#Oz's main motivation to find a way back her own world is cause she has tickets for Taylor Swift

[szynkaaa]

Messy iPad doodles, will be busy for the rest of the week so I won't have much time to sit on my PC to make more self-indulging art 😭😭

But I've figured out some more lore stuff for Oz that I may or may not share once I have time to write things down properly 👀

[calliecat93]

Top 5 Things I Disliked About RWBY Volume 6

(Top 5 Likes)

Well everyone… we made it. I started doing this Likes/Dislikes series on Monday, hoping to get it done before Saturday. The lesson here is to do better about pre-planning. Nevertheless… I did it. Volume 6. The most recent volume. My favorite volume of the entire series. I am so ready to gush about everything that I love about this! But we gotta do Dislikes first, and there are a few. Unlike the others though where nearly all of them are outdated or irrelevant, whether these will be improved on or not remains to be seen. So let’s not waste any time and get to the Top 5 Dislikes of RWBY Volume 6.

#5. Neo Fanservice

This is Number 5 because it more annoys me than anything else, but it doesn’t ruin anything. I’m not a fan of Neo. I find her to be a pointless addition who only exists because of her design. Which she does have a fantastic design, and her being mute is interesting. But otherwise? She was just… there. I didn’t care about the character then, and I don’t care now. I knew that she was gonna come back for CInder’s head, and this feels like the right time. But by the writers own admission, shes there just to flare up CIndr’s plotline. Which… why not use this to flesh out Cinder? Tell us her backstory or at least hint at it. Explain her motivations. Have us understand why she’s as horrible and power-hungry as she is. Explain what the heck happened when Ruby Silver Eyes blasted her in Volume 3 already!

 I know that they’re likely waiting for the right moment, but like with V4 it just feels like they’re dodging it and people are running out of patience. So I feel like there were other ways to make CInder’s plot more interesting. Throwing in Neo feels… well… I hate to say it, but lazy. Which I know isn’t true. Miles and Kerry are insanely hard-working and devoted to this show and away as far from lazy as it gets. I guess they just hit writers’ block? Knew that people wanted to see Neo again and felt like this was the right time? I don’t know. It wasn’t badly written or executed and sets the stage for the future. But still, I do wish that they took a more creative route and let us actually get to know Cinder when they had the chance. It’s disappointing.

Again, this is on here because I know I’m in the minority. A lot of people really like Neo and want to see more of her character. And I can’t lie, with Roman gone, there is some motivation for her and now there’s room to flesh her out. So while I don’t care about her, I am interested in seeing what they do with her. To see what she’s planning because there is now ay that she’s not going t give up on making CInder suffer. But I can absolutely see her still wanting payback on Ruby who was both involved with Roman’s death and knocked Neo off the plane and prevented her from helping him. We’ve got a classic revenge story in the making people. Let’s hope that it’s a good one.

#4. The Reaction to Jinn’s Story

This one is… complicated. Why? Because I don’t hate this. At all. You might think that I’m about to get mad that RWBYQ were all angry at Oz. But… no, I’m not. I fully sympathize with Oz. I don’t think that he’s this horrible monster who did all that he did because he’s horrible. Oz is just a man. A man who has been through so much pain for so long, all because he tried to do the right thing and be with his wife again. He has so much guilt and self-loathing and I just feel terrible for him and all that he’s been through. But it doesn’t change the fact that he’s lied and used people, even if it was because he had to. People got hurt. People have died. All because of him and his cause. He isn’t as horrible as Salem or the Gods, but RWBYQ has every right to be angry at him for what, in their eyes, is leading them on a suicide mission. So no, I don’t have a problem with their reactions.

My problem is that they all have the same reaction.

There is no diversity in how they all take this, nor with JNR. I guess that Jaune, Yang, and Qrow took it worst than everyone else, but all of their reactions are pretty much being angry at Oz and feeling hopeless. The only person who keeps nay sense is Maria because this doesn’t personally affect her, but still. It’s boring to watch and offers no true exploration into the characters’ feelings outside hopelessness. We don’t see them talk about the story or try to debate about it. Whether Oz can ever be trusted again or not. Whether they feel like there are some legit points both for and against Oz. They don’t talk about finding out the origin of the world or about Salem. There was so much room for so much perspective and maybe V7 will go into that. But here? It just feels like a wasted opportunity.

IDK. I still enjoy the plot and it adds a lot of moral conflicts. Oz was wrong, but he also had his reasons. There is no right or wrong answer I don’t think to any of Ozpin’s choices. He’s trying to do the right thing, and that’s not always the best thing or even the moral thing. It’s complex stuff that can cause a lot of complex emotions. But it feels like it’s all meant to say that Oz was bad and there is no resolution or discussion about it by the end outside Oz helping Oscar land the jet. Can V7 fix that? Maybe, especially since the trailer hinted at the right thing vs best thing dilemma. But as far as this volume goes, it was good, but could have been better.

#3. Caroline Cordovin

Cordovin sucks. Big time. I admit she was amusing in her debut episode, but that was it. Cordo os, overall, just a stingy and arrogant old woman. She isn’t funny. She isn’t interesting. She pretty much exists to be another ‘Atlas people suck’ character, especially with her remark at Blake. Now I know that she was meant to be a minor antagonist, and that’s fine. But she went overboard and got the mech out when there were probably better ways of dealing with the heist peacefully. In fairness to her, the good guys can’t explain why they need to go to Atlas so I don’t blame her for trying to stop them. But with a huge-sized mech meant to deal with large Grimm? Really?

But really, none of this would have mattered to me… if it weren’t for the ending. Cordovin’s shift is out of nowhere. She has no epiphany. She never really accepts that this is her fault. We never see her viewpoint shift. And as such, her turn was utterly unprovoked. But most of all… she gets away with it. She gets away with endangering Argu. She gets away with her reckless endangerment. She gets away with escalating the situation unecesarially. She’s going to fudge her report, so Atlas won’t ever know about it.  That is what I hate the most, she didn’t get punished for her actions whatsoever.

Still, unlike Cardin, she had a purpose and unlike him and the Fennec Twins, she wasn’t around for very long. As such, she isn’t the worst villain. But unless it’s to show that she’s been stripped of her rank, I don’t really ever want to see or hear from her again… her and Maria’s bickering was funny though. I’ll give them that.

#2. Lack of Oscar Development

I talked about this in V4, but this was the boiling point for people I think. Oscar is, sadly, underdeveloped. V4 had to rush through his intro and getting him to Mistral, which is a consequence of the separate plotline. V5 was better as he gelled well with the cast, got some training and learned to sue his AUra, and we learned a bit more about how his and Oz’s bonding worked. It’s still rushed, but hey unlike Ruby he got an actual payoff. Plus there’s an emphasis that he made a choice to be there both in his talk with Ruby and when he was faced with Hazel. It’s not a lot, but better than V4 and again, we had a payoff that felt earned,

V6 though… not so much. We see Oscar struggling with keeping control and his growing fear of not being the same after the merger is complete. It’ super understandable and when he nears having a panic attack in Chapter 4, you really feel for him. They do a very good job of getting you to feel bad for this kid, especially in CHapter 8 when Jaune loses it and slams him into the wall out of anger at Ozpin. He snaps out of it and is immediately remorseful, but it was still utterly wrong to do that to Oscar. Qrow was also pretty horrible, but I’ll get to that later. Point is, this kid is scared, being unfairly punished for things that he didn’t do, and is probably about to have an identity crisis. So him going missing? It makes perfect sense.

But there lies the issue. He goes missing… and when we see him again, that’s the end of his arc. We don’t see him sort through his emotions. We don’t see him talk with anyone or with Oz. I’m glad that Oscar made his choice to stay committed and I love his new look. But we don’t get to experience it with him. He feels alienated from the main cast and I think that’s because we have so many characters. Some are gonna have to be shafted, but Oscar had an on-going arc and shouldn’t have been. It’s the same thing with Grif in RvB17, where his character arc was ongoing but got shafted due to both episode count and character amount. But with Oscar, it’s even worse as he’s still fairly new and is Oz’s host. He should be more important than he is. Not more than RWBY, ut he’s pretty much just a tagalong out of there because he has Oz in his brain. Not because of his own character.

This has been a pretty vocal complaint. I’m hoping that CRWBY is going to try more in V7. Maybe have Oscar enroll at Atlas or something and get some Huntsman training. I’m not sure what they can do, but I think it’s time that they do at least something. Because next to Nora, Oscar is the most under-developed character, and he really should not be. 

But hey, at least I still liked Oscar during the volume. Unlike a certain little birdie... on that note!

