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what-a-messsss · 4 years ago

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2x3 rewatch

I keep forgetting that Brach is still in S2. Oops. Also, I apparently went to check something in S6 last time I watched something, so it started at 6x2 instead of 2x3 and I yelled. But anyway, on with this mess. “Death Came in Like Thunder” apparently. It sure did.

Ah yes, let us not forget that Branch is MANLEH. This shall be proven to us by him murdering his cousin, Trunk, with big ax. Chop chop, Branch, kill Trunk. But oh no, must also show that he is People Smart, so must also lose because this makes him likable. And many white people clap. Yaaaay. But be sure to say, “I let him win, Ferg,” while your competitor is right next to you, so he almost surely heard you. Good good.

Oh Ferg. Could you look more gormless if you tried? (I mean, probably not, since presumably that was the goal of the actor, so he would have been trying. But still.) Bb.

Heh, nice thematic cut to Walt also chopping wood. And YAY, Henry’s gorgeous truck (and gorgeous self). I’m just going to take a moment to appreciate the fact that Henry rolls up and just helps himself to some of Walt’s thermos of coffee. Because of course he does. But I do so love these touches that they put in that do underline the fact that they are married have been besties for going on 40 years. Also, I love this jacket of Henry’s. The woven top, jean jacket sort of one? Yeah, top 5 costume pieces of his for me. (Also on that list, all basically tied with each other, basically any pants he wears. I am reminded, when they cut back out to a full body shot. Because I am very shallow, and he is very pretty.)

Haaaaaa. And of course Cady talked to Henry before she talked to Walt.�� Walt is a butthead. And, yeah yeah, she just found out that he’d been lying to her for over a year, but that just proves my point that Walt is a butthead. And we’re back to this whole idea that she left her phone, which just... ugh. No. But Henry’s face when he says that she said that she is safe, and he’s so worried, but still willing to respect her boundaries.

“She is an adult, Walt.” “She’s my daughter.” For fuck’s sake, you jackass, your ADULT daughter; that’s the whole flipping point! Also, that little emphasis on my daughter, pfft. If you didn’t want to feel like she preferred her cool dad to you, maybe try being less of an AAAAAAASSHOLE. And, like, respecting her. Even a weensy little bit.

“Etta Place” I don’t remember if we find out why that’s the ‘assumed name’ that Cady chose, but I’m intrigued. Wait, I just googled. Looooool. She spent years with Butch and Sundance. Nice.

Walt is such a soft touch with teens. *snack crackle pop* that kneecap back into place. Vic starts this scene saying, “The 911 operator,” though, which is interesting, because I was kind of under the impression that Ruby was the main dispatcher, so it would be kind of heartening if she actually had back up with that. ...Or maybe they’re just far enough out that a cell call made would be picked up by a tower farther out and have to be routed back in to the station/them. I have no idea how that actually works. Another rabbit hole for me to totally not go down. Hopefully. Shit. They’ve apparently upped the fine for trespass since the show, though, because it’s $750 (or 6 months in jail) now and Walt says it’s $500.

And once again, we see Vic actually wearing gloves while investigating a suspicious death, and Walt just squinting into the distance helpfully. I suppose “things got bad” in Basque country around WWII, but there has been friction there that dates back before the Spanish Civil War, or even the Carlist Wars the previous century. It did get gnarly with the dictatorship of Franco, and the formation of the ETA in retaliation, though, so yeah. (Francisco Franco is also on the list of people who anybody with a time machine should go back and beat the shit out of.)

Shit, I forgot about the animal death.

Knock knock, no answer. Better just wander in without a warrant. I know that the guy who they know lives there is dead, but still, no fricking warrant; I suppose the worry of a poisoning could count as probably cause?

Gods, but there are moments when I do absolutely adore Vic, and they are usually when she’s taking the piss out of Walt. “Reclusive bachelor chic; you and Marco have the same decorator.” Looool. But also, sad, because Martha has only been gone for a little over a year, and Walt is not the kind of person who would, like, change stuff and get rid of her things, so that’s kind of odd. Maybe Henry and/or Cady went though and put away some of her things to try to help Walt move on? But damn, the ‘excuse you’ look on Walt’s face when she does say it, pffft.

AND AGAIN, Vic wearing gloves, Walt with his bare ass hands picking up the picture of Picasso’s Guernica; can you at least *pretend* you’re a cop, *some* of the time, buddy?

Lol at the barrabilak; they are pretty well by the Rocky Mountains, so it’s probably not all that surprising that Walt’s had some “Rocky Mountain oysters” before.

I had forgotten that Vic had four brothers. But her comment about Sal going off to look after the sheep and how if someone had told her that one of her brothers were dead she “wouldn’t care about any damn sheep,” I don’t know. It kind of annoys me. It’s totally in character for her, which is good, but I think it’s part of what can annoy me about her character. Different people grieve differently, but also, I know she’s only been in Wyoming for a year or two, tops, but how is it so hard to fathom that someone one would be concerned about their livelihood, even in the face of personal tragedy? Just, seeing beyond her own very narrow experience doesn’t seem like something she’s very good at. It would be one thing if she’d framed it as “this is suspicious, and here’s why I think so as a cop,” but it was, “I wouldn’t react that way personally, so it’s sus.”

Sure, be suspicious because there’s a suspicious death and family members are always suspects until ruled out, but approach it like a cop. Or at least think about it from more angles than just your own, not terribly similar experience. You’re a white city cop who can’t (or won’t) adjust to being in BF rural-ville, but these are immigrant shepherds whose family come from a homeland where the cops were just as likely to kill you as answer questions, and you’re side-eying a guy for going to make sure that their meal ticket doesn’t get obliterated?

I need to keep reminding myself that I really did want to like Vic. I really did. She just... they don’t make it easy for me. Maybe she’s serving as an avatar for audience who don’t know about some of the culture stuff, and the audience get answers from her ignorance? But honestly, I wish they’d picked a different way to handle that, if that’s what they were trying to do. Her response to Henry being salty about Thanksgiving still really pisses me off. Because it was shitty and racist, and... do we really need a character basically rolling their eyes and saying, “It was so long ago, why don’t you just get over it,” about something that is intrinsically tied to the genocide of so many people? Why are Indigenous people just supposed to “get over it” but “Remember the Alamo” and “Southern Pride,” and shit? Fuck’s sake. Honestly, that might have been the moment when they lost me on her character. She has moments where she’s awesome, but they never really address her being fucking racist or give her a chance to grow into a better person. Which sucks a lot. Fuck. Ok, that was a lot. Sorry. Back to the actual ep.

AH, nice of you to beam in from the campaign trail, Brancheroo!

Uh, so I paused it to look at pic in the newspaper, and then being me, started to look at the articles surrounding the pic. And the one with the headline “Fans Injured At Local Game” is actually about the Stewart case? From 1x3? I’m guessing that somebody went to the trouble of writing up an article for that for some S1 ep after it and they just plugged it in because when not paused, you might catch “Sheriff Longmire” there and that’s all they need. Especially since the text starts to repeat after the first paragraph. (I am the worst pedantic little shit.) Ooooor, maybe even though it’s S2, it’s hardly been any time since 1x3? The date on the newspaper is March 31, 2012, so there’s a timeline hint.

Awwwwww, once Walt points out the bird, Ferg knows exactly what it is. Occasional twitcher, are we, my lad? “A red-tip meadowlark,” indeed. Oh bb; Ferg’s face when he sees Walt looking at the pic of him with Branch in the paper.

“You go too fast, you miss the little things.” Every once in a while, he actually sort of mentors Ferg. I wish he did more of that, especially since we see later how capable Ferg can be.

Go suck an egg, Branch. Why does she get all the “good” assignments? Maybe because she was actually on the job when they found the body, not campaigning.

OPE. Lizzie’s gift. Yeah, I’d probably choke on that coffee if I were you, too, girl. Better hope that there wasn’t perishable food stuffs in that gift, because that has been in there for a whiiiiiile, hasn’t it. Wait, was Ferg in the office when Lizzie dropped off the gift? Because his face said more than just “Did somebody give Vic a present?” Suuuuper subtle with that whole pushing the drawer closed with your foot there, Vic. Pfffft.

“Cyrano Caballero” How daaaare that skeeve take Cyrano’s name in vain?!?! (I have a thing about Cyrano de Bergerac. It’s quite possibly my favourite play, and I adore the character, and have exactly 0 chill about it at all. I find Brian Hooker’s translation of “The Ballade of the duel at the Hotel Bourgogne Between de Bergerac and a Boeotian” with “Then, as I end the refrian, thrust home,” vastly superior to any other translation that I’ve heard or read, though for the rest of it, I will grant that there are others to be preferred. But that version of his Ballade is exquisite, and I will not be swayed. Holy shit, FOCUS. That is so very much not the point.) It’s not even a throw away line in this ep, it’s just a random, very well chosen, if utterly appallingly insulting, company name. It’s actually incredibly clever for what the business is, and if it didn’t make me so stomping mad, I would applaud whoever came up with it heartily.

Vic’s face listening to this jackass’ spiel is a thing of beauty. “A good woman goes a long way of easing the obvious stresses of your daily life,” the jackass says, cutting his eyes at Vic when he says “obvious stresses,” and I caaaackle.

What is it about this guys’ horrible glasses that just makes him so much more hate-able? I’m not entirely sure, but kudos to whatever costumer put those on him, because they are perfect. In the ‘I want to punch him’ way of perfection.

And after all of that about Walt’s “lady friend,” Vic brings Lizzie’s present. Womp womp. That went super well. Yuuuup, run while you can.

Poor Ferg. Branch manipulates him, Vic ignores him, Walt shuts him down... Poor guy just can’t get a break.

I actually kind of like this motel manager--the one who “doesn’t judge people” and is a stickler for warrants? At least somebody in this county cares about warrants. Also, those doors are actually really pretty. Nice colour, and the carved scrollwork designs are nice.

What an odd shot: the one when they’re coming out of Walt’s office after talking to Skeevy McGrossFace and Rosa. It’s a weird sort of shaky-cam stepping back, just preceding Branch walking, and then turns to follow him when he sit’s on his desk. But it’s a really different style of shot than I can remember, so much so that it’s a bit jarring, especially after the series of nearly stationary close ups that we just had. Weird. [18:42-18-50]

Cady! I haven’t made much note of her costuming before this, but it seems notable that’s she’s only in monocromatics. Especially next to Fales in muted tones, but still some colour, and surrounded by the colourful grafitti of the alley where her mother was stabbed. Nice way of setting her apart from everything.

SHEEPIES! Ooooo, that wagon is so cool. Ah dang, the way that Sal corrects Walt’s pronunciation of his brother’s name is so gloriously passive aggressive. Good for you, my dude. Names are important, and people should have the respect to make the effort to get them right.

Aaaaaand Walt, the definition of Do, Don’t Tell, just shoves the guy to keep him from drinking the possibly dangerous water, rather than, like, using his words. Walt’s gonna Walt.

Iiiiiiiii am a mess, truly. It cuts to an architectural model and I start giggling like a 6th grader, because I know it’s going to be a Jacob scene. He’s not even on screen yet, ffs. HANDS. I’m fine. Totally fine. (That’s totally a lie. I just rewound to the beginning of the scene because I kept giggling too much to pay attention. What the hell.) First time we’ve seen one of the chips, which at this point must be a marketing mock-up, since nothing is built yet. And he actually types, not just doing the hunt-and-peck thing that is sometimes easier on a tablet.

Looking at the weaving that is up on his wall (maybe a rug?) I’m hoping that the prop people actually did buy from Northern Cheyenne artisans. They apparently did most of their filming in New Mexico, so I hope they made the effort to get the patterns right, and buy from the actual tribe they’re supposed to be portraying, I guess? And now I’m distracted by the fact that the random hanging light behind Jacob is at a weird angle?

Look, ever since I realized that the “Hey,” that Jacob does is apparently just A (thanks to it also happening in That Damned Xmas Movie) I am endlessly amused (and charmed) whenever Jacob does it. I don’t know why it makes me so happy, but it does. (This is legitimately embarrassing. How much trouble I am having focusing. Beyond my normal focus issues, which, as shown above, are already impressive. Because thiiiiirst.)

“My boys at the lumber yard did just throw you a campaign rally.” I love how Jacob is basically apparently not just his secret angel-investor, but also a sneaky campaign manager. Did Branch just think shit like the rally just happened? He’s not fricking Ferris Bueller; somebody organizes those. And apparently it’s either Jacob himself, or someone who Jacob appointed to do so.

“I thought you were just a casino developer.” You have noooo clue, Brancheroo. “I prefer to remain a silent partner. White people get nervous when Indians start taking back their land.” Oooooope. Especially interesting because there are previsions for the Tribal Council to purchase land to be Tribal land (Section 6 of Article IX of the Tribal Constitution), but this seems more along the lines of personal acquisition. Though maybe not, because “on the board” doesn’t necessarily equate to being the owner.

The set up of Jacob’s office is so interesting. Functionally for the show, it’s probably for better shooting angles, so that we can see more of Jacob behind the desk while Branch is sitting in front of it, but from an in-the-verse decorating standpoint, bit’s fascinating. He has this focal wall with the gorgeous wall hanging, flanked by floor to ceiling window, but instead of having his desk centered on that wall and directly facing the bulk of the room, it’s at an almost 45 degree angle on a huge rug, and it’s so unexpected. I kind of love it, and want to analyze it for days. Also worth noting is that pride of place is given to the Hotamétaneo’o headdress which is on a stand centered in front of the wall hanging.

How fucking tired must Jacob be. He’s used to Walt... Walting, but then Branch comes in, who he is literally spending his own money to support in his bid for sheriff, and he pulls the same shit of assuming that he’s behind Bad Shit. And then Branch frames it as “bad P.R,” so he’s there to “discuss it with [him] privately.” And then basically threatens him with Walt. I swear. ...there is something a little amusing about Walt being used as the stick in the carrot and a stick method of negotiating. He certainly is enough of a blunt object most of the time.

Oh fuck you so much, Branch. Playing the “can’t give you details about an ongoing investigation” card as though you have some professional or moral leg to stand on after basically blackmailing Jacob with Walt’s vendetta is just such shit. You don’t get to look down your nose at Jacob’s quid pro quo pragmatism when you were the one who came to him for financial backing. You sanctimonious little shitheel. If you didn’t want to deal with Jacob, you shouldn’t have taken his $100k. He’s a business man, and you’re an investment, and not a quixotic one.

“He’s probably the only person to have died from [hemlock] since Socrates.” And then Walt’s incredulous look and her, “Alright, I googled it,” were subtle comedic gold.

Ooooooo, that was a nice little shot. Not quite foreshadowing, but showing Branch’s suspicions and sort of inviting the audience to share them. Walt says his bit about the Army poisoning “Indian wells” to kill them off and get their land, and then we see Branch fiddling with the Four Arrows chip and narrow his eyes considering and slip the chip into his pocket, looking suspicious. It’s a really neat little moment of visual storytelling, no lines, literally three seconds long, just sort of snuck in there, but super effective. Really nicely done.

And again, Cady is in monochromatics. And, shit, just gave Fales Henry’s name. Aaaaaand right after, she realizes that the junkie was killed and realizes that it had to have been one of her dads (or so she thinks).

