrigue, rivaling the very best modern Bond films. The only issue i have with this thing is the usual Nolan issue; Bad female characters. Dude can’t write a woman to save his goddamn life. Also, the main antagonist is a bit weak. He's a little too Goldmember when he probably should have been more Goldfinger. Tenet is the best goddamn film I've seen all year and i wish, more than anything, i could have seen this thing in a proper theater It would have been quite the experience.

[halothenthehorns]

THE ROGUE BLUDGER

THE ROGUE BLUDGER

Clh left me a comment about how they felt about how I portrayed House Elf's, and Sirius' attitude on the matter during the second book. First things first, I've never read JK's opinion on the matter, so if someone would point me to a sight where I could read that I will enjoy it as much as any other HP related thing. Mostly though, I don't see how Sirius' reaction is too far from how Ron acts. I don't mean for Sirius to come across hating the whole species, and his reasons for hating Dobby were pretty justified. You guys have yet to see him around any other elf. Plus the bit where he said his parents hurt Kreacher I don't find too out there, it's not unreasonable to think Sirius has seen them do that to Kreacher for one reason or another. I'll go more into details on this during the fourth book, just felt like addressing that now.

HPHPHP

Remus was happy to read the next chapter, wanting dearly to see if Hermione could pull off such an advanced potion, and ignoring Sirius and James protest as they complained they still didn't get to have their 'Smarts Debate.' Honestly, Hermione would win that easily anyways.

The narration begins by talking about Lockhart's classes, explaining that he hadn't done anything with live animals since the disastrous pixie incident.

"Thank Merlin," Remus huffed, "or something far worse could happen."

Apparently all he had been doing was reading from his books,

"So basically torture sessions, of unrealistic proportions," James summarized.

and acting out the most action packed parts for the class. He always called on Harry to work as his second for these,

"Why?" All five of them groaned.

and Harry had no choice but to do as told. So far he'd played several embarrassing parts,

"Dumb, dumber, and dumbest," Sirius huffed, the more he heard about this guy the more annoying it got!

and today he was being instructed on how to act as a werewolf.

"Did you at least do the thing properly," James asked, while grinning over at Remus who refused to look up, "you know, spout random facts, be a horrible liar-"

"Have a really bad habit for turning red in the face," Sirius added on.

"Knock it off," Remus snapped, still without looking up. Harry and Lily could see why, since the little of his face they could see had long since turned bright red at his friends teasing. Remus knew he would never understand why his friends joked about something like this, it was a serious problem that shouldn't be taken lightly, but he had never stopped them with any real force either. Their joking simply meant they liked him enough to mess with him, something he had never thought possible in his younger years.

Still chuckling at their antics, Harry corrected them, "No, I had 'turned' into an actual werewolf at the time, fur and fangs and stuff."

Remus gave Harry a puzzled look and then read on a bit curiously.

Harry would have refused to do it, if he hadn't had a reason for keeping on Lockhart's good side.

"Did you try refusing to do it the other three times?" Lily asked.

"Yes," Harry muttered, it hadn't worked any of those times though because then Lockhart had launched into a detailed account, reading word for word. Harry had decided to do it simply to make the man shut up. At least playing those dumb roles had made the process go by quicker.

The teacher was currently instructing Harry to give a good long howl, while Lockhart went on about how despite whether the students believe it or not, he'd slammed the werewolf to the floor,

"Actually, I don't believe that," James said, quirking a brow. Had this man ever even seen a fully grown werewolf? They weren't the kind of thing you could 'slam' into the ground without getting your head bit off.

and had used only one hand to hold him down,

"Definitely don't believe that," Sirius cackled.

while pulling out his wand with the other and performing the Homorphus Charm.

"What good would that do?" James asked, "That's a charm used to restore Transfigured objects back to their original form. It's most common use is on Animagus' when they get stuck for some

reason. It wouldn't work on a werewolf though."

"Why do you know that?" Lily asked, noting his 'most common use' mostly.

"We had to learn it," Sirius shrugged, "for all the times we screwed up our Animagus practice. Came in handy a few times afterwards as well."

Then he told Harry to start moaning, as if in pain, and how the werewolf had shrunk back down to its human form.

"And people believed that," Lily scoffed in disgust. "If it was that easy, werewolves wouldn't even be classified as dangerous. They'd be a class three!"

Harry looked puzzled, not understanding the classification thing, but then Remus said bitterly, "I wish it was that easy," and then kept reading before anyone could comment.

Ending his tale with how he'd saved the village from monthly attacks!

"Really, I want to know how his books are sold without being found in the fictional section," James demanded. "People can't really believe he did that!"

Harry shrugged, he had no answer for that, but he certainly didn't believe it.

The class was dismissed and Lockhart took to his feet,

"Wait, he actually slammed you to the ground!" Remus asked, not having interpreted that from his prattling.

Harry nodded, saying, "more like he pushed me, then he waved his wand in my face a lot, but he didn't let the 'crowd' lose full sight of him, he stayed on his knees in front of the desk. I fell back behind the desk, happily out of the way. Only time I can remember not being afraid of someone's wand in my face." He finished grinning wickedly.

and told them their homework was to write a poem of his defeat of the Werewolf. He'd give a signed copy of his autobiography to the best one.

All five of them looked disgusted that this was even counted as a homework assignment, let alone the horrid prize.

Harry wasn't pleased, but he stuck around after class along with his friends, Hermione clutching a piece of paper.

"Oh," James said, "so when Ron said the teacher would have to be really thick, he meant literally."

"Here I thought they were going to try and pull one over on McGonagall," Sirius sounded as surprised as his friend, "now all they have to do is just walk up to him, give him a cheap

compliment, and they'll be done with it."

"I'm kind of disappointed," Remus sighed, "I wanted to see them pull something on McGonagall to."

"That was the most useful thing Lockhart did all year," Harry laughed.

Hermione was blushing and stuttering the whole time she asked him to sign for the book, stating she wanted it for some extra research.

Lily sighed in both disappointment and disgust, saying, "really? She's still star struck?"

"This is the girl that's about to do a sixth year potion?" James asked in disbelief.

Harry shrugged, he had no defense for his friend since he and Ron had seen him as a fraud on the first day.

Lockhart just praised her for having read his book, asking if she'd liked that one the best? Hermione agreed, saying he was very creative indeed when he'd used a tea strainer to catch a ghoul.

"What on earth?" Remus spluttered in disbelief.

"Doesn't Ron have a ghoul in his attic?" James asked, "I think I'd like to borrow that."

"It might not be there yet," Lily reminded them, not necessarily knocking the idea.

"I'd really like to hear that full story," Sirius said eagerly, "if the wizard populace fell for that, maybe I could use it next time I go to the Leaky Cauldron."

Remus snorted in disgust, not doubting his friend would do this one bit.

Lockhart pulled out a huge peacock quill to sign for the note, and misread Ron's look of disgust as one of admiration.

"If it's anything like your look," James said to Harry, "then he's even dafter than I thought, and that's saying something."

Harry broke out of his shock at the remembered peacock quill and chuckled at his dad.

He signed away on the book, then turned to Harry and offered him private lessons as he remembered the first game was to be tomorrow.

"Oh come on!" James and Sirius groaned, not believing for one second that match would get pushed off for two or even three more chapters!

"My Quidditch match was awful," James groaned, "I want another go at reading."

"I haven't gotten one at all," Sirius muttered, sulking.

"How do you keep getting the good chapters!" James demanded.

"Just lucky I guess," he grinned.

Then he boasted that he'd been a Seeker for his house team as well,

"Was he really?" Harry asked in disbelief, not believing much of anything from him anymore.

"If he was," Sirius shrugged, "it wasn't while we were there."

"He'd be ah, a fifth year I think," James said, "so if we just so happened to pop by, we could find out."

saying how he could have played professionally,

"Still doubt that," James scoffed.

but would rather he spend his life fighting against the Dark.

"By entertaining them on their long dreary travels with my absurd stories," Remus kept going as if reading that.

Sirius choked and snatched the book away, then smacked his friend with it saying, "Jerk, don't give me false hope that man grew a brain."

Remus took it back, grinning like a fool before really reading.

He told Harry that he'd be glad to give Harry some pointers, he was always happy to help out less able players.

"Less able my arse!" James howled, "Harry could go and play for England now if he damn well pleased."

"Really James," Lily huffed, "I'm not disagreeing with you, Harry is good, but don't encourage him to drop out of school."

James scowl didn't lessen one bit.

Harry gave some non-articulate answer back as he followed after his friends, Ron was griping that the man hadn't even glanced at the book he was signing for.

"Prat," all five of them muttered.

Concluding that he was brainless. Hermione tried to argue back, saying he was anything but!

"First time Hermione's ever been wrong I think," Lily said sadly.

Harry phased them out as they went down to the library and came across the librarian, Madam Pince, who reminded Harry of an unfriendly vulture.

"I am forever turning to you whenever I want to describe someone," Sirius cackled.

She was clearly suspicious of why they would want this book as she tried to take the note away from Hermione, but she clung to it and mentioned how she'd like to keep the paper.

Lily face palmed, muttering something in disgust under her breath.

The boys simply looked more annoyed by Hermione.

Ron convinced her to give it up, reminding her they could get another signature just as easily, as Lockhart would probably sign anything that stood still too long.

"I believe that," James nodded.

Pince eyed the paper with suspicion, clearly looking for a forgery,

"She can," Remus sighed, "I knew a Ravenclaw who mirror imaged Flitwick's signature once, and when Pince did that, she saw it somehow. Kid had detention for a week straight."

"I wonder if that's some kind of magical ability, or..." Lily trailed off, now looking like she wanted to go up there and ask herself.

"Well, we're planning a trip up to the school, you can ask her then," James said.

but the note worked as she came back several minutes later

"Wow, even she doesn't know where every bloody book is in there. Either that, or she had to go all the way in the back," James laughed.

with their requested book. Hermione took it and stowed it away, and the three exited trying to look as unsuspicious as possible.

"You gotten any better at that?" Remus asked, "because the last time you tried that, Snape took away a book."

Harry shrugged and said, "well, no one took that book away, we made it all the way to Myrtle's bathroom anyways."

The trio headed down to Myrtle's bathroom and began scanning through the book, coming across some truly terrible things.

"Why do potions like that exist?" Harry asked in disgust.

"The one about being turned inside out doesn't have a practical use," Lily shrugged, "it's a threat potion more than anything, sometimes given as punishment for a short period of time."

"The ministry is barmy," Sirius muttered, but Lily was ignoring him, and continuing, "the other about the extra limbs sounds like a transformation potion, though since you didn't say the name of it I can only guess at what she could have been turning into."

Harry nodded, slightly agreeing with Sirius.

Hermione found the potion she was looking for, and went looking through the ingredients she would need. There were illustrations of the effects the potion would have,

"Pleasant," Remus shuddered, knowing very well how painful transforming could be.

and Harry really hoped the looks of pain on those people were being exaggerated.

"Nope," Lily said, "it is not a pleasant process at all."

Harry didn't look very pleased about this.

Hermione mentioned how this was the most complex potion she'd ever seen.

"Well duh," James laughed, "it's a sixth year potion!"

Listing off several of the ingredients that were going to be very hard to come by.

"I hadn't thought of that," Lily agreed, having mostly thought of the act, "where did she plan on getting the ingredients."

"I don't think you're going to like the answer," Harry said nervously, he only had a feeling after all, but it wasn't a good one.

One part mentioning some of the person they were going to change into. Ron seemed particularly grossed out by this, claiming he didn't want to put anything of Crabbe's in him, but Hermione ignored the outburst.

"Err, what did she mean?" Harry asked.

"It doesn't have to be toenails," Lily said quickly, as Harry looked a little queasy at the thought, "hair is most commonly used, but any bit of them like that will do."

Harry still looked a little green, but nodded all the same.

Then Ron pointed out that they weren't getting this stuff from the student's cupboards, they'd have to steal it from Snape himself.

All four adults spluttered in disbelief, though the boys for a completely different reason then Lily.

"That's brilliant!" Sirius cackled, James and Remus nodding right along. It was high time that slimeball knew what it felt like to get his stuff taken. Hell they wouldn't be surprised if Snape hadn't stolen from Slughorn to make some of his potions in school.

Lily on the other hand practically screeched, "You're going to steal from a teacher!"

"Mum-" Harry began, but Lily cut him off saying, "No. Last year you bent the rules around a few times, and nearly got killed. Now, you are breaking them in half, and for what? Because you think that Malfoy did it? Even if he was, and he blabs it to your face, what would you do? Go to Dumbledore without proof? Harry no, this is one thing I will not approve of. That's even assuming a second year can make the Polyjuice Potion correctly, without the lot of you being poisoned or, or worse or..." she stuttered off as she realized Harry was looking beseechingly at her, and the other boys were giving her pitting looks.

Lily sighed deeply, took several deep breaths then continued in far calmer tones, "I'm sorry."

Harry smiled at once, clearly holding no grudge. Lily continued, "It's just, I hate that you feel you have to do all of these things. I wish you had someone there who would tell you these things. I wish..." she trailed off, then put another stern look on her face and finished, "but I did mean it. I disapprove. I do acknowledge though that these are things that have already happened, so I promise I won't yell again." Then she paused, hesitated for a moment, and added, "about this particular thing."

Causing all of her boys to burst out laughing, James saying, "I love your fiery temper." She smiled weakly at them, before waving Remus on. He had to get his breath back a bit, but did indeed still read.

Hermione lost her temper at him, snapping that if they were going to act like babies about this,

"Ooh," Sirius said, going a little wide eyed, "Hermione daring the other's into doing this."

"It was her idea in the first place," Remus reminded him.

"What's gotten into her this year?" James asked, bemused.

"She's a muggle-born," Lily said in exasperation, "of course she'd be the most worried about this."

All four boys turned to her in shock, then blushed slightly. They hadn't forgotten exactly, but Hermione was just so smart it was a little easy to forget.

that she could go put this right back! Ron quickly said that he had no problems with the plan, and Hermione returned to the book. Harry asked how long it would take for the potion to happen,

"Not going to answer that Lily," James asked.

"No," Lily said, "I want to see if Hermione knows first. It'll make me feel better."

Hermione estimated about a month.

Lily nodded, looking a might bit better. Had Hermione tried to rush the potion by any shorter amount of time, she would have been even more worried.

Ron was not pleased with that, stating dozens of people could be hurt by then, but when Hermione glared at him all over again, Ron agreed it was the best they could do.

"Ron's gotten much better at that," Sirius chuckled.

Then Ron turned to Harry and told him it would be far easier on everyone if Harry just knocked Malfoy off his broom tomorrow. The next day came up bright and early, the whole of the Gryffindor team at breakfast not looking very happy.

"It's normal to be nervous before any game," James said bracingly, he still had no doubt in his mind Harry and his team would do brilliantly.

Wood convinced them all to go into the locker room for a pep talk before the game, starting by pointing out that Slytherin had better brooms,

"Chipper as always," Remus laughed lightly.

but his team had better people on their brooms!

"Excellent sentiment though," Sirius beamed.

Pointing out that they had trained harder, in all the weathers, with George muttering in agreement that he hadn't been dry for months.

All five of them laughed at that.

Then Wood turned on Harry, telling him the match would come down to him,

"Ouch," Remus winced, "does he pressure you before every match?"

"Seems like," Harry shrugged, "but I don't mind."

to prove that it took more than a rich father to make it in this game.

'Which he should have anyways' James thought, knowing that wasn't anything of use, but he still wanted to be there for Harry in some way more than a vault.

Finishing with Harry had to get the Snitch, or die trying.

Lily sighed in trepidation, that didn't make her feel any better. She also dearly wanted to comment that this boy took a game far too serious, but didn't want to elicit a joke from Sirius, or even get snapped at for saying this.

She had no idea the boys might have agreed with her in that moment.

Spirits raised, the team went onto the field, and at a blow of the whistle, the fourteen players began.

The three boys looked very excited to hear this. They felt like it had been ages since they got to hear about a good game, which didn't involve worrying about Harry dying in the middle of the

match.

Lily still looked wary, Harry's track record in this game hadn't been that good, but she was willing to relax and hear about this.

Harry was the only one looking on edge. They put this down to the pressure he must be feeling, not knowing why Harry would be rubbing his right arm for some reason.

The Chasers began in earnest while Harry began flying around looking for his ball, when a voice called out calling Harry Scarhead.

"Scarhead," Sirius snorted, "I didn't think his insults could actually get worse."

Malfoy chose that moment to shoot past Harry, clearly showing off the speed of his superior model.

"Most likely," Remus grumbled.

Harry chose not to respond as a Bludger came pelting towards his head, and he had to either duck or get his head knocked off.

Lily shivered in disgust, hating that mental image.

George managed a quick praise to Harry for pulling that off while smashing the Bludger away and sending it towards the opposing team, but the black ball swerved in midair, and came pelting straight back towards Harry.

Remus voice grew very confused at the end of that.

"What?" Sirius asked, sure he had heard wrong.

"Err," James began, but he couldn't think of anything to say really.

"I've got a bad feeling about this," Harry sighed, rubbing his right arm.

Lily went a little bug eyed, but Remus now read on quickly, knowing by now Harry's bad feelings were usually not wrong.

Harry moved to avoid it, and this time George swung out with his full strength, knocking the ball off course. The Bludger was back again at once.

"One game!" James cried in fury. "I want one bloody Quidditch game that doesn't make me hate the whole bloody sport!"

