#also I have no idea how much we’re supposed to have memorized vs how much will be in whatever material we’re provided :/ i mean surely we

[pallases]

what if i just. did not practice for my graphics final <3

[omegalomania]

okay, couple things i haven't seen people comment on yet! bolded emphasis is mine and is not present in the original text.

Buzzed off of the alpenglow.

so "alpenglow" is a specific phenomenon when the setting sun lights up the horizon in deep rose hues and soft shadows. as you can see on the article images, this can often result in pink and purple visuals.

You never think you’d look back and be nostalgic for right now - For car rides that never seemed to end, the way the world used to look in 90s newscasts, or cloroxing your groceries before you bring them in from the garage…. To all the animals you see in the clouds and the faces you memorized in the tile of the shower in your childhood home- the pareidolla-n prince.

themes of nostalgia vs. reality are definitely present in all the teasing they've done for this album thus far. "field of dreams" addresses it directly. "dark city" is about memories of a place that never existed (the beach was never real). the bit in "reality bites" about the pink seashell addresses how we assign meaning to things that ultimately don't mean very much at all.

all of that also ties into the overall idea of searching out codes and meaning in things that might not have anything of the sort. more on that later.

Placing items in my cart and continuing shopping- but emotionally. You start to wonder if you have more good road being you than ahead. Shake it off. [...] Still trying to get free of everything we’re supposed to be.

this doesn't have any special meaning or context i just like the message. maybe just being your own silly weird self is worth more than looking ahead. when they made you they broke the mold. don't let expectation pigeonhole you in. just makes me fond!

Sometimes I feel like detective working a bad beat for too many years, chasing old leads- not ready to quit but unable to solve the case- just hoping I get more than a gold watch on my retirement day

[...]

PS (thanks for always sticking around. Thanks for working the beat. Spoiler alert: we got more than a gold watch coming for you next year).

this is the part that gets to me. this is an explicit comparison between US and the detective. sometimes pete feels like the detective...but at the postscript, the comparison is made explicit. we're the detectives, to him. we've been chasing leads - websites, postcards, whatever scraps we can find. we've been working the bad beat, and all the while they've been cooking up something special for us, and now that's about to pay off.

i will say for my part...i don't think there's any secret code here. the weird formatting, the punctuation, the inconsistent capitalization - aside from the wink-wink nudging at us ("pareidolia" refers to the inclination to look for patterns where none exist) - frankly, this is just how pete types! a lot of his old blogs and livejournals were peppered with grammar errors and misspelled words, because that's just how he wrote them out. and it takes me back some...there's that nostalgia again. how about that?

[froggysoup]

wowee

Alrighty I’m just gonna ramble on about my thoughts on the new quest (and things in general because I talk too much) and pray that at least some of it ends up coherent. Spoilers, by the way.

I’ve had this first theory since the last archon quest but got nervous and didn’t share, so here it is now. Maybe it’s an obvious thing that I’m just in the dark about, but I’m fairly sure that Dainsleif’s “Boughkeeper” title has a large part in explaining why he knows so much about things he really shouldn’t. From the newest quest, we learn that he is actually cursed with immortality, which could explain some it, but the guy still knows too much for it to simply be chalked up to his age. He’s literally the designated narrator for half of the official videos and knows a lot about what and who he talks about.

I suspect that the ley lines serve as an information network of some sort, and that Dainsleif’s position as Boughkeeper allows him access to it in one way or another. The only other places we really see the whole tree/branch thing is with the ley line branches, Irminsul trees, the Frostbearing Tree, and the tree who once had roots that spanned the whole continent (which we know the ley line branches were once directly a part of), all of which are connected in a way that I haven’t quite figured out yet. 

Now, from those screens that come up while the game is loading, we know that supposedly, the intertwined roots of the Irminsul trees far beneath the earth determine the pattern of the ley lines above, and we also know that ley lines are a “mysterious network that links the whole world together” and that they are said to remember everything that happens in the world. From this, I don’t think it’d be that much of a reach to say that Dainsleif can access that somehow.

Next. I do think there’s a pretty good chance that the Archons were involved in the destruction of Khaenri’ah. The Viridescent Venerer set actually tells us how the former Dendro Archon died during the cataclysm while in Khaenri’ah, which. Uh. That’s kind of really incriminating. 

However! Obviously, we’ve only heard this from Dainsleif’s point of view and he’s pretty biased considering his whole thing. We don’t know how much control Celestia has over the Archons’ actions, either, and I’m about 98% sure that some of them weren’t into it, and likely didn't even have a choice. Like, look at the Tsaritsa. Her whole thing is that sometime during the cataclysm, she witnessed something so view-shattering and unjust that her whole thing now is to “burn away the old world” and overthrow Celestia. 

I also can’t see Venti and Zhongli going along with the destruction of an entire nation with no hesitation. Like, obviously, again, Dainsleif is going to be biased, but from what we’ve been told Khaenri’ah didn’t even do anything divine-retribution-worthy. Celestia just seems be into dropping skyscraper-sized pillars and other things onto nations who get too good at being independent, for whatever reason. The new quest is definitely supposed to make us question the current systems of this world but I don’t think we’re meant to hate Venti or Zhongli, at least yet. I think they’re even kind of meant to be seen as the “best” out of the Archons, so to speak. (Not that I think they’re perfect, by any means.)

Like, just look at the way they’ve been presented to us, versus how some of the other Archons have been introduced (Storyline Trailer, my beloved). 

Raiden Shogun is made out to be some self-absorbed divine ass-kisser who doesn’t have humanity’s best interests at heart (which we know is supposed to be a thing you do as an Archon). She’s doing her whole confiscating visions and oppressive rule thing in an effort to be seen as more divine, but, as Dainsleif puts it, “what do mortals see of the eternity chased after by their god?”

The Dendro Archon/God of Wisdom is implied to not actually be as smart as somebody with that title is supposed to be, one way or another, and either has turned a blind eye to or blatantly encourages the “push for folly” in Sumeru. Can’t tell exactly what that would mean or entail (thanks, Dainsleif), but obviously. Doesn’t sound good.

Dainsleif says of the Hydro Archon that she “lives for the spectacle of the courtroom, seeking to judge all other gods. But even she knows not to make an enemy of the divine.” While the not making an enemy of the divine thing I get (I guess, coward), the whole “seeking to judge all other gods” bit seems very “remove the log from your own eye”-y. Like, you’re an Archon, too, what are you trying to prove here?

The Tsaritsa is- well, the Tsaritsa, as we know. While I do think we are meant to sympathize and agree with at least part of her core ideals and motives, she still is the one behind the Fatui and is, by extension, a war criminal. She also apparently has “no love left for her people”. It’s a bit of a complicated relationship that we have with her.

The only ones who Dainsleif does not directly slander in the trailer are Venti, Zhongli, and Murata. While I don’t think we have enough on her to come to any conclusions about her character yet, Venti does say of her that she is a “wayward, war-mongering wretch”. Now, he does also jab at Rex Lapis during this voiceline, but unlike with Murata we know that those two are buddy-buddy and it was very likely that it was “buffoon (affectionate)”.

Venti and Zhongli are also the first two Archons we encounter, which is important for multiple reasons.

Gonna derail for a bit because I don’t know where to start. But. The game very likely will (or at least should) end with no Archons.

Obviously, especially in light of the new quest (although this stuff has been floating around since the Dragonspine update and even before that), Celestia Bad. Like, cataclysmically bad (lmao). In fact, I’m highly certain that you could trace basically every problem in this game back to them, some way or another.

Even our main “villain” groups all seem to be gunning for Celestia. The Fatui obviously work for the Tsaritsa, who’s made it very clear that she plans to rebel against the divine. The Abyss Order, too, has their Deeply Upsetting plan of creating a mechanized god with the power to “topple the divine thrones of Celestia”.

Evidence points to an overthrow of Celestia at some point in the game, and considering how being an Archon or even a god is directly tied to Celestia, yeah. No more Celestia means no more Archons.

But even besides that, there’s a lot there to suggest that that’s where things are going.

I find it interesting how Mondstadt’s our prologue chapter, or that there’s even a prologue chapter of the game at all. Prologues are meant to set up ideas that will be present throughout the rest of the story, and Mondstadt does exactly that. Venti’s let the people of Mondstadt govern themselves and has almost completely been out of the equation for millennia, even if that means he is significantly weaker than his godly peers. When asked why he chose to do that instead of remain in charge and just give them freedom, Venti responds that “freedom, if demanded of you by an archon, is really no freedom at all.” This sentiment is also brought up in the Mondstadt portion of the storyline trailer, and the traveler even has a whole voiceline debating what Venti really meant when he said that.

This idea of freedom and that humanity is capable on its own is further reinforced in Chapter 1, in which Liyue learns to move on from the death of its Archon. Zhongli set up his plan with the intention of testing if his people could stand on their own legs without him there to guide them, and they do. He even expresses how pleasantly surprised he is that the Qixing were able to take advantage of the situation and seize control like they did. Keqing gives us this whole speech when we first meet her about how the adepti and gods underestimate humanity’s capability and how Liyue’s future is meant to be a godless one. This, in a way, extends to the rest of the continent as well.

In the storyline trailer (which I quote too often, I’m sorry. My favorite and only party trick is that I got bored one day and memorized the whole thing), Dainsleif spends the entire Khaenri’ah section musing about something similar. 

“In the perpetual meantime of a sheltered eternity, most are content to live and not to dream. But in the hidden corner where the gods’ gaze does not fall, there are those who dream of dreaming,” is obviously about the people of Teyvat vs. those in Khaenri’ah. While a future under the care of the Archons is a safe and reliable one, is it one that allows humanity to chase its potential to the fullest? Khaenri’ah was destroyed for flourishing like it did without gods, both as a punishment and a warning to everybody else.

“Some say a few are chosen and the rest are dregs, but I say we humans have our humanity.” This is in reference to visions. Throughout the game, this idea that, at least in the eyes of the gods, vision holders are more important than those without them, is constantly brought up.

In the commission “Leaves on the Wind”, Dr. Edith expresses how it often seems as if vision holders are the main characters of this world. From the notebooks we receive during the “Time and Wind” world quest, we learn that the Sumeru Academia actually discourages non-vision holders from conducting outdoor surveys, and how “these days... trying to be an academic when you don't have a Vision, it's really restricting...” Dainsleif even just straight up asks us what we think the gods think of vision holders and people in general during question time in that one quest.

In Lisa’s stories, we learn that the reason for her laziness is that a part of her is afraid of learning or doing too much, after witnessing what “uninhibited erudition” can do to people during her time in Sumeru. She also senses that something beneath the surface is happening regarding the distribution of visions. “For whatever reasons, the gods gave humans the key to changing everything, but they did not explain the cost involved. Lisa grew fearful of the truth.”

I forgot exactly where I was going with that last paragraph, but yeah. There’s definitely sketchy shit going on behind the scenes in regards to visions, possibly to keep people either quiet or complacent. I suspect it may even be to restrict access to certain knowledges or even the elements themselves. Anyways.

I lose track of my thoughts too often. Fuck. Right. Mondstadt and Liyue served as good examples of society under the rule of the Archons, and in Chapter 2 we will encounter our first bad example, showing us the pros and cons of the current situation. However, despite Zhongli and Venti seeming to genuinely care for their people, humanity’s wellbeing shouldn’t be reliant on how their god is feeling that day, and they shouldn’t have to look to the gods for a chance to become something greater than themselves, either.

Um. All that’s to say I’m just very excited to see where the story will go, and if Zhongli’s contract with the Tsaritsa is any indication then it’s gonna go somewhere good. Celestia bad, Archons bad but also not bad but also bad, I don’t know if what I just wrote actually even counts as understandable, thank you and good night.

[daisylikesmedia]

Series 6 Episode 9: Night Terrors

Heyy everyone, today we’re going to look at another Mark Gatiss script, and his first script to not be a historical. I’ve never really been a big fan of his historical works, so let’s see how he fares writing in the present day.

I want to take a slightly different approach with today’s approach, and use an example of another episode with the same concept to compare and contrast my thoughts. The episode we’ll be comparing Night Terrors to is Fear Her from the 2nd series of new who. If you were reading back then, you’ll know I’m not a big fan of that story, but after watching some Doctor Who Confidential apparently that episode was supposed to focus on the kind of childlike suburbian horror we also see from Night Terrors, making it in my opinion a good point of comparison.

So, the first thing you have to nail when doing a horror episode of Doctor Who is the horror itself. We’ve gotta sit down and ask ourselves “is this episode actually scary?”. I think Fear Her, despite having intentions of creating horror, doesn’t hit the mark here. The drawings could’ve been spun into a more body horror kinda thing, but the episode avoids focusing too much on this aspect, whereas Night Terrors is very willing to show in graphic detail people being turned into wooden dolls, a little bit like the gas mask zombies from The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances. The evil thing locked away in the cupboard trope is done in both episodes as well but is used to a much greater effect in Night Terrors imo. One drawing at the back of a closet VS all your scary toys and ideas locked in a cupboard. Even the setting of Fear Her is all bright and colourful, compared to the dark dreary tower of flats that Night Terrors exists in. It feels that Fear Her tried to be horror but didn’t want to commit to it, whereas Night Terror embraced it fully.

Another thing I want to touch on are the performances of the main cast. Both episodes focus around a child in distress, and so both episodes had to take the risk of hiring a child actor. Get a well-suited one in, and the episode goes smoothly. Get an actor who isn’t suited for such a big role, and the episode can crumble underneath them. Fear Her’s child actor was one that I don’t think managed to sell the performance, and so it made it so hard to take the episode seriously. Night Terrors on the other hand has a pretty strong performance from the child actor the episode revolves around, and so the stakes are sold.

My only big issue with this episode is that I’m not much of a horror girl, and so often I need a bit of levity to balance out the darker toned stories. Fear Her gave too much levity and it diminished the horror in the episode, but with Night Terrors there’s no real levity of all bar the odd line or two, making it one of the bleakest episodes of the show. I think the balance can be seen in Moffat’s RTD-era scripts. I think in those he does a fantastic job of finding that goldilocks zone between too much and too little levity. It’s just right in those stories, and I love them for it.

TL:DR/Overview: Night Terrors takes the archetype of domestic horror that Fear Her uses, and does a much better job at executing on it. Strong performances, great scares, and a good use of the tropes around the genre make this episode a fantastic little surprise to rewatch. I do think the episode sometimes lets the tone get a bit too dark for my liking, and a lot of the episode isn’t “memorable” per se, but it was a very refreshing watch. A tier.

[jageshemashftw]

You know what? I’ve never watched Super Sentai before. Let’s just get real into Super Sentai.

Himitsu Sentai Gorenger Episode 1: The Crimson Sun! The Invicible Gorengers!

So the majority of the episode is basically just set-up, but it takes a sort of ‘middle of the story’ approach to the team’s origin story. You know, how they’ll have them already working together, already on their mission, and then later they might have a flashback to how they actually got started.

We do get a broad strokes idea, though. Basically, we got a GI Joe vs Cobra story with a paramilitary organization called EAGLE fighting a terrorist group called Black Cross. (Who’s leader inexplicably looks like he’s from the Ku Klux Klan for some reason)

That alone kinda threw me a bit. I’m coming at this series as a long time fan of Power Rangers, so having the main villains not be monsters and just… people in suits is kinda weird for me. (I mean, they’re always people in suits, but now it’s in-universe)

And these are full-blown terrorists too. Straight up merc-ing crowds of people with uzis and blowing up buildings. Black Cross came to wreck shit and kill people.

Hell, what little origin story we do get for the Gorangers (Is it Gorangers or Gorengers? I can never tell…) shows that they were all the last survivors of their respective EAGLE base getting absolutely slaughtered by Black Cross. Although I kinda have to laugh at the Green Ranger’s introduction. Literally, the only reason he survived the attack was because he was too busy feeding the base’s carrier pigeons. I like to believe he’s actually really low in the ranks of EAGLE but… he’s literally the only one left from his base, so might as well make him a Ranger.

Also, I don’t think the Red Ranger was even a member of EAGLE before Black Cross blew everything up. He was literally just playing soccer outside the base when shit went down and his brother (who apparently was EAGLE’s commander) got ganked. Maybe it was a company soccer game?

(As an aside, I’m probably going to refer to the team by Ranger color for a bit before I memorize their names. Sorry…)

We get a bit of a timeskip where they’re already in the Ranger suits and already know each other. Like I said, we’ll probably get a flashback that shows us their proper origin story, but this is good enough set up for now.

Most of our introductions to the Gorangers proper is them training with their respective weapons before getting an invite from the Red Ranger to get their asses over to a diner called Snack Con.

Blue Ranger has a bow. Yellow Ranger is pulling a truck up a mountain. Green Ranger has a boomerang. And the Pink Ranger has fucking grenades!

Fucking immediately, Pink is my favorite Goranger purely for that level of practicality. Like, guys, you are fighting actual fucking terrorists. Put the bows and boomerangs away and start packing! Pink’s got the right idea!

Also, Yellow pretty much instantly establishes himself as ‘the fat one’ by virtue of eating four fucking curry bowls at once. I feel bad for Blue who has to share a cockpit with him later.

Speaking of Blue, he’s apparently a… cowboy? Like, with the hat and a guitar and assless chaps and everything. Huh.

Apparently, they haven’t been the Gorangers for long, since they’re only just now being shown their base of operations, their Commanding Officer (who’s just a voice on a TV for now), and their vehicles, including some suped up motorbikes and their airship, the Variblune.

I know enough about Super Sentai to know that they won’t get their first ‘Megazord’ or mecha until the third series ‘Battle Fever J’. So the Variblune is pretty much the closest we’re gonna get. But it’s a pretty cool airship. It’s got flame decals, which you know EAGLE command really pushed for because it’s awesome.

So our Gorangers get their first mission: To rescue a school bus full of kindergartners who have been kidnapped by Black Cross for… evil reasons, I’m sure. Honestly, I think Black Cross just seriously felt like being dicks that day.

The Gorangers try to bust into a warehouse where the kids are being kept, but to no avail.

Our fearless Red Ranger remembers that Blue and Yellow are flying the Variblune above them, and gets a great idea to free the kids trapped inside.

Blow up the building.

I think that might be a bit of an extreme response, Red!!

Hey, the logic is sound! They can’t be the Black Cross’ prisoners if their all dead!

Thankfully, I guess ‘Blow up the building’ actually means ‘Use a giant claw machine grabber to punch a hole through the roof and pick the bus up out of the warehouse.’

Thank god Blue apparently understood that better than I did, or else this would have been a much different episode.

So, the Gorangers chase after Black Cross, including one general named Gold Mask who killed Red’s brother, and have themselves their first fight in the actual suits. We also get to see Red’s personal weapon, which is a whip.

I suppose now would be a good time to discuss the morphing sequence.

There is no morphing sequence.

There’s sort of been this running gag where Green tells Yellow a riddle. ‘What sort of lamp can’t be lit?’ And we have Yellow asking the other Gorangers about it, trying to figure out the answer.

The joke kinda gets a payoff in the fight scene where Yellow’s got one of the Black Cross henchmen in a chokehold and demands he tell him what kind of lamp can’t be lit. The henchman’s response.

“It’s so obvious. A trump.”

I don’t get it.

Also, apparently Pink’s got a second weapon… a mirror that she uses to flash light at her enemy’s face to blind them.

Yeah, I would stick with the grenades. Which I didn’t notice before, but the grenades are actually the heart shaped ‘earrings’ that are dangling off the side of her helmet. I would not put explosives that close to my own head, just saying.