Sal’s monologue in the cell is a good emotional payoff that plays off of Vic’s comments towards the beginning of the episode. I see the narrative worth of her making them, and how the structure of the episode benefits from it; but seeing those writing elements from the outside of the show doesn’t make me able to like her as a character who said them in-universe. And then the threat Sal makes of vengeance on someone who killed one he loves also underscores the stuff with Cady’s investigation into her mother’s death very well. As much as I gripe about the writing *cough S6 cough finale cough* there really is some damn good writing in this show, and I don’t show enough appreciation for it.

Huh, and now there’s a sort of inverse of that weird shot preceding Branch from earlier, but this one is much more effective and less off-putting. This one [33:00] precedes Walt as he walks back into his office, still a medium close up, but it’s much steadier, and the way it is framed, it does quite a bit to convey his mindset, and he walks out of the shot and we see the three deputies following him in like baffled ducklings, making the shot serve another purpose, too. Which honestly makes that earlier shaky follow shot of Branch even weirder, because this one was so much better.

And then Walt has his creepy little speech about how someone would want to watch the light go out of their eyes and not caring if you get caught. I do appreciate that when he’s talking about the psychology of killing with poison he doesn’t just call it a “woman’s method” which media so often does. It might have been the writers keeping who the killer was abstruse, but it was still more gender neutral. Especially since according to The U. S. Department of Justice's report on Homicide Trends in the United States (1980 to 2008) of all poison killers in that time period, 60.5 percent were male and 39.5 percent female. (Table 5 on page 10.) So that long held idea that even Sherlock Holmes was written to have that poison is “of course” a woman’s weapon is pretty crap.

Awwww, the good old days when Walt paid attention to animals. ...I am still bizarrely salty about the fact that he never named his horse. What a good pupper!

And then we have a classic example of Sneaky!Walt, which always takes people quite by surprise, because he’s usually as subtle as Miley Cyrus.

Also because when he does this, it tends to be pretty fucked up, in a Make Someone Think They’re About To Die way. And then he does His Thing, where he just lays out all of his suppositions, with no proof, only the terror of her thinking that she’s been poisoned and you’re withholding medical intervention to get her to confess. And is, irritatingly, correct about his theories. But I’m pretty sure this qualifies as coercing a confession? She thinks she’s fucking dying. Even Vic looks at him like it’s fucked up, and her moral compass where he’s concerned is... skewed.

They way this reveal was played out, (”How’d they find her so fast?” “Hard to say...”) is somewhat ambiguous as to whether it’s supposed to be that Branch went there to tell Jacob or not, but I kind of doubt it? I kind of figure that the meeting that Jacob was having when Branch rambled in was already with Rosa signing the paperwork. Jacob is smart. So, HAH. Little good your “can’t comment on an ongoing investigation” schtick did.

And then the news that someone in law enforcement has been asking after Henry.

“Lizzie was waiting for you here tonight. You should talk to her, Walt. She seems to think she is in a relationship with you.” ....omgs. The tone. I mean, yes, the blisteringly glorious SASS, but how does one not read that as incredibly shippy? Howwwww?

“You are an honest man, Walt. I would like you to stay that way.” Oh Henry. When did you decide that you weren’t? Was it when you hired Hector? Or was there something before? ...I feel like there were things before that. Hello darkness my old friend.

“It is not your job to protect me.” “It is my job...” THOSE WERE THE DAYS. Those were the fucking daaaaaays. And the emotions on Henry’s face after Walt says, “That was my right,” as though Henry cheated him of something. I am so deep in OT3 feels I cannot even see daylight here. The feels of them having been an OT3 and then Walt pulling this shit, and Henry having to defend his own “right” to avenge Martha? It wrecks me. “A good woman was murdered. A bad man is dead. End of story.”

#Longmire #Walt Longmire #Cady Longmire #Henry Standing Bear #Branch is such a tool #Jacob Nighthorse #The Ferg #Victoria Moretti #Episode commentary #How many tangents did I manage to go on this time?#so many #Martha Longmire #I ramble about shots and framing and narrative too.#It took me so long to do this.#I am such a mess.

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thesevillereport · 3 years ago

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In Focus: The Robinhood IPO Pt II

In 2012 a company the entire world was waiting on to go public finally did. It priced its IPO at $38 a share and went public on May 18 of that year, and out of the gate it was a dud.

The stock would trade downwards over the next 16 weeks falling below $20 a share. Again, this was a company a large portion of the investment community was waiting on to go public. Many expected the stock to go to the moon right out of the gate, but it didn't. 22 weeks after the IPO, the stock started to catch its footing and would go on a massive run upwards. That company was Facebook (FB), and the stock price now is $365.30 per share.

This week Robinhood (HOOD) went public at $38 per share and it wasn't a great outing. The stock currently trades at $35.15 as of this writing and there has been a lot said about Robinhood and its IPO. At its IPO price Robinhood was valued at $35 billion, and that may have turned some investors off. At $35 billions Robinhood would be more valuable than American Airlines (AAL) ($13 billion) and United Airlines (UAL) ($15.6 billion) combined, and more valuable thanAmerica's number one pure play grocer Kroger (KR) ($30 billion). Robinhood has value, but investors weren't convinced that $32 billion was it, and for good reason.

In Robinhood's S1 filing it noted 18 million accounts with $81 billion of assets under custody. In 2020 Morgan Stanley (MS) paid $13 billion for E-Trade, which had only 5 million accounts but $360 billion in assets. Looking at it that way, the numbers don't add up for Robinhood.

Then there's the payment for order flow issue. It's the reason why Robinhood can offer commission free trading and the reason the company became public enemy number one earlier in the year. Never forget, Ted Cruz and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were concerned and on the same side on the same issue, and the issue revolved around Robinhood.

There's a belief that there are major changes in the works around payment for order flow, and that the practice could be banned in the U.S. as it is in the U.K. In Q1 2021, more than 80% of Robinhood's revenue came from order flow. If the practice were to be banned, that would be a massive hit to Robinhood, and the company would be a shell of its former self, and may not be able to survive without being acquired.

$35 Billion?

When Robinhood's IPO price started to make the news, I asked myself why does Robinhood's founders and its underwriters believe it's a $30 billion company? Then I remembered, it's because it's tech, and in this day and age investors are overpaying for "tech." Don't believe me, compare GM (GM), Ford (F), and Tesla (TSLA), an $82 billion company, a $56 billion company, and a $680 billion company respectively. In 2019 GM delivered 2.8 million vehicles, Ford sold 2.4 million vehicles, and Tesla delivered 376,000 vehicles. GM and Ford have long been considered automobile manufacturers, but Tesla, Tesla is a tech company that makes cars, like Apple (AAPL) is a tech company that makes phones and Netflix (NFLX) is a tech company that leases, produces, and displays content. In the old days, Netflix would be a broadcast company or a movie studio, but today it's a tech firm, so we'll pay 53x earnings to own it over the 9x earnings to own ViacomCBS (VIAC), a simple broadcast company.

Since around the time of 2012, it didn't matter what a company did, what mattered was what box we put the company in, and this is why Robinhood's stock will be a winner in the end.

Remember E-Trade was acquired for $13 billion dollars, and while it offered everything Robinhood does and more, it was considered a discount brokerage firm, not a tech firm and not a FinTech, just a plain old boring brokerage. Same for TD Ameritrade, another company with more assets ($1.3 trillion) but less accounts (12 million) than Robinhood. TD was acquired by Charles Schwab (SCHW) for $26 billion, and like E-Trade, TD offered everything Robinhood offers and more, but it wasn't considered tech. That simple four letter word, "tech" makes all the difference in how Wall Street values a company.

For Robinhood, unfortunately, their tech isn't as free to grow as "tech" in some other industries. Robinhood has major regulations to abide by that prevent it from spreading its wings as far as it wants to. Remember how long it took the company to get its cryptocurrency purchasing arm online and how long it took the company to offer debit cards to its account holders. Being a steward of the public's money comes with serious restrictions, and Robinhood has to balance that with the tech attitude of go fast and break things.

There are issues, but I'm still a believer in Robinhood and it's primarily because of its social status. The company is everywhere, good news or bad news, Robinhood always seems to find its way into an important timeline or news feed.

While many of us, myself included, tend to harp on the GameStop debacle that Robinhood created, there was a lot of good happening on the app before they halted trading on GameStop and other meme stocks that week. Before the halt, regular people were making big money, and enticing others who had never thought about investing before to join in. Those new investors signed up to Robinhood, because that's the user interface they saw on their timelines. When people see +$10,000 of total returns on a green and white background, they're not going to go and open a WeBull or Public account, they're going to open a Robinhood account.

As bad as the GameStop debacle was at the time, and as much as people say they're still upset about it, people are still using Robinhood and finding their way to Robinhood. When the next meme stock takes off, it will only attract more people to sign up to the platform.

Assuming that the government does nothing about payment for order flow (which I don't think they will), Robinhood's best days are ahead of it. For many young companies, investors who buy in at the growth stages have little to no idea what the destination is for the company. When Netflix was delivering DVDs, we didn't know it would transition into a streaming giant. We didn't know the iPod would turn into the iPhone or that Google search would turn into Google Maps, Google Docs, G-Mail, and Android, or that Musical.ly would turn into Tik Tok, but we know exactly where Robinhood can go.

Robinhood has to grow into the "tech" version of E-Trade and TD Ameritrade. It also has to convince its 18 million users to not leave for better platforms when those customers build up their accounts. There is still this idea that having $5,000 in a Robinhood account is okay, but $50,000 needs a better place to rest, and Robinhood has to tackle that kind of thinking. That's the goal for Robinhood, that's what you're hoping for if you're a Robinhood investor now, that the company will continue to expand its offerings, grow its customer base, keep more of its users than it loses from quarter-to-quarter, and hopefully be properly funded so that it can be on the right of history when the next GameStop comes around, and it will come around.

Since the Facebook IPO, I've been attracted to big names with slow starts out of the gate and Robinhood fits the bill. Overthe past few years I've done well grabbing Corsair (CRSR), Palantir (PLTR), and Slack (CRM) after their not so spectacular debuts, and all have performed great. What I learned watching Facebook is that professional money managers are like kids, they like it if someone else likes it, but no one wants to say they like it first. Robinhood definitely has its issues, but hey, it's tech.

#Stocks #Investing #Investments #Investment Education #Financial Education #Money #MoneyEducation #Robinhood #Robinhood IPO #Reddit #GameStop #StocksToWatch #Corsair #Tesla #Slack #Tech #TechInvesting

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lastoutpost · 4 years ago

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sam stan ask game!!!! @stanfordsams thanks for tagging me!

Sibling status (younger, middle, older, only child…) - Only child!

How long have you been stanning for - I started watching in 2012 and stopped watching after I finally watched s8 on boxset, around 2013/2014 sometime? (I *begged* my dad to take me to Walmart so I could buy it the day it was released) and after binging the whole thing I just... thought it sucked really bad....and started to fall out of the fandom. 2020 slingshotted me back into old obsessions though. I can have a little sam winchester to cope

Favorite Sam era - sam is my baby in every single season BUT hence the URL, i love bitchy sanctimonious grieving psychic awakening sam from s1 SO much. baby faced coconut head bangs king <3

Favorite spn season, but if the only criteria was Sam’s hair - season 2 or 3 definitely. he has a rough patch while it’s growing out for a couple seasons and it finally looks good again in like, season 11, but peak sam is short haired sam. he looks like a lesbian and i love it for him <3

Favorite Sam-centric episode - does croatoan count??? that’s an absolute banger of an episode from start to finish....the codependency....the crying....i love everything about it. if that doesn’t count tho then born under a bad sign, jared is SO good at acting unhinged. honorable mention to playthings, the greatest episode of all time (jirt)

Any ships you may like to mention - samruby. why? genevieve padalecki sexiest woman alive and sam drinking demon blood was his RIGHT he DESERVED a hot girl summer. one of the fundamental reasons i get obsessed with this show is the extremely fucked up character dynamics and samruby really fits the bill

Favorite song you would/have put in a Sam playlist - numb by linkin park............this is so chaotically embarassing of me and i don’t even listen to linkin park anymore but that song is such a sam song, esp around s4/s5, that i have to believe it was written about him only

If you could steal one thing from Sam’s wardrobe, it would be - purple dog shirt!!!! i actually used to own one and outgrew it and when i finally get another stable job i am going to order another one <3 it’s my right as a lesbian and as a s1 sam stan

Complete the sentence: If Sam cishet, why... - if sam cishet, then why unclean in the biblical sense?

Favorite unhinged Sam moment - full on ugly crying-sobbing about having to kill werewolf gf in heart and refusing to let dean do it because she asked *him* to, and how this parallels the season arc of sam begging dean to kill him if he has to

You must have some intense headcanons you need to talk about, tell me one Sam hc that drives you insane - in the spn that lives in my head, sam is a lesbian so....that is my favorite headcanon i love to imagine lesbian sam struggling to put up with misogynistic dean and his femaleness/homosexuality heavily contributing to her feeling of being unclean and fundamentally wrong/sinful. in terms of headcanons that fit the actual show i love how multifaceted we know sam to be, even though we see so little of it on screen -- he’s smart and nerdy but into health and fitness and is kind and compassionate, likes children and animals, etc. when dean dies and sam settles down with his family, he gets & trains a therapy dog (that looks a lot like riot who he had to leave behind with amelia) and takes it to help sick kids in the hospital <3 ALSO after leaving the hunting life he becomes a nurse since he’s basically been a field medic since birth. oh and ALSO he loves to cross-stitch even though his ginormous hands make it hard <3 OK I AM DONE but i could definitely keep going. oh and btw he’s gay and his blurry wife was actually a man. dean jr is the biological son of a hunter that gets killed on a hunt. OK IM DONE FOR REAL

Tell me something about the hbo Sam that lives in your brain - i’m gonna be honest i’ve never seen hbo in my life so i don’t really want to say anything inaccurate but i wish in a more gritty or grimdark version of spn sam’s mental illnesses and his suicidality, disordered eating, etc would have more screentime.

Oh no, the writers forgot to give Jess a personality! Now it’s up to you. Tell me, what was Jess like - I feel like jess was the epitome of an all-american girl. I bet she was raised solidly upper-middle-class with two parents who loved her and had respectable jobs. she has a sister who lives in a different state who she is close with but in a normal way. and part of what sam adores about her is she’s just so...Normal...she’s like his embodiment of his ultimate fantasy and desire to live the American dream. i feel like that’s exactly why demon brady introduces her to sam, because he knows she is sam’s perfect fantasy of an apple pie life. And despite being so Normal she’s supportive, kind, insanely witty, and sees through sam’s defenses and deflections instantly. she knows there is something Wrong About His Life and doesn’t care. even if he can’t tell her the truth about his childhood he knows she would believe and love him if he could tell her, and he loves that about her. she pushes him outside his comfort zone a little bit to make him enjoy college a little bit more and always beats him at any game they try and play. i miss jess and i hope she and sam get to reunite in heaven!!!!

)Biggest injustice Supernatural committed against Sam (be as brief or as ranty as you desire) - i’ve only watched up through the first part of s11 so i don’t know what else bullshit will happen in the course of the show, but as of right now I would say gadreel possession. sam was ready to give up his life to shut the gates of hell and dean stopped him, had gadreel take his form to trick sam into agreeing to be possessed, and then lied/gaslit/emotionally abused sam about it for weeks (months?) and gets extremely upset when sam has the gall to be mad about it. after how much he has suffered being a vessel for lucifer, for having no autonomy over his life at all, this was just so cruel of dean and i’m so mad that the show never lets him get really fucking mad about it!

