#also expect some spanish clips of both episodes

[soyalexnajera]

Thanks to Them and For The Future spanish dubs were released today on Disney+ 😭💕💕

[norgestan]

i’ll make a little exception to this break i’m taking to confirm that the leaked script said exactly what happened in the clip, so i’ll safely assume that the rest is correct. because of that, i’ve wanted to translate every part that we haven’t seen on the clip, plus the one that came out just now.

take in mind that the script doesn’t detail who is saying what, when a clip ends and other starts, but i’ve done my best to decipher it. whatever i haven’t, well, i still translated the whole thing. excuse any mistakes, spanish is my first language but sometimes i can get lost with idioms. so it’s all here, under the cut. MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRETY OF EPISODE 3:

LUCAS EXTRA CLIP #1

[scoffs] K: Hi, Lucas. L: Hi. K: Long time no see, right? L: Mmm. K: Let's drink something? There's a bar right around the corner that has drinks that will blow your mind. L: I thought that you muslims didn't drink alcohol. K: Well, I do. L: Right. K: Look. There's a lot of things about islam that I don't like, okay? And there's other things that I've really loved since I was a kid. I'm keeping the ones I like. You know what you could say? That I'm a flexible muslim. L: Pfft. Flexible. And what is it, aren't you a f*g too? Or how does it work? K: When I met you, I didn't have it all clear. L: And now you do? K: Lucas, well now maybe I do. Maybe I do. But Amira doesn't know anything. Will you tell her? L: Is this why you wanted to see me, right? K: No. It isn't only for that. I really liked seeing you again. L: Come on, Kasim, you completely ignored me. And now you say you liked seeing me again. K: It's the fucking truth, shit. I had a fucking mess in my head. But no more. No more. What? Join me for a drink? L: No, dude, I'm going home. And don't worry, I won't tell any of your stuff to Amira. But you should do it. K: And so I will. Really. L: Okay. Bye.

CLIP 3

D: This is weird. Right? A: Yeah, a little bit. D: Well, do I speak first or...? A: No, no, no. I go first, yeah. D: Yeah? A: Better. [both laugh] D: Okay. A: Let's see. It's clear that we both like each other. I mean, sorry, that I like you, I like you, and you like me too. D: And I like you. A: And, well, if I were any other girl, then we could start hooking up and see how it all goes, but... I'm not like that. D: Right. A: In islam, it's the contrary. No hooking-up at the beginning and then we see how it goes and then we have sex... No. We start serious from the beginning and the rest comes behind. D: Okay. A: But I'll get it if you tell me no. We'll pretend nothing has happened and we go back to what we were before. D: Eh, eh, eh. I said "okay". You're not telling me anything that I don't know. I know you don't eat pork, you pray five times a day, and that we won't kiss on the first day. But I don't care. A: Okay, but it's not only that. D: Yeah, I figured. But if I didn't think I could handle it, I wouldn't have come. A: I've brought something with me. It's a practice that us muslims... Well, not really, no, but I do it. D: [laughs] Okay. A: And so, when we start a relationship, we make it clear from the beginning what do we expect from said relationship. And I've made a list. D: Like a contract or something like that? A: Well, it's not that huge, but yeah, something like that. D: Uh-huh. A: For example... D: Let's see. A: In relationships between muslims, there can't be physical contact. D: Not always. There can be exceptions. A: Right, yeah. One thing is to greet each other with a fist bump, and other thing is to kiss. D: Yes, I know that we can't do that until time comes by and we make it official. A: Until we get married. D: Ah. A: Some people do it super quickly, because of that, so they can have sex as soon as possible, but... I don't wanna do it like that. If I get married, because that's other thing. Because what I want to do first is... study a career. D: Okay. A: My priority: studies, that's one of the things. D: I think that's great, I mean... A: And... my kids, I want... I want to raise them on the values of islam. D: Your kids? A: Uh-huh. D: Okay. A: And for that, well... their father would have to be a muslim. D: Okay. A: So, if you and I start dating... At some point, you'll have to convert [to islam]. D: Uh-huh. A: And not because of me, not because you love me a lot and... Because it doesn't work like that. Because you want it, because it comes from you. In islam, there's no sacrifices. You do things because you want to. D: Okay, okay, okay, okay. A: You probably don't find me that cute anymore? D: Eh. Eh. I'm not blind. A: So... you already know what's there. I think I've told you everything. D: Hey, what do you say if...? Because the training starts right now. I think we should... well, think about it and give us some time... to reflect on this. A: Yeah, of course. D: So that's that. We're talking? A: We're talking, yeah. D: Eh, bye. A: [sighs]

CLIP 4

(This conversation happens between las labass girls, probably Elena and Noor) X: And so nothing, girl, this woman takes her phone and makes it like she's taking a selfie, but she was taking a photo of me, it was obvious. Y: Really? X: Yeah. Y: I hate when people do that. It's like we come from another planet or something. X: Totally. Y: You should've told her, "What? Do you want me to strike a pose?" I don't know. X: At least she didn't say "Sorry" (intentional usage of the English word). There's not a day in which people won't talk to me in English. What is it, can no one tell that I'm from Madrid? Y: It's obvious, it's obvious. X: How does it look? Y: You're gorgeous. Z: Really good. Y: Wait, you're missing a pin. X: I don't know, I really like it, but... I can't make up my mind. Z?: You don't have to make a choice. Just look at me. Y: Do you know who took [the hijab] off? X?: Who? Y: Sanem. Z?: Really? X: I saw it coming. Y?: Well, girl, come on, it's not that. But now what will happen is that people are gonna start with those comments. "Look how pretty you look now", "You did so good", "You finally broke out of your chains". X?: Totally. Y?: And all that jazz, you know? X?: And so they will look at us kinda like, "It wasn't that hard, Sanem has opened her eyes, now it's your turn." Y?: Right. Dounia?: Well, look, taking off the hijab is as hard as putting it on. X: Yeah, I already know that. I'm not criticising her, really. But the reaction from the people infuriates me, you know? And she will be criticised from every part, even muslims will say: "She didn't do it well." I don't understand why things are so difficult sometimes. Y?: By the way, everything good with Kasim, right? [everyone laughs] X?: Yeah, right? A: Dear God, you really like the gossip. X?: Dude! Y?: The gossip. A: Look, so with Kasim and I, everything's cool. We're friends and that's it. And don't trap me up like that every again. X?: Well, girl, tell that to this annoying one... D: Annoying? X?: Yeah. D: And how is that, friends? Because I've seen him like he wants to be more than a friend. A: What are you saying? No way. D: Well yes, I'm telling you. He came home talking wonders about you. And when he doesn't like someone, it's super obvious. You, come on, he loves you. I swear. Also, you like the same stuff, you have the same sense of humor. You're meant to be. Right? X?: Then maybe you found a diamond, girl. A?: A diamond how, girl? X?: Well, guys our age are horrible. And so that you can find someone who's nice and is super hot, it's like finding a diamond. D: He's super hot, he's super cute, nice, and that's what we see from the outside, but it's not only that, you know? For example, when my father passed away, he was there to take the coffin, he was there to help me and my mom to get out of that situation. I don't know what we could've done without him. He's a good guy. And when he has to be serious about something, he is. Y?: Hey, if you don't like him, it's for me. D?: Well... uh! Y?: I offer myself as a volunteer for you to trap me with him. X?: No, no, gorgeous. Kasim is for Amira, okay? We'll find someone else for you. D?: Mustafá.