The battle ends with the team employing ‘The Goranger Storm’.

Wow, some kinda cool team attack, finishing move. What’s it look like?

They kick a soccer ball around for a bit, kick it at the bad guy’s head and it explodes.

…

…

… Okey-Dokey.

Also, I feel the need to remind you that Gold Mask was the guy who killed Red’s brother. I feel like that should have been a more personal victory for Red, but they just kinda blow his ass up without much fanfare.

So that was the first episode of Gorengers and the first ever episode of Super Sentai as a whole.

All in all, I enjoyed it and I’m looking forward to the rest of the series. It definitely shows it’s age, but that can be both a strength and weakness sometimes. I’m not gonna do one of these for every single episode, but I’ll do one for episodes I feel are worth talking about.

[ordinaryschmuck]

What I Thought About Loki (Season One)

(Sorry this is later than it should have been. I may or may not be experiencing burnout from reviewing every episode of the gayest show Disney has ever produced)

Salutations, random people on the internet. I am an Ordinary Schmuck. I write stories and reviews and draw comics and cartoons.

Do you want to know what's fun about the Marvel Cinematic Universe? It is now officially at the point where the writers can do whatever the hell they want.

A TV series about two Avengers getting stuck in a series of sitcoms as one of them explores their personal grief? Sure.

Another series as a guy with metal bird wings fights the inner racism of his nation to take the mantel of representing the idea of what that nation should be? Why not?

A forgettable movie about a superspy and her much more mildly entertaining pretend family working together to kill the Godfather? F**king go for it (Let that be a taste for my Black Widow review in October)!

There is no limit to what you can get with these movies and shows anymore, and I personally consider that a good thing. It allows this franchise to lean further into creative insanity, thus embracing its comic roots in the process. Take Loki, for example. It is a series about an alternate version of one of Marvel's best villains bouncing around the timeline with Owen Wilson to prevent the end of the universe. It sounds like just the right amount of wackiness that it should be too good to fail.

But that's today's question: Did it fail? To find out my own answer to that, we're gonna have to dive deep into spoilers. So be wary as you continue reading.

With that said, let's review, shall we?

WHAT I LIKED

Loki Himself: Let's get this out of the way: This isn't the same Loki we've seen grow within five movies. The Loki in this series, while similar in many ways, is still his very own character. He goes through his own redemption and developments that fleshes out Loki, all through ways that, if I'm being honest with you, is done much better in six-hour-long episodes than in past films. Loki's story was already entertaining, but he didn't really grow that much aside from being this chaotic neutral character instead of this wickedly evil supervillain. Through his series, we get to see a gradual change in his personality, witnessing him understand his true nature and "glorious purpose," to the point where he's already this completely different person after one season. Large in part because of the position he's forced into.

Some fans might say that the series is less about Loki and more about the TVA. And while I can unquestionably see their point, I still believe that the TVA is the perfect way for Loki to grow. He's a character all about causing chaos and controlling others, so forcing him to work for an organization that takes that away allows Loki time to really do some introspection. Because if his tricks don't work, and his deceptions can't fool others, then who is he? Well, through this series, we see who he truly is: A character who is alone and is intended to be nothing more than a villain whose only truly selfless act got him killed in the end. Even if he wants to better himself, he can't because that "goes against the sacred timeline." Loki is a person who is destined to fail, and he gets to see it all with his own eyes by looking at what his life was meant to be and by observing what it could have been. It's all tragic and yet another example of these shows proving how they allow underdeveloped characters in the MCU a better chance to shine. Because if Loki can give even more depth to a character who's already compelling as is, then that is a feat worth admiration.

The Score: Let's give our gratitude toward Natalie Holt, who f**king killed it with this series score. Every piece she made is nothing short of glorious. Sylvie's and the TVA's themes particularly stand out, as they perfectly capture who/what they're representing. Such as how Sylvie's is big and boisterous where the TVA's sound eerie and almost unnatural. Holt also finds genius ways to implement other scores into the series, from using familiar tracks from the Thor movies to even rescoring "Ride of the Valkyries" in a way that makes a scene even more epic than it already could have been. The MCU isn't best known for its musical scores, partly because they aim to be suitable rather than memorable. But every now and again, something as spectacular as the Loki soundtrack sprinkles through the cracks of mediocrity. Making fans all the more grateful because of it.

There’s a lot of Talking: To some, this will be considered a complaint. Most fans of the MCU come for the action, comedy, and insanely lovable characters. Not so much for the dialogue and exposition. That being said, I consider all of the talking to be one of Loki's best features. All the background information about the TVA added with the character's backstories fascinates me, making me enthusiastic about learning more. Not everyone else will be as interested in lore and world-building as others, but just because something doesn't grab you, in particular, doesn't mean it isn't appealing at all. Case in point: There's a reason why the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise has lasted as long as it has, and it's not entirely because of how "scary" it is.

There's also the fact that most of the dialogue in Loki is highly engaging. I'll admit, some scenes do drag a bit. However, every line is delivered so well that I'm more likely to hang on to every word when characters simply have honest conversations with each other. And if I can be entertained by Loki talking with Morbius about jetskis, then I know a show is doing at least something right.

It’s Funny: This shouldn't be a surprise. The MCU is well-known for its quippy humor in the direct acknowledgment that it doesn't take itself too seriously. With that said, it is clear which movies and shows are intended to be taken seriously, while others are meant to be comedies. Loki tries to be a bit of both. There are some heavy scenes that impact the characters, and probably even some fans, due to how well-acted and professionally written they can be. However, this is also a series about a Norse god traveling through time to deal with alternate versions of himself, with one of them being an alligator. I'd personally consider it a crime against storytelling to not make it funny. Thankfully, the writers aren't idiots and know to make the series fun with a few flawlessly timed and delivered jokes that never really take away from the few good grim moments that actually work.

It Kept Me Surprised: About everything I appreciate about Loki, the fact that I could never really tell what direction it was going is what I consider its absolute best feature. Every time I think I knew what was going to happen, there was always this one big twist that heavily subverted any and every one of my expectations. Such as how each time I thought I knew who the big bad was in this series, it turns out that there was an even worse threat built up in the background. The best part is that these twists aren't meant for shock value. It's always supposed to drive the story forward, and on a rewatch, you can always tell how the seeds have been planted for making each surprise work. It's good that it kept fans guessing, as being predictable and expected would probably be the worst path to take when making a series about Loki, a character who's all about trickery and deception. So bonus points for being in line with the character.

The TVA: You can complain all you want about how the show is more about the TVA than it is Loki, but you can't deny how the organization in question is a solid addition to the MCU. Initially, it was entertaining to see Loki of all characters be taken aback by how the whole process works. And it was worth a chuckle seeing Infinity Stones, the most powerful objects in the universe, get treated as paperweights. However, as the season continues and we learn about the TVA, the writers show that their intention is to try and write a message about freedom vs. control. We've seen this before in movies like Captain America: The Winter Soldier or Captain America: Civil War, but with those films, it always felt like the writers were leaning more towards one answer instead of making it obscure over which decision is correct. This is why I enjoy the fact that Loki went on saying that there really is no right answer for this scenario. If the TVA doesn't prune variants, it could result in utter chaos and destruction that no one from any timeline can prepare themselves for. But when they do prune variants along with their timelines, it takes away all free will, forcing people to be someone they probably don't even want to be. It's a situation where there really is no middle ground. Even if you bring up how people could erase timelines more destructive than others, that still takes away free will on top of how there's no unbiased way of deciding which timelines are better or worse. And the series found a brilliant way to explain this moral: The season starts by showing how the TVA is necessary, to later point out how there are flaws and evil secrets within it, and ends things with the revelation that there are consequences without the TVA keeping the timeline in check. It's an epic showcase of fantastic ideas met with exquisite execution that I can't help but give my seal of approval to.

Miss Minutes: Not much to say. This was just a cute character, and I love that Tara Strong, one of the most popular voice actors, basically plays a role in the MCU now.

Justifying Avengers: Endgame: Smartest. Decision. This series. Made. Bar none.

Because when you establish that the main plot is about a character getting arrested for f**king over the timeline, you're immediately going to get people questioning, "Why do the Avengers get off scot-free?" So by quickly explaining how their time-traveling antics were supposed to happen, it negates every one of those complaints...or most of them. There are probably still a-holes who are poking holes in that logic, but they're not the ones writing this review, so f**k them.

Mobius: I didn't really expect Owen Wilson to do that good of a job in Loki. Primarily due to how the Cars franchise discredits him as a professional actor for...forever. With that said, Owen Wilson's Mobius might just be one of the most entertaining characters in the series. Yes, even more so than Loki himself. Mobius acts as the perfect straight man to Loki's antics, what with being so familiar with the supposed god of mischief through past variations of him. Because of that, it's always a blast seeing these two bounce off one another through Loki trying to trick a Loki expert, and said expert even deceiving Loki at times. Also, on his own, Mobius is still pretty fun. He has this sort of witty energy that's often present in Phil Coulson (Love that character too, BTW), but thanks to Owen Wilson's quirks in his acting, there's a lot more energy to Mobius than one would find in Coulson. As well as a tad bit of tragedy because of Mobius being a variant and having no clue what his life used to be. It's a lot to unpack and is impressively written, added to how it's Owen Wilson who helps make the character work as well as he did. Cars may not have done much for his career, but Loki sure as hell showed his strengths.

Ravonna Renslayer: Probably the least entertaining character, but definitely one of the most intriguing. At least to me.

Ravonna is a character who is so steadfast in her believes that she refuses to accept that she may be wrong. Without the proper writing, someone like Ravonna could tick off (ha) certain people. Personally, I believe that Ravonna is written well enough where even though I disagree with her belief, I can understand where she's coming from. She's done so much for the TVA, bringing an end to so many variants and timelines that she can't accept that it was all for nothing. In short, Ravonna represents the control side of the freedom vs. control theme that the writers are pushing. Her presence is necessary while still being an appealing character instead of a plot device. Again, at least to me.

Hunter B-15: I have no strong feelings one way or another towards B-15's personality, but I will admit that I love the expectation-subversion done with her. She has this air of someone who's like, "I'm this by-the-books badass cop, and I will only warm up to this cocky rookie after several instances of them proving themselves." That's...technically not B-15. She's the first to see Loki isn't that bad, but only because B-15 is the first in the main cast to learn the hidden vile present in the TVA. It makes her change in point of view more believable than how writers usually work a character like hers, on top of adding a new type of engaging motivation for why she fights. I may not particularly enjoy her personality, but I do love her contributions.

Loki Watching What His Life Could Have Been: This was a brilliant decision by the writers. It's basically having Loki speedrun his own character development through witnessing what he could have gone through and seeing the person he's meant to be, providing a decent explanation for why he decides to work for the TVA. And on the plus side, Tom Hiddleston did a fantastic job at portraying the right emotions the character would have through a moment like this. Such as grief, tearful mirth, and borderline shock and horror. It's a scene that no other character could go through, as no one but Loki needed a wake-up call for who he truly is. This series might heavily focus on the TVA, but scenes like this prove just who's the star of the show.

Loki Causing Mischief in Pompeii: I just really love this scene. It's so chaotic and hilarious, all heavily carried by the fact that you can tell that Tom Hiddleston is having the time of his damn life being this character. What more can I say about it.

Sylvie: The first of many surprises this season offered, and boy was she a great one.

Despite being an alternate version of Loki, I do appreciate that Sylvie's her own character and not just "Loki, but with boobs." She still has the charm and charisma, but she also comes across as more hardened and intelligent when compared to the mischievous prick we've grown to love. A large part of that is due to her backstory, which might just be the most tragic one these movies and shows have ever made. Sylvie got taken away when she was a little girl, losing everything she knew and loved, and it was all for something that the people who arrested her don't even remember. How sad is that? The fact that her life got permanently screwed over, leaving zero impact on the people responsible for it. As badass as it is to hear her say she grew up at the ends of a thousand worlds (that's an album title if I ever heard one), it really is depressing to know what she went through. It also makes her the perfect candidate to represent the freedom side of the freedom vs. control argument. Because she's absolutely going to want to fight to put an end to the people who decide how the lives of trillions should be. Those same people took everything from Sylvie, and if I were in her position, I'd probably do the same thing. Of course, we all know the consequences that come from this, and people might criticize Sylvie the same way they complain about Thor and Star Lord for screwing over the universe in Avengers: Infinity War. But here's the thing: Sylvie's goals are driven by vengeance, which can blind people from any other alternatives. Meaning her killing He Who Remains is less of a story flaw and more of a character flaw. It may be a bad decision, but that's for Season Two Sylvie to figure out. For now, I'll just appreciate the well-written and highly compelling character we got this season and eagerly wait as we see what happens next with her.

The Oneshot in Episode Three: Not as epic as the hallway scene in Daredevil, but I do find it impressive that it tries to combine real effects, fighting, and CGI in a way where it's all convincing enough.

Lady Sif Kicking Loki in the D**k: This is a scene that makes me realize why I love this series. At first, I laugh at Loki being stuck in a time loop where Lady Sif kicks him in the d**k over and over again. But a few scenes later, this setup actually works as a character moment that explains why Loki does the things he does.

This series crafted phenomenal character development through Loki getting kicked in the d**k by the most underrated badass of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It's a perfect balance of comedy and drama that not every story can nail, yet Loki seemed like it did with very little effort.

Classic Loki: This variant shows the true tragedy of being Loki. The only way to survive is to live in isolation, far away from everything and everyone he loves, only to end up having his one good deed result in his death anyways. Classic Loki is definitive proof that no matter what face they have, Lokis never gets happy endings. They're destined to lose, but at least this version knows that if you're going out, you're going out big. And at least he got to go out with a mischievous laugh.

(Plus, the fact that he's wearing Loki's first costume from the comics is a pretty cute callback).

Alligator Loki: Alligator Loki is surprisingly adorable, and if you know me, you know that I can't resist cute s**t. It's not in my nature.

Loki on Loki Violence: If you thought Loki going ham in Pompeii was chaotic, that was nothing to this scene. Because watching these Lokis backstab one another, to full-on murdering each other, is a moment that is best described as pure, unadulterated chaos. And I. Loved. Every. Second of it.

The Opening Logo for the Season Finale: I'm still not that big of a fan of the opening fanfare playing for each episode, but I will admit that it was a cool feature to play vocal clips of famous quotes when the corresponding character appears. It's a great way of showing the chaos of how the "sacred timeline" works without having it to be explained further.

The Citadel: I adore the set design of the Citadel. So much history and backstory shine through the state of every room the characters walk into. You get a perfect picture of what exactly happened, but seeing how ninety percent of the place is in shambles, it's pretty evident that not everything turned out peachy keen. And as a personal note, my favorite aspect of the Citadel is the yellow cracks in the walls. It looks as though reality itself is cracking apart, which is pretty fitting when considering where the Citadel actually is.

He Who Remains: This man. I. Love. This man.

I love this man for two reasons.

A. He's a ton of fun. Credit to that goes to the performance delivered by Jonathon Majors. Not only is it apparent that Majors is having a blast, but he does a great job at conveying how He Who Remains is a strategic individual but is still very much off his rocker. These villains are always my favorite due to how much of a blast it is seeing someone with high intelligence just embracing their own insanity. If you ask me, personalities are always essential for villains. Because even when they have the generic plot to rule everything around them, you're at least going to remember who they are for how entertaining they were. Thankfully He Who Remains has that entertainment value, as it makes me really excited for his eventual return, whether it'd be strictly through Loki Season Two or perhaps future movies.

And B. He Who Remains is a fantastic foil for Loki. He Who Remains is everything Loki wishes he could have been, causing so much death, destruction, and chaos to the multiverse. The important factor is that he does it all through order and control. The one thing Loki despises, and He Who Remains uses it to his advantage. I feel like that's what makes him the perfect antagonist to Loki, thanks to him winning the game by not playing it. I would love it if He Who Remains makes further appearances in future movies and shows, especially given how he's hinted to be Kane the Conqueror, but if he's only the main antagonist in Loki, I'm still all for it. He was a great character in his short time on screen, and I can't wait to see what happens next with him.

WHAT I DISLIKED

Revealing that Loki was D.B. Cooper: A cute scene, but it's really unnecessary. It adds nothing to the plot, and I feel like if it was cut out entirely, it wouldn't have been the end of the world...Yeah. That's it.

That's my one and only complaint about this season.

Maybe some scenes drag a bit, and I guess Episode Three is kind of the weakest, but there's not really anything that this series does poorly that warrants an in-depth complaint.

Nope.

Nothing at all...

…

...

...I'm not touching that "controversy" of Loki falling for Sylvie instead of Mobius. That's a situation where there are no winners.

Only losers.

Exclusively losers.

Other than that, this season was amazing!

IN CONCLUSION

I'd give the first season of Loki a well-earned A, with a 9.5 through my usual MCU ranking system. It turns out, it really is the best type of wackiness that was just too good to fail. The characters are fun and likable, the comedy and drama worked excellently, and the expansive world-building made me really intrigued with the more we learned. It's hard to say if Season Two will keep this momentum, but that's for the future to figure out. For now, let's just sit back and enjoy the chaos.

(Now, if you don't excuse me, I have to figure out how to review Marvel's What If...)

[thegeminisage]

Do u have any advice for a questioning ace or resource references that may have helped u? I consider myself a bi ace and I DO find ppl attractive and beautiful and I feel all gooey/butterflies w attractive ppl but I also don't want to have sex with them?? Like maybe down the line if I really RLLY fall in love with someone and they want that I can try/ease into it but I don't have any intention or want to do that right now. Does that sound ace at all?

the website i went to when i was figuring stuff out was the message boards on aven, but i haven’t been there in over a literal decade, so i can’t vouch for it anymore - i feel like i read that they had a little bit of a racism problem in recent years. reddit is for the most part deeply DEEPLY cursed but i comment over at r/asexuality sometimes (not...under this name i have a secret name lol) and they seem like generally a good bunch. just, uh, don’t wander out of there. i really wish i had a tumblr blog to give you but i find most of them these days are filled with people complaining about aphobia which is SOOO fucking valid but it gets disheartening to see on your dash like ALL the time yk? but if anyone has any they can link ‘em in the notes. imo the best resource is to talk to or read about what other ace people are saying about their feelings and experiences, especially older aces or people who are “used to” being ace, if that makes any sense. not to sound too self-important but being almost two decades out from my first “oh i might be that” moment i like to think i qualify lol. i say this a lot but ftr my door is always open for these kinds of questions!! 

anyway, first of all, the short answer, yes, that does sound totally ace. you can get the butterflies and find people beautiful without finding them HOT/sexually attractive. you can be attracted to someone w/o it being sexual. so if all or most or even much of the time you don’t feel sexual attraction, you’re under the ace umbrella.

asexuality is on a huge spectrum and there’s not really any such thing as like the ace police who are gonna come throw u in jail if you’re not “really” ace. but labels are supposed to describe our experiences, not the other way around - you don’t need to worry too much about if you’re “ace enough,” if that makes any sense. you're allowed to just try it out and think of yourself that way for awhile and see if it feels good and makes you feel more right with the world. a lot of ace people go thru TONS of different labels - i was bisexual, demisexual, a lesbian, a bunch of stuff. so don’t feel like you have to pick one and stick to it.

one of the things about asexuality is that it’s really hard to confirm the ABSENCE of something (which is why a lot of ace people wind up IDing as bi at first - in both cases it’s a situation of feeling the same about every gender, it’s just the switch being flipped “on” or “off” - also please read that post i think it would rly help u). it’s also easy to mix up sexual attraction and libido, and for a lot of people, especially afab people/people with periods, both can fluctuate with both the time of month and your age. so you don’t have to have a clear-cut “ugh NO thanks” reaction or total disinterest in sex/finding other people sexy to “count” as ace. neutrality or ambivalence totally “counts” too (the ace community even coined special terms for people who are sex neutral vs repulsed vs favorable), even having sexual attraction one every other month when the weather is right or having a list of exception “counts” because there are SO many ways to be asexual, it really is such a massive spectrum!!! and aces are the last people who are gonna be gatekeepy about it lol

i don’t personally care for microlabels, i don’t even use the split attraction model because i find the sheer amount of jargon overwhelming/exhausting and difficult to explain to the general population, but reading through the list of them (this list also explains some split attraction model terms) gives you an idea of sheer number of different ways people experience asexuality and attraction to others. it’s part of why i love being asexual, because even if we tend to overthink things, we’re a group of people who are willing to tackle the norms of sex/romance/etc and talk about the different ways those feelings have us interacting with the world. my point is at some point almost every ace person has gone “does that even COUNT as ace?” so like if you’re asking the question imo that’s one of the most asexual things you can do lol <3

anyway, that’s it!! like i said, you don’t have to memorize that whole vocabulary list up there, i personally find the sheer amount of jargon to be too much, BUT i think it’s good to know that there are a lot of ways to “fit” into that ace box. so if it’s a useful label for you and it helps you communicate how you feel to other people more easily, Thats The One, yk? i hope you got at least a little something helpful out of the rambling. ur always welcome to write back if u ever want to talk <3

[darisu-chan]

whatever our souls are made of (his and mine are the same), pt. 2

Hi!