And finally, just say something about him that makes you smile ♥ - he has so much faith in everything and everyone despite how hard his life has been and how much he has been punished for his faith repeatedly throughout his life. he is a good man who will give himself up for others or the greater good in an instant. and he looks like a very huggable puppy despite being extremely muscular <3 sam is my ultimate comfort character.

i tag, anyone who follows me and wants to do this but hasn’t yet! tag me in your responses so I can read them if you do it <3

#sam winchester #sam stan ask game #long post #about me #c speaks

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aislinceivun · 4 years ago

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Hi! I know that you’ve said that you won’t continue with the sequel planned for Wandering Bird, but I was wondering if I could inquire on what you might’ve written? It’s just, I really adore your fic; can’t get it out of my head actually (so I’m so sorry if I’m being insensitive!) You mentioned once that you were going to do a POV from Arthur Gwen and Morgana- does that mean they (Morgana and Gwen specifically) had an idea of Merlin’s fate? Could Arthur “see” Merlin during his adventures? Part 1

Part 2: (Again, I apologize for my questions-your story just has so many interesting plot points!!) How would Bonnie and Co interact/react to Arthur’s return? Why couldn’t Freya interact much with Merlin; Was it a lack of magic, interference or something else? Somewhat weird question: but did you have anything in mind for Merlin’s Vigil Night? (If he can get one poor dear). (Gushing continued in third ask I’m so sorry)

Part 3: I loved how you showed Arthur considering legal reforms before his death-and the Phoenix as the emblem? *Chef’s Kiss* Was the creation of the phoenix’s later on a reference to that? Random aside: I really adored how badass you made Merlin, without making him too edgy or dark, you know? Also I really loved the many prophecies/legends surrounding just Merlin as “Emrys”! I adore literally everything about Aithusa, and her final scene made me bawl (also your art is gorgeous!) You’re amazing!

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Don’t ever apologize for asking questions about fics! Even if they’re old fics the author doesn’t plan on returning to, these kind of asks can really make their day and I’m sure 98% of the time they’ll just be over the moon that someone still thinks so much about their work :D I am!!

I still get emotional thinking about Aithusa, so I’m super glad her storyline made you feel so deeply. And that yuo liked Merlin’s portrayal and the lore about him! And thea art! Ahh, just, thank you! 🥰

Unfortunately, I no longer have my original outlines and the roughly 15k I’ve written due to my old laptop crashing, and it’s been 7 years (oh my gosh how) so I no longer remember the details. Which is too bad - I have several abandoned fics in my mother tongue, and I always uploaded summaries of what was supposed to happen to provide some kind of closure to readers. I can’t do that properly with Wandering, but I’ll try my best!

Putting the rest under a cut. :)

Feathers was inteded to be a series of 7 fics: 3 long main stories and 4 shorter (8-15k) standalone side-stories. The graphics are pretty much the only thing I still have left x’D

You know this one, 75k of how Merlin spends those roughly 1500 years between the end of the show and Arthur’s rebirth. Then, the stuff that never got finished:

The Gwen POV side story, set during ch1 of Wandering. Focused on Gwen dealing with Arthur’s death, managing the kingdom and working on abolishing discrimination against magic users. Also getting together with Leon after a few years.

The Morgana POV one, at parts corresponding to ch1 and ch2 of Wandering. Honestly, I’m no longer sure about the details, but the early parts were supposed to explain and detail show canon, and then... I think I meant to bring her back in as a literal bird. With the life span of it, just keeping her consciousness, so she can watch what happens in the world. She probably watched over Aithusa, too, and Merlin, and IDK but the goal was to show her thoughts and eventually give her character justice and closure.

The Arthur POV one. He was kept in some kind of otherworldly, underwater palace-like place and could only interact with Freya, really, but he did get constant flashes of Merlin - especially where he was near Albion. This short was supposed to be very dream-like, as time works differenetly in that place. It’s kind of like when you’re half-asleep, y’know? So Arthur didn’t really live those 1500 years like Merlin did, but he followed his journey, in a way. When Freya “woke him up” at the end, they did have a conversation about it. He lost these memories when he was reborn. (But he still often dreams of water and a kind lady)

The next big one! Set in 2012, this would’ve started with Arthur & Merlin going to uni and “meeting each other” and ended with Arthur finally regaining his memories. Merlin kept away from him while Arthur was growing up, you see - aside from that one time when he learnt that by pure chance, Ray (who became a PE teacher) ended up being one of lil’ Chris/Arthur’s teachers. As old man Emrys, he got himself some history teaching shtick because he wanted to see how Arthur was doing, but he quickly realized that this is not going to work, what with him being in love with the man Arthur is going to become. xD So he left after a few months, and kept away from Arthur. (But kept pestering Ray with questions :D)

Anyway, when Arthur goes to uni (by this point, he exclusively goes by ‘Arthur’ btw, dropping Christopher) Merlin magics himself back into his eighteen year old form and gets enrolled in the same school. Agatha and Mike would have had prominent roles as basically Merlin’s sidekicks. Aggie is especially close with him, after him mentoring her about magic all her life.

Arthur has no memories either of his old life or about the years spent with Freya, so the dynamic at first is pretty much show S1. Most of the angst would have come from Arthur finally wanting to get together with Merlin but Merlin pulling away because there’s just too much Arthur doesn’t know; how is he supposed to be together with him when he’s hiding so much, lying so much? This Arthur is pure and free of the tragedies of the past, and maybe it’d be best if Merlin left him alone... But something must be happening - something the world needs Arthur for, if he slept through WWI and WWII but NOW fate decided to send him back...

Anyways, he would have gotten back his memories aroud the end of this instalment. Cue a lot of crying from Merlin’s part.

The last big one, a direct sequel to With Memories. A lot of recap and talking in the early parts, Merlin and Arthur reconciliating who they were in the past with who they are in the present and who they wanna be in the future.

There was a Big Bad of some kind of malicious magical origin (not necessarily a person, but an “end of the world” kind of thing/entity. It was 2012 after all. Little did we knew the real shit was coming 8 years later It was revealed that Arthur had magic himself, plenty of it - he couldn’t use it, at all, but he wielded a lot of pure magic, maybe related to how he was basically marinated in magic-juice for over fifteen centuries and how his soul was pushed back into the world xD There was a lot of magical and dragon-related lore to be revealed. The Phoenixes came back to play a part in resolving the Big Bad, too. But it’s all very hazy. What I do remember is that to fix the Big Bad, Merlin AND Arthur had to hold their Vigil Night, in a way - not dying, god now, but both of them hand to give all their combined magic back to earth. This resulted in the Big Bad no longer happening and Merlin losing his immortality =)

After figuring out their shit in the first half, they were pretty much together, btw. Learning each other in a new way. Arthur digged Merlin’s Phoenix emblem tattoo, that’s for sure. A lot of communication was needed, especially because it wasn’t easy for Arthur to understand Merlin’s grief (sometimes, Merlin looked so old despite the young form he wore; sometimes he felt ancient, and Arthur was a bit scared in his presence - not scared of Merlin, but scared of how to measure up to him, reach him, help him.) And Merlin had to understand that even with his old memories, Arthur wasn’t exactly that Arthur, the king - he had a life of his own in the present, a new identity, and it was unfair of Merlin to expect him to be the same. They no doubt talked a lot about Merlin’s lived experiences, his lost ones, Aithusa. (Merlin never stopped wearing the pendant made of Aithusa’s scale)

Happy end, of course :)

Well, that was a lot of vaaaague stuff, but hopefully gave you an idea? Bonnie wasn’t around too much, though I’m sure I’d have included some scenes with her. She probably didn’t met Arthur until Together Again. Aggie liked him fine but kept teasing him and she could be a bit harsh, what with her being so overprotective of Merlin. Mike and Arthur got along really well. Arthur was shocked when he was first fully introduced to the whole family and was met with his old PE teacher AND that brought up the fact Merlin attempted to teach him for a few months xDD

Buuuuut.... this was still just 6, eh?

Last instalment, another side oneshot, and a prequel to the whole series. Kilgharrah’s POV. Set a few generation’s before Uther’s rein, elaborating on some of the lore and backstories revealed in Together Again. (all of which I no longer remember, rip) I know we’d have met an ancestor of both Merlin and Arthur through Kilgharrah: Aurelius Ambrosius, who does some good deed to Kilgharrah, and the dragon blesses him - after this, the man takes the name Pendragon. And Coel, who was a dragon lord, husband to Ystradwal high priestess. Coel had a cheerful and kind personality, and he was the first human Kilgharrah came to like. They became friends. Coel was supposed to be Merlin’s grandfather, I think. Kilgharrah and his mate were expecting their first egg to hatch when Uther’s purge started, and that was pretty much the end of this short =(

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All I have left aside from these is some tidbits of dialogue from the single file on the sequels I have:

“Whoa, Merlin, slow down. I can’t follow you.”

“I’m different from you. Okay? I’m not... I wasn’t... I didn’t reincarnate. I’m not a reincarnation of the original Merlin. I am the original Merlin. Do you understand? I never... Look, I never died.”

“You are. The same Merlin." Merlin nods. "The same Merlin who mucked out my horses and saved me countless times and magicked his way into my life.”

“I’m afraid, sire.”

The title comes without a conscious thought, and when he realizes, his heart twists and cracks.

Arthur just stares at him.

“So? Who are you guys, then?”

“I wasn’t lying about them. They are family. No! Gods, no, not like that,” he adds quickly upon seeing Arthur’s widening eyes.

“He’s our magical fairy godfather,” Mike and Aggie say in perfect union, completely straight-faced.

“The only times I was really miserable were the very first few hundred years, and later the roughly three centuries that followed Aithusa’s death. For the rest of the time, I wasn’t completely alone, and that... helped. A lot. But... it was hard. I hated how everyone I cared for withered away and died before my eyes, so I tried to keep people away for a long time. I was lonely, but that kept me safe from heartbreak. At least, that’s what I’d thought.

“But then I met Bonnie, and as I watched her grow up and start a family - a family that welcomed me - I realised how foolish I was for attempting to condone myself to a solitary life and deny myself the warmth of others’ love.”

Arthur wipes a hand over his face. “Owning a magical heritage but no apparent talent to use it... Just. Great. I’m a fucking Quibble!”

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Phew!! What a trip down memory lane xD And I actually remembered more than I thought I would, so that’s nice. Thank you for enabling me to ramble and recall some stuff a really liked about this verse. I hope I was able to give you some closure! Cheers!♥

#anon #ask answer #/#//#///#merlin #merthur #fic related #Like a Forever Wandering Bird #omg I rambled so much #you know what I might link this post at the end of Wandering #just in case any other late newcomers like you would like to know about The Continuation That Never Was #long post #geez IDK why the cut isn't showing up if you check my blog directly #sorry those who're not seeing this on your dash #=/

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annavolovodov · 5 years ago

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ya girl saw the downton movie and has some Thoughts

if you followed me at all from 2011-2015 then you'll know i am firmly Team Downstairs and did not want this movie to happen, just so you all know what position i'm coming from here.

everything below is gonna be spoilery af. if you haven't seen it yet and want info just hmu. if you have seen it and want to talk about it please message me bc i’m always up for chatting about Downton.

okay but the title sequence with the music building and cresting as we come up over the hills and get our first shot of downton... goosebumps. tbh i don't know shit about film making but i can't fault the technical aspects (costumes, music, cinematography). the impact of the increased budget was felt from the very first second.

for the plot i’m gonna split things by character to make it easier. i’ll probably go to see it again and maybe after that i’ll have some deeper Thoughts but i missed being able to liveblog during the film so enjoy my rambling first reactions.

upstairs peeps

everything with violet was iconic. i'm glad that they didn't neglect her relationship with isobel and ofc maggie and imelda played fantastically off each other. pretty much everyone has already highlighted the scene with violet and mary at the end and it tied things up perfectly between them. violet and mary are so so similar and violet has been pushing for her to inherit since before S1. the movie showed us that mary is basically running the estate even if she doesn't get the the title and i can totally see why violet is confident in the future of downton now. that being said, i don't think violet will actually die. maggie has been talking about leaving since 2012 and fellowes obviously put this in as a get-out clause for her should she want to go, but i reckon they’ll convince her to do more. if carson's palsy can be mysteriously cured, so can violet's conveniently vague illness.

i already knew that robert and cora weren't gonna be in it much, but i wish we could've seen cora finding out what was happening with edith and helping her out. it wouldn't surprise me if there was a deleted scene there cause that whole storyline felt a little disjointed. i completely forgot that cora knew about the pregnancy and was so confused at how the queen foud out about it all. i don't think we got anything in robert and cora's bedroom, or anything with cora/baxter and robert/bates, which would've also been very welcome but i guess they can only fit in so much.

onto mary: this may be an unpopular opinion but god i miss her long hair. yeah i know it wasn't the style of the time but her wig in this one was tragic and they need to fix it. i absolutely love that t*lbot didn't exist for a solid 95% of this movie and mary got her rightful place ruling downton. i wouldn't say i’m the biggest mary fan but her arc felt like one of the more satisfying ones of the movie imo.

as someone who has been firmly #teamedith from day one i am delighted to see my girl happy and successful. literally all her outfits were A+ and not to be gay on main but those scenes of her in her nightclothes getting ready for bed gave me my rights. i’m sad that she seems like she's either given up her magazine or has less of a role in it now based on what they said outside???? she did seem unsatisfied with aspects of her position so hopefully she'll go back to doing some writing and publishing cause that was a good fit for her, and if edith and bertie are “modern” enough to travel without servants surely edith moving away from traditional grand lady duties and back to her magazine that wouldn't be an issue.

the mention of sybil being gone seven years? yeah. thanks for the pain. tom accidentally saving the monarchy on no less than two occasions is the ultimate "congratulations you played yourself" moment but the fact he thought the army had sent someone to check up on him is the level of republican i'm trying to be on. i'm a bit ehhhh on his relationship with lucy, mainly cause i'd rather the screentime given to the newbies had went to established characters. but like sybil/tom was a wholeass epic romantic slowburn spanning several years through a war and across class divisions n shit and meanwhile lucy/tom have known each other for forty eight hours and had three conversations in a hallway so like obviously that’s just gonna pale in comparison????? like it just is???? i guess i don't hate it but it just was a bit unnecessary and the time coulda been spent on better things.

isobel didn't have all that much to do on her own but i appreciated her scenes with violet and i love that she was the one to figure out that lucy was lady whatever's daughter. penelope wilton's facial expressions during some of the exchanges with violet were great. i see lord merton has also undergone a miraculous recovery from his apparently serious anaemia but he also didn't appear much which was a big win for me!

team downstairs aka the ones i turned up to see

as a downstairs supremacist who has watched the screentime distribution in previous fifty two eps of the show, it’s fair to say i had low expectations going in. i expected a grand total of 10 minutes for the servants combined and i think that's why i was unexpectedly happy with what we got. ideally we would've ditched the subplots involving the personal lives of the royals and all the stuff w imelda staunton and her maid but oh well it could’ve been worse and i'll take any breadcrumbs i can get. anyway i'm eagerly awaiting the team downstairs cut of the film one of yall will hopefully make when the dvd comes out. the only part that was far, FAR too upstairs heavy for me was the last sequence of the film after the royals left and i think we would've benefitted from rounding things off with team downstairs after the ball.