CLIP 5

(This clip is a conversation between the girl squad. I can't know when a full line ends so i'll be putting the whole thing together.) That out of every person in senior year they chose you to give the speech, that's super important. No, no. But I saw it coming. It's obvious they were giving it to you, giving speeches is kinda your thing. Right, it's true. Well, I was between you and Nora. Ay, but I'm so happy. They make me talk and I won't get passed the nerves. Shut up, it's the same for me. I have to prepare really well so I don't show up and stay like this. And I don't want it either. Ay, that's so cool. Fuck, but it makes you excited, no? Pfft. Well, of course, it's the graduation. Ay! Naturally. I'm dying.

[Amira gets text message]

X: And so what are you doing then? Are you meeting up with Lucas? E: Well, I don't know, I have no clue. Because I text him and, he doesn't show up, or doesn't reply, or replies eight hours later. X?: Damn, girl, that's bad. Y: Eh! Girl, that's cool, no?

(here I don't know where a line of dialogue ends again) And what's this? It's the first year they put it up. Yeah, right, yes, it's the first year. Ay. So cool, fuck. I'm gonna get a little like Viri, but deep down, all of this makes me really excited. Naturally. Actually, this is all thanks to you. It is. I already see you in the Congress. President. Eh! I'd vote for you, eh? Uh-huh. Fuck, that's cool. Girls, I'm super late and I have to present something in class. I'm leaving now. Wait, wait! I love you. Bye. No way, dude, no way.

X: No, I won't go to class. Y: No way. Z: Alright. ?: And what's that, dude? ?: I don't know, dude, they want to look cool now or something(?). ?: But what is this doing here, dude? Now they only have to put up a stall of couscous, because other thing... ?: No way, go put those banners on their fucking country. ?: Totally, dude. (and some more filling dialogue idk how to translate ha)

CLIP 6

(This clip is probably in the association, and las labass and Kasim are there) X: You see, it's just... do you do remember the other day? Well still, you're a bigmouth, you're a bigmouth. Y: So embarrassing. X: What a bigmouth. [Speaking in arabic] ?: Have you bought pasta to your mother? ?: I bought her briouats, she loves them. Well, I love them too. ?: You love them. ?: Well, be both love them, let's leave it at that. ?: Right. A?: What are you looking at? K?: I was thinking that well, you can't show briouat. A: Right. The first and second weeks of Ramadan are good, but the third one, if you talk to me, I may be so rude it'll blow your mind. K: So you mean that you're planning that we meet each other on the third week. What's wrong? A: Come here. Hey, Kasim... the other day I had a really good time with you. I mean, it's been long since I... since I connected with someone like that and found someone so alike myself. K: That's fucking great. A: And so, Dounia tells me you also have a great time with me, and that's great because that's great. But I don't know if it's something she thinks or you really... K: What about me? A: I don't want you to think about stuff that's not there. And I wanna make it very clear now with Ramadan and all that. K: But what about me? A: I like another guy. A guy who's not muslim. What? K: Well... I also like another guy. And he's not muslim. A: A guy? K: A guy. A: And Dounia? K: She doesn't know. My family doesn't know either. A: So that means you're fooling them. K: Well, fooling them... I don't tell them everything. Look, Amira, I believe in Allah, okay? I believe in him. But I'm 19 years old. And Allah has to understand that. A: What does he have to understand? K: That if I'm 19 I get to party and get drunk and hook-up with whoever I want to. A: Get drunk? You said you didn't drink. K: I didn't say I don't drink, you assumed it. Look... You like another guy, right? A white guy. And my sister made us meet because you're single. A: Look, I don't know where you're going with that, but don't get me in a mess. K: You and I are in the same spot. You like someone else and I want to stay in my lane. Why don't we use each other? Girl, think about it. A: What do you mean use each other? K: Girl, use each other like... we use each other, fuck. It would be great for both of us, it's a perfect plan. In front of the world we pretend that we're together. You do whatever you want and I do whatever I want. You win and I win. A: You're kidding, right? K: Why would I be kidding! Think about it. A: No. I mean... How? No, no. You're crazy. K: It's a really great plan. A: No, Kasim, no. K: "No" is not thinking about it. Think about it. A: Kasim, I won't. It won't be necessary to use each other. I know that nothing will happen with that other guy, because I know it. Besides, I don't lie. I'm not like that. K: If you're good like that, then fucking great. Amira. I have to go.

LUCAS EXTRA CLIP #2

K: Lucas! Dude, Lucas! Lucas, dude. L: What do you want? K: Let's drink another one. L: Dude, but what the fuck are you doing? Why do you show up unannounced? K: You told me where you were. L: Fuck, but I didn't want... You're stalking me now or what? K: No, I'm not stalking you. I came here to tell you I told Amira the truth. L: Then good. You could've texted me that. K: Why are you acting like this? L: What do you mean why do I act like this? First, we hook-up and everything's fucking great; then, you suddenly disappear and now, you follow me like a dog. What are you doing next, go back at being an asshole? And then you'll follow me again? Fuck off. K: Do you know why I didn't call you? Because I was scared, dude. I was scared. Really scared. For me, this is super shitty. I can't upload a video to Youtube and have everyone understand me. For me, this is super complicated. Your friends are okay with this, but my environment isn't like yours. I used to go out to party and I hooked up with a guy per night. The next day, I swore to myself I wasn't gay and I wouldn't do it again. And then, I met you. And I hooked-up [with you] once, and twice, and thrice... And I wanna do it a thousand times. Just imagine my mother, what would she say about all this? Eh, Lucas? My dad passed away and I'm the only guy left. This situation is fucking shit. And my sister? How do I tell her I'm gay? Lucas, you don't understand me. L: Of course I understand you. It's not easy for me either. K: Do you know what my mother would think of all this? You don't know how much it angers me that I can't be brave and tell her I love you.

CLIP 7

D: Hi. A: Hi. D: Fuck, this looks the same like when we were five. A: Right. Do you remember that I fought you so I could be a little longer on the swing and then you pushed me? D: Of course, girl. And do you remember that one day I was pushing you really hard [on the swing] and you came back flying and got me on the face? Pum! No? A: No. D: The guy from the club came here and they took me to the ER. A: Really? D: Amy, the scar. A: Heck. D: Heck. A: Well, I kinda remember it now, it could be. It could be. D: It could be? Fuck. A: I don't know. Sorry? D: [laughs] Okay. I forgive you. Well, let's go to the point, alright? A: Yeah. D: Do you know that my parents go to church every Sunday? A: Yes. I mean, Cris has told me something like that. D: Yes. A: Yes. D: I loved going there with them. I did the catechesis, so I could do the communion. And the confirmation. A: Really? D: I went with my friends, I didn't take it seriously, but... there was something about the message that... that I liked. Until I realized that it's a lot of bullshit. A: Why? D: Well because, because there's a lot of "love your neighbor", a lot of "respect one another", but... My parents, for example, they're not tolerant. Cris doesn't even dare to tell them about Joana. A: My father says that religions, well, that islam as it is it's perfect, but it's muslim people who aren't. D: That's not true. You are perfect. A: No way. D: Yes. I remember the first time I saw you with the hijab. A: And you probably thought, "What is this crazy girl doing?" D: Well yeah, in the beginning. But then, I've been noticing, and you're, like... different. A: Well, obviously. D: I'm not talking about the hair. Look, I... I've always thought you're really... beautiful... very nice... but... you looked like every other fifteen year old girl, like my sister. But now, I see you and you're... different. But... it's a good different. I see you're more calm, more serene, more you. And then I see you and the things you do, the things you say and I think, "This is what a good Christian should be". Or a good muslim. Or whatever, because I don't care about religion. I'm not a dumbass, okay? I know it's complicated. Complicated as fuck. And that's why I made a list of the things I'll need, if we are going to date. A: Of course, yeah, it makes sense. D: And... and here it is. A: [sighs] Pfft. But, you know what you're getting into? D: Well... probably not. But... I don't care. A: I didn't scare you enough the other day or...? D: A lot. You did a good job, you did... really great, but... here I am. Right now, I would kiss you. A: And I would kiss you too.

