#all four of us have huge networks of friends in this game

[sparklehoard]

Oooooohhhg my dnd campaign just hit it's armageddon.

[topazadine]

Good Motivations for Continuing to Write

I think it's so important that we be realistic about what we are aiming to achieve when we write. This motivation is what makes it possible to continue when things get hard and we're feeling stuck, and it needs to be something that deeply, instinctively drives you or it won't stick.

But I need to put a huge, important red flag warning here.

Fame and fortune cannot be your primary motivator.

Yes, it's possible to make six figures a year with writing, even if you self-publish.

You really shouldn't listen to someone who says this never happens and that all writers are broke pathetic losers. Rather than being "brutally honest," it's more likely that said advice-giver has not been able to achieve any success and is bitter about their lack of sales, so they project and insist no one can succeed. Crab in bucket mentality.

However, making a steady income from creative writing takes a certain kind of person.

Rich authors have skills that are completely outside of writing. This includes marketing and promotion, networking, and consumer research; ie, a lot of business skills.

Yes, even tradpub authors need to do a lot of their own marketing; getting with a publishing house isn't an excuse to coast. From speaking to tradpub authors, I have learned that marketing teams don't do anywhere near as much as you think they do to help you.

It is of course possible to learn all of these skills. There are tons of excellent free resources out there, as well as books and manuals by successful writers. You can also take courses at your local community college in marketing or business. This is both way more affordable than a four-year university, and they are often more accommodating. Plus, you're supporting your community with your tuition!

But you have to have the desire to learn that, which takes a lot of work. You have to be the special kind of author who enjoys both the business side and the writing side.

In some cases, you have to be willing to shell out a ton of money to contract ghostwriters. (Which I think is lazy tbh.) Quantity is the name of the game in writing, so you have to keep pushing yourself to produce more. Most of us do not have ghostwriting money. And you'd still need all the other skills or you're just throwing money away.

So, if you are not willing to do some or all of these ...

Develop and pay a marketing team

Teach yourself those skills

Take business classes

Network with everyone

Get a degree in publishing

... then yes, you are likely not going to make a lot of money from your writing. You need to decide if you are okay with that.

Personally, I look at it this way: it's wonderful if I do make a ton of money from my writing or get famous or whatever. Of course I'd never turn down cash.

BUT if those things did not happen, and I was a nobody forever, I'd still be happy with my work, because I am proud of it and enjoyed the process. I am motivated by a few different things, which I will explain after I share a list of motivators.

Now that we understand that, here are some of the most positive reasons to motivate you to keep going when you feel trapped by the narrative.

Hold them close and don't let them go!

Improving your skills

Building community

Meeting like-minded people

Expressing your innermost thoughts

Satisfying the human urge to create

Learning and growing as a person

Trying out new things (for the research!)

Working through your own problems

Escaping from the real world for a while

Examining real-world issues through art

Looking at yourself and others in a new way

Understanding complex problems

Teaching others what you've learned

Creating imaginary friends

Making others happy

Many writers are motivated by multiple of these, or even all of them to different degrees. Sometimes, it's not clear what your primary motivator, and that's okay; as long as something is pushing you to keep going, it's not always necessary to psychoanalyze it.

For me, I'm motivated primarily by these factors:

Improving my skills

Satisfying my urge to create

Examining real-world issues through art

Working through my own problems

Applying my education by teaching others

Making others happy

Honestly, even one person enjoying my work makes it worthwhile. I was especially proud that my mom liked my book because she's my favorite person, and getting her approval is very important to me.

Knowing that I gave someone a few hours of relief from their problems is incredibly gratifying. I have spent a large portion of my life escaping into other worlds through books; they've gotten me through difficult times and given me comfort. Being able to pay it forward by doing that for someone else makes me feel like I've made the world a better place, if only in the most miniscule way.

It's nice to get royalties, and one day, I hope to break even on the money I've spent on self-publishing (yes, you do have to invest funds in self-pub if you want to do it right). But ultimately, selling just one or two books is great, as long as the consumer enjoyed it and felt they got their money's worth.

Also, as I've mentioned in previous posts, writing has helped to break me out of my shell because I'm one of those writers who craves verisimilitude. Wrong details can really break immersion, and I don't want that.

In a fantasy world, I get to bullshit a lot, but any time there is anything analogous to reality, I need it to pass the sniff test. That has led me to take up new hobbies and research things I'd never cared about otherwise. Like, did you know that there are 128 grasshopper species in Mongolia?! Holy shit! There are over 10,000 different grasshopper species worldwide! That's insane!

Anyway, maybe you don't really know why you write, just that you do.

These questions might help you find your motivator.

What kinds of reactions give you the most pleasure? Someone liking the plot, or the characters, or the worldbuilding? What are the best compliments you've received about your work? If you died and people were talking about your writing, what would you want them to say? When you're really struggling with writer's block, what gets you out of it? What is your favorite part of writing? Is it the research, the wordplay, the character building? Would you be okay if no one ever read your writing? Why or why not? What's your worst-case scenario for writing (other than never selling anything)? Is it someone saying that your writing is unrealistic, or that it's melodramatic, or that the characters feel undeveloped and flat? Why did you begin writing in the first place? Was it to express yourself, share stories for other people, work through personal issues, get attention? What would be the greatest award you could achieve for your writing? Don't just think about literary awards but anything. What if your book won the Nobel Peace Prize? Or got you an honorary degree from a university you like? Or recognition from an organization you admire, like NASA? If you think about it carefully, that can give you an understanding of what you really care about deep down. If you were interviewed about your work, what would you want the interviewer to ask?

It's so important to have something to drive you, and I hope you find it.

If you enjoyed this, consider picking up a copy of my debut book, 9 Years Yearning.

9 Years Yearning is a gay coming-of-age story set in a realistic fantasy world with poetry magic, featuring fistfights, horses, and a battle scene at the end!

It'd be the greatest honor to me if you were able to pass a few happy hours reading about dumb oblivious gay men.

[elmaestrostan]

It makes me sad knowing what this sweet bean went through towards the end at Arsenal, but… damn, I’m glad if it had to happen to lead to this.

He’s ours and he’s perfect 💜💙

Paywall article text under the cut 🤝

Upstairs at Aston Villa’s Bodymoor Heath training ground, overlooking the newly refurbished gymnasium, sits Unai Emery’s office.

His room is divided into three, with a door-sized hole between each. It is where Villa’s footballing decision-makers for the head coach, Monchi and Damian Vidagany, work.

“Obsessive” is a frequently used description from those who have worked with Emery. It is his overarching coaching trait and a blessing or a curse, depending on the club he works at.

It is four years to the day since Emery was sacked at Arsenal. It hurt him deeply given it was a decision he did not see coming. Such was his insular, all-consuming manner, he felt blindsided and unaware of the growing scepticism in his project. He believed there remained total belief in him having integrated young players, such as Gabriel Martinelli, Bukayo Saka and Eddie Nketiah into the first team, which, in his mind, displayed the early buds of a new, youthful Arsenal.

UNAI-EMERY-BUKAYO-SAKA-

Emery gave Saka his Arsenal debut (Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)

Since his sacking, however, the 52-year-old has spoken to close friends, accepting he was too focused on just the football aspect within a club where politics are rife and diplomacy is key.

Increasingly at Arsenal, he was regarded as too introspective and not tending to the broader picture. The difference at Villa is that they indulge his footballing obsessions, building a network of his own choosing around him, all of whom he trusts implicitly and, as explained by Vidagany, a close friend and the director of football, takes care of most off-the-field matters.

He shares a trusting relationship with owners Wes Edens and Nassef Sawiris, demonstrated in their holding company, V Sports, announcing a partnership with Real Union earlier this week. In June, Emery and his brother, Igor, acquired a controlling stake in the Spanish club, for whom their father and grandfather both played and who now sit in the regional third tier.

Arsenal are a huge club interweaving several large departments. Politics is naturally at stake and, as his predecessor Arsene Wenger was deft in doing, needs an all-encompassing remit that involves managing areas outside of just football. Yet Emery is fanatic about improving his side from a tactical perspective. He pays little attention outside of his close circle and footballing bubble which, invariably, means the structure around him needs to be managed from elsewhere.

As he does at Villa working from 7am to 7pm, he would be at Arsenal’s London Colney training ground until late, brimming with ideas and designing training sessions that were often long. They could irk players, especially on the days before games when Emery was known to spend two to three hours on the grass, practising shape work.

The network Emery inherited at Arsenal was unstable and the boardroom in a state of flux. For a coach replacing a figurehead such as Wenger, whose fingerprints were all over the club, stability from above was paramount.

It was quickly found wanting. Then chief executive Ivan Gazidis immediately left for AC Milan, while recently appointed head of recruitment Sven Mislintat and head of football relations Raul Sanllehi did not last long. Other figures involved in the inner mechanisms, including head of scouting Francis Cagigao and contract broker Huss Fahmy, departed.

Emery wanted to be solely the head coach. This was his strength and why he held three Europa League winners medals — he would add another at his next job Villarreal — and seven trophies in two years at Paris Saint-Germain. Emery did not want to be directly involved in transfer negotiations, only interested in the outcome of deals, nor did he want governance over the day-to-day running of the club.

One of the first calls Emery made before joining Villa was to Vidagany, who initially came in as his personal assistant, so he could manage those aspects off the field. Augmented by the arrival of the president of football operations, Monchi, in the summer, he and Vidagany take care of transfer negotiations, act as sounding boards for players’ and agents’ queries and connect the different departments together. It is widely accepted Emery did not have those figures of personal connection at Arsenal, with Villa intending from the outset to build the club around him.

Vidagany, left, is a key figure in Emery’s staff at Villa (David Rogers/Getty Images)

Within an executive structure that was unsettled, the schism between Arsenal’s departments continued to grow.

“If Mikel (Arteta) had come in straight after Arsene and tried to apply these kinds of hard and fast rules, it would never have worked,” one source told The Athletic in April 2021.

Crucially, it meant the backing for Emery was never firm. The general sense of Emery was that he was so consumed by football that he occasionally failed to see the bigger picture or relate to others.

Even though he was not overly personable, he still retained a warmth. Almost everyone at Arsenal still speaks highly of Emery, even if his sacking hurt him. They are pleased to see his progress since his sacking in November 2019 and his remarkable first year at Villa.

The underlying theme behind Emery’s second crack in England — from a figure of ridicule to being viewed as one of Europe’s elite coaches again — is learning the lessons from Arsenal. He knew a support network that worked in his best interests was essential in building Villa in his image.

Villa staff do not underestimate Vidagany’s importance. There is a feeling that, if Emery had Vidagany at Arsenal, Emery would still be the manager in north London. Similarly at Paris Saint-Germain, Vidagany might have helped manage internal politics and manage broader departments.

When Emery was appointed head coach in October 2022, Villa brought in six staff members to form his backroom team, all known to Emery or who previously worked with him. More Spanish-speaking figures have joined since. Previous sporting director Johan Lange moved away from the day-to-day running of the club to assist the owners in their multi-club model plans before leaving for Tottenham Hotspur, along with former head of recruitment Rob Mackenzie in October.

Both decided to pursue new endeavours after Villa’s existing model was altered to suit Emery. This included the hiring of Alfredo Benito — a former team-mate of Emery’s at Toledo — in a global technical role and another scout in Pablo Rodriguez, who was a former team-mate at Racing Ferrol. Vidagany’s official title changed from personal assistant to director of football in the summer.

Monchi, a close aide from their time at Sevilla, drives the recruitment process under Emery’s demands. Emery, Vidagany and Monchi have formed a “power triangle” in charge of the critical decisions.

Emery views Pep Guardiola’s structure at Manchester City as the most conducive to empowering managerial success. Those close to Emery believe he is on the same level as Guardiola when assessing the best coaches in the world and point out that City’s manager, similarly to Villa’s head coach, has good friends in the boardroom, such as managing director Ferran Soriano and director of football Txiki Begiristain.

“What we need to do here is to let Unai take the sporting decisions, let Monchi choose the players with Unai and all of us provide a strong structure — like a fortress — to give them time to develop the project,” Vidagany told The Athletic in October. “Because in the end, the difference between success and failure is time.”

Sources close to Villa’s players say Emery does not tend to have conversations with members of the team unless they are in matchday squads. Some who have spent prolonged periods out with injury, such as defender Kortney Hause, have only briefly spoken to Emery.

The Spaniard has, however, shown an adept balance in choosing times to learn about his players. During Villa’s pre-season tour of the U.S. this summer, Emery spoke at length with younger players, asking about their ambitions and backgrounds, right down to what their parents do.

Pre-season was exhausting. Lots of travel with lots of games afforded little opportunity for downtime and pushed players to physical exertion, far more than what is accustomed. Yet, among Villa’s players and staff, there is total buy-in, which was not always the case at Arsenal, where certain staples of his management — including lengthy video analysis sessions — were met with consternation.

“With (Steven) Gerrard, training was just training,” says a source close to a Villa player, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “But Emery is so detailed, as he was at Arsenal. He coached them and continues to coach them in every facet of football every single day.”

Emery is demanding of his players (James Gilbert/Getty Images for Premier League)

“The mentality, the desire to win — just everything about him has been absolutely brilliant,” said captain John McGinn following Villa’s 2-1 victory away to Tottenham Hotspur. “He is obsessed about winning today, absolutely obsessed. That mindset and mentality is put into our heads. When we go behind, before we would have crumbled, but today we had our chests out.”

Villa players see purpose in his lengthy video sessions because the benefits are tangible on a matchday. At Arsenal, though, a different view was shared. “When he was doing a tactical presentation, there was a lot of chat,” said one observer.

Emery is highly regarded and accomplished among coaching circles. One young manager at an upwardly mobile side in England’s higher leagues described Emery to The Athletic as “interesting and excellent” in his approach, expressing his joy at watching Villa from a tactical perspective.

“If anyone is trying to get hold of me and I’m not answering, I’m in the meeting room,” said McGinn. “He does a lot of hard work. He wants to win, he’s won throughout his career and there’s no reason why he can’t do that here. He’s drilling that into us. There are a lot of details, a lot of thinking and a lot of concentration required from us. He’s making people concentrate that I didn’t think were capable… I’m not naming any names.”

Emery’s reputation has recovered in England and, four years to the day since his departure from Arsenal, his stock has never been higher. A coach who learned the right lessons but refused to change his principles.

[lipsyncforyourlife]

TV’S ORIGINAL WORD GAME IS BACK WITH HOST RUPAUL CHARLES WELCOMING 4 NEW TEAMS TO TACKLE THE LINGO BOARD, BUT ONLY 1 DUO WILL TAKE HOME THE $50,000 JACKPOT PRIZE, ON “LINGO,” WEDNESDAYS AT 9 PM

TV’s original word game is back with host RuPaul Charles welcoming four new teams to tackle the LINGO board every Wednesday night, but only one duo will take home the $50,000 jackpot prize, Wednesdays (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network, and available to stream live and on demand on Paramount+

“Episode 2” Wednesday, Jan. 18 (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT)

In tonight’s word game, a former history teacher and her daughter take on longtime friends in a must-see LINGO Battle, while two friends use southern charm against a relentless husband-and-wife duo.

“Episode 3” Wednesday, Jan. 25 (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT)

In tonight’s word game, a new couple goes head-to-head with friends that like to bare it all, followed by a memorable LINGO Showdown with a married couple taking on brothers that goes down to the wire.

“Episode 4” Wednesday, Feb. 1 (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT)

In tonight’s word game, LINGO skills are tested when Midwestern brothers face off with Southern sisters, then a mother-daughter duo flexes their wordplay skills against an entertaining in-law team from New York.

“Episode 5” Wednesday, Feb. 8 (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT)

In tonight’s word game, best friends from Texas take on siblings in a high-energy matchup, while friends from California face off against high school sweethearts in an entertaining and close battle.

“Episode 6” Wednesday, Feb. 15 (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT)

In the first word battle of tonight’s game, old buddies and police officers will have to get past twin sister telepathy, then it’s a Texas couple facing off against a mother-daughter pair, all ending in a surprise celebration.

“Episode 7” Wednesday, March. 8 (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT)

Tonight’s word game is a family affair as siblings encounter a mother-daughter duo in a high-scoring battle, and it goes right down to the wire as father and son test their bond against a new couple.

“Episode 8” Wednesday, March. 15 (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT)

There’s more word game fun when a pair of Idaho sisters show off their word skills against girlfriends from Maryland, then it’s a family showdown when rhyming-name sisters take on a Midwestern father and son.

“Episode 9” Wednesday, March. 22 (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT)

In tonight’s word game it’s brothers versus sisters in a LINGO battle of the sexes, followed by Vegas kickball buddies facing off against a Southern California mother and daughter.

“Episode 10” Wednesday, March. 29 (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT)

In tonight’s word game, Midwestern friends take on sister and brother in a tight game of LINGO, and twin brothers use telepathy to try and outwit the connection of a mother and daughter team, ending in a memorable Final Showdown.

“Episode 11” Wednesday, April 5 (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT)

In tonight’s word game, these battles answer the question of which team is more in sync: married couples or longtime friends – resulting in a huge showdown.

“Episode 12” Wednesday, April. 12 (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT)

The LINGO season finale comes down to the wire and either good friends or family members will take home the jackpot.

About Objective Media Group

Objective Media Group comprises industry-leading production companies across London, Los Angeles, Glasgow and Manchester. OMG companies excel in world class, award-winning scripted, entertainment and reality television.  These include “The Cube” for TBS, “12 Dates of Christmas” for HBO Max, “The Great American Recipe” for PBS, “Worst Cooks in America” for Food Network, “Flirty Dancing” for Channel 4 and FOX, “Wheeler Dealers” for Discovery, “Sweet Life: Los Angeles” for HBO Max and “Feel Good” for Netflix.

About Lingo

All3Media International has sold the format in more than 17 territories, with versions of the hit show produced in major markets including the UK, Italy and Spain – where the series is currently airing – as well as the US, Netherlands and France. There is a Lingo boardgame, Facebook game and app available.

CHEAT TWEET: TV’s original word game is back with host @RuPaul welcoming four new teams to tackle the LINGO board every Wednesday night, but only one duo will take home the $50,000 jackpot prize @lingocbs Wednesdays @CBS! 9/8c. https://bit.ly/3Wacs00

Click HERE for Photos

Website: https://www.cbs.com/shows/lingo

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LingoCBS

Instagram: @lingocbs

CBS Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/CBSTweet

CBS Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CBS

RuPaul Charles on Twitter: @RuPaul

RuPaul on Instagram: @rupaulofficial

***

Press Contacts:

Lori Dellicolli

ladellicolli@viacomcbs.com

Trenise Burleson

trenise.burleson@viacomcbs.com

Photo Contacts:

Gaye Ann Bruno

gayeann.bruno@viacomcbs.com

Heidi Rubin

heidi.rubin@viacomcbs.com

[clipterri]

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[sundayswiththeilluminati]

i have spent the entirety of destiny's lifecycle simping for rasputin and getting made fun of for it by the friends i play the game with. despite taking a break from the game i frequently check r/destinylore to see if my boy's gotten back up. people see it as a testament to the darkness's strength that he got knocked out but i see it as a testament to rasputin's strength that he's the only one (i think) who survived the darkness's direct opposition. he's made to win and now he sees the way :)

Dude, I don’t know what your friends are on. Rasputin is one of the most fascinating characters in a lore that’s chock-a-block with great ones I mean FOR EXAMPLE: 

Rasputin is one of only four AI in all of Destiny and by far the most ubiquitous. If you played Destiny 1 - or if you play New Light - you literally wake up in his shadow. Rasputin runs subtle but ever-present in the background of our Guardian’s story. Even when he himself isn’t around, his assets and deeds affect us - his facilities, his weapons, his history.

Even during the Golden Age Rasputin was unique among AI. He’s always been exceptional - bigger, older, stranger.

Rasputin is one of only three Destiny characters to have faced Darkness directly...