so i guess retirement magically cured the palsy carson had, but i guess after matthew’s miraculous recovery anything can happen at downton when it comes to health. Fellowes is getting a free pass for retconning this one cause i cba with more death/loss. mary going to carson for help and him immediately coming to her aid was very sweet. kinda wish we'd find out what he was up to post-Downton (except for his gardening) tho.

i was expected zero carson/hughes content in this movie and yet !!!! and yet!!!!!! we were somewhat well-fed. like carson (incorrectly) thinking he can control the other servants and mrs hughes' "oh that went well charlie, start as you mean to go on" hdjksjs i love them. and the lil scene in their cottage ugh. also we got more of them using their first names and yeah i guess that makes sense given they've been married for a while now but as i said, i had low expectations.

mrs hughes is still like the best person ever but wbk. her vs. the royal housekeeper = iconic. i kinda felt bad for royal whatsherface in some ways because she clearly didn't know who she was up against THE elsie hughes who has vanquished much scarier foes in her time. the other servants were never gonna win that battle.

the 0.5 seconds of baby bates *chef's kiss* perfection. god i am slightly bitter it was only 0.5 seconds given the fuckin multiseason journey leading up to his birth. tbh we should've ditched everything involving the personal lives of the rando new characters and let baby bates have some of that time but fellowes loves upstairs too much to let that happen. the small interaction was adorable though and i'm glad the mention of his name was subtle enough that we can retcon it cause i truly believe anna and bates would've came up with a more creative choice than that. genuinely i'm so curious about their whole living situation and how they cope with a smol child while working full time but i doubt fellowes even considered that so y’know. what can we do. i enjoyed the breadcrumbs but i wanted more.

i did go into this film with the mindset of "something awful will probably happen to anna or bates," cause that's what usually happens in these things but plot twist!!!! we saw them smile on multiple occassions!!!! what a nice change for us all! i swear every time anna bates smiles an angel gains their wings. her scenes with mary were good and i'm happy their friendship made it into the film. you know what else i was happy to see? the EXTREMELY UNDERRATED brotp between anna and baxter. there was a couple of moments with them standing next to each other or talking to each other and it warmed my heart. like yass two of my fave people are friends. it's a big win for me.

i'm sure i read something about brendan being involved in another project which meant he couldn't film too much (i'm curious to whether this impacted the lack of baby bates scenes?) and while it's true that bates didn't have a ton of scenes, i didn't feel like he was absent which was good.

thomas had the best storyline imo. i don't blame him for being angry that mary brought in carson and it was actually very iconic of him to go off in the library like that. i found it hilarious that while everyone else was panicking at downton he went off on gay adventures. i really wish we'd gotten this "thomas makes a gay friend then discovers the village's underground gay scene THEN gets a boyfriend" in the show cause that would've been SO MUCH BETTER than some of the other stuff that got stretched out across the last couple series (like the love quadrangle with daisy/ivy/alfred/jimmy). like, imagine thomas’ movie plot as a series-long arc. the impact. i liked the guy that was his maybe-boyfriend and i hope any continuation keeps that relationship going.

mrs p and daisy continue to be the mother-daughter duo of the century. i thought both of them were supposed to be moving to the farm post-S6 but i suppose that would've meant they wouldn't be in the film hence why it didn't come to fruition. i guess they could all move once daisy and andy get married. mrs patmore didn't get a great deal to do but i still feel like i saw her a fair amount. comrade daisy was awesome and is definitely me when i see any monarchy-related stuff. somewhere over the last few seasons she's developed into one of the most interesting characters in downton and we don't talk about that enough. andy trashing the boiler was immature af but at the same time i feel like it completely makes sense for daisy to take that as a compliment. it’s just such a daisy thing to do?????

now, there is one thing i kinda fucked up here. while i went into the film with low expectations for everyone else, i fully expected baxley to be A Thing because how could i not and boy did i come out looking like boo boo the fool. i guess baxter and molesley have continued the tradition of Agonisingly Long Downstairs Slowburns which would be okay if we were still getting one season per year but is quite frankly rude when we're on rationed content like this. the first half of the film i thought it was gonna be revealed that they were together or something but then that scene at the end implied they're dancing around each other and my god is it frustrating. i would give so much to trade tom and lucy's romantic subplot for a baxter/molesley one but once again i know that's an unrealistic dream.

definitely not enough baxter in general but that one shot of her, anna and mrs hughes standing in the same frame was worth the price of my cinema ticket. still love molesley even tho he's a monarchist.

in terms of the overall downstairs stuff, i'm euphoric at seeing all these people interact with each other again. as we all know, found family is the best trope and since the servants are literally the epitome of that every moment focussed on them is like chicken soup for my weary soul. was the revolution against the royal servants realistic? no. was it realistic for the two people who came up with most of the plot to be the ones who went to jail for doing literally nothing wrong and would therefore want to avoid stuff that could get them in trouble with an all-powerful family? also no! however, seeing downstairs all working together for a common goal is content that appeals directly to me and i am thankful.

shoutout to the last scene which is the best way the movie could've ended it for me. use of first names AND walking home together? thank u fellowes.

tldr; team downstairs fan who was strongly anti-movie, went in with low expectations, was pleasantly surprised. there are a shit ton of things i’d change but i just really loved seeing these characters who all mean so much to me again. obviously the only reason this film happened was for financial reasons rather than a desire to continue the storyline (cause the finale tied things up perfectly imo) but i wish they'd done a two-part miniseries instead to ensure everyone gets some screentime. two ninety minute specials every few years would work much better if everyone wants to keep downton going but i guess that doesn't bring the cash in like a movie does.

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calliecat93 · 5 years ago

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Top 10 Favorite Female Characters

Happy International Women’s Day everyone! For many years now, there have been a lot of strides made in women’s rights. It’s still far, FAR from perfect, but we’ve still made many strides and fiction is no exception. So I thought, in celebration of today, I’d talk about some of my favorite female characters of all time. I had a LOT of options and narrowing it down was tough, but I think I made a pretty good list. So let's get on with it~

10. Kimberly Hart/The Pink Ranger (Power Rangers)

I don’t talk about Power Rangers a lot on here, but let me tell you all. Kimberly is one of the first female superheroes I ever saw, and I love her so much. She begins as a one-dimensional valley girl type, though still a good-hearted person. She’s the token girly-girl while Trini was more of the token tomboy. But Kimberly over time developed form being the least willing to be a Ranger, to devoting herself full-heartedly to her duties. She could kick just as much ass as her fellow rangers, and look pretty while she did so.

Kim was a fantastic character, especially in a boy-aimed tokusatsu adaptation. There have been many other great Pink Rangers since her time. Heck my actual favorite Pink Ranger of all time is Jen from Time Force. But the reason Kim is on here and not here? Kim is the one who started it all. She and Trini defined kickass female Rangers and none of the ones we have now would have existed without the original ladies. And as much as I also liked Trini.. well... I think that Kim is the clear stand-out among most female rangers, especially since she lasted so long. I was so sad when she left and especially how Zeo screwed her character over with that stupid Dear John letter to Tommy as well as how the 2017 movie wrote her because it just made her incredibly unsympathetic and unlikeable. But she left one Hell of a legacy and I love her.

9. Hermione Granger (Harry Potter)

Despite my feelings about the author in recent years, Harry Potter is still a series I grew up on and love. Albeit I’m one of the few who got into the films more than the books, but still. The one thing that got me into the series? Hermione. She begins as a bit of a snooty know-it-all, always rubbing her knowledge int he faces of others and coming off as kind of a brat. But we soon see that she really doesn't know how to make friends and is a serious student and good person. Once Harry and Ron befriend her, we see how much of a brave, loyal, and determined girl she is, using her brains and talent in academics to get all the info they need. They would have died multiple times without this girl.

Hermione is someone we grow up with and kind of the representative of young girls. We watch her as she struggles with her status as a Muggle-born witch, how her pursuit of knowledge can overwhelm her, and of course what happens when she realizes her feelings for Ron. I... am not a huge fan of the pairing for many reasons, but her frustration and struggle feel very real. She makes mistakes, some more called out than others, but she does genuinely strive to do good And through it all, she is loyal to Harry and to the fight against Voldemort, growing to be proud of who she is and of her heritage as a ‘mudblood’. Even n the final book, where she’s forced to erase her parents memories to protect them, Ron abandoning her and Harry, and getting tortured by Bellatrix, none of it stops her from fighting for what she believes in.

Looking back now, Hermione has her problems both in the books and the films. Some of Ron's better moments got lost because the writer favored her which I can see whyt hat annoyed many people (I’m not one of them, but still), and the whole House Elf plot in the book has some... not great implications. But it doesn't stop Hermione from being a strong female character who is intelligent, brave, and Emma Watson’s strong performance really helped bring her to life. She ain’t perfect, but I still grew up watching her and I will always be grateful for that fact.

8. April O’Neil (TMNT 2012)

Screw the people who hated on her, April is awesome!

Really April in any incarnation of the Turtles is awesome. 2k3, Rise, the films. heck despite her being kidnapped every episode, even OT April was determined as Hell and you wouldn’t get in her way! But since I’m only picking one here, I gotta go with her 2k12 self. Her 2k3 self is also a close contender, but this was the version I spent the most time watching and for any of you who have follow me long enough knows, I spent a LOOOOT of time defending her from ship haters.

Looking back now, yeah there are some problems. Her limited screentime in S1, some of the Kraang stuff got rushed/crammed in, her missing mom story went nowhere, her being Donnie’s love interest. there’s plenty of problems. But those are more story issues than actual character issues. The last one especially si more an issue with Donnie’s character than April since she herself was NEVER defined by the ‘love interest’ card. She never existed for that purpose, and it shows especially by the end.

April began as a helpless, but very determined girl hoping to save her father after their abduction in which only she got saved. She spends most of her time getting intel for the Turtles while undergoing training from Splinter. She slowly, but gradually, grows into a capable kunoichi who can hold her own and gradually becomes an equal to her reptilian companions. She’s friendly, takes shit from no one, and she is probably the biggest Determinator in the entire series where ven when utterly helpless, she will STILL be defiant until the bitter end. he goes through Hell, and every single time she finds a way to pull herself together and forge on.

Despite how I fell off the series by the end, I was very happy with where April ended. From a girl just wanting her life back, to accepting her reality and making it her own. She trains herself in both ninjutsu and her new psychic abilities and becomes a kunoichi in her own right with them. She was even able to hold her own against Shredder! This girl became a badass and while there are issues here and there, I think she by far had some of the best development in the series. She remains my favorite character in 2012, y favorite April, and she has more than earned her spot on this list.

7. Avatar Korra (The Legend of Korra)

Another character who got unnecessary hate! Oh wait, that happens to every female character ever. Silly me!

Korra is what made LoK so great to me. She is a bull-headed, somewhat arrogant girl who has devoted her entire life to being the Avatar. She is the anti-Aang, so much so that she is terrible at Air Bending. But she’s also a very determined girl and went to Republic City to make Tenzin train her. Over the course of the series, we see how despite her arrogance, she is a good person who is truly devoted to her duty and genuinely wants to protect everyone. But she’s faced with her own vulnerabilities and flaws as a person as she has to learn to allow others to help/guide her and learn from her mistakes. And HO BOY does she make MANY mistakes.

Over four seasons, we watch Korra grow. She’s faced with the fact that she is vulnerable in S1 and while she doesn't fully overcome it, she does so enough to face Amon despite knowing what’ll happen to her. In S2, she faces the worse of herself but in doign so, truly improves herself and puts things right while letting go of most of her arrogance. S3 has her a much more well-rounded person trying to do what’s right, but it ended in her torture, poisoning, and she is just broken by the end. S4 has her slow recovery both physically and mentally and the road is long, hard, and just painful. But by the end, she accepts what happened and is able to find the balance to restore her power, return to her duties, and save the world from utter calamity.

I related so uch to Korra, moreso than I did Aang. She got a lot fo hate for her attitude and... well, not being Aang. But she grew so much and I loved how much of a badass and fully layered character she was. Yeah, she wasn’t Aang, that was a good thing. I loved her form the beginning, and I loved her even more by the end. She’s a great example of a female protagonist and shows that yes, a female action heroine CAN work. The Avatar franchise has many outstanding female characters (Katara, Toph, Suki, Azula, Asami, Jinora, Kuvira) but to me, Korra beats them all and I love her.

6. Wonder Woman

Well I couldn’t leave off the most well-known female superhero of all time now, could I?

Wondy is awesome. I first saw her on Superfriends back when Cartoon Network reran it. While it is a super campy show, Wondy was a true hero who stood equal to her male companions and was just as capable of saving the day as them. She was pretty much the only main female, so of course she was the one I was drawn to and I loved seeing her in action. But she could fall into the Damsel in Distress role cause... well, girl and lie I said, Superfriends is super campy. But I took what I could get int hose days!

Fortunately, Wondy has had much better media rep since... and in fact before with the Lynda Carter series. I hadn’t seent hat when I was a kid and while it’s cheesy, Wondy was still a badass there who easily held her own. Her Justice League DCAU self was when I really fell in love with her. Kind, beautiful, righteous, and an utter powerhouse. Seriously, I think she kicked more ass than anyone in both the original and Unlimited series. She has two animated DC films, which are both pretty dang good. Bloody, but good!

But of course, we have the Gal Gadot film. This was the film that arguably has saved the DC Cinematic Universe, and for good reason. While I’m not a big fan of Wondy being a demigod, she still showed why he’s so good. She’s a true hero wanting to do good, and in a setting like World War One, that is hard to find. She’s caring, devoted, strong, and is just a shining example of a true hero. She inspires hope in a cinematic universe that thrived off of grittiness, and Thank God we have her. I can only hope that the sequel holds the same quality, but nothing will take this away.

Wonder Woman is awesome. They screw her up sometimes, both ina nd out of comics. But there is no doubt that she earned her spot as a beloved feminist icon, as well as her spot here on this list.

#5. Kim Possible

You do not know how obsessed with this show I used to be. It is probably my all-time favorite Disney animated series of all time. Why? Because of it’s clever writing, fun humor, great action, and of course it’s characters. Kim especially.

She is the girl who can do anything, and she lives up to that claim. She’s a cheerleader by day, crime fighter by night, and she handles those worlds flawlessly... for the most part. She’s tough, smart, and a badass who uses her cheerleading skills to aid in her crime-fighting. She faces mad scientists, monsters, and everything in between and she ALWAYS comes out on top.

She’s now flawless, mind you. She’s bossy, smug, and can over-react when she faces things that she can’t do such as cooking or.. really anything normal/standard teen problems. She’s especially bad at maintaining dates. But whenever she faces a problem, she finds a way tog et through it whether it be with help from Ron, or finding her own way in solving it. She doesn't cry or mope about things like... well, the live-action film has her do. No, she gets up and finds solutions while still saving the day in the process. That is what makes her great, she’s a character before she’s a girl. Hence why she is a great female protagonist

Kim is someone I strived to be like when I got that age... with varying success. But hey, it just proves that Kim Possible can indeed do anything. Call her, beep her if you wanna reach her, and she’ll be there. just like how she’s here for this spot.

4. Ruby Rose (RWBY)

MY DAUGHTER!