[leverage-ot3]

notable moments from The Rundown Job

leverage 5.09

the HEART EYES in parker and eliot’s eyes as they watch hardison crack the code of the vault is my religion

- - - - -

Hardison: Kiss for luck?

Parker: Who needs luck?

confident baby

- - - - -

(Parker begins doing elaborate moves and turns to get through the lasers, quickly reaching the far wall)

Hardison: I never get tired of that

THE HANDSHAKE BETWEEN HARDISON AND ELIOT BC THEY LOVE THEIR BADASS GIRLFRIEND

- - - - -

Parker (opens a case to reveal it is full of diamonds): Oh! Bup-bup.

(Eliot snaps at Parker to get her attention)

Hardison: Eight new schools. Okay, take care, sister Agnes. (hangs up)

(Parker closes the case and gives it to Eliot for mailing as Hardison dials the phone)

Hardison: Hey, Nate, we’re done in D.C. We’re flying back tomorrow. See you.

Parker: They’re so shiny. Couldn’t I have just kept one?

Hardison: Road to redemption, Parker. Just think how good it’s gonna feel when you get that Christmas card from those orphans. Hell, we may even get Eliot to smile.

parker deserves all the shiny things

“the road to redemption” THEY CHANGE TOGETHER

- - - - -

Riley: Why’d you quit, anyway? (pushes button again)

Eliot: Started running with some different people...

(Riley pushes button again but it doesn’t seem to be working)

Eliot: Like a hacker...

(Hardison enters room and nods. Riley pulls a gun from his drawer and shoots toward Eliot, but the gun is empty)

Eliot: And a thief.

(Parker taps on Riley’s head. He turns. She is holding the clip and a bullet from his gun)

Parker: Click. (tosses clip and bullet on table)

eliot “I started running with some different people” spencer loves his partners and I adore that with my whole (whole) heart

- - - - -

Eliot: Good night.

(Parker stuns Riley, who slumps on the desk)

I’m glad they’re enabling her tasering obsession

- - - - -

Eliot (checks his watch): I’m gonna keep her alive. You guys find a way to get her out of here.

Hardison: With what? I…

Eliot (walks away): You stole a Michelangelo with tinfoil and chewing gum. Figure it out!

eliot is like bitch please you’re smarter than this

- - - - -

the way the three of them back up to each other, covering their backs ,,,

- - - - -

Hardison: This is a violation of my constitutional rights.

Vance: You’re Alec Hardison. You cracked the Pentagon servers when you were 12. N.S.A. has a file on you a mile long.

Hardison: Do they? What do they say about me? I hope they gave me a cool nickname.

Vance: Parker here... No file on you, which is...

(Parker appears to be sleeping)

Vance: Is she asleep?

Eliot: She bores easy. What do you got on us?

hardison probably does have a cool nickname

also I LOVE how they still have no clue about parker

+

eliot being like “she bored easy” 🤷🏼‍♀️ the MARRIEDNESS

- - - - -

Hardison: Y-you’re talking about stopping a terrorist attack in an afternoon. We’d need all your intel.

Vance: That truck back at the crime scene... It’s an N.S.A. Mobile response intelligence unit–

Hardison: With the Schneier cryptography system and the j-dam satellite uplink? That... I know nothing about, ‘cause that would be treason and wrong. (to Vance) Are you for real

hardison: I wouldn’t know anything about that because that wouLd Be TrEaSoN

- - - - -

Vance: So, you grab the truck... (moves to sit by Eliot) Hell... Your girlfriend’s already out of her cuffs.

(Parker sits up holding the handcuffs and tosses them to Vance)

...they didn’t deny that parker was eliot’s girlfriend. they didn’t bother to correct him because it is, in fact, true that she is both their girlfriends. in this essay I will-

- - - - -

Agent: No, I can’t let you in the truck.

Hardison: A gigabyte gone... your job, gone.

Agent: Security clearances.

Hardison: You’re not gonna let who...

Eliot: What are we, terrorists? Okay, that was my plan was to come here, show you a real badge that I somehow got, and then bring somebody crazy to break into a secure vehicle? We’re gonna move this down the block. He’s gonna spend about an hour doing spot-checks on databases. I showed you my badge. Man, here, take my badge. (tosses it to Agent) Call it in. I got to deal with this guy

it’s funny because it’s true

- - - - -

Hardison: It’s got every database... N.S.A., CIA, FBI. It’s got hard backdoors into most commercial systems, live feeds into every security camera on the grid. Man, if this wasn’t such a gross violation of our civil liberties, I would be in love right now.

they never stop calling out the government and I’m Here For It™

- - - - -

Parker: Where do we start?

Eliot: We start with getting you two on a plane out of here. You didn’t sign up for this. Trust me.

Hardison: And you? You’re going to handle this by yourself? Come on, she’s a lady, man. She needs the right touch. What you gonna do with your big punching hands... Punch the screens? No.

Parker: We agreed we all change. Better or worse, we change together.

Eliot (after a moment): What do they got on the gunman?

ELIOT JUST WANTS HIS PARTNERS SAFE

also,,, for better or worse, we change together??? BITCH THOSE ARE WEDDING VOWS

- - - - -

Parker: Do you know why you bring a cooler full of ice to a robbery? No? I do. Everything we need to know is in that basement. I’ll drive.

Hardison: Hold on.

Eliot: Exactly.

Hardison: No, hold on. (holds on to table)

Eliot: Oh, you... oh, hell, man (sits down in chair across from Hardison. the van horn honks twice and eliot looks around, fumbling) No seat belts up in this thing- (looks at Hardison) d-do you got a seat belt?

Hardison: No, uh-uh, hold the wall (holds the wall)

eliot and hardison being exhausted boyfriends at parker’s reckless driving, I love this song

- - - - -

Parker: How do you lose track of a whole laboratory?

Eliot: There’s over 200 tons of uranium missing from the United States nuclear storage.

Hardison: The air force lost a hydrogen bomb off the coast of Georgia.

Eliot: Countries are big things, Parker. A lot of secrets slip through the cracks.

wow I love knowing these things and having to live with it

- - - - -

Hardison: The Spanish flu killed 50 million people during World War I, and now somebody’s got it. (opens door)

Parker: Look, we can do this. Just treat it like any another job.

Hardison: This isn’t just any other job.

Eliot: All right, all right. Stay focused.

Hardison: I focused! That bug in there killed 50 million people! 50! And that was when the population was lower.