Welcome back to the second one-shot in this collection. 

I hope you guys like it!

You can also read it here.

See you guys tomorrow!

to be (the man in your heart)

Prompt: fantasy vs reality

Summary: Everybody sees Ichigo the way they want to see him. But only Rukia sees him whole.

“Today we’re going to talk about the hero’s journey,” the professor drawls out one cloudy August morning, ignorant of the blank stares and yawning coming from his students. He probably thinks he’s being engaging enough, completely unaware that he has already lost his students.

 Even Ichigo feels lost before the introduction.

 He would probably have paid more attention if he hadn’t felt so drowsy.

 Then again, it’s barely eight am on a Friday.

 And he doesn’t know precisely why, but lately it has been hard to focus on anything more than a couple of minutes. He hopes this doesn’t get reflected on his grades though. He doesn’t need a repeat of his less than stellar grades the last year and a half of high school.

 He can’t help but curse himself for choosing to attend an early morning class.

 Although it’s not like it is entirely his fault.

 By all means, this class was supposed to be engaging. Or at least Ichigo had been excited to take it when he had enrolled in a course about folktales, particularly Western ones. The purpose of this class is not only to study tales from European cultures, but to analyze them according to different approaches and literary theories. As someone majoring in English Literature, this class had seemed essential and Ichigo had not hesitated to take it. Now he realizes it is less about the folktales and more about the theory of what makes something a story.

 Which is not really what he had wanted to study. But… can’t do anything about it now.

 There have been only two other classes, as it is the beginning of the semester. They haven’t really done much so far, but today, they are apparently starting with the basics. This means they are studying the monomyth, also known as the hero’s journey, a way to categorize stories featuring heroes. Because in most folktales, heroes are the protagonists of stories, and everyone else is just someone there to help the hero or to oppose them.

 (Ichigo hates this idea)

 “But before we start, can anybody tell me what a hero is?” The professor asks, interrupting his lecture and startling his sleepy students.

 Have we mentioned that Ichigo hates heroes?

 It is definitely too early in the morning to think in general, much less about such a contrived term. But yet, here he is. In this class he himself had chosen to take. Past Ichigo had been such an idiot, huh?

 Before he can continue down this line, a girl suddenly raises her hand, distracting him from his musings.

 “Yes, Yamada-san?” The professor calls her.

 “A hero is the person who saves the day in a story.” She obediently recites, as if she had memorized her answer before saying it out loud.

 Ichigo can’t help but roll his eyes at her.

 But of course the goody-two-shoes of the class would give the most basic of definitions.

 Because that is the only thing heroes are good for.

 Saving the day, as if that was their purpose, their whole life, who they are.

 Saviors.

 (Ichigo hates this idea)

 “Yes, in very broad terms, you’re correct, Yamada-san.” The professor says in such a dismissing way that stops Yamada from preening any further. “However, what is the essence of a hero? What makes him any different to other characters?” He asks again, prompting his students to elaborate more on their answers.

 Another student raises his hand.

 “That he’s the protagonist of the tale.”

 “Right, Uehara-san. He or she is the protagonist in most stories. But that is just a characteristic within the story. What I am asking is what makes a hero, well, the hero? What is it that makes a person act heroic?”

 Ichigo cannot help but snort.

 In hindsight, maybe he shouldn’t have, because that makes the teacher focus all his attention on him.

 “Ah. Kurosaki-san, do you know the answer to the question?” The professor seems to ask almost mockingly.

 Ichigo bits his lip.

 Because, try as he might to hide it, he knows what is it the professor is asking, probably better than anyone in the room, even the professor himself.

 “Selflessness.” He replies at length. “A willingness to sacrifice everything just to protect someone else.”

 The professor excitedly moves his head up and down. “Yes! Thank you, Kurosaki-san. The reason heroes are saviors is because they are selfless!”

 And he continues on with his lecture, talking about heroes, villains, monsters and damsels in distress, but Ichigo is no longer paying attention.

 Ichigo hates heroes.

 Well, not heroes per se, but the idea of them.

 Selfless and protective and smart and charismatic and just plain good.

 They don’t seem human.

 There are human qualities in them, of course, but there is also something entirely unrealistic about them.

 Because nobody is perfectly good all the time.

 Where are the bad qualities?

 Where’s the ugly in heroes?

 He cannot find it.

 Which is why Ichigo prefers the protagonists of tragedies.

 None of Shakespeare’s heroes are ever, well heroic. Not even in comedies.

 There is always something beautifully damaged about all of them.

 A tragic flaw, it is called.

 That singular defect which unleashes the tragedy.

 You might say that it is that which ends up biting them in the ass.

 For Othello, it was his jealousy.

 For Macbeth, his ambition.

 For Hamlet, his inaction.

 And for Ichigo, it is his own weakness.

 Because that is what, in fact, almost destroyed not only his world, but the entire universe as every being knows it.

 Nobody blames him, of course, because in his reality, he is the hero of the story. And he hates it. Every part of it. How he can become blameless of everything even when he had caused it or had failed to stop it.

 And he doesn’t think of himself as such.

 A hero, that is.

 Though everyone sees him this way, from his sisters in all of their innocence, to his friends, to the whole Soul Society.

 Why do they keep praising him when they had almost died because of him?

 Why do they hail him as a hero when the danger is not over, when, if he even dares to be happy, that demon of a man is going to come back to destroy them all?

 Ichigo doesn’t get it.

 Heroes don’t really exist in real life.

 And the heroes in all stories have to be perfect, or else how are they even good?

 It’s a load of shit.

 Ichigo is not a hero, as he protects people out of his own selfishness.

 Because, deep down, he doesn’t want to feel alone.

 Because he wants all of his loved ones to be safe and happy.

 And that’s it.

 That’s the reason.

 But others don’t see it that way.

 They see him exactly as all the heroes in tales.

 All good and strong and able to overcome anything that gets in his way without giving up.

 A prince charming.

 A guardian angel.

 But he’s just...not any of those things.

 And he’s done trying to live up to their expectations.

 It was easier when he was fifteen, to go along with whatever they wanted him to be.

 So he acted happy when around his sisters and father, even though he was still carrying all the weight of the guilt of his mother’s death.

 It seemed easier, back then, to try to appear unaffected by that and all the little things, like the bullying he had suffered due to his hair color.

 And at school, he had tried to be just another guy who just happened to have brightly colored hair.

 His friends knew this Ichigo. And not to say he was a phony, but he wasn’t all himself either.

 He never showed them the scars scattered all around his soul for fear they would leave him behind.

 Because who could ever love someone as hideous as he?

 (Someone who had caused his own mother’s death)

 But t had gotten better for a while.

 When he had become a Shinigami and had known the strength of carrying a zanpakutō and all that comes with that power.

 However, he had just as quickly learned that such power came with the responsibility of not just protecting his loved ones, but anyone, really.

 That he couldn’t just stand still while others needed his help.

 He needed to do better.

 And so, he had tried really hard to become the kind of person that was deserving of that power.

 Ichigo had become so good at it that others had bought it, especially after his first true test.

 What had followed had been months and months of trying to prove he was as heroic as others saw him.

 Because not only did the Soul Society see him as one, but also his closest friends, who, even though had seen him fall, still thought of him as a savior.

 And that weighted on him even more.

 He started wondering if, after so many battles fought together, they saw the true Ichigo or the mask he wore.

 It was only after the last war, when he had so utterly failed and they had still given him praise, that he had found the answer.

 Chad and Inoue and Renji and, hell, even Byakuya, lived in a fantasy where he was always strong and would power through everything. That he truly never failed.

 Even Ishida was sometimes guilty of that.

 (After Yhwach was defeated, saying he had won, as if it hadn’t been Ishida who had done him in)

 They all congratulated him, patted him on the back, and happily resumed their lives because Ichigo had won again. He had defeated yet another villain and thus they could live their lives in peace.

 But all he had wanted to do was scream.

 He had been defeated over and over by the Quincy King, and the only reason he wasn’t a threat anymore was because Ishida had been there to deliver the final blow. And even then, absolutely no one was sure if he was gone for good.

 And the reason why was because Ichigo had been weak.

 If he had had true strength, he would have been able to win for sure.

 And this doubt wouldn’t be eating him away.

 Now every night, before going to bed, even two years after the war had been won, Ichigo still repeats Yhwach’s threat like a broken record.

 During his happiest moment, the Quincy King will come back to kill him and destroy everything, according to his plan.

 The thought terrifies him.

 To think he had failed them all, because at any moment, Yhwach might come back, and it will be it for the universe.

 He’s no hero.

 No savior.

 Because even if the Soul Society hasn’t said so, he knows they are all still in danger, and it all depends on his happiness.

 And Ichigo is selfish.

 He could have sacrificed that promise of happiness for everybody’s sake. Yet he still holds onto it and is unwilling to let go.

 He’s not the person they all expected him to be.

 And that weighs on him.

 (If only he was as heroic as his mother─)

 “Hey, Ichigo! Welcome back!”

 It is Rukia who distracts him from his dark thoughts as he opens his bedroom door and finds her already there, having come over for the weekend as she has done for the past few months.

 And for the first time in the day, he smiles.

 “Hey.” He greets her, letting his bag drop on the floor, and joining her on his bed.

 “How was university today? What did you learn?” Rukia asks him excitedly, and he can’t stop his lips from quirking up at how adorable she is, wanting to learn about college through him.

 “Kinda boring.” He shrugs, content to just observe her as she raises an eyebrow at him.

 “Why? What did you study?”

 “We talked about heroes.” He answers her, moving up his head to appreciate the way her skin glows in this lighting.

 “Heroes?” She scrunches her nose like a bunny.

 “Yeah. Like in tales and stuff.”

 “Oh right.”

 Then they fall into a comfortable silence as they are wont to do. Ichigo takes his time to delight himself in the image she delivers. And as she is all light and white and pureness, he remembers a piece of memory he keeps close at heart ─the one and only time he has felt like a true hero.

 There’s fire and a will and a promise.

 And in the midst of all, there’s Rukia and her big doe eyes staring right at him as if he were a miracle.

 “Yo!”

 I remember now… the reason why I wanted to save you so much.

 “Hey, Rukia.” He suddenly calls out to her.

 “Yeah?”

 “Do you think I’m a hero?”

 She snorts and flicks his forehead. “Nope.”

 “Hey!” He rubs his assaulted head, but is more intrigued by her answer.

 “I mean… we could say you are… but you’re more… you know…” She gesticulates towards him.

 “Uhu.”  

 “You’re Ichigo.” Rukia says at last.

 He thinks he understands it then.

  Because if there is one person in this world that has seen him at his best and worst and has still got him, is Rukia.

 She is the only one to have ever seen him whole.

 And even when she knows about all his failings, she still has the capability to hold him in high esteem.

 Because for her, Ichigo is who he is and so much more.

 “Thanks, Rukia.” He says with more emotion than he probably should have, but it is worth it when she beams at him.

 “That’s my line.”

 Ichigo still hates heroes.

 Probably will always do.

 But for Rukia, he thinks he might be able to become a little bit more heroic.

 To be less selfish.

 To be the man he is in her heart.

 To be a little more like she is.

[aion-rsa]

How Zack Snyder’s Justice League Leaves the Door Open to Restore the Snyder Verse

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This article contains Zack Snyder’s Justice League spoilers.

Let it be said that to the very end, Zack Snyder did it his way. In an era where superhero entertainment, and all other branded media, is shaped by what conference rooms think fans want, Snyder somehow pushed through a transgressive view of DC icons like Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman that was brooding, unsettling… and memorable. Fans certainly haven’t forgotten Snyder’s self-described “deconstructionist” Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice or that it was meant to carry onward into Justice League.

It’s that diehard loyalty among true believers which did the seeming impossible: It made a media conglomerate walk back its decision to lighten and truncate a director’s vision. Almost four years after Joss Whedon dramatically changed the tone and tenor of Zack Snyder’s Justice League, the Snyder Cut has debuted on HBO Max. And whatever you might think of it as a whole, it remains a pensive and superior work to what came before… and a seeming course correction from the direction the DC Extended Universe took after Snyder’s departure.

The marked improvement in Zack Snyder’s Justice League has left some fans demanding WarnerMedia “#RestoreTheSnyderVerse.” It’s certainly a loaded idea. But then folks said the same thing about releasing a Snyder Cut once upon a time. And the damndest thing about the four hour version of Justice League we now have is that it leaves breadcrumbs for everything Snyder originally had planned as a five-film saga—from Man of Steel through his original vision for a Justice League trilogy. Could it yet all come to pass?

Darkseid and an Anti-Life Superman

If you’ve watched the Snyder Cut, you got plenty of glimpses of the masterplan. It’s there when Cyborg has a vision of a world in ruins, with Wonder Woman dead on an Amazonian funeral pyre and DC’s ultimate space baddie, Darkseid, now on Earth, slaughtering Aquaman. Perhaps more chilling though is Snyder’s epilogue, created by reshoots, in which he returns to the Knightmare iconography from Batman v Superman. Ben Affleck’s Dark Knight is again in road warrior attire, and no less than Amber Heard’s Mera, Ray Fisher’s Cyborg, and Jared Leto’s Joker are his traveling companions. Meanwhile Henry Cavill’s Superman looms large as a force of evil coming to annihilate them all.

If you are unfamiliar with the backstory of Snyder’s original plan for the DCEU, this might be head-scratching. However, these are just fragments of the road not taken from Snyder’s original Justice League trilogy outline, as well as a possible backdoor in how to restore it. Snyder recently confirmed as much to The New York Times.

“It’s the fall of Earth,” Snyder said, “when Superman succumbs to anti-life… When Darkseid comes to Earth, in the movie that you’ll never see, the armies of Earth all unite again, as they did before. This time there would be aircraft carriers and Special Forces guys, all the armies of the world would come together, as well as Atlanteans rising out of the ocean and the Themyscirans coming off their island. That was our big finale.”

This vision for the future restored by the Snyder Cut is entirely in keeping with what we’ve previously learned about the arc of the DC cinematic universe under Snyder’s stewardship. As originally conceived, the climax of a Justice League trilogy was always intended to involve several things: Darkseid killing Lois Lane; Superman’s free will being destroyed by the Anti-Life Equation; and Batman and Flash using time travel to reverse this Mad Max apocalypse.

Now in Zack Snyder’s Justice League, we see hints of this with Superman cradling a dead, scorched body, crying in a way that implies it can only be Lois Lane. It’s part of Cyborg’s vision. That waking nightmare also shows Darkseid come and place his hand on Superman’s shoulder. Think Emperor Palpatine claiming ownership of Anakin Skywalker’s soul after the young Jedi helped kill Mace Windu in Star Wars.

It’s why Superman is evil in the final “Knightmare” sequence of the Snyder Cut’s epilogue. This sequence is also almost entirely added by reshoots filmed in 2020, with Affleck, Leto, Fisher, Heard, and Joe Manganiello as Deathstroke coming back for additional photography with Snyder.

Joker even lays out the endgame of Snyder’s Justice League trilogy when he asks how many universes exist where billions die because Batman doesn’t have the backbone to die himself? That’s because Snyder’s whole five film arc is supposed to lead up to the Dark Knight sacrificing himself for Lois Lane (and thereby Superman) thanks to the miracle of time travel.

For context, Snyder has personally revealed the “Knightmare” sequence in Batman v Superman—where Ezra Miller’s Barry Allen wakes Bruce from a nightmare to say, “It’s Lois Lane, she’s the key!”—was never a nightmare at all, but a vision the Flash implanted in Batman’s head.

“Flash travels from the [Batcave] in the future to the Cave in the past,” Snyder wrote on social media in 2018, “but he is ‘too soon,’ meaning he went too far back, also meaning he will have to step off the ‘cosmic treadmill’ one more time.”

The cosmic treadmill is a DC Comics device which allows the Flash to travel through time and to even commandeer another character’s consciousness. Bruce Wayne’s visions in both Batman v Superman and the Snyder Cut are not dream sequences, but actual events which will happen in Batman and the Flash’s future. Interestingly, the full breadth of this plot point was so radical that it likely played a role in Warner Bros. losing faith in Snyder’s vision.

“The original Justice League that Chris [Terrio] and I wrote, we didn’t even shoot,” Snyder said during a Q&A last year. “There’s a lot of it that we shot [but] the actual idea, the hard, hard idea, the scary idea, we never filmed because the studio was like, ‘That’s crazy.’ And we were so insecure at the time… we were just like, ‘I guess it is crazy. We’re fuckin’ nuts. There’s gonna be mass hysteria in the streets if we film this.’”

Batman, Lois Lane, and a Pregnancy Test

Zack Snyder’s Justice League leaves hints of how to restore that “hard idea.” The broad strokes are that the second Justice League movie would’ve been about the League versus the Legion of Doom (hence the scene of Lex Luthor revealing Bruce Wayne’s secret identity to Deathstroke in the Snyder Cut), and the third would be Lois Lane dying and Superman going evil. Batman and his crew of allies would then warn his past self through time travel, leading Batman to throw himself in front of the Omega Beams used to kill Lois… and there would be a radical added incentive to do so:

In the third film, Bruce Wayne and Barry were also meant to learn that Lois was pregnant with Batman’s child. Yes, Snyder’s original vision was for there to be a secret love triangle between Batman, Superman, and Lois Lane, and for the saga to end with Superman raising Batman’s son.

Snyder partially confirmed this as well in a new interview with Vanity Fair when he said about the first Justice League movie, “The intention was that Bruce fell in love with Lois and then realized that the only way to save the world was to bring Superman back to life. So he had this insane conflict, because Lois, of course, was still in love with Superman.”

That appears to be the hard idea jettisoned before the Snyder Cut was even filmed. But was it entirely thrown away? For eagle eyed fans watching Zack Snyder’s Justice League, there is a new scene where Amy Adams’ Lois Lane is making the decision to let go of her grief over the then-dead Superman and she rummages through her nightstand. If you look closely, there’s a pregnancy test sitting in her drawer.