"Why. Are. You. Being. Chased. By. A. Bludger." Sirius said slowly and distinctly, like he was trying to stop himself from yelling like James.

"I, I've no idea," Harry said miserably, very much wondering the same thing.

Lily put her face in her hands, wanting dearly to cover her ears as well so she didn't have to hear this.

Remus said, "Okay, I officially hate getting Quidditch chapters. Next time Sirius, I'm just going to give it to you anyways."

Sirius didn't look any kind of happy as his friend began in a wobbling voice, the horrid mental image of Sirius being bludgeoned the most prominent thing in his mind.

This time Harry chose to fly away in earnest, wondering why on earth the Bludger was still tailing him. The point of that ball was to go after all of the players, why was it so focused on him? Harry made a path and spotted Fred, and was able to swerve around him as Fred took his turn and pelted the ball with his bat.

"Thank Merlin for the twins," Sirius sighed, "they seemed to have noticed the problem already."

"Had enough practice," James muttered darkly.

Fred's triumph was short lived, as the Bludger continued going after Harry who chose to fly off again.

"Who could tamper with a thing like that?" Lily moaned, her face still in her hands. "I know those are very powerfully charmed. It would take some real magic to pull this stunt off!"

"Thinking it was Lockhart?" Remus asked weakly, "Are we still wondering if he's faking it? I kind of gave up on that after the 'werewolf' incident."

"No, he's still an idiot in my book until proven otherwise," Sirius sighed miserably, "and there's no way Malfoy, or any student for that matter, could be powerful enough to do this."

Stumped and with no leads who could do this, Remus forced himself to continue.

The weather wasn't helping, as thick raindrops started pelting Harry's glasses.

"You didn't put a Repelling charm on them?" James asked distractedly. "That's like the only charm any player's allowed to use, exclusive to the face only of course. Otherwise the rain will blind you."

"No," Harry said, no one had shown him how to do that, perhaps Wood thought he knew how to anyways.

The commentary was continuing below, as Lee announced Slytherin in the lead.

"Well that's just peachy!" Sirius groaned, not even having wondered about the game anymore now that Harry was in real danger of getting hurt. Again!

Harry became all the more frustrated as he realized the Slytherin's brooms were clearly outmatched his own teams. Fred and George were trying their best to help, constantly circling around Harry and taking turns swinging at the cannonball like object, but Harry reflected he'd never find the Snitch as he couldn't see around their flailing arms.

"I don't care," Lily yelped, "you're much safer being surrounded by them!"

The boys nodded in firm agreement, Remus asking, "why hasn't anyone called a timeout yet? Clearly something's wrong."

Harry sighed in defeat, knowing full well no one called this particular game off.

Fred managed to point out that someone had tampered with the Bludger

"Then why wasn't the game canceled," Lily ground out in frustration.

"Because Quidditch isn't canceled, not for anything," James sighed, for once in his life wishing the opposite.

"But it's obvious something's wrong-" Lily still tried, but was cut off by Sirius reminding, "Same was true of Harry's first game and that broom, and no one called it off then, even if they'd been given the chance. Quidditch just isn't cancelled Lily."

She sighed in disappointment, but stopped arguing the point in favor of hearing how Harry survived this.

in between smacking the ball away from Harry's head again. His twin somehow managed to call a timeout at the same time as stopping the Bludger from an impending attack.

"Props for multitasking," Harry laughed, but he was the only one who did.

The message came through, and the Gryffindors got a quick break as Harry and the two Weasleys made it to the ground while still having to avoid the rogue Bludger.

"Did it follow you onto the ground?" James asked.

"No," Harry said, "but it circled around me, like some bird in the air."

All four of them shivered, hating that mental image, and still unable to come up with a person who could do this.

Wood took the opportunity to begin yelling at the twins, pointing out they were losing,

"That's what he's concerned about!" James yelped.

"I'm really starting to dislike this kid," Sirius growled.

"He didn't notice," Harry said quickly, not liking that mean look that was flickering across their faces.

demanding to know where they'd been as the Slytherins had used the other Bludger to knockout Angelina.

"Saving my son's life," Lily hissed, only slightly forgiving the comment because of what Harry said.

The twins protested they'd been above, saving Harry's head! They quickly explained that something must be wrong with the Bludger, and Harry glanced over to see their timeout was already almost over.

"Did anyone else notice?" Remus asked.

"Not really," Harry sighed, "I think they noticed a bit more after this time out, but no one stops this game."

All of them looked beyond angry.

Harry then told his captain to tell the twins to leave him alone, let him handle the messed up ball on his own, making the crack he wouldn't catch it unless it flew up his sleeve.

"Really!" Sirius yelped, "That's your plan! At least let them pretend to do their job!"

Harry shook his head furiously saying, "No, I could handle it. I did handle it! Mostly," he finished lamely at their astounded looks.

"Harry," James said weakly, "a game isn't worth your head being knocked off."

"I know-" Harry tried to butt in, but Lily interrupted first, "If you do, then why are you so insistent about this?"

"I don't want our team to lose another match." Harry said furiously. "I didn't get a chance at the tournament last year, and if we called a time off it would be over for us again! I handled this just fine and," he sucked in a deep breath as he said with confidence, "I won us the match." Finishing

with a horrible wince of pain for having dared to tempt his memories.

The four of them exchanged unhappy looks, but finally admitted there was nothing for it. If he said he could handle it, who were they to argue?

"Least it would be impressive if you pulled off a Plumpton Pass," Sirius muttered without any real emphasis. All of them knew they weren't going to be happy until this nightmare of a game was over.

Fred snapped that Harry was being an idiot, that Bludger was going to come away with his head.

Remus winced as he read that, not liking that mental image repeated.

The rest of the team tried to protest as well, and George then turned on Wood and told him this was his fault! He'd been the one to tell Harry get the Snitch or die trying, and Harry had taken that too literally!

Sirius pursed his lips, dearly wishing to agree, but knowing it might offend Harry. If the determined look on his face was any indication, he made a good call.

Wood relented, and told Harry he could have it his way. Turning to the twins and telling them to leave Harry be for this game.

James muttered mutinously, knowing full well as team captain himself once, he would never have made that call!

The game resumed, and Harry had to resort to some pretty out there methods of avoiding the weighted ball. As it was heavier then Harry, it couldn't turn as easily, so despite the laughing crowd, Harry managed a couple of goofy spins to keep it away from him for the most part.

"I do not see how this is funny!" Lily snapped in disgust.

he knew he must look very stupid,

"At least you're dodging, who cares how it looks," Sirius muttered.

and he couldn't hover for more than a second for fear of getting hit, which he was reminded of every time his hair was gusted as the Bludger missed again.

All four of them shuddered in disgust again, knowing that wasn't going to get any better no matter how many times it was said.

Malfoy of course took the opportunity to mock Harry, saying he looked like he was training for the ballet,

Sirius was far too keyed up to make a comment on that lame joke.

but Harry hardly cared when he noticed what was hovering above the blondes head. While Malfoy sat there laughing at Harry, Harry had spotted the Snitch.

James smiled meanly, feeling a slight bit better at this jerk who was more than likely going to get his comeuppance, and a face full of Bludger if Harry went for it.

Malfoy clearly hadn't seen it himself he was too busy mocking Harry,

"So we were right," James said, trying vainly to change the subject to happier topics, "he's a

rubbish player."

"I'll bet Harry never loses a match against him," Sirius agreed.

and Harry remained frozen in place as he feared if he went for it Malfoy might notice and grab it first. SMACK!

Remus choked, bug eyed as he spat that out.

Harry was rubbing his right arm in remembered pain and said, "It hurt, I'm not going to say it didn't, but it's just a break. Nothing worse than that."

They nodded, taking a deep breath Remus kept going.

Harry had hovered one moment too long, the Bludger had finally landed a hit, and smashed into Harry's elbow.

'I don't think I want Harry on the Quidditch team anymore' Lily thought sadly, though decided to keep that to herself since she thought the boys might get mad at her.

Actually, the other three boys did agree. Harry didn't seem able to go a single game without something life threatening happening, it made him too easy of a target apparently.

Harry's vision nearly blacked out right then from the pain of a broken arm, but his determination won out even as the Bludger came back around for another hit this time going for his face again,

"It didn't hit," Harry reassured at once, when they all looked ashen.

only one thought firmly seared into his brain, get the Snitch.

"Credit for determination anyways," James sighed.

Ignoring his throbbing limb, Harry steered his broom one handed and went for Malfoy, who froze up in fear as he seemed to think Harry was moving to attack him.

"Not a bad idea," Sirius nodded, using this as a distraction from the idea of Harry's arm dangling useless at his side.

Malfoy flew away, and Harry's free hand closed around the tiny golden ball. Now he was left holding onto his broom with nothing but his knees.

Remus stopped here to shake his head in wonder at his cub. "You can now tell people you can catch a Snitch with one arm tied behind your back," he told him.

Sirius smacked him, hard.

"Ouch, what! You two can makes jokes, but I can't!"

"No," Sirius shrugged, "I just really wanted a reason to smack you back for all the times you've done it to me. Taking away my joke was just a good excuse."

Lily smiled indulgently at them, almost envious of their ability to joke around while being equally as worried. Everyone coped in their own way she supposed.

Now there was nothing stopping Harry's broom from going towards the muddy ground below, which Harry never felt as blackness continued coloring his vision.

"How did that work out for you?" Lily asked uneasily.

"I think I lost conscious for a few seconds," Harry shrugged, "I wake back up and it's still raining on me anyways."

Lily nodded, slightly content with that.

Suddenly there was mud all around him, and Harry was only vaguely aware that he still had the Snitch in hand as he waved it around and claimed that they'd won, before passing out.

"I'm going to laugh if that was all just a dream," James chuckled, his son never ceased to amuse him.

"He's had some vivid dreams before," Sirius agreed.

"Hopefully he'll wake up with a teacher over him, waiting to heal his arm," Lily grumbled, still unpleased with the whole scenario even if her son came away perfectly fine.

Harry came back to quick enough, rain still falling on his face, and gleaming teeth above him.

"Oh no," Remus groaned, planting his forehead against the book in genuine pain at what could possibly happen next.

"I didn't mean him!" Lily yelped, "I meant McGonagall!"

"Next time when you're hoping for something, be name specific," James grumbled.

Harry's very first words were 'not him!' The guy just laughed, saying Harry had no idea what he was saying.

"He knows exactly what he's saying," Sirius growled.

"You never seem to though," Remus huffed.

Sirius gave him a confused look, unsure if his friend was making a joke at him or Lockhart, but Remus wasn't going to answer.

It was Lockhart, standing amongst the crowd of Gryffindors as he soothed Harry that he was going to fix his arm.

"No!" All five of them yelped in real fear.

"That moron can't handle a pixie, I don't want to even think what would happen if he tried that!" Lily hissed.

"With any luck, a puff of smoke will escape," Sirius said, "then he'll make up some lame excuse, and prattle Harry's ear off up to the Hospital wing."

Harry was still rubbing his arm in remembrance, he had a bad feeling about this. He knew one thing, his arm stopped hurting after Lockhart's spell. It wasn't for a good reason though.

Harry tried to say he'd rather keep it as it was,

The three boys chuckled weakly.

but he was in so much pain he couldn't move away. He also heard the distinct noise of a camera going off, and shouted out that he didn't want a picture of this Colin!

"Why would you take a photo of that," Lily asked in disgust.

"Kid's going to make a great photographer one of these days," Remus smiled, "he's certainly not squeamish."

"That wasn't my point," Harry huffed.

Lockhart ignored all of this as he pulled out his wand, and Harry still tried to protest as he said he'd much rather go up to the hospital wing.

"Because he's a pompous, big headed, arrogant-" Sirius began, while Lily finally cut him off saying:

"Sirius, I'm sure you can keep going for a year, but I want to hear this."

Wood had been one of the onlookers this whole time, and chose now to pipe up and say that Harry really should get help from the professional, but then turned and praised Harry for his marvelous catch.

"I really hate agreeing with him," James grumbled, thinking Wood was too happy for the circumstances. You could be happy about winning after all of your players were healed up!

Harry spotted Fred and George a ways out, still fighting with the Bludger and trying to force it back into its crate, but the ball was still fighting back.

"Whoever cursed that thing, I'm going to curse them into oblivion," James vowed.

Harry wondered why his automatic reaction was to correct his Dad. Why would he want to defend whoever did this?

Lockhart was ready now, rolling back his green sleeves,

"Jeez, wonder which team he was supporting," Sirius said vaguely.

and pointing his wand at Harry. There was no more chance to stop him, as Harry began to feel an odd sensation from the tips of his fingers all the way to his shoulder.

"That's not the feeling you should have," Lily said, real fear creeping into her as she wondered what this inept idiot had done to her son.

"Wish it had said the spell he tried," Remus muttered, "because I'd like to use it on him."

"He said Brackium Emendo," Harry offered brightly, knowing full well Lockhart deserved whatever his family was thinking up, though still having an issue with remembering why.

"That's, actually a real spell," Lily said in surprise.

"So why isn't the feeling he's having the right one," James said uneasily.

Lily bit her lip before waving Remus on, trying to figure that out herself.

Harry got the odd sensation that his arm was being deflated.

"Well," Lily began again, thinking out loud now, "I know that if you don't have enough magical ability to perform a spell properly it often does the opposite effect. That's why you don't walk in trying to do seventh year spells," Lily explained that part for Harry's benefit, "so if this dolt hasn't built up enough of an ability to perform this spell correctly..." she trailed off, puzzling, "what would be the opposite of mending broken bones?"

"I don't want to find out," James sighed as Remus read on, now a little curious himself, and having an abundance of faith Madame Pomfrey could fix it if, most likely, Lockhart simply broke

the bone further. Then of course, he'd just have to hurt Lockhart all the more for prolonging Harry's pain.

Harry was to terrified to see what had been done to his arm even as the crowd around him gasped in shock and the mad clicking of a camera doubled up.

"That can't be a good sign," Sirius muttered.

His arm didn't hurt anymore,

Lily perked up in surprise, perhaps Harry just had a unique reaction to the spell?

nor did it feel remotely like his arm.

"Not a good sign at all," James agreed.

Lockhart tried to brush it off as Ron and Hermione approached, saying he'd done all he could and they could take him up to the Hospital now to tidy Harry up.

"Tidy him up?" Remus asked, "What does that even mean?"

"Fix his screw up," Harry muttered.

"You remember what happened?" James asked quickly.

"No," Harry sighed, knowing he wasn't going to be able to hold the memory until the book said it, "but I know it wasn't good."

Harry got unsteadily to his feet, feeling oddly off balance. Sucking in a big breath for fear of what he was going to find, Harry finally glanced down at his arm and nearly blacked out again.

"Did he remove your arm or something!" Lily yelped.

Harry opened and closed his mouth several times, but now that he seemed to actually remember what he saw, he didn't seem able to spit it out.

Remus read quickly now.

Hanging from his shoulder was a loose pile of flesh. His fingers wouldn't move, his wrist wouldn't turn, nothing was happening.

There was a muscle twitching in Sirius' jaw as he finally realized what had happened.

Remus looked like he really was going to pass out.

James and Lily refused to react until Remus flat out read.

Harry realized that Lockhart had not in fact fixed Harry's arm, he'd removed all of the bones in it.

"He's dead," James vowed. "He is officially a dead man. He-" he spluttered out, most likely to outraged to finish his sentence.

"What I find most interesting," Remus said threw gritted teeth, "is how he managed to switch those spells! You're supposed to stop making those kinds of mistakes at fourth year, at the latest!"

"What spell did he actually use?" Harry asked.

"It's called Ossio Dispersimus," James said, "only used in the most severe crisis, when the bones can't be mended for some reason or another, and you have to temporarily take them out."

"So they will grow back," Harry said eagerly, his family didn't seem that concerned about this.

"Oh yes," Lily said at once, "take a bit of Skele-Gro, and your bones will come right back."

Harry nodded, then still deciding he was curious, asked, "How would you switch spells like that?"

"It's a rookie mistake," James snorted, "but something that can happen when you start learning spells, and then counterspells. If you aren't concentrating on the spell you're intending to use, you can accidentally cause another spell to happen."

"I'm not surprised," Sirius huffed, "that idiot can't focus on anything but his reflection. He shouldn't be trying any spells!"

"Just proves his incompetence all the more," Harry shrugged, "not that anyone should have

needed it."

Still furious, but calmed slightly by the subsequent discussion, they were all willing to keep going without shouting death threats, for now.

Madam Pomfrey wasn't pleased. She was yelling at the lot of them for not taking Harry to her the moment this had happened, while tossing Harry some spare pj's and telling him he'd have to stay the night. Harry was relieved when she promised she could fix his arm though. Ron had to help him put his shirt on, trying to stuff the rubber mess into a sleeve.

"Ew," Sirius wrinkled up his nose at the mental image.

Ron was yelling at Hermione that how could she stick up for Lockhart now! Hermione pointed out that anyone could make a mistake,

"I've never heard of anyone doing that after the age of sixteen," Remus sniffed, "by that time, any idiot can master the concept of focusing on one spell at a time."

"Can't believe Hermione is still sticking up for him," Lily sighed.

and reminding that it didn't hurt Harry anymore. Harry huffed that it hardly felt like his arm either as it uselessly flopped around at his side.

"Gross," James grumbled.

Madam Pomfrey came back with a bottle of Skele-Gro, telling Harry to drink it up, and warning Harry that regrowing bones was a terrible process.