Parker: Now?

Hardison: Now? 150 million people. 150 million dead. Hey, we’re thieves, man, and we’re good at what we do, but this is way, way out of our league. And you expect us to go catch some psycho with a city killer? A country killer?

Eliot: You scared?

Hardison: You’re damn right.

(Hardison turns to enter the truck but Eliot grabs his wrist, holding him back)

Eliot: I’m not. I got the best thief And the smartest guy I know chasing this guy.

(Hardison looks at Parker, but Eliot grabs his head and pulls him back)

Eliot: Hey, listen to me. You’re smartest man I’ve ever known, Hardison. I need that brain to get me to him. ‘Cause you know if I lay my hands on him, it’s done. Get me to him. (lets Hardison go)

tHe WaY hE gRaBs HaRdiSoN’S fACE

eliot knows hardison is spiraling but he also knows how to get him out of it because he knows hardison like the back of his hand and knows how to get through to him

THEY LOVE EACH OTHER

- - - - -

there are so many good ot3 shots in this episode it brings me so much joy

- - - - -

parker climbs hardison like a T R E E to turn off that detonator as eliot provides counterbalance

- - - - -

Eliot: Did it work?

Hardison: I... I don’t know. I’m trying to get the phone speaker.

Vance (on phone): Move, move, move! Get to cover! Pull everyone back to the perimeter!

Eliot: Ohh! My boy! (hugs Hardison) That is what I’m talking about!

tHe HuG, yOuR hOnOR

- - - - -

they really be playing grand theft auto in this one

- - - - -

(Udall fires toward the trio and they dive for cover. Eliot and Parker look at each other and nod. Parker looks at Hardison)

Parker: For luck.

(Parker kisses Hardison, then she and Eliot nod at each other. Parker grabs the briefcase and runs off the train while Eliot runs toward Udall. Hardison goes after Parker, and Udall shoots Eliot in the leg. Eliot reaches Udall and punches him, knocking him out. Hardison continues after Parker, who stops and opens the briefcase)

F O R L U C K

also high key the look parker and eliot share? it had the same vibes as “we do the things that they can’t, won’t”

+

parker high key kissing hardison “for luck” but also kissing him because eliot can’t

- - - - -

Hardison: Yeah. Yeah, that’ll do... that’ll do it. (he pulls her into his arms) Don’t do that to me. I can’t lose you. Do you understand? I can’t lose you. Don’t scare me like that.

Parker: Yeah.

Hardison: I can’t

he loves her so, so much

- - - - -

Vance: Promise you’ll at least consider working with us again.

Eliot: I work with them now.

Vance: Honor among thieves?

Eliot: Something like that. (walks away)

something like that,,, HE LOVES THEM, YOUR HONOR

- - - - -

Vance: World can always use some more good guys.

Parker: Yeah, well, too bad we’re the bad guys

smh, “sometimes the bad guys are the best good guys”

- - - - -

Parker: You’re shot. You should go to the hospital.

Eliot: I don’t do hospitals. (drops crutch)

Hardison: I told you. He takes getting shot very lightly

he drops his crutch to lean on parker and hardison THIS IS NOT A DRILL

- - - - -

after watching this episode, I agree with y’all wholeheartedly that this was an ot3 GOLDMINE

edit: also, notice how much is written in pink (the colorcode for ot3 notes and meta). like, more than half of it. because LITERALLY ALL OF THIS IS OT3 MATERIAL

[sophieakatz]

Thursday Thoughts: My Top Ten Muppets

Listeners of NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour recently cast their votes to rank the best Muppets – an impossible decision, really. And yet, once the top ten list was read aloud on the podcast, I found myself completely unsurprised. It’s a list that made sense, a list of safe bets. It’s also an incredibly Muppet Show-heavy list, even though the competition was open to Muppets of all properties, including Sesame Street and my beloved Dark Crystal. The full top 25 list, available here, reveals that a few Sesame Street Muppets ranked in the teens, but still. We all know the top ten is where it’s at, and this top ten was neither creative nor representative. It struck me as a list of popular Muppets, not a list of the best Muppets. Most of my favorites weren’t on that list at all!

So, here’s my take on the ten best Muppets – and because I don’t believe in objective Muppet rankings, I want YOU to reblog this post and tell me your favorites!

10. Swedish Chef              

The Chef came in ninth on NPR’s rankings, and I gotta be honest, I’m on the same page with them on this one. Maybe it’s the fact that when he comes onscreen, there’s no way to predict how the sketch will end. Maybe it’s the bizarreness of human fingers on Muppet arms – and knowing that those arms indicate a frankly superhuman feat of teamwork going on under the table. Maybe it’s just the Popcorn video, which always brightens my mood. Whatever it is, the Swedish Chef is definitely tenth best.

9. Fozzie Bear

I like Fozzie. He’s an underdog, never giving up in his pursuit of fame and audience acclaim. And even though his whole shtick is that he can’t succeed – Statler and Waldorf always get bigger laughs during his bits – he objectively has succeeded, because he’s still around and making us laugh after all these years.

What puts Fozzie in the top ten for me, though, is that I genuinely find his jokes funny. Honestly. I really do. So maybe Fozzie Bear sketches don’t really work for me, but Fozzie Bear himself does.

8. Rosita

I mentioned my disappointment before in the “official” ranking’s lack of Sesame Street characters. Sure, the cast of The Muppet Show has had a notable cultural impact, but it would be a disservice to Muppetkind if we ignored the impact of their friends on Sesame Street.

I could never forget Rosita. She’s not the most popular Muppet; she’s never had a super catchy song or a roll-on-the-floor-laughing one-liner to rival the others’ success. But her “Spanish Word of the Day” segments have a permanent spot in my memory. She’s sweet, she’s sincere, and she’s an excellent friend to her more famous fellow Muppets. (And as a bilingual Muppet, she’s really hecking important – there’s an episode where she deals with some kids making fun of her accent, and it’s equal parts heartbreaking and heartwarming!)

7. Rowlf

While other Muppets have one-note personalities – see number 10 on this list above, and number 5 below – there’s also Muppets like Rowlf. He’s not an “Anything Muppet,” by any means – he’s a character in his own right – but Rowlf is a dog who rises to any occasion. He sits at the piano to bring both beautiful classical pieces and hilarious parodies to life, and it’s all music to my ears. He can be the Straight Man to more chaotic Muppets’ antics, but just one clip of “Veterinarian’s Hospital” proves that he’s got enough silliness in him to take center stage.

And all the while, no matter what role he’s playing, he’s still that chill dog I adore – calm and adorable, with that round black nose, those big fluffy paws, and those floppy ears just begging to be scratched.

6. Deethra

As much as I love the original Dark Crystal film, the Netflix prequel series Age of Resistance has one big thing going for it: its characters. The protagonists of this show draw me in and make me care, quickly and continually. And best among them all is Deet. Deethra the Gelfling – small and beautiful, kind and powerful. She cares wholeheartedly about the world around her, and that care begets a wisdom that balances out her naivete in fascinating ways.

Muppets are so often silly, and we love them for it. But Deet embodies the Muppets’ potential to tell a serious story, a potential we would be remiss to ignore.

5. Animal

Oh my god, Animal. If you want to talk about the sheer silliness of Muppets, you need to talk about Animal. There’s just no way around it. He’s loud – in both sound and color scheme. And he’s absolutely bonkers. I know every drummer has an Animal in them, and it’s likely that all humans do. We’re just not all comfortable with letting him out to play.