...and Rasputin is the only major character to choose to turn aside from Darkness. He faced the Darkness, learned its philosophy of selfishness - of strength coming from solitude, from casting aside the weak, from prioritizing your own survival - put it into practice for centuries, and then changed his mind. He heard the Light’s pitch, he weighed the options, and he chose to move to Light’s philosophy. He opened up to alliance and cooperation, resuming his position as defender of the system. It’s such a cool story and it’s such a damn shame the Warmind DLC did a crap job of telling it.

He brought down the Almighty from a cave with a box of scraps.

He had the absolute balls to put a metaphorical gun to a god’s metaphorical head and tell it that if humanity went down he would make certain it went down with us.

He runs on some kind of crazy high-tech artificial elemental (Seraph) energy that shows up nowhere but in him and we still have no idea what it is or what it can do.

His very existence bothered Clovis Bray so much, which frankly should be classified as a public service.

He builds weapons so good they keep getting nerfed. The IKELOS 1.0.1 shotgun broke the weapon meta so badly guns got locked to elements. The 1.0.1 sniper got Box Breathing nerfed in like a week. Sleeper Simulant’s been nerfed at least 8 separate times (that is not hyperbole).

He was literally born from drama, aesthetic, and spite. He is the incarnation of “I lived bitch.” He probably still has 18 petabytes of Golden Age memes stashed away in a bunker and he uses them to drive the Vex insane.

They built him to be a war machine...and they failed. He fights because he thinks it’s his responsibility, but pre-Guardian Felwinter - who got to live the life Rasputin wanted to live - wasn’t a soldier. He spent his time learning. Painting. Listening to music. Reading books. Talking to people. Playing chess. Just living and participating in culture. He even died in a library. That schism between what Rasputin wants and what he thinks he has to do is fascinating.

Speaking of Felwinter, Rasputin created an entire person(!) from a fork of himself AND that person became a Guardian. A very good Guardian.

He witnessed firsthand what Darkness can do. He felt it during the Collapse. He saw it kill everyone he knew and cared about. He saw it, personally, in real-time, do things like stretch the entire moon Titan like a toy stress ball. He even admitted he was terrified of its return. But still when Darkness entered out system he stood against it anyway. He fired on it anyway.

He knows everything and he could be anything and he’s chosen to be a cranky old weirdo and I love him

Rasputin is unique in the pantheon of both Destiny personalities and factions. He’s the old man, the Tyrant, Big Red, humanity’s shield and sword, last survivor of the Golden Age. He exists on both grand and personal scales, speaking to a single human or to the Traveler or to the Darkness itself. Every faction in Destiny knows who he is, they’ve all tried to steal from him at some point, and most of them have come off the worse for it. 

Consider the Almighty. Not only is it the prize superweapon of an interstellar empire, but it’s also been used on many campaigns of conquest before us. Whatever civilizations Ghaul conquered must have thrown everything they had at the big laser holding their suns hostage, and all of them failed to take it down. It sustained damage in the Red War and hasn’t been repaired since, but it’s still a huge, very heavily-armored structure that’s survived multiple other civilizations’ do-or-die assaults. Not only did Rasputin succeed in destroying the Almighty, he succeeded using hastily-scrambled assets reactivated after centuries of disuse bodged together into brand-new weaponry on the fly.

I do see it as a testament to the Darkness’ strength that it disabled Rasputin, not because it was able to do so but because it disconnected a highly fault-tolerant networked intelligence nearly everywhere simultaneously. That points again to its ability to control fundamental principles of the universe. The Marasenna describes the vacuum of space becoming opaque to radio during the Darkness’ first attack, and doing something similar to rupture communication between all his warsats at once would be the clearest way to take Rasputin down. 

But it’s also a testament to Rasputin’s strength that Darkness bothered to extinguish him in the first place - because coming from Darkness, that’s a sign of favor. The Darkness believes the best thing you can do to someone is try to wipe them out, forcing them to evolve and change and get sharper. It took the time to speak to Rasputin face-to-face during the Collapse and saw Rasputin learn from it. Now it’s curious if that interesting little AI has learned enough; and indeed Rasputin managed to survive. He learned from Darkness’ first attempt. He’s learned from this second attempt. I have no doubt he’ll come back stronger. I have no doubt the Darkness will whisper to him again that his true strength would be found on its side, not ours. And I have no doubt he’ll defend us anyway.

[fostersffff]

do you have a guide into getting into vtubers?

I can certainly make one up!

Much like any other kind of streamer/LPer/“content creator”, the most important thing is just finding one (or several) that you enjoy watching and- if you’re into stream chat- interacting with. The only thing you may want to be versed in ahead of time are in-jokes and memes (which you’ll catch onto over time by lurking, which should always be your first move when joining a new community) and basic etiquette, ranging from normal stuff like “don’t spam chat, don’t talk about other streams/streamers unless they’re brought up first, especially in the name of DRAMA, you are not friends with the streamer no matter how much/often you participate and/or donate” to more vtuber specific stuff like “don’t doxx them”, which is The Big One™ and ranges from “don’t literally doxx them” to “don’t bring up past handles/identities unless they bring it up first”. If you’re looking for suggestions on who to check out, or what you should be looking for, here’s a very wide scattershot recommendation (bolded text is searchable names):

Being affiliated with a big brand name isn’t an objective measure of quality, but by nature of how networks function there’s way more readily accessible content of vtubers affiliated with those brands. If you go to YouTube and search “Hololive clips” or “Nijisani clips” you’ll get infinitely varied results, but if you’ve never seen a vtuber and are looking for something specific to start with, I’m really partial to Inugame Korone’s English-only Super Mario Bros. playthrough. And if you want to narrow down the search to specific vtubers, try searching for clips of Korone, Usada Pekora, Kiryu Coco, Houshou Marine, Oozora Subaru, Sakura Miko, Omaru Polka, Momosuzu Nene, and Amano Pikamee; all of them tend to have a lot of clips made and a huge backlog of streams.

Speaking of English-only, if you want to actively be engaged with streams and can’t understand Japanese, there are also plenty of English speaking vtubers. The most popular ones far and away are the English branch of Hololive (aka HoloEN or HoloMyth, made up of Amelia Watson, Gawr Gura, Calliope Mori, Ninomae Ina’nis, and Takanashi Kiara), and as well as a number of Indonesian Vtubers, who tend to be extremely fluent in English (Hana Macchia of Nijisani, and Ayunda Risu, Moona Hoshinova, Kureiji Ollie, and the rest of the Indonesian branch of Hololive, aka HoloID). However, if you’re looking more distinctly Western/American vtubers (less of a wholesome/idol-like presentation and more chaotic chat), you should check out one any of VShojo’s members (made up of Nyatasha Nyanners, Ironmouse, Froot, Projekt Melody, Zentreya, Silvervale, Hime Hajime, and Veibae). I’ve become particularly fond of Zentreya, who uses a speech-to-text-to-speech program and an absolute ton of chat interaction gimmicks, but they’re all good people. Also worth noting that most Western/American vtubers stream on Twitch instead of YouTube, but they also usually maintain some kind of YouTube presence, as well as Twitter accounts to keep people notified of where they’re going to be and when.

Past those groups, there are literally thousands upon thousands of much smaller groups and independent vtubers to recommend. As I said before, their relative audience size or independent status isn’t an objective measure of quality, and in fact, one of the nicer things about less immensely popular streamer is that you’ll get the benefit of a less chaotic/more intimate chat experience, but in exchange making sure you’re observing good etiquette is even more important since it’s easier to be disruptive to the chat. Off the top of my head:

The Tsunderia group, spearheaded by Hoshino Charlotte (Char Aznable-themed vtuber who does a lot of figure building on stream and makes/eats horrible food) and Umiushi Urara (Urara is especially fascinating, because she’s the real life manager of the company, and her streams are often more focused on behind the scenes and business-oriented facets of the vtuber industry, but that’s also maybe not the best place to jump in if you’re new)

Artemis of the Blue (a shark vtuber who’s perhaps best known for constantly simping for other vtubers)

Bao (a whale vtuber who also dabbles in making music)

Lady Hatsuu (a English localizer who’s worked on games like Trails in the Sky and takes donations for her local cat shelter)

JiBo (aka Great Black Otaku, aka former NFL player Brennan Williams, aka current WWE superstar Dio Maddin/Mace)

Mimika Morph (a Japanese vtuber who tries to incorporate as much English translation as she can and is literally an eldritch abomination)

Valerie Valkyrie (professional wrestler-themed vtuber who’s appropriately collabed with JiBo a few times)

Go Ria (gorilla (!!!) vtuber)

and Tsukimiya Mai, who actually has a presence on Tumblr, although at the moment I believe she’s on a wellness break.

If you’re not into watching streams at all and want Just The Good Parts, there are tons of channels that exist solely to make (and subtitle) clips, and almost always of already popular vtubers. The most annoying thing with them is that they’ll occasionally get aggressively clickbait-y, but such is the nature of the YouTube algorithm. I personally subscribe to Vtube Tengoku, Sushi [Hololive and Vtubers], CMT, JShay Translations, Aru Azumaya’s Pikamee Things, and Cooksie. The first four tend to focus on Hololive, Aru Azumaya of course is pretty exclusively dedicated to Pikamee, and Cooksie covers VShojo and a smattering of other English vtubers.

Last but not least, there are dedicated fan creators who make animations, usually either of whole clips or by stitching unrelated clips together. My recommendations include 2Snacks, tian nya, Kanauru, and Caroline Director. Just note that especially for these folks and other fan creators, content comes out much slower because of the nature of the work, but it’s always quality.

[sxnofvictory]

Hey! Hi! Howdy! Hello! I’m Azzy and I’m super glad to be bringing my baby boy Adam here! He can be a bit of a prick sometimes but he means well. 

excuse me did you see AVAN JOGIA hanging around palmwood studios? oh no, that was ADAM AHMED, the TWENTY-FOUR year old actor who plays DANIEL HOLDEN on WOLF PUBERTY. yeah, you know rumour has it he's - MOODY, and - IMPULSIVE, but his fans all say he’s + CREATIVE, and + EASY-GOING. around palmwood studios he known as THE ATONER. ( cismale, he/him)

STORY SO FAR

dam’s upbringing was pretty normal to be completely honest. His parents were divorced but it wasn’t too messy. He had friends, he did okay in school, he liked playing video games; all in all, just a normal guy.

Adam and his best friends had started a band back in middle school. At first it wasn’t anything serious. It was just a couple of friends goofing off and trying to look cool for the ladies.

Come senior year of high school, the mindset for the band had completely changed. They’d been ‘discovered’ and there was no going back from that. Just before his eighteenth birthday, the band released their first album and it took the music world by storm.

Being influenced by classic punk bands like the Ramones and The Clash, it seemed like a breath of fresh air in the music industry and very quickly they adapted to the rockstar life which meant a lot of drugs, a lot of sex and a lot of partying.

Unfortunately, as they got bigger, they started becoming more unruly. They were drunk or hungover 24/7, the parties didn’t stop and life on the road eventually became too much.

DRUG USE TW. DEATH TW. After releasing two albums, their lead singer passed away from a heroine overdose and the band fell apart. Adam got arrested for getting involved in a drunken bar fight and the scandals continued to follow the band until they called it quits.

Afterwards Adam kept a pretty low profile. He decided at one point that he wasn’t really suited for fame and tried to be a ‘normal person’ but eventually he found that he had gotten too used to celebrity life to really go back to go back to normal living

After a prolonged absence in the public eye, Adam came back- this time as an actor. He had a few small parts in a few network tv shows and he found that he quite liked it. He also discovered that he wasn’t awful at it either.

Music was always his first passion but at the moment, he finds acting to be a nice distraction. He doesn’t have much of an ambition to become a huge A list actor but he’s enjoying himself for now

He’s also working on his own solo music but he’s really insecure about sharing it with anyone. He also feels like he’s been away from making music for so long, he doesn’t really want to get back into it and fail.

All in all, he’s still trying to figure himself out and get passed his awful public perception

CONNECTIONS

His band - These are Adam’s best friends in the world. They grew up together, went to school together, played together, cried together. Other than his parents, they’re the most important people in the world to him. 

His dead band member’s girlfriend - basically, after the lead singer of his band passed away, Adam and his girlfriend leaned on each other to grieve- leading them to find physical comfort in each other. Adam feels awful about this. He feels like he betrayed one of his best friends by hooking up with their girl after they died - basically looking for some angsty goodness here

Celebrity FWB - someone Adam’s been connected to in the tabloids. They always deny having anything other than a platonic relationship but obviously there’s more there. They could genuinely just be friends who hook up or there could be unspoken feelings making things tense- honestly there’s room for a lot with either or both ideas

There’s probably more I’m forgetting but please plot with me and we can figure something dope out together!!

[dornish-queen]

Pedro Pascal - La Vanguardia

With Javier Peña's mustache as his hallmark, the 'Narcos' and 'Game of Thrones' actor is filming in Budapest with Nicolas Cage and Paco León

Pascal, cultured, seductive and reflective, repeats as Loewe's ambassador for its Solo Mercurio perfume and is a model for 'Magazine Lifestyle'

SYLVIA MARTI   12/13/2020 06:00

 Casual striped jacket, tousled hair, exquisite punctuality, and a room in Budapest. There is something about this man, generous in smiles and answers, great talkative, attractive without clichés. Pedro Pascal, 45 years old and face success. He shot The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent in the Hungarian capital with Nicolas Cage and Paco León, who apparently encouraged the show a lot; We see him without seeing him in the Star Wars universe as a galactic bounty hunter in The Mandalorian and he is Maxwell Lord, the eighties villain of Wonder Woman 1984 , perhaps the only blockbuster that, if nothing goes wrong, will make us happy Christmas.

Session in Budapest The Chilean actor shoots 'The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent' in the Hungarian capital with Nicolas Cage and Paco León

(full article and photos under the cut)

Chilean by birth, his family left the country fleeing the Pinochet dictatorship when he was a baby. Brief passage through Denmark and new life in San Antonio (Texas). Normal when speaking in your mother tongue some words in English slip through. Think before answering a question without losing spontaneity or being afraid of silence. An art. 

There is still Javier Peña's mustache, which catapulted him to fame from Narcos , and you can recognize that little point of joyous irony of Prince Oberyn Martell, who almost ended the Mountain in Game of Thrones . Two roles that have opened doors that he has managed to keep safe from slamming doors and have allowed him to skip the toll of stereotyped roles. Today Pascal, well trained in theater and loved by the cameras, can do whatever he wants. Even dedicating a Saturday to star in a fashion shoot and speak exclusively for Lifetsyle Magazine .

"Nobody knows me but everyone thinks they know me," he said when he debuted as the face of Solo Loewe perfume. Introduce yourself with four words.”

I do not define myself only by them, but I am contradictory, faithful, loyal, sensitive and, at times, a bit geek.

What would surprise me about you if you knew him better?

That although I live life and enjoy family, friends and social connections a lot, I have a lonely point. I like having my space and the option of staying a day at home in a relaxed and cocoon plan .

“Even though I live life and really enjoy family, friends and social connections, I have a lonely point.”

With Covid-19, many of us are already a little tired of staying at home ...

Yes, now that I don't have much choice to go out, I'm afraid of not being able to go back to the theater, to a party, to a dinner with many people ... I really regret those times that, instead of going out, I stayed at home.

Which character has left the most impression on you?

I miss Peña, from Narcos . It was my first leading role, the first time I had time to develop the character, create his energy, his style ... They gave me a lot of freedom to shape it, even if it was based on a real person. I was able to work on it, make it my own, create the tone, invent and deepen.

Do you easily get rid of them when filming is over?

When I was younger I was very clear that they had to be left at work, that the character had to be separated from the person. I thought that with age it would get easier and easier but, surprisingly, the opposite happens to me: it gets harder and harder. Energy cannot always be organized the way we would like and I have to admit that I take some of my characters home with me.

Have you incorporated any of their phrases into your life?

Maxwell Lord has a very attractive in Wonder Woman 1984 : "Everything is fine, but it could be better."

Very eighties. Like the one Gordon Gekko said on Wall Street (1987): "If you want a friend, buy yourself a dog." Have we advanced or are we already for the fourth pet?

We have come a long way. I am very inspired by young people, their strength to face in an original way that win, win and win system that reached a monstrous level in the eighties. Today's young people go deeper into the need to respect a planet in which we all live together and the obligation to take care of it.

“Young people inspire me, they deepen the need to respect a planet and the obligation to care for it.”

I see you optimistic ...

I am a realistic and hard-working optimist. My first impression is that the glass is half empty, I have to find arguments to see it half full.

Is it true that you drew the comic strips to interact with them as a method to immerse yourself in your character in 'Wonder Woman 1984'?

I made a book with images from the eighties and sixties, comic book drawings, papers, erasers, colored pencils, markers and vignettes to better understand what it was to be a man of that decade, how his attitude was forged ... It was a way to focus to live up to what Patty (Jenkins, the director) asked for, which was a lot, and not lose sight of it. I'm a horrible cartoonist, but I had to do something practical to study, understand, and develop the character.

What does a script or a role have to have to get their attention?

Sense of humor. Even if it is a drama, a hero, a villain ... Humor immediately hooks me.

A good shield to go through life ...

The best. It is the most important thing to survive.

Do you remember the last time you laughed out loud?

Paco León immediately came to mind. When he's on set, here in Budapest, we are all happier and we laugh a lot. The entire production loves it. It has made filming more fun.

“When Paco León is on set, here in Budapest, we are all happier and we laugh a lot”

 What fascinates you most about the Star Wars universe?

Nostalgia, the huge audience it has, the ability to reach so many people. It reflects our childlike imagination without limits. Create more and more worlds with all kinds of people and species. He is capable of casting the universe

What is your definition of success?

Have a healthy relationship with yourself. Nothing matters if you don't love yourself.

What would you have done if you had not succeeded as an actor? Did you have a plan B?

No. Perhaps the only thing that could have been useful to others is acting as a literature teacher, as a counselor or advisor for people who need help ... I am a bit of a therapist with my friends. And it must work, because they come back. I have a lot of common sense.

What is elegance to you? Has your relationship with Loewe influenced the way you dress?

In that of elegance I am a student, I am learning. I wear what is comfortable but I also have very finite taste and, when motivated, I really like to express myself with style. And when it comes to style, Loewe is on top of everything.

Something material that would save from a fire.

A book. I always have one on hand. Now I am rereading The Magic Mountain , by Thomas Mann. Literature is one of my passions. It is an extension of life. The problem would be to choose only one, there are so many! My identity is made by inspirations from authors, actors, dancers, the art world, the sea ... There is no self without the influence of all the things that inspire me.

“The sea is what I like the most in life. I have respect, curiosity and love for him on a religious level.”

The sea…

It's what I like the most in life. I have respect, curiosity and love for him on a religious level.

If he gets lost, I know where to look for him.

On a boat in the middle of the sea, on an island, on the beach in Chile ... Everything related to water. One of the first smells I remember, although I don't know if it's too attractive, is the chlorine in the pool.

What is your fastest way to disconnect?

Losing your mobile phone. I fell down the stairs in Dubrovnik and at first it was like, "Oh noooo." But then I thought, "Well, a week without him." I had a certain feeling of liberation. Not having to be aware of e-mails, messages ... I find it very strong that people communicate even through a direct message from Instagram. I refuse.

Now that you quote them, how are you getting along with the networks? (He has 1.5 million followers on Intagram)

I am quite active, I use it when I have a good time, but also to express myself and to give my opinion.

“I will say goodbye to the year with a kiss and raising the middle finger. He has treated me well but the collective suffering and fear this year….”

What is your favorite word?

Oxymoron. I like its meaning and its sound

Who would you like to shut up, as you did in the first Loewe Solo ad?

Personally, I would love to shut up that heavy, bad voice, the imp that we all have in our heads. That it's nice to have him and that, and I know he will never go away, but it would be nice if he shut up sometimes. Collectively I think we would all like to shut up one person.