Now it was Harry's turn to wrinkle up his nose in disgust at the remembered taste of that.

"What did it taste like?" Sirius asked, he'd never known anyone who had to take it.

"Nothing you'd ever tasted before, or wanted again," Harry grumbled.

The Skele-Gro tasted terrible and left a foul taste as it went down Harry's throat. Madam Pomfrey began heading back to her office once he'd finished, muttering furiously about dangerous sports and inept teachers.

"The worst part is, I can't even argue with her this time," Remus sighed.

Ron tried to look on the bright side by pointing out the look that had been on Malfoy's face when they won the match. Hermione asked how on earth he could have done that to the Bludger, and Harry said they could just add it to their list of questions they'd ask when they took the Polyjuice Potion.

"Sorry Harry," Lily sighed, "I just don't see him being able to do that. Those Bludgers are charmed especially so that they can't be tampered with. No student should be able to get past that."

Harry nodded, agreeing with his mom's opinion even without the feeling's reinforcing that she was right.

Then he hoped it at least tasted better than the Skele-Gro.

"Sadly not," James wrinkled his nose in disgust, "I had to take some once, Auror training protocol and all, and it doesn't matter who you change into. The stuff is awful."

"Gee, thanks dad," Harry said.

The rest of the team showed up then with proper drinks and candies to celebrate Harry's victory, George praising Harry on his win as well and telling Harry how he'd seen the Slytherin Captain yelling at Malfoy for not grabbing at the Snitch right above his head.

"With any luck he'll get kicked off the team!" Sirius said brightly, finally finding something good about this match.

Madam Pomfrey came back around then, kicking every one of them out and saying how Harry needed rest. So Harry had nothing to distract himself from the burning pain that was beginning in his boneless arm.

"Her intentions are good, honestly," Remus sighed, "but if I'm ever told to rest again, I really will smack someone."

James and Sirius exchanged smiles, knowing full well they had never indulged in Pomfrey's rules. They had always used James cloak, and snuck down to see Remus, and they wondered if Ron

and Hermione would do the same.

Harry managed to fall into a fitful sleep, and woke several hours later. At first he thought he'd been awoken by the horrible pain in his arm that felt like he was growing his own splinters.

"Ouch," they all muttered, not liking that description one bit.

Then he realized there was someone on his bedside, patting a sponge against his forehead.

"Hermione?" James asked, sounding more confused than confident.

"Why would she be there?" Lily asked.

"Because these two knuckleheads were thinking Harry's friends would sneak in to see him," Remus offered, "but I think Hermione doing that is a little odd."

"I think it just proves all the more how much she likes Harry," Sirius snipped, giving Harry a look he didn't understand one bit. Of course Hermione liked him, they were friends.

Harry snapped for whoever to stop it, then he recognized Dobby.

"Dobby!" They yelped in surprise. "What's he doing there?" Remus added on.

"What's he doing there?" James repeated when Harry looked uneasily around the room, his dad's voice coming out between gritted teeth as he guessed what Harry was thinking now.

"Ah, why are you asking me," he finally said, "I've no idea."

All four of them grumbled a bit, having a really bad feeling about this. The last time Dobby had been around, it hadn't been very pleasant, and they were just as weary this time.

The house-elf was obviously distraught, watching Harry with tears leaking out of his eyes.

"Wait," Sirius said, "so does that mean, did Dobby have something to do with paralyzing Mrs. Norris?"

"What makes you think that?" James asked.

"He's trying to scare Harry into leaving, I'm wondering if he might have pulled that stunt to keep that going," Sirius shrugged.

"No," Remus said, going a little pale, "but you're on the right track, I think. What if Dobby was trying to scare Harry away from the school because he knew something like this might happen."

"A house-elf knew a cat would be paralyzed?" James asked in disbelief.

"It's not out of the realm of possibilities," Lily agreed with Remus.

"Well then who paralyzed the cat, and is making Harry hear a voice," Sirius asked, throwing his hands up in frustration. They were pretty well into this book by now, and still had no real suspect.

All five of them sighed, letting it go for now.

Dobby was scolding Harry for having come to school, how he was still in danger and why hadn't Harry just given up when he missed the train?

"Well, guess I was right," Remus sighed, not looking very happy.

"Yes, yes, that does tend to happen sometimes," Sirius scoffed.

"Now I just want to know if I was right about why he did," Remus huffed, ignoring Sirius so that he could read.

Harry pushed Dobby's hand, and the sponge, away as he heaved himself upright.

"That's kind of creepy," James muttered, finding it much less endearing than a girl that was a friend of Harry's.

"It's like he adopted Harry," Sirius nodded. "If Dobby didn't have a family of his own, and Harry was of age, Harry could possibly bind Dobby to his family line."

"Is that really how it works?" Lily asked.

"It's more complicated than just saying it," Sirius smirked at her, "but something along those lines."

Lily huffed, unable to decide if he was being sarcastic, and none of the boys were helping.

Harry demanded to know if Dobby had really been the one to block him and Ron!

"How?" Lily asked in disbelief, "Exactly how powerful are house-elves?"

"Very," Sirius said with a straight face, "they're probably the most powerful magical creature that exist, which is why they were enslaved by wizards so many years ago."

"How were they enslaved if they're so powerful?" Harry asked.

"That's a long, really ugly history on the wizard part," Remus said, "we'll try and explain that later."

Harry nodded in content for now.

Dobby agreed it was him. He'd been so stunned to hear that Harry had still made it to school he'd messed up on one of his chores and forced to iron his own hands.

Lily winced in sympathy for the poor thing all over again, though honestly thinking she was still annoyed at him being the cause of all of Harry's problems this year.

Dobby said he didn't care though, saying how he thought it was worth it because surely Harry didn't have another way to get to school.

"Also proves my earlier point," James nodded, "he clearly has no idea how things work if he thought the train was the only way to get to school."

Dobby had been so surprised to hear Harry was at Hogwarts he'd burnt his master's dinner, and received his worst ever thrashing.

Lily's lower lip quivered in real pain for this creature now, saying, "I feel like an arse. How are there not laws in place to prevent this kind of thing?"

"It's not your fault Lily," James said at once, "exactly how many people are involved in that type of thing, and none of them have said a word either."

"Besides," Sirius shrugged, "I doubt there's anything you could do. Pass as many laws as you like, house-elves belong to their owners. You can't control the way they're treated."

Lily fired up at once, snapping, "Like you can't control the way people treat animals, or their own children! There are laws to prevent that kind of abuse! You see house-elves as less than them!"

Sirius' superior look faltered for the first time. He disagreed with nearly every aspect of his parent's life, but the one thing he'd never had a problem with was their treatment of Kreacher. He was a vile thing, hateful and spiteful to the extreme, to him anyways. So whenever he saw him being punished, never bothering to learn the reasons, he'd had no problems. Never having met any other house-elves besides the ones at Hogwarts, who he'd given about as much attention as the ghosts into their free time outside of politely giving him food, he had no reason to think otherwise about the species as a whole.

Dobby certainly hadn't changed his mind so far, he was being an absolute arse trying to keep Harry out of school. Now, at Lily's words, he suddenly thought of Harry at Privet Drive again, no

one taking the time to care what happened to him. Harry had tried comparing his life to Dobby's and Sirius had scoffed at the idea, there couldn't be any similarities, right?

He shook off his feelings and snapped at Remus to keep going, ignoring the curious looks from everyone else at what exactly had him quiet for so long.

Harry was more exasperated than anything as he told Dobby he'd better get lost before he got both arms back, or he'd probably strangle Dobby himself. Dobby said he was used to death threats, he got them frequently enough at home, then he blew his nose on a bit of his pillowcase.

"Wow, I kind of forgive him," Remus said sadly, "this is just sad."

James and Lily both nodded, Sirius crossed his arms and said nothing. Surely the elf was just trying to get Harry to pity him.

Harry asked why Dobby even wore that, and Dobby said it was a mark of being a house-elf, not being allowed to wear clothes. Dobby could only be freed from his slavery if masters gave him clothes, and they were very careful never to pass Dobby so much as a sock.

Harry went a little cross eyed for a moment, hating that feeling of significance that was gone as soon as he tried to understand why.

Dobby changed the subject then, saying he'd been sure his Bludger,

"His Bludger!" Sirius roared, "he tried to break your head open!"

"Sirius, you said you wouldn't add him to your kill list," Harry said weakly, "whatever he did remember? Dobby's got the right intentions...I think."

This calmed the others, slightly. They were still angry, but they had promised not to take it out on Dobby. He must have a reason for this if Harry said so.

Sirius though, was still furious. He'd only agreed to that because he thought Dobby wouldn't make another appearance, that his worst thing he'd done was make Harry's life even more miserable at the Dursley's, more than enough reason to warrant his fury, but he had given Harry the benefit of the doubt in pitying the creature. Besides, it not being his house-elf, he couldn't do anything about it anyways. Now, he was determined to find out whose elf this was, and silently planning on doing something to the stupid little thing. Maybe not kill him, he'd keep that promise, but he would never take anything threatening his godson's life without taking revenge back.

and Harry cut him off in outrage, demanding to know why Dobby wanted him dead! Dobby corrected he didn't want to kill him,

Dobby corrected he didn't want to kill him,

"What did he think was going to happen when he aimed a weighted ball at your head?" Remus demanded.

"Err," Harry said lamely, he had no response for that.

he only wanted to save his life. Better to go home with an injury,

"So he intended to send you home limbless!" James yelped in disgust.

"I don't care what the elf thinks," Lily huffed, "if you couldn't be helped at the school, you would have been sent to Saint Mungo's, healed there, and then come back to school."

"Like Dad said," Harry shrugged, "Dobby doesn't know how this stuff works."

"That's getting old," James muttered.

then to remain at school. Harry snapped that Dobby needed to tell him why Harry was in such danger.

"If he answers that, I actually will forgive him," Remus huffed in agitation. Clearly Dobby knew something he wasn't telling.

Dobby moaned that he still couldn't, but it was dangerous here! Harry was too important to be lost that way, as he still stood for so much good. How his kind had been treated so much better since the fall of You-Know-Who. Something terrible was happening at school now though, and it involved He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

"Why would that be?" James asked curiously, "people would treat their house-elf's the same without Voldemort being around."

"More of Dobby not having a clue what's going on," Sirius muttered in disgust.

Lily gave him a scathing look. She had thought she'd seen, for just a moment, something pass across his face. Now it was gone, and he looked as surely as any other time elves were mentioned.

Now that the Chamber had been opened again, terrible things were set to happen.

"Once more?" James asked in surprise. "When was it opened before?"

"I've never heard of that," Sirius agreed.

"Wish we had," Remus sighed, "we might have gotten more clues where it is."

"Are you lot crazy?" Lily yelped in disgust, "the 'monster' that's supposedly in there doesn't bother you!"

"Nah," Sirius said, "that's probably just fake, to scare people away from finding it. Slytherin might have hide something really valuable there, and I want to know what."

"So here's hoping Harry might find it," James said, going bright eyed for a moment.

"I want to slap all of you," she sighed, rubbing at her own temple. Harry fought back the urge to agree with his mother.

Dobby froze up as he realized he'd said too much, and he picked up Harry's cup and began cracking himself over the head with it as he scolded himself.

"This elf is weird," James said, "I don't get why that was a secret."

"Well, since we didn't know about it, I'd say it isn't widely known," Sirius shrugged.

"Wonder what happened before," Remus said thoughtfully.

Harry quickly took the cup back and tried to argue that what did this have to do with him? He wasn't even muggle-born, why was he in danger?

"That's another good point," Lily nodded, "his statues, should protect him. Why is Dobby so freaked over Harry in particular?"

"No good reason," Harry sighed.

Dobby pleaded with Harry to stop asking questions, just to please leave. Harry refused, wanting to know who had opened it before, who had done it now? Dobby still insisted he couldn't say.

"So he knows then," Remus said, raising a brow in surprise.

"Geez, I really want to know who Dobby's owner is," Sirius said, ulterior motives aside, he just knew that this elf's owner would somehow be important for Dobby to be knowing all of this.

Dobby froze up then, and Harry heard why. Footsteps were headed up, and Dobby took the chance to disappear again. Harry quickly curled back up in his bed to feign sleep as the door opened.

"Probably for the best," Lily said sadly, "he clearly couldn't tell you anything, or if he let something slip out he beat the crap out of himself."

"Here's hoping he doesn't come back," Sirius muttered.

Dumbledore came in backwards, looking like he was carrying some stone figure by its feet,

Remus stopped right there, glancing up briefly at the others who all looked as scared as he felt.

"A statue," Lily whimpered, "like a human sized statue?"

Harry nodded dumbly, knowing full well he wasn't going to like what Remus was fixing to read.

"Please tell me it was Lockhart," Sirius said weakly.

Remus sucked in a deep breath before reading.

and McGonagall quickly followed with the head. They laid it gently on the nearest bed while McGonagall tore off to go and get Madam Pomfrey. She returned demanding to know what had happened, and Dumbledore explained that Minerva had found him on the stairs.

"Him?" Lily yelped.

"On the stairs?" James said with unease, "It wasn't Ron was it?"

"No," Harry said with confidence.

"Stop interrupting me," Remus huffed, "I want to know who it is."

The married couple went silent at the rebuke.

McGonagall said how she'd found some food next to him, and theorized he had probably been on his way up here to visit Harry.

All five of them shivered in disgust, hoping dearly McGonagall was wrong.

Harry took a chance and glanced over to see it was Colin.

"Bloody hell," Sirius groaned.

"That poor kid," Lily whispered.

"Who would attack him though?" Remus asked, running one hand through his hair in frustration, "everyone hates Mrs. Norris and Filch, but who has a grudge against a first year?"

"Maybe it's random?" James offered.

"Or it really is someone against muggle-borns," Sirius said, fidgeting a bit and hoping he was wrong.

"You still can't tell a muggle-born just by looking at them," James disagreed, "so unless someone knew Colin, that shouldn't matter."

"I still want to know how!" Remus asked when it appeared they still had no new leads on the first question. "The only thing that can petrify people like that is a gorgon. I refuse to believe one is getting in and out of that school without being noticed."

They all sighed as they realized, despite a new victim, they had no more answers than before, and in fact more questions.

"My question is, what's the point?" James grumbled, "this can't all just be to scare the students. There must be an endgame to this."

"Let us know if you figure it out," Harry said miserably.

He was as petrified as Mrs. Norris had been a look of great shock on his face, barely visible underneath the camera he was holding against his eye. McGonagall was muttering in relief that it was just lucky Dumbledore had been on his way to get something to drink.

"I thought Dumbledore said McGonagall found him on the stairs?" Sirius asked, trying to distract himself again, "what, did she really fear she couldn't handle whatever on her own."

"Would you want to handle this on your own?" Remus shuddered.

"Do gorgons eat people or something?" Harry asked.

"They're not known to," Remus shook his head, "they're not categorized as beasts anyways. They haven't been known to make any appearance at any congregation of our kind, so very little is known about their habits."

"They're found in Greece," Sirius added, "there's never even been a sighting of them here."

Dumbledore made to remove his camera, and McGonagall asked hopefully if Colin had somehow managed to get a picture of who'd done this to him.

"Now that's interesting," James said thoughtfully, "has anyone ever brought out muggle things to see what happens when a gorgon stairs at it?"

"Don't even think about it," Lily snapped at once, "I don't even want to think of you lot out there trying those kinds of stunts."

The boys all huffed in annoyance, Sirius saying, "I told you Lily would be a killjoy."

"Be nice," James said at once, "she just means she doesn't want to hear about it, because she wants to come. Isn't that right Lily Flower."

Lily looked to the ceiling, as if praying for patience, and Remus took that as his cue to keep going.

Harry felt like he was going to be sick again, but he was learning to control the feeling the more it went on. It wasn't a gorgon, his instincts were sure of this, but he refused to allow another memory to blast him again. They clearly scared his family, so he would just have to wait and see to find out

what it really was, and in the meantime, ask as many questions as it took to take his mind off this pain.

Dumbledore opened up the camera,

Lily was tempted to point out that under normal circumstances, that would have ruined the film, but this was a magically imbued camera so perhaps there were charms in place to protect this?

Either way she didn't know cameras that well, and didn't want to delay in pointing this out to the others.

but they all yelped in shock with black steam came jetting out of the back of the camera, and Harry could clearly smell melted plastic.

"Well that answers that question," Sirius said, a little disappointed.

"I'm surprised Colin would have still gotten petrified though," Remus said thoughtfully, "after all the only sure fire way to not be hurt by the gorgon's look is to only look at their reflection. I guess looking through a lens wouldn't count."

"Again, something more to test," James grinned.

Lily twitched, and James automatically flinched back like he thought she was going to slap him again. Lily instead smoothed some hair back from her face, exposing a vindictive smile.

McGonagall was stunned as she demanded of Dumbledore what on earth could have done this. Dumbledore simply answered that this confirmed the Chamber was in fact open again.

"How does he work that out?" Lily asked grumpily, more than sick of this whole school being so vague this year.

"I wonder," Remus pondered, having noted something about a monster within the Chamber earlier, it didn't really add up though...

"What are you thinking Moony?" James asked.

He shook himself and said, "let me finish this chapter, it's only a bit left, then I'll explain."

McGonagall asked who,

"That's what we want to know," Lily grumbled.

but Dumbledore corrected it wasn't a who they should be worried about, but how.