When I first got into RWBY, I wasn’t sure what to expect. But the first character I fell in love with? Little Red here! I adore this girl to pieces. She gets a lot of flack form some for being ‘flat’ and ‘underdeveloped’ and I don’t have time to go into every reason why that’s not true. You can read this for some examples of why shes awesome. But let me summarize the gist of it as best as I can.

Ruby is a teenaged girl striving to be a Huntress like her mother, wanting to do good in the world like the heroes in her storybooks. Over time, as he overcomes her own flaws and the burdens of leadership, she learns how colossal of a task doing good truly is in a world that is harsh and cruel. She loses friends, her school gets broken apart, and the world seems to become more and more divided. And she’s right int he middle of it. So what does she do?

She gets up and continues on.

She decides to fight because she wants to help. She wants to make the world a better place because that is what a Huntress is supposed to do. She puts aside her own feelings in hopes that she can help do something. Even as she is pulled more and more into the true realities of her world, she stands firm and continues on. And when everyone else seems broken and on the verge of quitting? She grabs the reigns and pushes everyone forward herself.

Ruby may be a somewhat standard protagonist, but her determination and quirkiness help her stand out. She’s goofy, naive, and a socially awkward klutz. But she’s still a good-hearted person who always tries and in a world full fo monsters that thrive on despair, this is a very admirable trait. She’s gone from a girl afraid of being viewed as special, to taking the lead int he war against Salem all because it is her duty as a Huntress to protect everyone. She inspires those around her and also inspires me. She’s what got me to stay with this show, and I have yet to regret it.

RWBY has MANY great female characters. Weiss, Blake, Yang, Maria, Nora, Penny, Winter, and many others. But Ruby was always going to be my first pick. What can I say? I adore this girl~

3. Blossom (The Powerpuff Girls)

The Powerpuff girls was, and remains, my favorite cartoon of all time It was funny, action-packed, great characters, and great animation. I adore all three of the girls. Bubbles is cute but certianly no pushover, and Buttercup can be a jerk but she kicks a LOT of ass. But the one who I always loved the most was the commander and leader of the group, Blossom.

Blossom is the most mature of the girls, being very intelligent for her age. She’s smart, confident, and a natural leader. She’s also rather bossy, full of herself, and can be obnoxious at times with her egg-headed nature. From what I can tell, she was the leat liked... which sucks for me. I loved Blossom because of how smart she was and because of how good of a leader she was. Sure she had the occasional slip, but she was usually fairly reasonable, strategic, and always tried to look after her sisters and break up their spats.

I still remember the episode that made me love her. It was Princess’ introductory episode. In it, Blossom tried her best to be as reasonable with her as she could, trying to give her the benefit of the doubt since she was new and probably didn’t know how to make friends. It especially makes since if you’ve seen the movie and know how much the girls themselves struggled. But once it became clear that Princess really was a despicable little brat and she pounded her sisters, Blossom was pissed but still calm unlike the other two. Due to this, she easily thrashed Princess, destroyed her power suit, and gave her the mother of all The Reason You Suck speeches, telling her what being a hero truly means and how she’s nothing but a spoiled brat. It remains of my favorite PPG moments ever and after how much Blossom tried to give her a chance, it was very deserved.

Sadly, Blossom hasn’t gotten the best rep in other incarnations. Her PPGZ self while fine... wasn’t Blossom. Like... at all. And the less said about the 2016 series the better. Still, I remember how much I looked up to the original Blossom and enjoyed seeing her kick butt every Friday. I even still have one of my old dolls that I cherish to this day. Allt he Powerpuffs are great, and I will love them forever.

2. Sailor Moon/Usagi Tsukino (Sailor Moon)

Speaking of childhood heroines!

Ah Sailor Moon, We’ve had a long history, you and I. The first show I ever kept up with. The first fandom I ever got into. The first anime I ever got into. nd of course, the first heroine I ever truly loved.

Usagi (well... Serena when I was a kid, as the 90′s) is someone I still hold close to my heart. She is a klutz, crybaby, and far from an ideal heroine. She can be rather immature and at times selfish, preferring to sleep or eat sweets than worry about her Sailor Senshi duties. But as he grows, we see that through it all, she is a pure, caring young girl. I think the manga/Crystal anime did a MUCH better job at portraying that side to her, though the 90′s anime presented her more heroic side as well. They just sometimes forgot that he was past being a crybaby...

Usagi loves everyone. Her lover Mamoru, her fellow Senshi, just everyone. She doesn’t like fighting, but she will if she has to. She goes from crying in the middle of fights to being able to face God-like entities with just a magic crystal. Despite not having wanted to be a Senshi to begin with, she accepts her destiny and tries to save everyone, even her enemies. It just shows how despite her flaws as a person, she is a true hero who can always be relied on.

Sailor Moon did a lot when it came out. it helped revolutionize the Magical Girl genre, helped give anime a standing in America, and showed how femininity is not a weakness. There’s many other great female characters (Ami, Rei, Makoto, Minako) and all are their own character. But Usagi has always been the one I loved most and so she claims the Number Two spot.

Honorable Mentions

Sakura Kinomoto (Cardcaptor Sakura) Katara (Avatar: The Last Airbender) Twilight Sparkle (MLP:FIM) Agent Carolina and Kaikaina Grif (Red vs Blue) Lois Lane (Superman: The Animated Series) Hawkgirl/Shayera Hal (Justice League/Unlimited) Gosalyn Mallard (Darkwing Duck) Webby Vanderquack (Ducktales 2017) Rapunzel (Tangled franchise) Anna (Frozen) Cinderella, Ariel, Jasmine, Pocahontas, Tiana, Moana (Disney Princess) Kida (Atlantis: The Lost Empire) Meg (Hercules) Esmerelda (The Hunchbakc of Notre Dame) Jane (Return to Neverland Princess Elena (Elena of Avalor) Hikaru Shidou, Umi Ryuuzaki, and Fuu Hohouji (Magic Knights Rayearth) Nami (One Piece) Misty (Pokemon) Winry Rockbell (FMA) Ran Mouri (Detective Conan) Kagome Higurashi and Sango (Inuyasha) Pretty much all the Pretty Cures Nancy Drew Katniss Everdeen (The Hunger Games) Ms. Frizzle (The Magic School Bus) Daphne Blake and Velma Dinkley (Scooby-Doo) Calico ‘Callie’ Briggs and Felina Feral (SWAT Kats)

And I’m sure there’s more, but we’re gonna be here all day if I keep going. So let's go ahead and get to Number One. Which tbh... this was a no-brainer.

1. Mulan

Yeah, this probably shocks no one. I’ve talked about Mulan like... a billion times by now. But there was no other option for me.

Mulan is my favorite movie of all time, and the title character is my favorite character of all time. She’s a young woman who wants to bring her family honor, but struggles to do so in the ways she’s expected. She goes to war in her father’s place to save his life, and she struggles even more. She’s someone who doubts and is ashamed of herself, but over time she decides that she’s done hating her refection and tries to prove her worth. She not only becomes a better soldier and earns the respect of everyone around her, but even after she’s unmasked, she goes on to save all of freakin’ China! The whole country, including the freakin’ Emperor, bows before her because of this. You do not get more respect than that.

I’ve only grown to love and relate more to this story as I’ve grown older. I’ve learned to not define myself by society expectations, but just as who I am. Mulan struggles with expectations, family, warn, and most of all her own insecurities. She wants to see something worthwhile when she looks into the mirror, but she always just feels shame. But by the end, she puts it aside and becomes the best version of herself. She returns home with more than enough to honor her family... and her father tosses it aside to hug her. He’s just grateful to have her home, the greatest girl and honor. She’s someone who we watch grow and her journey hold sup even today. Argubaly even moreso.

Mulan was a film that changed me. Shaped my beliefs and values into what they are now. Even today, I see it as a flawless movie, and Mulan a flawless heroine. he’s a perfect example of a female protagonist, or heck just a protagonist in general. I love her and because of how much she shaped my five-year-old self into who I am now, se is my favorite female character of all time.

And that’s that! Well that was fun! Thank you all for reading and to all thw women out there, whether you were born as one or made the choice to identify as such. Whether you love men, women, or whoever. Whether you care about love or not. I hope you all have a lovely day and stay true to who you are. Happy International Women’s Day everyone~!

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do-what-the-knight-tells-you · 5 years ago

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Broadchurch: the short story collections. Part 1

Available over here.

The first book contains four short stories, all of which take place before S2, so if you want to read this, it might be nice before re-watching S2.

1- “The End Is Where it Begins”, Ellie, After S1: how she comes to transfer precints and end up as the traffic cop we see in S02E01.

2- “The Letter”, Maggie, a few days before S2: STruggles with Echo finances, works on a story, thinks about resigning.

3- “Old Friends”, Jocelyn, 10-20 years before S1: insight into her past, her career, her character, Jack Marshall, and what was going on in town around the time Danny and Tom were born.

4- “Over the Side”, Tess, months before S1 (three days into the Sandbrook case): a twenty-four hour window into that case, her perspective on the case, her affair, and Alec’s behavior/character/etc at that time. This is the night Pippa’s body is found, from her perspective.

I’ve included summaries, my notes, excerpts, and other Things Of Interest under the readmore. this book was interesting, short, and very worth the read, for me!

1. Ellie- Between S1 and S2.

“Going back into uniform was Ellie's choice, but it usually means demotion. It’s shorthand for disgrace. As far as Ellie is concerned, the uniform helps. Her collar and cravat help her hold he head up high, and she walks easily in regulation flat shoes. This is a move sideways, not downward; she’s still a Sergeant. Her salary stays the same, and that’s important. Ellie’s staring down the barrel of single parenthood, paying for the childcare Joe used to do for free. Resigning would mean sacrificing her pension, and with a good fifteen years of service left in her, that’s not an option. “But there’s more to it than the money. It doesn’t feel right to go back into CID until Joe’s been sentenced. She’s never told anyone this, but it feels like that way, she’ll be able to put Danny behind her. But going into uniform, that felt right. Ellie understands now what Hardy meant about atonement. [Look! Thinking about him!] by serving another community, she can atone for what Joe did to her own. Leaving the force, taking a sabbatical, all the other things tat people told her to do: none of these was an option. This move is, above all else, a massive /fuck you/ to Joe. Fifteen years, Ellie's been on the force. When he took Danny’s life, he took Ellie's best friend, their community, and her eldest son. She will not let him have her career as well.”

And in the car with her new loudmouth partner: “after ten minutes she finds herself yearning for Alec Hardy’s brooding and sulks. At least he was quiet. She wonders where Hardy is now: under a doctor’s observation somewhere, she hopes, contemplating the salvage of his own career from the confines of a hospital bed.”

In general her new partner is a bit of a sexist good-old-boy who thinks the problem with youth today is the welfare state... She thinks the problem is lack of outreach and enrichment. She is struggling to get everything in line in her life.

Tom’s voice breaks while they are separated. And her heart breaks to have missed that.

She successfully overrides her partner, follows her instincts, and saves a family, some kids, from a domestic situ while on the job… and then falls to fucking pieces after. Realizes she doesn’t have the emotional fortitude to handle cases without breaking, right now. Calls in sick, and then transfers to traffic. “She is bitterly aware of the irony that while she has gained her colleagues’ respect, she now understands that she doesn’t deserve it. It’s either this or leave the force, and then Joe’s won. She is hanging onto her career by her fingernails, marking time until his plea next week. “Ellie has always prided herself on putting people before anything else but life as a black rat is about enforcing the letter of the law, or rather its numbers. She’s reduced to the digits and codes of traffic policing: stopping distances, speed limits, milligrams of alcohol and penalty points. Even her fellow traffic officers, infamous for their pedantry, started calling her robocop after he first shift. “Inside Ellie's locker, there’s a photograph of Tom and Fred before the blast. She marks a tally on the picture’s white border, inky scratches in the gloss, to count down the days until Joe stands in the dock at Wessex County court and says the magic word that will give her back her son.”

Aw hell, Ellie.

2- Maggie- A few days before S2 begins.

Budget cuts are crippling the Echo. Finally, she is ready to submit her resignation in protest, but a story she runs down locally (to do with land use, and, eventually, marijuana), turns out to be leveragable to do some good in town, force some good change, and she figures that's still worth doing, so she'll hang in a little longer.

No mention of Lil, so, still not sure when they broke up/if they are split... oh, and a passing mention of Jocelyn's home. Just, that it is there.

3- Jocelyn- Her story is set farther back, but is fascinating. It's set partially at least twenty, twenty five years pre-S1, and then partially right around the time that Danny Latimer was born.

It's a little window into who Jocelyn was at that time and what she did. Talks about her outlook on her career, her relationship with her mother, her habit of spending no more than four bank holidays a year in Broadchurch, and staying in London, her preference, her work, the rest of the time.

Also, it turns out she represented Jack Marshall and convinced him to plead guilty so that he would get a shorter jail sentence and get back to the Rowena faster, which he did, and then married her.

Jocelyn was quite reserved even then, but they kept in touch and Jack confided in her after the accident that took his son's life and caused their split, that he needed a new place to go... She suggested Broadchurch because she knew the newsstand was up for sale.

The last scene of the short story is her visiting him at the newsstand. She's noticed her vision is starting to go, she's watching the Latimers with their three-day-old baby boy walk along the beach.

There are references to lots of things and folks there in town, throughout the story, the sea brigade, Oliver, the fact that she's lost touch with Maggie long since and she's a bit grateful for that because otherwise Maggie would surely have sniffed out her connection to Jack and outed Jack's past to everyone. Oh, and Ellie is 10 days overdue and fit to burst with Tom and so Beth (Beth and Ellie had become friends in their pre/antenatal classes) had been dropping by with Danny over there, hoping that holding Danny would maybe induce labor.

... and finally.

4- Tess- Day 3 of the Sandbrook case, well before S1

I didn't look ahead, I totally had no idea that this was coming. But this is Tess' side of a 24-hour period from the Sandbrook case. I'm going to sum some of it, and then I'm probably just going to end up posting big chunks of it. Or you can go read it yourself. That's good too. XD

It's April 2012, day 3 after the Sandbrook girls disappear. She and the other DS she's cheating with were getting it on, for what was clearly not the first time, in the backseat of his car. Made a comment about the fact it next time they would take it back to the hotel, doing it in the car was foolish and uncomfortable. Which also seems to imply that this is a regular thing. Tess thinks a bit on the fact that Dave is present with her in a way Alec isn't, though she feels guilty about all of it.

The cheating is a release for her, like other people might smoke a cigarette or go for a run. She knows Alec is really struggling with how close in age Pippa is to Daisy.

"Alec works sixteen-hour days, forgets to eat, and gets angry. She hasn’t seen him since they got the shout two days ago. He’s sleeping on the sofa in his office, if he’s sleeping at all. At least Tess got four hours in her own bed last night and a shower in her own bathroom. Daisy was staying with a friend; Tess and Alec rely a lot on the generosity of friends’ parents in the first few chaotic days of a case. The house was too quiet this morning. It’s strange; Alec can stay away for days and Tess feels nothing but relief, but Daisy sleeping somewhere else feels wrong."

Tess knows what Alec is like on these cases. Her affair with what's-his-face went on much longer than the case itself. I’d guess months, at least, prior to this story.

"She hasn’t seen Alec since last night. Tess hopes he’s not in the office. The chances are small; as Senior Investigating Officer, he likes to work the field as much as possible. They used to work so well together – professionally, at least, she’s never been more compatible with another officer, and that includes Dave – but at the moment she can’t concentrate if Alec’s even in the same building. Dave sits opposite her at work, and Alec’s got the corner office just behind them. Every time he walks past, she shrivels with guilt and with contempt for her husband. Guilt over the adultery, contempt that Alec can’t see it.