#1. Qrow’s Development

I did not like Qrow in this volume. At all. Now his attitude after the Oz reveal? Understandable. I think that Qrow is gonna be what Blake was to me in V4. Me hating how the character acted, but when I go back I’ll feel better about it since they’ll bounce back now that they’re past the lowest point. And to be fair in the final few episodes, Qrow got better and I felt more sympathetic when he was clearly having a Summer flashback. Plus, again, I get it. He trusted Oz for so long and found out that he was lied to all along. Everything that he worked for? Amounted to nothing. Any worth that it gave him after being marked as unlucky? That amounted to nothing. Him turning to drink himself stupid? Makes sense and it was good to finally delve into the negative parts of his drinking. Everything with Qrow makes sense.

The problem is very simple. It’ all due to one scene. Had they cut this out, I would be able to look past it. What scene is that?

“Don’t lie to him Ruby, We’re better than that.”

That killed any chance of me sympathizing with Qrow that the volume had. Ruby is trying to comfort Oscar, telling him that he isn’t just some vessel for Ozpin. I know that Qrow was upset. I mean he outright punched Oscar, which yeah it was aimed at Oz, but that also didn’t help. But that just felt unnecessarily cruel. Worst? He never apologizes for it like Jaune did with how he acted. Qrow is just overall useless, drinking himself stupid in Brunswick and just angrily giving up after Cordo refused them entry. Again, I get why. But I just cannot feel bad for him when he’s being such a downer and an asshole. Not even Ruby calling him out did anything until he began to flip out when the plan started to not go according to plan. Which by then… it felt too little, too late.

I don’t know. It’s like I said, I get it. But anytime that Qrow was on screen, it brought things down for me. I think that maybe they went a little too far with it, especially with the jab at Oscar. I’m glad that he’s on the right path now, and I assume that V7 will help make me like him again. But for now? I really did not like it, and it is my least favorite thing about V6.

And with that, the Dislikes posts are all done! Yay! One more post to go: the Likes post!  I hope that you all enjoyed this post, and thank you for reading~!

[valkyrieelysia18]

RWBY Rewrite: WTCH

Hello again! Welcome once again to the RWBY Rewrite series of posts I’ve been working on if under the unlikely chance I was asked to consult on a reboot. Unfortunately for my opening line, this is not the Pyrrha Nikos post (believe me, I’ve got a bunch to talk about on that one), but instead this one will focus on the villains, specifically the main four of Salem’s underlings: Cinder Fall, Arthur Watts, Tyrian Callows, and Hazel Rainart.

Now, villains are always fun to work with; often times they are the most memorable part of a story. A hero is only as good as their villains, as showcased by certain heroes’ rogues galleries. Unfortunately, RWBY’s treatment of its villains has been.....not the best. With the way the heroes have been prevailing lately, it’s been kind of downgrading their threat factor. Not to mention the current writers’ inability to deal with morally gray conflicts and characters. As such, I feel the need to break up the villains into more manageable sections, starting with the villains that will serve as the immediate antagonists to Team RWBY.

Now it’s not going to come up too much here, but it should be made clear that these four are merely this generation’s evil team. There have been many members of Salem’s council, but all that have served previously are dead, mostly due to battle against Ozpin’s forces or by Salem for a number of reasons (betrayal, insubordination, became too much of a liability, etc.). In each of their cases, Salem would reach out to them, whether through a seer or one of her other subordinates, and they would join her cause of their own free will. She’d save her main manipulations and threats for those she’s going to use as scapegoats and those she’s planning on killing. But when it comes to her long term lieutenants, it’s generally best to try and set as positive of a relationship as she can.

So, why would each of them join her? Well, the thing about the great worlds of fiction is not just their positive traits, but also their dark sides. Take the world of My Hero Academia. You’d think a world where almost everyone has super powers would be amazing, but the more you look into the society, the more cracks you find and it becomes very understandable of why some people would want to tear it down. Each of these characters are going to be associated with a problem found in the world they live in, that directly played a part in why they are villains. It’s all going to contribute to the question “Is Remnant and it’s people truly worth saving?” I’ll deal more into this question when I get to Salem.

For this, I’m also going to run with the head canon that each of them comes from a different kingdom and that problem they’re associated with relates to that kingdom: Hazel Vale, Cinder Mistral, Watts Atlas, and Tyrian Vacuo.

Hazel: Apathy

No, this is not about that Grimm. Apathy is generally defined as the complete lack of emotion about a human being, a thing or an activity. And in this head canon, this would describe Vale’s biggest problem. Vale (or at least most of those in charge) doesn’t care about what happens outside of the kingdom’s borders. So long as the life that they’ve become so accustomed to is safe, the rest of the world could be on fire and they wouldn’t lift a finger. And that especially relates to how they, and other kingdoms, view huntsmen and huntresses.

Now, we don’t really know much about Gretchen Rainart’s death, only that Ozpin said that it was due to a training accident, but that’s not what this is focusing on. I imagine that after Gretchen died, Hazel might have tried to raise concern about the Academies’ practices and get answers....only to find that no one really cared.

So what if some no name huntress in training got killed in some sort of accident? Huntsmen and huntresses die all the time. Surely she knew what she was signing up for. And there will be many more just like her.

You know that lyric “Or are we weapons pointed at the enemy, so someone else can claim a victory?” That’s how many people would view huntsmen and huntresses in this Rewrite: weapons to be used and replaced when necessary. This also gives Hazel more of an understandable reason as to why he sided with Salem. Revenge against Ozpin is still his primary motivation, but he also wants to destroy the system that would label his sister and others like her as expendable pawns just so people who know nothing about fighting and sacrifice could live peacefully.

Cinder: Prejudice

Now I know the word prejudice usually comes in when people talk about racism (we’ll get to Adam and the White Fang another day), but as a sociology major I also know that prejudice applies not just to race but also gender, social class, sexuality, family unit, where you grew up, religious beliefs, and more. In the show, Mistral is said to have the most diverse environments and lifestyles. That I think would lead to some serious divisions in the country, particularly after the Great War. 

I always thought it was a missed opportunity that after that conflict, the King of Vale (Oz) essentially dismantled and restructured the governments of four different kingdoms to streamline world peace. Even if it may have had a greater long term benefit, there should have been lasting consequences to drastically changing established governments that had been probably been around for centuries. Entire ways of life may have been altered or destroyed and the power structure must have been completely scrambled. Like, what if most of Mistral’s population is in Central Anima and is more Asian themed, but after the Great War the southern trading ports that are more Greco-Roman (where Pyrrha is from) gained more influence due to being more cooperative with foreign powers? This would make Mistral much more complex compared to Vale and showcase that when you get a bunch of people with differing statuses and beliefs together you’re going to have problems.

Then there’s the royal family and that is where Cinder comes in. In my head canon, Cinder is in fact a direct descendant of the Mistralian royal family which fell into ruin with the deposal of the monarchy. That would perfectly tie into her fairy tale inspiration of Cinderella, a young woman of great status brought to the lowest of circumstances. Only instead of taking it all with grace and kindness, Cinder would grow resentful and bitter. Constantly having to deal with people mocking her for her status and her blood, hearing what family she had left reminisce about what was once theirs, and hearing everyone look down upon the last emperor and all that came before him who styled themselves like gods but turned out to be nothing more then men.

This would give Cinder a much more personal reason to join Salem’s cause, considering that Ozpin, more specifically his last life as the King of Vale, was the reason she and her family would have been in that state in the first place. Her desire for power, strength, and to be feared would be tied up in her desire to reclaim her family’s honor and status, to strive to the image of the old Mistralian emperors. The things she should have had by right and so she’s going to do whatever it takes to take those things back.

Watts: Corruption

While many might cite Atlas’ obvious racist issues and the elitism of its upper class as problematic, Atlas’ upper class and those in power have also exploited those beneath them in order to stay on top. A missed opportunity when it came to the racism subplot is the lack of human allies because when if you really think about it, there must have been human miners in the Schnee Dust mines alongside the Faunus. Mantle is still very much there and the Atlesian hierarchy have most likely exploited those from it who where just trying to live their lives, Jacques Schnee most certainly has. And some of Ironwood’s power plays are definitely overstepping his bounds. As such, I’m using Atlas to highlight corruption. Unlike Vale, the Atlesians do care about how the world sees them and they will do anything to come out on top.

So, how would the good doctor fit into all this? The show has stated that Watts is a disgraced Atlesian scientist, but we don’t know why that is. Well, what if it wasn’t because he went behind his superiors’ backs in making deadly unethical weapons (because that seems like something Atlas would be completely on board for), but because they needed a scapegoat?