"Okay Remus, how?" James demanded.

HPHPHPHP

Actual favorite chapter of this book, I tell even though no one asked.

[joegranatoiv]

The Last Jedi, with spoilers

*Anachronistic post archived from the legacied FB Notes*

So here is the frustrating thing. The Last Jedi was full of really good ideas. Not just novel or clever ideas, but genuinely good ideas that both make sense in Star Wars but are also different enough to give the film (and this generation) its own voice. I give the film high marks for that, as it is not an easy feat. The Force Awakens felt more like a traditional Star Wars film than the prequels did, but so much felt like a retread that it alienated many viewers. This film managed to bring some great conceptual ideas into Star Wars and its ensemble of characters and at the same time, carve its own path.

The problem is, every good idea seemed to be mired in a stew of nonsense and contrarily bad creative decisions. Understand, I’m saying this as both a Star Wars fan who rocked my Empire t-shirt to the screening, and also as someone who is able to objectively step back from the compulsion to nerd out over everything that has a light saber in it in order to evaluate it critically. Some of my gripes are from a narrative standpoint as a writer and filmmaker, while some are from my love of the series. I do not seek to dismiss anyone’s enjoyment of the film. However, I also will not let anyone’s enjoyment of the film dismiss my critical analysis and the things that hampered my enjoyment of the film.

Ok, I think those two paragraphs were long enough to fill the space so that no one will see any of the unwanted spoilers I’m about to post. Did you catch that? Spoilers below. Do not read further if you don’t want spoilers. And also, please keep any comments spoiler free!

Let’s dig in. I’m going to begin with some less volatile issues and work our way up to the big ones

THE OVERALL THEME: Why is it awesome? If there is a primer within the film to understanding the film, it’s in the theme, shared by both villains and heroes, to burn the whole thing down. Yoda and Luke burn down the ancient tree, slighting the ancient texts importance. Kylo suggests to kill of everything that will hold you back. It’s an obvious primer to understanding Johnson’s motivation as a director. Burn down the expectations of the franchise to allow something new and interesting to grow in its place. I love his devotion and exploration of theme from different perspectives. I love that the film is supposed to be about something, rather than just a flashy fan service film with laser swords and space battles.

Why does it suck? It sucks because its execution is wonky, and it invalidates a lot of reasons we’re interested in Star Wars as a cinematic universe in the first place. It’s as if someone had a brilliant concept for a novel. The outline treatment demonstrated a genius articulation around its themes, chapter by chapter. But then, upon crafting the thing. the actual prose sucked. Or as if someone had a major moment of inspiration for a symphony, and gathered the most talented musicians in the world, and had a brilliant melody written for it, but the actual orchestration sucked. That’s what The Last Jedi feels like. All of its great component pieces are swimming in a stew of nonsense. For instance...

THE CASINO PLANET: What was great about it? This was, conceptually, a brilliant addition to the lore. It was an obvious thematic spoke that no film had ever truly touched upon. We got a glimpse at the aristocratic elite who profited from the war and had a vested financial interest in its perpetual churning. It afforded them their outlandish, lavish lifestyles. This theme is great topical allegory while still feeling somewhat organic in the universe itself. I liked seeing our plucky heros jab a finger in the eye of this corruptible aristocracy. And I loved seeing the sigil of the rebellion (cousin to the jedi order) be used as a beacon of hope by a resistance. These small moments were probably hands down the best representation of that symbol and the rebellion’s place in the galaxy in all 9 current films. There was this awesome sense of the grass roots underground resistance movement that I’m not sure any other film has touched on since Luke Skywalker exclaimed to Obi Wan with enthusiastic camaraderie , “You know of the resistance against the empire?!”

What sucked about it? The aesthetics for the whole sequence wreaked of the most loathsome moments in the prequels and special editions. We didn’t get something like the glamorous equivalent of Mos Isley’s wretched hive of scum and villainy. We instead got something like the Special Edition Jabba’s Palace musical number with gratuitously added singing CG furry monster. We didn’t get reverent, awe inspiring establishing shots of pomp and spectacle and extravagance that our proxy characters said they were experiencing, we got a series of sight gags and tongue in cheek musical cues. We didn’t get genuine characters, we got silly caricatures akin to the pod racing commentators.

But beyond the aesthetics, the side quest didn’t work as a trough to the plot, either. They were there to find the dude with the flower broach or whatever. They ended up thrown in some sort of brig. Out of sheer good fortune, the guy in the brig with them turned out to be a guy who could help them with exactly what they needed. I mean, in the very next second, this prisoner was breaking out of his prison cell. What exactly was he waiting there for? Why hadn’t he broken out already, if he was capable? It just didn’t make any sense. The film seemed to imply that perhaps this guy was the man they were looking for, and his broach had somehow been stolen, or we’d find that maybe he had a tattoo of the broach or some other tell. Like the guy they’d seen in the casino sporting it was obvious misdirection, as movies do. That would have been cliche, but it would’ve felt right in context. Let’s transition to the problem with that...

THE CODEBREAKER: What was great about him? Other than the stuttering cadence of his speech, this character’s persona felt perfectly in line with Star Wars mythology. More than Poe or Finn or Rey, Del Toro’s “DJ” was a great fit for that exact environment and the themes being explored. He was a morally flexible mercenary, essentially, with an agnostic attitude towards the war so long as he could profit from it. In just a few lines, his character was able to instill in the viewers and the heroes the hypocrisy and unethical nature of the war in general, self validating his modus operandi of screwing over both sides whenever it suited him. This not only worked set against the thematic backdrop of the Casino planet, but it even worked with the overarching graying and questioning of the moral center of our force wielding heroes and villains, even though it was a subplot. That’s an effective use of the subplot to organically serve the core themes.

What sucked about him? I’m just not sure I understand the character’s reality at all. So, he was locked up in the cell on the Casino planet. He could’ve escaped at any time, but instead, just hung out until he had cell mates, then picked the lock and walked away (not in effort to help them, or use them, mind you...just walked away and left them there). He saw BB-8 as a valuable commodity, with his help stole a ship, and then just hung around to be in the right place at the right time to save the protagonists? And then, at some point, though he was never really separated from the protagonists, made contact with the First Order to arrange for their capture? Or had he contacted the first order before even picking them up? But if the latter is the case, rather than enacting the plan for their capture upon landing, why did the whole subterfuge conspiracy wait until he actually had successfully gotten them to their McGuffin? None of it makes any sense beyond plot demand. I am a fan of how he essentially became an inverse Han Solo, in that when the time came to be a hero, he doubled down on his agnosticism and self reliance. That’s a nice mirror for the original trilogy. But the steps to set it up were just plot filler to get Finn and Phasma in a place to have a little battle. I can’t fathom he’d be indifferent to their planned execution, and if it is in his character to be so callous, that’s something that deserves at least some level of exploration. Lando had that similar role in that he was an opportunist where it was circumstantially beneficial to him to help the empire. But we saw the growth in Lando, even in just the few scenes we spent with him in Empire. We don’t get that with The Codebreaker. Even if his ‘growth’ went the opposite direction and pushed him into villainy or moral ambiguity, if we’re going to give him screen time as a character and imply his role will carry any weight at all, we needed to see that develop more. If he was just a flippant character acting as an agent for plot, we needed less.

THE DARK SIDE INFINITY MIRROR THING: Why was it awesome? Visually, this was one of my favorite moments of the film. It was incredibly evocative. Star Wars hasn’t seen as mystical, otherworldly a moment since first exploring Dagobah. The fascinating suggestion of being trapped in ones’ own fate was beautifully illustrated in a cerebral, abstract way. In a world with so much intrigue spawning from magic and mysticism, I want to see more scenes like this to catch up to the nine-film overabundance of laser sword duels and space battles.

Why did it suck? It ultimately meant nothing. And no, it’s not just because it was unexplained. Being vague and open to interpretation is fine. But it did not pay off on the build up towards it. Luke was aghast that her desire was so quickly drawn to this dark place, or that it called to her so strongly. Yet when she finally explored it, it never once felt ominous. Mysterious, sure. Magical, absolutely. But dark? Not at all. The dark side of the force comes from giving in to strong negative emotions. In Luke’s failure in the cave in Empire, he viciously attacks Darth Vader. This is a brush with the dark side, and the abstract consequence it shows him is he himself inside the Vader helmet. That was a lesson in the dark side, by definition of what the dark side is in this universe. Compare that with this brush with a place that is referenced as being such a lightning rod of dark side energy. Rey inquisitively asks the infinity mirror who her parents are, and she sees herself. So, if we’re going to keep the concept of these dark side visions congruent, is that supposed to be showing her that her curiosity about her lineage will lead to her...finding that she is self reliant? Or more literally, that she has no parents? Or was it trying to drive her to darker feelings of frustration? It didn’t serve to teach her a lesson. It didn’t cause her to embrace, nor be tempted to embrace, the dark side. What about this caused Luke so much trepidation? It reminded me of one of those really evocative unanswered questions in the show Lost that, in the end, turned out to have no relevance beyond a cool thing the writers wanted to wedge in there.

THE QUESTION OF REY’S LINEAGE: What was awesome about it? So this is a tricky one to talk about. Frankly, when the reveal came that Rey’s parents were nobody of consequence, I didn’t mind it. I liked that they demonstrated that the force was about more than just the Skywalker clan. I’m very cool with that. It was one of those surprising yet inevitable moments that I thought was effective enough. It could go on to be a very cliche, but relevant, theme that her family will become her adopted family of rebels, and that family goes beyond blood. I think that is congruent with what we’ve seen from Star Wars in the past, even though it’s never been so overt. I think the Obi Wan - Luke dynamic becomes very father and son. Obi Wan declares how Anakin was like a brother to him. I think this sort of theme taking center stage would be fine, and I think I’d much rather see that sort of thing define the Finn/Rey relationship than a romantic one. However, I have a feeling that we’ll be learning that this is a bit of misdirection.

What sucks about it? The fact that Rey’s question of lineage now defines her character and her character’s motivations is truly obnoxious. When she found herself confronted by the weird force conduit infinity mirror, her only question in the context of all things happening was about her lineage. When she found herself in battle with Kylo, the subject to psychologically disarm her was discussing her parents. The problem is, now that we’re moving into the third and final film in this trilogy without any answer (or with the “don’t worry about it” answer that I believe to be misdirection), this theme that so defines her and her journey is irrelevant. Let me see if I can qualify what I mean.

By the end of this film, she has become an incredibly powerful force user. In fact, Luke declares that she is a Jedi, or at least will carry on the Jedi legacy. Yoda declares that she has all she needs to be a Jedi. So...what difference does her parentage make, exactly? What could be revealed in the final film about this that makes any difference at all? Let’s pretend that at the top of the final reel, we find out she is the granddaughter of Obi Wan. Ok...so what? Does she suddenly become more confident in her ability after finding out she has Jedi in her blood? Why would that matter? Or do we find out her parents really were no one, and that the force has selected her at random to be an agent of balance? Ok. So what? Why does that matter at all, other than in suggesting that in this universe, anyone can become a future force user if it is the will of the force? It doesn’t add anything to her character arc. It’s strictly, 100% for our benefit as the audience..

I liked the concept that something about her parentage would tie to Luke’s expression of resignation and inevitability upon seeing her on the mountain top at the end of The Force Awakens. For instance, the wild theory that she was related to (or a modified clone or corporeal vehicle) of Palpatine or some other sith or dark force wielder. Then her parentage becomes relevant to the higher themes being explored or that could be explored. Or, as cheesy and annoyingly obvious as it would be, that she was Kylo’s sister, and that Luke’s fear of training her tied in to the lineage question.

But now it just feels like any true answer makes the questing for the answer inconsequential. If it turns out to be someone important or that we’re connected to, awesome...but it doesn’t really affect her journey other than personal satisfaction of the knowing. If it turns out to be negligible, as suggested in this film, then it’s narrative wasted. “You know this thing that was the crux of two films worth of motivations? Meh...inconsequential to your actual character. You’re a jedi regardless.”

Compare that with Luke’s familial discovery. Finding out Darth Vader was his father conjured the theme of fear that he’d follow in his father’s footsteps, and gave our first tug of sympathy towards Vader, leading to Return of the Jedi’s core revolving around Luke’s attempt to give Vader redemption. Finding out Leia was his sister was, in comparison, forced, but at least it played in to a resolution for the potential love triangle, suggested she was potentially as powerful in the force, and thus made a great way for Vader to illicit Luke’s final temptation into losing control and giving in to aggression.

It seems that the third movie will have to give us some further payoff to the parentage quest, but there doesn’t seem to be any way for it to be integral to the characters’ development. But...when we inevitably find out that her parents were someone important to the series, won’t it invalidate what she as an individual accomplishments? She was able to do amazing things because she was special, as a result of birthright? Finding out that birthright will invalidate a lot of the character being awesome based on her actions. But not making her parent someone important means that we’ve really wasted motivations for two films of her searching for the truth about her lineage. You can see the conundrum this presents.

Again, I actually like the idea that she, someone of no consequence, grows to be strong in the force. But if that’s our theme, then it needs to play into her arc in some way. Like, perhaps she thinks that she only has her abilities because of the mysterious lineage, and finding out she truly is inconsequential causes her to doubt herself at a pivotal time. Right now, the entire thing seems inconsequential and unimportant to everything else going on around her.

REY’S POWERS: What’s good about them? It’s great to see her using the force in a way that seems consistent with the original trilogy. She doesn’t come off as some invincible superhero. She’s still vulnerable. She’s not repelling a billion simultaneous blaster lasers or precisely calculating quarter mile free falls through Coruscant rush hour, nabbing on to a specifically targeted flying speeder without her arms being ripped from socket. Her powers tend not to overshadow her character development. When she does something amazing, it seems amazing, not novel or ridiculous or boring from sensory overload or recursion.

What’s bad about them? You know, in the first film, I felt that her sudden force abilities were unearned. She went from believing that the jedi, and the force, and Luke Skywalker were potentially myths, to learning from Han that it was all real, to force pulling, using the Jedi mind trick, and mastering a light saber with no formal instruction. I thought for sure that in this film, we’d get some insight into a supernatural reason for this, and so I kept how much that bothered me in check. But no, this film doubled down on it.

So let us run down the order of events. Rey thinks that Luke Skywalker and the force potentially could all be just stories, but meets Han who tells her it’s all real. She’s then inexplicably able to do all of the things that force users can do, possibly as a result of Kylo’s weird mind probing. At the end of that sequence, she travels to Luke’s whereabouts to learn the ways of the Jedi from him. She tells him that all she knows about the force is that it’s a power of a Jedi that helps them “move rocks and stuff”. Luke gives her one cross-legged lesson of on top of a mountain about the interconnectivity of things. She trains herself with a light saber. And then she, by Luke and Yoda’s definition, is a Jedi. Yoda’s exact words are that she has everything that she needs to be a Jedi.

Really? I mean, Jedi in the traditional sense went through decades of training with a master. They learn a deep dogma of meditation and peace. They learn about the perils of the dark side and master how to avoid it. We infer that Luke spent years between Empire and Jedi mastering his ability, and had to face down his darkest demons. She swings a light saber unassisted on a mountain top and has one meditative session, and she’s a Jedi? It cheapens what it means and what it takes to be a Jedi, unless this film is suggesting that being a jedi is just something innate, and she has that thing, which likely is a result of her parentage which Yoda is privy to, but then that brings us back to the problem listed above.

THE RETURN OF YODA: What’s awesome about it? It’s been almost thirty years since Yoda has been done this much justice on the screen. For the first time since Return of the Jedi did we get a character whose type if insightful philosophy matched the character we knew in the original trilogy. He looked perfect. His presence was incredible. The scene had a great magic to it that has seriously been lacking from the franchise since.

What sucked about it? There were a few things that bugged the hell out of me about the entire sequence. First and foremost, Yoda’s wacky mannerisms, jovially berating Luke and smacking him with his cane wasn’t in line with the character’s behavior. One might be quick to remind me of their first meeting in Empire, where the quirky little swamp creature playfully messed with Luke and his droid. For those of you who would be quick to say that, I’d say you missed the point of that entire iconic scene. At Luke’s most frustrated with the strange creature’s mannerisms, Yoda closes his eyes, sighs, and admits to a force-voiced Obi Wan that he can’t teach Luke, because Luke has no patience. From that point, Yoda becomes the wise master to Luke’s eager and immature student. Because that is who Yoda actually is, and that defines their relationship through far more off screen time than his silly (and narratively brilliant) ruse during their introduction. We know this because of the vertical slices of their interactions we do see for the rest of Empire and Return of the Jedi. Once Luke’s patience is tested, the true teacher and Jedi are revealed in dialog that says, “A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind. This one a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away…to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing.” The wacky Yoda character never returns, because the wacky Yoda character was a front to test Luke’s patience, not Yoda’s actual personality.