Trump?

I suppose.

What have you learned from this rare year?

That you cannot live without human contact. For me the deep and simple connections with my friends and family is the only thing that matters.

How will you fire him?

With a kiss and raising the middle finger. He has treated me very well but the collective suffering and fear this year….

*article translated with google chrome. Source of article*

[popculturebuffet]

Static Shock: Shock to the System and Aftershock Review

“You know what? 13 years ago, me and some friends sat in a restaurant all night and daydreamed about the kinds of stories we would tell if we had the chance. We wanted to expand the concept of superhero to include characters that kind of looked like us, who had some of the same background, experiences and dreams as we did. We wanted to create something fun that a new generation would respond to the same way we responded to our childhood heroes -and damn if we didn't succeed beyond my wildest dreams. Today, Static Shock is a household name with millions of fans of all ages (Is there stuff I'd do differently? Yeah, almost all of season four but why nitpick?) Static is the most successful thing I've ever helped create and I'm both proud and gratified that people have taken it into their hearts. “ 

Dwayne McDuffie, Co-Creator of Static and Writer for Static Shock

This review is dedicated to Dwayne McDuffie and Robert L. Washington III.                                                        Rest In Power Static Shock is awesome. I grew up with the show watching it both first run on the WB and second run on Cartoon Network and loved it as much as I did other large parts of my childhood courtsey of DC like Batman the Animated Series, Teen Titans and both Justice League Shows. What makes this unique among the DC Properties is that Static wasn’t really a big name when he got a show. He wasn’t even part of the DC Universe. 

See as I had no idea for probably a good decade, Static actually came from Milestone Comics, a company ran by and focused on african americans. The goal was understandable: While black heroes existed at the time, and there were some fantastic ones like Storm, Jim Rhodes and Steel... these guys weren’t the center of their universes. The big faces of the big  companies, Spider-Man, Wolverine, Hulk, Iron Man, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash.. were white. So milestone was a shakeup of that with the main teams and heroes all being black, from Icon, an alien who’d lived among man but rather than end up in kansas like say superman ended up imprinting on a slave woman centuries ago and has been with us since, who was encouraged by an energetic teenager named Rocket to put on a costume and do something with his powers and his community, Hardware, a tech genius who had his work stolen by a white asshole and wanted to fight back and BLood Syndicate, a group of gang members all caught in the “The Big Bang”, a huge fight between all of Dakota, the midwest city where the comics take place, that ended when the police released a bunch of experimental gas that gave them all super powers. 

As most of you who have watched the show already know, this is where Static comes from. Static was the company making their own Spider-Man, i.e. a nerdy teenager who suddenly gets super powers, in this case Virgil Hawkins who at the prodding of a friend took a gun to The Big Bang to get revenge on a bully. .but ultimately couldn’t go through with it, decided it wasn’t him and got rid of the gun and ran.. and still ended up in it, becoming Static, a young hero dedicated to using his powers to fight other “Bang Babies”.. a term that dosen’t really sound that great and they really should’ve thought through. But Phrasing aside the character was great and I look forward to reading more and only haven’t because I have to buy the issues gradually, but DC is currently re-releasing the individual issues of Static, Icon, and Hardware weekly in anticipation of a reboot of Milestone Coming in May digitally on Comixology at only 2 bucks a pop, and rereleased the original print collections that were long out of print for 10 bucks each, though i’m getting static on it’s own since i’ts really not that much less expensive as it only collects four issues while Icon and Hardware both collect 8, so I can wait a bit there on Hardware and already own Icon: A Hero’s Welcome.. and really need to review it at some point. 

While Milestone’s output was good, at least from the two books i’ve read, with Robert Washinton III, who sadly not only ahs also passed but was fucking homeless for a while  in the 2000′s.. what the actual hell, writing Static alongside Dwayne McDuffie, whose later moved onto animation writing tons of Static episodes all of them classics including the school shooting episode, the first three rubberbandman episodes and both Anasazi episodes. Point is it had good writers and artists and even had a distrbution deal with DC, so they had a leg up on the glut of other comic book companies.. but happened to start at the start of the comic book crash, a huge downturn in sales in the 90′s as the speculator boom, i.e. a bunch of people assuming every number one would be worth golden and silver age money, forgetting a character has to BUILD INTREST and this stuff takes time, and whose attempts to sell fast flooded the market with comics no one wanted,, caused the roof to cave in and with a bunch of assholes pegging milestone as a “Company for black people” rather than you know, a company trying to add fucking diversity and represntation to the comics industry, and that simply wanted a unvierse that was centered around people of color instead of white guys. The company eventually had to shut down, and was left to lisencing.  This is where the show comes in. Producers HAD been trying to make shows based on Milestone for a while, as far back as the mid-90s and the company was was all for it but the closest it got was an x-men style team series using various characters whose first draft was terrible and whose second draft by Alan Burnett, a producer on various DC Animated shows who’d go on to produce Static Shock, that McDuffie and others really liked but sadly did not get picked up. eventually though with presistance Static ended up getting a series and as I said McDuffie went on to write for it though he did not develop it. Some changes went into place naturally to make it work for an early 2000′s kids show and while i’ll probably miss so since again, only read one issue as we go. But due to Milestone coming back my intrest was peaking, hence finally reading the copy of Icon I had to buy from the library years ago due to keeping it overdue but am now EXTREMLEY glad I own as i’ts incredibly rare and really damn good, and wanting to read static, doing so lately since it’s finally on digtiial and again not too expensive. So join me as I give you a shock to the system and revisit this hell of a series to see if it holds up.. which just to cut that short it does and i’m only holding off binging MORE because I want the first two eps to be fresh enough in my head to review properly.. and also go over the various voice actors because that’s a thing with me now and charcter co-creator dwayne mcduffie because he’s awesome. 

As I like to do when covering a series first episodes, let’s run down the voice cast. 

First up is an UTTER LEGEND, and I use the term voice acting legend a lot, and mean it every time and have good reason to use it when I say it, and Phil LaMarr is a GOD in the buisness, having done a metric ton of voice acting roles, and being easily the most proflific black voice actor in animation. He’s also done some acting work, mostly in pulp fiction which I have not seen, but his true staying power and talent is in animation so here’s just the roles I feel are most notable or may not be very notable but i’m bringing up anyway because it’s my list. 

His roles besides Virgil include Lester Payton the Texas Ranger who showed up for one very good episode of king of the hill to be badass and show up the hickish, stupid and very punchable local Sheriff, Gearld’s obnoxious older brother Jamie O on Hey Arnold, Hermes Conrad from futurama, Carver from the Weekenders (PUT IT ON PLUS DISNEY), Axel Foley for exactly one bit in Clerks the Animated Series, but anyone whose seen it will know exactly which one, Micheal on the Proud Family, Black Vulcan on Harvey Birdman (In His Pants), Hector Con Carne and Dracula on Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy and Evil Con Carne, Jack on Samurai Jack something I didn’t know for decades (and I didn’t know about the carver thing till today though i’ts obvious in hindsight), John Motherfucking Stewart on Justice League and later Steel and Adult Static in the Unlimited seasons, Osmosis Jones on Ozzy and Drix, Bolbi Strogofski on Jimmy Neutron (And yes i’m just as shocked as you are.), Wilt on Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, Marcus on Life and Times of Juniper Lee, Bull Sharkowski on My Gym Partner is A Monkey and Also a Sociopath Please Help God My Life is a waking nightmare..... okay the rest of that title is implied but we all watched the same show, we all know in our hearts that was the title

Moving on, he was also, and yes there’s MORE: Maxie Zeus on The Batman, Philly Phil on Class of 3000, Both Robertsons AND Fancy Dan on the Spectacular Spider-Man, Jazz on Transformers Animated, Kit Fisto and Bail Organa on Star Wars the Clone Wars, Gambit and Bolivar Trask on Wolverine and the X-Men, Aquaman I, L-Ron and Green Beetle on Young Justice, J.A.R.V.I.S. and Wonder Man (Simon Williams) In Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, Gabe and Carny on Kaijudo: Rise of the Duel Masters (Really miss that game and have been snapping up what cards I can get lately), Baxter Stockman in the 2012 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (And there’s also an awesome photo of him with 2003 Baxter... the two best together in one place. I got chills), Dormammu (I’ve come to bargin) in various Marvel Shows, Noville in Mighty Magiswords, Zach’s dad Marcus in Milo Muprhy’s Law, Craig’s Douchey Brother Benard on Craig of the Creek, showing he’s clearly come full circle, And Mr. Scully on the Casagrndes. And given It took about two paragraphs to cover all of this, yeah, I MEANT legend. 

Next we have Kevin Micheal Richardson as Virgil’s Dad Robert, and it’s the first time since I started introducing Voice Actors on a show that i’ve overlapped. I already covered him during the second episode of legend of the three caballeros, but for the short version he’s also very acomplished, very damn good and I somehow missed he played the old blind guy in hey arnold> Needless to say the dude is awesome. 

Virgil’s Sister Sharon is played by Michele Morgan who was in the rap group BWP and did some smaller roles outside of this the one exception being Juicy on the PJ’s, which I have not watched much of but REALLY do not like, though i’ll at least give it credit for being a decently long lasted black claymation sitcom at at time when there were, and hoenstly still aren’t, many black animated shows. 

Back to long casting sheets, next up is Jason Marsden, who is one of my faviorites as i’ve realized recently as Ritchie. As I also found out only recently he started on the Sitcom Step By Step and while that show is .. ehhhhhhhhh, he is great in it because he’s great in everything. He also apparently has his own internet variety show which I have to watch now. His roles include Max Goof, ironically given I was just talking about that role a few days ago, Haku in the english dub of Spirted Away, Micheal, the kid being yelled at by a bunch of 80′s cartoons characters not to take drugs in Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue!, Nermal in the DTV Garfield movies and The Garfield Show, Tino on the Weekenders (SERIOUSLY DISNEY), Snapper Carr on Justice League, Rikochet on Mucha Lucha! for the last season (Why I do not knkow and while I love the guy he was not the right choice), Felix on Kim Possible, Chase Young on Xiaolin Showdown (WHich I did not realize was him and now I do easily his best role and I REALLY should’ve), Red Star and Billy Numerous on Teen Titans, Speedy on Batman Brave and the Bold, Impulse/Kid Flash II on Young Justice, and Fingers on Kaijudo. He hasn’t done as much lately which is a shame but hopefully i’tll pick up again. 

Next up is Hotstreak, Virgil’s brutal bully turned unhinted pyromancer played by DANIEL COOKSY, another actor i’m happy to talk about and another faviorite I haven’t seen much of lately. Daniel was an actor from childhood, playing Budnick on Salute Your Shorts, but he quickly gained a long and storied catalogue of VA Work: His first big roll was as Montana Max on Tiny Toon Adventures and if there is a god he’ll be back for the reboot, Stoop Kid on Hey Arnold, the incomprable Jack Spicer on Xiaolin Showdown, far and away his best role and part of why Chronicles sucked so bad was he was he didn’t get to reprise the role, The titular Dave the Barbarian, Django of the Dead on El Tigre (Had no idea), Kicks utterly insufferable big Brother Brad on Kick Buttowski and apparently he’s back at it again after laying low for a bit as he’s voicing Snag in Long Gone Gultch.. which I already really needed to watch but hot damn, I missed him. Sign me up. 

Frieda, Virgil’s crush and close friend who in the comics was his main confidante and love intrest but here is eventually pushed aside, is voiced by Danica Mckeller whose work didn’t seem all that familiar.. until I found out she was Ms. Martian on Young Justice. Hello, Megan. Very talented and she did get a major role in a dc show eventually so good for her. Can’t wait for season 4. 

So with our major players out of the way,  let’s talk about Dwayne. McDuffie is an AWESOME man and my respect has grown for him more and more with time. A writer and editor at Marvel, McDuffie has a decent resume doing smaller but awesome books, which I got most of for free last year when Marvel was giving out free digital collections due to the lock down, like Damage Control, a sitcom set in the marvel universe about the company that picks up after superhero battles and the logistics and antics that insue and Dethlok, about a pacfist trapped inside a cyborg zombie. He was as mentioned one of Milestone’s founders, and wrote Icon, Hardware and co-wrote the first few issues of Static. He’d go on to a pretty stacked career in animation, writing on this show and Justice League before becoming  story editor and show runner for Unlimited , even making a return to comics as a result writing the Marvel miniseries beyond and an arc of Fantastic Four in which Black Panther and Storm filled in for Reed and Sue while the two of them worked on their marriage after Reed did.. pretty much everything he did in Civil War. He also became head writer and show runner for Ben 10: Alien Force and Ultimate Alien, revamping the franchise a bit, and Alien Force, at least the first two seasons are awesome and I feel people overreacted on the changes. Ultimate Alien is okay, but has it’s problems but the finale was awesome and left the man’s legacy on a high note.. as he sadly passed in 2011 due to heart complications. He is truly missed and produced some utterly amazing stuff whlie he was alive. So on that melacholy note let’s see what happens when his creation hits the tv screen shall we?

Shock to the System:

This episode is written by Christopher Simmons, who is apparently a huge art designer guy.. but i’m not sure that’s the same chirsptoher simmons. Much more notable is the writer of the episode after this Stan Berkowitz, who was showrunner for season 1 and has done a LOT of DCAU work and is suprising talent, having written a lot of awesome Justice League episodes including Secret Society and The Royal Flush One. Point is we’re in first class hands.  Before the episode itself I want to talk about the intro and how it’s unique among DCAU shows. Like most Western Animation the intros for DCAU shows didn’t change much over the seasons with the most I can see is JLU changing up the footage to preview the current episode and later adding Hawkgirl to the intro after her return to the team. I THINK superman the animated series changed some of it’s footage too, but I can’t confrim it and may of just been imagining it. As i’ve talked about on my blog it’s normally a pet peeve of mine, mostly because shows you know, change after season 1, characters get added some one shot characters used for the intro never return, and after a while it can feel dated especially in more recent shows where the status quo is not at all set in stone and things change quite a bit. But sometimes it can be good enough that either the dated elements don’t matter or general enough that you don’t need to change it and i’ts just that good.. and given Batman the Animated Series has both in spades, you can see why i’ts probably my golden standard for intros and after superman the animated series DC mostly followed suit. But being part of the teen superhero boom of the 2000′s Static is unique in that it splits the diffrence: It’s intro gets the character across perfectly like a good intro should starting with Virgil getting out of bed and running a comb across his head before showing off to his sister to bug her and literally running into his dad who hand shim his bag and smiles, silently showing off his family. He then runs to school and runs into some trouble.. and said trouble changes for each intro, with Rubberband Man for season 1, Kanga (Whose name I only know because I happened to run across it) for season 2 and your guess is as good as mine for seasons 3 and 4, though Hotstreak is a constant. They still save some money for seasons 1 and 2 by recycling some animation.. but that’s alright with mea s it was good animation, and the improtant thing is cycling out old villians for new ones, while Season 3 is the only out and out redo to show off Richie taking on the Gear identity, adding about 10 seconds of intro to let him show off.  Seriously it’s an utterly great intro and like the other DCAU intros outside of superman, stuck in my brain. 

The other change that’s ENTIRELY diffrent from the rest of htem is that the music changes each time. The first two have the same formula just with a difrent vocalist and backing track: a superhero theme but with some hip hop beat boxing over it. The first intro is fine enough, not specattcular but stilll god. The second song.. is eh. Not really great and feels like a marked downgrade from season 1 and just dosen’t blend an ocrehstiral superhero theme with the beatbox elements NEARLY as well. The third song though is my faviorite.. even if I HATED Little Romeo as a  kid because I really did not like his nick show, it’s more a straight up rap song, but it has a faster beat that fits the intro better, and Romeo’s bragging fits Virgil’s character and penchant for Spidey quips perfectly. I also find it ironic that the theme that blends in with the dcau the most, the first season’s, is the one from BEFORE they decided to put it in the same universe. Still this season’s intro slaps, I just like the LIttle Romeo one a bit more.  The opening scene is picture perfect. Some masked crooks looting a warehouse are loading some stolen TV’s into a van when suddenly the lights come on one by one above one of the crooks before his tv switches to various channels before going haywire. Cue our heroes’ entrance. Let’s tak ea good look at him

Static’s Costume is awesome. While I prefer the season 3 redesign, and clearly DC agrees as the redeisgn was used for both pre and post new-52 when they used him, and while he’s getting a fresh design for the reboot, said design takes a lot of cures from said outfit. As for how the outfit differs from the comics itself  this is the design he had in the comics

It didn’t change much from the first issue, with the exception of his now iconic big puffy jacket which was added pretty early into the character’s history but I was unaware of that and just assumed he had the bodysuit the whole time. The more you know. But as you can see outside of the cool puffy jacket over a costume the two couldn’t be more diffrent. While the Dakotaverse outfit is more a standard superhero outfit, with some regular clothes touches on top the first cartoon outfit comes off more realistic, looking fantastic, but still coming off as something two teenagers could realistically have thrown together with what clothes they could buy, while still looking awesomely superheroy. IN short it’s perfect and only topped by the season 3 onward look...

But the slicker look, with an even cooler jakcet and the new colors all fitting the lighting ascetic better, but fits: not only has Virgil come along farther since he started, but with Richie now having a genius brain as Gear, he can provide a far slicker, far more professional superhero outfit on the budget the two have.  This show is just great  at costume design. 

So getting back to the episode at hand, Static puts up a huge sign in elecrticy saying “Bad guys here”, PFFFT, and then hides away and narrates that a few days ago he’d be the last person anyone would’ve expected to be a hero. Cue Flashback. 

We meet Virgil Hawkins on an average day: rapping into his razor, getting into a petty argument with his older sister Sharon, as a younger brother myself I relate to this, and talking to his dad who tries to get them to cut that out. We find out his mom has passed via his sister making really terrible eggs and saying that’s how mom made them. Exposition! Though we do get a great bit through this as when his sister gets distracted by her boyfriend calling, he uses the opportunity of her leaving the room to dump the eggs.. after having earlier jokingly prayed to his mom for a way out of breakfast. “Thanks for looking out for me mom” That’s both very sweet and very hilarious. 

This is a change from the comics it turns out as I was utterly flored to find Virgil’s mom alive and well when reading the first issue of Static. Turns out this was a change made during development and one Dwane McDuffie admitted in the interview I got the tribute quote from to not liking as he had a good reason for having Virgil have a nuclear family, as most black families in media at the time were just one single parent and a kid or two with the other having either left or died. He wasn’t too bothered by it as while he preferred what he came up with in the first place, the show DID get some really good stories out of her being gone and didn’t just have her be absent because shut up. Virgil is still working over her death and the way HOW she died ends up playing an important role in this episode and gives Virgil a dislike of guns, as she died to gang violence. So the change wasn’t for stupid or racist reasons, but likely both to keep the character count down while giving them something to work with for storylines. Or it could’ve been for stupid reasons and the writers simpily made lemonade out of that very dumb lemon, either way it ended up working.  Virgil also plans to ask his friend Frieda out. Frieda was a bigger deal in the comics, being Virgil’s friend and confidante as well as his ocasional love intrest, but here while she was inteded to at least be his love intrest here, that sorta fizzled out. As for the best friend role we meet her replacement in Richie, which McDuffie conceded was the kind of change a studio would make swapping out a female character for a male one. That being said the crew made the best of it and Richie is awesome, a bit of an overcompensating dipstick at times, but a good sounding board and pal for virgil and funny as hell too. He was also gay, something only revealed post series by McDuffie.. but unlike say Dumbledore, it’s a bit easier to swallow here: The early 2000′s were an even worse time for gay characters in tv let alone cartoons, and if they couldn’t kiss or have sex scenes on regular tv, there was no way we were getting any representation in a children’s show. So it was largely just hinted at by Richie overcompensating in how “into girls” he was and i’m once again fine with this being word of god as it was literally the best they could do and his counterpart in the comics was also gay, if not as relevant.  Ritch encourages Virgil to work on his opening to ask her out as it’s awkward as heck, hits a bit close to home.. but I do appricate the show just .. having him try and ask her out from the first episode. They likely would’ve drug thigns out a bit granted had they used Frieda more, i’m not blind to the convetions of the time. .but as someone who got the very wrong idea from tv that just waiting around meant a girl would like you eventually, when no you need to actually try even if rejection happens, I honestly wish we had more of this in media than the other garbage morals at the time. 