In this rewrite, Watts would be Professor Polendina’s protégé and they and others were performing certain experiments for the Atlesian government. The exact type of experiments I’m a little fuzzy on (I’m a writer, not a scientist), but I think it would interesting if these experiments were what laid the groundwork on Penny’s creation. Given Pyrrha’s reaction back in Volume 3, you get the impression that messing around with Aura and souls wouldn’t be the most....moral inquiries. And naturally someone would find out and the government would need someone to put the blame on. Professor Polendina would have been at the head of things and thus would be too important to lose, his protégé on the other hand would be much more expendable. Heck, the professor might be talked into going along with it in exchange for support to build Penny.

Now in this rewrite, Watts is by no means a good person, he’s just not a hypocrite. He knows full well what he’s done is pretty terrible, but he doesn’t deny it or sugar coat it. However, he is extremely pissed how he alone was blamed while others got away scot free. Salem would promise him both freedom to conduct his experiments as well as promising the opportunity for revenge against his former superiors. This could lead to an angry confrontation with Professor Polendina down the line, tearing into his old teacher. Ultimately culminating in Watts telling him that for all his attempts to convince himself he was doing things for Atlas or the greater good, Polendina is no better if not worse than the ones who ordered the experiments.

I also a couple ideas for Watts involving Ironwood, Jacques, and Willow, but those didn’t tie into his motivations so I’ll save that for a backstory post.

Tyrian: Anarchy 

Of the four kingdoms, Vacuo is definitely the worst off. Shade Academy is literally the only form of order in the kingdom, with the rest as a harsh merciless desert. While it may be welcoming to those who can survive, who are the kind of people who would survive in such an environment? I get the feeling that we’d be seeing Raven’s philosophy ‘The weak die, the strong survive’ be taken to quite the extreme. While we certainly complain about our governments (when Donald Trump was elected, I felt the immense desire to beg the UK to take us back), they do provide certain things that keep our lives relatively stable.

And that’s where Tyrian comes on. Unlike the other three, I don’t think Tyrian needs an intricate backstory or compelling motivations. He’s just someone who wants destruction and death. Rather, it’s because of the lack of order that someone like Tyrian was able to live and grow so strong. Perhaps Salem reached out to him with the potential of stronger and more difficult opponents than he was used to. Over time, he would begin to view Salem with an amount of reverence given that she leads the Grimm and the Grimm are essentially made to kill and destroy.

Well, that’s it for this post. Now I’ve got a bunch of ideas, but no idea what I want to do next. If anyone has a request, I’d be willing to hear it. Hope to see you all again relatively soon.

[metalandmagi]

August Media Madness

Well, August may have sucked for me personally, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t keep track of all the media I consumed this month! And spoiler alert, I watched a lot of movies involving adorable talking bears. Although, I have a feeling that as soon as the fall television premieres start, I’ll be watching a lot less movies.

July’s media

Movies!

Dear Evan Hansen

Thank you bootlegs. This isn’t a movie, but I didn’t want to make a separate category for plays when I’ve only seen one this month. Anyway, if you haven’t heard of it, Dear Evan Hansen involves an incredibly anxious teenage boy who is tasked by his therapist to write motivational letters to himself. Unfortunately, Connor Murphy, an angsty boy who goes to Evan’s school sees one of the letters, takes it, and promptly decides to kill himself, with the letter still on his person. Everyone ends up thinking he and Evan were friends and that this letter was a suicide note that Connor wrote to Evan...and a beautiful fake gay relationship friendship was born. Call me basic as hell, but I’ve watched this show twice now, and listened to the soundtrack more times than I can count, and it’s turning into my favorite musical. There are so many important messages in it, and it takes you on a roller coaster of emotions. Every character does good and bad things, and no one is blameless or innocent...except maybe Zoe Murphy. If anything just listen to the soundtrack. 10/10

Night on the Galactic Railroad

Cats...on a mystical train...This seems like the kind of movie they would show you in film school. Very dull plot and characters with the themes being the main takeaway. What even is the plot of this movie? Darker, grittier, furry version of the Polar Express? Incredibly boring slightly more religious version of Over the Garden Wall? I just kept watching it because the main character looks like a cat version of Kagayama Tobio in middle school...cat-gayama. 4/10

Paddington

An adorable bear from South America travels to London and gets into all sorts of trouble with an English family. It’s very charming and sweet, and the aesthetic in this movie is on point, like Wes Anderson directed a children’s movie. This is one of those movies you hear about where everyone loves it, and you think it can’t possibly be that good, but then you watch it and you were wrong! So wrong! 10/10

Paddington 2

Naturally. This time an adorable South American bear goes to prison, and his family tries to clear his name. Again, A+ aesthetic and imagery, but I think I preferred the plot of the first movie a little more because everyone was all together. 9/10

Christopher Robin

Do you like Winnie the Pooh? Do you like jaded adults finding happiness in their lives again? Do you think the movie Hook had a good premise but was extremely long and kinda boring and could have been a better movie with a little tweaking? Well this is the movie for you! Christopher Robin has grown into an overworked adult, and his old friend Winnie the Pooh inadvertently helps him reconnect with his wife and daughter (and also his inner child) just by being the sweet, clumsy, dry humored bear we all know and love. I was so skeptical of this movie at first, and I was absolutely blown away by how funny and meaningful it was. 100/10

The Road to El Dorado

Two lovable Spanish con men named Miguel and Tulio are accidentally swept away on a journey to the fabled city of El Dorado, where everything is made of gold. Once they reach the city, the locals believe they’re gods due to an (un)fortunate series of coincidences, and the con men try to keep up the charade with the help of the best character in the movie, Chel (who I’m pretty sure caused an entire generation of lesbians’ sexual awakening). This is one of my favorite animated movies of all time and one of the reasons I wish Dreamworks would go back to their 2D animation days, where the visuals and music were just as stunning as 3D movies are now. This movie is a classic, and I desperately want a sequel! 10/10

To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before

When Lara Jean thinks it’s a good idea to write 5 secret love letters to 5 boys that she’s had crushes on over the years, everything is fine until her little sister mails the letters to all the boys (because even a 6th grader knows Lara Jean is lonely and emotionally stunted as fuck). This is a Netflix original movie that was adapted from the book by Jenny Han...which I haven’t read, but now I really want to. Overall, this was super cute, but I wasn’t really crazy about the boys. They weren’t horrible people or anything, and they never pressured Lara Jean or made fun of her for being “innocent”, but they were just kind of bland. I’m much more interested in the other boys we didn’t see in the movie! But the family relationships were so heartfelt, Lara Jean’s fashion sense is AMAZING, and the acting/casting was awesome. 8/10

Summer Wars

I...don’t even know how to describe the plot of this one. A teenage boy named Kenji goes on a country holiday and pretends to date an acquaintance of his in order to impress her enormous family...but it’s really about an AI that becomes sentient and wants to mess up the world through this universal internet program called OZ that’s kind of like a mashup of Facebook and Second Life...but actually no it’s about family sticking together and using a Japanese card game to save the world…but apparently it’s got the same plot as the Digimon movie because they’re both directed by Mamoru Hosoda. Yeah...

Guys, I have a confession to make...this has always been my favorite Mamoru Hosoda movie. Everyone falls all over themselves saying Wolf Children is the best Mamoru Hosoda movie, and that’s great for them but it doesn’t even come in second for me. Summer Wars means a lot more to me personally because I come from a big extended family, and when I first saw this movie, I was blown away by how accurate the family dynamic was. There are so many characters, but everyone has their own personality. Not to mention the music makes the summer atmosphere so on point. And I’m not going to lie...I bawled like a fucking baby the first time I saw this movie. So anyway, I like Summer Wars more than Wolf Children, thanks for coming to my TED talk. 10/10

Atlantis: The Lost Empire

Unappreciated researcher Milo Thatch goes on an expedition to find the lost city of Atlantis.

Okay, there are two kinds of Disney fans in this world: Treasure Planet fans, and Atlantis fans. And I will support Treasure Planet as the best underrated vaguely steampunk inspired Disney movie until you can pry my 15 year old dvd copy away from my cold dead hands. But Atlantis is pretty good too. I could write essays comparing the two and why both of them should be successful but weren’t. My main problem with it is that the characters are great, but I feel like we don’t see enough of them, and as a kid a lot of the humor went by so fast that I completely missed it. Also the glowing eyes and spirits taking over the Atlantian princess’s body freaked me the fuck out as a child. NEVERTHELESS! This really is a great movie, with extremely well developed lore and well designed characters that chills me to this day. 8/10

Deadpool 2

The merc with a mouth is back, and man there’s so much going on in this movie I won’t even try to explain the plot. I literally had to go back and add this in because I was so into this movie when I was watching it that I forgot to write it down! Even though I really liked this sequel, I think I liked the first one better, just based on how much I laughed. There was so much going on plot wise, but it really seemed to work for this movie. There were also a lot of great new characters (Domino is my favorite character of the franchise now), but since there was so much stuff going on, a lot of jokes and plot lines were sort of hit and miss. Anyway, I’m sure everyone’s seen this one by now but just in case, I highly recommend it. 9/10

Books!