That’s what’s so great about watching Animal do his thing. He has no inhibitions; he is freedom, he is chaos. And he lets me feel a little freer by association.

4. Hup

I talked a bit about underdogs in the Fozzie Bear section above. There’s an essay to be written about the Muppet as underdog; it’s an essential Muppet quality. Muppets are characters you logically wouldn’t expect to succeed, but they persevere, nonetheless.

Hup is the underdog of Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance. He’s the Podling who wants to be a paladin. Dear god he’s adorable, dear god he’s funny, and dear god do you root for him (and his spoon) to save the day! Of all the characters in this show, he feels the most Muppety – and that’s why he’s higher on the list than Deet. He’s still a serious character in a serious story (when he cries… my goodness), but he’s got that classic Muppet spirit to him.

3. Elmo

You know, I just don’t get why Elmo gets such a bad rap. Is it that people think he’s annoying? Sure, he is! Muppets are objectively annoying characters – they all are. Yes, even the one you’re thinking of right now. But I fricking love Elmo. He’s joyful, he’s spirited, and he’s exploring the world around him in that carefree way only a child can – and he brings you along on that adventure! “Elmo’s World” is your world. “Elmo’s Song” is your song. Elmo’s laugh is fricking infectious. And yeah, I’m probably biased by nostalgia (my dad’s Elmo impression cracks me up to this day), but Elmo is a darn good Muppet and he deserves our respect and admiration.

2. SkekSil

On a completely different note… let’s talk about the Chamberlain. There aren’t really that many Muppet villains. There are plenty of Muppet henchmen, providing comic relief for a human actor who isn’t supposed to be seen as that much of a threat anyway. The Skeksis of Dark Crystal are a notable exception, and SkekSil, better known as the Chamberlain, stands out among them. He is evil and he is smart. I hate him, and at the same time, I am fascinated by him. He knows what he wants and how to get it, even though he’s nowhere near as strong as the other Skeksis. He is, in his own way, an underdog. He believes in himself, and he wields that confidence as a weapon, calmly explaining to his enemies why they should do what he wants. You just can’t look away. He’s an amazing character, embodying the dark side of Muppethood.

1. Cookie Monster

When my mom first shared that episode of Pop Culture Happy Hour with me, in which the hosts talked about their favorite Muppets, I first thought, “How could you decide?” And then Stephen Thompson said his favorite was Cookie Monster, and I shouted “YES!!!” out loud. Because he’s right – Cookie’s the best.

Cookie Monster is eternally funny, whether you’re five or fifty-five. Everything that comes out of his mouth is pure gold (“Why me not get royalties?”) He’s got the best songs – not only the classic “C is for Cookie,” but also “Me Want It (But Me Wait),” “Me Am What Me Am,” and the “Healthy Foods” rap. All the stuff I love about other Muppets on this list – the unpredictability, the ability to fit into any role a sketch requires, the lack of inhibitions, the confidence, the chaos, the unexpected moments of wisdom – he’s got it all. He’s irreplaceable, he’s lovable, and he’s the top of my Top Ten Muppets list.

[nothesc]

Hey there! Thank you so much for your post about Dani and that he didn't do anything wrong. I don't get the hate he gets here. They're so in love with each other and they have desires. I ask myself, is it only because Dani is a white boy? What are these double standards?! Yousef also leaned in to kiss Sana and Imane kissed Sofian... Where there the same shitstorm? People are so hypocritical sometimes, it's so sad.

Hi!!

I don't even know where to begin. I'm honestly so tired of Tumblr this season. I get not shipping Damira, I really do, but what I don't get is using any excuse to hate Dani when he hasn't done anything wrong.

People have been hating Dani since before the season even started, they were ready to hate him because after seeing Kasim on the trailer for two seconds everyone assumed that he was the love interest and Dani wasn't, when they've been hinting at Damira since s2 so I really don't understand why people were so surprised with Damira.

Still, I get that people wanted a Muslim love interest, I get that they didn't want a white guy. I honestly get that, but hate the writers don't hate the character especially because he's not just some random white dude, he's been friends with Amira since they were 5, they share a bond.

The one thing that Dani has done wrong was the Al Qaeda joke in the first clip, a month ago. And listen, I'm not entitled to judge if the joke is offensive or not because I'm not Muslim so I'm not the one that the joke is offending and if Muslim people were offended by the joke then I'm not one to say they shouldn't be offended because their feelings are valid. (Though I have to say as a Spanish girl that knows the type of jokes that are made here that if the kid was blond with blue eyes Dani would've said Nazi and if the kid was from the north of Spain Dani would've said etarra, doesn't make it okay, but I just wanted to clarify and again I'm not one to judge)

But apart from that one joke Dani hasn't done anything wrong at all. Even when he kissed Eva he wasn't doing anything wrong because it was the first episode and Amira and Dani hadn't even had a date (unlike og skam and other remakes where the yousef kisses the girl after having dates with the Sana).

And still, people keep hating him. I've seen people saying that he was toxic for texting Amira when she didn't go to practice, saying that he was a stalker for going to Amira's, saying that he was pressuring Amira to tell everyone when he was only giving her a solution because she didn't want to keep lying, saying that he's awful for taking Amira to a bar during Ramadan when we've seen Amira do that in previous seasons and she never had a problem with that and Dani didn't even drink alcohol so Amira wouldn't feel out of place, saying that Dani is a coward because he didn't stand up for Amira with his friends but then also saying that he's aggressive for wanting to have said something and that Amira doesn't need a man to defend her, saying that he's lying to Amira because he had doubts and didn't tell her when we don't even know when he talked to Rubén and even if he did he's entitled to vent to his friend and it doesn't mean he doesn't love Amira, saying that he's offensive for learning a dance for Amira that she loved and made her laugh, that he doesn't respect Amira for looking at Amira's lips on Monday's clip, saying that he's too unrealistic and that they want us to think he's a knight in a shining armor and that it is racist.

And now, the new excuse is saying that Dani should apologize for wanting to kiss Amira yesterday and that backing off is only his responsibility. First of all, Amira is the one that approaches him in the first place. They both wanted to kiss the other person, and they both back away when they realize what they're doing. And Dani doesn't even look disappointed or mad, because he knows what the deal is and he accepted it. And then he comes up with something to make Amira laugh. And I just don't get how people are criticizing that, because I think the moment was necessary to show that couples have these moments of weakness and that it's okay to have them, that it's what you decide to do about that what matters. Like imagine girls that are in Amira's situation seeing that and knowing that they don't have to be perfect all the time, that they can have moments of weakness and doubts and that doesn't mean they don't have faith because what's important is that you remember your decision and don't succumb to weakness. I think that saying that the responsibility to stop that kiss is only Dani's is a way to invalidate Amira's feelings and expect her to be perfect all the time and that's just not realistic. And like you said the almost kiss is something that happened in skam Norway, druck, France etc but somehow it only stings when it comes from Damira.

If Dani had insisted on kissing Amira after she backed off then I would've been the first one to hate on him. But he didn't. He took a step back and did something to cheer Amira up and let her know that everything is okay.