Also, this whole scene was frustrating, because it seemed so paramount to Luke’s character development. As such, this seemed glossed over. In about one minute of screen time, we go from Luke, hell bent on destroying the Jedi artifacts and temple, to Yoda appearing and setting it all on fire (through force ghost created lightning? Now that ability seems that it would have been beneficial to our Jedi friends in previous situations...), Luke’s sudden concern for the artifacts he was about to destroy, attempt to salvage them from Yoda’s fire, Yoda blowing up the temple they’re all held in making salvage impossible, and finally a Spaceballs like “The ring is bubkis...I found it in a crackerjack box” like speech about how negligible the ancient religious texts are (which is ultimately devoid of all meaning in the end anyway when we find that the texts were salvaged by Rey). All of that happens in a flash, before we can even fully appreciate Yoda suddenly appearing. We are led to believe that Yoda chose this moment to appear. Not when Luke was desperate for the guidance to not try and murder his student. Not when the rebellion needed him to prevent the star killer from destroying billions of lives across the multiple planets that made up the remnants of the republic. Not when Han would be murdered by his son. Not for the 30 years where a dark side master rose to power over a new military threat. But this moment. Was it because Luke had turned himself off to the force? And turning himself back on is what made it possible? I don’t know. It just felt like this whole arc really deserved and needed exploration to work, if the point was to illustrate Luke’s arc away from, and subsequently back to, the force and embrace of what he needed to do as the last remaining Jedi. It was way too big a character development to be rushed through that way.

LUKE SKYWALKER: What was awesome about him? If anyone thinks that Luke’s climactic sacrifice scene wasn’t perfect Star Wars, I don’t think they understand Star Wars. The entire end sequence was brilliant, perfect, and will likely go down in the anthology of iconic, defining sequences from the series. The misdirection suggested Attack of the Clones like silliness; thousands of blasters trained on him, leaving a crater of destruction where he stood, only to find the lone Jedi still stoically standing. The initial impression is awe in just how powerful he’d become in his stoic mountain top training. Then Kylo emerges to duel his former master. I fully expected it to cheapen into a prequel-era saber duel of sensory overload over meaningful context. Instead, we get something unexpected and yet amazing. It’s both consistent with the original trilogy’s presentation of the Jedi and demonstrates that Luke (and his light side force use as his chosen method to beset his opponent, rather than a throw down CGI aided brawl) is more powerful than any dumb laser sword duel could have illustrated. In A New Hope, Obi Wan uses a saber duel with Vader to distract the imperial troops and allow for Luke and company’s escape. In the end, he sacrifices himself to achieve these ends, and becomes one with the force. Luke’s ruse echoes the sacrifice he’d seen his former teacher make to the enth degree in a way that pays homage to that without feeling like it’s retreading it. It’s one of those surprising yet inevitable moments.

What sucked about him? Seriously, everything else. Whiny farm boy turned into the galaxy’s savior...who reverted to whiny old man. There’s no part of me that believes it’s true to his character would hide away and mope while Kylo Ren joins mysterious dark force master Snoke, leading the First Order to more imperial victory. Even failure as a teacher leading to the dark side corruption of Ben Solo doesn’t forgive this. Think about it...Luke’s major heroic accomplishment was being the instrument of Darth Vader’s reconciliation and redemption. Darth Vader...The dude who helped blow up Alderaan, was responsible for his teacher’s death, was responsible for his aunt and uncle’s death, tortured his friends, and that’s assuming he never found out about his having killed children, or that he was directly responsible for the emperor’s rise, or any of the other horrors conveyed in other canonical Star Wars stories. But for some reason, the sad feeling that Kylo had a powerful dark side made him want to murder him in his sleep, and then ultimately, run away? I mean, I guess shame could play its part, but it still seems completely contrary to the character from the original trilogy to not actively pursue correction of such a heinous mistake and combat the dark side.

BIPOLAR BEN: Why did it work? I think Kylo Ren’s motivations being rather mysterious and malleable actually serves the character well. Rather than just being evil to be evil, he’s an unstable element that potentially adds moral complexity to the fabric of the story. Many people are turned off by his petulance, but I think it’s a powerful element to play with. Put the power of a dark lord in the hands of a emotionally volatile individual who hasn’t learned control, and it serves as a perfect demonstration as to why so much training is involved in becoming a Jedi, and why passion is so important to control for a force user.

Why did it suck? Unfortunately, I’m not even sure the writers knew exactly what his motivations were from one scene to the next. There’s a part of it that suggest he’s got a little bit of a Joker complex - aspiring to burn it all down to create a fresh start. This is a recurring theme for him. However, he also goes to extreme lengths to placate Snoke, and is terribly affected when Snoke chastises him. So which is it? Did he harbor the desire to rid the galaxy of Snoke, or did he want to be Snoke’s eager, obedient pupil? At what point did he begin aspiring to be the next emperor? Why would he presume Rey would want the same? Why would he assume anyone would follow him? Every scene, in both films, seem to cripple him with inner conflict. And that’s fine, and makes his character unpredictable and interesting to watch. However, these moments make his characterization sloppy. In the original trilogy, we see Darth Vader as the ultimate villain. We loath him. We detest him. And then we begin to learn more, and we begin to sympathize with him. The climax of the entire trilogy is when we cheer for his redemption. In this film, we as the audience know Kylo is a conflicted character right from the beginning. And his entire arc is this schizophrenic dance through these emotional conflicts. I’m alright with blurring the film’s moral center, or examining subjective morality through various characters’ perception, but with Kylo, we’re not getting clear heroic arc (skywalker), and we’re not getting a tragic redemption story (vader), and after Snoke’s death we’re not getting an interesting chaotic supporting character whose conflict serves theme (think Golem from Lord of the Rings). I don’t want Kylo Ren to be like those listed. I’m completely ok with his motivations being different. But at the same time, I want some sense to his characterization, even if that sense is in showing the manic madness and unpredictability that have risen from his study of the dark side or corruption of his force training by Snoke. Right now, his motivations seem to be led by plot and whatever it demands rather than the other way around. SNOKE, THE BIG BAD: What’s cool about him? Nothing. I really think Snoke is a fairly worthless foil. Unless there is some big surprise in store for us in the last installment, which involves his resurrection, he was just a knock off emperor that was less exciting to watch on screen. I guess it’s kind of neat that he’s suggested a few new force abilities that we didn’t know existed.

What sucks about him? In this post original trilogy series of films, Snoke is our big bad. Much like the emperor before him, he is a mysterious figure with a hidden origin, but with an absurd level of devotion from the military fleet and the dark force users. He is feared by our protagonist rebellion, and there is always the sense that he is manipulating events through cold, nefarious calculation. As such, he serves as a proxy for the objective dark pole for our compass with which to navigate the themes of the film. His role in events, his manipulation of Kylo, his interest in Luke and Rey...he is the monster for this trilogy.

Conceptually, I’m alright with Snoke being an ominous force with no clear backstory. After all, we never really got the emperor’s story until the prequels, and he was great. The problem in context of the universe, though, is that we have to accept the knowledge that someone that strong in the force existed throughout the entire Star Wars cannon without ever being referenced. I’m also ok with there being an explanation for this (anything...vengeful jedi post order 66 left to die and be corrupted to the dark side on some remote planet, secret apprentice to Count Dooku, Vader’s padawan, the emperor’s Plagueis-era rival, outer rim observer...whatever), however instead, we get nothing. He’s just the ominous force, and never mind where he was during the original trilogy or prequels or how he became so powerful in the force without tutelage or how he came to take up the emperor’s mantle leading the first order against the republic or why he would do such a thing (or maybe you have to read the Disney novel / watch the extended series to understand it...).

I’m also ok with that question only being teased in this second film, to be explored to heighten drama or thematic power of the last installment. But the character is dead. The big bad is now dead, without any payoff, making it a matter of “And then this guy showed up, and he was powerful and evil...”, and that’s it. Being that he was killed without any tethers to the universe being created made his death rather ineffective. At this point, it’s like a video game where you defeat the faceless final boss at the half way point in the game. That wouldn’t make any sense, because that showdown against the antagonist is supposed to be the climax of theme. In A New Hope, Darth Vader is the big bad. Underdog Luke finds a spiritual connection to the force while agnostic selfish smuggler pirate finds a cause to believe in, yielding the moment when the antagonism in the plot is overcome. In Empire, which turns out to be a tragedy, Luke rushes to face the big bad (again, Vader), demonstrating his impetuousness and ignorance and impatience could yield a dark side temptation, which all plays out during the confrontation where Luke is defeated. In Jedi, the big bad is the emperor, and Luke’s presence causes Vader’s loyalties to re-align. He has a moment of redemption at the climax, where he and Luke join together to take down the corruptive force. This is how climaxes work. But in The Last Jedi, our faceless big bad is killed off at a moment that isn’t climactic. If the theme of the film was centered around the corruption of Kylo, and acting out of anger to strike down Snoke was what ultimately drove him to embrace the power of the dark side, that would speak to the themes that were set up as a climactic moment. But that’s not what happened. His act to kill Snoke was in defense of Rey, no different than Vader’s to save Luke from the emperor, suggesting his redemption. But he wasn’t redeemed. And, again, it turned out not to be the climactic moment of the film. Snoke, then, turned out to be a gratuitous part of the film, used only to push plot, not speak to themes.

Not to mention, the uncanny valley was overt in every Snoke scene. This was a humanoid character. For a movie so dense and proficient with practical effects, makeup, and prosthetics, one would think that Snoke could have been realized without being a CG character. The point of focus that was Snoke ended up looking very fake, which was irksome and distracting.

LEIA USING THE FORCE: What was great about it? Frankly, it was great to know Leia learned to use the force. What sucked about it? Now, forever, the dumbness of the flying through the vacuum of space superhero will be burned into my brain.

Certainly, there were some other things that were explored that I had mixed reaction towards. I kind of liked the Poe / Holdo / Leia thing, but keeping Poe in the dark to the point of having him logically mount a mutiny was needless and dumb. I definitely liked Leia having to be in a position where she sees her command decisions have real consequences, juxtaposed against the dangers of Poe’s spirited but reckless optimism. I loved seeing the opening, very Rogue One desperate sacrifice by Paige Tico. I loved the silent moment of Holdo’s hyperspeed sacrifice. I thought the final moment of the film, seeing the young, mysterious boy force pull the broom while looking off hopeful into the sky was another example of what I want to see more of. But like in all the instances above, the pieces that worked seemed swimming in things that didn’t or were contradictory.

For this reason, I can see why The Last Jedi has been so polarizing. Within myself, I had this polarized reaction. I guess I have to go with my instinct and say that because all of the things the film did right were mired in really questionable creative decisions, as a whole this film failed for me, despite there being a lot to genuinely like about it. Yet I can’t stop thinking about it, days later. So can I call it a failure?

The last weight on the scale comes down to this. Unfortunately, the problems inherent in the execution of The Last Jedi have resulted in me not being nearly as excited to see episode IX as I was to see episodes VII and VIII.

[glorious-sea-pancakes]

To people wondering why Captive Prince is beloved

Alright so I know a lot of people think that captive prince, the book series, is problematic. The whole thing is hotly debated. 

As someone who loves the series fiercely and doesn’t think that it is problematic, I wanted to put in my two cents to the debate... because a lot of people who explain why it is a good series often fall short and don’t really explain adequately in my opinion. If I were someone on the fence that read a lot of the explanations I've seen, I wouldn’t be particularly convinced or happy. So I’ll do my best to articulate what I mean.

EDIT: wow this is long. Sorry? 

EDIT EDIT: And in retrospect the only thing I see with Captive Prince that actually does bother me is the lack of female characters. This is very much a male dominated story. But you know what? That’s a pretty small gripe because I’m cool with a boy-focused story. Plus it has an awesome gay power couple as the main characters.

HOKAY so first: A lot of people try too hard to avoid any kind of spoilers that they keep it TOO vague. So, without spoilers, I’m gonna be a little clearer 

Thing One: The premise.

Damen is a warrior hero to his people, and the rightful heir to the throne of Akielos. But when his half brother seizes power, Damen is captured, stripped of his identity, and sent to serve the prince of an enemy nation as a pleasure slave. Beautiful, manipulative, and deadly, his new master, Prince Laurent, epitomizes the worst of the court at Vere. But in the lethal political web of the Veretian court, nothing is as it seems, and when Damen finds himself caught up in a play for the throne, he must work together with Laurent to survive and save his country. For Damen, there is just one rule: never, ever reveal his true identity. Because the one man Damen needs is the one man who has more reason to hate him than anyone else…

With this alone, I can see why people get the wrong idea. At a glance you think it’ll be a Stockholm syndrome kinkfest with tons of rape and Fifty Shades of Grey consent issues--hence it being problematic.

However, I am telling you right here and now, the two main characters hate each other’s guts. Laurent would sooner break his own fingers than touch Damen. The two main characters have sex and a romance eventually, but it isn’t until they develop real respect wwwayy later. Ridiculously later. By the time those two hold hands you’ve been screaming for entire books kiss already!

Sooo, the first thing that I assumed when I picked Captive Prince was that there would be immediate hate sex, but I am halfway book 2 and the sex is nowhere to be seen and instead I am so caught up in the political intrigue that I don’t even care-- cosetteferaud

They are physically attracted from the beginning, true, but they hate so strongly that they couldn’t be bothered to take much interest in pretty faces.

Damen frowned. Laurent was a nest of scorpions in the body of one person. Torveld looked at him and saw a buttercup.

So, no, this isn’t a stokholm kinkfest.

Things in this summary you should focus on: Not just the pleasure slave thing.

The real focus is on the political intrigue and twisty politicking with EXTREMELY slowburn romance on the side.

The first book is widely known as the darkest of the three. In places it is hard to read but you DO have to read it to fully appreciate the second and third books. You must know what is at stake, get plot threads going, really see what they’re working so hard for. Gotta meet the villain and understand why they’re so bad. You need that dark first book understand why they end up loving so deeply. You need to see them at their worst. And on that note, their worst…

Thing Two: Their hatred.

I mean it when I say they have anger and hate. The chasm yawning between them is an ugly one.

So Laurent haaaAAATES Damen. He treats Damen like garbage. And Damen hates him because of it. Laurent is actively TRYING to be a dick. He’s aware that he’s doing things that are mean. Laurent is trying to put down someone he genuinely sees as an enemy. So, yeah, Laurent does Problematic things. However that’s… to be expected? When you hate someone’s guts? If your goal is to make sure someone hates you there are some pretty clear ways to achieve that. He doesn’t want to like Damen. If you wince and think that, ouch, that was cruel and charged with a lot of ugly implications: know that Laurent is fully aware and is eyes open trying to create distance between them by using those things deliberately. You won’t completely know the why until later in the series. 

A thing to remember: you don’t yet know his motivations.

To me, the most important thing is not what the characters say or do but how the author frames those things.

When Laurent does something conniving or insults people: the reader, Damen, and the author all understand he’s being a dick. The author isn’t glorifying Laurent’s behavior. That means everything. She NEVER excuses them for what they do. You’re meant to look on the bad things that happen and agree that oh, no, that was a bad thing.

Characters should be able to do bad things otherwise what is the point of the story? Not every book can be conflict free coffee shop aus. If you only want to read problem free stories like that, this is NOT the series for you.

More than that, there’s value in discussing the dark things like the ones that this book discusses. There’s value in seeing people hate and attempt to destroy each other. I’m serious!

When Laurent says something nasty you’re meant to be like OOF LAURENT OW not ‘Oh the author believes this and wants people to be like this.’ Because that would be dumb? People should be able to talk about real life issues and problematic stuff without being equated as sermons. Because if you believe that even depicting the Bad Thing is gonna spread it, then you’re silencing education about the Bad Thing that could allow people to avoid and learn from it. Censorship does not encourage equality, it encourages ignorance. Censorship and purist ideology just denies that people, good people, can do bad things. It also denies the knowledge that Badguys are human.

One of the reasons I love storytelling so much is because it is the number one way to think about and discuss difficult topics that happen in the real world all the time. I’m sorry, you can’t escape reality. It is out there. Constantly. We need to think about and see these bad things and create a conversation about them to understand them. On a cultural level, storytelling is how we learn and frame opinions. We started out telling myths through oral tradition around campfires to explain and teach—what makes novels any different? Novels are one of many modern-day oral tradition adaptions. You must appreciate that for what it is.

Captive Prince is no exception.

Thing Three: The Virtues (AKA why you should read it)

-Srslyarts

This is a mature book. It discusses sex and has graphic smut. It discusses rape. It discusses pedophilia. People die. The author condones NONE of these things. But, more than anything, she also managed to capture delicious, thorny, complex, hard to explain pain of emotional conflict. Which is so hard to write. And that emotional pain and complexity is so interesting and beautiful.

This is a book about hurting others the way you’ve been hurt. It’s about abuse, recovery, redemption, forgiveness. Its about privilege, growing up too quickly, entitlement, sexual objectification, slavery, having no choice, responsibility, putting your past in perspective, realizing the people you hate are human, realizing you were wrong, realizing people aren’t who you thought they were, that you’ve made mistakes, realizing you don’t like the person you used to be, learning how much you’re willing to give up. It talks about abuse survivors who don’t get sad but become angry instead. It’s about the long-term effects, the vulnerabilities, of abuse. It’s about good people doing bad things. It’s about falling in love with someone who has done the unforgivable and being terrified of it. This novel does not take the easy way out on anything.

The emotional complexity in this book is gorgeous. I’ve heard so many people say they were moved deeply by Laurent because they saw themselves in him.

More than that, this book is intelligently written. All the political intrigue, the focus of the story, is SO SMART. Seriously. I predicted so little. Normally when I crack open a book I can generally see where a story is going and what is implied way before the reveal. But these characters are wickedly smart and four steps ahead of you as a reader. And you get to see their thought process!! I’ve noticed a lot of authors will tiptoe around the How of characters outsmarting people because they can’t figure it out themselves. Myself included. Not this story. You see every step of Laurent’s spider web being woven and the hand Damen has in it. Pacat is incredibly intelligent and it shows through her characters.