The Adventure Zone Graphic Novel: Here There be Gerblins by Clint McElroy (technically all the McElboys) and Carey Pietsch

Yeah yeah, for anyone who doesn’t know I’m Adventure Zone trash okay. TAZ is a DnD podcast where 3 brothers and their father create one of the most famous campaigns in history involving three idiot adventurers going on a quest to find a missing person and getting sucked into a much larger grand plan to protect the world. This graphic novel is a visualization of the first arc. I don’t even really like Here There be Gerblins all that much, and yet here I am. Oh well, the art was amazing, and of course I already knew the story. But it was kind of hilarious to see the name changes they had to make to some of the characters and places. I was a little disappointed that the ending was so rushed, and we don’t really spend time around the moon base before The Director is in our face changing the Lunar Interlude parts but whatever. 10 dead gerblins/10

The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken

When a disease that only affects children kills off nearly all the kids on the planet, the survivors are left with supernatural powers and are taken away to concentration camps in order to “protect” the public. I’ve been wanting to read this for a long time, and since the movie just came out I thought it was the perfect time. This is one of those books that some people adore and some people hate. I thought it was just okay. For everything that I didn’t like, there was something to make up for it. Personally, I felt that Bracken focused on the wrong part of the story. Everything takes place years after this disease has come, and I think it would have been more interesting to see everything from the children’s points of view when this disease was first starting. I would focus on each different character as a child and how they wound up in their respective camps. Oh well, there’s way too many pros and cons  that I could delve into, but you like the YA dystopian genre then I say go for it. I didn’t like it enough to read the other two books (not yet anyway). 7/10

TV Shows!

Camp Camp

You know how there are summer camps that specialize in science, or acting, or space, or whatever? Yeah Camp Camp is about a summer camp that throws literally everything you can think of into one summer camp. If you don’t believe me, just listen to the theme song. Seriously though this is one of the best shows I’ve watched all year, but boy howdy this is not one for young children. It’s like Gravity Falls and Rick and Morty had a baby! Anyway, the characters are both surprising and hilarious. David the camp counselor (voiced by Miles Luna) is genuinely likable when you think he’d be the most annoying person on the planet, and the kids are so accurate it’s scary. Also Yuri Lowenthal is in it. And Griffin McElroy has a recurring role where he plays A GHOST! I’ve never been into Rooster Teeth stuff, but they have a winner with this one. 10/10

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

After her husband leaves her, Midge Maisel gets super drunk, goes on stage, and gives a hilarious rant about her relationship at a small comedy/talent club and somehow gets sucked into becoming a rising comedian as a woman in the 1950s. It’s good. Great acting pretty funny, but Midge and her agent/manager Susie are the only likable characters. Everyone else just kind of...sucks 8/10

Voltron Season 7 (spoilers)

Okay, I know everyone had mixed feelings about this season, but I did come out liking a lot of it. It had a lot of flaws (I really thought it would be Shiro’s season, and man was I wrong), but this is the sort of thing we can’t really judge until the last episode of the series is finished. I like to think of the positives: the action was amazing as usual, HUNK IS GETTING MORE AND MORE DEVELOPMENT EVERY SEASON, I refuse to believe the team introduced Adam just to have him killed off immediately so he’s still alive in my mind, we get to see everyone’s reunions with their families, the lost in space episode was cool, and say what you want about the game show episode, but I loved it! There were a lot of good things so it was easier for me to look past the...not so great aspects of the season. 7/10

Galavant

A musical comedy mini series involving a renowned medieval hero named Galavant on a quest to rescue his ex girlfriend from her “evil” husband King Richard. But maybe she doesn’t want to be rescued. Well, that’s just the first season. It’s best to go in knowing as little as possible. I remember liking it when it first came out, and it’s still pretty cute...but sometimes I feel like it’s trying too hard. A lot of the music isn’t really...memorable, but the characters are likable so it’s still worth the watch. 8/10

Disenchantment

Speaking of medieval comedies...Princess Bean doesn’t want to get married, mystical elf Elfo doesn’t want to live in an enchanted forest where everyone is happy all the time, and Bean’s personal demon Luci just wants to watch people suffer. Honestly, I wasn’t very into this show at first, but something compelled me to just keep watching, and by the end I was totally into it! This is one of those shows where you think there isn’t going to be a plot, but then the last few episodes come up and smack you in the face! 7.5/10

Round Planet

A documentary parody...mockumentary...satire...That’s really not a great way to describe it. It’s a nature documentary with funny commentary. I like nature shots and animals so I liked it, but there’s a lot of tangents and running jokes and British references that sometimes don’t land. Oh well, if you like unconventional documentaries, just watch it. 8/10

Honorable Mentions

DnDnD: I don’t think I’ve ever talked about this podcast before, but there’s a DnD podcast made by Practical Folks (aka the Drunk Disney youtube channel). It’s pretty good! I want an Adventure Zone crossover now!

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: Every time I think I’m out, it pulls me back in. I finally got the DLC and spent most of this month playing this freaking game AGAIN!

The Heathers soundtrack: I finally listened to the Heathers musical soundtrack...and I didn’t love it. There are some good songs in it, but overall I’m unimpressed. And I never could really get into the plot, I’ve always thought it was really weird and over dramatic.

Legendary by Stephanie Garber: I’m about halfway through this book, which is the second in the Caraval series. And it’s pretty good! More on that next month.

[citrusandbergamot]

you know, for such an amazing and fun-loving and quirky show, the RWBY fandom seems anything but. 

people’s reaction to stuff is so extreme. it’s not even discussions on headcanons, it’s outright righteousness. and...a lack of appreciation of characters having very flawed (re: human) reactions to stuff. 

I am really flabbergasted at the hatred directed towards team RWBY and JNR for how they’ve handled the big lore reveal. To be honest, it would have felt extremely false if everyone had been hunky-dory with Oz’s  secrets. His hair is legit full of big and important secrets and like, everything, absolutely everything has changed. Both teams have gone through hell and they have to reconcile their core beliefs and their understanding of the world to this new information. That’s not going to be easy. It hasn’t been easy. It’s been pretty ugly so far. 

That’s not a bad thing? It’s probably actually a good thing because it makes everything about the world more complex. It makes the characters more complex. It’s makes them more human. 

In some post, somewhere, about this subject, said ‘realism is bad storytelling’. And just like....what? What? 

No like, seriously, what the actual. You think that conflict and angst and doubt is only generated by the bad guys? That...it should only come from the bad guys? How...how boring is that. Oh my god, people. You know, this is why I hate most normal AUs, like coffee shop AUs, because no one ever misunderstands each other. No one ever says less than they mean. No one accidentally hurts someone. No one purposefully hurts someone. Everything’s fucking perfect all the time.

It all feels so goddamn false. Like using big spoonfuls of splenda instead of sugar, it just sticks in the back of my mouth and makes my teeth sore. I want characters who have to make up for something. I want characters who have to change. I want characters who refuse to change and how it changes the way people interact with them. I don’t care for stories about people never having doubt, never saying the wrong thing in anger, never lashing out first in order to protect themselves. It’s not pretty and it’s not easy, but it’s distinctly human. Like, I read a fic yesterday and there was self-hatred and tons of angst but everyone just...said what they meant, all the time. Everyone on the side of the angels was just like, oh yeah, this is what the plot needs to do, I have no other motivation other than helping it along. I’m going to say the right thing at the right time, always. The secondary characters had no drive or thoughts of their own. No doubts, no mistrust. No challenge. No growth. No life. 

The RWBY characters have gone through a lot. They’re not children any more. They’re not students. This season, and this reveal especially and everything that’s happened afterwards, has really propelled them into positions of authority within the world itself. They’re always been the main characters to the viewer, but now they are major players to people like Oz, Salem, Ironwood, Qrow. It is extremely important, in terms of the story, that team RWBY JNR have made the decision to keep going, to keep fighting with this knowledge. They no longer trust the adults to fix their problems. And they will hold the adults accountable for their actions. And that includes Oz. 

I mean, I love a broken character more than anything in life and Oz is as broken as they come. What Oz has been doing all these years/lifetimes is not enough. It’s not working. Clearly, it’s not working. Him keeping all that shit and trauma and whatnot inside is not working and people keep dying. The information/backstory had to come out, and they had to trust that they got the whole truth. 