The implication is Lois might be pregnant with Superman’s child. However, there is more than enough ambiguity for fans to see that the larger story threads for Snyder and Terrio’s original Justice League trilogy could still come to pass. Thanks to leaked outlines for Snyder’s trilogy making the rounds on the internet, we know Bruce Wayne was only meant to learn Lois was pregnant with his child in the third Justice League movie. It could still be so.

Read more

Movies

Zack Snyder’s Justice League vs. the Whedon Cut: What are the Differences?

By David Crow

Movies

Zack Snyder’s Justice League – What is the Anti-Life Equation?

By Jim Dandy

While we never see Affleck or Adams share a single scene together in the Snyder Cut’s four hours, it doesn’t mean a future sequel could not have added this detail, revealing in a moment of grief and loneliness between films, a mistake might’ve been made. It might be a queasy idea for fans of how the characters are typically depicted in the comics, but then that was originally Snyder’s intent before BvS disappointed. Who’s to say it didn’t happen off-screen… just like Superman’s Anti-Life corruption that we don’t see in the Snyder Cut, but which is heavily implied happens thanks to the Knightmare sequences.

In all honesty, it seems each of Snyder’s original key points for a five-film arc live on in the Snyder Cut. So could these elements be fully explored down the road like the “Restore the Snyder Verse” hashtag demands? In theory, yes. Technically Snyder’s version of Justice League isn’t canon; Whedon’s is. And there are already elements that indicate they’d be impossible to seriously reconcile. For instance, the Atlanteans in Zack Snyder’s Justice League can only speak in air bubbles (not underwater), and they all have proper English accents, including Mera.

In 2018’s Aquaman, by contrast, the Atlanteans have American accents and a decidedly less dour underwater kingdom. Still, there is no hard narrative reason why there couldn’t be two timelines. After all, Heard returned for 2020 reshoots with Snyder, reprising Mera’s posh Londoner accent, which was abandoned by Whedon and James Wan.

And honestly, continuity is overrated. There’s no narrative reason Snyder could paint his own proverbial universe away from other movies, just as Todd Phillips did with Joker.

Of course the larger issue is DC Films’ current leadership has rejected the Snyderverse as a future for their characters they’d like to invest in. Batman v Superman failed to gross $1 billion as the studio expected, but the more colorful Aquaman reached that number handily. Affleck, meanwhile, walked away from Batman. Walter Hamada, head of DC Films, even called the Snyder Cut a cul-de-sac just last December. And in his own recent NY Times profile, Snyder said, “This was going to be the last movie I make for the DCU.”

So actually discovering what happens when evil Superman descends from the heavens to threaten Batman, Joker, Cyborg, and the rest—and learning if Lois might be pregnant with Clark or Bruce’s child—will likely forever remain the province of fans’ headcanon. But hey, Snyder fans have a precedent now of making their headcanon a reality.

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The post How Zack Snyder’s Justice League Leaves the Door Open to Restore the Snyder Verse appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[miraculouscontent]

*Breaks down door screaming incoherently* PUPPETEER 2! SALT! NOW!

YES! SALT! I AM COMPELLED!

Let’s get the few positives out of the way first.

Plagg was cute, Adrien and Nino’s friendship exists without Nino bailing on obligations, Tikki actually GAVE MARINETTE REAL ADVICE for once, blah blah blah–

no one cares, you all just wanna hear me salt, so LET’S DO IT.

[DJWhyfi]

First off, neither of them paused the game when Nino went to pick up his phone and that’s the true crime here.

So… just throwing this out there, but can we not with the couple stereotype of “’weak’ male character with ‘strong’ female character who scares the tar out of the male, as if the male is constantly fearful of the female hitting/murdering them”? Like, Adrimi is different since Adrien is more blown away rather than scared of Kagami, but I’m just…

Like, yeah, I’m still peeved at Nino in “Party Crasher”, but I don’t feel like this Nino deserves the constant death glares from Alya. It’s just more contrivance for “lol stammering/nervous character keeps messing up while the other character (usually Alya) makes faces at them”.

Also, Nino and Marinette both need to take lessons for helping them cure their panic, just sayin’.

And whereas “Party Crasher” ignored the relationship between Nino and Alya almost completely, “The Puppeteer 2″ puts it at the forefront because Alya gets upset at Nino for wanting to go with Adrien to the museum, because he apparently planned to hang out with her all afternoon.

…Now, look, if this was a situation where Nino and Alya maybe didn’t spend a lot of time together, I’d at least semi-understand (though I’d also say that being disappointed would be a better reaction than anger).

But I–and really, a lot of people–have been salting all season (maybe a bit longer) about how Nino and Alya seem to spend all their time together! They spend so much time together that they continuously pawn their satanical siblings onto Marinette so that they can go on dates!

And I thought it was nice to see Nino so eager to hang out with Adrien, especially with the way he reacted almost immediately and was promptly heading for the door, but then it’s ruined by Alya standing in his way and glaring at him as if they hadn’t had a good time in weeks.

(Since I was just talking about “Party Crasher” as well, just throwing it out there that this would’ve been a better situation in which Nino could ditch Alya; it’s not a work obligation, it’s a one-time thing that Nino would have to go to at that very moment, and we see right at the start of the episode that Alya is overreacting, so we’re already not on her side. Might’ve been fun to have an “Alya VS Nino” episode where Nino keeps sending her on a wild goose chase while Alya tries to use her detective skills to find him before he reaches the museum to meet up with Adrien. This would also be a way for them to get into a real argument, with this being about how much time they’re spending together and how, even though Alya is Nino’s girlfriend, he’s still gonna rush to Adrien at first notice because he and Adrien basically never hang out while he and Alya always seem to.)

And then Alya even tries to bargain to get her (along with Marinette and Manon) to go to with Nino as well, which is short-sighted even for her.

Like, yes, of course it’d be nice if Adrien could just bring all his friends whenever he wanted, but considering how strict Gabriel and Nathalie usually are, bargaining is quite possibly one of the worst moves to make when Nathalie is already letting Adrien take one friend.

That “privilege” could just as easily be taken away if Adrien tried to bargain for more friends. Nathalie could’ve shut down Adrien immediately and insist that he won’t be taking anyone if he tries to ask for more.

By the way, completely ruined opportunity for a joke there. Nathalie was getting steadily more tired with Adrien’s pressing, but there’s no punchline.

As an audience, we know that Nathalie seems to have a soft spot for the Agrestes, but Alya and Nino don’t. Being allowed one friend is already more than Adrien usually gets, so to have Alya even try to get Nino to ask Adrien for more, thrice (once for her, another for Marinette, and one more for Manon)?

Yeah, no. Alya can set up her date with Nino at another point in time.

And while we’re on the topic of this bargaining thing, we have yet another moment where Alya pushes Marinette to do something she’s not ready for.

“Adrien invited us!” No, Alya. Adrien invited Nino.

Like, here’s just a quick list of stuff Alya has pushed Marinette to do (when Marinette wasn’t ready/willing):

The Bubbler - Alya shoves Marinette over to Adrien and Nino to force her to give him the gift, not thinking to just–y’know–give the gift to Adrien herself and say that it’s from Marinette.

Copycat - Alya tells Marinette to memorize the script she gave, then presses the “call” button before Marinette can actually do so, forcing Marinette to converse with Adrien without prepping.

Kung Food - Alya sends Adrien to help Marinette with her great uncle without any warning.

Princess Fragrance - Alya insists that Marinette give Adrien her notes even though Marinette has a sick Tikki that needs healing (which she tries to make an excuse for, but Alya cuts her off, believing that Marinette will make something up).

Despair Bear - Alya shoves Marinette out onto the dance floor, making her slam right into Adrien.

Backwarder - Alya (and the rest of the girl squad) force Marinette to show them what’s in the bag that Adrien gave her, without Marinette’s consent and despite Marinette’s clear embarrassment.

And now, we have this episode, where Alya demands that Marinette go to the museum with Adrien them and that Marinette “doesn’t have a choice”.

I have to ask… how dense is Alya? I mean, I rag on Adrien “osmium” Agreste over here, but how many times will we have to do this same song and dance before Alya realizes that forcing Marinette will only prolong her struggles?

One doesn’t even have to look far for proof either. Marinette’s decision to confess to Adrien in both “Dark Cupid” and “Backwarder” weren’t brought on by Alya at all; they were decisions that Marinette made either on her own or with an unintentional suggestion from Tikki.

And heck, another time was in “Frozer”, where it was Luka who gave Marinette the prompting to go after Adrien. That was gentle, non-invasive, and even though Marinette still failed in the end, she wasn’t a stuttering stammering mess; she kept relative cool (compared to her more frantic outbursts, at least) and simply didn’t say what she’d meant to.

But when it’s Alya? Things tend to go less than pleasant, or at least be a coin flip on how it’s gonna go.

Like, the face Marinette makes when Alya tells her about going to the museum with Adrien?

That’s fear right there. That’s terror, because Marinette knows how forceful Alya is and has no idea when Alya’s going to spring her on Adrien without another word (or at least, that would be a natural concern to have and also exactly what happens).

This is further shown during the ride to the museum, where Marinette is quick to catch onto the fact that Alya and Nino planned on ditching Marinette and Adrien without telling Marinette about it.

And, on that point–the fact that Nino knows about Marinette’s crush–I find myself truly conflicted.

On one hand, I’d always wanted “Animan” to be referenced again so Marinette would know the truth; that Alya did indeed tell Nino.

On the other though, this is hardly coming back to bite Alya. In fact, rather than feeling bad or feeling desperate on the chance that Marinette would hate her, Alya is–again–aggressive, trying to keep up the lie that she didn’t tell Nino anything at all.

It really hurts to see, especially given that “Animan” itself had Tikki scolding Marinette for what she did, but then just let Alya boast about what a good friend she was for not telling Nino anything because she “doesn’t go making decisions for other people” (a clear reference to what Marinette did in that episode). She even pinkie swore on it, yet here we are, two seasons later, where she’s still trying to keep up the lie.

Heck, there are two separate scenes in this episode where Marinette presses Alya for the truth, but Alya continues denying it. It’s like Alya is trying to keep this title of “best friend” because she knows how horrified Marinette would be she knew that Alya spilled such a personal secret to Adrien’s best friend.

Now, taken on its own, it’s not like I have a huge issue with Alya telling Nino, because it very well could’ve been an accident or just something she said without thinking about it.

But in context with all the stuff Marinette is punished for? Comparing “Stormy Weather” to “Christmaster” and now comparing “Animan” to this?

It’s just… sad. The only punishment Alya gets in this episode seems more like a consequence of leaving Manon to go play with Nino instead (and trust me, we’ll get there).

Anyway, once the five are finally in the museum, Nino had to be given Marinette-brand lessons in “how not to say words”, because he stammers and stumbles through all of Adrien’s questions. He can’t discern what Alya meant when she was talking about “Marinette taking the first step” (pretty sure that letting Marinette be the one to ask Adrien to get together is the actual first step, but okay) and also to “deny everything Adrien asks. He’s apparently so afraid of Alya (I presume) that he just stopped thinking and let his mouth run, only looking back at Alya to get cues on how he’s doing.

And it also seems out-of-character for Nino to say something so bluntly to shut down Adrien. For example, since he’s supposed to “deny everything”, he denies it when Adrien suggests that he and Alya came just to give him company. Even if it’s not technically true (on Alya’s end anyway; Nino definitely wanted to go for Adrien at first), that’s not something that Nino would just blurt out.

And to leave Adrien in the dark, thinking that Marinette hates him? Regardless of how I feel about Nino’s character at the moment, I do not believe that Nino would simply sigh and let the subject go as Adrien questions whether or not Marinette hates him.

I mean, this is the guy from “The Bubbler”; one of the few people who got akumatized for someone else’s sake. He got akumatized back then for Adrien. Literally the only reason why he doesn’t continue trying to reassure Adrien here is because the plot ”needed” Adrien to think that Marinette disliked him.

Fact is, if characters have to withhold information, stammer, and just generally waffle around their words for the sake of keeping a misunderstanding going, especially when those characters would be the type to correct that sort of mistake? That’s not an intricately-woven plot where characters came to those misunderstandings in a natural and believable way.

It’s just bad writing (especially as Alya stands completely still while waiting for Marinette to come back instead of intervening in the conversation to assure Adrien that Marinette doesn’t hate him; she was listening basically the entire time, so it’s not unreasonable).

Then, on Alya’s side of things, we get her vaguely alluding to the fact that she’ll eventually ditch Marinette so that Marinette can be alone with Adrien. It’s a warning, which is something, but it’s still too vague for Marinette to be prepared for it when it inevitably happens.

It’s also at this point where I don’t know whether to compliment the animation for its good expressions or criticize it for not delivering it where it’s supposed to. It’s as if the episode wanted Marinette to be freaking out because “comedy”, but also wanted to be more serious by showing her inner turmoil through actual sad expressions rather than overexaggerated faces.

When Marinette is slouched on the stairs, horrified that Alya is forcing her into this, it doesn’t deliver the “comedic punch” that it’s supposed to, especially when Marinette’s anxiety has been played for laughs so often that it no longer feels like a joke.

It’s not Marinette about to slip, fall, and make a fool out of herself. No, it’s Marinette about to break down.

And who can blame her? She’s been at constant odds with herself over telling Adrien how she feels, has a best friend who keeps pushing her to do better, and all attempts end in failure because the universe seems to hate her guts.

It’d be weird if she didn’t have anxiety on the matter.

And, predictably, once Alya and Nino take Manon and leave Marinette with Adrien, Marinette isn’t able to get her words out properly and just makes everything worse.

It’s almost like I know how this show works.

Marinette rushed for the door as Alya closed it behind her, but Alya just left her there. Alya doesn’t care how Marinette feels on the matter because, apparently, she knows best and believes that time alone with Adrien is all Marinette needs.

It’s not, and continuing to do this will only disillusion Marinette further, making her more panicked and anxious around Adrien. The memories of embarrassment and screw-ups just serve to make her more self-conscious about her chances, heightening her odds of failure because, hey, she messed up so many times before, what would make now any different?

Heck, Alya doesn’t even do a good job at taking Manon with her.

Remember “Stormy Weather” (which is pretty widely considered to be episode one??) where Alya bragged that she babysat her little sisters “all the time” and was “an expert”?

Well, all those times where she had Marinette watch her siblings instead has apparently left her very rusty, because she completely forgets about Manon in the middle of a game they were playing. Not even a minute passes between Alya and Nino turning their focus to the statues (they were probably two lines away from accidentally outting themselves as Rena Rouge and Carapace to Manon, I swear) to Nino playfully chasing Alya out (and there’s not even a cut to show time passing), yet Manon is left completely neglected, eventually leading to her akumatization.

This isn’t even about the fact that they left a child all by herself in a museum. Like, yeah, that’s still bad, but the important thing here is that Alya and Nino took Manon from Marinette without her permission.

In that moment, they put themselves in charge. They decided that they were going to take care of her so that Marinette could have alone time with Adrien. If they’re going to take a kid out of Marinette’s care, they can at least do a half-decent job of remembering that she exists.

Let’s pretend for a moment that Manon didn’t get akumatized. Let’s say that Alya and Nino left and Manon decided to go entertain herself instead of getting upset.

If Manon got hurt, the blame would fall on Marinette. In “Prime Queen”, when Nadja sees Manon on the video call, she immediately asks where Marinette is. It didn’t matter that Alya was there, because Marinette was in charge.

And here, even if Nino and Alya tried to take the blame for Manon getting lost/hurt, then the question falls to why Marinette wasn’t the one keeping an eye on her.

But all Nino and Alya could say was that they wanted Marinette and Adrien to have alone time together. That’s it. There would be very few excuses that would fly, and most of them wouldn’t be able to shift all the blame off of Marinette.

Whether Marinette would be deserving of consequences or not, Nadja would target Marinette first because that’s who she trusted Manon to.

But the episode doesn’t touch on that. At all. Even after the scene cuts back to Nino and Alya (who are still not looking for Manon), the only repercussions they receive are when they’re swiftly dealt with by Puppeteer (which is silly when you consider that the Puppeteer got akumatized because of them yet chose other people who did nothing wrong to be the ones who were almost killed).

It’s not touched on because that wasn’t important to the episode. No, what was important was hurting, unnerving, and humiliating Marinette as often as possible for a quick joke.

…

*sigh*

Speaking of which…

[The Statue of Limitations]

The statue scene. A testament to how far the writers are willing to go for a laugh.

Uggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggh.

Okay, so… I have several points. Literally several.

First off, we have Marinette and Tikki’s conversation, where Tikki gives actual advice when Marinette is stressing out over Adrien.

On the surface, it’s like, oh, cool, Tikki’s improving, but ultimately, the fact is that Tikki’s advice isn’t for Marinette’s sake.

It’s for the statue scene, when Marinette decides to start acting and playing a role as she pretends to confess to the Adrien “statue”. It’s not like this acting thing comes back later in the episode, so its sole purpose is to make Marinette humiliate herself in front of Adrien.

Second off is Adrien himself. Because of Nino failing to reassure him, Adrien still believes that Marinette dislikes him or just generally views him in a way that he doesn’t like.

In concept, I understand why Adrien would want to reassure Marinette that he’s a good friend. I get why he’d try to find a way to cheer her up and make him seem more friendly to her.

However, this? This isn’t Adrien being dense; this is Adrien being careless.

Let’s factor in what Adrien knows about Marinette. Nine times out of ten, Marinette flails, stammers, and seems to just be a big bundle of nerves. Even back in “Riposte”, Adrien points out that Marinette gets flustered easily, so he’s aware of this.

And that is why I cannot understand why his idea of getting on her good side is playing a prank on her. Pranks are very dicey territory, especially for people with anxiety, and this is even disregarding the fact that Adrien didn’t even consider what Marinette would prefer.

It would’ve been so much better had he tried to reason why he thought Marinette would like to be pranked, trying to figure out what the absolute best way to make her happy would be.

But instead, he takes the quickest way out. He’s hardly out of his conversation with Plagg before he sees Marinette and has the brilliantly stupid idea of “Hey, let me act like a statue in front of the girl who goes into hysterics at the sight of me! I’m sure that we’ll have a great laugh once I’ve revealed myself!”

It’s not just short-sighted; it’s reckless. Adrien has no evidence that Marinette is the playful type, often just saying that she’s “nice” (which people don’t often associate with “like pranks”), yet he chooses the worst option out of all other options to try and earn Marinette’s trust/friendship.

Third off is Plagg, and this is a big one. Now, obviously, Adrien and Marinette don’t know that the other is Ladybug/Chat, but Plagg and Tikki do.

That’s why it’s baffling to me that Plagg doesn’t try to deter Adrien from pretending to be a statue. He knows that Marinette is Ladybug and knows that kwami often talk to their holder once their holder is “alone”, so the amount of risk involved here is insane.

As for Tikki, either she knew that Adrien wasn’t a statue (and had no way to warn Marinette; would’ve been nice to have been shown that though), or the plot just coincidentally forgot that Tikki safely pops out of the purse whenever she and Marinette are alone (and sometimes when they’re not because Tikki isn’t as stealthy as she thinks).

Heck, even if Plagg presumed that Tikki would know not to come out, there’s still the chance that Marinette could’ve said something to Tikki like, “Look, I can practice with this statue!”. Just like that, her identity would’ve been blown, all because Plagg didn’t say anything when he should’ve.

And yes, Marinette was in the room, but Plagg could’ve easily pressed on the back of Adrien’s neck and muttered to Adrien to not do this because there was an obvious chance that Tikki would pop out of the purse (or, again, that Marinette would talk to Tikki), thus revealing Marinette’s identity as Ladybug.