Laurent is quick as a whip and sees through everything—I never would have noticed half of the things he sees. Nor would I be able to prepare and respond so well. It is so cool seeing him explain what is happening politically.  

Its even better because you’re reading from the perspective of Damen. Damen is a prince and a strategist. Damen is a master military man. However social subtleties aren’t his forte and a lot goes right over his head but not yours. Damen is notoriously honorable and oblivious. He thinks he knows what is going on but you will stop and squint. Even still, in the end both you and him are shocked silly by what actually happens. Moreover, Damen is a wonderful person and it is really cool being in his head. He’s every bit the noble prince who is quiet, thoughtful, serious, and honorable to a fault. He’s also a brat and inwardly very snarky despite being so good natured. 

The writing style is delicate and eloquent. She remains consistent with lingo fitting for the time. And, honestly, the humor is super dry and I flipping love it.

Lastly. It is a truly good love story. For how ugly their relationship started Lamen ends up becoming one of the healthiest most loving and sweet I’ve read.

PS: We don’t deserve Charls the Veretian Cloth Merchant or Damen’s left cheek dimple.

-typohime

And, finally, a word from the author:

[smokeybrand]

Smokey brand Movie Reviews: Run it Back

I’ve been trying to watch Tenet for months. 2020 has f*cked up me entire movie viewing experience, even though it never had to get this bad. I live in the US and my government is sh*t so we’ve had to deal with this bullsh*t for a full year. I’ve sat back and watched whole ass countries reopen while we are going into another nation wide lock down because idiots refuse to sacrifice even a little bit for us to get out of this goddamn hole but, i digress. This isn’t a rant about the political situation in my sh*thole country, it’s a review of Tenet. Long story short, i finally have an opportunity to check this thing out. I was looking mad forward to the theater experience with this one because Nolan is a master at that but, instead, I'll have to settle for m home theater experience.

The Good

Christopher Nolan is back at it again, giving us spectacle and substance at the same damn time. I love this dude’s work. It’s always gorgeous and cerebral and engaging. I mean, he elevated Batman to high art, are you kidding me? Tenet is no different. This film is one of his best. He takes another high concept, grounds it for laymen, and does spectacular sh*t with it. Bro, give this man a Bond film already because that’s what this is, only laced with tat same energy he instilled within Inception and The Prestige.

The editing in this movie must have been a herculean task to accomplish but accomplish it they did. It’s devastatingly phenomenal with all of the reversed shots and slighted perspectives you see on screen. I am in awe of the precision it took to make this movie happen. Obviously, it is a real visual feast but the machinations behind the scenes to make everything so goddamn seamless are disgustingly, unabashedly, brilliant. If Nolan doesn’t get an Oscar nod for this sh*t, there’s no justice in the world. It really is a technical marvel.

I touched on this a little before but this movie is f*cking gorgeous. The set pieces are breathtaking, the aesthetic is lovely, and the shot composition is pristine. Some of this cinematographer can legit be framed and hung in a museum of fine art.

And to keep the gushing going, this sound design is f*cking chef kiss level. I said Nolan is a master at his craft and that come through, one hundred percent, with the mixing in this movie. It’s more than just the soundtrack or score, but literally everything. In order for this film to work, he had to meticulously go through and navigate every noise in this film. I don’t understand how Nolan can be so precise with his vision but i am SO glad that he is.

This is the most action i have ever seen in a Nolan film and it’s legitimately some of the best. Sh*t is profound, visceral, and brutal. It borders on Daniel Craig James Bond barbarous and i loved it all. It’s such a juxtaposition from the suave, smooth, aesthetic of the film. I mean, Protagonist literally cheese grates the side of a dude’s face and walks away like it’s nothing I’ve never seen sh*t so goddamn vicious.

I just really needed to circle back around to this but these set pieces are f*cking extravagant as a motherf*cker. There is one in this flick that tops the plane heist in The Dark Knight Returns. It’s whole ass miraculous to see and i lament i couldn’t see it how it was designed to be properly seen. Nolan’s demand for practical effects always delivers brilliant spectacle.

I love this plot. I love the mechanics and the theories at play here. I’m a theoretical physics geek so i live for these existential shenanigans. It’s one of the reasons Inception is one of my favorite films and it’s definitely the reason this one is climbing that list as i watch it in real time. The plot, itself, is textbook spy heist stuff; Fate of the world, mad scientist villainy, ticking clock, mcguffin, etc. However, the theories therein uplift the material and make that mundane plot, so much more.

Okay. So, with the praise of the technical brilliance of this film out of the way, i can finally get into the performances and the cast. Of course Nolan mainstay, Sir Michael Caine, makes another memorable cameo as Sir Michael Crosby. Another interesting addition was Himesh Patel of Eastenders fame. He plays Mahir, a fixer; Another staple of these types of Nolan films. Other notable cast members include Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Clemence Posey, Dimple Kapadia, and Yuri Kolokolnikov. Even Fiona Dourif has a role to play in this flick. Chucky’s daughter is in a Nolan film and i am absolutely shook about it! Everyone delivers their performances with gusto, even when there isn’t much of a character on the page to realize. Now to get into the standouts, for better or worse.

John David Washington is f*cking exceptional in this flick, man. It’s a little jarring hearing him speak sometimes, i keep hearing his pops, but dude delivers like his dad onscreen, too. This is a star-turning vehicle for Washington and he deserves all of the shine. his Protagonist is amazing to see onscreen and can give ever cinematic spy, from Bourne to Bond, a proper run for their money. Washington’s swagger and poise make this character one of the best in Nolan’s filmography. JDW is fast building one helluva body of work. Monsters and Men, Ballers, and BlacKkKlansman, and now this? It’s only a matter of time before JDW is the acronym on top of all the best scripts, all the awards. Dude is primed to blow the f*ck up and Tenet is a massive opening salvo of a career, i suspect, which will be as grand as his father’s body of work.

Robert Pattinson continues to prove he is one of the best of his generation, however ridiculous it is to actually work with him. his Handler character, Neil, kind of steals all of the scenes. Dude is witty, calculating, and mad aloof but never a bore. Pattinson delivers this performance with a smarm that feels slathered on in heaps but is just too decadent to ignore. He reminds me a lot of Hardy’s Eames from Inception and that’s high praise. Eames was my favorite character in that flick. It’s been a banner year for old Patts. The Batman his limping along, Tenet is a masterpiece, The Lighthouse was inspired, and he was disgustingly horrid in The Devil All the Time. Dare i say, ol’ BatPats becoming one of my favorites working today.

God, Elizabeth Debicki is great in this role but there simple isn’t enough to properly sustain her talents. Her Kat Barton is so goddamn thin, it’s painful because i know Debicki is great at her job. She’s shown her brilliance countless times, almost always uplifting her roles, even if the content is abject sh*t. The Cloverfield Paradox is a great example of that. This isn’t her fault. Nolan is terrible at writing women but, just once, if he could actually create a female lead with a bit off agency, i wished it would have been for this film. Debicki deserves so much better but, even with this paper thin caricature she’s been giving, she uplifts the material and works magic with the scraps.

The Bad

Kenneth Branagh as the antagonist, Andrei Sator, is a little cartoonish for the tone of this film. Branagh always kind of overacts like this in most of his appearances so you have to take it with a grain of salt but, in order to really come across as sinister like they want you to believe this dude is, someone else should have played this role. He does an admirable job but the character was just realize pitch. I can see Javier Bardem or Mads Mikkelsen killing totally this sh*t

Nolan continues to shortchange his female characters. He is the worst at writing chicks, man, i swear. It’s a shame, really, because everything else around them is always so interesting. It’s one of dude’s few flaws as a storyteller and it’s my biggest gripe with his craft. The machinations of Tenet are so intriguing but poor Elizabeth Debicki doesn’t even get to really play in that world. She definitely works with what she has but, ultimately, her character is mad flaccid and it’s a crying shame.

This isn’t a knock on the film at all but the fact i had to watch it on a regular ass television, however large and 4K that is, just ain’t the same. Nolan films are meant to be seen on the biggest screen possible, at least at first. I hope to god this thing gets a re-release when this COVID sh*t blows over.

The Verdict

I loved Tenet. Loved it. I loved the concept going in but actually seeing it, finally experiencing it, and i am hooked. It’s a stunning f*cking film and Nolan pulled out all of the stops. His writing, direction, and overall vision to put this jigsaw of  movie together is absolutely profound. Even with all of this on his plate, he Nolan was able to articulate this to one of his best casts and two of his strongest leads. John David Washington and Robert Pattinson come through and kill this sh*t. This movie would not work without these two cats. Seriously, JDW was to be a star after this, and he still might be, even if this thing didn’t get the theatrical release it absolutely needs and deserves. BatPats did his thing and killed another performance, further proving he’s a real actor and not some flash-in-the-pan, sparkling, vampire. Even the supporting cast comes through and delivers outstanding performances. Nolan uses every bit of this two and a half hour run time to deliver a heart-pounding spectacle of espionage and intrigue, rivaling the very best modern Bond films. The only issue i have with this thing is the usual Nolan issue; Bad female characters. Dude can’t write a woman to save his goddamn life. Also, the main antagonist is a bit weak. He's a little too Goldmember when he probably should have been more Goldfinger. Tenet is the best goddamn film I've seen all year and i wish, more than anything, i could have seen this thing in a proper theater It would have been quite the experience.

[kyluxtrashpit]

Okay so now for the real post. I was prepared to write this whole big thing about the kylux fandom and why I’m staying despite some things and such but honestly the movie was pretty good? As some of you know, I was fucking TERRIFIED I’d have to leave the ship (also shoutout to those who helped calm me down; you know who you are <3). I have some quibbles, which I’ll get into below, but overall it was pleasantly surprising. FYI this post of full of spoilers and please remember I spoiled myself on a good amount of it before going in. I’m also very happy I did

And also… this was all 100% in line with the headcanons I already had for kylux? I’ve seen a lot of people freaking out and jumping ship and saying we need to completely reimagine the characters, which, sure, if you want to, go nuts, but idk I didn’t personally get anything like that? Snoke pitting them against each other, because you know if he talked shit about Hux to Kylo, he’s definitely doing it the other way around too. And yes, Kylo does attack Hux, but Hux was also about to kill him before he woke up, even if Kylo doesn’t know that, so we’re in exactly the same place as before. I could talk a lot about why their characterizations are exactly in line with the way I saw and wrote them before and why Kylo taking on the mantle of Supreme Leader does not mean Hux is inferior to him in practice in any way, shape, or form, but this post is way too fucking long already so I’ll save it for another day

Instead, here’s a list of Thoughts in no particular order:

Kylo was fucking PHENOMENAL. This. This is what I wanted. My boy being unstable as fuck and making terrible split-second impulse decisions and getting himself in way over his head. He’s going to regret taking the throne in like 3 days. Guaranteed. He’s made the biggest mistake of his life and he doesn’t even know it yet because he has no idea what he actually wants, just saw an opportunity and went ‘oh shit… the throne is empty… wait. I know how to sit?? I could sit on it??? YES THIS IS A GREAT IDEA I’M THE NEW LEADER FUCK YES’. I fucking love my disaster boy. I love him so much I can’t even articulate it

Also like… Rey shows him one small moment of kindness and he’s immediately like ‘someone was nice to me??? okay cool this is all it took to convince me to kill my abusive mentor for the last better part of a decade who’s been in my head for almost my entire life just because of that’ and like… that is both the most Kylo thing I’ve ever seen and the biggest mood I’ve ever had. This is why we always wrote Hux capable of manipulating him and why Snoke was able to manipulate him; Kylo aches for positive attention from literally anyone

“I want every gun we have to fire on that man” JFC HONEY NO. But on a more serious note, the second the mask comes off, all of his control is gone. He’s trying so hard to assert his dominance and power over everyone he encounters because he thinks that will make him feel better, that it’s what he wants, but he’s so fucking out of control and out of his depth that it just utterly falls flat, just like in tfa after the mask came off. He can Force choke and throw people all he wants, literally no one is fooled. He has no idea what he’s doing and it’s staggeringly obvious

I also really liked seeing baby Ben, even for just like 10 seconds

Literally the only Kylo thing I did not like were his pants. Like goddamn boy, that waist is way too high. No wonder your temper is so finicky. I’d be angry too if I was wearing uncomfortable, excessively high-waisted pants all the time

I, too, did not like the dumb humour with Hux (see: the entire opening bit. Like literally all of it; Poe should not have been able to pull that off and Hux is not that stupid) but I also still see the Hux I’ve come to love in there. The snark, pulling a gun without hesitation on Kylo for the double tap but being smart enough to hide it when he wakes up, the entire command shuttle bit (except the Force throw – that was unnecessary), and especially that glare of absolute rage and hatred at Kylo once he turns away inside the base on Crait. I’m okay with tired disaster Hux and you can tell he’s already planning a coup. The army seems to still be under his control anyway; he just needs to wait until Kylo finishes digging his own grave and then give him that extra push into it

That said, I’m really glad we got to see Hux bitch slap someone, even if I wish it hadn’t been Finn

Rose was the other highlight of the movie right up until the kiss with Finn. I loved their interactions but the unnecessary heterosexuality was just… no. And then the bit at the end that definitely looked towards a love triangle? *loud gagging noises* no, fuck that shit. Literally everything else with her was absolutely amazing though, especially the Canto Bight stuff

Finn felt… off somehow? I can’t explain why, but he just felt like a weaker character here. Finn was really compelling in tfa and I really wanted more with him and to learn more about him, but I feel like he didn’t do much? The fight with Phasma was a little underwhelming (also she deserved to go out more impressively than that) and most of the other stuff was someone else instigating and him just going along. He seemed… too passive, maybe? I can’t put my finger on what was off, but I didn’t like it and I’m a little let down there. I also really wanted him to be Force-sensitive and really felt he was built up to be. How else was he the only person to ever break FO conditioning?

Poe was also… not how I imagined? I always saw him as the ‘calm pal’ kinda guy but I guess he’s a little more jumped up than I expected. Not a gripe, per se, but just surprising. They also very much did demote him from main character status, which is kinda sad

Admiral Holdo was a fucking boss and I love her. So was Leia for most of it (expect what was with that space scene?). Fuck yeah powerful older women. I need so much more immediately. However, I also wish Leia had gotten more time and it also saddens me that she’s now lost her entire family. Yes, she has the Resistance, and Poe and Rey and Finn, but she has no one from her past. Literally no one. Leia had already lost so much coming into this trilogy and it’s absolutely tragic that all she did was lose more. Leia deserved better, but with Carrie gone, we know Leia won’t be getting it in 9

DJ WAS FANTASTIC. I did not see that coming. And I hope we never see him again because it would ruin the purpose of his character

I liked most of Rey’s arc. I wasn’t sure about the Force bond (I knew about it beforehand) but it ended up working for me and was actually really cool. I still do not ship r*ylo at all (it’s just not for me, ship what you want), but their interactions are intriguing and I can understand why things played out how they did. Rey wanted help for the rebellion and a teacher. She thought that was Luke, but it wasn’t, and then she thought that was Kylo, but it wasn’t. I think she just needs to realize that maybe it’s up to her to be the one to help the rebellion. She’s figured out most of the Force on her own already; I don’t think she needs a teacher. Although the jealous look towards Finn and Rose was just awful. I’m also very concerned for her arc in 9 because I swear if they make it all about trying to save Kylo, I’d be fucking pissed. She’s her own character. She doesn’t exist to help him

I’m also… not sure I buy Rey being a nobody? It’s either a lie or just bad writing to lead up to it. Because in tfa, it’s always ‘who’s the girl?’, ‘what girl?’, etc. I also always got the feeling that Kylo knew who she was, somehow? And why did the Skywalker family lightsaber choose her over Kylo? Why does she have the same amount of power as Kylo if there’s no relation whatsoever? How are her parents buried on Jakku if she saw a ship flying away? I just feel like it was built up to lead elsewhere and then it didn’t. Then again, it is possible Kylo is lying or only thinks he knows, but idk. It’s not that I hate the idea of her being a nobody, but the execution of it was tremendously clumsy

As for Luke… I don’t know. Luke has never been the kind of person to attack first. He is a gentle flower. The entire point of him is his idealism, his hope, his kindness. Even if it was in a moment of instinct, of fear, I don’t think he’d pull a lightsaber first on anyone, especially a family member, no matter how much Dark was in him. Luke saw the Light in Darth Vader, of all people. That it was stressed to be an accident and for Luke to realize he’d fucked up big helped, but I still don’t know if I buy it. I understand bringing flaws to Luke, but I don’t think these were the right flaws to bring. I… don’t know. I haven’t decided how I feel about this yet. And also his death was just odd? What killed him? Was the implication that Force-projecting that far is too hard? Idk, it was really strange and I didn’t get it. I need to think on how I feel about it. Also ‘see you around, kid’ was a pretty dumb last line. Even though I’m pretty sure it was more a promise/threat than anything else. He’s going to be haunting the shit out of everyone

I really liked the crystal foxes. I want 10 of them immediately. However, I have no strong feelings one way or the other on the porgs

THE FUCKING IRON. Jfc I was like ‘omfg that ship looks like an iron, that’s so ridiculous’ AND THEN IT WASN’T A SHIP, IT WAS JUST AN IRON. It was inordinately funny to me. I lost my shit and my friend gave me a dubious look

I wish we’d seen the KOR and I really, really hope we do in 9. Come on, JJ, I believe in you. Let me see the rest of the disaster children in action

Yoda’s cameo was kinda dumb and unnecessary. I know that was supposed to be the moment that changed Luke’s mind but… ehhh. I could’ve done without

The bit at the end with the random kid was also stupid and I wish they’d cut it

Now the biggest thing is… where the fuck are they going with 9? The Resistance is 10 people in the Falcon, the Order is being run by a guy who has absolutely no fucking clue what he’s doing and a second in command that is ready to murder the shit out of him the second he gets the chance. Leia probably won’t be there, so the OT trio is gone. This movie was also weird because it was like… the span of a day and a half? At most? It’s a really strange timeline to go with imo and it’s going to make 9 hard. I’m scared Rey will become an accessory to Kylo’s story (which is most likely going to end up as an even more ham-fisted redemption arc than it would’ve been if it had started in 8). Like no one is in a powerful place. If there were 2 more movies coming, I think it would work, but with only 1? Ehhhh, idk. I have faith in JJ but in some ways he’s been written into a corner, I think. We’ll have to see, I guess

[andysawesometoybox]

Captain Scarlet. Figures and SPV. Vivid Imagination. 1993.