Plus, there’s the fact that they don’t really interact with Oz on a personal level? They never have? I’m not surprised they didn’t offer comfort in the direct aftermath or since. This is ‘please ignore the man behind the curtain’ tipping point. This is the ‘whole damn saviour ideal is a lie’. There is no wizard, there never was. The great and powerful Oz is just a conman. This was always going to happen. This reveal was integral to Oz’s character and the plot, not just for backstory and lore but in how the main characters interact with him and with the world (re: Salem and the Grimm). Oz was their teacher and leader and saviour - literally more of a concept. He has never been on equal footing with any of them. How do you bridge that gap while still acknowledging how betrayed everyone feels? 

You don’t. You wait til the next volume. Cause you know who’s going to be in the next volume? General Ironwood!! Oz’s equal ...ish. But more importantly, a man who knew Oz’s secret. He and Glynda knew and they both knew that Qrow didn’t (rewatch season 2 if you don’t believe me). There’s going to be some comeuppance there. On a narrative level, it makes sense to push that emotional fallout until the story has someone on equal footing to Oz. Someone who clearly disagrees with Oz but still respects him, someone who can challenge both Oz and RWBY JNR and get them dealing with each other.

Oz has retreated at the moment because it makes sense, character-wise and narrative-wise. What’s more, Oz has been retreating for a long goddamn time. I think that Oz has been going through the motions. I think it’s been too long. I think too many people have died. I think he’s stopped believing that there will be an end to this horrific cycle. Ruby is the catalyst that will change his opinion on that. But it’s going to take a long time for Oz to listen to her and to confront himself. And not just because of the ...what are people calling it, abuse? of RWBY asking that question of Jinn. Oz does not trust people. The Jinn thing didn’t help but Oz was never going to trust them anyway. He was keeping his secrets to protect them, yes, but mostly to protect himself. 

But that’s going to change. Ruby is going to be the catalyst for that change. Oz is going to learn to trust them. But the story had to get through this first. Oz was never going to tell them. In another kind of story, RWBY would have gotten the truth from Salem. The bad guy taunts the good guys with the truth, blah blah blah, that story is so overdone, I’m really glad they’ve skipped it here. They don’t trust Oz at the moment, but they trust that they know what he’s been hiding from them AND the manner of the reveal and the horrific nature of what they saw is going to engender sympathy and compassion, once RWBY and JNR and Qrow actually step back from their hurt and betrayal. But that takes time. You may not like it, cause apparently people want stories to be super simple and full of characters who always do the right thing? 

Lol, yeah, okay

Realism is not a dirty word. Anger and hurt and bitterness are human emotions and certain characters have them in spades (Yang, Qrow, Jaune, Raven). It makes them more interesting. It gives them growth, something to overcome. Remember what Yang was like pre-season 3? She’s a different person now because of what she went through. Her zeal and optimism have been altered, permanently. She’s super depressed. Of course she’s going to be angry. She’s gotta learn to deal with that anger because she’s been angry since the Vytal festival. I would have been shocked if Yang had learned Oz’s secrets and been like, oh man, I’m no longer angry at you and the world because clearly you’re traumatized and you need a hug. Yang’s....not really that kind of person. But she’s not done yet working through her shit. She takes a while to process stuff remember. And there has been a fuckton of shit and her family is tied up in half of it.  

We’re going to get STRQ backstory or I’m going to start taking hostages. There’s some hell to pay there. Summer dead, Taiyang clearly not interacting with Oz at all if he can help it. Qrow left in the dark and drowning in alcohol, and Raven. Raven, who turned her back on Oz. Gee, I wonder why? 

Oz has very good reasons for keeping his mouth shut but people are still getting hurt. And trust is a two-way street. 

As for RWBY JNR reactions being extremely or ...mean? Abusive? Whatever it’s being called?  People are going to argue and feel hurt when they find out they’ve been lied to. The person doing the lying might have really good reasons to do so but that still doesn’t mean everyone will be okay with it right away. Characters are supposed to be complex. They’re supposed to struggle and make mistakes and react with emotions first and logic second. The way the emotional arc feels to us is not the same as it feels to the characters in the show. You know when you find out something and it shakes the very foundation of your trust in that person? Was it super easy to immediately go, oh no, it’s okay that you lied and manipulated me because you had your reasons? Can you shut off the hurt and the anger like flipping a switch? Haven’t you ever gotten pissed at somebody you love because you misunderstood something and still felt pissed later, even after the misunderstanding was cleared up? 

Emotions aren’t always rational. We don’t always react the way that we should have, the way that we would have, if we had been a little calmer. And there was nothing in that reveal that was calm inducing. All the information about Oz’s traumatic history probably paled in comparison to the reveal about the nature of the fight with Salem. As a viewer, and one who likes angst at that, the whole thing made Oz into my new favourite because aaaaaaangst and trauma are my bread and butter. But to the characters, in-universe? 

Yeah. Pretty sure the biggest takeaway was ‘okay, everything you do or have ever done is futile, so you’ve all suffered for nothing, kthanks.’

Of course they’re pissed. 

If they had just been super okay with everything from the get go, it would have been false. These characters have gone through some shit and they’ve had their whole understanding of the world turned upside down. Of course that’s going to affect them.

The fallout with Oz since the reveal makes sense, on an emotional narrative and pacing level and on a character level. They’re all going to grow from this and become stronger. Oz is going to find some peace, I just know he is. 

this is going to be what breaks the cycle. They’re going to have to confront Oz eventually. I think the reason why they haven’t rehashed any part of the fallout yet is because they want to tackle that in a completely different volume. It’s taken them 3 volumes to finally work through JNR’s issues post volume 3. The impact of that JNR scene with the statue in volume 6 would have been cheapened if the characters hadn’t been struggling with the thought of giving up, post-reveal. And that scene is probably one of the best in the whole series. Emotionally, it’s the most mature thing they’ve ever done. Would it have had the same resonance if they’d all been super okay with Oz? And been like, we’re here for you buddy, our hopes and dreams were based on lies this whole time and our friends died for nothing and we’re all probably going to die too but that’s super okay because your ex is an abusive psycho and you’re incredibly broken inside. Let’s all cuddle. 

Like, fuck that. Give me characters who are going to stand on their own two feet, who are afraid and powerless but unwilling to back down, who know they have no hope of winning but continue to fight nonetheless. Who’ll stare into the abyss with eyes unflinching, strength built upon truth, not falsehood. Because they must. Because it’s right. Because they are the only ones who can. 

I can’t be the only one who sees it, right? That this was necessary? For the characters to grow into real hunters? For them to truly be the change in the world? For RWBY to enter endgame? 

They’re going to break the cycle wide open. They had to have this knowledge and they have to come to terms with it. They have to find it in themselves to keep going. They’re going to prove Oz wrong, that people can learn the truth and still keep fighting. It’s not fate or destiny. It’s choice. 

I’ve been thinking about Pyrrha’s ‘do you believe in destiny’ line a lot while writing this. Because I didn’t get it for a super long time. Did she feel like she had to agree, because her life had been leading to the destiny of being the Fall Maiden? All that fighting ability, all that heart. It’s always bothered me that it implied it was her destiny to die like that, that the whole thing was inevitable. And with the reveal, futile.

(What’s in a name, right? Oh Pyrrha, Pyrrha, I’ll never be over you.)

But it wasn’t destiny. It was choice. That’s what makes that scene so goddamn beautiful. It was Pyrrha’s choice and finally acknowledging that has resolved 3 seasons worth of emotional tension. JNR has been so grief-stricken it’s been painful to watch. But necessary. So goddamn necessary. Otherwise, what’s the point of killing characters off? What’s the point of trauma if it can just be swept under a rug and forgotten about and the characters all reset to their base personalities? If reactions are all the same and characters interchangeable? I suuuuuuper don’t care for stories where characters stay exactly the same. I want it to mean something. I want them to struggle. I want them to have to make the choice between what is right and what is easy.

That’s what the characters are doing. They’re making a choice. Oz is super good at taking choices away from people. It’s not necessarily his fault but intentions are not the same as end result. That’s because it’s destiny but the cycle will never break that way. 

RWBY JNR and Qrow have to take their own actions separate from Oz’s machinations. It’s the only way they can win. This is what the narrative had to do. It’s not pretty at the moment but it’s going to be so much more satisfying in the end. They’re wounded, they all are. We have to feel how deep those wounds are to appreciate how they can heal. 

It’s choice. If was easy, what would be the point? 