“Dark Owl” was all the way back in Season 2, so even with all the Season 1 akuma littered about the museum, I highly doubt that this episode takes place before that one.

Though, of course, with this episode order, what do I know?

I mean, after all, it’s not like this episode blatantly shows a character that debuted in an episode that proved that Plagg very clearly knew about Marinette being Ladybug.

…Oh wait–

That’s actually exactly what it did.

And just on another note about Plagg: fourth off, how is Plagg not laughing hysterically at this scene? Like, obviously, I don’t find it funny, but if this episode is trying to show what “comedic gold” this scene is supposed to be, then why isn’t Plagg trying his very hardest to hold back his snickering? He thought it was hilarious when Chat said mean things to Ladybug in “Dark Cupid”, so why would this be any different?

Fifth off is Adrien… again. He just has a lot of problems here, okay?

I fully comprehend the idea that “Adrien is a model and, therefore, he’s able to hold still for a painfully long time”, but this is way too much. Adrien stands completely still while Marinette touches his face, plucks one of his hairs (which he only twitches at), and even puts her weight on him.

There’s suspension of disbelief, and then there’s just doing whatever the plot wants regardless of how much sense it makes. By the time Marinette is clearly staring at him fondly, Adrien could’ve recognized that Marinette didn’t actually hate him and thus dropped the act.

Yet, he chooses to keep going. He drags it out for as long as possible for this “prank” until he feels personally uncomfortable with Marinette kissing him.

Not Marinette feeling personally uncomfortable. Oh, no, Adrien just blatantly intrudes on that, what with him acting like a statue and just standing there as Marinette starts pouring her heart out with feelings that are quite frankly none of his business.

It’s only once he reveals himself that he shows any sort of remorse, because that’s the only time that matters apparently.

Like, “I didn’t want to scare you.” Well, gee, Adrien, then what exactly did you THINK was going to happen? How did “Evillustrator”, “Troublemaker”, and basically ANY EPISODE where you sneak up on Marinette NOT give you enough of a hint that Marinette is easily startled and also doesn’t LIKE to be startled?

It’s not a “joke”; it was Adrien doing whatever he wanted because he apparently didn’t want to go through the effort of figuring out what Marinette would’ve wanted.

Sixth off is Marinette herself, and I don’t even know where to begin.

Let’s just start with how weird it is to see Marinette (a creator) physically touching someone else’s work. I mean, I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say it’s out-of-character (plus, given how the statues are placed–right on the floor where everyone will undoubtedly walk near them–they might be designed to be touched/hit without any risk; the statue of Aurore’s umbrella even withstands being struck), but I imagine most people went into this episode thinking “Manon’s going to be running around and touching statues and driving everyone crazy if/when she ruins ones” only to then be confused as it’s Marinette who physically touches one (or at least what she thinks is one).

And I honestly don’t know how I’d define her behavior. Like, yeah, it was weird, but we–the audience–know that it’s the real Adrien, so that colors the perspective a bit there. If that had been an actual statue, I probably wouldn’t have blinked an eye because, like, it’s a statue and this is apparently a museum with super high-quality ones. Marinette touching someone else’s work weirds me out more than her doing anything to something that she thinks is a statue.

Also, an actual stalker–as some people claim her to be–would’ve known that it was real Adrien hair and not yak hair just by the feel of it. Step up your game, Marinette.

Chat also sniffed Ladybug in both “Animan” and this episode, by the way, and he knew/thought that she wasn’t a statue in both cases. Realistically speaking, the “over-the-top” reaction from Marinette’s sniffing versus Chat’s is likely because Marinette was expecting the scent of a wax statue and was pleasantly surprised to find that it smelled like Adrien.

…Also, wASTED OPPORTUNITY FOR AN “ADRIEN, THE FRAGRANCE” REFERENCE, YOU SORRY EXCUSE FOR AN EPISODE.

…Also also, Marinette gesturing to the Adrien statue while complimenting its beauty was legitimately adorable and I’ll fight for that belief.

But, well, that’s not the crucial point in this scene anyway. No, the big thing is the fact that this is up there with Marinette’s most humiliating moments involving Adrien.

And that is quite the list, by the way. Like, here’s every embarrassing moment Marinette has endured that just came to me off the top of my head:

- Recording an embarrassing voicemail to Adrien and then having to go through multiple steps to prevent him from listening to it

- Having Adrien see her walking around in her pajamas

- Walking into a male’s bathroom to talk to Adrien

- Getting her wall of Adrien photos broadcast on live television

- Being laughed at due to writing her love letter while saying it out loud, THEN having to endure Adrien misinterpreting everything due to her giving him the wrong letter (and she’s promptly laughed at again)

And now, we have this. We have Adrien pretending that he’s a statue and Marinette acting fondly around him: touching him, sniffing him, and even kissing him, only for Adrien to reveal himself at literally the worst moment.

I’d also just like to take a moment to point out how soul-crushing it must’ve been for Marinette to be living in this fantasy of kissing her crush, only to have him pull away from her. I’m not saying that Adrien should’ve let it happen, but it’s the fact that Adrien continued to let this charade go on for so long and that the episode had to progress it to that point.

Because, again, Marinette’s feelings do not matter to the episode. Marinette is at the expense of the writing staff, being punished for taking basically any action with Adrien. She tries to confess, fumbles because plot, and then has to pick herself up again to do it all over.

It’s an endless cycle. She’s spent so much time and energy into getting Adrien to love her, her friends keep pushing for her to be with him (with reservations on the matter that they often choose not to voice aloud), and she’s endured so much embarrassment just to be around him that I can only feel bad for her.

I feel bad because it’s clear why she’s desperate and crazy for him: it feels like such a waste to give him up after all the work she’s put in, and she’s never allowed to move on because the show doesn’t give her a chance to see Adrien’s flaws (or at least in a way where the narrative is acknowledging them as flaws), leading her to believe that he’s near-perfect. The only flaw she’s allowed to see is in episodes like “Gamer”, where Adrien is sulking about himself.

…OH YEAH, THAT REMINDS ME. ONTO MY SEVENTH POINT.

So, seventh off, one would think that, after being so horrified from the whole “thought it was a statue but it was the real thing” experience, Marinette would get time to sit, reflect, and at least cry a little.

But that is not what happens. When Adrien pulls away, instead of immediately apologizing, he cracks an awkward joke about what she’d said. It’s not that I don’t think it’s in-character, but dude, could you not???

And instead of tending to Marinette more after he apologizes and sees her sulking, Adrien sits next to her and has the gall to mope about how, despite all the time he’s spent with her (timestamps or it didn’t happen), he still doesn’t know how to be a good friend.

…I can’t even express how frustrating this is.

Like, look, whether he is right or not, by saying what he said (with nothing else added) and also not facing her, Adrien made the situation about himself and his problems. This draws all the attention away from Marinette and makes her feel bad for making him feel bad.

Whether they resolve this later or not is irrelevant, because the episode could’ve just as easily had Adrien leave Marinette alone so that she could clear her head before he starts pressing her (in the VERY NEXT SCENE THEY HAVE TOGETHER, which is in the same place and they haven’t even moved) over what happened.

Seriously, that is all kinds of wrong. Adrien should’ve either prioritized making Marinette feel better before he throws his pity party, or left her alone to figure out how he was going to make it up to her. If he thinks he’s so bad at friendship, then why is he continuing to do the exact same things that he’s been doing since “Gamer”?

I can only presume it’s because the “Treatment of Marinette” status quo is in effect, and that’s wrong all on its own.

[Museum of Moments]

Even disregarding the statue scene and the stuff with Alya and Nino, this episode is still just… bad. Thus, before I get to the big (using that word very negatively) scene at the end, I wanna talk about the smaller stuff.

Like, Manon’s whole thing about everyone ignoring her honestly wasn’t built up well. The whole thing in the intro with Manon’s line about how nobody pays attention to her wasn’t needed, nor was Marinette accidentally ignoring her due to being smitten with Adrien (that made zero sense given that he’d been in the car with her for the whole ride). Manon being upset that Nino and Alya went off to play without her was already enough. She’s a child; anything aside from that scene with Nino and Alya was just unnecessary dialog that could’ve gone to something worthwhile (like, y’know, Marinette’s problems).

And ultimately, all Manon is good for her is adding to Marinette’s embarrassment (as if she needed more) by being the one to mention the Adrien photo wall and asking if Adrien and Marinette are dating.

Then, there’s Adrien/Chat, and… like, I was never really one to lean either way on him being helpless versus saving people (I did a post on it once, but it was more out of request), but… he has way too many saves in this episode.

First, he saves Marinette from a statue Hawk Moth, using an umbrella he took from an Aurore statue.

Heck, he even keeps fighting the statue of Hawk Moth as Marinette escapes. He gets saved by Ladybug afterward, but he still held his own for a while.

Later, as Chat, he somehow manages to save himself from statues of various akumatized people being piled on top of him (and a certain head that was trying to take his ring in a certain way that I am not talking about).

Him saving himself is even done off-screen, so we don’t know how he did it.

Immediately after, he’s approached with a kiss from a statue of Ladybug, which he figures out rather quickly due to her scent and–okay, wait, I was going to just mention this, I have to talk about it because it really bugs me.

Chat (as Adrien) later refers to Ladybug as the “girl he loves”, yet he apparently knows nothing about her considering that a statue version of Ladybug goes in for a kiss (while The Puppeteer is still presumably hanging around) and he just rolls with it before realizing that it’s not her…

due to her scent.

Not because her kissing him at a time like that is incredibly out-of-character.

Not because he knows that she’s never shown interest in him (their conversation earlier–which I’ll get to–could’ve easily been referring to the guy she has a crush on, which Chat is aware of).

And not because it seems unlike her to not speak, not ask if he’s okay, and not comment on the fact that he saved himself.

It’s her scent that gives her away.

Just… really? (and no, I’m not going to get on Ladybug’s case for not noticing that the statue of Chat was a statue because she isn’t the one claiming that they’re meant to be)

Anyway, once Chat’s figured out that the statue was a fake, he uses Cataclysm and breaks it to pieces, which I would think would be a bit traumatizing, but apparently, Chat is 100% okay with staring into this Ladybug statue’s face as she becomes dust. I mean, he could’ve at least confirmed that it was taking his ring before he goes “you smell like wax and that’s suspicious despite the fact that we’ve been fighting wax statues this whole time so we could possibly have a lingering scent of it”.

And as if that wasn’t enough, Adrichat goes for a fourth save by bursting into Ladybug’s fight just in time to save her from getting an earring removed.

I’m all for Chat doing more and just generally contributing, but four flawless victories in one episode are way too much for him.

Regardless though, while on the subject of Chat, he also gets to teach Ladybug a “lesson” about talking to people about one’s feelings. Not only is it incredibly out of nowhere (given that this is in the middle of a fight and Ladybug doesn’t often bring personal issues into fights, especially mid-fight), but it’s yet another example of Adrichat “having all the answers” while simultaneously knowing nothing about anything.

His advice isn’t technically bad, but it’s not relevant. The real question that should be asked is why Chat has no problems flirting, but struggled to say “I love you” directly to Ladybug’s face back in “Dark Cupid”. For all the credit Ladybug seems to give him for being able to flirt with her, it’s not addressing any of the issues that Ladybug actually has (Marinette stated in this episode that she was scared of being rejected, which is what the conversation should’ve been about).

This is even ignoring the fact that the conversation is essentially pointless. All it did was make Marinette almost confess to Adrien before he cuts her off, but that’s not progress and doesn’t give much hope going forward.

(by the way, lowkey wanted to see Chat talk about how flirting was his way of working himself up to a confession, so Marinette goes back to Adrien and channels her inner Chat to flirt with him; cue a very confused Adrien and a flabbergasted Alya)

The episode had some good ideas, like Alya and Nino’s conversation in front of the statues of their akumatized selves, but it drops the ball so many times and on so many jokes that it’s not worth it.

And, while we’re on the subject of dropping the ball…

[Car-crossed Lovers]

So, the scene in the car, where Marinette and Adrien apologize to each other, starts well enough. Even if it was Adrien’s fault first, it does make sense for Marinette to feel just as bad (especially since she kissed him).

The problem comes from literally everything else.

I already brought up Adrien cutting Marinette off before she confesses and his line about “the girl I love”, but I want to touch on the latter once more.

That line is the thing that shifts the whole scene from a happy mood into total sadness, yet it makes no sense for why it had to happen.

Chat has talked about how his friendship with Ladybug is so important to him, yet he refers to her as if it’s like “oh, it’s just this girl I’m in love with” so out of nowhere?

And just to be clear, it’s not that I have an issue with him being in love or mentioning that he’s in love with a girl. My problem comes from the fact that his mention of her goes straight to his crush.

It’s not “my best friend” and then clarified to “oh, not Nino, it’s this girl I love”, it’s just a downgrade to “the girl I love”. It could’ve even been an, “I’m glad you aren’t in love with me, because I’m already in love with another girl and I wouldn’t want to hurt you. I know how that feels.”

But of course, we can’t waste our time with complexity and nuance; how else will we have time for Marinette to be miserable? We already took up all our other time doing more important things, like building up Manon’s akumatization and embarrassing Marinette!

*sigh* Which brings us to the subject of Marinette being depressed about Adrien loving another girl.

We’ve done this. We’ve already done this in “Frozer”, which takes place before this given that this episode features a statue of Phillipe, who was introduced in “Frozer”. Also, that episode isn’t insanely high on my favorite episodes list, but it did this plot better.

And to spend all this time on Chat talking to Ladybug about feelings and Alya and Nino trying to set Marinette up to confess to Adrien…

just to have Adrien drop the bomb on her? It’s not even like this’ll change anything, considering Alya and the rest of the girl squad will likely keep pushing Marinette to spend more time with him, claiming that he “just doesn’t know her yet”.

Not only that, but after Adrien went on earlier about how he’s “bad at friendship”, he proceeds to awkwardly sit in the car as Marinette slumps back in her seat and looks sadly out the window? Marinette gives him impassive and empty responses, yet Adrien drops the subject almost immediately. He hardly looks worried when she’s leaving the car to go into her house.

Adrien complains about himself, yet fails to do anything to correct it. If he’s going to drop the subject (accepting that Marinette just doesn’t want to talk with him), then he could call Nino or Alya and ask them what he did during the conversation to make Marinette upset. It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s something to show that Adrien cares enough to take action.

Then, we have Tikki, who decides to not give any more of the good advice that she had previously in the episode (yet more proof that it was a one-time thing for the sake of humiliating Marinette). No, because instead, Tikki gives vague nonsense about how “life is full of surprises”.

Well, yes, Tikki, you’re technically right. Marinette hearing that Adrien was already in love with someone else was certainly a surprise despite the fact that, again, “Frozer” exists.

But, of course, this apparently makes Marinette feel better enough to not give up on Adrien (I presume, given that she didn’t rip off the picture on her board), despite it not being inspiring whatsoever and only acting as Tikki’s “generic jargon of the day.”

Also, this is extremely high up there in “worst times for the happy ending jingle ever”, just saying.

Now obviously, I understand that Tikki is doing this because she knows that Adrien has a crush on Ladybug. She doesn’t want Marinette to give up when she knows that Adrien is technically in love with her.

But, I have to ask… why?

Why is Marinette not allowed to move on and try with other people? In fact, that’s exactly what Tikki should be encouraging!

If Marinette is able to move on and her crush on Adrien is left to settle down, then she’ll be able to talk to Adrien properly.

Adrien will be able to see her more for who she really is.

He might even fall for her because of it.

But this? All Tikki is doing is stagnating Marinette’s development. She’s purposefully stunting Marinette’s growth and letting Marinette wallow in the fact that Adrien “doesn’t love her.”

And Tikki didn’t even have to give Marinette advice. She could’ve hugged her (”Origins”/”Princess Fragrance” style), whispered a few comforting words about how she believes that Marinette will work it out (which I would support because Tikki has information that she can’t tell, making her opinion more biased), and then asked if Marinette would be okay or if she needed anything.

I don’t ask for Tikki to have all the answers, but I want her to put less focus on the big picture (i.e: Marinette and Adrien are in love with each other in some way and, therefore, encouraging that they be together is best) and more on what’s good for Marinette now.

Would Adrien eventually fall for Marinette? Tikki doesn’t know. She’s banking on either that, or an eventual identity reveal. If neither of those things happen, Marinette stays depressed and it’s all Tikki’s fault.

And, okay, I am officially done with the show not letting Marinette be freaking sad. The scene between Adrien giving Marinette the metaphorical gut-punch to Marinette laying in bed with a casual smile is a pathetic thirty-eight seconds long. Her feeling humiliated before shifting her attention to Adrien’s pity party is less than twelve.

For basically the entire season, Marinette has either been treated unfairly or just been sad with no satisfying pay-off whatsoever.

Do you want proof? Do you want statistics? Because I have statistics.

I combed through every single episode that has aired so far and grabbed every single time that either Adrien or Marinette are truly sad/anxious. Heck, I was even generous and cut out when Marinette is having a total freak out versus being sad.

Season 3? A total mess. Here’s the facts:

Marinette has had tons of sad moments all through the season, already having more than she did in Season 1 despite Season 3 not even being close to over. Also, not only did Adrien get more screentime on average during his sad moments (in every season, honestly), but Marinette had an 80% chance of her moments being unsatisfying in Season 3 versus the coin flip of 50% in Season 2.

It’s… depressing. Marinette already goes through so much in her life (being friends with celebrities, acting as an honorary member of Kitty Section, going to school, working on her fashion, and–oh, y’know–BEING A SUPERHERO), yet the amount of stuff that keeps piling onto her just for the sake of making her suffer only seems to increase as time goes on.

And, yes, it’s natural for things to ramp up in intensity as seasons go on; new conflicts, new drama, and new obstacles are often introduced that test characters as they develop.

But that’s not what this is. This is the plot doing whatever it can to go against Marinette, either to force drama (seriously, the timing of that “girl I love” moment felt like it came out of a bad fanfic), force the conflict, or just make Marinette miserable.

So, essentially, a teenage girl needs to suffer needlessly to keep the status quo in check, and any attempts to do anything (whether it’s keeping within the status quo or not) will only end badly.

Ugh.

[calliecat93]

Top 5 Things I Liked About Red vs Blue: Season 2

(Top 5 Dislikes)

One post down, one more to go… and then twenty-six more to go for the rest of this series. Why did I decide to do this again? Meh, whatever. Let’s just get on with it as we resume looking over Season 2.

#5. Machinima

Okay, this might sound weird, but hear me out. The machinima last season was… basic. Not bad mind you, there is only so much that you can do without a lot of creativity and resources. Resources that RT didn’t have at this point in time. But mostly, they just went through the default motions. Nothing really stood out. It had some cool stuff, like them somehow managing to blow the Warthog on top of Red Base. I think they even said in the commentary that trying to replicate it for the remaster was a pain in the ass. Still, it just didn’t stand out, though the humor made you not notice.

Clearly, the RT guys wanted to push themselves a little more now that they knew how Halo operated and they could machinimate better. Which they did. I noticed a lot of little things when watching the season. Like having Caboose jumping up and down during the opening gunfight while behind a rock, or even Doc just pretending to fire his blaster. Or having Simmons more or less trembling in the finale when his… ugh… fax parts act up and you can tell what Grif is staring at when he questions it. Or adding in things like Lopez’ note in the finale, and even having it written in binary. Heck, we even have smoke come out of Grif’s helmet when Simmons catches him in the act.