Back in the early 90’s, Gerry Anderson TV shows got a second life. Thunderbirds, Stingray, Joe 90, they all got a new lease on life, but the stand out one for me, by far, was Captain Scarlet.

Now, to say that I liked Captain Scarlet would be an understatement. I’m still a huge fan of Captain Scarlet, so my review here maybe a little bias, but we’re all cool with that, right?

Once Anderson-mania, took hold back in the early 90s, so too did the merchandise. When it came time for Captain Scarlet in 1993, Vivid Imagination stepped in to produce toys based on the show and boy did they deliver. The produced an array of figures based on various characters from the show, all at that popular 3.75 inch size and each containing 9 points of articulation. These included two of the Angels and 2 versions of Captain Black. The figures themselves were pretty basic, for all of the male Spectrum figures, Vivid just used the same body just repainted to match the colour of the particular character. This isn’t really surprising; each character wore the same uniform so this move made a lot of sense. The heads were a slightly different story, some were harder to tell apart, but for a kid, you didn’t need vastly unique looking figures, once you saw the colours that was it. I had these figures from when I was a kid and I loved them and still do today. A couple of gripes though. 1) The figures cannot really stand on their own and they lack any holes on the feet to place figure stands, so sitting really is the only way they can support themselves. 2) The ‘Spectrum’ logos are all tiny stickers that completely come off over and time and with play. Easily lost, it’s not easy to find a loose figure online with all of these stickers still attached. They also leave that horrible sticky residue that stickers can leave. Other than that these are solid figures.

The main thing I want to look at and, for me, one of the crown jewels of Vivids Captain Scarlet line, is the Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle or the SPV. I’ll say it now; I am a HUGE fan of fairly screen arcuate playsets and vehicles that can house the figures. You get me talking about a Batmobile and I can go for hours. Vivid’s SPV is just plain awesome. Now I had no idea this even existed as a kid, much to my parent’s happiness I’m sure, but as soon as I learned of it as an adult, I went out a found one. As you’ll be able to see from the photos, my SPV is not in the best of condition. The decal stickers are browning and peeling, there’s some oily gunck in the lever at the top and the rear wheels are missing, but I couldn’t care less, I love this thing and I think that goes to show the level of awesomeness in this toy. 

They pushed up the height of the design so that it could properly house the figures, that’s understandable. A completely screen accurate SPV that could hold these size figures would’ve been huge and not very cost affective. Other than that, it’s pretty darn spot on. When you push the lever at the top, you can pop open the doors on either side. You can then slot in the figures into the chairs and use the restrains to keep them in place. This can be a little tricky if, like me, you have big fingers. But as this wasn’t made for big fingers, it doesn’t lose points for that. Just as with the SPV on the show, the chairs are facing backwards. LOVE IT. But for added fun, there are two more seats located at the back. You just open the door on the roof and again, slide the figures in. This is not like the show, but I really don’t care, I get to put more of my figures in and that’s rad! There also is a spring-loaded missile launcher at the front that you can activate by pushing the button to the side of it, but mine was missing that and I’m not personally a huge fan of firing missiles on my toys, never was even as a kid. They’re too easy to lose.

If you’re a Captain Scarlet fan, I cannot recommend this toy line enough. They were made with care and were great for play as a kid and wonderful for display as an adult. You can pick up the figures in various conditions easily enough on eBay or Esty. The SPV, less so but there are some out there. I should also mention that there was an epic Angel plane made as well, but again, expense and space play a part in mine decision to get one right now, but it is on the list. Was always a fan of the Angel’s design.

Toy line Score: 9/10

Highlight: the SPV, it’s INCREDIBLE.

[qvet]

so my favorite way to deal with someone that I am frustrated with is to basically unpack it all with someone I know/trust that will listen and also possibly add more fuel to the fire.  petty, I know, but doing so is truly cathartic for me and then after that I can almost always face aforementioned frustrating person more easily, or at least without EXPLODING.  I usually feel pretty safe about doing this but this time it’s my housemates that I want to complain about.  I feel like talking to someone who knows all of us might be helpful, but at the same time I’m always worried my shit talking will go back to them, and it’d be ESPECIALLY bad if it’s with people I live with.  so, human journal, I’m gonna complain here.

((also, I know that these pale in comparison to other roommate horror stories and that I am pretty lucky comparatively but…….I want to complain ok)

so to begin with I knew I was the “third wheel” of the house, as in the other two housemates are best friends and I am more secondary which is totally fine.  sometimes I feel a little sad because they click more with each other than I ever will click with either of them but that’s fine because I honestly don’t consider them my very favorite/best friends here, and that’s ok.  just made me feel a little sad at first.  things that they really enjoy like online shopping, makeup, Taylor Swift, I just can’t put my heart into and that is 100% fine for them to like!!!  I just can’t/don’t participate and feel really different from them is all.  anyways.  not a big deal.  then the stuff became bigger, like the “oh just gonna skip class” mentality that they both have from time to time.  which……I never understood because…..if you are mentally and physically able to go our parents are paying SO much money for this + literally what better things do we have to do than going to class????????  but again, minor.  extremely minor.

but then……….I started feeling some things were off.  with one housemate, she’s not even home half of the time because she’s at her boyfriend’s house ~30-40 minutes away (which I think takes away from her experience at college here but w/e it’s not my business and she seems happy) but other times he comes here.  he’s usually not a big problem but again, when he’s here she only spends time with him.  my only legit gripe with him is that when he’s here in the morning he takes a shower before leaving which…………I mean, ok, I get that you have to go to work but………..I have class to go to and I LIVE here?????????  could you please wake up earlier if you are going to do this????????  in my home??????  I expected to share the bathroom with two people, not three.  anyways, then for the housemate herself, she’s a perfectly nice person, but I have realized that our senses of humor are not on the same wavelength and I feel like I really have to put on an act for her to really click with me at all (not her fault, mine, but still something that bothers me).  my legit gripe with her is how passive aggressive she is with like asking us to clean stuff around the house…..like she’ll say something kind of serious and then after I say “oh ok sure I’ll do it tonight” or whatnot she’ll talk in this babyish kind of voice as if we were trying to confront her about something??????  I don’t know how to describe it but it makes me uncomfortable.  also, ok, not her fault, but she is from a pretty well off family and she is obsessive about like nickle-and-diming everything which I don’t know…..also annoys me?  like it always has to be EXACT with tax included which is like…..ok….that’s valid to a degree but you’re getting ONE DOLLAR more ????!?!!!!  whatever.  I think I’m just annoyed at how she just talks in a babyish way to us as if she is trying to avoid conflict when she asks us about things like mopping the floor?????  I don’t think I’m articulating this right but something about her demeanor is off-putting.  we’re also a part of this club together and she often puts her boyfriend/staying in bed over going to social interactions with the club which I mean is fine, it’s her choice, but it makes me kind of sad that she doesn’t really spend a lot of time with anyone other than him????  I don’t know anyways I’m not really super annoyed with her in particular.  usually I just need an hour break from her and we’re good again

it is the other one that I am kind of more fed up with……so first of all, they’re both kind of flaky about going to things, which is a HUGE pet peeve of mine because like…….how HARD is it to just DO something that you said you were going to do……..I mean ok if you’re sick sure, but like if you have a midterm two days later and we made the plan a week ago and agreed to it……you FUCKIN KNEW that it was going to happen so don’t cancel on me because you’re irresponsible!!!!! own up to your mistake!!!!!  whatever, anyways she just flakes out/cancels on plans all the time, almost always because of an academic thing she forgot about or LITERALLY just because she is tired…..and same thing with her and not going to social events for the club we’re in together.  I don’t know, I feel like it sends the message that her time/herself is more important than an agreement she made with someone.  like in the first two months of living with her she cancelled on me FIVE times.  and what makes it worse is that she does it so flippantly like…..I said “oh, yea, we have our dinner with friend x tonight!!” and she said “oh, yeah, that’s not happening” really casually in favor of staying in bed and I don’t know it really made me upset.  she also takes twenty minutes to shower which doesn’t sound like a lot but when you share a bathroom with others in the morning it is a TIME CRUNCH !!!!!!  two more things: one, the people that live above us used to have pretty frequent parties, and yeah, they were kind of loud but I at least never thought they were egregious (i.e. I could fall asleep).  this housemate is a pretty light sleeper so for the first few weeks of school when they were having parties she’d be like “can we call the cops” and I’d always be like “oh um I mean I’m ok with the noise for now but if you want to call them you can” just because I wanted to have a good relationship with the upstairs people just in case but I wasn’t super super opposed to filing a complaint.  but anyways this went on and on and she’d always ask ME to do it and I was like YOU ARE THE ONE that wants to call them, YOU be a big girl and do it.  eventually she got my other housemate + her boyfriend to call one night, which I was fine with, and I thought the ordeal was over.  but then one day on her birthday when we had a couple of friends over we were talking about it and in front of everyone she accuses me of not letting her call them!!!!!!!!!  like!!!!!! bitch!!!!!!! I fucking TOLD YOU YOU COULD I JUST WAS NOT GOING TO DO IT FOR YOU!!!!!!  AND YOU DIDN’T EVEN DO IT IN THE END!!!!!!!!!  I was just so annoyed that she would tell such a blatant lie in front of people/embarrass me in front of close friends.  but the latest thing that got to me was related to her light sleeping habit.  so basically I had a few of my favorite friends from college over at TEN on a Saturday night (tonight)…there were six of us total and we were pretty much just staying in my room, door closed, just snacks, no drinks.  anyways…..at ten thirty she says were are being TOO loud, she is trying to sleep, and ASKS US IF WE CAN GO TO SOMEONE ELSE’S HOUSE.  this just bothered me on SO many levels……..first of all, ?????  am I not allowed to have…..my friends over…..on a Saturday night after 9pm??????  then……you want me to….invite myself over at someone else’s house?????  I took a deep ass breath and just said we’d try to keep it down ((((I didn’t think we were really loud but reasoned ok we were watching videos on my projector and maybe we were laughing too loud, whatever, we’ll just talk)))) so we just talked.  we were just talking…..the six of us……and then at eleven thirty she comes into my room, pulls me aside, and basically tells me to kick them out and ask someone to host us.  but because I am just a people pleaser/weenie I just said yes to get her out of the way and told my friends.  my one source of validation was that one of them, my favorite friend in college, said that it wasn’t cool of her to do that to me since I lived here and it was before midnight on a Saturday which made me think……um yeah?????  and I was happy for the validation but I didn’t know what to do about it.  anyways I just told him I’d address in the morning even though I have no idea what I’d say to her and know I’m not going to say anything to her.  it just annoys me because she said she wanted to go to sleep because she had a “really late night” yesterday (read: she went out drinking) and I wanted to ask WHOSE FAULT THAT WAS and that basically she has a monopoly on all my nights here by just going to sleep and using her light sleeper excuse.  god.  I don’t hate her or anything I’m just very annoyed.  I think I’m just sad because I’m realizing our personalities aren’t as naturally compatible for friendship/I have to put on an act for both of them for things to run smoothly between us and all plus I am growing annoyed at their small quirks. 

I know I should probably just like tell them that I’m annoyed about these things but I don’t know how to do confrontation in non-professional/academic settings so I’m just going to have to SUFFER !!!!!!!!!  thanks for being here though, tumblr, I do feel at least a little better.

edit: I remembered something else about the first housemate!!!  like three weeks ago our wifi went out randomly and I was trying to communicate with her via text about it since she was at her boyfriend’s house.  I understand that it’s stressful to deal with but she was very evasive about doing anything and said “sorry I don’t have a lot of time to deal with this I have 2 midterms this week” which I mean is somewhat warranted but she didn’t ask/take into consideration me who also had two midterms that week????  like, we’re in college, we’re all having midterms.  but the other housemate was like ahhhh technology can’t do this sorry!!! (she is fairly inept with electronics) so I just sucked it up and called customer service/dealt with mailing it back to get a new one because I knew it’d just resolve it faster.  I wish I spoke up for myself more but just think it’s better to avoid conflict and do what I have to do to just resolve things faster.  but now I feel this way lmao so maybe not Update: LMAO I was such a drama queen about this what tf the fuck ????!!! .

[brontesauruses]

Review: The Waking Land by Callie Bates

2.5 or 3 stars I am a lying liar from Liar Town who totally forgot she hadn't posted a review. Sorry! (I do this every time I read something way before my approved time to post reviews...) Despite being initially kidnapped by him at gun point to be used as political leverage, Elanna has come to view the king as a surrogate father, and is understandably upset when he is assassinated. Things continue to get worse for her when she is framed for his murder, and she must flee the county. She winds up in her homeland, where she must come to terms with her feelings for it, her birth father, and the powers she has tried to keep hidden from her captors for more than a decade.

I’m really glad I wrote the bulk of my review back in April, because I can barely remember anything about this book. I can't remember what I had for breakfast sometimes, so I guess this isn't surprising, but definitely proof that it didn't make much of an impact all the same. Anyway, here's what I wrote right after finishing the book in April (surprisingly coherent for being written at like 5 AM, and complete with bullet points, because I love bullet points):

I’m having a hard time articulating my feelings about this book, largely because they are very lukewarm. It’s not a BAD book by any means, but it’s not great either. It’s okay. I don’t regret reading it, but I don’t think that I would have picked it up had I been able to look at more readers’ reviews.

Let’s start with what I didn’t like, I guess: • “In the lush and magical tradition of Naomi Novik s award-winning Uprooted…” what does that even MEAN? This book is nothing like Uprooted, which, full disclosure, is one of my absolute favorite books, and the comparison to which finalized my decision to click the “Request” button. I mean…they both have trees?? And cram a lot of story into one book? And..magic?? I don’t know, that’s all I got. They are completely different books, and the juxtaposition with what is – at least, in my opinion- a much better-written book does this one no favors. (Edit from the Future: Huh, that's no longer part of the Goodreads blurb? It's still on the book's Amazon and Barnes & Noble pages, though, so I'm sticking to my grumbling here.) • Ok, so you know that old writing adage “show, don’t tell?” There is a LOT of telling. Constantly. We get what is largely a play-by-play of Elanna’s thoughts and feelings, and it drove me up the wall. Also, we are TOLD that she is very much into botany and wants to make a career out of it, but not until maybe… the last third, I guess, do we actually get to see her nerd out about plants. I want to SEE her get excited about plants like I (a library person) get excited about books. I know I’m working with a rougher draft than most of you will be reading, but still. • Building off of the last gripe, there is a lot of repetition in the telling. We are frequently reminded that: o Her loyalties are very divided and she is conflicted o Her birth culture is BARBAROUS…until she suddenly does a 180 on this, idk (would like to have seen this change of view develop more naturally, but okay) o X is new and conflicts with information she was previously taught?? Which piece of information is true???? o Loyce is the Worst (in all fairness, she is) o Elanna is PISSED o The ever-expanding litany of people who have sacrificed themselves for the greater good and/or Elanna o Love interest #1 has a Specific Love Interest Smell. Love interest #1 is LOOKING at her! Love Interest #1 is touching her omg. I feel like I could probably go on, but those are what stuck stuck out in the most in my mind. I just remember frequently thinking “Yes, I KNOW. You told me this already. Get on with it.” There was actual sighing and eye-rolling , you guys. • SPEAKING OF LOVE INTERESTS: the romance did not work for me. It happened too quickly, and felt like it was there just because it NEEDED to be. I was frankly surprised when the MC’s feelings were reciprocated; I was getting nothing from SPOILER Love Interest #1 END SPOILER. The same more or less goes for the other participant in the half-hearted love triangle (which I was glad to see quickly resolved, honestly; love triangles make me want to punch myself in the face). THESE ARE NOT REQUIREMENTS. You do not have to shoehorn romantic angst into your story for it to sell. • Do you know how done I am with first person present tense narration? It happens so much in YA genre fiction, and this one is no exception. Thanks, Hunger Games. (Or Twilight. I don’t actually know whose fault it is.) • As with her story, I had lukewarm feelings at best for Elanna. She seems to be a lot younger than her age (19), and repeatedly made some really bad decisions that hurt other people early on in the story, which I found to be frustrating. She also just sort of felt…flat to me? She didn’t inspire any feelings in me beyond annoyance, and I actually found myself forgetting her name on a few different occasions (Edit from the Future: I couldn't remember her name until I looked at my review just now...actually, I couldn't remember anyone's name, WHOOPS). She’s not terrible, as MCs go, but I didn’t love her. • I am still super confused about what “wedding the land” means?? Do you just have to have sex? Do you have to do the do in the woods?? Does it even require the do to be did??? No matter what it means, the implications of sex as a rite of passage for a young woman made me really uncomfortable. • SPOILER: We are told that a particular character is Destined to Die and…he does?? Don’t do that???END SPOILER (Edit from the Future: I MEAN, ok usually when this we are told A is going to happen, it doesn't, or B happens instead, so MAYBE this is a good thing but...probably not.) I did like some things, though: • One character whom other authors probably would have given a redemption-by-death arc (I SEE YOU, ROWLING), did not get that. That is such a lazy thing to do, and we did not get that here. Bates twisted it up, and I appreciate that immensely. • There are no bad Scottish accents from the Scottish-equivalent characters, and I appreciate that, too. • Rhia is my grumpy, buff child and I love her. • Victoire was great too, and would have liked to have seen more of her. (As a side note, I kind of ship her with Rhia? Idk.) • I don’t remember any girlhate, which is always a good thing. • How gorgeous is that cover?? • The last 1/3 or so was much more readable, so maybe that’s where most of the editing energy had been focused? It gave me hope that the final draft will be better, but I doubt enough will have changed to make me genuinely like this book. In any case, I’m not curious enough to check when the book comes out. Edit from the Future: Still not interested in a reread, but I will probably look at other readers' reviews, now that mine is being published. The long and short of it: the concept was GOOD, but the execution lacking. It and the protagonist managed to be both annoying and forgettable at times (somehow??), but were generally just…okay. The romance was predictable and kind of forced. The writing drove me up a wall some of the time, but SOME of that MIGHT be rectified in the final draft. I don’t recommend this book, but I also don’t NOT recommend it. Give it a shot if the concept sounds good to you. It’s not a bad way to spend your time, and you may like it more than I did. Edit from the Future: Looks like there's going to be a sequel. I doubt I'll read it, but I thought you might like to know. A big "thank you" to the publisher and NetGalley for letting me read it early in exchange for an honest review! (Originally published on Goodreads)

[pankopop]

Ask Why Before You Go:

Pokemon Go is getting an update with 80+ more critters from Johto, but it’s still neglecting a massive part of what makes the franchise so appealing

I’ve always been a big ol’ fan of the Gold/Silver generation, it’s the game that I brought with me when I moved continents and left all of my friends behind. It was the one continuity in a time of so much flux, I feel like if I’ve ever over-associated escapism, comfort, and nostalgia with a piece of media, Silver is it.