(My god I love Oz so very, very much. His trauma reminds me a lot of Sam Winchester. And like Sam, the people around him are pretty judgmental of his past mistakes. It may be uncomfortable or aggravating to watch as a viewer because the punishment is widely disproportionate to the crime but. Like, of course Dean is going to act that way? He’s his own character, who is never going to be objective about Sam and Sam’s actions. It also generates a fuckton of self-hatred and angst for BOTH characters AND makes the moments where working together outweighs any interpersonal strife (eg: Dean stabbing Zachariah in season 5). That moment is sweet as fuck. Where the hell would the conflict have been that whole season if Dean had just been super okay with Sam opening the Cage? We knew he didn’t mean to. We knew Cas was the one who let him out. We knew the angels fucked over the voicemail. We knew Dean was being unfairly, disproportionately angry. We knew Dean had been the one to open the first seal. 

We knew Dean was being unreasonable and cruel. It made for a frustrating season. A whole season! Of characters being mean and sure, abusive.

So what.

No, seriously, so fucking what? It’s a great season. It’s the season that keeps on giving, in terms of Sam Winchester angst. I mean, post-Cage is where all the fun horror is, but Sam being isolated and filled with self-loathing and guilt, visited in his dreams by the biggest bad of all? They’re Made For Each Other. Egads, that’s some good shit right there. 

Can you imagine if Dean had just been....well, not-Dean about it? If he’d been some smol, soft, uwu boy who’d forgiven Sam immediately? Sam is so frigging heartfelt, he tries so hard. How could anyone not forgive him? (aaaah, the endless meta about Sam and forgiveness, Chuck in heaven, that’s som good shit). Not-Dean would have been the perfect, understanding brother. Not-Dean possibly would have comforted Sam during his various, horrifying withdrawals (goddammit Dean) but . That’s...not who the character is. That’s not how Dean was going to react. And what about all the angst? Where would that have come from? Where would those fantastic eps be of Dean losing faith? Sam trying to hold himself together because he is literally the one who never gives up and being scrapped down to nothing, over and over again because of it? And the resolution of all that? That their love for each other is beyond any hurt or betrayal or doubt they’ve caused each other. That’s...that’s good story telling. It’s fucked up and imperfect and there is some goddamn meat on it to sink into.) 

Stop sanitizing stories. Especially when the imperfect reactions are literally the driving force of the emotional narrative. 

Ugh. 

(Sam Winchester/Ozpin is now my favourite crack ship and I literally have half story mapped out in the time it’s taken me to write this rant, don’t @ me

traumatized playthings of immortal bad guys with a side order of identity/possession issues? caught between destiny and a hard place, with nothing but more trauma and pain to look forward to? two beings in the wasteland, suffering beyond endurance, without end, because giving up isn’t an option? 

yeah baby. oh freaking yeah.  

ship song: apres moi le deluge by Regina Spektor: I must go on standing, you can’t break that which isn’t yours, I must go on standing, it’s not my own, it’s not my choice

 yaaaaaaaas)  

[tialovestelevision]

A Buffy Dialogue - 6:1-8

T: It’s time for A Buffy Dialogue, this one on the opening act of Season 6. I’m joined here by Dragon, because there’s just so very much to talk about in these eight episodes. They’re sort of the establishing shots of this season, which is, oddly, the one with the most… start-to-end… season arc in the show. Like, there aren’t really any one-shot episodes so far. They all build the season’s story and emotional beats. So, Dragon, what shall we talk about first?

{*\../*} : Well, since the big arc of the season thus far has been about our characters and their personal motivations for their thoroughly disastrous choices, let’s do a character-by-character breakdown for the readers on where people are and what we think the writers are trying to tell us (and are actually telling us, not always the same thing). Some people are obviously not going to need much telling - the Trio basically speak for themselves, for instance, and Anya’s not got much going on except taking over the Magic Shop. But everyone else has issues! So let’s talk about them.

T: I think I’d like to start with Giles. His bad decisions are both fairly straightforward and the one whose mistakes are most understandable, I think. He’s not operating under any great trauma like Buffy, or mystical whatsit combined with the way the show metaphorized mundane problems like Willow. So… he seems like the onramp here.

{*\../*} : So at the end of “Tabula Rasa” we have Giles on a plane going to England because he’s spent the time since flying back in “Flooded” feeling like a barrier to Buffy’s recovery (probably best expressed in “I Wish I Could Stay”), and the evidence is fairly clearly on his side about the truth of that. He can’t stand watching her suffer at this stage in her relationship, and he’s making classically bad parenting-with-adult-children decisions like writing checks he can’t afford to write on a regular basis to cover bills and having parenting conversations for them instead of refusing and letting them make their own mistakes. That Dawn is being cast symbolically as Buffy’s kid is a bit of a problem given the realistic implications of having an older sister with no job or stable support system ‘raising’ a sibling only a few years younger, which the show actually talks about briefly in Season 5 and then drops completely for 6, and plays into the show’s overall failure to make a stable decision about how realistic it wants Buffy’s dealings with the ‘real’ world post-death to be. But that IS the symbolism here, and Giles is aware he’s acting an enabler to Buffy avoiding her responsibilities as Dawn’s guardian/parent. Given that he can’t make himself stop enabling her, removing himself is a logical choice. Maybe even a better one than staying. But from what you were writing about “Once More With Feeling,” you don’t seem to think so?

T: I hadn’t really thought about whether Giles could afford the check or not… I figured that, after Buffy got him three years of backpay in “Choices,” he probably had some extra cash lying about. Maybe not, though… he apparently spent his whole time from being fired by the Council in Season 3 to his return to England in “Bargaining” maintaining both a house in Sunnydale (and a nice one! But Angel had a mansion there and no money, and Dracula conjured a castle, and Glory kept a mansion or really lovely condo on a nurse’s salary, so Sunnydale’s real estate market apparently operates in some base-cthulu numerical system), so maybe he was in debt that the back pay paid off? Anyway, the show obviously wants us to think of the check as a bad thing for him to have done, and “he can’t actually afford it” is a better explanation for that than most.

{*\../*} : Especially if it’s “he can afford this one, but what about the next one?” which is actually pretty typical with parents and adult children.

T: That’s true. Anyway… to your point about how realistic Buffy’s post-resurrection mundane life is supposed to be… that’s kind of the key problem with the writing here, isn’t it? If we were going to treat it as realistic, the right answer by Giles would be to call the Council, inform them that they’re about to have one Slayer who’s in jail and another who’s homeless and can’t do any Slaying because she’s too busy working a menial job, and get them to start providing a stipend and maybe even paying for health insurance, then having Buffy set up six months of weekly sessions with a therapist who, living in Sunnydale, has almost certainly Seen Some Shit. If we’re going to treat it as metaphorical, shouldn’t there be a monster in the pipes? How can literal pipes break and cause metaphorical life problems? We have to keep this very careful balance of literal and metaphorical issues and barriers to solutions that the show never really gives us for any of what Giles is doing to make sense.

If there is no support network available for Buffy to draw from, she needs to keep the support network she has, because even if Giles’s current behavior is going to do more harm than good in the long run… well, the tire is flat. Yes, the Fix-A-Flat means it’ll cost more to repair later and might need replacing, but when it’s that or starve to death alone in the desert on the now-abandoned Route 66, you use the goddamn Fix-A-Flat.

{*\../*} : Yeah. A lot of this season really fails to cohere because it’s trying to apply the same making-metaphor-of-life-problems rules it uses in high school to young working adult drama, and that doesn’t really work very well at all. But since we just watched Willow wipe everybody’s memories and then Giles get on a plane anyway, I think we can agree that Giles is making a choice that will End Badly for reasons that have a lot to do with his personal relationship with Buffy and maybe less to do with an objective view of the overall situation.

T: Which one could say about Willow and the others in “Bargaining,” too, come to think of it. Oh, look, shiny transition!

{*\../*} : They work better when you don’t point them out, honey.

T: In the spirit of Buffy, I’m going to be impressed with the cleverness of my own writing even if my expressions of being impressed make it less clever.

{*\../*} : Fair play. Yes, the time-bomb we set up in “Bargaining” that finally blows up in “Once More with Feeling” by resurrecting Buffy is absolutely about putting personal emotional stuff above the moral or the practical. We talked about that quite a bit in “Afterlife,” but I think it’s important to pull out two pieces of parallel evidence from the rest of this first third of the season that show nobody has Learned Their Lesson at all. They’re actually not obviously related, because one is played as a gag and one is played as Serious Business complete with a Very Sad Song montage, but I think they are crucially connected: Willow’s stunts with first Tara’s memory and then everyone’s, and the fact that Xander summoned Sweet.

T: They’re both afraid. Willow has more power than Xander by far - I actually agree with Buffy that, by the end of Season 5, Willow has more power than anyone else in the main cast - but neither of them really knows how to prevent loss. I’m not sure if Buffy’s death helped form that fear, but I can pretty much guarantee that it’s on their minds.