These are small things, but it helps make the world and characters feel a little more alive. Clearly, machinima has its limitations, and we’re a long way away from them adding in animation. But creative people will find a way to work within their limitations, and even use those limitations to their advantage. Considering how long this show has been going, I’d say that they succeeded.

#4. Caboose’s Mind

One of the most memorable parts, and one with some actual effects on the characters, is when Church and Tex go into Caboose’s mind to kill O’Malley. It’s one of the weirdest, yet funniest parts of the season. We get to see how Caboose views everyone, with Tucker being stupid and Church being obsessed with being Caboose’s best friend. He gets them wrong, but it makes sense because it’s how /Caboose/ interprets these individuals. They aren’t supposed to be accurate. It’s especially funny when we see the Reds and only Simmons is close to right Grif is Yellow (which they outright did to prove that he was Orange to viewers), Donut is a girl since that’s what Caboose thought at the time, and Sarge has a pirate accent instead of a Southern one. 

It’s just funny to see Caboose, who at this point had been portrayed as the most dim-witted, and how he views these people. It kinda reflects what he wants with Church being his best friend and the Reds fearing him and his greatness. His ideal version of himself is pretty much a cool version of himself, though otherwise not too different. Church’s reaction and frustration at all fo this, especially Caboose!Church, only makes it funnier as is Tex being unfazed by all of it. It did kinda throw me off when I watched it the first time, but God it’s funnier on rewatch now that I know what’s going on. It’s a nice look into Caboose’s mind, and we got to see glimpses of the others int he S14 episode Head Cannon.

I think the biggest things though were for one, we got a location that wasn’t Blood Gulch finally. Sure it’s pretty much a standard video game map with a bunch of cubes, but after having the only setting be a canyon, it was refreshing. We also have some major impact with this since due to all the chaos, Caboose’s character becomes what it is now. We can debate all day how we should view Caboose and his intellectual level, but I do think that this helped endear the character to people and allowed him to stand out much, much more. Even now I know very few people, if anyone, who dislikes Caboose so while maybe they should acknowledge that he was more or less brain-damaged, the character himself has become better due to this. Which is nice~

#3. O’Malley Subplot

Speaking of Caboose’s mind, the O’Malley plot was by far the standout in this season. At first, it wasn’t too much since only Tucker cared about Caboose’s sudden murderous behavior. But once Tex came back, things picked up. While the backstory wasn’t totally accurate, it would certainly lead to more ahead. The fight in Caboose’s mind was fun. Tucker got to show some genuine competence when he came up with the plan to make the Reds turn their comms off and even using Lopez as a backup plan. With how much more competent Tucker grows later once circumstances pretty much force him to, this was an early sign showing that he is capable. He just needs to be pushed into doing it.

O’Malley himself didn’t stand out too much, just being kinda murderous. Then he escaped into Doc. I’ll go more into this next season, but this was the best decision ever. Doc is a whiny goody-two-shoes while O’Malley is gleefully, over-the-top evil. The contrast of the two personalities works super well and is just really funny to watch, though again it applies more for the next season. By the end, O’Malley makes his move and firmly sets himself up as the first proper Big Bad of the series, and he’s the perfect villain for the Blood Gulch Chronicles.

Overall, the whole subplot was really fun even though it did kind of have a slow start. It brought back Tex, had some really funny moments like the Reds' reactions to Lopez’s horrible love song. At least Donut liked it, haha~ It gave us our first proper villain, which led to one Hell of an insane finale. Even everything in between with Donut getting captured by the Blues and them trying to use this to make Sarge build them new bodies was fun to watch. The first half of S2 s super fun, but the second half is, without doubt, the best part for me. O’Malley was the catalyst, and to this day is one of my favorite villains. Love it~

#2. Improved Production Standards

Season 1 was good but flawed. It was clear that the RT guys weren’t really sure what they were doing. Audio quality was meh, jokes could drag, and the pacing was rather slow. It makes sense though when you read about what the original plans were. RvB was meant to be a miniseries, and nothing more. But pretty much a combination of them not getting to what they planned as soon as they thought (Donut was supposed to be in pink armor much sooner for example, and they realized how long it was taking to get there) as well as just coming up with more ideas extended things to a nineteen episode run. So there was no long term plan and things like writing and machinima were done in mere days in between releases. Plus there were only two main machinimators, Burnie and Geoff, and if you listen to the original S1 commentary they are both clearly exhausted. Burnie even said on a one-on-one podcast with Geoff on how they had pretty much had every conversation ever and they’d be like some old married couple just staring at each other. You can find it here if you’re interested, it’s a fun one~

So yeah… when you look back you can kinda tell that S1 was a bit of a rush job, and a tiring one at that. It’s still very good and like I said, they found ways to use so much you barely notice things were made up on the fly. But clearly, they needed a better system. Enter Matt Hullum. He had already been voicing Sarge, but he ended up stepping in to play a larger behind the scenes role. He joined Burnie on writing and directing, and thus they started planning things much farther ahead. As such, they knew the general plot and thus things could be tightened. The pacing is much better with episodes feeling faster, but having plenty of things happening. I already talked about the machinima improvements, which having Matt as well as Gus coming back from Puerto Rico also helped there. The voice acting, while still amateur, improved as well as the audio mixing. The filter is still a little distracting, but it and the general audio mixing is greatly improved. Pretty much every aspect of S1 was improved big time. It wasn’t perfect, but still, they clearly put a lot in creating a more quality product.

Season 2 had a hard job. Season One had to prove that this was a show worth watching. Season 2 had to prove that it could keep going and wasn’t just a one-hit-wonder. And ho boy did they. It’s funnier, it’s more ambitious, and even starts adding in some story. This season got the viewers from last time to come back, and probably brought in some new ones. It proved that this was a show that was sticking around and that RT had staying power. If this season failed, RvB would probably just be remembered as this funny Halo show. But it succeeded because they wanted the show to keep succeeding and be good, and that effort shows.

#1. Improved Characterizations

The thing that I enjoyed most about Season 1 was the character interactions. They just had natural chemistry and their interactions were funny. The characters themselves though were a little one-note. They had personality, but they didn’t really stand out when you compare them to other comedies like The Simpsons or South Park. I guess that RT realized this as well because this is where the characters really begin to become the same ones that we know now. Not all of them mind you like Simmons and Tucker are the least fleshed out here, but even then the signs of who they would become are there with things like Simmons clinginess to Sarge and the joke about Tucker’s rock, as well as the previously mentioned show of competence when pushed.

Donut and Grif show more of their personality, with Donut expressing his hobbies like home decor and growing to like his lightish-red armor. Grif shows his more lazy slacker attributes, like sleeping during meetings and forgetting the ammo, and his unhealthy habits like smoking and his constant eating. Which he’s pretty much doing intentionally to annoy Simmons and mess up the parts that he got from him. Lopez also got a lot of personalities now that he can talk. Namely, after the Reds nearly kill him and the Blues use him for their own means, he hates them all and his apathetic personality has stuck ever since. Poor guy has had such a hard time, haha. And I already went into Caboose, so there's no need to repeat myself. Even Shelia got sassier this season~

The one I think got the most improvement though is Sarge. In S1, he was just kind of a standard sergeant character you could find in just about any military movie, and the voice reflected it. Here? Matt just goes off the wall. He said in the S2 commentary that Sarge is pretty much the combination of various 50’s character tropes, like the grumpy old guy and the mad scientist. It shows. Sarge’s hatred of Blues and love of warfare are much more evident, especially in the finale. His hatred of Grif is also much more played up. We see that he is absolutely insane with his conspiracy theories about Lopez being brainwashed by the Blues instead of reprogrammed and turning Simmons into a cyborg instead of just getting a new robot. Sarge is the opposite of sensible, and having this guy be the leader and forcing everyone to follow his plans due to it is freakin’ hilarious. Matt exaggerating the accent from this point on only adds to this characterization and is much, much more fitting.

The characters, in my opinion, are the best part of Red vs Blue. This season demonstrates that very well. Unlike S1 where there were only shades of their later portrayal, this one uses broad strokes. I think some of the better voice acting can also be due to this since the cast now has more of a character to fool around with instead of just having to more or less act like their everyday selves. The characters were stronger, and as such the interaction and humor were even better. As such, it is my favorite part of Red vs Blue Season 2. Can they keep it up in Season 3? Well… we’ll find out soon~

[jupitermelichios]

Rise of Skywalker Spoiler Free Reactions

Just skip this post if you’re not interested!

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Okay, technical stuff first, since there’s no risk of any spoilers there. (This isn’t going to be kind, so I’m going to start by admitting that I probably wouldn’t be as harsh on the technical elements if I’d liked the plot more, but I certainly wouldn’t be being kind to it even if I really loved the story)

Holy shit that was a technically incompetent film. The camera work and editing were more reminiscent of Michael Bay at his worse than something you’d expect from Disney’s flagship franchise. Keeping track of where characters are in the world, in relation to one another, in relation to anything except the camera, is completely impossible in places, and usually the places that really matter! 

There’s a lot of shaky cam but rarely in the places shaky cam should be used (there’s multiple continuous steady shots shot using shaky cam for example, but it mostly isn’t used for running and chasing sequences) and even when the camera’s actually on a tripod it swoops around so much it made me a bit motion sick. Baz Lurnham would think this was too frenetic. The frame composition is at least okay (which shouldn’t even be in question for a film with a budget like this, but apparently this is what $300,000,000 gets you now).

The big dramatic light-sabre duel (not a spoiler, you knew there was going to be at least one!) is actually boring. This is the franchise that made Qui Gon vs Darth Maul exciting, and Darth Maul was functionally a non-character. This was with established characters and stakes, characters I was invested in, and I was so fucking bored, and that was all down to the soundtrack and editing not doing what they were supposed to. It kept doing that Michael Bay thing of shooting every little detail as though it was super important so your brain doesn’t know what to focus on and remember, but to give Michael Bay his dues his fight scenes are at least not boring, just incomprehensible. I’m honestly not entirely sure what went wrong with this - Joel Schumacher could honestly have shot this better, and he could definitely have edited it better!

Speaking of the music, Star Wars is probably better known for its music than just about anything else. It’s iconic. It’s hummable. It’s really fucking memorable. Yeah, they decided they should break from tradition here, The soundtrack is fine, if it wasn’t a Star Wars film I wouldn’t think anything of it (bar one moment when it’s super unclear if the music is diagetic or non-diagetic and it looks like a load of bad guys are singing opera, and it’s really funny) but this is Star Wars. At the very least, I expect to hear some of the iconic Star Wars music from films past, especially given how many original trilogy characters are in this movie, but no. It’s just generic film score, and that’s super weird.

Oh complement time, the sound balancing is good, which is really nice to see in a big budget blockbuster with this many explosions! I could hear the dialogue but the loud bits weren’t painful. Good job David Accord, senior sound editor.

The CG is mostly fine with a one notable exception that anyone who’s seen some of the other recent Star Wars movies will be expecting. There’s a couple of moments where I’m sure they’re actually using puppets rather than CG for smaller aliens, but it was always on the edge of shots and never for long enough to be certain.

The lighting is hit and miss, but when it misses it misses really hard. There’s a reason there’s an official epilepsy warning for this film, and it’s applicable to about a quarter of the run-time honestly. 

Costume design, what were you doing on this? Seriously. I think we all had mental imagines of what the Knights of Ren would look like when we finally got a proper look at them, and I don’t think any of us were expecting what they actually went with, especially in terms of their weapons. They looked like they’d wondered in from a completely different franchise!

Despite that, there is some really cool bits of design in this... none of which we see for more than a couple of seconds. An ice world which characters visit briefly near the beginning is a really awesome bit of design, and we cut away from the wide shot of it so quickly it honestly felt like a mistake? It’s really weird. And the desert bazaar caterpillar-track thing that I don’t know the name for is also a really great bit of very star wars-y design, that once again we only see for a second! It’s so weird, it’s like they’re ashamed of the cool designs. The red storm troopers from all the trailers, I really like them! I like that they’re distinctly First Order rather than Empire, it’s a nice bit of visual distinction. They’re barely in it. There’s some other troops in cool red armour we see briefly. They’re also barely in it.

Okay, I think that’s everything I had to say about the micro elements and direction, some super mild plot spoilers (on the ‘this actor is in the film who wasn’t in the last one’ level only) to follow so I’m putting them behind a cut

 There’s a cameo in this for someone who’s age suggests he’s in the original trilogy, and I genuinely have no idea who he is! If anyone knows (and no, I’m not talking about Billy D Williams) please let me know!

This film introduces two characters as though we’re supposed to already know who they are. A background resistance dude played by Dominic Monoghan - he’s not important, just a general background dude who occasionally exposits some stuff - and a First Order general played by Richard E Grant. The film is 100% convinced we know who they are. And I, as someone who rewatched TLJ only a month ago, am 100% convinced we do not. There’s a droid they do that with as well, and then later they have a dramatic reveal as to who it is, so they know we don’t know and they still introduce it that way! It’s not a big problem, it didn’t stop me from following the story, it’s just weird.

The ‘first gay character’ is exactly as weaksauce as we were all expecting, although I will say they did at least survive to the end of the film.

This is the biggest waste of Billy D Williams since the 1989 Batman movie.

They introduce so many new characters and concepts that there just isn’t time to allow the existing stuff to really shine, and about half of the new stuff could easily have been cut.

If I had to sum up this film’s script in one word it would be ‘non-committal’. I presume in response to the TLJ backlash, they’re trying so hard to please everyone that they basically end up pleasing no one because they won’t make firm statements on anything more controversial than ‘sith bad’.

Mostly my take away from this is that I remain 100% committed to my belief that Darth Traya is the only worthwhile organic in the Star Wars universe (and she’s not even canon anymore). “I see the chance to turn away from [the force’s] will, and that is what pleases me” may be the most intelligent thing any force user has ever said.

[isaackuo]

Starco Week5 Wrap-up!

This week was really fun! It was nice for someone to actually see the silly comics I draw! Normally, hardly anyone even notices so I rarely put in the effort of a multi-panel comic.

Here are links and explanations to my Starco Week 5 comics:

https://isaackuo.tumblr.com/post/185176588866/awkward

The one that started it all for me! I actually didn’t even notice there was a Wedding prompt later in the week. I just saw a post about “Awkward Dating Moments” and the Kellco shipper in me thought of a cute little comic that MAXIMIZED STARCO AWKWARDNESS.

So I thought, why not? It was only 3 little panels, and it mostly involved me drawing Kelly - who I find easy to draw. And I thought it was freaking hilarious.

EXPLANATION:

This comic refers to Booth Buddies, a “memorable” episode among us Starco shippers. In it, Kelly and Marco are on a wedding date, until Star Butterfly yoinks Marco away to the infamous photo booth. Then things get a little weird. In this comic, Kelly gets back by yoinking Marco to be her breakup buddy “booth buddy”, when Marco and Star are on a “wedding date” ...

https://isaackuo.tumblr.com/post/185223809716/yeah-im-a-bad-boy-princess

This one was the toughest for me, and also the weakest. I don’t follow AUs and I’m not used to thinking in terms of AUs. I tried to study the Bad Boy AU a bit, but I couldn’t think of any funny jokes for it. Honestly, I just went with the first idea I finally thought of which was vaguely funny.

EXPLANATION:

This comic references a few of the “bad” things canon Star actually did:

1) Trash a cop car in Star vs Echo Creek

2) Shoot a cop chopper out of the sky in Sad Teen Hotline

3) Murder the MHC in Cleaved

But “nice” AU Star wouldn’t do that stuff, right? So Bad Boy Marco picks up the slack for her. So ... it’s funny? I dunno, I think my sense of humor is too obtuse a lot of the time. You really need to be in deep with the show to even remember the stuff I’m referencing and make the connections?

I guess either you “get it” or ... oh well.

https://isaackuo.tumblr.com/post/185220760531/starco-snugs

Haha, this one was “controversial”. I mean ... if you read my stuff then you know I think Star was addicted to the thrill of having both Marco and Tom, the same way Marco was addicted to the thrill of two timing with Star and Hekapoo (in Night Life). I think this was cute and tragi-comic, and it’s one of my favorite parts of Star Butterfly’s character. Let her have her distinctive flaws, okay?

But apparently this also cuts a bit too close to home, since it’s one of the things hardcore Tom stans criticize Star for (both the character and the show).

Anyways ... while everyone else was going sweet lovey-dovey, I went a bit freaky. I mean ... I think of this as romantic, but maybe I’m just weird that way. Like ... just imagine. Marco Diaz consoling Star every night for breaking up with Tom, and then he gets hit by “Mind Eraser” so he gets to do it again tomorrow. Isn’t that romantic?

EXPLANATION:

This comic is based on the “Mind Eraser” spell Eclipsa teaches Moon in Total Eclipsa the Moon. It’s one of my favorite spells to make jokes around, because it’s basically the flashy thing from Men in Black.

So I ponder ... what if Star really went all out using “Mind Eraser” and she went completely nuts taking advantage of it on Marco Diaz? Okay, in Here to Help, Star rushed to skip the awkward talky talky stuff and went straight for a kiss first. Maybe she’s used to it because she’s had the confession talk with Marco dozens of times already?

Oh, I also snuck in a joke referring to how Tom didn’t let Star kiss him on the lips after they broke up. As such, the only actual Tomstar kiss shown was the Lava Lake Beach kiss Marco saw from a distance. A bit mean to the Tomstar shippers, don’t you think?

https://isaackuo.tumblr.com/post/185256268271/when-is-this-state-going-to-end-starco-road

Road Trip was a challenge for me. I wanted to minimize drawing effort since my arm was sore, but I also wanted to depict a long amount of time. So I was thinking of them taking turns driving, but I switched to a bicycle based on Honey and Clover. Using a bicycle also allowed posing them in cute ways not available with a car, so it all worked out!

I was also thinking to try and cram in a joke about Star not being able to just use magic - using the Thor reaction gif to Steve Rogers not having the internet to look up the weather meme ... but ultimately it just didn’t fit. Also, I wanted to minimize drawing effort.

EXPLANATION:

Not much going on here - there’s really only one joke. But the cuteness of Star slumping on Marco really sells this one. Apparently, everyone else also thought so, since this ended up being pretty popular.

Oh, I suppose the sheer absurdity of doing an interstate bicycle trip eastward from the California coast is also a bit funny.

https://isaackuo.tumblr.com/post/185303660951/isaackuo-sword-fight-club-xover-double-fight

I initially struggled with this prompt. I mean ... crossover double date? It’s just weird to me. How do they even know each other? How did they meet? It makes no sense?

Well, a classic Douglas Adams writing trick is to take what you’re stuck on and turn it around. And so I did. How do they even know each other? THEY DON’T. It’s just some random “Fight Club App” meetup. Once I had that epiphany, it was a matter of figuring out what couple would be the funniest to fight ...

EXPLANATION:

I’m proud of all the jokes I packed in here. Of course, we start off with the fact that this “date” is a random “Fight Club App” thing. Not only that, but it’s a Sword Fight Club. Like that’s a thing. You’re just going to randomly fight some strangers with swords. Like you’re in freaking Highlander except there’s no Prize or whatever.

But it’s funny because getting into some random fights is indeed the sort of thing Star and Marco would do for a fun date! Same with Steven and Connie, really (although this is more along the lines of Steven and Amethyst wrt Tiger Millionaire).

Then there’s the fact that Marco Diaz wore baby Mariposa to a sword fight. Who even does that? Oh right ... Queen Solaria and Queen Eclipsa. Which fandom didn’t question at all ... we just thought it was cute.