So he prepares to , not helped by her mentioning guy after guy is asking her out.... but before he can F-Stop, the future hotstreak, shows up.  F-STOP

That being said...... it’s not as bad as the original gangster name for the comic’s version, Biz Money B. Yes BIZ MONEY B

So yeah while F-Stop is no more intimidating, it at least means I can stop laughing. Francis, because I can’t type F-Stop without laughing and this review is already behind, shoves Virgil out of the way and agressively hits on Frieda, even saying “you smell good”, the international sign your a douchebag and also to call the police. Virgil steps up to the guy and gets PAINFULLY slammed into the lockers, something I give the animation team a lot of credit for, as you can FEEL how fucking painful that was. Virgil is saved by Wade, another local gangbanger who in the comics was a close friend of Virgils but here saves him seemingly just because.. seemingly. 

On the way home though Virg’s problems don’t end as naturally, the giant sized asshole with nothing better to do has his goons corner virgil before VIOLENTLY beating him.. off screen but the noises, and the clear brusies including a black eye, on virgil afterwords.. just holy damn i’m suprsied they got away with this but it shows just how horrifing it was and that this is a step above regular bullying, which make no mistake is absoluttley terrible and the series would later do an episode on it and school shootings, into straight up gang violence. Wade shows up again and gets the bastards to flee.. but also makes it clear he can’t keep doing this.. and forces Virgil to meet him at his base under the bridge. And it’s a tense sequence, with Virgil KNOWING this is a bad idea but having no real choice and Wade making it abundantly clear that he wants Virgil to join his crew, and makes a chilling point: while Virgils dad RIGHTFULLY dosen’t want his son to join a gang as Virgil points out.. he can’t be there for him all the time and eventually one of those times, Francis will be around. And he may not surivive that. Virgil nods noncomittaly.  At home it gets even more grim as he dosen’t open up to his family, understandably as his dad would jsut say to call the police and well.. we’ve seen how the police treat black people. At best they’d just try and use Virgil as an informant and that likely wouldn’t end fucking well for Virgil. Ritchie points out he can’t join a gang, virgil’s mom died that way.. see told you it’d be important to the plot.. but I like how the story dosen’t offer an easy answer.. well okay he gets electric powers soon enough but without the fantastic element this is just an innocent kid caught between either joining the very thing his mom hated or hoping a system not built to protect him will keep him alive. It’s utterly saddening and chilling and holy shit is it amazing a cartoon in the early 2000′s was able to get away with.. ANY OF THIS, and they handle it great, paired down a bit from the comics but even then it’s still incredibly balsy they got THIS much in. 

Naturally Wade calls in his favor and our hero is forced to come running.. and soon finds out Wade’s brought him in for a massive gang war. Welcome to the big bang, baby. He hands Virgil a gun as things get started and Virgil.. drops the thing and tries to escape, in a harrowing sequence.. and runs into Francis because god apparently REALLY hates this kid today. As if to prove that the police show up and while that prevents a beating, they demand they disassemble. then release untested gas on them because of course they do. 

As a result the big bang truly begins, with the various gang members getting mutated.. and naturally so does virgil. Though he wakes up the next day seemingly fine. How’d he get home? Does his dad know where he was?

I don’t know and we’re not getting any answers, but Virgil soon finds weird stuff happening like his clock shorting out, change being attracted to him and his razor going wild. It’s only once he get sback to his room he gets an inkling of what’s going on and calls Ritchie to meet him at the Junk yard.. though it is a bit of a dick move as he dosen’t you know, tell him anything about Wade or Francis right away. He does at the yard though.. and that he has powers, having finally figured out how to use them to a point. And the series does provide a decent justification later as to why he’d get this so quickly: Virgil is a smart kid, gets great grades at school and apparnetly there’s even an episode later where he gets a scholarship to a fancy genius school. So him getting how elctromagntisim works or being a quick study on it makes perfect sense. 

Richie suggest the obvious.. to become a superhero. And the thought.. hadn’t occured to Virgil. It’s honestly a nice twist on the old trope. That he hadn’t thought of it, not because he’s selfish or any of that or needs to learn a hard lesson, those have been done.. simply because the rush of getting his powers, and implicitly of having a way out of his current predciament, a way to keep Francis off his back and keep Wade from pulling him in further. His own path. But once i’ts brought up.. he jumps on it. Part of it is being a nerd like you or I, of course he wants to.. and being a good intetioned one, he knows this is the right thing to do. It’s waht makes a superhero a hero: Anyone can get powers in a universe like this, esepcailly the dcau, but it takes true courage and heart to use them selflessly and knowing you’ll be in danger. It’s why I love surperheroes: they often didn’t ask for this but they do it anyway because somebody’s gotta. We also get an intresting wrinkle is superman is, at least I think in this episode I could’ve missed it or misremembered things, mentioned as a fictional character. That’s because originally like the comics this wasn’t part of the DCAU.. but eventually the crew decided it shared staff from it, shared a network, both first run and on reruns, why not just make it part of the DCAU proper. I fully support this decisionf: While i’m midly annoyed unlimited never really used anything from static shock outside of Static himself in the time travel episode, despite you know Static and Gear having BEEN to the tower and not being much younger than Kara and defintely older than Courtney, I chalk it up to weird rights issues or something like that. But having Batman, Batman Beyond, Superman, Green Lantern and the Justice League itself all guest star was a good idea, and expanded both static’s universe and gave the DCAU something differnt as most heroes in it were older and more experinced in contrast to the up and coming virgil. Again really would’ve been nice if he and gear could’ve been a part of the expanded league but production might of just been too far ahead or, given he had his own series, they might just have wanted to stick to toher characters. Also begs the question why Icon or Hardware wasn’t adapted for the expanded League but hey, questions for later and the tricky logisitics of the milestone rights might’ve been the issue. I don’t know I wasn’t in the room. 

So we get a costume montage, including Black Vulcan from Superfriends, who again ironically would be voiced by Lamarr not too long after this, though weirdly they DON’T use his outfit from the comics for this montage. I mean why not? It fits the gag and would’ve been a good second to last choice.But what could’ve been aside we get our winner and cut back to present day...

Thanks boys. Static finds out one of the things in the warehouse is a shipment of computers for the school and can’t help but show off, showing up to the school, where Frieda and Richie are setting up for the dance, and dropping off the computers, and even saying his catchphrase for the first time “I’ll put a shock to your system” (Which Richie chimes in with awesome line and I agree, great catcphrase), before helping set up and flirting with frieda. 

Though as Richtie says he’s a natural. He’s not wrong as he can work a crowd. .but back it up too as his first run out had him easily taking out the crooks, and as many teen superheros and fans of heroes of hte type, myself included will tell you, getting it right in one is not easy. Not even Miles MOrales was immune. All Static needs now is a villian. 

And the end of the episode provides one as we see, in horrifc and once again damn suprising detail most of hte new metas aren’t doing so good and are melting and other stuff and we catch up with Francis whose burning up.. and naturally given that hair, though given he named himself F-Stop it’s the least of his problems, he’s got fire powers and escapes to “Have me some fun”

So with that we end episode 1. And it’s excellent, a great way to introduce the hero and while the warehouse opening is a bit superflous, it is a decent addition, showing our heroes first outing in costume and giving us a bit of an action scene to get us through the very heavy rest of the episode. But the rest of the episode is no less grippping, telling the tale of a teen caught in an unwinnable scenario who suddenly finds a way out. And speaking of which waht of Wade? Will we see him again? Is he perhaps Ebon, the series big bad as I thought when I was a kid? What comes of the man who directly caused static’s origin?

Yeahhh that’s the one mistep I think the pilot makes. Frieda is understandable as that was likely a simple change in creative direction. This though? Why build this guy up if your not going to bring him back. I mean where he went was probably the grave, as he probably did due to his mutation, but it’s still VERY weird to spend a whole episode focusing on this guy, building him up as a big personal threat to our hero.. and NOT have him become the series big bad. And maybe he WAS supposed to be ebon and they just changed their mind. I don’t know but it bothers me it bothers me a lot. Otherwise though flawless. ONe more to go. 

Aftershock: We open outside an electronics store, as our heroes watch the news reacap what happened in the first episode, with the media dubbing it the Big Bang and revealing their could be hundreds of “Metahumans”, as Virgil dubs after deciding the media’s term “Mutant” dosen’t fit, a nice wink to the fact that that’s the term used in dc comics and I believe milestone but could be wrong there. Me I like the term, has a nice ring to it. 

At the store while Richie mulls over waht this means Static finds out he’s a human CD player.... this was before mp3 players and streaming on your phone made them horribly obsolete mind you and if you don’t know what one is congradualtions you live in some sort of bubble and you made me feel really old junior. 

Frieda happens to be there and Virgil quips “What’s the matter they run out of britney cds”. Dude she’s not bad. Also be careful what you wish for man. Nickeback returned the year after this. You have not truly suffered through bad music yet my young friend. They spot a kid looking feverish, and he soon turns into a purple werewolf, as you do. It’s a bang baby.. those are richie’s exact word and you may not want to start a panic there bud. Just saying your best friend is one. THeir not all like this. Our heroes book it only to run into Francis who naturally refuses to let them leave and only doesn’t try to beat up Virgil because Virgil points otu the werewolf and nonplussed, he goes to fight it, scarring it off by revealing his own powers. He’s now dubbed himself Hotstreak which points for getting an actually good name kid. No points for what happens next as unsuprisingly getting powers did NOT mak ehim a better person and he attacks Virgil who blocks with a garbage can lid and thankfully is blasted into an ally. Richie tries to guard frieda for damn obvious reasons but gets hsi shirt burnt up because shut up Thankfully Static shows up, and we get our firsdt full on superhuman fight as both fight each other with aplomb, and it’s a damn good fight.. and one that goes pear shaped for Virg as he’s caught off guard when he finds out Hotstreak can use his powers to fly, and tackles him and his previous trauma causes him to freeze up. Thankfully , as Frieda put in a call earlier, the fire department arrive and HOt streak has to retreat, though Virgil is bummed that he “Choked”. And I love this as it not only shows Virgil’s inepxerince, as this is his first time fighting a bad guy but that just because he HAS power now dosen’t mean trauma and his previous fear of Hotstreak goes away or you won’t freeze up from time to time. It dosen’t make him weak or anything like some assholes would call it .. it makes him human. Humans make mistakes, and it makes him all the more relatable that he’s not pefect and that he did freeze up as I know I certainly would at last once in the circumstances. 

Things don’t get better at dinner as Sharon and Pops argue over the bang babies with Pops calling them a meance and Sharon pointing out Static exists so they can’t all be bad. See assuming a group of superhumans are bad because a handful of them ar edick sis why the x-men had to get their own island nation. You can only save an ungreatful populous so many times before you say “fuck it i’m getting my own island, pay me for life saving drugs, save your damn selves and stop doing genocides on us. Kay thanks”. But he does bring up a valid point that rattles his son: We don’t know anything about the Bang Babies or their biological structures and it’s likely they might further mutate into monsters, Static included. 

Virgil, understandably, wants to check this and thus he and richie compare blood samples in science, to no real conclusion. She he checks out with his doctor who assumes he’s sexually active in a great getting crap past the radar bit and a bit of realisim, but he agrees to the test though if something came up he would have to tell Virgil’s dsad and is up front about this. Nice dose of realisim.

That night City Council has a meeting and the Mayor TRIES to deflect Papa Hawkins questions about the bang babies which again, while being a judgmental ass as not every person hit was a gang member (Virgil, and as we discover later some others), and not every gang member is there by choice, some by circumstnace some, like virgil almost was, because they HAD no other option. Again years of reading x-men may of just made me a bit touchy on assholes admitely assuming superpower people bad. But it’s clear the public is upset and while she says an investigation is underway... Virgil and Richie are not only not convinced, but figure she’s actively covering it up. And unlike everyone else there who probably suspects the same, they can do something about it and tail her.  It’s during this, and cleverly as I didn’t realie till writing this using similar skills to his human cd player act, Virgil listens in and discovers whose behind it: Edwin Alva, whose apparently richer than bill gates and a beloved phinarophist Alva, as it turns out, was actually the arch enemy of Hardware in the comics, taking advantage of the guy in his civiliian idtentiy and thus casuing him to launch a war on the asshole. He does transition into this series well though, being the one behind the gas that caused it and with the mayor agreeing to back off, planning to simply dump the info about the big bang on a disc then destroy everything for now till the heat dies down. Yup sounds like a corprate douchebag. 

Static tails him, finds the lab and infiltrates it, stealing the disc.. but getting caught by Alva’s goon, and trapped in a glass prison, forced to use ALL his power to escape and barely getting out alive, but not before bouncing off alva’s car. Still he now has the proof.. and meanwhile Hotstreak, who I was wrong did get captured, is forced to take pill sbut spits them out once the orderly is gone. Dude.. WHY DIDN’T YOU WATCH HIM. Make sure he swallows that shit especially since, as he has no powers right now and can’t harm you. 

Hotstreak escapes off screen and our heroes discuss the disc before he shows up, and we get a REALLY fucking amazing scene: Virgil ducks into an Alleway and ritchie is worried.. and Virgil disarms him with just one word responses Ritchie: Virg you can’t take him.  Virgil: Gotta. Ritchie: Well at least wait for the fire department Virgil: Can’t.  It’s simpile but it gets the point across: This is his fight, he can’t wait for help, and people need him. And this is what makes a true hero: It’s easy to be a hero when everythings going well.. but it’s the true ones who stick it out against the odds and fight anyway. And he’s going to.  So we get one hell of a fight, though naturally Hotstreak burns up the disc. And I do like this as it dosen’t feel contrived.. yes Static could’ve left it with ritchie.. but he wasn’t thinking in the moment and dind’t really have time to think abotu the disc, only that people were being hurt and he was all they had between them and Hotstreak. It was no choice at all. Still that pisses Virgil off that the last night’s work is now worthless, and he fully charges up and curbstomps francis who retreats into a clearing. Hostreak brags when static follows, as even he’s figured out Static needs to be around metal, as he’s usually on his disc or the street, and in the park there suppodsidly isn’t any. But he’s not THAT smart as Virgil points out two things: one, he hoped to do this on PURPOSE so they wouldn’t be around people and no on e would get hurt and 2).. this is a city, there’s metal everywhere.. and he awesomely and cleverly proves it by unlodging a sewage pipe with his powers and dousing his foe, winning and proving his stuff. I love this solution, it’s a clever spider-man type way to disarm him, using smarts and the einvroment instead of just brute forcing it. Though the sewage part wasn’t intetional our hero still won and gets praise from the people dumb enough to follow the fight. 

However at home Virgil points out it was  Pyrrhic Victory and shows off his smarts by telling the tale behind it, which I didn’t know,because tv tropes didn’t exist yet: king pyrhus fought the romans and WON.. but had so little armies left that he still lost overall. That’s what this feels like to Virgil: he beat hotstreak but any chance at a cure for Bang Babies and Alva going to jail for causing them is gone. His mood does get a boost though as the doctor calls and reveals he’s fine, he just has a bit too much elctrolytes and just needs to lay off teh salt. He celebrates, we get a quick gag and the episode ends

Aftershock is another stellar episoe, giving us Virgil’s first super foe and a personal one at that, while showing some growth. As richie tells him he’s not virgil anymore he’s static and he can’t let his past get to him.. and he does’nt going from cowering in fear to easily beating his foe with simple logic. It’s a good followup that answers questions you may have from the first ep, like what does this do to virgil’s body, who supplied the gas, and why has no one done anything about this, and sets up another villian for Static in Alva. Great stuff. I highly recommend these episodes and the show as a whole: it’s fast paced, grounded and enjoyable, having just enough levity to not be too dour but just enough tension and stakes to be intresting. A throughly fantastic superhero show and one that i’d certainly love to revisit on this blog If you have an episode of static or the dcau in general you’d want me to cover, my comissions are open and details are on a tab on my blog or can be gotten simply by asking me via ask or dm. Tommorow we’re going deeper underground, there’s too much damage in this town as the Lena Retrospective continues. So expect gay ducks, straight ducks and some terrfirmains. See you next rainbow. 

[gerames-blog]

SOCIAL MEDIA IS REALLY A POWERFUL TOOL DURING CALAMITIES AND IT IS EVERYTHING TO OTHERS

SOCIAL MEDIA YOU SAY?

To answer your question, just keep on reading this blog, and you’ll see how powerful technology and social media is, how it helps FAMILY, SOCIAL WORKERS AND GOVERNMENT, ESPECIALLY OUR CHILDREN BECAUSE IT NEED THIS IN ONLINE CLASSES.Discerning information during calamities.

Social media is an interactive technology and a platform that allows us to share information, interest, and ideas that can bring people together.

HOW DOES SOCIAL MEDIAS HELP FAMILY IN MIDST OF STORM OR IN THEIR BUSY TIME?

Our Family

Through the use of social media, many families are still able to communicate with their loved ones. It made it easy for them to talk with each other even if they’re afar. Especially now that there’s a pandemic, it is no longer possible to wander around and have a bonding with them. So in order to still get in touch, we use social media.

Through social media, every family can easily communicate with their relatives from other places, especially those outside the country. For example, communicating with my auntie to say “How are you?” with the help of social media, I’ll be able to know how what situation she’s doing.

Social Media have become a helpful tool to disseminate information especially during disasters. And it helped families, social workers and the government discern information during calamities through disseminating the information quickly because in social media you can make posts trending (e.g., the top twitter trending topics and hashtags), thus, the posts about calamities became trending and it results to more people being aware of the situation (e.g., the hashtag #RescuePH was used by more than a million people).

In places where calamities occur, social media plays a huge part in helping those who are affected. With the use of social media, it can offer authorities, government, and the general public access to real-time information and updates. Social media can also be used to notify the public as to where help is available and when they expect to arrive in impacted regions.

Cyberbullying is a growing social problem that has become all too common in online communities. Research indicates that one in five tweens has been cyberbullied,1 while 59% of teens have been harassed online.2 And the rate at which online bullying is occurring does not seem to be declining.

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, cyberbullying escalated. During stay-at-home orders, research shows cyberbullying increased 70% and toxicity on online gaming platforms increased 40%.3

These numbers illustrate that despite increased education and improved school bullying prevention programs, incidences of cyberbullying continue to escalate. So parents need to do what they can to prevent cyberbullying in their kids' lives.

We all know the favorite social media networks can be a time suck if we aren’t careful, but add to it the creation of unique content and custom images and even the best social media manager might end up with a spinning head.

There’s a time and place for games and chats with friends, but time is money. Especially when building a business.

It is always a good practice to find proficient methods of working and getting the job at hand done quicker, more efficiently. To speed up the process of design while keeping consistent branding top of mind, try these four easy steps when creating your next batch of social media graphics.

1. Develop the schedule.

Before you do anything, it will benefit in the long run if you do some planning first.

How often will you post images on your Facebook timeline or Twitter feed? Will you use Pinterest in your marketing plan?

Knowing what platforms you plan to post on (and their individual requirements, such as best image sizes) is necessary to set up image sizes and templates. And knowing how often you plan to post will forecast the number of images needed each day/week/etc.

Need ideas for content creation or creative scheduling? Try theme days where all posts revolve around a common topic or general idea.

You might have a Marketing Monday and a Twitter Tuesday, for example, if your business offers online marketing advice or social media consultation. After the outdoors niche? Try “Hiking Tip Thursday” or “Fishing Friday.”

After a little thought, you will find it is rather easy to schedule something that offers consistent value to your customers, clients and fans.