So again I completely understand that some people don't ship Damira and that they're disappointed with Kasim's plot and that they just don't like Dani as a love interest, but this hate towards him???? It's just too much and makes no sense. It's making me hate Tumblr, I'm not comfortable here anymore, I can't go in the tag because I get mad every time. I'm not saying everyone should love Damira and Dani but this hate is too much and I'm so tired.

And before someone comes at me about this post, I respect everyone's opinion and I won't get in any fight about this topic, if you people want to keep hating on a character that hasn't done anything wrong for no reason, go ahead but don't bring your hate to me.

[marksarmel]

What I’m Consuming 02/09/21

You know it’s been a long time since I’ve done one of these. I could make excuses, but they’re the all same ones you and all your friends are making about not getting shit done, and they’re all true! 

So, gather ‘round ye mongrels of media as we attempt to satisfy our primal urge to consume!

TV

Wandavision - So much good stuff! I don’t need to talk much about it because everyone else is doing it for me. Just watch it and then talk about it with all your friends.

30 Coins - This Spanish horror series started out great and stayed great…until the last episode. I still recommend watching it because it veers from camp to monster gore to pure horror fun and back again. The characters are well written and some “heroes” end up playing against expectations while others are just what they seem. It’s a good watch just reset some expectations for that last episode. 

The Head - A group of scientists and support crew hunker down in a remote arctic research station and before you know it strange things are afoot! The communications have been destroyed, people are dying and no one knows whodunnit! This is that fun genre of movies where a group of people are completely isolated and it constantly has you asking, “whose the bad one?”. Good stuff.

MOVIES

Sound of Metal - Can a movie about a metal band be introspective and even meditative? Watch and find out. Riz Ahmed paints an enthralling portrait of loss, stubbornness and what comes after. Props to the deft sound design of this movie.

Palm Springs - If you’re like anyone else in the world right now you probably need a pick me up. Watch this This time loop, comedy, love story if you want to laugh and smile. If you’ve got someone to share it with all the better.  I would love to see this movie again at a drive in with someone special.

His House - This haunted house horror movie about two Sudanese refugees hits on several levels and bursts at the seems with tension. I quickly recognized Wunmii Mosaku from Lovecraft Country, but this is the first time I’d seen Sope Dirisu. Both put on great performances that pull at the heart in both fear and sadness. Great overwhelming dread throughout!

MUSIC

Operators - Some friends recommended this other other band from Wolf Parade frontman Daniel Boeckner.  It’s full of 90’s synth nostalgia references while pushing their sound into something modern and intriguing. A good listen on a road trip with your 90’s high school friends or to bop along to while housecleaning.

Dave Grohl and Greg Kurstin’s Hanukkah Sessions - Note: I was supposed to write this in December so this is a bit outdated, but this is still a fun thing to listen to so shut up and listen). These fun covers dropping daily throughout the 8 days of Hanukkah stretch from The Beastie Boys to Drake to Peaches to Mountain’s Mississippi Queen and more. Just good grungy fun, my favorite of the bunch is Elastica’s Connected.

Y La Bamba - Entre Los Dos (Between the Two) - I stumbled across this band on Spotify through their track Ojos Del Sol. Their sound immediately grabbed me in a warm caress and lovingly held me as ones cultural mother might hold a long lost child. This is folk music, Mexican music and in some way spiritual music. It will firmly be part of the soundtrack to the journey of me discovering more about my culture and my own self.

COMICS/BOOKS

The Glass Hotel -  I finished Emily St. John’s most recent book far too quick. A plot device that finds characters orbiting around a key event only to come crashing into each other is her signature move at this point. And while things are slightly different this time around, it’s all told with such mesmerizing prose that I can’t help but long for her next book. The characters are at once real and fantastical, they’re not quite someone you know, but are more of a friend of a friend. Complicated and simple and sad and selfish and hard to figure out, in other words, like actual people.

Miles Morales Spider-Man - Book 3 - More good stuff writer Saladin Ahmed and a bevy of top notch artists, including Javier Garron, Ze Carlos and Belén Ortega. This story moves at a breezy clip and Ahmed excels at building relationships between characters, but the action seems to move along too quickly.  There’s no highs and lows in the fights scenes, an enemy shows up, a few punches are thrown, Miles quickly gets the best of the enemy. I just want to see a bit more tension in some of these scenes. Otherwise this is a fun read that add some nice bits to the Miles Morales character.

GAMES

Hades - This is a fantastic Metroidvania style game that instantly had me staying up way past my bedtime. While some may not like the repetitive gameplay I wasn’t bothered by it. I was also completely hooked by the storyline and the great dialogue. Also, the art and music is top notch!

RANDOM NOTES

I’m going to try and get one of this out every month. Wish me luck.

[talesofafangirlwithadvr]

February Picks

And just like that another month is coming to a close. I can’t believe how fast it has gone by. I’ve continued watching some favorites from last month and am sad some have come to an end. Meanwhile a bunch of shows came back from their winter hiatus, so it was a lot of fun getting back into their story-lines again.

Be prepared for spoilers once again...

SANDITON

Masterpiece’s Sanditon ended this past Sunday, here in the states, and I am jumping on the campaign that we need a season 2! It can’t end like that with so many open ended story-lines (okay maybe just one or two, but still we deserve more). 

Who would have guessed that Esther would become one of my favorite characters in this series and that’s mainly thanks to her well written character development. From the “villain” in episode 1 she grew into so much more and was such a complex character. I really enjoyed watching her story unfold. I am SO HAPPY she married Babington and his speech to her about living side by side, knowing he loves her more and just wants to see her happy. Wow....Goals. I want to see this relationship progress even more (if that’s possible) with a season 2. Speaking of things I want to see: Will Sanditon be rebuilt and how long will it take? Will there be an alternative allowing Sidney to be with Charlotte? Major twist there as their relationship doesn’t end with a happily ever after (very un-Austen like for the main protagonists). When he returned at the end stopping Charlotte’s carriage, I seriously thought he would have said he broke up his engagement, but alas. The previous episode I really wanted them together (thanks to Sidney’s speech to Charlotte when he told her his ex-fiance left and how Charlotte makes him a better person *melts* and of course their dancing scene the episode prior was amazing). In the early parts of the season, while I knew Charlotte and Sidney would be a thing-eventually, I couldn’t help but have a soft spot for Young Stringer’s character and my appreciation never truly left. I felt he was paired well with Charlotte. Such a tragic ending for him. He wanted to better himself (much like the Parker brothers) but after his father’s death he no longer will. Throughout the series, I enjoyed Miss Lambe’s character, but I agree with many reviews that I was reading that her character was kind of dropped at the end. I’m curious what her reaction will be when she finds out about SIdney’s engagement...

Thank you again, Andrew Davies. I was not expecting to like this adaptation so much.    

ZOEY’S EXTRAORDINARY PLAYLIST

The best way to describe one of NBC’s latest shows is that I feel happy and in a good mood whenever I finish an episode. (And then I’m immediately upset that I have to wait a week for the next one. I watch them too fast.) I’ve heard many people compare it to Glee and while I could definitely understand that I keep getting drawn back to Abc’s short lived Eli Stone. There Eli (played by Jonny Lee Miller) could hear people around him sing and dance, which helped him solve upcoming law cases. In this show he was experiencing a brain tumor, but so far Zoey seems all clear. Instead, a freak accident while she is getting an MRI scan and listening to music, allows for her to hear people sing (and perform) their innermost feelings. There’s still some logistics to discover like what Zoey looks like when she watches these performances (does she move around or look like she’s just staring into the air. I might be thinking into this too much...I know). We just recently found out that sometimes she can speak to others as they are happening. Each time she hears someone sing she is meant to help them with something in their life. It could be a family member, co worker, friend, or like this past week her boss. While there’s one major problem (that she has to fix), there are often multiple songs in one episode which I really enjoy. The cast is also very strong, both musically and as actors. I can’t wait to see where the rest of the season is headed!