Star’s “We’re fighting kids?” is a reference to Alone Together, when Kevin freaks out that Stevonnie is actually two kids.

Marco is okay with fighting a kid, since his Season 1 karate nemesis was 8 year old Jeremy Birnbaum (remember him?).

The slit eyes Mariposa give Steven are based on the way baby Meteora looks at Marco.

Connie’s right - Star and Marco are 15 ... not all that much older than she is. But Star has been through a lot of serious stuff making her grow up young. She has lost touch with what teenagers even do (as she noted in Cornonation).

Star’s shocked at Steven’s age the same way Connie was shocked when she learned Steven’s age.

Even though Steven’s age disconnect is caused by wibbly wobbly gem hybrid growth rates, Marco assumes it’s because he “Did time in the Neverzone”. I had fun rewording that phrase until it implied something like doing a prison sentence.

The final kicker is baby Mariposa revealing she’s almost as old as Connie. This calls up fandom mixed feelings about Neverzone age ambiguity and what the heck this implies after Gone Baby Gone. And I mean ... you all saw it coming, right? You knew baby Mariposa had to be there for a reason, right? It’s funny because you see it coming a mile away.

Needless to say, this one is the one I’m most proud of. I had so much fun writing and rewriting it in my head until it was perfect! The only bad thing is that you need to be pretty familiar with both Star vs the Forces of Evil and Steven Universe to get all the jokes. But hey ... my sense of humor is obtuse like that.

https://isaackuo.tumblr.com/post/185295564211/the-honey-moon-ball-starco-wedding-prompt

This was another tough one. I already blew my best wedding joke on Day 1, and I didn’t even notice there was a Wedding Day prompt at the time!

I struggled and struggled to come up with anything. So I just latched onto the first joke I came up with. In lieu of good jokes, I tried to sell this one with sweet cute character art showing Tom being dashing and Starco being lovey dovey. Still ... this is one of my weaker ones.

EXPLANATION:

Obviously this is based on the Blood Moon Ball/Curse, but this time Tom’s hitting them with a different curse - the Honey Moon Curse.

As we find out in Curse of the Blood Moon, Star didn’t pay attention to the MC and she thought the Blood Moon light was just a fun party light. So in this comic, she’s just obliviously caressing Marco while he questions what Tom means.

I initially thought of Tom explaining that he was confused about what Marco had previously meant when he said he wanted a “honeymoon”. But then, I thought it would be funnier if it’s simply ambiguous whether or not Tom is being spiteful or a silly practical joker or what. Sometimes it’s funnier when there’s a psychological tension - you don’t know what Tom’s thinking/feeling.

https://isaackuo.tumblr.com/post/185313724836/toy-star-starco-week-5-prompt-au-of-choice

Another one which was initially tough for me. I’m just not familiar with AUs, so I knew I’d have to make up my own. But what? Nothing clicked until ... TOY STORY! After that stroke of brilliance, there were too many ideas. The hard part was paring things down into a manageable short comic.

I’m most proud of the INSANE look of Princess Star tapping her Wand at Diaz. And also the Pony Head box for Princess Star.

Anyway, the great thing about Toy Star is that I didn’t need to fill in much detail in order for the reader to imagine a whole world around it. I mean ... we all know and love Toy Story. It’s part of our cultural consciousness. So it’s really easy to imagine some fun enemies-to-buddies story just from a few suggestions.

EXPLANATION:

The boxed Princess Star bonking Diaz off the bed is actually not quite how it happened in Toy Story. But close enough! (We don’t actually get to see the majesty of a boxed Buzz Lightyear until Toy Story 2.)

Princess Star has ball jointed arms similar to Buzz Lightyear while Diaz is a flexible stuffed doll like Woody. I left off “Butterfly” because “Princess Star” feels more self centered and self important.

Diaz is named “Diaz” just to make Jackie’s line sound more intimate and personal.

Mermaid Jackie is, of course, a reference to the popular fan theory that Jackie was a mermaid. This “Sunny Atlantis” mermaid is a reference to the Pixar short Knick Knack. She’s an aquarium decoration, rather than a toy. This is a reference to how Woody’s girlfriend Bo Peep was also not a toy (she was a lamp).

The mermaid in Knick Knack has shades rather than eyes. So that’s why mermaid Jackie is lifting up shades to look down toward Diaz.

The panel where Diaz is getting out from under Adam’s bed is directly based on a Toy Story screenshot. The original does have a cactus pictured on the bedspread. I thought it would be kinda funny if it’s ambiguous what sort of “cactuses” broke Diaz’s fall.

The “must be some mistake” panel is also directly based on a Toy Story screenshot.

Princess Star immediately trying to Narwhal Blast Diaz indicates she’s even crazier than Buzz Lightyear. Buzz merely shifted around pointing his laser arm at Woody. Oh - the “psycho” look in her face really sells this, I think.

The fact that Princess Star is somehow aware she has to tap the button on her wand to activate it is ... well I think it’s funny. (The button placement, of course, is plainly designed for human use.)

Princess Star requesting a nearby Quest Buy is a reference to Quest Buy, the episode where they go to Quest Buy to buy a wand charger. “Or do you still use Plutonium” is a reference to Buzz’s technobabble “distolic fusion” ... but I thought the use of real world “Plutonium” would give the joke a bit more kick (sort of a Back to the Future reference also).

Diaz answering “we’ve got double-A’s” is a reference to Toy Story where Woody says the same thing.

“Look, new friend,” is something Star Butterfly would say, but with a flat attitude more like Buzz Lightyear. This indicates Princess Star has a bit different personality than canon Star Butterfly. It fits in more with Toy Story, helping the reader imagine how this Starco relationship will play out.

“Multiverse High Command” is a mashup of “Magical High Commission” and “Star Command”. The threat of the multiverse being destroyed is something Queen Moon warns Star in Star Comes to Earth. The spiel where Princess Star explains her mission is similar to Buzz Lightyear explaining his mission. Presumably, it’s written on her Ponyhead box. Again, all this stuff helps the reader imagine how this Starco relationship will play out.

Diaz’s “You’re a toy” is, of course, a reference to Woody trying to explain to Buzz Lightyear that he’s just a toy.

“I believe the term you’re looking for is ‘Magical Princess from Another Dimension’“ refers to a similar Buzz Lightyear line, as well as how canon Star introduces herself to Marco Diaz in Star Comes to Earth.

But really ... there are SO many memorable Toy Story lines that cramming in references is like shooting fish in a barrel. Too easy! But still fun!

Of all the silly ideas I put out there for Starco Week 5, Toy Star is perhaps the one which has gotten some interest. It’s begging to be fleshed out. I welcome anyone to do whatever they want with it!

And again, a big thanks to everyone who read my stuff, followed, reblogged, and such! Especially, of course, @starco-week

[tinamrazik]

Revisited: My Interview with Lily Tomlin

  The Wit, The Wisdom, The Wonderful Lily Tomlin

 Lily Tomlin is more than a legend in the Entertainment business.  She is living proof that with talent and perseverance, a long and successful career is not only possible but it’s inevitable.  Comedian, actress, writer, producer, recording artist, activist, multiple award winner; there is nothing Tomlin can’t do.  Many of us remember first seeing her in the 60’s show Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In.  Her cast of characters is still as relevant today as they were then.  Like us, they have changed with the times, matured (except for Edith Ann, she’s still 5 ½ years old), and developed a wisdom and insight that comes with age and time, much like Tomlin herself.  Her films have also spanned the spectrum in regards to comedy vs. drama and the varied women she has played. Comedy classics “9 To 5,” “All Of Me,” and “The Incredible Shrinking Woman,”; dramas “Nashville,” (in which she made her film debut in 1975 and was nominated for an Academy Award), “A Prairie Home Companion,” “Tea With Mussolini,” and “Moment By Moment.”  First appearing on Broadway in 1977 her one-woman shows have also been memorable and that of which a legend is made. “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe,” was made into a feature film in 1991.  She has made guest appearances in such critically acclaimed television shows as “Murphy Brown,” “Will & Grace,” “The West Wing,” and “Damages.”  Her latest endeavor on the small screen now filming is “Malibu Country,” with Reba McEntire.  At age 72 she is once again embarking on the road with a few scheduled stops with her one-woman show.  She was called by Time Magazine “the woman with the kaleidoscope face.”  There is no doubt she has been an inspiration to hundreds of comedians who have followed after her.  A civil and gay rights activist she has been with her life partner Jane Wagner for over 40 years; a personal accomplishment almost unheard of not only in the Entertainment industry but the real world as well.  Lily Tomlin is truly an artist in every sense of the word and a woman for all seasons.  

May 6, 2012 is South Florida’s time in the sun with Ms. Tomlin; but on this day I had the distinct pleasure of speaking with her one on one. I found her to be extremely personable, funny, thought provoking, and completely in tune with the world we all share.   This certainly isn’t the fluff piece I was expecting to write and you may be expecting to read.  She was open, willing, and able to talk about everything under the sun, I felt as if I were catching up with an old friend. 

Tina Mrazik: Hi, how are you? Lily Tomlin:  I’m good.   Okay so, I’m coming to Miami. TM: Yes, to the Adrienne Arsht Center on May. 6th. How many dates are on your current tour? LT:  I do dates every year, I don’t do a tour.  I do what I can do in between other stuff.   I think there’s an advantage there.  Last week, I would have had to move a bunch of dates. TM:  Has "Malibu Country" been picked up for the season? LT:  No, I don’t know if it’s been picked up yet or not.  We shot it on Tuesday night, a week ago.  

  TM:  How did you get the role starring alongside Reba McEntire in the upcoming ABC TV comedy “Malibu Country”? LT:  They had that part and asked me to do it.  I know Reba and I like Reba.  It was a funny script so I agreed to it.  I think it went pretty well.   TM: Do you enjoy working again network television? LT:  Oh yeah, I like to do a bit of it all.  I’ve done a lot of TV this past year.   TM:  Indeed, you’ve made several appearances on TV including Damages, in which you earned an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress for your role as Marilyn Tobin. LT:  Yes, I did.  Web Therapy starts airing on Showtime in July. TM:  You’ve also participated in several projects for cable networks including HBO and Showtime.  Do you find there’s a lot more freedom on cable verses commercial network? LT:    Of course there is, absolutely.  You get to step out a bit.  And I like all of them.  As long as the material is interesting, something exciting to play.  I especially love Web Therapy and I did Eastbound and Down too.  I had a lot of fun doing that.  You know what show Eastbound? TM: Yes, it’s a very funny show. LT:  I loved playing Danny McBride’s character, Tammy Powers.  It all has a different kind of feel to it.  And Reba’s show too.  This pilot was interesting too.  They let me name the character after my own mother. So I named her Lily May and that was sort of the attraction too.   TM:  There are many women of this generation that are working in comedy.  With the material they’re doing and the way they’re presenting it, do you think women are finally able to keep up with the boys when it comes to edgy material. LT:  Yeah, I think there is that youth audience.  Yeah, I do.  I think it’s expected.  Just like on cable, the language is expected too.  The sensibility, just being more ostentatious.   TM:  Do you believe this evolution in popular culture is going in more positive or negative direction?   LT:  Well, I don’t know.  I think the culture has a tendency to become a little coarser in general.  Maybe it’s good though.  Maybe it’s flattened boundaries.  It all depends on how it’s used.  I remember on Deadwood, the show on HBO, they said ‘c***sucker’ about every other word.  Then they had that woman, that nice woman in the first season that she was sort of gentile and became kind of rough.  Her husband, I can’t remember the exact, I didn’t watch it every week.  I hardly have time to watch anything every week including myself.  She was sort of a gentle woman you know.    Educated or married or something; and then she sat out awhile and then she (laughing) began out talking the guy who ran the saloon or whatever he did.  But yeah, I wonder all the people talking; probably they used a lot language at that time.  You know on Laugh-In we had The Flying Fickle Finger of Fate and the Farkel Family.  Everybody was always trying to push the barriers. TM:  With Laugh-In there was more innuendo, now everything is in your face. LT:  As I recall you couldn’t even say the word ‘ass.’  I remember I was an usher at the movies, movie house.  The first movie that ever used the word ‘virgin’ on screen was a big deal.   TM:  Do you think in some instances, we've become too politically correct when news anchors and TV personalities are having to apologize because they offended certain groups of people with words that most Americans hear everyday? LT:  Well some of those just happened recently.   It’s part of their vocabulary now.  If you do it what’s the point of apologizing you should just own it.  But I guess people, the group that’s offended, I don’t know, I’d have to be in their shoes.  It does seem a little over the top but it came from a desire to change the vocabulary and the culture, you know? Like calling women employees ‘girls’; "my girl".  "My girl will call your girl."  Stuff like that- that’s the feminist era.  But I remember concepts that were accepted, you know.  Even myself, I had begun working on a character and the result was an old person. I had a line in there that goes back to the very earliest 70’s.  And I had a line in it which became really foolish; the character was supposed to be like an old woman,  90 years old and she’s saying, “Drop kick those grandbabies up against a wall.”  And it seemed funny to me at the time but it was a stupid thing to say.  So that kind of stuff when you first hear it, and yet you can do it, the pendulum swings the other way gets deeper and heavier.  Because behavior is sometimes imitated is just like children grow up in a white supremacist group.  They’re totally programmed to be racist and hateful.  They know nothing else.  They just repeat the language.  So I don’t know where it stops and where it starts.   I would be the last one to try and censor someone.  And when you judge something, the idea of not apologizing is just immature.  I don’t know anyone who’s had to do it besides Tracy (Morgan).  Do newscasters do it a lot, commentators?  I doubt anybody at Fox does it. TM: Sometimes I think they go a little bit overboard as far as apologizing. Perhaps America has become too sensitive. I remember when we used to be a lot tougher. LT:  I think a lot of stuff is accepted, really.  There was a time when a certain amount of hatred, not even hatred, I don’t even want to use the word.  But you had people thinking Jews or blacks or whatever.  Women, gay people, whatever - they’re just going to have an attack mode for those people.  They don’t want to have to hear them, hear about them.  I think there are a lot of weird points of view in the world. I mean look, I grew up in Detroit, the inner city in a black neighborhood.  My mother and dad are both Southern, I went to Kentucky every summer on the farm.  I lived in an old apartment house; I grew up with all kinds of people.  And I’ve been exposed to a lot of different human beings and weren’t so different.  They may appear different on the surface. So again you have to have respect for other people’s feelings, you just do.  But if you’re not stupid and somewhat educated or sensitive or have a feeling, then you have room for other people too.  To say we’re too sensitive you’re talking about which group is offended; me, I don’t know.  I really don’t know where to draw the line. You have to draw it on your own sensibility.  TM:  You’ve been with Jane (Wagner) for over 40 years, correct? LT: 41. TM:  Congratulations. LT:  Thank you.  She thanks you too.  (Laughing) TM:  Is she there? LT:  No, no.  She doesn’t go on the road with me.  I love to perform a certain number of dates a year so she doesn’t go out too often.   TM: In my opinion, Hollywood is doing something that I’m not really crazy about. They’re doing too many remakes of classic films or turning TV shows into movies.  From your and Jane’s perspective as writers, is there a lack of originality in Hollywood? LT.  Well, we’ve talked about it sometimes just because we, yeah that has come up with us, you’re right.  The idea of remaking something and not doing something that’s original or not perusing something that’s original; we do comment on that.  But I can’t say we’ve started a movement in the organization; down with remakes.   TM:  They’ve put “9 to 5” on Broadway. LT.  That’s right, they’ve done that.   “ TM: How would you feel about a remake of “9 To 5”? What if it was completely different than the original?  Like what if it was remade into a raunchy sort of “American Pie”-type comedy, would that bother you?   LT:  Well, it wouldn’t bother me, I mean gosh, what bothers me is if we get into a nuclear war.  I’d be disappointed probably for a minute the fact that they would do that but I wouldn’t dwell on it.  There was the intention of Jane, Dolly and me to do a sequel to it, not a remake but a sequel.   And a sequel might have worked closer to the time the original appeared but nothing ever worked out; no script was ever acceptable all around the block.  And I know Jada Pinkett Smith had the rights and was going to do an African American version.  Now what form that would have taken I don’t know.  If it would have been a redo of the original or a completely different invention.  I just don’t know.  I mean I heard that Queen Latifah was going to redo “All of Me.”  So I don’t quite know what it means.  Or how far they’d go or don’t go or how far they’d corrupt it.  I would see it.  Maybe if I were the producer or the director had written “9 to 5” maybe I’d feel more possessive.  In the musical they used the actors to look and move just like us from the stage. Even Mr. Hart looked like Dabney; I can’t remember the actor’s name.  He was good in the musical.  Allison (Janney) looks enough like me from the stage.  I mean she’s tall and lankly.  Meg Hilty is very stocked and big busted like Dolly (Parton) and a little blonde you know.  And then the Jane (Fonda) character, anyway, they were enough like us; in a sense it looked like the movie. For us at that time, I don’t know about Fonda because she produced it originally but all of us felt it looked kind of eerie, surreal.  The three of us went to the opening because of Dolly in LA and New York. And sitting there watching those three people (laughing) and they were sitting there almost, because Pat Resnick wrote the book for the musical, and she had written the screenplay.  She took very much from herself and the original, even the costumes were similar to what Ann Roth had designed in the movie.  And anyway, so that’s the effect it had on me at the time.  It was kind of surreal.  And I wasn’t sure it was live, maybe it was us up there. (Laughing) TM:  Now that you have my number will you give it to Cher? LT:  If I run into her I will.  (Laughing)  Oh, my gosh, you’d get a kick out of her. TM:  I’ve actually met her. LT:  Yes, she fun and interesting. TM:  This is one of the great things about meeting people in the entertainment business and getting to talk to you.  Everyone that I’ve met has basically been very down to earth.  When I can go on record and say that I made Cher, Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin laugh, that’s pretty good. LT:  Okay, (laughing) maybe we should do “9 To 5”?  Bette, Cher and I - they’re 24/7...

[dnmeinster]

Why The Last Jedi Fails

I've debated whether it would be worth spending time writing this, as I know there are many critical takes out there about The Last Jedi.  But I figure it's time to gather up all my critiques and criticisms of Star Wars Episode 8 and put them into one (hopefully) coherent post.  Warning: I will be praising some parts of this film.

After I saw The Last Jedi opening night, my immediate reaction was that I loved it.  It is a beautifully shot film with some great scenes.  My initial trepidations were ones I've come to accept: Rey's parents are nobodies and Snoke was killed off without a backstory.  However, in the hours after watching, my critical brain turned back on and started to dissect every other bit of the film.  After seeing it a second time, the problems became more apparent.

Let's start with the film's greatest problem and a huge missed opportunity: Canto Bight.  Everything surrounding this whole plot point and locale is misguided from the minute it's mentioned.  It starts by wasting Maz Kanata, a potentially interesting character who is given little more than a cameo to send Finn and Rose off to the casino world.  Even worse, Maz's short amount of screen time includes a dig at the prequels, when she dismisses any notion that they'd be interested in her union dispute.  Here, we get some insight into how this film will approach politics in the Star Wars galaxy.  But director Rian Johnson misdiagnoses what was wrong with the prequels.  Space politics can be interesting!  See:  Star Wars Bloodline.  Johnson's decision to shy away from it compounds the problems when they actually get to Canto Bight.

It all goes wrong from the moment they land.  Literally.  Finn and Rose "park" their ship in a spot they're not supposed to.  Then they enter the casino, in what is apparently an homage to the cantina but on a grander scale.  This diverse set of gamblers are apparently war profiteers, as is briefly mentioned.  But their only interaction with any of them is when they are approached and arrested for parking illegally.  Seriously.