[jackdawyt]

Well, punch me in the teeth and call me the Dread Wolf! BioWare have already revealed another trailer for the next Dragon Age this year! The Game Awards 2020 premiered a beautiful-cinematic trailer that showcased many locations, factions, characters and foes we’ll witness in the next instalment. As per usual, we have many thoughts, theories and tinfoils on everything this trailer revealed!

However, before we break down the trailer, we have two descriptions of the next Dragon Age game shared separately on YouTube and Twitter.  

On YouTube, the trailer’s description said:  

“The world of Dragon Age needs a new hero – someone who can take on the evil forces threatening Thedas. Get a first look at some of the new locations you’ll discover and the factions fighting by your side in the next chapter of Dragon Age.”  

And shared on Twitter, the post said:  

“The world of Thedas needs you, a new hero. The next #DragonAge will see the return of Solas… and an old friend.”  

https://twitter.com/dragonage/status/1337198092957839365

Of course, the old friend no doubt refers to Varric who narrated this brand-new cinematic trailer. That’s right, the one, the only, our storytelling-chest-haired dwarf is coming back in the next Dragon Age, so we’re already going to have some familiarity in the next adventure.

With that said, let’s breakdown the entire contents of this new trailer and what it means for the next Dragon Age!

Meredith & Corypheus

The trailer started by revealing the first piece of a brand-new stone-etched mural.  

Knight-Commander Meredith was shown, infused with red lyrium, holding her sword “Certainty”.

Followed up with Corypheus holding Solas’s orb towards the heavens. During this point, Varric said: “I’ve faced tyrants and would-be gods.”  

These two shots clearly showcase the previous events of Dragon Age that have somehow circulated towards Solas’s scheme to destroy the Veil and deal with the Evanuris.  

Meredith took the Red Lyrium Idol and forged it into a sword, the idol itself apparently belongs to Solas, and he cares for it and recognises its depiction. Meredith was turned into a thawed red lyrium statue, and the red lyrium idol was found and retrieved inside her statued body. The idol’s current whereabouts are unknown.

"The Dread Wolf wants that idol, and he’s not afraid to get his hands bloody to get it." (The Dread Wolf Take You, Page 490). “He intends something for the Fade, and if he wants the idol, then whatever he intends will be terrible.” (The Dread Wolf Take You, Page 498).

Whereas Corypheus intended on using Solas’s orb to usurp the throne of the gods for himself. Solas, banking on the magister’s failure, sought out to regain his orb after Corypheus unlocked it, and died doing so. In this ideal situation, Solas would then use his orb and destroy the veil.  

However, that didn’t happen. Instead Solas’s orb was destroyed by crumbling rocks with Corypheus’s defeat. The elven god strives to find alternative ways to destroy the veil.

Both these foes at the start of Solas’s new mural show that what’s coming next will be much worse than any catastrophe in Thedas and that these events have always been set in stone for the Dread Wolf. It’s like he’s drawn Corypheus and said, you thought he was tough, wait till you see what I can do.  

Two Evil Gods

The trailer continued with the next pieces in this mural, two carvings of very enigmatic figures. The first engraving has an arched headpiece, red eyes, a spiky torso, and wavy lines coming from their head, with a haloed sun or moon behind them.

Immediately, this spooky figure reminds us of the evil god shown in BioWare’s Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development. However, we believe the figure shown in this book resembles the elven goddess “Ghilan'nain, the Mother of the Halla” who created giants, monsters, and beasts that spanned across the sky, water, and earth.

While this depiction of an evil god is concept art, there is one key difference between the two figures - the evil god in the concept art has four arms, whereas the mural figure has two arms. So, are they depicting the same god? We’ll certainly come back to this figure later on.  

The next figure has a very curved headpiece, elven ears, and clawed-looking shoulder pieces. With another haloed sun behind their head, this leads us to believe this is yet another evil god.

Personally, this figure reminds us of Dirthamen’s statue we saw in Inquisition, but this could honestly be anyone... And we’ll touch on that when we get to the finished mural.  

While these two figures are shown, Varric said: “Seen friends lose life and limb, but there’s always someone bent on breaking the world.”  

Obviously referring to allies previously lost, like potentially Hawke, and even the Inquisitor’s anchor. However, the enemies bent on breaking the world paint the figures shown as evil and malevolent. Of course, it’s not Dragon Age without someone trying to destroy the world.    

BioWare Logo

In the next sequence, a golden BioWare logo appears with a sun behind it, perhaps this relates the previous figure to Elgar’nan considering Elgar’nan was said to be born of the sun?

Anderfels/Grey Warden

Taking our minds away from the mural for a moment, the trailer began to explore iconic locations and factions that are going to feature heavily in the next Dragon Age.

The first location is a blazing desert with rough sands, cobblestone, and huge puddles. We think this is the Anderfels, Thedas’s blighted western lands. Over the horizon are multiple, huge reptile creatures. They look like turtle monsters similar to the Ankylosaurs, which is a kind of armoured dinosaur with a clubtail.

During this sequence, Varric said: “It’s time for a new hero.” As grey boots entered the shot. No doubt, referring to the next protagonist. The boots are instantly recognisable as a Grey Warden’s. You can see a dark blue tint on their leggings, as grey and blue are the Warden’s colours.  

Not to mention, the biggest indicator that this character is a Warden, is the location. A Grey Warden being in The Anderfels makes complete sense considering Weisshaupt, the Warden’s headquarters are located there.

More importantly, the fact that Varric said: “it’s time for a new hero” while showing this Grey Warden, and the trailer continued to show different factions, while still talking about the idea of a new hero. We think this indicates to the overall message of this trailer, being that perhaps this time around we can choose the faction our new hero belongs to. Like origin stories, our hero can choose between at least 4 or more different factions within Thedas.

While the Grey Wardens and many other factions will join our fight as key roles in the story like “Davrin” who was hinted at in the Gamescom trailer, having the choice to choose where your hero is from would make for an epic RPG, and a great callback to the series' roots.

Antiva/Antivan Crow

The next location revealed the most elegant nation of Antiva, looking absolutely stunning with its gold accents, and regal aesthetic. When compared to the Behind-the-Scenes concepts, we can certainly see the similarities between the early concepts and the CGI reveal. Most notably, the Disney-like palace that encompasses every shot.

Still sharing about our new hero, Varic said: “No magic hand, no ancient prophecy.” As a zoom-in shot of Antiva City revealed an Antivan Crow stirring a goblet of wine. The palace behind the goblet had magical energy emerging into the skies.

The shot pulled back, and revealed an Antivan Crow sat on the rooftops of Antiva, looking over the city. With Varric talking about the next hero being a nobody, with no magical anchor, and no ancient prophecy, can we choose to play as an Antivan Crow?

If this Crow is not showcasing the option of a new hero, then perhaps this is a Crow who will join our journey, like one of the Antivan Crow Talons. I see a lot of similarities with this cinematic shot and the recent short story - “The Wake,” which was all about the Talons mourning their lost friend.

Antiva as a whole, looks astonishing, from the rivers flowing through the city, to the picturesque sky, the city looks like a delightful place to take a love interest. However, we’re most curious about the magical energy emerging from the palace. Perhaps Antiva City prepares for the imminent Qunari Antaam invasion?

Tevinter Imperium/Siccari

The next location revealed the most prideful, gothic nation known as the Tevinter Imperium. This beautifully macabre shot is most likely showcasing Tevinter’s capital city, Minrathous.  

Once the motherland of the ancient elves before the veil’s creation, Tevinter was founded on the ruins of the elven kingdom, we can see many magical marvels and wonders in this cinematic shot. For instance, we have magical neon lighting guiding you through the city and the floating structure that stands in the centre.  

Perhaps this haunting structure is the Magisterium, or Minrathous’s Circle Tower? Regardless, the ferocious architecture and dark themes truly define Tevinter as a remarkable, and otherworldly nation. A lot of these undertones look similar to one of the concept art pieces shown at Gamescom.

Followed with this shot, Varric said: “The kind of person they will never see coming.” As a new hooded-character was revealed pulling out a winged-dagger ready to attack a blurred figure in a Tevinter alleyway. Not to sound like a broken record, but again, Varric is mentioning the new hero, so is this character one of the potential factions we can choose, and if so, what faction?

Well, because it seems like we’re in the streets of Tevinter, we think this character represents the Tevinter Siccari. This faction was recently introduced in Tevinter Nights, they are the Imperium’s best shadow network, made of highly skilled and secretive agents who each come from slave families, they are formidable and honourable warriors.  

“I have heard many things of the Tevinter Siccari,” the Mortalitasi added, “but I have never heard them called cowards or traitors. Most of them come from slave families, and those families are kept safe as both promise and threat, ensuring the Siccari never flinch from their duties. (The Dread Wolf Take You, page 503). ““Tevinter’s intelligence network declined to answer our request.” (The Dread Wolf Take You, page 485).

This hooded-figure has what-looks like keys on their chest, along with a very golden logo on their shoulder, which looks like an owl? The dagger also looks to have a winged bird on its helm.

If this figure doesn’t represent a faction the player can choose between, then perhaps they’re a shadowy Tevinter character from an unknown faction, or they could be someone like Neve, who was introduced in Tevinter Nights as a private investigator working out of Minrathous. However, we feel like Tevinter Siccari is the best bet, because they’re literally the Imperium’s spies.

Executor/Ancient Elf?

Followed by that, a most intriguing character appeared walking through a snowy forest. The figure has a three-horned headpiece, with trims of red on their outfit, holding a bow made of floating triangles.

The location of this area is the exact same as the sexy tree we witnessed at EA Play, the gloomy, midnight snow graveyard, with infected red lyrium and Ferelden architecture. The tree appeared on the right, as this mysterious character shot their enigmatic bow. With the location being the same as the tree, it can be anywhere close to the equator where it can snow, like southern Tevinter, northern Nevarra, or it could literally be anywhere in the mountains. The Ferelden architecture really throws us off though.

This new character is also a mystery, who exactly are they, and what faction do they represent? Well, we've never seen anyone like this before, so they could totally be something brand-new.

However, we can piece a few things together, like the magical, triangle bow. We saw this exact design in a concept piece at Gamescom, with many thinking that this design was ancient elven. On top of that, in the “Ruins of Reality” short story art piece that featured the Starkhaven elf known as Strife, he wore a red cloak with floating triangles on it.

However, even more intriguing, his cloak had the Executor’s logo on it - “a downward-pointed triangle with two wavy lines drawn through it.”

So, does this new character represent either The Executors, or an ancient elven clan? The Executors are mysterious beings who come from beyond the sea, they’ve been described to wear “dark robes of Vyrantium samite, with a thin mesh dropping down to cover the hood.”

I see a gold trim covering their face, but I don’t know if that headpiece constitutes as a hood? Even so, we don’t know what Executors look like.  

If this character represents an ancient elven clan faction, that would explain why they have this magical bow that fires as if projected with Fade magic, also illustrating the more alien look to this character.

Regardless, we think this character is quite the enigma, they could just as easily represent a Tal-Vashoth clan, a new Nevarran faction, or something brand-new that hasn’t been explored in the games yet.

Varric Tethras

During this entire sequence, Varric said: “We’ve got your back, I’ve got your back.” By, “we’ve got your back” we assume he’s speaking on behalf of the Inquisition’s remnants like the Divine, Scout Harding, Charter and company, who’re pursuing after the Dread Wolf. However, even more than that, Varric said, he’s got our back. So, Varric is coming back in the next game as a pivotal role it seems, hopefully, this time around we can romance our chest-haired friend, please?

Fen’Harel

Varric followed that up and said: “Demons, dragons, darkspawn, even the Dread Wolf.” As the next sequence revealed a very familiar Fen’Harel...

Solas is pressing one of his hands on this fresco that depicts him as the Dread Wolf rising. He’s touching the mouth of the Dread Wolf, as the beast’s teeth appear red, most likely to resemble red lyrium? Does Solas’s plan involve ingesting red lyrium? The substance does weaken the veil after all, so is Solas going to become blighted in order to fulfill his scheme?  

As Solas approached, we can see he has clothed himself in ancient elven robe-like armour with varying tints of green. He looks very stoic, but also a little bit sad.

New Mural

The cinematic mural that featured behind Solas was posted as a painting on the Dragon Age website, so we can take a greater look at it, and decipher its meaning.

https://twitter.com/Nthornborrow/status/1337521623084093440

Straight up, we can see the Dread Wolf with six blazing blue eyes, previously the Dread Wolf was depicted with red blazing eyes, however, this time around, his eyes are blue? This clearly has something to do with lyrium Maybe the Dread Wolf’s eyes will turn red once he has become tainted? Or Perhaps there’s a chance we could stop him from becoming tainted before it’s too late?

As stated, the Dread Wolf has six eyes, exactly like his description in Tevinter Nights. A Mortalitasi mage witnessing the Dread Wolf explained the description of a lupine, monstrous six-eyed Wolf the size of a High Dragon.

“Lupine in appearance, but the size of a high dragon, with shaggy spiked hide and six burning eyes like a pride demon.” (The Dread Wolf Take You, Page 496).

With the proportion of his eyes, there could be some significance to them, or it could honestly just be an art style. However, I wouldn’t deny anything relating to Old God souls or the amount of Evanuris left. But we feel the size of each eye shows us that the Dread Wolf is dealing with some sort of distortion with his appearance, like absorbing Mythal’s power metamorphosing him to become more draconic.

The Dread Wolf is bursting through the Black City which is imbued in red lyrium.

We can see the Dread Wolf has destroyed the Veil by the representation of the spheres that have exploded with a roaring fire. With its destruction, the Fade and the waking world of Thedas have become one. With the world burning in the raw chaos, Solas could then restore the time of the elves.

Two Evil Gods Identity  

These statues are old. Better shape than anything I've seen on the surface. Many of them are for Mythal, though. And Fen'Harel. Not in a spot of honor, but guarding, attending.

Protector and All-Mother, why are you honored here, so far from the light of the sun? And why was the Dread Wolf at your side? — Torn Notebook in the Deep Roads

The two evil figures on the left and right side look like the eluvians and statues from the Vir Dirthara, the ancient elvhen Library. And according to Tevinter Nights, there are many elvhen libraries throughout the land of Thedas like the one near the Imperial Highway. These ‘headpieces’ the figures have are slightly different and differentiate each member of the Pantheon from one another.

it’s honestly hard to tell who these figures could be Pantheon-wise, but here are some of our tinfoil bits that can correlate to their appearance:

When we reacted to this trailer live, we stated that these two figures could resemble the elvhen twins Falon’Din and Dirthamen. Their statues look very similar to these figures, but now that we have studied it, the figure on the left looks more feminine with long hair so this could be Ghilan’nain who has been mentioned a lot recently in the Dragon Age’s short stories and Tevinter Nights. If that figure on the left is Ghilan’nan, then the right still has to be Dirthamen who we know has a closer relationship with Ghilan’nain through Dalish and ancient elvhen legends.

"His crime is high treason. He took on a form reserved for the gods and their chosen, and dared to fly in the shape of the divine. The sinner belongs to Dirthamen; he claims he took wings at the urging of Ghilan'nain, and begs protection from Mythal. She does not show him favor, and will let Elgar'nan judge him." — Old Elvhen Writing

On the other hand, these figures could represent Elgar’nan and Mythal, who are closely related to Fen’Harel’s redemption to break the Veil.

“Long ago, when time itself was young, the only things in existence were the sun and the land. The sun, curious about the land, bowed his head close to her body, and Elgar'nan was born in the place where they touched.” — Codex entry: Elgar'nan: God of Vengeance.

“And that night, when the sun had gone to sleep, Mythal gathered the glowing earth around his bed, and formed it into a sphere to be placed in the sky, a pale reflection of the sun's true glory.” — Codex entry: Mythal: the Great Protector.

We could say that the masculine figure represents Elgar’nan who is represented as a sun. And Mythal, who represents the moon. If these two gods are side by side with Fen’Harel, then the Emergent Compendium’s reference could come true:

‘Two shadowed spheres among stars, an eclipse as Fen’Harel stirred’  

However, this could be a stretch knowing that Solas already has the remaining power of Flemeth, and Elgar’nan also has barely been mentioned, it is worth knowing that these figures have a similar reference to these gods either way...

Another connection these figures could resemble are the remaining old gods that bring forth the blights.  

In our Dread Wolf Rises mural breakdown back in 2018, we talked about the centrepiece of the artwork, with the massive moon that had two golden circles still lit, while 5 of them were greyed out. Most certainly referring to the past and future blights.  

In our new mural, behind these two figures there are the same golden circles. If we are comparing these two murals together these figures could be the two remaining Old Gods left who aren’t blighted, Razikale and Lusacan.

According to Solas, if there is any chaotic event in Thedas, spirits will pull against the Veil, weakening its forces. So, if Razikale and Lusacan were to become Archdemons at the same time, that could potentially tear the Veil hence the Dread Wolf rising in the moment to change the world once again.

Razikale is the only Old God to be confirmed female, so according to the mural, this theory might not be far off from this depiction. These Gods have not been tainted and have been left somewhere sleeping for centuries, to awaken them will require most of Thedas to become blighted in order to escalate the timing of two Blights happening at once.  

However, that’s just a theory, as we know, evil gods have Thedas in their sights, it really just depends which gods we’re talking about. We lean more to the Evanuris in this mural, however, the old gods are not out of the picture yet, as shown in The Dread Wolf Rises mural. We feel a double blight is in store for the future of Thedas.

Dragon Age New Font

Anyhow, the trailer ends with a new Dragon Age font and colour, I wonder if gold is going to be the main tone of the next game.  

Varric ended the trailer, and said: “This is your story.” No doubt referring to the fact that the narrative will be shaped by your choices and consequences.

Regardless, this trailer was amazing, and we’re so happy we actually had another look at the next Dragon Age game! We want to know all of your thoughts and speculation down below, how excited are you knowing that Varric is coming back?