But the new pokemon introduced into Pokemon Go aren’t getting me all that excited. And I really wish the new batch was going to kindle a good flame, but in all honesty I feel like all of the criticisms that I’ve always had with the game haven’t at all been addressed. To properly give form to those criticisms, I want to elucidate why the common criticisms of legacy media are actually very similar to the ways Niantic Inc have missed the mark.

Preface: the articles about Pokemon Go were out of the loop. Of course they were; technology sucks fire is bad and Edison was a witch. What else is new.

I think what bothers me more than anything is that the subject matter of Pokemon Go was so poorly misunderstood. Even by the developers, I’d venture to say. So much emphasis was put on how Pokemon Go was an augmented reality game. This point in particular was important to a lot of the olds who were writing and reading about it.

This kind of gameplay came from left field for those people who still think all video games fall in to two categories: tetris and Violent tetris.

So coming from the Febreze-commercial understanding of the medium, it would be shocking that there’s be a game that somehow “augments reality”, like a shitty matrix that somehow tells the government your whereabouts, sin number and sexual deviancies. So why are people playing this Pokemon Go? Surely it’s a dumb millennial thing. So Let’s dehumanize them by portraying them as brainwashed zombies. Fuck them for wanting to outlive us.

As such, the real focus for SO much media attention wasn’t on why people were playing this game, nor did it really care to ask. It was who was playing it. It was the people affected by this wave of zombified young’uns. Like a worldwide outbreak of tornadoes ravaging our public parks and private property (and making money for opportunistic cafes).

Along these lines, developers were (and continue to be) dead-set on wanting to make a pokemon-flavoured Ingress over a pokemon game. The core tenets of pokemon were half-met, with so little player interaction. Niantic tends to be more interested in the “real-life” stories of people rediscovering their neighbourhood, being able to meet new people, and losing weight. Which is great – I don’t want to say those are negative aspects of the game, but they could be made much better by some variety of faithfulness to the core of pokemon.

I’m not gonna moan about Go not being a direct port of Pokemon’s battle mechanics. It’s absolutely worth rethinking core mechanics when you’re going to be fundamentally changing the way it’s going to be played. I have no gripes about designing alternatives, but there’s a key to designing within parameters of a general direction. Design without restriction isn’t good design.

There’s a big big draw to pokemon that has been largely glossed over in this discourse: Pokemon are the animals we don’t get to see. They are the dinosaurs, rhinos, lizards and hawks that your average city kid never gets to come into contact with (damn country folks with your dinosaurs). They’re the dogs and cats and turtles you couldn’t afford. It’s the magic of running down to the pond to try and catch frogs, or finding a weird bug, that a lot of people don’t have the luxury of doing. There’s a reason there’s such a resemblance between pokemon and tamagotchi; they’re both about some kind of bond between humans and non-humans.

Pokemon has always been thematically wrapped up in that relationship, and about negotiating sharing a world. A lot of plot commonly revolves around overcoming some destruction of environment, or maintaining an ecosystem.

Niantic’s Pokemon Go has discarded that connection for quantity, and misunderstood that the goal of collecting hundreds of pokemon has always been totally optional, and for the most part, an afterthought. This is absolutely a design issue that sprouted from people not asking people why they love the franchise. Think about the masses of people who never played the games, but watched the anime – their impression of pokemon has nothing to do with a collectathon, but in the narrative bond of overcoming challenges with our pets, basically.

Niantic values “reality” and meatspace more than it values the content of its game; Pokemon Go is just a means to an end of getting-out-the-house. On the other end, people are reacting to some kind of invasion of millennial digital gamespace in the pure, unsullied true reality of God’s green earth.

In prioritizing “real life” over the actual content of pokemon, both of these ideological parties badly missed the mark in translating what pokemon means to the people who were readily playing, proselytizing and spending money. These people have largely become disinterested because what they were looking for – the novelty of simulated companionship.

It’s funny - I feel Pokemon Go had designed some very beautiful solutions in simplifying leveling, battling, and various other contrived systems. So why couldn’t they form some kind of team relationship? The canonical reason why you could traditionally only have 6 pokemon on you at once is that any more and you’d lack the bond that’s necessary between trainer and pokemon.

In the culture of pokemon fans, there’s a term: “Shoulder Mon”. If it’s not clear enough, it’s basically the status of Ash’s Pikachu. It’s one particular pokemon that, while often not massively powerful, is your friend. Pokemon Go’s attempt at this is telling.

The “Buddy” system, which lets you add one of your pokemon next to your avatar, will gather you an evolutionary candy for every set amount of kilometers you walk. With a bit more tweaking, the idea could have been a step in the right direction. But the buddy pokemon doesn’t get anything out of it. It doesn’t get stronger, it doesn’t gain any kind of hidden value, it’s simply a way of saying “I need more of this pokemon’s candy so I can evolve it and move on”. This weird microcosm points to the way Pokemon Go will be for a while, I think. A game that aims to nurture skills of relationships and bonding with the world and it’s inhabitants, repositioned as a means to a mathematical, uninteresting, gold-farming end.

This all serves as a good case study for designing games within the constraints of a franchise. I may have salty opinions, but I don’t believe it’s unfounded to really ask dedicated players of a game, or preachers, fandoms and otakus of a franchise, “why?”. “What is it about this world that you fell in love with? What keeps you coming back? What makes this worth your time, money, energy and commitment?”

The “hardcore” contingent shouldn’t always be seen as a fringe, but as a unique perspective that cuts through the cool apathy of adulthood to articulate what you should be focusing on. In fact, I’d say they’re the core you should be designing for. If you design well, you’ll amplify everything that’s great about a universe, and remind a lot of people why they fell in love with a fiction in the first place.

But when all’s said and done, you can bet your chiselled ass I’ll keep playing this dumb phone app until I’m buried in snow.

[thepreseedblog]

I am just quoting some of the statements from the whole article to make for a shorter read for my readers of the future. 

1. Hassabis replied that, in fact, he was working on the most important project in the world: developing artificial super-intelligence. Musk countered that this was one reason we needed to colonize Mars—so that we’ll have a bolt-hole if A.I. goes rogue and turns on humanity. Amused, Hassabis said that A.I. would simply follow humans to Mars.

2. An unassuming but competitive 40-year-old, Hassabis is regarded as the Merlin who will likely help conjure our A.I. children. 

3. With a neural lace inside your skull you would flash data from your brain, wirelessly, to your digital devices or to virtually unlimited computing power in the cloud. “For a meaningful partial-brain interface, I think we’re roughly four or five years away.”

4. Elon Musk smiled when I mentioned to him that he comes across as something of an Ayn Rand-ian hero. “I have heard that before,” he said in his slight South African accent. “She obviously has a fairly extreme set of views, but she has some good points in there.”

5. Marc Mathieu, the chief marketing officer of Samsung USA, who has gone fly-fishing in Iceland with Musk, calls him “a cross between Steve Jobs and Jules Verne.”As they danced at their wedding reception, Justine later recalled, Musk informed her, “I am the alpha in this relationship.”

6. As he told me, “we are the first species capable of self-annihilation.”

7. 28 years away from the Rapture-like “Singularity”—the moment when the spiraling capabilities of self-improving artificial super-intelligence will far exceed human intelligence, and human beings will merge with A.I. to create the “god-like” hybrid beings of the future.

8. y, in another shock to the system, an A.I. program showed that it could bluff. Libratus, built by two Carnegie Mellon researchers, was able to crush top poker players at Texas Hold ‘Em.

9.  “Sex robots? I think those are quite likely.”

10. Last June, a researcher at DeepMind co-authored a paper outlining a way to design a “big red button” that could be used as a kill switch to stop A.I. from inflicting harm.

11. Google executives say Larry Page’s view on A.I. is shaped by his frustration about how many systems are sub-optimal—from systems that book trips to systems that price crops. He believes that A.I. will improve people’s lives and has said that, when human needs are more easily met, people will “have more time with their family or to pursue their own interests.” 

12. Some in Silicon Valley argue that Musk is interested less in saving the world than in buffing his brand, and that he is exploiting a deeply rooted conflict: the one between man and machine, and our fear that the creation will turn against us. They gripe that his epic good-versus-evil story line is about luring talent at discount rates and incubating his own A.I. software for cars and rockets. It’s certainly true that the Bay Area has always had a healthy respect for making a buck. As Sam Spade said in The Maltese Falcon, “Most things in San Francisco can be bought, or taken.”

13. Zuckerberg introduced his A.I. butler, Jarvis, right before Christmas. With the soothing voice of Morgan Freeman, it was able to help with music, lights, and even making toast. I asked the real-life Iron Man, Musk, about Zuckerberg’s Jarvis, when it was in its earliest stages. “I wouldn’t call it A.I. to have your household functions automated,” Musk said. “It’s really not A.I. to turn the lights on, set the temperature.”

14. “His wife, Talulah, told me they had late-night conversations about A.I. at home,” Vance noted. “Elon is brutally logical. The way he tackles everything is like moving chess pieces around. When he plays this scenario out in his head, it doesn’t end well for people.

15. on HBO’s Silicon Valley: “I don’t want to live in a world where someone else makes the world a better place better than we do.”

16. Zuckerberg replied. And clearly throwing shade at Musk, he continued: “Some people fear-monger about how A.I. is a huge danger, but that seems far-fetched to me and much less likely than disasters due to widespread disease, violence, etc.” 

17. “If we slow down progress in deference to unfounded concerns, we stand in the way of real gains.” He compared A.I. jitters to early fears about airplanes, noting, “We didn’t rush to put rules in place about how airplanes should work before we figured out how they’d fly in the first place.”

18. Zuckerberg can be just as dismissive. Asked in Germany whether Musk’s apocalyptic forebodings were “hysterical” or “valid,” Zuckerberg replied “hysterical.” 

19. “Do you own a house?,” Tegmark asked me. “Do you own fire insurance? The consensus in Puerto Rico was that we needed fire insurance. When we got fire and messed up with it, we invented the fire extinguisher. When we got cars and messed up, we invented the seat belt, air bag, and traffic light. But with nuclear weapons and A.I., we don’t want to learn from our mistakes. We want to plan ahead.” (Musk reminded Tegmark that a precaution as sensible as seat belts had provoked fierce opposition from the automobile industry.)

20. Meanwhile, the European Union has been looking into legal issues arising from the advent of robots and A.I.—such as whether robots have “personhood” or (as one Financial Times contributor wondered) should be considered more like slaves in Roman law.

21. Steve Wozniak has wondered publicly whether he is destined to be a family pet for robot overlords. “We started feeding our dog filet,” he told me about his own pet, over lunch with his wife, Janet, at the Original Hick’ry Pit, in Walnut Creek. “Once you start thinking you could be one, that’s how you want them treated.”

22. When I went to Peter Thiel’s elegant San Francisco office, dominated by two giant chessboards, Thiel, one of the original donors to OpenAI and a committed contrarian, said he worried that Musk’s resistance could actually be accelerating A.I. research because his end-of-the-world warnings are increasing interest in the field.

23. He went on: “There’s some sense in which the A.I. question encapsulates all of people’s hopes and fears about the computer age. I think people’s intuitions do just really break down when they’re pushed to these limits because we’ve never dealt with entities that are smarter than humans on this planet.”

24. Kurzweil has a keen interest in cats and keeps a collection of 300 cat figurines in his Northern California home. At the restaurant, he asked for almond milk but couldn’t get any. The 69-year-old eats strange health concoctions and takes 90 pills a day, eager to achieve immortality—or “indefinite extensions to the existence of our mind file”—which means merging with machines. He has such an urge to merge that he sometimes uses the word “we” when talking about super-intelligent future beings—a far cry from Musk’s more ominous “they.”

25. “That’s just not true. I’m the one who articulated the dangers,” Kurzweil said. “The promise and peril are deeply intertwined,” he continued. “Fire kept us warm and cooked our food and also burned down our houses . . . . Furthermore, there are strategies to control the peril, as there have been with biotechnology guidelines.” He summarized the three stages of the human response to new technology as Wow!, Uh-Oh, and What Other Choice Do We Have but to Move Forward? “The list of things humans can do better than computers is getting smaller and smaller,” he said. “But we create these tools to extend our long reach.” 26. Just as, two hundred million years ago, mammalian brains developed a neocortex that eventually enabled humans to “invent language and science and art and technology,” by the 2030s, Kurzweil predicts, we will be cyborgs, with nanobots the size of blood cells connecting us to synthetic neocortices in the cloud, giving us access to virtual reality and augmented reality from within our own nervous systems. “We will be funnier; we will be more musical; we will increase our wisdom,” he said, ultimately, as I understand it, producing a herd of Beethovens and Einsteins. Nanobots in our veins and arteries will cure diseases and heal our bodies from the inside.He allows that Musk’s bête noire could come true. He notes that our A.I. progeny “may be friendly and may not be” and that “if it’s not friendly, we may have to fight it.” And perhaps the only way to fight it would be “to get an A.I. on your side that’s even smarter.” 27. Russell doesn’t give a fig whether A.I. might enable more Einsteins and Beethovens. One more Ludwig doesn’t balance the risk of destroying humanity. “As if somehow intelligence was the thing that mattered and not the quality of human experience,” he said, with exasperation. “I think if we replaced ourselves with machines that as far as we know would have no conscious existence, no matter how many amazing things they invented, I think that would be the biggest possible tragedy.” Nick Bostrom has called the idea of a society of technological awesomeness with no human beings a “Disneyland without children.” 28.  ‘Well, we’ll upload ourselves into the machines, so we’ll still have consciousness but we’ll be machines.’ Which I would find, well, completely implausible.”

29. “Yann LeCun keeps saying that there’s no reason why machines would have any self-preservation instinct,” Russell said. “And it’s simply and mathematically false. I mean, it’s so obvious that a machine will have self-preservation even if you don’t program it in because if you say, ‘Fetch the coffee,’ it can’t fetch the coffee if it’s dead. So if you give it any goal whatsoever, it has a reason to preserve its own existence to achieve that goal. And if you threaten it on your way to getting coffee, it’s going to kill you because any risk to the coffee has to be countered. People have explained this to LeCun in very simple terms.”

30. Russell debunked the two most common arguments for why we shouldn’t worry: “One is: It’ll never happen, which is like saying we are driving towards the cliff but we’re bound to run out of gas before we get there. And that doesn’t seem like a good way to manage the affairs of the human race. And the other is: Not to worry—we will just build robots that collaborate with us and we’ll be in human-robot teams. Which begs the question: If your robot doesn’t agree with your objectives, how do you form a team with it?”

31. “If you want a picture of A.I. gone wrong, don’t imagine marching humanoid robots with glowing red eyes. Imagine tiny invisible synthetic bacteria made of diamond, with tiny onboard computers, hiding inside your bloodstream and everyone else’s. And then, simultaneously, they release one microgram of botulinum toxin. Everyone just falls over dead. 32. “From even the greatest of horrors irony is seldom absent.”