In prison, they encounter DJ, who will eventually join them on their mission to disable the First Order's tracker.  But first, they have to go back to the casino area and release enslaved creatures so they can trample and maim these profiteers we are told are bad.  This is a very long sequence that ends with Finn saying how glad he was to hurt them.  Huh?  Hurt these people you don't know and haven't spoken to?

The entire Canto Bight subplot lacks any depth.  It's completely superficial, and maybe that would've worked if they didn't spend so much of the movie there.  But it ends up being a whole lot of time wasted on what amounts to finding a way to get DJ with Finn and Rose.  This could've been so much better.

HOW TO IMPROVE CANTO BIGHT

Honestly, this should've been caught when someone was reading Johnson's drafts, because we're basically stuck with a chunk a TLJ that degrades it while simultaneously expanding its running time.  But it could've been fixed, starting with Maz.

 Instead of having Maz phone in her appearance, they should have met her on Canto Bight.  Right there, we lose one prequel crack and give Lupita a slightly larger role.  While there, they interact with these profiteers, engaging in a moral debate about the First Order vs. the Resistance, while finding out how the conflict is viewed through the galaxy.  Were there a lot of systems missing the Empire?  How do they feel about the New Republic's destruction?  Eventually, that moral debate is what leads to fisticuffs and their subsequent imprisonment, as opposed to a parking ticket.

Johnson doesn't touch on any of this in TLJ.  His take on the morality of the conflict is restricted to two lines involving DJ.  First: 

DJ: Good guys, bad guys, made-up words. Let's see who formerly owned this gorgeous hunk-uh. Ah, this guy was an arms dealer. Made his bank selling weapons to the bad guys. (Hologram shows a tie fighter.) Oh... And the good. (Hologram shows an x-wing.) Finn, let me learn you something big. It's all a machine, partner. Live free, don't join.

And second, when DJ betrays them:   

DJ: They blow you up today, you can blow them up tomorrow. It's just business. 

Finn: You're wrong. 

DJ: Maybe.

This is the extent Johnson is willing to go when it comes to morality in the Star Wars universe, and it's just not enough.  Either dig in or don't mention it.  Short changing it is a disservice, but that's exactly what happens.

If the entire Canto Bight sequence was redone, it would not only be a better Star Wars movie, but a better movie in general.  It doesn't have to be exactly as I think it should be, but it needs vast improvements.  If Disney were to ever special edition the sequels, then Canto Bight should be singled out.  And yes, I do think they should special edition them, along with the prequels.  But that's for another time.

MOVING ON

The second greatest issue of The Last Jedi is how immensely it fails at being a sequel to The Force Awakens.  I am undoubtedly biased when it comes to discussing TFA because JJ Abrams is one of my favorite directors and I absolutely loved his take on Star Wars.  Now, one of JJ's favorite things to do is to approach plots as mystery boxes, whose contents are slowly revealed over the course of a TV series or movie.  And don't say he didn't have any clue as to where TFA was going, as he had an outline prepared for the sequel, and an idea for who Rey's parents were.  Along comes Rian Johnson, who, instead of opening that mystery box, takes a hammer to it.

So much of what is hinted at, left unsolved, or teased in TFA is either ignored, brushed aside, or poorly answered in TLJ.  This is a problem.  TLJ is supposed to be a direct sequel, not a spin-off or an unplanned continuation.  When Yoda suggests there's another hope in Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi provides an answer to who that is.  Imagine if it didn't.  Well, I suppose you don't have to cause this basically happens with TLJ.

There was a lot of set up in TFA, but Johnson used TLJ to tear all of that up instead of building on it.  Rey's lineage, strongly hinted to be significant through multiple scenes in TFA, is made to be meaningless in TLJ.  Maz Kanata teased having a story about how she came to possess Anakin's lightsaber, but that's ignored in TLJ.  Snoke is treated like a disposable villain, even though he somehow managed to stitch the Empire back together and tempt Ben Solo to the dark side.  The Knights of Ren are mentioned in an offhand comment in TFA and are completely missing in TLJ.  I could go on.

Okay, I will.  Why would Luke leave a map for his friends to find him in TFA if he went to Ahch-To to die?  And why did Luke leave it with Lor San Tekka?  (Johnson's answer:  stfu, Luke is emo now.)

The Last Jedi also feels like a smaller movie.  There are two new locations introduced: Canto Bight and Crait.  It revisits Ahch-To from TFA, and the rest takes place on ships.  This is not necessarily a problem, except it fails to show both the dominance of the First Order and the scope of their battle with the Republic/Resistance.  Star Wars is a big universe.  Shouldn't it feel that way?

And then there's issues with some of the returning characters.  Finn is tied down in the wasteful Canto Bight plot that doesn't do much for him.  Leia spends most of the movie in a coma.  Ackbar is murdered for no reason and with even less fanfare.  Poe gets an expanded role, though somehow it doesn't lead to much character growth.

And I can't forget Phasma.  A character with so much potential yet given such short shrift in both TFA and TLJ.  She feels tacked on in this film, when she could've been given a meatier role given how underwhelming all of Johnson's original characters are.  Which brings me to...

THE NEWBIES

The Empire Strikes Back introduced us to Yoda, Lando, and Boba Fett.  The only memorable addition to The Last Jedi are the porgs.

Johnson gives us three new characters in TLJ:  Admiral Holdo, DJ, and Rose.  There isn't that much to say about them, because, well, they're not very memorable and they're certainly not iconic.  Holdo is a one note character meant to serve as the adversary to Poe.  Her entire role consists of antagonizing him and withholding information.  She's much more interesting in Claudia Grey's novel, Leia: Princess of Alderaan.

I've already mentioned the role DJ plays during Benicio del Toro's criminally tiny amount of screen time, so that leaves Rose.  She's...okay?  Sticking her on Canto Bight certainly doesn't help her.  The most memorable thing she does is interrupt Finn's suicide run and plant a kiss on him, both of which come from almost nowhere.

It really feels like these characters are underdeveloped and the actors are wasted in the roles, and that's a shame.  But then, that's the story of the prequels as well.  It's just that it was less surprising when George Lucas was doing it.

THE WORST MOMENT IN THE LAST JEDI

Luke Skywalker is far from the Luke we remember in RotJ.  At least until the end of the film, when he leaves Ahch-To, joins Leia and the Resistance, and takes on Kylo Ren and the First Order on his own.

Except he didn't really leave Ahch-To, it's a Force projection, and the stress of creating it kills him.  What?

Han Solo's death makes sense given his son's role in TFA.  Luke Skywalker dies because Rian Johnson chose to kill him.  There is not a single reason plot-wise for Luke to die in this movie.  The Sequel Trilogy should not be about killing off a member of the original trio in each film.  And it didn't have to be.  What were they thinking?

When Carrie Fisher passed away, and it became clear Leia was not going to be in Episode 9, that should have convinced the powers that be to change the last three minutes of the film and allow Luke to live.  Yes, he can return as a Force ghost, but that's not the same.  They would've only had to cut Luke's disappearance and a line from Rey and BAM, Luke's still alive for Episode 9.

His meaningless and arbitrary death ruins this film.  (And after they spent a whole film trying to find him, no less.)

THE GOOD

Now that I've rattled off some of the major flaws I perceived in TLJ, let me list some of the good.

The Yoda Scene:  Easily the best moment of the film.

Luke tossing the lightsaber:  A hilarious and unexpected moment before there were too many "hilarious" and unexpected moments.

Hux:  The one minor TFA character Johnson does an excellent job with.  He may be my favorite character in the film.

Rey and Ren:  The development of their relationship is the strongest element of TLJ.

The Caretakers:  See Damon Lindelof's Instagram.

The Porgs: Adorable pests/wookie-fodder.

Luke flashbacks:  We needed more of these.

Artoo: BB-8 is stealing his thunder, but he can still get in a cheap shot.

Threepio: He's also in this film.

Praetorian Guards: That's some good lightsaberin'.

The Cinematography:  Seriously, this movie is gorgeous.

It feels like a Star Wars movie (minus one ridiculous ironing scene).

FAILURE

Yoda tells Luke how failure is the greatest teacher, laying out one of the themes of this film.  The other, a quote played over numerous TLJ trailers, is "Let the past die.  Kill it, if you have to."  Let's explore.

Weeks before Max Landis disappeared from Twitter following sexual harassment allegations, he described how every character in this movie fails:

REY - Turn Kylo - Fails KYLO - Turn Rey - Fails FINN - Turn off tracker - Fails POE - Save Revel Fleet - Fails SNOKE - Kill Rey - Fails LUKE - Train Rey - Fails HUX - Usurp power - Fails LEIA - Escape - Mostly Fails ROSE TICO - Turn of tracker - Fails HOLDO - Evacuate to Planet Secretly - Fails

That's a lot of failure.  Ironically, you can add one more:

RIAN JOHNSON - Make a great Star Wars film - Fails

But this theme is not why TLJ doesn't work.  It's the other one that drags it down.  The whole idea to let the past die.  If this was Episode 9, and Disney was about to start fresh with a new series of Star Wars films, perhaps it would work.  But this is the middle chapter.  The past, especially TFA, should not be killed.  It should define the entire Sequel Trilogy.

After all, this is a culmination of everything in the OT and PT.  The First Order is born from the Empire.  The Resistance is born from the Rebellion (and then turned back into the Rebellion?  Guess you can't let the entire past die, huh?)  Most of the characters come from other movies.  This is their last time to shine.

Johnson subverts expectations too many times in TLJ.  It works at first, with Luke tossing the lightsaber, but by the end, it has become trite.  Rey's parents are nobodies.  Snoke's dead.  Luke's dead.  The entire Resistance can fit on the Millennium Falcon.  (And Kylo Ren’s awesome mask is wrecked.) He's killed the past without building anything for the future.  That's left to JJ in the single remaining film in the trilogy.  Come on!

The Last Jedi is so polarizing because there’s so much to nitpick, whereas The Force Awakens mainly had only one general complaint leveled against it (it was too much like A New Hope).  One fan may be okay with Leia's Mary Poppins scene, while also despising how Luke became a cranky hermit.  Each potential negative has to be overlooked to come out of it with a positive view, but it’s a lot easier to focus and harp on the negatives.  And that's what's happened online, and, yes, in this post.  Also, killing off Luke for no reason was dumb.

Before I go, I want to mention how overrated Looper was.  Interesting concept, but it falls apart at the farm.  And they gave that director a Star Wars film, while taking one away from the guys who did the Jump Street movies and The Lego Movie.  Sigh.

If JJ sticks the landing with Episode 9 and churns out a terrific film, perhaps TLJ can be viewed in a new light.  And opinions do change over the years.  But even though Revenge of the Sith was pretty good, no one looks back fondly at the prequel trilogy.

[askkrenko]

On Animals vs Animalfolk

The conclusion makes me realize: I don’t think you ever took an explicit stance about animal/human hybrid races.

Obviously, the current situation is a mess, with Leonin and Aven being Cat and Birds respectively, but Snake-people being sometimes Snake sometimes Naga, Lizard-people being their own things, Siren and Harpy mostly not Birds, but sometimes Birds, and this is only those we talked about recently. I don’t even remember what Loxodon and Rhox are tagged as…

So, what do you think would have been an good solution, if we didn’t have to deal with all the inertia of history? Are you strongly in favor of one or the other? Or do you think it should be decided on a case by case basis? Based on what other factors?

~ @death-burst

A very good question was asked in response to my Krenko’s Guide: Birds, and rather than just continually reblog that, I thought this deserved its own thread for people to answer.

The question of whether animal-people are their animal types (Like Leonin and Aven) or their own types (like Minotaur and Naga) is a pretty major one, and there’s multiple ways to deal it out, each with benefits and drawbacks. I’ll get into them below the break.

Option one: All animalfolk are the same type as their animals. 

That is, Minotaurs would be Oxen, Nagas would be Snakes, and Harpies and Sirens would both be Birds.  Now, the big benefit here is cutting down on creature types and letting it be easier to make decks of those types. “Cat” deck is easier than “Lizard” deck because cat people and cats are the same race, while lizard people and lizards are not. Oxen sharing a type with Minotaurs would give them the benefit of all that Minotaur tribal. It should result in the best gameplay response, but it’s also going to wind up looking the weirdest when you try to make sense of it.

 First off, as we see with Leonin and Aven, it creates this weird flavor option where a Leonin is happier to work alongside a housecat than alongside a Loxodon, which is just... a bit odd. Should Brimaz feel some sort of primal unity with a saber tooth tiger? Or a Leotau? Does it even make sense for a Siren like Malcolm (who needs a card ASAP) to think of a Bird of Paradise as one of “his people”? 

The second problem with this option is that not all ‘beast men’ as they are have a unified equivalent animal. Viashino are spread among Lizard, Crocodile, and Dinosaur. Most Merfolk are Fish, but Shadowmoor has the Seal-like Selkies. And then are Dryads and Treefolk supposed to be creature type “Plant?” Are Gorgons Snakes? Some of them certainly seem to be, but not all.

The third problem is that it makes a few creature types less immediately understandable. While people are accepting Leonin as cat people, declaring that Satyrs are actually Goats feels a bit off, as does seriously calling a Merfolk a Fish. We do it as a joke, sure, but actually writing Fish on the card would feel... off. Minotaurs as Oxen are more forgivable, but calling a Centaur a Horse just feels like a downright lie, even though a Centaur is more Horse than a Minotaur is Ox. It creates a disconnect where you actively feel certain things are mislabeled.

Option Two: All beastmen get their own race

That is, anything that uses the race/class style gets its own type. The big benefit here is that everything is clearly labeled and it makes perfect sense what works in tribe. Avens like Avens, but not birds. Minotaurs like Minotaurs, but not Oxen. Everything is exactly what it says it is. This is probably the most reasonable from a flavor perspective... but is awful for gameplay.

The first problem here is type splitting. Splitting Rhino from Rhox takes you from one type underused at 27 to two races under used at 11 and 16.  Splitting Aven from Bird is more comfortable, as both can survive on their own, but now you have an issue of future cards that care about them need to choose one or the other, no longer hitting both. This gets especially weird for one-offs. 

The second problem here is that some beastmen are one-offs. Scandalmonger is the only boar person. Wishmonger is the only unicorn person. Amphin Cutthroat and Pathmage are the only Salamander people, and that creature type is already tiny. There’s likely other instances here as well, but it certainly raises a question for the future. Would a lone turtle-person need their own type? 

Option Three: Mythological creatures get a type, invented ones do not

This tends to be the trend current Magic has stuck with, though there are a number of exceptions. If the creature is one from actual mythology and has some sort of expectation that the audience has heard of it before, it gets its own type. Otherwise, it uses its animal-men type. This is designed to be the easiest on the audience, as creature types are then what people instinctively think they are. When someone sees an ox-man, they know it’s a minotaur. When someone sees a cat-man, they don’t have anything else to call it, so it’s a cat-man. Magic can call it a Leonin, but that’s Magic’s made up word for it.

The major problems here come when invented races border mythological races. Orochi are Snakes because Wizards made them up, but Naga are also snake-men who are not snakes because they’re from mythology. This means we have two groups of snake-people who do not share a creature type, which is made all the more egregious by the fact that Orochi have a huge amount of tribal support as Snakes. A similar problem hits on Harpies and Sirens not being the same type as Aven. Further, a bunch of Dryads are clearly trees, but not Treefolk, which is a supported creature type. Wormwood Dryad, Gnalrwood Dryad, and Dryad Arbor, specifically, are just trees shaped like women.

Option Four: Purely case by case

Purely case by case is a reasonable idea, and would allow for the best mechanical and flavor balance for each type as it needs it, but this still results in major inconsistancy as a result, with players having no idea what’s what. Magic’s done a lot of this in the past, which is why we have Viashino and Cephalids.

This gets really messy really fast, and its biggest problem is that when deciding whether to make a new creature type for something is necesarry, one thing that should be asking is “how often do we plan to use these?” Lets assume a new world has a race of turtle-people. We can either label them as “Turtle” or as “Kappa.” The set’s got eight of them, because they’re a decent part of the world but not so big as to be planning a deck around them. A big question as to whether to give them their own creature type or not is if they’ll be iconic and memorable, and it’s really hard to know that until after the set has come out. If people really like them, they’re going to come back on many worlds, and as their forms change for different planes, it’ll be nicer to have the freedom to make different Kappa than just “turtles.” However, if people don’t attach to them, having their own creature type that most don’t immediately get will just be offputting and weird.

Option Five: Pipe Dream: Complete overhaul with wider types

So, I’m going to throw out first that I know full well a complete overhaul is unreasonable. I’d like one, but it’s just too much in  a game that’s mostly physical. That said, here’s how I’d do it:

All Beastmen are of a Beastmen type... But those types are wider. We’re starting to see this with Minotaur, which includes a number of rams on Amonkhet, and Zedruu, Having other suites of beastmen share typings would be a complete restructuring, but I think it’d work best for everyone.

Minotaurs would include all Ungulates here. This means Rhox, Scandalmonger, Wishmonger, but also easily opening the door for Elk-people to just randomly show up somewhere under the tag Minotaur. This would still only apply to bipeds, though, so Centaurs are still Centaurs (but a Centaur could include something with the lower body of any Ungulate.)

Aven would split from Bird, but absorb Siren and Harpy, and include any humanoid that has feathers and flies.

Ainok, or another name, would include Ainoks, Khenra, and Kitsune, as well as any other Caniform Beastman. Possibly also Feline beastmen, but I think Leonin are getting big enough to have all catfolk just be Leonin. Werewolves stay as Werewolves because they’re really not the same as other animalfolk.

Merfolk would absorb Cephalids. I don’t expect us to see enough different aquatic races that we need more than one type for aquatic animal-person.  Homarids are inhuman enough that I think we just want to tag them as Crustaceans. 

Amphin for any Amphibious Humanoid. 

Reptilians would get Viashino and Naga, because we really do recognize a difference between snake-people and lizard-people, and any turtle people would also become Viashno if they showed up. Orochi would become Naga.

And while I’m at it: Kobolds, Orcs, and Ogres are all Goblins.

This is more of a “if starting over” approach, of course, as too many gameplay effects exist to really encourage splitting pre-existing creature types.  Adding Siren and Harpy to Bird would be obvious and clear, but splitting Avens from Birds would be a logistical nightmare, and would require fighting for custody of old Bird tribal rewards.

Final Notes:

My actual suggestion at this point is, because they’re riding history, just... try not to make any new creature types, and fold in the old ones that didn’t get traction. Homarids can be Crabs now. It’s okay. We get that Homarids aren’t coming back in force, even if we still want to see a few. And when you introduce something like Naga, well, you’ve already got so much snake tribal sitting around, just let them use it.

You’ve got Viashino. Make use of it. Seriously. Viashino are inherently cool.

If you want to use a thing and really can’t find a proper type for it, like say deciding you want to do a set with lots of dinosaurs and not feeling right calling them lizards or beasts, or a set with lots of werewolves, or just needing Pilot as a new class because nothing else fits right, okay, but introducing the type Naga instead of using Snake or adding in Sirens that were visually very similar to Aven but were not Birds just doesn’t do anything because now you have a new type that you’re not even giving us the tools to use.

At least Aetherborn and Servo had lords.

I think “tools to use” is the real key here. I want the tools to use any creature type that exists, so if you’re adding a new creature type it should either be a clear label of mechanical similarity, like Processor or Pilot, or come with a card that lets me take advantage of that word. 

If you put a word on a card that does LITERALLY NOTHING, not even remind me how that card works, you’re wasting my time.