[mdsoyib15]

How To Grow Your Small Business Using Social Media

Are you a little business owner looking for ways to spread your business? Are you looking to captivate more leads to your business, or have enrapture about Social Media Marketing, and now desire to try it? As a little business owner you face many challenges - limited capital, minimal support employee and having too much to do in what appear like very miniature time. So, how do you expand your small business without large investment in marketing and advertising? Answer - along the use of technology. Web 2.0 provides you with numerous tools and techniques that help you to initiate leads and grow the exposure of your home-based business. Social media is one such tool. Here's all you need to know as a little business owner to begin increasing revenue using social media Boostartbd. What is Social Media? Social Media is a classification of online media where people are talking, engage, sharing, networking, and bookmarking online. sample include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, GooglePlus, and MySpace. What is Social Media Marketing? Social media marketing is using the more than mentioned platforms to reach a new audience of purchaser and create by-product brand awareness. By extend word of a product from user to user, Boostartbd, Social Media Marketing attempt to gain greater legitimacy for a message because it is shared between believe in "friends." Which Social Media Channels are most admire? Studies show that Facebook & Twitter are most popular social media channels followed intimately by YouTube and LinkedIn, GooglePlus. Why should Social Media Marketing Interest me? If you think this kind of Marketing is not for you, think once more . These manifesto offer a large package of benefits to small business owners. Here are some reasons why you should appraise using Social Media for your business. subjection: As a small business owner you rely largely on network marketing to channel leads to your business - which, in turn relies on your interaction with people. This is the core opinion of what Social Media is! But Social Media offers virtually illimitable opportunities to interact with people - millions of them! With this interesting form of marketing, your business is no longer slight to local leads; you will find leads coming in from a multicoloured geographic market! Zero-cost: While other marketing media would be exorbitant, this type of marketing is relatively free, or requires negligible financial investment. It's a great low-cost way to get your communication across. ameliorate web presence: Being on popular social media platforms reinforce your web aspect. The further people talk about you on Facebook or Twitter, the special are the chances of your business being found on pertinent web searches such as Google, Yahoo!, or Bing Go viral: Such marketing proffer you the opportunity to go viral with your marketing. Think about this. You lay up a video about your business on YouTube. 10 people like it, and five of oneself share it with their friends, who in-turn measure it with 20 more people. This is known as "viral marketing," and it can be a very effectual method to increase your steer generation. What is a Social Media "game plan" and why would you have one? A social media game plan is a procedure consisting of a little simple steps that can help you attain your social media marketing objectives. The social media theatre is huge and you can get lost in it if you don't play by the rules. There's a lot of competition and you have to have a clear plan if you want to stand out of the rabble and get perceive. Your ideal Social Media game plan A typical game plan for your business should comprise of these four steps construct your network Propagate your appearance Stay join Monitor Step 1 - make your network: The first tramp is to search for and add those users to your network of whom you think fall into your target viewer fragment. When placing a prayer to add users to your network, it is always better to chaperone such requests with a personalized message. You can also look for and join groups that concern to your line of business. For exemplar, if you are a business selling Health drinks and other health-related products, you could join groups where topics such as nutriment, diet or health are talk about. Such groups provide you viewer for the products you have to offer. anyway, when in a group, do remember to ADD VALUE. Answer questions that you are provide to answer, actively cooperate in discussions, be subtle and don't combative"push" your goods. Step 2-propagate: The next step is to declare your Social Media existence. You can do this by adding links to your social media pages on your website, e-mail signature line or bulletin, if you have one. You are out there with your business-declareit! Step 3-stay connected:The third step is to stay attach with your fans and group members. Social media marketing ingenuity is easy to start, but requires effort to maintain. And like many networking attempt, results are usually not precipitate. Acquire authorization from group limb and others on your network to send e-mails. You can then e-mail material content to people on your network. The key here is to send RELEVANT, VALUE ADDING content-not an announcement of your products/services. If you are a health-drink selling company who is also a part of the diet and nutriment group, you can send links such as '10 Best Anti-Oxidant Rich Fruits' and then peradventure add an image and some information about your product, encouraging people to get in touch with you if they're attentive. This detainwill be better-received than just sending the expectation an e-mail flyer completely committed to your goods. Dos and Don'ts interval social networking is all about human interaction and cannot be strait-frocked, here are some tips that will come in useful.viset my website.

[akechicrimes]

Prompt 37? Futaba and Akechi platonic/Futago siblings?

37. “Follow me. It’s okay, just hold my hand.”

after akira leaves tokyo, futaba does just fine without her key item, except for when she doesnt.

(one of them AUs were goro survives the engine room and rejoins the phantom thieves. no i will not explain. persona 5 canon AND persona 5 royal do not interact. for reference in this universe futaba and akechi are half siblings but only akechi knows that)

*

“Next time you see me, I’ll be a whole new person,” Futaba tells Akira excitedly on his second-to-last day in Tokyo. “I’m going back to school, I’m out and about by myself—oh! Oh! Did I tell you I said yes to Kosei? I told Kosei I wanted to go to Shujin and they offered me scholarship! And I went to the subway station by myself yesterday!”

They’re crammed into Akira’s Leblanc attic, sitting around a cake that literally none of them were capable of baking themselves, so they’d bought the thing from a bakery and decorated it with little black and red hearts. Ryuji is passing around his gross soda, while Ann is recounting some story that doesn’t matter with incredible enthusiasm. Makoto looks like she’s determined to enjoy herself and will hear no argument.

The whole thing is incredibly morbid, if you ask Futaba. It feels less like they’re waiting for Akira to leave Tokyo and more like they’re attending Akira’s funeral. Akechi in particular looks like he’s regretting attending, which honestly tickles Futaba more than it should, that the most dishonest Phantom Thief seems to be the only one looking as honestly put-off by the entire affair as everyone else is determined not to be.

That’s everyone else’s problem. Futaba might not be happy Akira has to leave, but she’s proud. She’s sad that Akira has to leave, but also she promised Akira that by the time that he had to leave, she’d be able to get around on her own, without clinging to him for support. And she is able. She kept her promise.

Tomorrow might be the day that Akira has to go, but today is the day that Futaba is Officially Recovered.

Akira does that annoying thing he does where he puts his hand on her head and messes up all her hair, like he’s a human cat showing affection by pissing everyone off. Futaba yelps. “Look at you. You don’t need me at all.”

“I told you that I’d be ready to say goodbye by the time you had to go back to your hometown,” says Futaba. “I haven’t broken my promises yet, have I?”

There’s a burst of laughter from Haru over something Yusuke said, who looks rather surprised to discover that he said anything funny. Both Makoto and Akechi snicker at him, and then stop immediately to glare at each other the second they realize they’ve accidentally wound up sharing an opinion.

Akira ignores them. “Well, you can still text me if you need me. Or call.”

“I’m trying to tell you I’m getting better and I don’t need you,” Futaba grumbles. “Also, what kind of psychopath do you think I am to call someone on the phone?”

“That’s what phones are for.”

“Calling people is scary.”

“I thought you were getting better?” Akira teases.

“I am!” she says, pointing a finger at him. “I am! Just you watch, Akira. I’m getting better every day.”

*

Six months after joining Kosei, Futaba locks herself in her room and does not reemerge for seven days straight.

*

She tells Sojiro that she’s sick. Sojiro tells the school that Futaba told him that she’s sick. She definitely fakes a hell of a good cough, and the school lets Yusuke send her her all the homework that she was supposed to be doing in the first place, but Futaba already knows it’s only a matter of time before Sojiro rats on her, and she won’t even blame him because it’ll be for her own good.

In the meantime, she has stashes of crackers and peanut butter from back when she was a full-time hermit. She hates the taste of peanut butter within three days. Her bed is a relief, soft like a home she never left, up until it isn’t anymore. It’s too soft. No matter how she lies on it, no matter how soft it is, a mattress just isn’t comfortable when you’ve been lying on it for seventy-four hours. It’s hot. Smothering. She feels like she’s going to drown in the blankets and they’ll have to fish her moldy, sweaty corpse out of the bottomless quicksand pit of her too-soft mattress.

The thing about being a shut-in is that you don’t actually like your room very much. It’s not a relief, or an oasis, or even a place you enjoy. You’re just terrified of everywhere else more.

She plays a lot of video games that she doesn’t even like. She watches a lot of Twitch streamers she doesn’t even like. She doesn’t do her homework. She ignores Sojiro. She pretends she’s alright to everyone who texts. She wakes up and goes to sleep and thinks about going outside and goes to sleep and wakes up and wonders if the whole last year and her cautious baby steps back into the world outside was all just a hazy dream.

*

There aren’t a lot of Thieves left in Tokyo, weirdly. Haru and Makoto both graduated, off doing business and law junk that honestly makes Futaba’s brains want to crawl out her ears, but all the numbers check out and Haru’s not in the red yet, and Futaba’s looked at enough people’s dirty laundry to appreciate Haru’s clean ledger. Akira’s back in his dinky hicktown, where there’s barely anything electronic connected to Wifi worth breaking into for surveillance, which is really boring.

Ann’s been doing so many modeling gigs that she might as well not be attending Shujin anymore. She’s practically surrounded by electronics, and all of them are connected to the internet. On any given day, Futaba can snoop through the internet trail of electronic file cabinets full of images of her face, emails about her face, paychecks for her face. Futaba sends Ann more than one email about creepy old dudes making gross comments about her, along with a bunch of other illegal shit they’ve done, plus their offshore accounts full of cash if Ann wants Futaba to sic a lawyer on them.

Ann looks like she’s having fun. Ann looks different on the other side of the computer screen, like she’s less real. Like she’s not someone Futaba really knows. Like Ann’s not someone Futaba’s literally cried on at one point in her life.

Ryuji is definitely attending Shujin, but between physical therapy, catching up on a whole year of track, athletic scholarship hunting, and studying for college admissions tests, Ryuji seems to have been swallowed whole by Shujin, really. Out of boredom, one day, Futaba went down that rabbit hole of researching what it takes to get recruited for track in college, and holy shit–apparently Ryuji’s coach was supposed to be helping him with that whole process, but of course Ryuji barely has a proper coach ever since Kamoshida left Shujin’s track program in pieces. The amount of networking he’s doing is insane, especially for one teenaged boy who barely remembers his homework every night.

Sometimes, when Ryuji’s forgotten to check his email in a while and there’s a message from a coach sitting in his inbox, Futaba will send him a text to make him check it. And then it’s all, What were you doing looking at my emails, Futaba and Which of my other passwords do you know, Futaba, as if Ryuji doesn’t just use the same password over and over and has literally nobody but himself to blame.

So it’s really just Futaba, Yusuke, and–weirdly–Akechi, who’s off doing his gap year and said he was going to go abroad, but then he never did. Not to be a huge snoop, but Futaba went digging through his junk for about five seconds and then she never did it again, because she felt really weird about finding out that the guy that killed her mom is looking into social work, volunteerism, and reforming the justice system.

Like. The man who killed the Thieves’ leader is now literally out there saving orphans. It’s wild.

She might’ve been the one to tell Akechi that he can start over again and do better, but she reserves the right to at least feel weird about it.

She does not call Akira. She talks to Yusuke at school, but she refuses to ask him to accompany her on the subway. She should be recovered by now, shouldn’t she? She was supposed to have gotten over all that when Akira left Tokyo. She’s doing fine. She’s just looking out for her friends. Her, living vicariously through her friends, who’re growing up and growing away, flourishing into young adults? Never.

*

Everything is the same.

*

Didn’t she help kill a god last year?

Didn’t she work so hard to get out of her room, to make friends, to reconnect with Kana-chan?

Didn’t she work so hard to change herself?

Didn’t she help change the world?

*

Everything is the same.

*

Tuesday, 1:43 PM

YUSUKE: Futaba?

FUTABA: yo inari

FUTABA: u got more homework for me or what

YUSUKE: Ah, no.

YUSUKE: I think your teacher finds it suspicious that I’m sending you homework when I’m not in your grade, as it is.

FUTABA: oh no

FUTABA: what a shame that we didn’t have an entire year of experience with getting away with wildly illegal magic brain crimes without raising any suspicion

FUTABA: truly emailing me like four pieces of paper a day is far too difficult

YUSUKE: Well, I can’t get your homework from your teacher, but I can give you more homework if you’d like.

FUTABA: ok bucko that wasn’t a challenge

YUSUKE: There’s a math problem set that’s been incredibly dull to get through when I have more important pieces I could be working on…

FUTABA: inari im sorry to say but

FUTABA: me literally doing your homework for you is about a thousand times more illegal than you giving me my homework when ur not in my grade

YUSUKE: Oh, is it?

FUTABA: wh

FUTABA: are y

FUTABA: what do you mean OH IS IT

FUTABA: did you not KNOW ur not allowed to have other ppl do ur hw????

FUTABA: inari have u been making other people do ur hw for u so u can have more time to do art?????????

FUTABA: no shut up i dont want to know

FUTABA: i will not be ur accomplice

FUTABA: i see ur little speech bubble thingamajig yusuke i said stop typing forever and ever

YUSUKE: I can’t invite you to the art gallery tomorrow if I can’t type.

YUSUKE: It also seems impractical for you to outlaw me from texting forever.

FUTABA: i literally did not say that

YUSUKE: You said, and I quote,

YUSUKE: “Yusuke, I said stop typing forever and ever.”

FUTABA: ok i know it looks like i said that but please im begging u it’s literally just an exaggeration

YUSUKE: As Makoto would say, it’s hardly an enforceable law.

FUTABA: u literally texted my sick and crusty ass just to give me a hard time

YUSUKE: Are you about recovered from your cold?

FUTABA: and now u have the nerve to ask me to go to ur art show thing

YUSUKE: I didn’t say that.

FUTABA: oh really

FUTABA: what were u gonna ask me about then

YUSUKE: The art show, naturally.

YUSUKE: But you could have done me the courtesy of letting me ask.

FUTABA: all that on the day of my daughter’s wedding and now u want me to do u a solid

FUTABA: well i have news for u

FUTABA: the answer

FUTABA: is yeah

FUTABA: sure why not

YUSUKE: Oh, excellent.

YUSUKE: I thought that you might decline on account of your illness.

FUTABA: i’m not a punk bitch

FUTABA: i’m going

FUTABA: u were only working all those paintings for like two months i wanna see their oily faces in person

YUSUKE: Just because they were made with oil paints does not mean that they are oily.

FUTABA: cant wait to see my oily boys

YUSUKE: Unfortunately, I have to set up the event beforehand, so I will not be able to accompany you on the way here.

YUSUKE: Will you be alright by yourself?

FUTABA: uh

FUTABA: hmm

FUTABA: how oily are these boys in case i need to call a rain check

YUSUKE: Hmm.

YUSUKE: Perhaps someone else can go with you.

YUSUKE: Let me see if I can find someone.

FUTABA: what like one of ur art friends

FUTABA: i’m not going with anyone i dont know sry

YUSUKE: I’ll keep it in mind.

Tuesday, 1:59 PM

YUSUKE: Unfortunately, Ann and Ryuji were not available. Both of them will be coming late to the art show.

YUSUKE: Fortunately, Goro is.

FUTABA: whomst

YUSUKE: Goro Akechi?

YUSUKE: Crow, in case you know multiple Goro Akechis.

FUTABA: no like why u callin him goro

YUSUKE: I asked him if I could and he said yes.

YUSUKE: There’s not many people left in Tokyo who were part of the Thieves.

YUSUKE: I’m not exactly popular at school myself, so I thought it prudent to hold onto the connections I already had.

FUTABA: hhhhhhhhhhhhh

FUTABA: but why him……………………………………….

YUSUKE: Has he done something wrong?

YUSUKE: Well.

YUSUKE: Besides the obvious.

YUSUKE: Last I heard, you were quite vocally supportive of Goro making a change for the better,but have you prehaps reconsidered?

FUTABA: i mean he’s always been nice to me

FUTABA: like even before he was on the team as crow

FUTABA: and then later after he like lost his shit and tried to kill us

FUTABA: he was also like weirdly nice

FUTABA: even if he was dressed as a tokusatsu villain

FUTABA: but

FUTABA: i

FUTABA: ok this is gonna sound really weird but like

FUTABA: you know how i said that the person to take me to the art show has to be someone that i know

YUSUKE: Yes.

FUTABA: even though akechi was one of the thieves at the end

FUTABA: i feel like i dont really know him

FUTABA: he like had that whole breakdown where he spilled all his kylo ren sadstuck junk and then he peeled his dumb ass up off the floor and then we beat up his dad in a dark alley

FUTABA: and then i guess akira likes him a bunch and hangs out with him and i guess probably talked to him about all that stuff that happened

FUTABA: and also i think ann talks to him

FUTABA: and also haru i think for some reason……………………..

FUTABA: but like i feel like. we as a group. never really uhhhhhhh

FUTABA: got to know him very well i guess

FUTABA: because he spent like the whole year being a fake ass bitch

FUTABA: and then by the time he wasnt, the thieves were busy literally fighting god, and it was all business business business

FUTABA: ughghfhg i guess this is just a really long way of saying that like yeah ok i guess i do know him but i dont think i really do

FUTABA: even when he was off the shits in the engine room it was like

FUTABA: somehow that was not……………………………….. really him

FUTABA: idk maybe this is just my Thoughts but like

FUTABA: idk some people are like “your true self is who you are at your worst” and

FUTABA: yeah maybe you are some PART of urself when youre at your worst but like

FUTABA: also not???

FUTABA: that can’t be it

FUTABA: that’s not ALL of you

FUTABA: so all i ever saw was him when he was being a fake ass barbie prince and then when he was like actively losing his shit

FUTABA: and both of those were like. two types of fake ass barbie prince

FUTABA: except obviously the one where he started screamin about murder and trying to kill joker was like, fake ass serial killer barbie prince

FUTABA: anyway i dont buy it for a second that seeing akechi at his worst means that i know the first thing about his “”“”“”“”“true self”“”“”“”“”“”“

FUTABA: like i know that i technically met him but also at the same time i dont think ive ever really actually met this dude

FUTABA: uh tldr what’s the truth crowboy

FUTABA: second tldr do you got anyone else i can go to the art show with because im not unpackin all that junk in the trunk while also trying to fend off a panic attack in the subway

YUSUKE: Well, to speak to "what’s the truth, crowboy,” I’d say he’s actually really funny.

FUTABA: WHAT

YUSUKE: Yes, actually.

FUTABA: YOU TRYNA TELL ME YOU SHARE A SENSE OF HUMOR W AKECHI

YUSUKE: As everyone knows, I don’t have a sense of humor.

YUSUKE: But if I did, that might not be inaccurate to say.

YUSUKE: Either way, we could ask Boss if he’ll take you to school.

FUTABA: no

FUTABA: im not makin him shut down leblanc for the day just cause i cant get my shit together

FUTABA: and i go to school by myself all the time now i dont need to be walked there by my dad like a four yr old

FUTABA: r u sure u dont have anyone else who can take me

YUSUKE: You said it had to be someone you know.

YUSUKE: I can take you.

YUSUKE: But I’ll be getting to Kosei early to prepare.

FUTABA: how early is early

YUSUKE: Four in the morning.

FUTABA: PLEASE INARI

YUSUKE: The people you know is a quite limited pool, Futaba.

FUTABA: shut the hell ur face i dont need u tellin me to make kosei friends too

FUTABA: i get my butt to school every day i’m already a hero

FUTABA: ok alright

FUTABA: crow-san it is

FUTABA: hhh

FUTABA: no shut up stop typing i’m fine

FUTABA: i already saw his dumb ass get inflicted with Horny from Yaldy God Himself i ain’t afraid of no crows

FUTABA: actually now that i remember that that was pretty funny mwehehehehehehe

FUTABA: OKAY send me the who what when where why

YUSUKE: There’s a PDF flier. I’ll send it to you.

YUSUKE: But I will have to type the email to send it to you.

FUTABA: oh my GOD inari

FUTABA: i swear to god ur not actually this dense and youre just pretending u dont know what an exaggeration is just to drive me up the wall

YUSUKE: Oh, that is a possibility, isn’t it?

FUTABA: WH

YUSUKE: Ah, last period is starting. I’ll have to talk to you later.

FUTABA: WHAT

FUTABA: NO WAIT

FUTABA: HELLO????

FUTABA: YUSUKE NO COME BACK

Tuesday, 2:53 PM

FUTABA: YUSUKE HAVE YOU BEEN MAKING AKECHI DO UR HW FOR U SO YOU CAN DO MORE ART??

FUTABA: IS THAT WHY UR ON A FIRST NAME BASIS W HIM

FUTABA: ANSWER ME STRINGBEAN

*

In Futaba’s opinion, there’s an infinite amount of more embarrassing reasons to pull yourself out of your depression pit than “I needed to yell at my friend for being a snotty bastard,“ and there’s worse escorts to have than the weird guy who went from being a professional murderer to their weird awkward friend. Firstly, if there’s anything that can motivate Futaba Sakura, it’s the primal urge to dunk on her friends for spite and memes. Secondly, there’s no chance in hell Futaba’s going to have a breakdown in front of Akechi.

She can do this. She got herself out of this grave once; she can do it again. Even if Akira isn’t here. She’s getting better. She promised him.

On the eighth day of her almost-return to hermithood, Akechi texts her:

AKECHI: I’m here.

AKECHI: Are you ready to go?

Futaba is wearing only an old shirt, no bra, sweats, and vaguely greasy hair from all the showers she’s skipped.

FUTABA: i’m SO ready

FUTABA: the readiest

FUTABA: ultra mega super ready

FUTABA: featherman ranger code name Ready

AKECHI: Oh.

AKECHI: Alright.

Hell yes alright. Time for Futaba to save her own life from her gravesite of a room.

With… Goro Akechi. Wow, life is weird, huh?