TO ALL THE BOYS P.S. I STILL LOVE YOU

When the first film was released on Netflix about 2 years ago, I was instantly a fan. I was unfamiliar with the book, but quickly added to my TBR list. (My to read list is extremely long, so I still haven’t gotten to it. Story of my life.) I really enjoyed watching Lara Jean experience the results of having her secretive love letters distributed to her past crushes. I was definitely Team Peter and Lara by the end of the film. They were adorable. The sequel was released earlier this month and I kind of forgot about it. It felt like we had been preparing for the sequel for a bit and then I must have been watching too much Disney Plus to miss the trailer. Watching P.S. I still love you, I just missed the original film. There were parts I liked and I was a big fan of John Ambrose (and of course Jordan Fisher because he’s great), but overall I felt like much didn’t happen. Also, Lara and Peter’s relationship kind of bothered me in parts. I understand that for both of them this was the first time they were in this kind of relationship and could feel awkward about certain things (like the Valentine’s singing-gram or writing an original poem). The main part I did like about them was towards the end when he arrived at the retirement home. I don’t say this often, but I have no want to re-watch it any time soon.   

VIOLETTA SEASON 1

Speaking of Disney Plus....

In a quick month and a half I have successfully watched ALL 80 episodes of season 1 of Violetta. I feel so accomplished and know the withdrawal will happen very soon. (I just finished last night and I’ve been listening to the music a lot recently). I’m so upset that season 2 has not be released on Disney Plus yet. I thought it would be by now because the streaming service has been up for a good amount of months and this show was so popular around the world. Unfortunately, I have not been lucky with my Google searches for when they’ll release it and no luck with YouTube either (no English caption options). I’ve been hearing that season 2 is really great because season 1 did a nice job of establishing these characters and now we get to see more story-lines. I will miss the students and teachers at the Studio as well the home-life at the Castillo’s house. Throughout 80 episodes it’s understandable to love and hate several characters as you’re with them for a good amount of time. For some people it was a roller coaster, but there were a good amount that I liked pretty consistently. I am a fan of Violetta and Leon and they had some super cute moments. I think it was about episode 35 where I truly felt like connection. When Tomas left the love triangle for a bit I actually grew to like him and would often joke how he never smiled and had a Tomas face. I really liked You Mix and the introduction of Frederico. Some great songs came out of that section like Ven y Canta and Tienes el Talento, but my favorite is definitely Ser Mejor. And of course, I will always have love for Pablo. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m going to miss reading subtitles (I really do feel like I know more Spanish now). Definitely check out this show if you want something drama filled and funny at the same time. 

LEGACIES

I know I dedicated a whole post to Chris Wood’s return as Kai Parker on Legacies. (See the article here:https://talesofafangirlwithadvr.tumblr.com/post/190761328673/omg-legacies-2x12) But I still had to include it in this wrap up because once again Legacies is doing a great job this season. I was so excited to see it when it came back from the mid-season hiatus. Since the return of Wood it has gotten more of a TVD vibe than usual, which is great. I haven’t watched the last episode, but have seen a clip of Kai masquerading at the school. I am going to be very interested to see for how long he hangs around and how long it takes for them to discover him AND how Josie handles the evil inside of her. 

BROOKLYN NINE NINE

Thank goodness this show got renewed (and picked up from NBC). When it started a couple of weeks ago, I was reminded how much I missed it. I can’t get over that this is already the second season on NBC. As usual the hi-jinks of the Nine Nine have been entertaining to watch. The Jimmy Jab games were great. I loved how Hitchcock was so desperate to win that he was taking Scully’s array of pills. What an ending with Debbie! Did not think she could be capable of that. I can’t wait to see the outcome next episode. I’m so excited for a Santiago-Peralta baby. It was a great episode when they were hiding it from Charles and Adrian returned. I’ve seen the movie Memento and it is great! It was hilarious each time he was like, ‘I don’t know what that is’ and then saying ‘Finding Dory’ solved everything. I am so happy that this show was suggested for me to watch and fill my Office and Parks and Rec void. Whenever a new episode’s on the DVR I can’t wait to watch it.      

LEGENDS OF TOMORROW

And last, but certainly not least, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow has once again not disappointed me this season (I know it’s still early, but I’m optimistic). It started at the end of January following the events of Crisis and I liked how this season transitioned with all the changes (the major one being the introduction of Zari’s brother). I am really happy to see her again though and how she is having these flashes of her old life on board the Wave-rider. I can’t wait to see that reveal happen (especially because as of right now only Nate knows the ‘truth’). I love seeing Ava as a permanent part of the Legends crew and as stepping in as Captain when Sara was away. She is a great addition and I like how quirky she is since we first met her. Her and Sara are perfect. I also love Ray and Nora. Nora as a fairy godmother is fantastic. One of my favorite episodes was the one with the 80s dance. Her role in all of that was great and her realization with what she can provide for these kids. I feel like this is going to be the reason Ray leaves the Legends. I remember seeing Brandon Routh’s Instagram Post about leaving the show and this feels like the reason he will. I hope that isn’t for a while though because I am going to miss him a lot. 

Until March!   

[toujoursmiraculous]

Puppeteer 2 Reaction!

Let’s just... get directly to it. It’s very long. Adrien and Plagg in the beginning just having fun spending time together. That’s really sweet, we need more of this. Adrien can invite a friend somewhere for once :o So he calls Nino, who’s with Alya, and Alya wouldn’t go without Marinette so she has to come too, but sadly she’s babysitting Manon so 1 becomes 4 guests. But for real, Nino trying to set up Adrien and Marinette. xDDD He reacts the same way as Marinette, it’s so amusing. He, just like her, keeps saying things wrong, oops. Children see things for how they are. It’s amazing that older kids and adults don’t take this seriously. They also don’t know anything about subtlety. Manon’s questions and comments in the car... They’re stuck in a small space and she has nowhere to run. Poor Marinette. But I love how Adrien explains to Manon about why Marinette has so many pictures of him in her room. xD And how she gives him a grateful look. SHHH about the hearts, Manon! The animation in this scene. I really noticed how amazing it was when Marinette covered Manon’s ears and got upset, whispering to Nino and Alya. “Wait, Marinette wants to be alone with me?” *squeals* “Well, Marinette, alone with you? Surely not, you can’t be farther from the truth! That’s even the contrary, I would say.” “Marinette doesn’t want to be alone with me..? *shoots her a really pained look*” Wow what a big, painful fail. “Wait, she hates me?” My heart = shattered

Please Nino, quit talking!