[Lends more weight to Hardy’s perception of the affair, as we saw it in the S1 novelization-- namely that it was shameful, that he felt ashamed to have been cheated on. I bet she says/said something nasty, along these lines, and he internalizes it]

“If she and Dave so much as brushed past each other at a crime scene, he’d notice. That’s the problem in a nutshell: the tunnel vision that makes him a brilliant detective means he hasn’t seen Tess – really seen her – in years."

[Oh God, I see where this is going. This is the night he finds Pippa, isn't it?]

‘Where’s Alec?’ Tess asks Chrissie, a fellow DS who’s already got three empty mugs on her desk. Chrissie creases her brow. As always, whenever Tess refers to her husband by his first name, it takes her colleague a few seconds to get who she means. But what else can she call him? She can’t call him Hardy and she’s damned if she’ll call him the boss or the guvnor.

[”Guvnor”? is this a British thing, or personal nickname? if the latter, Ellie would laugh herself sick over it, if she ever found out.]

“Chrissie checks a memo on her screen.

“‘He’s overseeing a fingertip search of the river Sandbrook.’

“‘The Sandbrook?’ echoes Tess. It’s right on the edge of their patch, a slow-flowing river with great stretches straying miles from the nearest road and barely accessible on foot. ‘On what basis?’

“‘On the basis of it’s the only open space left on our ground that we haven’t covered, and there’s still no trace of either girl,’ says Chrissie grimly, her eyes travelling to the clock. Tess flinches at the reminder of how far behind they are, and boots up her computer, not wanting to waste another minute. When Dave comes in, she looks up with a cool hello...”

She thinks about potential leads in the case, she interacts with Dave a little bit, mostly through facial expressions. And then

“Tess is giving Dave one more warning look when his phone rings. His face loses its colour as he listens; Tess pulls out her earplugs but the call is already over.

“‘That was the boss,’ says Dave, pushing his chair away from his desk, car keys in hand. ‘They’ve found the body of a young girl in the Sandbrook.’

“South Mercia University Hospital is across the dual carriageway from the police station, eight storeys of white concrete and foggy windows.

“‘I knew it’d be murder,’ says Dave, as they get into a lift marked STAFF ONLY. ‘I knew from the first shout, but it doesn’t stop you hoping, does it?’

“‘You always hope,’ says Tess. ‘But I can’t remember hoping like this for a long time.’ Dave reaches for her hand and circles his thumb on her palm.

“‘You OK, babe?’ His tenderness melts her, but she can only squeeze his fingers in reply. She can’t afford to soften now. The lift spits them out two floors underground and Tess and Dave walk through a dingy yellow corridor lit with flickering strip lights. It is maybe ten degrees colder here than in the station. This is not the way to the viewing room, where victims’ families see their loved ones still beneath a white sheet. This long walk is for the professionals, the dealers in death. There is nothing beautiful down here: a few laundry bags piled in a trolley, a mop and bucket and a yellow CLEANING IN PROGRESS sign. Tess tries very hard not to think about what gets mopped up down here.

“‘I don’t understand why it’s just the one body,’ she says. ‘Nothing about this case makes sense.’

“‘Just the one body so far,’ Dave corrects her. There’s another fire door ahead; he lengthens his stride to open it for her. Tess isn’t used to these little chivalrous touches. She is astonished to find that she quite likes them.

“‘Did Alec say if he was staying to continue the search?’

“‘He pretty much hung up.’ Dave bites his lip. ‘I’m sure he knows, sometimes, the way he talks to me.’ Tess shakes her head.

“‘That’s how he talks to everyone.’ But she shakes her shoulders, as though to recalibrate her body language, and by the time they get to the end of the corridor, there’s a big space between her and Dave. When – if – they go public, it must be a long, long time after this case has been put to bed. A technician in mint scrubs is waiting behind a glass door; she punches a number into the keypad to let them in.

“‘Five minutes,’ says the technician. Her voice is steady but she looks like she’s been crying. ‘Dr Kendall’s just preparing her now. You can wait up here.’

“Tess and Dave follow the technician on tiptoe up a short flight of stairs. In the viewing gallery, there’s a row of seats, almost like in a cinema, and the blind is down on the panoramic window so it looks like a blank blue screen. There are a handful of flattened paper bags on the table. Waiting for them is Sanjeev, a newish DC. He’s not long out of uniform so he won’t have worked a case like this before. Tess hasn’t spent much time with him, but she knows Alec really rates him. There’s a weird, stale, boggy smell and for a moment Tess retches, thinking it’s the dead-body-rotting smell she dreads so much. It takes her a few seconds to recognise the smell of stagnant river water, and that it’s coming from Sanj.

“‘Sarge,’ says Sanj to Tess. ‘How comes you’re not upstairs with the boss?’ Tess doesn’t bother to hide her confusion.

“‘What’s he doing upstairs?’

“‘Don’t panic,’ says Sanj. Immediately Tess starts to panic. ‘It’s just a precaution. He got into difficulties in the water.’

“Tess is bewildered. ‘What was he even doing in the water?’

“‘He found her,’ says Sanj, dipping his head. ‘Pippa’s body. He carried her out. You know what he’s like, he stalks off on his own, all impatient, no one can ever work fast enough for him. We didn’t even know he’d gone until he’d got her out. He reckons he went under a few times. He took in a lot of water and they’ve got to be careful about it being in his lungs, or Weil’s disease or something.’ Sanj looks down at his feet; he flexes them, and his shoes squelch. Tess is rooted to the spot, horrified at what Alec must have been through today. She is torn. Instinct urges her to go and check on him; after fourteen years of marriage, you can’t just turn off the concern like a tap. But he’ll be in good hands. He probably won’t even want her, he hates being fussed over. And with him indisposed, she’s the senior officer.

“She’s still debating with herself when the blinds go up and the theatre is revealed in all its spot-lit, chrome glory, and there, splayed on the slab is— Tess’s vision blurs. There’s a whole team of people, but the pathologist and his team, in their scrubs, are reduced to green blobs. Tess can’t look at anything but Pippa Gillespie’s body. It doesn’t look human. It has been completely bloated by the water; her face is swollen and grey, her limbs pasty and distended. Water has matted her hair and dirt outlines her nails. Tess thinks of the picture they have on the board, that perfect little girl, playing tennis, golden skin, long brown hair, and it is all that she can do to stand. She’s seen bodies destroyed by water before, but never one this young. Tears try to push their way out of her eyes but Tess pushes back harder. She’ll cry later, in front of Dave, but she won’t fall apart in public. She gives silent thanks that Pippa can be identified forensically. Her mother will never have to see her like this.

“She steps up to the microphone, forcing her voice to hold steady.

“‘DS Tess Henchard,’ she says. ‘Is there anything you can tell us just by looking at her?’ Dr Kendall looks up to the gallery and nods hello.

“‘Only that she’s been in the water for at least two days.’ There’s a tenderness in his voice at odds with the gleaming surgical instruments in the tray behind him. ‘So that narrows down your time of death, I suppose. As for the cause … I’ll be frank with you, Sergeant. There’s no obvious wound. Water covers death’s tracks. It gets into the body through the orifices and starts decomposing from the inside as well as out. It affects the tox report. We will work quickly, and to the highest standard, but I can’t guarantee that we’ll find the cause of death. Let’s talk in the morning.’

“‘Christ.’ She pushes the heels of her hands onto closed eyes, but the image of Pippa’s face is imprinted on the back of her eyelids. She looks to the door; she ought to check on Alec, for form’s sake as much as anything. Dave doesn’t need to be told what she’s thinking.

“‘I’ve got this,’ he says. ‘You go to him.’ It is possibly the kindest thing anyone’s ever done for her. He places a hand on her arm, a light gesture but it’s not lost on Sanj. Tess notes his double take, then watches as the horror below wipes the suspicion from his mind, for now at least. She leaves Dave and Sanj to watch the post-mortem.

“In the lift, her legs go. She has pulled herself to her feet by the time she gets to the front desk. The receptionist points her towards Accident and Emergency. Tess concentrates on putting one foot in front of the other, reading the signs, breathing through her mouth, and trying to close her mind’s eye to the sight of Pippa Gillespie’s body, but the image is imprinted on her for ever. Her badge helps her to jump the queue – she can’t help thinking she gets more respect from the triage receptionist as a Detective Sergeant than she would as a wife – but it still takes her the best part of an hour to find out that Alec has discharged himself. She boils with rage – if he’s gone back to the scene with his health in tatters, she’ll kill him. She asks to see the registrar who treated him; another half-hour wait.

“She calls Daisy, who’s still at Molly’s. They’re lucky she’s popular. If she has dinner with a different friend every night, that can take them ten days into a case. After that, repeat requests usually get awkward. This time, though, everyone knows the case they’re working on. Friends are falling over themselves to have Daisy for the evening, offering sleepovers, weekend shifts, school pickups. ‘Whatever helps you find those girls’ is the phrase they hear again and again. Tess hopes the goodwill continues into the murder inquiry. Lately, she’s been wondering if the hospitality would extend to a single mother trying to juggle shifts around work and a new relationship.

“‘It’ll be a little while yet,’ says Tess. ‘Home in time to see you to bed, though.’ ‘Have you found her?’ says Daisy. She has become fixated on Pippa Gillespie; she knows they’re the same age, and she can see what the case is already doing to her parents, three days in. Tess feels a pang for the innocent days when Daisy thought that all they did was direct traffic. Tess and Alec naturally never tell Daisy anything before it’s released to the media. ‘Not yet, sweetie,’ she says. ‘Be good for Molly’s mum.’

“Eventually, the registrar comes in, a young man smelling of coffee and sweat. There’s a comet of blood on his white coat. ‘Mr Hardy discharged himself against my recommendation,’ he says. ‘I’m telling you because I’m concerned for his health. Physically, he was fine. I mean, the water doesn’t seem to have done any lasting damage. But he’s suffering from acute stress, and there are more tests we’d like to run. With anyone else I’d recommend that he take time off work, but …’ He spreads his hands. Tess doesn’t know whether he’s implying that the case is more important than one man’s health, or whether he’s simply got the measure of Alec already and knows his advice would fall on deaf ears.

“There’s a voicemail on her phone from Alec’s second in command, DS Beauman, wishing the boss well and telling him that they’ve got SOCO in now. Alec hasn’t gone back to the crime scene. So where is he? Alec is not at home and he’s not answering his phone. Tess sees Daisy off to bed and opens a bottle of red. She searches Google maps on her iPad, scrolling up and down the length of the Sandbrook looking for patterns, clues, inspiration, until she feels dizzy.

“She calls the incident room; Sanj answers and immediately asks after Alec. So he’s not there. Dave’s working the scene at the Sandbrook; she texts him to see if Alec’s turned up, then again to see if they’ve found anything new. Both questions come back negative. She deletes the message thread out of habit even though this time there’s nothing incriminating.

“She’s really starting to worry now. This disappearance is completely unprecedented. She pictures him collapsed behind the wheel somewhere en route to the Sandbrook, and she works herself up into a fury. For all his dedication to his job, he neglects what ought to be his number one priority: making sure he’s in good enough health to do it. There’s real fear under her concern, though, and she’s about to call the hospital when she hears his car on the driveway. It’s 10 p.m.

“As his key turns in the door, she’s waiting for him in the hall. The sight of him makes her stagger. He’s wearing a grey tracksuit, the police-station-issue kind they give to people whose clothes have been seized as evidence. The trousers are too short and his ankles are exposed, making him look ridiculous. His hair is plastered down.

“She stopped touching Alec a while ago--”

[Oh god, I remember that comment in the first novelization, that Miller is the first person to take his hand in so long he couldn’t remember...]

“-- it started to feel like betraying Dave-- and he doesn’t seem to have noticed, or to miss it.”

[Oh God.]

“She hesitates before going to hug him, and when she opens her arms, Alec folds his and shakes his head. Dave wouldn’t do this, is her first reflex thought.

“‘Where’ve you been? she asks. It was supposed to come out concerned but it sounds derogatory.

“Alec pinches the bridge of his nose. He closes his eyes nd lets them stay that way. ‘Driving.’

“It’s five hours since he discharged himself from hospital. The thought of him going round and around the ring road in these clothes tugs at the leftovers of her love.

“‘Oh, Alec. What about your clothes?’

“He nods to a clear plastic bag on the doorstep. INside, weeds are wrapped around clothes so muddied that Tess has to think back to what he was wearing when he left for work this morning. His new blue suit. They’ll have to throw it out. Even if the can get it clean, she knows he’ll never be able to wear it again.

“When he pushes past her into the house, Tess can smell the soap from the police station showers on him.

“‘D’you wan to talk about it?’ She pours Alec the last of the wine. He looks into its dark red surface like he’s seeing through it into something else.

“’I saw her in the mortuary,’ says Tess, ‘It must have been awful for you.’ Alec doesn’t even blink. Dave or no Dave, Tess recognises a man who needs human touch. She puts her hands on his shoulders. When they first got together, she used to massage his shoulder blades at the end of every day, feeling the knots unravel under her fingers.

[An interesting detail.]

“He used to say she had the magic touch, that no one else could relax him like she did. Now, he shrugs her off.

“‘ I’m going to check on Daisy.’

“Tess follows him upstairs and they stand at Daisy’s open bedroom door for a while. She is asleep under a garland of IKEA fairy lights, watched over by a peeling Taylor Swift poster. The tweenage sneer she wears all day has vanished. Her lips are an open rose; her brow is smooth. The difference between their perfect sleeping daughter and the deformed corpse of Pippa Gillespie hits Tess in the guts.

“‘Is she breathing?’ Alec asks suddenly, an octave higher than his usual register. ‘I can’t see her moving.’ Before Tess understands what’s happening, he’s kneeling at Daisy’s bedside. He used to do this when she was a baby, leap out of bed to check she was still alive. Tess had completely forgotten about it until now.

[That’s interesting, does he have past trauma with stuff like that? seems like he already had dead-kid PTSD BEFORE he went into the river after Pippa Gillespie. poor sucker...]

“’She’s not moving!’ He puts his hands on Daisy’s shoulders.

“’Alec, stop it!’ Tess keeps her voice to a whisper even though his was a shout, but it’s too late, he’s already shaking her awake. Daisy’s body flops, but her eyes snap wide.

“‘Daddy, what are you doing?’ She says, as Alec pulls her into a clumsy embrace and buries his face in her nightie.Tess doesn’t have enough hands as she tries to pull him off and calm Daisy at the same time.

[LET THE MAN HUG HIS DAUGHTER]

“In the end, she has to tug at the collar of his tracksuit top. The pressure on his windpipe seems to knock the panic out of him, and he lets Daisy go.

“‘Out,’ snarls Tess.

“‘I’m sorry, darling.’ Alec walks backwards towards the door. ‘I just needed to make sure you were OK.’

“It only takes Tess a couple of minutes to soothe Daisy back to sleep; she’s confused rather than frightened, still young enough that a few soft words from her mother can chase the monsters away, and Tess hopes that in the morning they’ll be able to dismiss it as a bad dream. She waits until Daisy’s breathing regulates, tucks a stray lock of hair behind her daughter’s ear, and tiptoes out onto the landing.