{*\../*} : Absolutely. But they have another key commonality. If Buffy is currently the show’s metaphor/punching bag for trying to find your way in a world that’s financially unstable and doesn’t seem to care about your trauma while it’s checking you for credentials and contacts, Xander and Willow are both in the middle of another big life transition: adult relationships. It’s more obvious with Xander, because he and Anya finally come out about being engaged in “All The Way,” but let’s look at Tara and Willow for a minute. They’re living a house together, they’re supporting a household (do either of them have jobs? They seem like they must have jobs of some kind, but that’s never brought up. More realism problems), they’re effectively raising Dawn until Buffy comes back and even then they often seem to be acting as the heads of the household. They’re in a long-term, settled relationship. But they have never once, as far as we can tell, had a real actual fight before. They certainly haven’t learned to fight in a healthy way, which is an absolutely critical skill in a relationship where one partner comes from an abusive background.

So Willow’s on the cusp of having a wonderful adult lesbian family life, but she doesn’t know how to resolve conflict in it and she’s terrified beyond words of losing it. And, as we’ve established with Buffy, she’s got a ton of magical power and isn’t shy about throwing it at problems that scare her (Buffy’s death, Glory, maybe even Joyce’s death before that). Frankly, that she tries to magic her problems with Tara away is almost totally unsurprising in both the realistic and metaphorical senses.

T: True. The precise form of magic she chooses to use is, because Willow has spent most of the show as someone with intense emotional intelligence (Tara has more than her, but Willow spent the time before Tara’s arrival basically second only to Oz in ability to understand people’s needs and feelings) and Tara’s experiences make memory modification even worse than it would normally be, but… well, she has a hammer. Everything from death to life to deities to relationship issues looks like nails. She has a really, really good hammer.

{*\../*} : I think this another of those cases where the writing kinda trips and falls flat trying to get at the metaphor. Because if magic is power, in a different drama setting where power was fame or money Willow would be covering over their relationship problems with a fancy trip or flashy gifts or something of the sort. If magic is lesbian and/or female empowerment, then she'd probably be covering up their fight with really great lesbian sex instead of dealing with the issue. But Willow’s hammer is magic, so that’s where the writers go, and they’re willing to let Willow look either stupid or callous or both for not thinking about the correlation with Glory.

T: She left the Lethe’s bramble in front of the fire. They are obviously willing to make her look both. I don’t think they know how much both they have her looking.

{*\../*} : True facts. But having made that bed, now Willow is crying on the floor in her bathroom while Michelle Branch plays super-sad music and Tara does the I Am Leaving packing montage. Surely she will take this as a chance to sort herself out and learn better conflict management skills, right?

T: Because the next three episodes are called “Coping,” “Adjusting,” and “Living a Healthy Life.” No, wait, the other thing.

{*\../*} : Yeah.....  Anyway, my point from earlier is that Xander doing something extremely similar with Sweet - to try to force a happy ending with Anya - is played for comedy because Xander himself is usually played for comedy, but he’s basically doing the same shit as Willow but with less power and more stupid.

T: And by the by, how did I miss that the singer in the Bronze was Michelle Branch? I called out Hinton Battle over and over and missed Michelle Branch. I am shamed. She doesn’t have three Tony Awards, but she does have a Grammy.

And… yeah. Xander, look back at your life. You’ve lived the life needed to answer this question. “In all of history, how many times has summoning a demon worked out well?”

{*\../*} : Do Wolfram & Hart count?

T: Whenever they summon demons, they have to find more evil lawyers willing to risk being devoured by demons to hire. I imagine that’s a pretty employee-friendly job market from the start.

{*\../*} : So speaking of that ending musical montage, Buffy is doing a dead stare over the bar at the Bronze and then she’s locking mouths with Spike behind the stairs. This does not portend good things. I think your coverage of her in “Once More with Feeling” pretty much sums up the lousy place she’s in, but I thought she was starting to look up before the big whammy spell took her memories away. Is she basically reverting to bad coping because of the opposite of the King Ralph thing (speaking of Xander playing other people’s serious stuff for comedy beats)? The spell took her memory of losing heaven away and then gave it back, and she’s having a meltdown instead of laughing?

T: That seems possible. Alternatively, she was just getting better at putting on a happy face. Or her emotional arc over these episodes makes no sense. The writers certainly aren’t telling us. It would, though, make the King Ralph line contribute more than a quick laugh at an outdated cultural reference, and Buffy loves doing that, so let’s go with that.

{*\../*} : I think there will be more to say about Buffy after the upcoming episodes, but I did want to note one thing that I thought was interesting - she’s in a weird liminal space in these eight episodes in a lot of ways, hanging between the dead-and-complete heroine and the newly arrived, very harried twenty-something with serious trauma, but one that stands out to me in particular is her relationship with Dawn.

When we see her with Dawn in “After Life,” Dawn is acting almost as a surrogate mother to her - cleaning her, bandaging her, trying to get through to her. In “Flooded” and “All the Way,” Buffy is very distinctly acting in the maternal role toward Dawn - trying to provide, trying to hammer out the logistical kinks of life, trying to manage Dawn’s social behavior. She winds up defaulting to getting Giles to help in all three areas, but she takes them on as her job to then press him to help her with in the first place. But in “Tabula Rasa,” memories removed, she and Dawn revert very quickly to a much more natural role as sisters and seem much happier about it.

T: I think Dawn might actually be the only member of the cast to be really aware of how badly off Buffy is in “After Life,” and, to a degree, the episodes after it. Well, her and Spike. This is a Problem for Buffy, since Spike is basically toxic relationship structures given human form then having had that human form’s soul ripped out and body filled with even more toxic ideas about what love means, and Dawn is a teenager who needs a ton of taking care of herself (and is also, I’ll note, the victim of an inordinate amount of trauma - trauma that starts with finding out that she doesn’t, technically, exist and moves on to watching her friends suffer torture and injury and risk death to keep her safe, being betrayed by a trusted ally, and watching two parent figures die within months of each other, one of whom literally flings herself off a tower to keep Dawn safe). Neither is in a position to do much to help Buffy, apart from simple physical and emotional first aid from Dawn in “After Life.”

{*\../*} : Something that literally just occurred to me while I was thinking about the last scene of “Tabula Rasa” earlier - Dawn is, of course, being played in that scene as the teenage daughter reacting with anger when her abused mother moves out of the house. That was obvious from the get-go. But if she’s being played that way in that scene, and Willow and Tara are being played very much as her parents, who does that make Buffy (who is also being played as her parent)?

Crazy theory - someone in the Buffy writing staff was casting Buffy in the role of a biological parent rebuilding a relationship with their teenage child who’s living with a married lesbian couple that doesn’t include that parent.

T: Wouldn’t that make Willow her ex? That… actually makes a ton of sense, given the family and relationship structure here.

{*\../*} : Her ex who’s still pathologically attached to her and literally drags her back into the life of the family? Wow. This reading is seriously gaining steam.

T: And she does that while still in a relationship with her new-ish partner. A relationship that is, on the surface, quite healthy. Yeah… we’ve got a winner here.

{*\../*} : Healthy right up until the point when Willow starts becoming (magically) emotionally abusive and engaging in (magical) gaslighting, which her ex (Buffy) is too busy with her own issues to remark on.... Shit.

T: Hence “on the surface.” But yeah… I think we’ve found a model by which everyone’s behavior, other than Willow being stupid with the Lethe’s bramble, actually makes sense. Buffy is back somewhere she doesn’t want to be but loves the people there too much to tell them she wants to go literally anywhere else, Willow is trying to drag Buffy back into her life, Xander is Xander, Dawn is watching her family disintegrate for the umpteenth time in the last six months. Everything fits. Except the Lethe’s bramble in front of the fire. But the only possible model to explain that is “... and using magic makes you occasionally suffer bouts of extreme stupidity.”

… Or Willow wanting to get caught, because it’ll get Tara out of the way in a way that leaves her with less guilt (because Tara would be doing the leaving) and lets her pursue her ex again unimpeded.

It’s not that I don’t buy this model. It’s that I hate it.

{*\../*} : Season 6 - when it’s not incoherent, the model for coherence sucks. Thanks for listening to us in this little catch-up, y’all, and having a good night. Coming up next, “Coping,” “Adjusting,” and “Living a Healthy Life.” Really. We swear.

T: I want to live in a world where those are the next episodes. It sounds like a better world. A world where there is a kitten on my head right now, and it’s mewing and adorable. There is no kitten on my head.

[njawaidofficial]

'Mr. Robot' Season 3: Everything to Know Before the Premiere

http://styleveryday.com/2017/10/10/mr-robot-season-3-everything-to-know-before-the-premiere/

'Mr. Robot' Season 3: Everything to Know Before the Premiere

“Mind awake, body asleep. Mind awake, body asleep.”