She drags on her Kosei uniform like a skin discarded long ago. It feels stiff. Maybe because it feels wrong to wear school clothes like a functioning human; maybe because she just hasn’t washed it in a week. The very idea of explaining herself to Sojiro stresses her out, so she doesn’t do it. The idea of not explaining herself to Sojiro, when he deserves an explanation and also would probably have a heart attack if he realized that she’d disappeared from her room without his knowing, also stresses her out, so she still doesn’t explain herself to Sojiro.

I told Akira I’m better now. I can do this. I did this for more than six months. I was out of my room in the real world, I went to the school festival, I changed my own heart…

She creeps down the stairs like a thief in her own house and pokes her head out the door. Goro Akechi is fiddling with his phone in the sun outside her house, looking like he, too, has only just managed to pull on his Human Suit and look like a guy who didn’t make shadows beg for mercy for fun, so it looks like this whole expedition is going to be a lot of fun.

"Futaba-chan?” says Akechi, only just noticing her lurking in her own doorway. “It’s been a while since we last saw each other. How are you?”

Futaba opens her mouth. No noise comes out.

Akechi’s eyebrows slowly begin to knit together.

“I’m good,” she says squeakily. Clears her throat. Holy shit, she’s not afraid of Akechi after all that junk they went through in the Metaverse. She saw him as a rat. She saw him visibly want to break his father’s face when Shido tried to apologize to him on live TV. Once, Makoto and Akechi got into an unironic, passionate, hour-long argument about whether or not it’s beneficial to color code your notes.

“I’m alright!” Futaba announces louder, maybe a little loudly, considering the way he looks only more concerned. “L-Let’s hurry up and get this sidequest over with!”

She pulls her hoodie over her head and jams her hands into the pockets and makes herself as small as possible and inches out of the doorway. “If you… say so,” says Akechi, and eventually matches her incredibly slow pace as she shuffles her way towards the main street.

When the noise of Yongen-Jaya’s street hits her, her heart rate (already high as hell) spikes even higher like the first day she’d come out of her room, but the old coping mechanisms come back like second nature: Breathe slower, avoid eye contact, remember her mission, stick to the sides of the streets. Breathe slower. She’s still got it. It’s still hard, but she’s got a whole arsenal of ways to deal. She can do this. She will kick Yusuke’s ass for being a dick, if only out of sheer spite.

If Akira were here, I could hide behind him and…

No, shut up, shut up. All she has is her hoodie and Goro Akechi. Akira’s not here. She can do this by herself.

Akechi makes precisely two attempts at small talk (“How has Kosei been?” “Have you seen the pieces Yusuke submitted to the art show before?”) before he realizes that Futaba isn’t going to respond by virtue of barely holding onto her shit by her fingernails. He shuts up and sticks close by. Futaba makes her way down the streets towards the subway like walking on a tightrope. The subway station isn’t busy, but she puts every step in front of her like she’s going to fall. Getting on the subway might as well be a highwire. Futaba and Akechi wait for the train in mutual silence to the sound of other commuters murmuring amongst themselves, like a toothless echo of Mementos’s depths.

When they get on the train, people around her are quiet, thank god, but all of a sudden she’s convinced that she smells because she hasn’t taken a shower in literal days, and she tries to pack herself into her seat as tightly as possible. The guy in front of her is scrolling through something at a ferocious pace and his thumbnail keeps hitting the screen with this incessant clack, clack, clack noise. The subway voice announces their next station as the doors begin to close, and a girl suddenly sits bolt upright, having realized that this is her station after all, and bangs Futaba’s knees hard as she passes. Futaba wants to curl her legs to her chest, but she’s wearing Kosei’s uniform skirt and it’d just make everyone stare at her if she did that on the subway. She curls her fingers into the skirt hem. She stares down at her knees and lets her hair drape around her like a curtain. She can do this. She can do this. Breathe slower. Even slower. I did this for more than six months, I told Akira I’m better now, I changed my own heart…

Akechi pulls out his phone. Futaba’s phone buzzes.

AKECHI: Are you alright?

FUTABA: i said i was ready dude

Akechi types and retypes an answer, which technically Futaba could just look over his arm and read, but instead Futaba flips through apps on her phone and pulls up a shitty mobile dungeon crawler. She dies four times before Akechi puts his phone away without sending anything.

They pass multiple stations like that. Futaba sure as hell hopes that Akechi’s watching which station they’re on, because she isn’t. After the millionth time she dies, Futaba just closes the app altogether. Concentration’s shot. Can’t focus on anything. Heartbeat’s too loud. Breathing’s too loud. The guy next to her is breathing too loud. Everything is too loud.

New text:

AKECHI: Yusuke said you’d recovered from your cold, but you still look a little unwell.

Futaba doesn’t respond to that. She doesn’t need Negative Nancy over here telling her she’s gonna crack. Because she isn’t gonna. The subway starts to slow, and the voice announces the station for Yusuke’s school. She’s literally almost there, she’s right there, she might die in three seconds because her heart is going to pound of her chest but at least she’s going to make it, she promised Akira that she was alright—

The subway doors open. Passengers stand to get off. Akechi stands up. Futaba drops like a rock.

“I can’t,” Futaba’s voice says. She sounds like she’s crying. “I can’t, I can’t do it, I—”

“Futaba—”

“I’m can’t do it, I—”

She buries her face in her knees on the dirty subway floor. Oh, she really is crying. “I’m sorry,” she says, “I’m so sorry, I couldn’t…”

Around her, people’s feet stop moving. They’re staring at her. She’s crying on the subway and everyone is staring at her. “Shh,” says Akechi, like Futaba doesn’t know she’s being a loud and irritating pest, but then he takes off his winter coat and covers her with it. Suddenly everything goes dark. It’s a huge coat, too; it wraps around her whole torso with enough room to spare to cover her entire head. Inside, it’s like she’s back in her room, only listening to the sounds of real life somewhere on the other side of a computer monitor, where it can’t hurt her. It’s so surprising she hiccups to a stop. Two hands pull her up by the shoulders and guide her to stand. “Up. Let’s go.”

“Is she okay?” says a voice.

Futaba’s entire body seizes with fear. She ducks into her own knees, trying to disappear.

“Hey, little girl, are you alright?”

“She’ll be fine,” says Akechi’s friendly, super fake ass barbie prince voice. “My sister just had a hard day. I’m sorry for the inconvenience.”

“A hard day?” Now the stranger’s voice is accusatory.

“For your information, our dog was recently brutally run over in front of her eyes.”

“Young man, are you serious right now?”

“Oh, yes. There was blood everywhere. Its intestines squelched horribly under the tires less than six feet away from her,” Akechi goes on. Futaba chokes, and then hiccups in what she realizes is almost a laugh. “Please excuse her. Thank you.” And before the literal complete stranger can follow up on that awful statement, Akechi takes her hand and pulls her up.

Futaba stumbles to her feet. If she has to take the coat off right now, she will actually die.

“It’s okay. Just hold my hand and follow me.”

Blindly, she lets him lead her out of the subway, weaving through people with only minimal contact with other people’s shoulders. There’s a whole awkward period where Akechi has to walk her up the stairs out of the subway station while she can’t see anything, but eventually the noise and bustle of other people around her seems to die away, and the air grows cooler in the way it does in the shadows between city buildings. Then they stop walking altogether. When Akechi lets go of her hand, she almost tries to grab it back before she catches herself.

“Okay. There’s nobody else around, now. It’s safe.”

Futaba doesn’t come out of the jacket. In the dark, her eyes dart back and forth, trying to see even as she blinds herself.

“Sorry for grabbing you so suddenly like that,” Akechi’s voice goes on after it becomes obvious she’s not going to come out.

Futaba wipes snottily at her own face. Oh, this is so gross, she’s got snot and tears on top of five days worth of grime and body juice because she hadn’t taken a shower. She’s disgusting. She really actually wants to die right now. She can’t show her face like this.

“Er,” says Akechi. “Do you want…. water, or…?”

Futaba folds up right there on the city pavement, probably dragging Akechi’s nice coat all over a dirty alleyway. She tucks her face into her knees, where she feels safest, and pulls the coat flaps even tighter. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be.”

“I’m sorry for not being okay,” she mumbles.

There’s a short silence. “You really don’t have to be.”

“I do,” Futaba says. She feels like she’s nine years old again, a petulant kid who needs to hold people’s hands and be escorted around Tokyo. “This is—it’s stupid, and I can’t believe I-I’m still doing this, a-and even a-after everything that h-happened last year, I’m still just a… I’m still…”

“It’s fine,” says Akechi. Even he sounds overwhelmed, and at the first sound of weakness, she pulls the coat off her head and glares at him furiously, red-faced and covered in tears and snot and gross depression juice crust and all.

“I’m not supposed to be this way anymore!” she says miserably. “I’m supposed to be better! Moved on! Doing literally a-anything else but crying over t-taking a subway! It’s stupid and nobody else is like this and I just want to be over this already and I just want to be better already and—!“

She covers her face with her hands again. God, even when she says that, it sounds pathetic.

After a moment or two, she hears Akechi moving again. She peeks at him. He’s crouching in almost the exact same pose as her, looking like he’s resigning himself to neither getting his coat back, nor moving from this spot any time soon, nor getting to Yusuke’s art show on time, but also looking archly and entirely unperturbed about it. Actually, it looks like he’s writing a work email on his phone.

Futaba was right about being in an alleyway, but it’s so cold because they’re shielded by a trio of vending machines selling canned coffee and wrapped sandwiches. "Our dog was recently run over?” she says.

“People can mind their own damn business,” says Akechi in his Pleasant Boy Voice, without looking up from his email.

“He was just trying to help.”

“Oh, yes, let’s help the crying girl by crowding her and suffocating her in a crush of public transit.”

Futaba snorts. “That was really mean of you.”

“Oh, absolutely,” says Akechi.

Futaba sucks a truly disgusting gob of snot into her nose. “Ugh. I wish I could’ve seen the guy’s face when you told him that.”

“It was like I’d spat on his shoes. I should’ve kept going. Or had a camera.”

“Futaba giggles wetly into her forearms. "Like one of those—those prank videos online… Get Yusuke to film it.”

“Yusuke, as the cameraman? I’m not trying to make a documentary.” Akechi flips to a different screen on his phone. “I already texted Yusuke about our poor dead dog, by the way, so don’t worry about it.”

Suddenly Futaba feels like literal garbage again. “Why are you always so nice to me?” she mumbles.

Akechi makes a weird face, like he’s trying to do his old Pleasant Boy shtick while having swallowed a lemon whole. “You say that like me being nice is somehow unusual.”

“Uh, yeah. Because it is. You literally were just being a huge asshole to a guy you’d never met over a fictional dog.”

Akechi has this increasingly disgruntled look on his face like he kind of wants to punt Futaba down some stairs, which, frankly, is the best sort of reward, in Futaba’s opinion. “I’m working on it,” he says grumpily.

“How’s that been?” says Futaba.

“Which part?”

Futaba has one whole moment of self reflection on this idea as maybe not a good course of action before she barrels on anyway: “The part where you’re turning your life around. Starting over. Trying again.”

“It sucks dick,” says Akechi.

“Oh, right on,” says Futaba, and then before she can stop herself: “Wait, I thought you liked dick?”

Akechi makes a noise like a strangled cat.

Futaba cackles. “Dude, incognito mode when you’re browsing for porn does not save you from people like me.”

“Have you been spying on me?”

“Uh, yes? Obviously?”

“You know you could get arrested for that sort of breach in privacy.”

“Oh, boo hoo, so sorry I know all about your weird orphan-saving night job and your smutty Featherman doujinshi collection. You’re not gonna narc on me.” Futaba stops. “Are you?”

“Stop looking at my internet history.”

“No. You better not narc on me.”

“Then stop looking at my internet history.”

“You had to google how to change a SIM card last week, crow-boy; you couldn’t stop me if you tried.”

“I will narc on you.”

“No you won’t. You’re the one trying to not be an asshole.”

Akechi makes a face like a cat being slowly submerged in cold water. Futaba laughs in his face.

“If you’re quite done,” says Akechi grouchily.

“No, never. You’re made for being made fun of,” says Futaba. “I’m gonna be making fun of you for years and years, crow-boy; you’re never going to get rid of me.”

“Great.”

“Gonna be creeping on your weird orphan-saving night job until the day you die.”

“Wonderful,” says Akechi without inflection whatsoever.

“Mwehehehehehehehehehe.”

“If you’re quite done.”

“I will take a well-deserved break from my endless duty to troll you both on and offline,” says Futaba. “Because I really really really wanna go to the art show.”

Akechi has the nerve to look relieved that he no longer has to squat in a dirty alleyway listening to a high school freshman bully him. “Then let’s go.”

Futaba hugs her knees tight. “But I wanna keep your coat.”

“Aren’t you wearing your own coat?” says Akechi, trying to look like he isn’t shivering. “Aren’t you getting hot?”

“I’m keeping it.”

“It’s my coat.”

“I’m keeping it.”

“Fine, then. Keep it. It’s dry clean only.”

“Oh, ew. No, take it back, gross, gross,” and Futaba peels the snotty, tear-stained, dirty winter coat off and dumps it back in Akechi’s arms, who looks at it with the expression of someone long-suffering and without hope of escape.

“And,” says Futaba, “I wanna see it if you tell anyone else that our dog got run over.”

Akechi smirks. “You’ll have to film it, then.”

“Oh my god, like I wouldn’t.”

Futaba scrubs her face one last time. She still feels like she’s covered in a grimy layer of slime, but maybe she can wash her face at Kosei. When she gets there. Because she’s gonna get there.

“Uh, one more thing,” says Futaba.

“Not like you’ve bullied me into doing literally everything else you’ve wanted,” says Akechi.

“You can’t laugh at me.”

“Good thing I don’t have a sense of humor,” says Akechi, which horrifyingly confirms to Futaba that Akechi and Yusuke, of all people, really do share a sense of humor.

Futaba hesitates. “Please, um… please don’t tell Akira about this.”

“Why would I tell Akira?“

"Nice. Good answer.” She smooths her hair down, trying to make herself presentable, or just have something to do with her hands. “I… told him I was gonna be okay without him and all that, so… I don’t wanna let him down, you know?”

Slowly, almost shyly, Akechi smiles. “Oh, yes. I know.”

“Our secret. Secret-keepers.”

“Secret-keepers. Are you ready?”

Futaba takes another deep breath. Pushes herself up, brushes herself off, and sighs. “Absolutely not. This is gonna suck so much dick,” says Futaba. “Let’s go anyway.”

[eponymous-rose]

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E88 (Dec. 17, 2019)

It’s the last show of 2019!

Tonight’s guests are Liam O’Brien and Sam Riegel!

Announcements: Issue 4 of Vox Machina: Origins is out Wednesday, December 18th! The cast will be hosting a fireside chat tomorrow afternoon on Twitch at 5PM Pacific (and the VOD will be up on YouTube on Friday)! After Thursday’s episode of Critical Role, the next episode will be Thursday, January (Mighty) 9th!

There’s a long digression about ox farming, featuring new crew member Kyle!

We’re 13 minutes into this hour-long show, so it’s probably time to talk about...

Episode 88: Unwanted Reunions

Stats for this episode: this is the only episode across both campaign to not use any party spell slots! Caleb rolled his 1,000th roll, which was Deception against Trent, and also rolled his 50th Natural 20, which was a History check (Liam: ”On worms!”). 40 minutes and 21 seconds passed between Sam touching Laura’s dice bag and her arrival. Liam: “Meryl Streep left, too, to go to a Pathfinder game.”

Caleb/Liam regrets how his reunion with Trent went. “I always imagined that we’d run into him on the streets, or on a mission somewhere. I was stunned at how I stepped on a rake.” On motivation: “I’m not sure it’s revenge that he’s going after. I think that Caleb wants to fix it, to not let that happen anymore, but I don’t know how that related to that.”

Sam: “I think the cool thing is that everyone is concerned about Caleb now. Used to just be Nott, but now Beau is invested, Jester checks in, even Fjord seems to be concerned. Everybody wants to make sure that Caleb’s okay, and that’s a new thing.” Nott’s more aware that Caleb has a full support network now.

Caleb’s “still Bren, but I think he wishes he were more. He’s never going to let go of his past, even if he rights those wrongs that he’s obsessed with. If someone’s going to call him Bren, he feels he deserves it. He must always be reminded.” Liam thinks of it as “dual residence” for the names of Caleb and Bren in his head right now.

Nott feels terrible to be considered a “tame goblin” rather than just another citizen of the Empire. “Every time she’s reminded of it, it’s another little jab, another stab in the back. I don’t think it gets any easier.” She’s especially feeling on edge after having spent so much time around her friends and in Xhorhas, where it was less of a factor.

Liam: “It’s not like Bren was the chosen one... he’s just a nail that needs to be hammered back down. If Trent’s going to do something, he’s going to do it later, when people aren’t paying attention. I think he sees Bren like a fly that needs to be swatted. We’ll see.”

Sam on Astrid: "Nott is just trying to get Caleb laid. Everyone who sees Caleb has to know that this guy needs some fuckin’. Loosen this guy up!”

Cosplay of the Week: Pinup Gilmore! (KP11Photos on Twitter)

Liam thinks they should come up with “a sensible plan that doesn’t involve fuckery”. Sam: “Since when have we ever done that?” Liam points out that the Martinet was lying, too, and they really don’t know who they can trust.

Caleb is “extremely moved and doesn’t feel entirely worthy” over his friends offering to kill Trent for him. “He doesn’t process it very well. It’s a lot.”

“Nott is of the Empire, but she grew up in a farming area, sort of a far-flung District. It didn’t really affect her day-to-day life, so she doesn’t have a strong sense of patriotism. If given the choice, I think she’d 100% choose the Dynasty, doesn’t trust these Empire folks, especially not in this city.”

Everyone tries to work out which plots have and haven’t wrapped up thus far. Liam: “You know who’s really at the middle of this? The Tal’Dorei Council.”

Liam on seeing Eodwulf again: “I mean, he’s only been thinking about these people for years. It felt out-of-body, like it wasn’t real. The last time he saw this dude, he was seventeen years old.” Sam pries for more info on the three of them: “They had regular classes, but every week they had three or four days in a row where they were off on their own. They had a little bit of downtime together and they’d run about Rexxentrum together.”

Fanart of the Week: Trent and the Nein! (Feralkingspeil on Twitter)

Sam notes that Ludinus was there in Felderwin, “so Ludinus is not 100% innocent in this. Probably has seen Yeza, or heard of Yeza, and at least tacitly approved of Yeza’s confinement and experimentations-on.” (Sam did also get confused about the characters. “As with most things, I do think I was right.”) Nott is definitely suspicious of all the Assembly. “They’re all fuckers unless proven otherwise.” Caleb’s also trying to suss out who all is corrupt.

“I think the only sense that Caleb has of the fact that he missed a huge portion of his life is seeing Ikithon and Eodwulf. He doesn’t walk around thinking, oh, I’m Tom Hanks in Big, I’m the wrong age for my size. He more just feels like he lost time, he doesn’t feel like a 15-year-old piloting an adult’s body or anything.”

Sam came up with the idea of Nott’s crush on Caleb “pretty early on. When I stared in your eyes during some of the scenes we had together... It makes sense, two people on the road together, away from their mutual lives. Of course that thought’s going to cross her mind. And this man could be her salvation!”

Dani, in reaction to a long string of sexual innuendo: “What is this episode?” Liam: “This is it. This is the worst one. We did it.”

Caleb believes the Nein are in “way, way over their heads, that Ikithon is  a spider in the middle of a web. This guy has been working his craft for decades. That’s how Caleb sees it, anyway, at this point.”

For Nott, the money they’ve been making has seemed like “a means to an end. It hasn’t really changed her outlook, I guess. It’s just security.” Liam: “I would agree with that. It’s the logical progression of both of their determination.”