“Alec sits in the half-dark like a little boy, his knees pulled up to his chest, leaning against the wall as if he has slid down it. Tess kneels next to him on the carpet. His eyes glitter.

“‘I can still see her face,’ he says. He holds out his arms in front if him, palms upwards, elbows bent. ‘I can still feel the weight of her.’ Tess pulls him against her shoulder; he resists for a moment, then collapses and weeps into her neck. This time when she reaches around and starts to work on the muscles in his shoulders, he lets her. His back feels like a sheet of metal; she keeps going until her fingers ache and she starts to feel bone and sinew under his sweatshirt.

[How is this man constantly portrayed/described as looking like he is shit warmed over, and yet he is one of the most compelling/interesting/attractive characters Tennant has ever played???]

“When Tess shifts position, Alec seems to gather himself, like he’s let out exactly the amount of emotion that was clouding his judgement, and not a drop more. He doesn’t move his head from her breast, but there’s an edge to his voice that almost thrills her.

“‘We’re no longer dealing with a missing persons inquiry. We know where we stand now. We’ll get this.’ Without warning, he leaps to his feet. ‘We know who we’re dealing with now. A monster, someone who can leave a child to rot in a river.’ He starts to pace, his ridiculous bare ankles going backwards and forwards in Tess’s eyeline. ‘This is what we trained for, isn’t it? to get justice for families like this.’

“His new confidence is infectious. Tess often forgets, in all the frustration of living with Alec, what a brilliant detective he is. Or rather, she forgets why he’s so good at his job. It’s the quality that first attracted her to him, that pure, almost old-fashioned belief that good can vanquish evil.

“He is a good detective because, underneath it all, he is a good man.

“It’s going to make leaving him so much harder.”

...

Ouch.

See you next time!

#Broadchurch #broadchurch resources

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curestardust · 6 years ago

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if you want: (copy-pasting from my previous review cause it didn’t change) well, it’s BNHA lmao / amazing animation / amazing music / shounen / superpowers and heroes / to have a good fucking time

BNHA S1 (x) BNHA S2 (x)

Going to keep this very short as I’ve said most of what I wanted in my previous 2 reviews.

This season specifically, felt a tiny bit less satisfactory as the other 2. Not by much, and considering how much I liked the first 2 seasons it’s difficult to live up to that quality anyway.

My main problem stems from how the 2 arcs, this season shows us, are the polar opposites of each other. The first half of season 3 literally gave me about 30 heart attacks. It was really wild, full of twists and turns and despite the pressure it put on my already deteriorating mental health, it was enjoyable in a way a wild roller coaster is. As opposed to this, the second arc had basically no stakes, or at least, they paled in comparison to the arc beforehand. We also get introduced to a buttload of people who we don’t know when they will show up again or how much relevancy they’ll have in the future. As opposed to (2), the first arc, where we also got introduced to quite a lot of new characters, however we knew why they were there and how much importance they have to the story.

Well, anyway. I really enjoyed this season depsite its disjointed nature and am looking forward to season 4! WhoHOOO [8/10] (x)

Recommend: HELL Yeah! | Yes | Eh??? | Nope | This anime killed my parents

if you want: Dark Fantasy / you like Fantasy but want something a bit different

Goblin Slayer was last year’s Fall Season’s second most popular original anime (according to MAL ratings at least).

I’m going to be honest...I don’t watch isekai or medieval fantasy stuff. The tropes bore me to absolute deah: an OP and basically undefeatable main character, the same exact fantasy characters with the same exact characterizations (elves, dwarves), the same class systems etc. Every single anime in these genres look the exact same with different characters. So, I was gonna pass by Goblin Slayer as well as usual however everyone was saying how DIFFERENT it was and that you NEED to watch the first episode.

So, I gave in. Was it worth it? No. You know what makes this anime so DIFFERENT? Scroll down to the anime information. Rated: R - 17+. That’s all you need to understand what’s different about this. Still, if you wanna watch the first episode without spoilers then leave now.

Goblin Slayer is a Dark Fantasy. Dark, because it has a lot of blood, bones crunching, gore and, of course, rape. Everything dark needs rape! Oh, whatever would we do without including women getting their bodies used by ugly creatures!

So yes, that’s literally why everyone likes Goblin Slayer, cause it’s edgy. There, I said it. The first episode starts out quite normal; a group of young, inexperienced adventurers decide to go into a cave and slay some goblins. Their team consist of a male warrior, a female mage, a female priest and a female melee fighter. About halfway through is where we’re hit with the EDGE. Goblins ambush them, steal one of the girls, rape another one and tear the guy to pieces. The priestess tries to escape and then runs into some guy decked out in armour: the Goblin Slayer.

After the ordeal is over, the Priestess joins Goblin Slayer in his adventures. Later on we’re joined by 3 new characters: a High Elf, a Dwarf and a Lizard. They say they’re some kind of ambassadors or something...but that’s never brought up again.

If you’re wondering why I’m calling them by their classes and races, that’s because they don’t have names. And I legit didn’t even notice until I just checked Wikipedia like 2 seconds ago. I guess it’s fitting cause not only do they lack names but also a personality.

The anime shows us a few nice fight scenes that usually take up 1 and a half episode. They aren’t really anything special but nice enough to watch and they keep your attention. However, between every fight there’s 1 episode of filler. Filler! In a 12 episode anime! And they’re fucking boring!

The art isn’t anything to write home about, the fight scenes are usually nice enough but everything else is painfully average. The music would be the only thing that I liked. While quite generic, they work really well with the scenes. The OP and the ED are especially nice.

And that’s the problem! The OP and the first episode are the ONLY good things about this, everything else is just dull. This anime was a solid 3/10 for almost the whole runtime but it managed to save its butt in the finale which is why my current rating is a bit higher.

If you like Dark Fantasy or are intrigued I’d suggest watching the first episode. None of the eps after come even close to that and the way it was structured it works as an OVA by itself. [4/10] (x)

Recommend: HELL Yeah! | Yes | Eh??? | Nope | This anime killed my parents

if you want: supernatural background story / mild horror due to some deaths / a nice mystery with a lot of plot twists that keeps you on your toes

“Another” is a 12 episode supernatural horror mystery that aired in 2012.

Our story starts with a guy named Sakakibara who has to move to Yamamiya, the town his parents grew up in. Due to some health problems, we start out with him in the hospital where he meets a girl with an eyepatch who introduces herself as Misaki Mei. After starting his 9th year in high school a month late, he once again runs into this girl in class but no one seems to react to her presence. As time goes on, Sakakibara’s classmates’ weird behaviour makes him confused and he wonders what’s going on. “Another” follows Class 3-3′s supernatural happenings and the story surrounding it.

“Another” is a really difficult anime to talk about and I’ll get to why in a second. But first, I will delve into the 3 genres I listed above and how the anime executes them.

The supernatural element was handled in a way that I found quite refreshing. The whole anime is enveloped by supernatural happenings and a strange atmosphere. However, instead of focusing on finding out the source of the weird events and trying to stop it at its core, “Another” handles it if it’s just a fact of life in the town and for our characters. While it can be said that the supernatural elements are simply lazy tropes to create a story without having to explain it deeper, I didn’t feel the need for it to be further expanded upon.

There isn’t much to say about the horror in “Another”. I guess the creepy atmosphere would be listed under this category but besides that the only horror-ish things happening are somewhat gruesome deaths. Even then, while the ways characters die is...not pretty, there’s mostly just a shitton of blood but nothing in particular made me too uncomfortable.

Lastly, is the meat of the story and the whole reason I ended up enjoying “Another” as much as I did despite my initial thoughts. The anime starts out a bit slow with a lot of silent scenes and long drawn-out shots for the sake of the atmoshpere. I don’t like slow anime so I was worried that I’ll be bored out of my mind but thankfully the mystery saved it. I know that opinions on this plot device are a bit divided but I thoroughly enjoy plot twists. The kind that I couldn’t see coming. Not to toot my own horn or anything but a lot of media usually builds upon one, singular huge plot twist and I figure them out pretty early on so they aren’t that enjoyable when they actually happen.

Well, “Another” very smartly leads you on with MULTIPLE plot twists. And these don’t come out of left field either. The anime drops slight hints for a lot of things and you need to follow everything and everyone pretty closely to catch all the small details.

My only problem would be with the ending which was a bit...well. It clashed with the established tone of the anime and felt a bit rushed. I understood the intention behind what happens however I think it could’ve been handled better. Some plot holes also remain by the end but the final plot twist was so HUGE, I really didn’t care at the time.

To wrap up, the technical stuff. The animation is well done with a few wonky shots and angles but nothing major. The OST itself is also pretty good, serves as a good backdrop for the scenes and does its job. The OP and the ED are probably the most disappointing musically. The OP doesn’t really fit the tone of the anime (although you get weirdly fond of it by the end) and the ED is a very generic ballad.

All in all, I enjoyed “Another” much more than I thought I would and was an intriguing ride all the way through. If you enjoy stories with uncovering mysteries, and aren’t bothered by blood and supernatural involvements, I’d suggest watching this. [8/10] (x)

Recommend: HELL Yeah! | Yes | Eh??? | Nope | This anime killed my parents

#dusty reviews #Goblin Slayer #Another #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #my hero academia season 3 #my hero academia s03 #my hero academia s3 #boku no hero academia season 3 #boku no hero academia s03 #boku no hero academia s3

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buckbarne · 8 years ago

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Here are some LGBT movies I’ve watched !!

Top picks (in alphabetical order)

Big Eden (2000) Gay artist Henry moves from NYC to small hometown to take care of sick grandfather. A really sweet, heartwarming story. Bonus points for no homophobia (!!) plot line & a gay native american man, Pike, who is adorable and crushes on Henry.

Brokeback Mountain (2005) Who hasn’t seen this? Two shepherds and their tumultuous love story over the years.

But I’m a Cheerleader (1999) Girl gets sent to a boot camp meant to alter her sexuality. Funny and aesthetic and really cheesy but worth the watch.

Carol (2015) A young woman in her 20s, Therese Belivet is a clerk working in a Manhattan department store and dreaming of a more fulfilling life when she meets Carol, an alluring woman trapped in a loveless, convenient marriage.

First Girl I Loved (2016) Girl falls in love with the most popular girl from her school. Bonus points for a nuanced and realistic portrayal of teenagers.

The Way He Looks (Hoje Eu Quero Voltar Sozinho, 2014) Brazilian coming-of-age drama about a blind boy who falls in love with his classmate. Based on a short film called “I don’t want to go back alone”, which you can find on youtube.

Holding The Man (2015) In the 1970s, two teen boys in Australia fight all obstacles thrown their way and refuse to renounce the love they feel for each other. Based on Australia’s “most famous gay biography”.

I Killed My Mother (J’ai Tué Ma Mère, 2009) Biographical drama. Directorial debut of Quebecois actor Xavier Dolan, which he also wrote, produced and starred in. My favourite film by him.

Kill Your Darlings (2013) Biographical drama/thriller. A murder in 1944 draws together the great poets of the beat generation. Peep Daniel Radcliffe and Dane DeHaan.

Laurence Anyways (2012) A drama that charts ten years in the relationship of a transgender woman’s relationship with her lover. Directed by Xavier Dolan.

Maurice (1987) The story of a gay man in the early 20th century. A really sweet film with bonus points for being a gay period drama that - spoilers - has a happy ending.

Moonlight (2016) (see title card) A chronicle of the childhood, adolescence and burgeoning adulthood of a young black man growing up in a rough neighborhood of Miami. First lgbt film (and film with all-black cast) to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards 2017.

Pride (2014) U.K. gay activists work to help miners during their lengthy strike of the National Union of Mineworkers in the summer of 1984. A truly feel-good movie every one should watch.

The Handmaiden (2016) A woman is hired as a handmaiden to a Japanese heiress, but secretly she is involved in a plot to defraud her. It’s been called a “South Korean Gothic Lesbian Revenge Thriller”. Just watch it. Trust me.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) A cult-classic and must-watch. Need I say more?

Rest of movies in alphabetical order under cut, with some commentary by yrs truly (me. a gay.)

Italic = Light / funny. (*)=dark, tw needed probably.

This is a bit cluttery. Feel free to ask me about any of these if you want extra info!!

A single man (I mean... if ur feeling melodramatic.)

Blue is the warmest color (overrated)

Broderskab* (Danish. neo-Nazis)

Baisers cachés (”Hidden kisses” French tv-movie)

Breakfast with Scot (liked this one a lot)

Beautiful thing (nice)

C.R.A.Z.Y. (not actually very gay. a little confusing)

Christopher and His Kind (ww2. but nice)

Cloud Atlas (gay couple r a very small part of this honestly don’t bother)

Cuatro Lunas (mexican. bonus points for gays of color)

Dear white people (incl. a black gay man who’s like... almost the mc? it’s been a while since I watched this)

Dope (I didn’t really like this one that much. think it had a lesbian best friend)

Edge of Seventeen (the 1998 one)

El sexo de los angéles (spanish. kinda boring. m/m/f)

Freier Fall (german. kinda... interesting?)

Fucking Åmål (”show me love” swedish. watched this one as a tween. lesbians)

Floating Skyscrapers (polish. Meh)

Front cover (chinese gay men in new york. not a cliché)

GBF

Geography Club

Get Real

Gods And Monsters (not very gay in itself. ian mckellen is a +)

Happy together (hong kong. kinda dark but idk)

Les Amours imaginaires (”Heartbeats”. french canadian. By & starring my fave director Xavier Dolan but this is my least fave movie of his)

Howl (if you want a film about allen ginsberg - watch kill your darlings instead. this one was weird.)

Ha buah (Israeli/palestinian romance. clearly biased towards israel)

Hurricane Bianca (really funny. stars rupaul’s drag race alumnus Bianca del Rio)

Imagine me & you (classic lesbian movie. watch itttt)

I love you Phillip Morris (heartwarming in a weird way. quite funny)

I Am Michael (really fucked up this one)

Jongens (”boys”. Dutch. nice)

Just une question d’amour (french.)

Keep the lights on (american but mc is played by a danish actor)

Kawa (gay Maori mc!!!!!!!!! really nice)

Legend (really violent. not /that/ gay, but a nice movie)

Les Chansons d’amour (french. Musical!)

Lilting (quiet. heartbreaking)

Looking: the movie (watch this after you’ve watched s1-2 of HBO’s Looking. It serves as the finale)

Milk (who hasn’t seen this one?)

My Beautiful Laundrette (oldie. could’ve been much better)

My Brother The Devil (gay arab mc. not actually v gay in itself)

Naomi and Ely’s No Kiss List (depends on how you look at it)

Out in the dark* (israeli/palestinian romance. dark. does pinkwash israel)

Patrik 1,5 (Swedish)

Plata quemada (”Burnt money”. Argentine. Heartfelt)

Plan B (spanish-language movie. interesting fo sure)

Prayers for Bobby (saaaaaaaaaad.)

Paris 05:59: Théo & Hugo (aka “theo et hugo dans le meme bateau”. French. really nice. first 20 mins are explicit sex.)

Rent (musical.)

Shelter (heartwarming)

Soldier’s Girl* (trans mc)

Sommersturm (Dutch)

The Kids Are All Right (didn’t really like this one. has that “lesbian cheats on wife/gf with man” cliché)

Those people (really nice. sad though. realistic)

The Normal Heart (AIDS. Really, really sad.)