The soothing mantra of the hauntingly talented hacker Elliot Alderson (Rami Malek) has likely been ringing in the ears of Mr. Robot fans ever since the Sam Esmail thriller shut down its operations (and very nearly shut down its main character) at the end of season two more than a year ago. Now, “Stage Two” of the Dark Army and Mr. Robot’s (Christian Slater) plan is on the cusp of execution, just in time for the launch of season three on Oct. 11.

Of course, those notions are as alien as the techno-jargon found throughout the series for anyone who hasn’t given Mr. Robot much thought in the year since it aired its most recent episode. But considering the incredibly dense nature of the storytelling (the USA Network drama rarely spells anything out for its viewers, and the season three premiere expects fans to remember the events of this complicated tale in great detail), it’s crucial to remember where everything stands as we prepare to return to a world living in the aftermath of the Five/Nine Hack — at least, a better memory than the one Elliot himself is forced to work with.

For a truly deep dive into the current standing of Mr. Robot, we invited you to listen to the first episode of our new podcast covering the series, a collaboration with Post Show Recaps hosts Josh Wigler (that’s me!) and Antonio Mazzaro. All season long, we’ll be providing podcast primers on every episode, starting here with an overview of the series and a table-setting for the season ahead:

In addition to what’s covered in the podcast, read on for some of the fundamentals of what you need to know heading into the new era of Mr. Robot.

1. It’s a Tangled Web

Where do we even begin as we attempt to untangle the events of the past two seasons? It’s best to start at the big season one headline: Elliot Alderson, a distressed but incredibly gifted individual, secretly boasts a Hyde to his Jekyll in the form of Mr. Robot, a second personality who takes on the likeness of Elliot’s late father. The two personalities are at war with one another, with Robot intent on overhauling the world through militant revolution, and Elliot intent on preventing himself from causing lasting harm. Through two seasons, the Robot side of Elliot has scored the lion’s share of the victories, all but fully bringing down the global conglomerate E Corp (alternately known in Elliot’s worldview as Evil Corp) through a massive attack known as the Five/Nine Hack, and now on the edge of instituting a second stage of that plan — appropriately called “Stage Two.” 

There’s a lot more to keep in mind, between Darlene (Carly Chaikin) getting burned and cornered by the dogged Dom DiPierro (Grace Gummer) of the FBI; Angela’s (Portia Doubleday) apparent indoctrination into the mysterious Dark Army; and the boiling feud between two of the most powerful individuals in the world, Phillip Price (Michael Cristofer) and Whiterose (BD Wong). At the heart, however, it’s most critical to understand that the rivalry between the two sides of Elliot has escalated tremendously, thanks to the big season two cliffhanger…

2. The Key Word

When season three begins, there’s one buzz word to keep in mind: “disintegration.” That’s how Esmail and others involved in the series describe the relationship between Elliot and Mr. Robot this year, or lack thereof. Season two ended with the Mr. Robot side of Elliot’s personality proving his commitment to his cause by inviting a gunshot wound, potentially taking him off the playing field, but at least keeping the operation in motion. Season two also concluded with confirmation that Elliot survived the injury (it’s hard, if not outright impossible to imagine this show existing without Elliot in the hub of it), but the damage is done: Elliot and Robot’s alliance, as much as one ever really existed, has been blown to bits, thanks to a single bullet. 

Beyond Elliot and Robot’s dynamic, expect other relationships to disintegrate in their own right, whether that’s Elliot and Darlene — due to her precarious situation with Dom and the FBI — or Angela and Phillip Price — due to her potential newfound loyalty with Whiterose — as just two of many potential examples.

3. America’s Most Wanted

Season three stands to bring one of the most important figures in the show’s mythology out of the shadows and back into the light: Tyrell Wellick (Martin Wallström), once on track to become the youngest Chief Technology Officer in E Corp history until a string of self-sabotaging acts turned him into the most wanted man alive. One of them, at least. Tyrell was an instrumental player in the Five/Nine Hack, teaming up with Elliot — or Robot, more accurately — and then disappearing into the ether, almost completely unseen during season two.

The season two finale finally brought Tyrell back into the fold, as it was revealed he wasn’t secretly dead, as Robot tried to convince Elliot. But where exactly was Tyrell over the course of the season, and what exactly has he been into in the time since his disappearance from the public eye? We’re bound to find out this year, as Mr. Robot can’t get away with keeping Tyrell in the dark for much longer. Keep an eye out on the inevitable reunion between Tyrell and his wife Joanna (Stephanie Corneliussen), one of the most intimidating character on the show.

4. The Rose Blooms

Another power player from Robot lore set for an expanded role this season: BD Wong’s Whiterose. Or is it Minister Jiang? Depends on the day and occasion. The veteran actor plays one of the single most fascinating and powerful characters in the series, as both the head of the Dark Army hacker group as well as China’s Minister of State Security. In her private moments, she seems to prefer the Whiterose moniker, so that’s where we’ll settle as well — but that’s about the extent of our confidence when it comes the time-obsessed figure, who comes equipped with some of the most destructive potential of anyone on the show.

“First of all, every trans character on television creates a dialogue about trans people, which is super valuable,” Wong previously told The Hollywood Reporter about playing Whiterose. “We need to get people with the program about what trans people even fucking are. Those of us who embrace trans people, like myself, forget that it doesn’t come easily for people. Here is a character that, for all intents and purposes — there is a poetry of Sam’s utilization of this character as trans — is rather symbolic. What I mean is that he really wants to discuss in a big way on the show the power dynamics associated with gender. There’s a great challenge in being a powerful woman in a powerful white man’s world.”

5. Cannavale Games

And now, a new player enters the arena: Bobby Cannavale, of Vinyl, Boardwalk Empire, Oz, and several other films and shows that aren’t associated with HBO. Given the secrecy surrounding the story of Mr. Robot, it’s not a shock that there’s very little information we currently know about Cannavale’s character — but as the only new series regular on the board (Wong’s promotion notwithstanding), and given the caliber of actor enlisted for the role, it’s safe to say Cannavale’s presence will loom large throughout season three.

With that said, here’s what we do know: Cannavale is playing a used car salesman named Irving. Really, that’s the full extent of what we know. We can make some leaps from there — that perhaps Irving is involved in the mysterious car drama surrounding Tyrell Wellick’s disappearance, for one thing; or that whatever he’s selling, it’s not all that it’s cracked up to be. However he factors into the narrative, Irving stands out as the most intriguing new element in the mix.

6. A Slimmer Robot

Season two of Mr. Robot clocked in at 12 episodes, many of them equipped with extended runtimes. Between Elliot’s initial incarceration through the first two-thirds of the season, as well as the expanded focus on the greater ensemble, the second year of the award-winning series felt fuller than its first season — for better or for worse, depending on your outlook.

But season three aims to bring the series back to basics, at least in terms of how it will unfold: a lean 10 episode order, the same amount of installments as seen in season one. Given the current complexity of the narrative, can Mr. Robot accomplish all of its season three business with only ten episodes? That’s one of the big questions heading into the season — but it also presents the possibility for a leaner and tighter thrill-ride than anything the show has put forth before, both an exciting and daunting prospect to consider.

7. The Loose Ends

How will Darlene escape the FBI’s wrath? What are Angela’s true motives? Should we be worried about Trenton and Mobley, the fsociety hackers last seen in Arizona fielding an unexpected visit from the deadly Dark Army agent Leon, played by Joey Badass? Are we really delving into questions of time travel and parallel universes, as Whiterose has seemingly intimated? And what exactly is inside the Washington Township power plant? Really, the list of lingering questions still in the mix for Mr. Robot is vast, but season three stands ready to tie up at least a few of those loose ends — and at the end of the day, it all comes back to the man (or men) in the title.

“I’ve looked back on the second season and I’ve seen a lot of similarities with The Empire Strikes Back, in terms of Luke/Elliot going away and isolating themselves, while their sister is out there and battling the evil empire,” Esmail previously told THR about how he views the road ahead for season three. “I think this is the return of Elliot. Season three, and the way I’ve been thinking about it, is sort of the return to Elliot — but not the naive Elliot we saw at the beginning of the season. It’s the Elliot we’ve seen go through this horrific experience from the first and second seasons, and with all of that in mind, that’s going to make this new Elliot come into fruition in the next season.

Bonus: One Last Listen

Still looking for ways to catch up ahead of season three? Once again, we have you covered on the podcast front, with a second preview show — this one guiding you through 18 key scenes from the series you ought to watch in order to freshen up on all things Robot.

Follow THR.com/MrRobot for interviews, news, podcasts and more all season long. Mr. Robot returns Oct. 11.

              Mr. Robot

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