[popculturebuffet]

Ducktales Reviews: How Santa Stole Christmas! or Scrooge is kind of a dick

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everybody! Christmas begins on this blog with the last new Ducktales of the season! Time to break out some eggnog, presents and warmth of good family, i’ve got a bushel of Christmas reviews planned for the season, and this one is just the start of htem. As you can probably tell by my enthusasim I love this holiday. Oh sure it has it’s bad sides, paticuarlly several jackasses making huge deals out of the fact some people say happy holidays because “there’s a war on christmas” when really their just petty morons who can’t accept theirs more than one holiday in the month and not everyone likes christmas. I do, but I know not everyone does, and that’s fine. But overall it’s a fine holiday with warmth, cheer, family, generosity and of course, what brings us here today, really damn good episodes and specials of television. It’s just a really warm and cheerful time that , whlie it can bring out the absolute worst in people.. can also bring out the best more often than not. And that’s why I love this holiday. If you don’t that’s just fine, but it’s my blog, I can love what I want. And I love this holiday.. and I loved this episode, a good end to a great run of episodes. So let’s rock around the Christmas tree and find out why Scrooge hates santa, this is How Santa Claus Stole Christmas!

We open with the classic night before Christmas poem.. only naturally since Della is reading it to the boys, it’s Scrooge’s version involving barbed wire and calling the man a traitor because what honestly did you expect. Though I find it ironic a man introduced in a Christmas story has a one-sided blood feud with Santa. The boys are annoyed with this and just want free presents and the presecne of a jolly fat man and don’t get why Scrooge hates him. And yeah.. all of that tracks. They were raised by Donald who, while he clearly spent several years at Scrooges tolerating this feud, likely figured the Feud was just some personal gripe of scrooges and that Santa had done nothing that terrible. Which given Scrooge isn’t personable on the best of days and the episode goes out of it’s way to point out Scrooge has no friends, is entirely accurate and Donald was, as always the sane one in this situation. Plus he was already mad at Scrooge, this was just another way to tell him to go fuck himself. 

The boys hear what they think is Santa on the roof but turns out to be Scrooge, in full Scottish war garb manning traps with webby.. in full chimney camo... putting a knife to Dewey’s throat for siding with santa.. well okay pointing at his throat but still god damn. Every now in then i’m reminded how ready Webby is to murder someone. It never gets easier or less disturbing. The boys.. continue to make a good point: Scrooge says he’s the richest duck in the world and can provide them whatever.. but being Scrooge just gives them itchy hats made of cheap fabric, and bemoans them wanting a trampoline, a new electronic game, and a new phone. And while Scrooge can give them whatever he wants, it’s his money, he also could’ve put some actual thought into it and clearly views the holiday more as a transaction and less for hte acutal sentmient. Instead of giving them personal mementos, or making them personal mementos, or even just simply building them a sled or something, a simpler toy than what they want but still something nice that comes from the heart.. he just gave them the cheapest hat he could find and tries to guilt them for not liking his thoughtless present he probably bought in bulk for everyone in the manor and his employ because he’s kind of a dick sometimes. IT’s good storytelling though as it sets up that Scrooge.. can possibly be int he wrong, so when the main plot comes to his front door, quite literally, there’s some doubt as to wither he or santa is in the wrong. Speaking of which Santa is at the door. So cue the credits and cue the cut for the rest of the plot as is usual. Full spoilers, and full plot under the cut. Ho ho ho. 

First a quick comment on the Holiday version of the theme, the same one from Last Christmas! IT’s really good, a really nice frank sinatra style verison of the theme. Good stuff. My only real complaint is like last time.. there’s nothing unique about it, it’s just the normal season 3 intro but with snowflakes. And that’s.. more on Disney than the creators. If Frank and Matt had the option they would likely do an entirely original intro.. it’s just Disney can be cheap when it comes to intros, see how possesed ludo stayed in the star vs intro long after that plot point was resolved, and only affords one a season. That being said they still have one up on most networks, who, with the exception of Netfix with she ra, never really let intros change more than once, if at all. I mean I get it, budgets are higher here than with anime, they can’t do a new song and intro every half a season.. BUUUT it wouldn’t kill more stuidos to do this more often and do a complete intro overhaul, as it adds freshness, and you can still use the same old theme, just over a new set of pretty images. Most just allow a few swap outs, Disney included, and while I get intros are expensive, this is something you can use for a whole season, or more, why are you like this? 

Anyways one theme song and me complaning about an animation trend I don’t like later, we’re inside the Manor with none of the other adults present because this season hates me. I do actually get it this go round: Besides Della, Donald and Launchpad getting a full subplot in the other holiday episode, they aren’t really needed. In fact most of the episode’s present day is a framing device for the tale of how Scrooge and Santa met and why Scrooge hates him, so for once the minmal use of the supporting cast.. is actually done well. The focus is on Scrooge and Santa, a feud that’s had four years build up in real time, and two years in series and a bunch of months. So yeah, i’m okay with sidelining everyone for once, because this story really needed all of the space and there was no real place for them aside from the climax. This is Scrooge and Santa’s story, with Webby there as an impartial-ish observer. We’ll get to that in a moment.  Also if your curious where in the fuck this episode fits on the series massively warped time scale.. i’m going with this and “The Trickining!” taking place before season 3, since “Astro Boyd” takes place in march, and “Forbidden Fountain” takes place in probably late april, huge thanks to a friend on discord for help with the timeline. Otherwise it just makes no sense whatsover and while it dosen’t TECHINCALLY need to, I prefer the series timeline at least making some rational sense. The world dosen’t have to but time still does. So the boys are at least 12, possibly turning 13. Congrats. Or maybe they just don’t age. I dunno. 

Now time and plot concerns aside, Santa gladly gives the boys their gifts which is.. everything they listed: A mini tramp for Dewey, Legends of Legend-Quest 2 for Huey, and another phone for Louie, which Scrooge dosen’t get. But Louie gets it on 2 levels: One, the one he asked for is probably a nicer model and as someone who just got a very marginally nicer model on insurance, I get it, even if like Scrooge i’m fine as long as mine works, it’s still nice to have more space to do shit. And two, he plans to sell the old one and keep the money. So yeah the boys already loved Santa but now they have every reason to since, you know, Santa actually gave them what they asked for and Scrooge gave them itchy hats because he’s cheap not because he put the slighest thought into it. And no i’m ont letting him get away with that: Again, off list, perfectly fine. Right behind me on my sprawl of book shelves is Weird Al’s biography, a really fun, really intresting book with photos on his career. I did not ask for it, but my mom rightly knew I would love it and got it for me for my birthday, which is very close to christmas, the 16th if you were curious, anyway, and I’ve treasured it since.. and really need to re-read it. My point is you CAN get someone something they didn’t ask for and still have it be something they LIKE. I did that for most of my christmas gifts this year. Scrooge just, as I went on about above, didn’t give a shit and was a bit callous about it so yeah, Santa wins this round.  But Santa naturally needs Scrooge’s help to save Christmas because his ankle’s sprained and he’s out of options. Scrooge.. naturally refuses because, as i’ve made clear this and past episodes, he can be kind of a dick and Santa is one of his worst enemies in his mind. Why help him? So Santa, reluctantly, offers Scrooge the one thing you can get for the man who has everything: An agreement to leave his house alone. The boys aren’t happy about it, but Scrooge reluctantly agrees to the deal. They prepare to mount up though the boys aren’t invited, as Scrooge thinks their too far in the Santa camp and Scrooge does not trust him. Which again is both accurate and fair on their parts as again, he gave them things with well meaning and love, he gave them hats he fished out of the dollar store clearance bin. I mean at least go for the dvd’s and blu rays man. Yeesh. Santa does lightly buy them off by offering them another present if their good boys. Though honestly given Santa in this universe, he probably was going to anyway and this is his nice way of getting them to stay behind to make Scrooge happy. 

So as they take off, while Webby is wary of Santa, she is curious what happened, especially since earlier Scrooge actually did finally voice his gripe, if without any full length explination: Santa took Christmas From him. And Della might know that, Scrooge likely didn’t tell her or Donald the full story and Donald rightly didn’t buy it was that one sided. And it isn’t as we’ll see. Since the episodes divided up into two storylines, i’m once again splitting the difference. This time though I would like to mention the story is beautifully woven in, with both complementing each other: there’s some legit suspense as we wonder if Santa did something really that bad or if he’s lying to webby, or if Scrooge being Scrooge was just exaggerating or holding onto a grudge that was partly his fault. It’s genuinely well done to build up the story and helps really flesh Santa out as a character in both stories. i’m only not doing that because my short term memory, while good enough to hold the story for now can be spotty, and this is a lot less taxing on it. Also parts of this segment happen before the boys leave, but it’s easier this way. Sooooo... 

Times Past: Santa’s Worst Christmas Some time ago... seriously I don’t know. Scrooge was born in the 1800′s and Christmas well existed by then, to the point there’s actually a story starring young scrooge published over seas. Granted the Duck’s are no stranger to christmas, as I already covered Christmas on Bear Mountain for Scrooge’s birthday, and will be covering “A Christmas for Shacktown’ sometime this December. It’s just something worth noting. But given this universe can do whatever it wants, having it invited sometime in the early 1900′s or late 1800s is fine just fine. 

Scrooge is a coal salesman, selling people what they need but getting no shelter as he’s, again, an ass. But in the depths he finds Santa, whose having trouble puling his sleigh, and gets them in the previously closed door with kindess and saying he’s with me. We now get an idea of who Santa truly is: a kind, selfless soul who thinks nothing of himself, and is happy to offer a gift in exchange for something, but does so only in the most well meaning, warmest way possible. In short this Santa really is.. what Santa is at his best in stories; a kind, generous man who just wants to make people happy. He just gave a gift not because he wanted to bribe his way in, but because he was genuinely hoping for some shelter and wanted to be greatful. It also shows that clearly, even if something did happen.. Santa probably isn’t evil. A twist still could’ve come.. but spoilers.. it dosen’t. Santa is genuinely this kind and self sacrificing and noble. He’s just a good person.. and that would ultimately be the problem but we’ve got a lot of subplot to cover.  So Santa parties with what are clearly going to be his elves, and turn out indeed to be elves at the end when the fire goes out and Scrooge is suddenly in buisness.. and he and Santa make a great team, as Santa talks him up and says he can deliver a whole year’s worth of coal all over the world by Christmas Morning, so Christmas DOES exist here, it’s just Santa didn’t which kind of tracks. Well played. I’ll keep my earlier mistake in there though. Keeps me fresh. But Santa offers to help.. after all what are friends for? And Scrooge says their not friends.. their partners. 

And Santa says why not both. And a friendship is forged. And it makes sense.. while i’ts not as tight as it will be, Santa is a warm generous guy who helped Scrooge multiple times just to be kind: He helped him find shelter to repay his kindness helping him.. then helped him sell his coal, when he didn’t have to and while he upsold him on what he could do, did so not out of malice, but so his friend could sell MORE and with eveyr intention of helping. And this friend is someone he just met, is kind of cranky and rude.. but as we all know is a good person underneath and to Santa.. that’s what he sees.. the kind young man who helped him pull his sleigh when he didn’t have to and was already cold and miserable. And that.. that just warms my heart a lot.  But Scrooge being Scrooge has a mystic artifact that could help: The Feliz Navidiamond, a mystic artifact that can seemingly control time he got off a  spanish sailor needing coal. The two head in but encounter it’s guardians. The Magic reindeer! And that’s part of what I love about this episode: besides really getting christmas, we’ll get to that, it has a creative and intresting Santa origin baked into the show’s mythology that also shows off an intresting part of Scrooge’s past. Santa manages to pacify them with jingle bells and our heroes head inside.  In the cavern they find a Giant Snowman.. because this show is fucking awesome and Santa’s attempt to be nice bacfires but Scrooge’s natural paranoia and gumption pull through. It shows off why they make a good team: Santa’s niceties helped them with the reindeer, and netted them future transportation, while Scrooge’s natural grumpus tendencies help when nice just won’t do it. They work well together: one’s a showman and the other hasn’t learned how yet, one is nice the other naughty. It’s easy to see why they worked so well together.. in both senses. They make it past the Snowman and find that the diamond slows down time running on “christmas time!”.. seriously a great pun and one of many this episode. This show had a chance to go all out on holiday puns this go round and they did not blow it. 

But... sadly... and obviously the good times can’t roll forever and when we next return to the story it’s a year later. McDuck and Klaus coal is a MASSIVE concern, and Scrooge is eager to get started... but Santa.. wants to just give gifts instead. To do something Generous. Buisness just isn’t in him and he just wants to do something kind. It’s.. not a bad goal.. i’ts just not Scrooge. To Scrooge it’s a betryal of all he stands for: foreswearing profit to give something for nothing for seemingly no reason and to a younger even meaner scrooge.. it’s an utter betryal.. and a breaking point. Either his daft presents idea.. or Scrooge. And why yes this episode is dripping with ho yay and why yes this does resemble his painful breakups with goldie. And why yes is glorious.. Imean I wasn’t shipping Scrooge with santa before but now? Hot damn. But yeah the two have come to a parting of ways, and Scrooge bitterly leaves, while the elves reveal themselves. And my heart hurts “The Empire Builder from Callisota” bad so thank you and fuck you show.  It also probably shows why Scrooge has exactly one friend, who also works with him so it’s complicated, in present day: He just dosen’t want to let people in... and now we know WHY. The first genuine friend he made, the first person he let into his heart.. betrayed him. It’s no wonder it took decades for Beakly, then the kids to get into his heart again: the guy’s been betrayed by goldie, in his mind betrayed by santa and as we’ve seen his own dad turned against him eventually. He had no one for so long, he built a wall all around him but the wall was too tall and it blocked out all the birds and the son. But this .. is a really damn good story that fleshes Scrooge out and explains his hardness. In the comics it was Glomgold.. here.. it’s much more personal and cuts much deeper. And I absolutely love it. This story could’ve neatly fit into life and times if it made any sense in Rosa’s timeline, and it would be just perfect there. 

PRESENT DAY: Concentrated Awwww

The present day plot is a lot simplier but still fantsatic: Webby slowly warms up to Santa depsite herself.. despite Scrooge clealry seeing she is.. she sees the man is just.. nice. He gives her a new crossbow, a really nice one she probably didn’t even expect to get given you know, everything and knowing scrooge, and appricates the sentiment and slowly sees the man isn’t some monster, but just a jolly old fat man who wants to give presents. Even Scrooge seemingly warms up a little.  We also get tons of cameos during delivery, as they visit tons of supporting cast.. sadly no Darkwing.. but this one was clearly meant to go anywhere and is clealry set before “Let’s Get Dangerous”, but tons of other great bits: We get the Drake recidence with Boyd getting a present.. and somehow also doofus whose filled his stocking full of.. something. I don’t want to know and you can’t make me ask. You can make me ask why the fuck Doofus gets a present, but it could be filled with bees or maybe Santa truly thinks theirs good in him.. which .. yeah tracks. I mean not their being good in him.. I think dr. loomis said it best.. I mean it was about micheal meyers but.. same diffrence minus the patricide?

I mean points for trying though Santa, you mean well you loveable bear in both senses of the word you. But anyways other cameos include Fenton, alsleep with his armor strewn about, aww, with the gizmo armor set to hit people with fruit cake. Thought that was against the geneva convetion but alright. Scrooge’s been hit with worse. We also get them visiting the boat and giving Donald and Della presents, awww. And of course I saved the cameo I put up top for last as Webby visits her closest friend and her gilfriend and gives both an adorable cheek kiss. Though only Lena reacts.. probably because this isn’t the first time Webby’s snuck into their bedroom at night but probably the first time it hasn’t been accidently creepy because she’s still learning boundaries. Also i did not realized they shared a room. Aww. Also it’s the first time we’ve seen their room, which as you’d image from a sorceress and a magical researcher/bookworm, it’s a massive sprawling library from what we see with a skull with a candle in it, a picture of a house, and a calender. IN short it’s perfect and i’m glad we finally saw their room. 

So yeah things are going well and Webby finally realizes “Shit Scrooge is the bad guy in this scenario” at the end of the story, realizing Santa was just as hurt by the split as Scrooge was and that he had to make the harder choihce for the right reasons. Unfortunately, as i’ve said a lot this review, SCrooge is a dick and only coperated, as he wasn’t using the magical present sack, but his own filled with Coal to teach people about responsiblity. Thankfully, Scrooge realizes he’s been a dick to the globe when he happens upon little Jeniffer, a small pig girl who mistakes him from santa and takes his coal, meant to warm her fires.. and makes it into a doll. And resists his attempts to take “Coalette away”... Scrooge then rants and .. we actually get a good reason for why he’s being such a douche... as a kid he had nothing, and a gift of coal for his fires would’ve been welcmoed. He simply just.. dosen’t get the frivolity. He gets the warmth and joy of the season but not the gift part. And it’s only seeing this small, innocent child, play with a doll, he realizes “A warm heart can keep you going through the coldest nights”. And it’s then he finally realizes why his old friend did what he did.. because as i’ve been saying the real gift.. is in the giving.. of giving someone something that makes their memories glow and their heart warm. Even a lump of coal can do that in the right hands... a toy can get someone through the roughest times and it’s the WARMTH of the gift you remember, not the gift itself. I remember that book I mentioned proudly.. as do I remmeber the copy of the art of the venture brothers right next to me, or the copy of the people’s doonesbury my best friend mike bought me, and so on.. not because of the book itself... but because of the thought and warmth of someone getitng something for you because they care, not for their own reward, but just to make you feel nice this holiday season. That’s the true spirit of christmas.  Naturally realizing the errror of his ways in true christmas story fashion, Scrooge is devistated by his own actions. And Santa is PISSED.. but Scrooge is now regretful.. if also pissed because Santa stormed in there and it turns out this was all a ploy to get his friend back... which destroys Scrooge’s anger as he realizes just how much his old friend missed him and how many years he wasted lashing out at him when , in the end, Santa was right. So with only so much Diamond power left, and time running out, what can they do to right this? Simple, Scrooge suggests splitting resources. 

So we get a glorious shot of the three boys, and the twins riding  the reindeer. Also we get Launchpad! 

Who naturally wonders if he can crash a reindeer while Beakly thankfully stops him from murdering Dasher. So Christmas is saved and Scrooge and Santa exchange gifts: For Scrooge, a set of bells with their old company name.. and for Santa? a garage door opener. While Santa’s confused turns out.. it’s to turn off the traps. He’s welcome any time.. just use the front door. Cue a big hug, and Webby narrating us out as Scrooge wishes everyone a merry christmas once again letting people into his heart.  I have.. the approirate response to that. 

Final Thoughts: Excellent, easily one of the best of the season, the series and possibly of chirstmas show episodes all together, we shall see when I put together my list. And given how utterly excellent Last Christmas already is, it was hard to top.. but they did it. This was a warm, wonderful special that gets to the heart of christmas.. and really why I LIKE santa so much. For all the comercailsim around him.. he’ s a kind generous man who gets kids to belivie in magic for a while, wants nothing in return , with the offering of cookies just there to be nice and thank him for being a good person, and just wants best for people. He’s what’s best about christmas rolled into a person. And the series gets that and makes him the kindest guy around. It ends up being a story abotu Scrooge learning the meaning of christmas, an irony that’s not lost on me, but in a way that’s diffrent and unique from last time and works just as well. It’s just a warm wonderful epsiode with plenty of great gags and adventure and a beautiful, unique story at it’s core that could only be told here with tihs cast and this version of scrooge and that’s what makes it so damn magical. Easily a fantastic note to go out on.  Next time on Ducktales: I don’t know! Next time this blog covers ducktales: We’re going back a few seasons to the only episode i’ve never seen, not even a little bit. It’s the treacherous summit of mt neverest!  Until then, if you liked this review, reblog and all that good stuff, follow for more ducks, and if there’s an episode of any show you want me to cover, my cyber monday sale is still going till midnight central, and even past that if you get in a liittle past it, so you can comission a review of any episode for just 3 bucks right now, 5 if you get to this review after monday. So spend if you have it.. and if you don’t.. happy holidays to you anyway. Have a wonderful season.