The skeleton twins (I think this was marketed as a light movie but it was actually pretty deep and sad??)

The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love (so cute.)

The Wedding Banquet (ang lee’s other gay movie that wasn’t brokeback mountain. Loved it)

Tom a la ferme* (”tom at the farm”. dir. xavier dolan. daaaark)

Tom of Finland (finnish)

Weekend (overrated.)

Water Lilies (french. not very gay)

You should meet my son! (this one is rly cheesy but it’s also rly funny I watched it like 3 times in 2 days.)

Yves Saint Laurent (french. one of my faves ever even though it got bad reviews?)

Saint Laurent (they made 2 movies abt him the same yr. didn’t really like this one)

Quand on a 17 ans (”being 17″ French. Interracial couple. a different kind of movie)

BONUS: some documentaries :)))

L’amour fou

The times of Harvey milk

Elder (short doc) watch it on vimeo

Growing Up Coy

Matt Shephard is a friend of mine

Before Stonewall

After Stonewall

Paris is burning

Bridegroom

Movies you shouldn’t watch:

Stand (2014). weird and really bad

respire (breathe) not gay. some people liked it though

Elephant. not gay

Dream boy. so boring I could only watch like 20 mins

Private Romeo. boring unless u really like shakespeare

UPDATE: here’s a part 2 to this list!

#lgbt movies #lgbt movie recommendations #gay movies #lgbt films #filmbabes #mystuff #lgbt #1k

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perceptionsofsociety-blog · 7 years ago

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The Rot beneath Baltimore’s Glitter: A Discussion of Racial Representations in The Wire

Television, as a form of media, is incredibly impactful. As of 2009, 99% of all American households owned at least one television, whereas 66% of American homes owned three or more televisions (Isaacs, 2010). Americans fifteen and older, on average, spent 2.8 hours a day watching television (Isaacs, 2010). Since the invention of television and the advent of mass-media in the post-war era of the 1950s, television has become an increasingly central aspect to the American home, a device which supplies entertainment, news or information through reflections, reports or messages upon our society. As of July 2016, white-Caucasians made up around 73% of the American population, with African Americans being the largest racial minority, amounting to 13.3% of the population (United States Census Bureau, 2017). This paper assesses the inclusion, representation or misrepresentation of racial minorities, particularly African Americans in television dramas; specifically, The Wire. Media has become such an enormous component of American society, and thus, this paper investigates how minorities are permitted to participate in this growing industry.

This paper hypothesises that media, due to its incredible influence in the modern age, has the potential to advertise, demonstrate and lend support to minority groups whom would otherwise suffer under the subjugation of majority groups. Firstly, this paper will discuss how at face-value, The Wire could be perceived to grossly misrepresent the African American experience through its inclusion and heavy implementation of black characters filling cast-categories, such as: occupational roles (drug dealers), negatively personal characteristics (violent, sinful) and maintaining a low-achieving status (‘at the bottom’, or existing below the poverty line). These essentially allude to a mass-generalisation and misconstruction of the black experience in millennial America and highlight The Wire as a shamefully stereotypical and naïve production (Punyanunt-Carter, 2008). Nonetheless, through a utilisation of the cultural approach to The Wire, this paper intends to discuss the wholly redeeming qualities of the production in terms of racial-representations in the media. Through character and setting analysis of Omar and the urban-grit of Baltimore, this paper will continue to discuss how “the show might be the first major television serial which engaged so extensively with African American society while trying to avoid being identified as being about race” (Huffington Post, 2017). Through a critique of this program’s alleged tendency to stereotypically portray the black experience, compared to an in-depth cultural approach into its reception by black audiences and its homage to black tradition in America, this paper seeks to reach a conclusion upon media’s relationship to race through a close analysis of The Wire.

The Wire has initially been lambasted by several critical reviews for its basic interpretation and portrayal of racial minorities in type-cast formats. This paper will initially investigate the reasonings and any evidence for the misrepresentation of African Americans through their fulfilment of occupational roles, negative personal characteristics or maintenance of low-achieving status (Punyanunt-Carter, 2008). The basic assumption behind these accusation is that the repetitive casting of African Americans in these formats is not only degrading, it also limits their performance potential on screen by establishing a ‘glass ceiling’, and potentially, through observation and the cultivation theory, audiences of The Wire may begin to apply these stereotypical representations to African Americans in their real and immediate worlds, resulting in unfair and unpractical stigma. African Americans, through these factors, can appear the victim of othering, stereotyping, exclusion and assimilation (Punyanunt-Carter, 2008). Through textual analysis of The Wire and critical support, this initial section will discuss the potential failings of The Wire in terms of racial representation. Negative personality characteristics are immediately recognisable in Avon Barksdale, one of the most powerful drug dealers in Baltimore, he runs the Barksdale Organization ruthlessly, accepting nothing less than absolute power: the viewer is first introduced to Barksdale in Orlando’s Strip Club in Season 1, Episode 1. The camera pans from the ground up, framing Barksdale as if he were sitting atop a throne, misogynistically degrading the women dancing below his balcony. Barksdale’s later outrage over the foul of one of his basketball players in Game Day, S1 E9, personifies him as aggressive, ruthless and seriously lethal- he seems to possess no beneficial traits. His dialogue with the referee of the game is as follows:

Avon Barksdale: Yo ref, yo ref, yo ref... what the fuck? The boy was fouled, clear, straight up... how you going to not call that? Referee: Look, if you want I can put time back on the clock and replay it, I don't want any trouble, okay... Proposition Joe Stewart: Ain't going to be no trouble over no ball... Avon Barksdale: Man, you supposed to be the ref, right? Why don't you stand up for your fuckin' self, you pussy! You can't just let any ol' motherfucking nigga get in your face... understand? Proposition Joe Stewart: We cool? Avon Barksdale: Yeah, we cool baby, you tell your people to come up here to the park Saturday at noon. Of course, you come on the West Side again, without a ball, I'm a light your ass up.

(Simon, Wes t, Doman, Faison, Gillen, Lovejoy, Peters, 2008)

Barksdale: "I'm a light your ass up..." Game Day, S1 E9

The dialogue is coarse, vulgar, and only seems to reaffirm prevalent stereotypes in the media that black men are type-cast as not only gangsters, but aggressive. Whilst Avon Barksdale’s aggressive and coarse personality reflects poorly upon the black experience within social communities, his role as a dictating drug kingpin only fuels his proverbial phrases and linguistic clichés. The Wire falls short of opening the floor to adequate and level racial representation by casting predominantly African American men in drug-lord roles (Punyanunt-Carter, 2008). Barksdale’s role, in addition to the linguistic tropes offered to him through his scripted dialogue, entirely contribute to the establishment of rigid, racially-cast, stereotypical character representations in the narrative. Other black actors fulfil roles such as ‘the corner-boy’, ‘the man’, ‘the junkie’, and ‘the snitch’ (Coulouma, 2012), without room for adaptation or transfer. Furthermore, Barksdale admits no intention to progress, thus enacting a maintenance of low status, energy and charisma, all of which reflect badly and untruthfully upon the 13% African American minority within America trying earnestly to stand out against the persevering Caucasian majority (Punyanunt-Carter, 2008). Whilst conversing with his second-in-command, Stringer, Barksdale admits a reluctance to ‘change’, stating in Homecoming, S3 E6:

Stringer: "We could run more than corners"

Avon: "- Like business men?"

Avon "I ain't no suit-wearin’ businessman like you…you know? I’m just a gangsta, I suppose…and I want my corners"

(Simon, West, Doman, Faison, Gillen, Lovejoy, Peters, 2008).

Barksdale: "I like my corners..." Homecoming, S3 E6 The Wire

One must ask then, or consider, the effects of these representations or of the strict categorization of African Americans within the criteria outlined by Punyanunt-Carter (2008). These representations ultimately allude to a stereotypical depiction of the African American community, and individual figures prominent or evident within it. Stereotypes are, ultimately, “beliefs, opinions and representations concerning a given social group and its members. As fixed images in the collective imagination, they filter our perception of reality, disenabling our ability to effectively comprehend and categorize incidents around us” (Barthes, Roland, Paris, Seuil, 1970, found in (Coulouma, 2012) p. 46.). Due to their function as fixed parameters which we can use to reach instantaneous judgement on social communities, stereotypes can come between the process of effective identification. This is especially detrimental in cases such as The Wire, where characters are portrayed uniquely, but due to their vernacular language or actions, they appear to stereotypically represent an entire community.

The prevalence of stereotypes can prevent the true recognition or formulation of distinct identities. This conflicting tension between stereotypes and the desire for identification are paramount through Season 1 of The Wire through the Barksdale’s organisation which establishes a strictly codified gangster milieu. Cellphones are disallowed, only lieutenants are permitted pagers, and only then their identity is reduced to a number for anonymity in case of police wire-taps. These prevailing stereotypes, a lack of individualism and a fulfilment of racially typical roles in The Wire create a larger sense of exclusion, othering and alienation amidst the African American community whereby black aspiring actors, in real life, experience problems with glass ceilings, as later discussed through Idris Elba. These representations can occasionally impede upon people’s perceptions of the African American community at large. The wider implications of these prevailing stereotypes and racial type-cast roles supplied to African American men, such as the drug dealer, king pin, junkie and so forth can really limit the professional advancement of black men in the acting world. These fictional roles can have implications on real lives. Idris Elba, a British actor cast as Stringer in The Wire, discusses his casting as a lieutenant to a Baltimore kingpin as actually an advancement in terms of the roles himself, and other black actors are normally used to.

The Guardian reports that “Elba had to move to the US having seen a glass ceiling for black actors in Britain, himself saying ‘I was very close to hitting my forehead on it’, the actor argues that he was never going to be given a lead roles if he stayed in Britain, where he would have been trapped playing ‘best friends’ and ‘cop sidekick’ parts” (The Guardian, 2016). Elba has continued to fulfil lead roles in popular television dramas such as Luther (BBC), indicating a potential advancement in racial type-cast roles in response to his performance as Stringer in The Wire. Nonetheless, these advancements feel seemingly futile if the essence of stereotypical roles remain: racial roles require diversity if strong currents of change for the black community are ever to be channelled, and stereotypes consequentially broken. The danger of stereotypes and the observation of these by predominantly white audiences can be explained through The Dynamics of the Cultivation Process (Gerbner, 1976). Following the process of the Cultivation Theory, audiences whom watch more hours of television than others may likely ‘cultivate’ the information they observe on screen and apply them to their real lives. In the case of The Wire, due to the constant images of African American crime and delinquency, audience members may be led to believe ridiculous notions that “every black male is most likely a criminal” due to their heavy exposure to stereotypical or misrepresentative media messages (Davie, 2010), an effect which can lead to seriously long-term and damaging impacts on interracial relationships in American communities.

Clearly, there is evidence and an argument for The Wire’s misrepresentation of the African American community and an active endorsement of common stereotypes which have real potential to limit black acting potential or cause harm to said community. In contradiction to the prior argument, however, The Wire does not completely rely upon black characters being involved in drug use and distribution: throughout the duration of the show’s five seasons, both white and black characters contribute to Baltimore’s decline. The second season, for example, focalised on the notion that the drugs corrupting the city were in-fact coming from a group of powerful, white Europeans (Singal, 2010). This paper previously used the Cultivation Approach to criticise The Wire, whereas now, the Cultural Approach will be used to defend it. The Wire, through its depiction of African Americans, arguably contains many uniting representations which defy stereotypes and provide strength: Barksdale’s gang seemingly wear a uniform on ‘the streets’, showing they belong somewhere and represent something. Essentially, “culture is simply what human beings produce and the means by which we preserve what we have produced. The building blocks of culture falls roughly into three forms: physical, social and attitudinal” (Ott & Mack 2014 p. 52).

The following argument seeks to explore whether The Wire has the potential to represent, preserve, and memorialize African American culture. Physical culture, for example, is evident through the mannerisms and approach of black characters in The Wire. The clothes worn by Barksdale: leather jackets and printed bandannas, were for many years items of individuality amidst the black community, as Civil Rights groups such as the Black Panthers adopted uniforms to march for independence amidst a racially, Caucasian-dominant America. Many black audiences would recognise these as symbols of African American culture, and to interpret them as symbols of stereotyping could come down to a split in opinion (Ebony, 2015). Applying these physical forms of culture to society results in a celebration of social culture- we can learn more about a particular society through the individual aspects of physical culture embedded within it (Ott & Mack 2014). In many ways, the existence of drugs in African American culture is a form of memorialization for many within the community- the 1980s crack epidemic was a terrible crisis which affected black communities particularly hard, so to forget or push this notion from memory acts as both a sign of disregard and disrespect. The Wire, in many ways, memorializes and showcases the urban struggles many African Americans were forced to endure during the turn of the century. The final form of culture is attitudinal: our customs, laws and traditions reflect ways of understanding the world (Ott & Mack 2014). We can attitudinally reflect upon our approach to black customs and artefacts as discussed within physical and social cultural parameters.

From these elements of physical and social cultures gleaned from The Wire, we can distinguish the black experience from the white, and learn how in fact as a collective culture African Americans embraced what many perceived as stereotypes to be points of cultural identification. Aside from acting as a potential means of cultural exploration or promotion, The Wire also does not try to present racial lines or experiences as they were not: indeed, “in Baltimore, there is rot beneath the glitter” (Schmoke, The Guardian, 2008). Schmoke, the mayor of Baltimore in 1987, writing for The Guardian in 2008, discusses The Wire’s exposition of the reality of the ‘true’ Baltimore. Schmoke discusses that “the creators of the show…are trying to convey a message about many cities, not just Baltimore”. There is a certain importance in honestly facing up to the fact that American cities are imperfect, and representing them in such a way through television dramas is not so much incorrect on behalf of producers or characters, as it is authentic. Schmoke finalises his comments by declaring that “most will recognise that until there are improvements in national drug control policy, the war on drugs on the streets of Baltimore will yield no final victories. That is a reality that is conveyed in The Wire” (Schmoke, The Guardian, 2008). The Wire is not trying to be something it cannot be; in many ways it is an authentic homage to the struggles of the black experience within seriously neglected American cities at the turn of the century- an interpretation worlds different from that of stereotyping, othering and exclusion.

The Wire can be argued from two very separate camps. At base level, yes it depicts African American men, woman and children in what could be perceived to be stereotypically-cast racial roles. Whether they are stereotypical or not, evidence shows that through the consecutive casting of these roles, aspiring African American actors indeed begin to struggle with elements of diversity: they are soon formatted and appropriated into type-cast roles, which prove difficult to breach and thus limit room for professional manoeuvrability or progression. Furthermore, through the cultivation approach to media studies, it is possible to explain how stigma and unfair prejudices are routinely attached to African American communities in our society on a day-to-day basis. If audiences routinely watch black crime and delinquency in a popular, prime-time television drama, it is quite likely their predispositions of real-life African Americans will be affected too. Nonetheless, The Wire undeniably holds wider implications in the larger picture. It is not a black-exhibitionist program, nor an attack on African American society: white Europeans are hailed as criminals within the show too, and despite black roles appearing stereotypical, actors like Idris Elba finally achieved the break they needed through the program through their casting in a leading role, which thus helped carve the way for professional careers. In order to break the constrictive notions which can become attached when considering media and race, I feel there needs to be not only more diversity within media spheres but also a celebration and promotion of racial roles, whenever and in whatever form those roles take place.

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