That seed of doubt has been planted in Adrien’s mind. Oh gosh why. WHY?? Seeing Adrien sad over this huuurts. I have to say, rewinding the scene to get both conversations that were going on simultaneously was pretty neat. Especially the different angles of the same scene we got. Okay, I appreciate what Alya and Nino are trying to do for Marinette, but trying to get them alone so she can confess to him is a lot of pressure to be thrown on her last-minute! Nino and Manon are so cute aww. Marinette: *screams through the door* DON’T LEAVE ME ALONE WITH HIM! *turns around to see Adrien is like 3 feet away from her and realizes you don’t  want to be alone with him and how it visibly hurt him* Yeah girl, that’s not going to help matters. Like I get your fear, but you can’t say that for him to hear you. “Nino said...” “DON’T BELIEVE ANYTHING NINO SAID, IT’S NONSENSE!” That sigh of relief though oh gosh. Oops Marinette said too much, now she has to make it seem like she likes him, a lot, but not in a romantic way, so she says the wrong thing and now he’s sad again oh shoot. “If I’m not a good buddy, then what am I?” This moment right here was KEY. This right here is when she should’ve just taken a deep breath and be honest with him. Told him how he means a lot to her, even if she left the romantic part of her feelings for him out. Instead, she panicked and ran away, leaving him feeling bad. This shows that she’s not ready at all to be with Adrien, because she can’t even bring herself to tell him how much he means to her. Plagg’s comedic relief today. xD Just the fact that Adrien thinks he’s done something wrong makes me feel bad, and how he wants to make her feel like he’s her friend. That self-doubt of his... my boy DX Tikki’s advice is usually pretty good, but today, it’s just going to completely backfire. Adrien with such a determined look on his face saying Marinette is very important to him and would do anything to make her feel good when he’s around? So between Chat Noir’s declaration in Weredad and this, Adrien honey, why can’t you see that this is not what “just friends” do?? There’s a difference between wanting your friends to be happy and helping them, versus what you’re saying about her. Alright, so what happened was I saw the thumbnail with the kiss prior to watching the episode. I saw one second of another clip that came up where Adrien was standing there with the Clara/Laura statue behind him. I knew coming into this that Adrien was going to pretend to be a statue and she’d kiss him, and was horrified to be right. This entire scene. This whole scene. I couldn’t watch it at all the first time. I had to pause it multiple times the second time, and here we are, the third time around, and I told myself ‘you’re going to watch it without pausing. You’re going to get through it. You can DO IT’ No, I very well cannot do it. As soon as she touched his face I went NOPE and paused the video. I tried thinking of focusing on the animation and how beautiful it is. BUT NO I CAN’T DO IT. I just started screaming “WHY?!” in English, Spanish, French, and Chinese. The only way I can get through it is by pausing every few seconds and screaming in multiple languages. She just... has to say those things....and touch him... and plucked his hair and put it in her bag. WHY MARINETTE, WHY??? You didn’t even know it was Adrien! You know what? Give a round of applause to Adrien for not bursting into laughter, because nobody would keep a straight face and remain still like that through this.

I actually went into a rant with my sister because I just can’t... believe this is real. Both shouldn’t have done either of these things. He shouldn’t have pretended to be a statue, she shouldn’t have ever done something like this in a public place. Adrien apologizing for it and Marinette being upset and lightly pounding on his chest about it not being funny at all. This scene, despite what just happened, is so cute and like something I wouldn’t have expected to see in ML for some reason. xD It’s interesting that he says that after all the time he’s spent with her, he still doesn’t know how to be a good friend to her. He keeps thinking he’s doing things wrong and that’s why she acts the way she does, when in reality it’s the exact opposite. He’s so hard on himself about it because she’s so important to him. After a brief intro to Puppeteer and Alya/Nino being affected by the akuma, we have to go back to serious Adrienette stuff. *deep inhale* Adrien wants to know if everything she said serious. This was the absolute best opportunity to just say “yes” and then she could explain if she wanted. Really the only time Marinette lies to people, other than to get away from a situation to become Ladybug, is when Adrien asks her about her feelings. Having to lie about getting away to become Ladybug is inevitable, but this... this needs to change. Please, if it ever comes up again where Adrien asks her about her feelings, she has to finally admit it. Please. Please please! Every time Adrien and Marinette are in a situation where they’re being attacked, Marinette always just freezes and Adrien swoops in and protects her. Every. Time. This was so Chat Noir though, c’mon Marinette! The animation is just so GOOD I can’t get enough of it! Marinette: Be careful! Adrien: *fending of wax Hawk Moth with an umbrella* Don’t worry about me! Literally 10 seconds later, Ladybug rescues Adrien. Adrien: *runs to hide* Literally 10 seconds later, Chat Noir plops down next to Ladybug. GUYS DO YOU NOT FIND THAT WEIRD AT ALL, CONSIDERING YOU’RE ALONE AND THE AKUMA ISN’T PUBLICLY BEING BROADCAST, THAT YOUR FRIEND RAN OFF AND SECONDS LATER YOUR PARTNER SHOWS UP? Ladybug informing Chat that Puppeteer has returned. But the only way she’d know that is if she put together that it was Manon’s voice that came from the speakers, like Marinette and Adrien did. Seriously, are these coincidences ever going to add up?? Chat almost kissing a statue xD Thank goodness he was still aware enough to smell that it wasn’t Ladybug. But if he knows how she smells, does he not notice Marinette smells the exact same way? And earlier, Marinette noticed how Adrien smells. Does she not notice Chat Noir smells the same way either?? Now we have SMELL becoming a part of this! I also appreciate the advice Chat gave Ladybug when she wondered how he was able to say things expressing how he feels about her so easily. “Only one cat can ask for her hand.” OMG Chat! Okay okay so Marinette and Adrien are apologizing. Marinette said she’s sorry for kissing the statue, if she had known it was him she wouldn’t. But earlier to cover up her feelings, she said she knew it wasn’t him. So um.... Now he explains about why he did it, and she lets him know of course she wasn’t upset with him, he asks if they’re friends then, and she says of course they are! It looks like a cute and happy ending to the episode that’ll put a smile on your face and make everything earlier not seem as bad. And then, because Marinette says they shouldn’t joke anymore when in doubt, he has to add on that the girl he loves says that a lot too. *defeated groan and sigh* THINGS WERE GOING SO WELL. But it’s only fair she knows now. He knows Ladybug loves someone else, now she knows Adrien loves someone else. I think this is what Marinette needed to hear to let go of him quite a bit and just have him as a friend for the time being. But gosh this sucks. He has to know she’s upset now, right? And that she was fine before he blurted that out? Can he piece it together later, please???? She’s so upset she didn’t even say goodbye. She just says “Yeah” and shuts the door. This is angst. This is the start of angst that I didn’t know this show would give us. “I think life can give you a lot of surprises, Marinette!” That’s true. And she would know what those surprises are (: I’m glad she had the same reaction of being positive despite being told your crush likes someone else as Adrien did when he found out. c: Nice parallel. “Maybe... it’s a ridiculous first kiss, anyway.” Girl, you don’t even know. This episode... this episode was so serious. It felt more like I was watching an Asian drama or something as opposed to ML and I honestly really like that? It felt more realistic and not rushed, and it covered issues (but one’s still lingering and I’m sure will be mentioned later) that have been hanging around for awhile. If production order is about chronological order, then it will likely be a long while before we see anything that’s to take place after this. Despite how cringey Marinette’s statue scene was, this really showed that she’s not ready to let him know yet, she has to change something. And that change will be brought on because Adrien loves someone else. She’s going to be made to step back and respect Adrien and who he loves, which will help her get over this obsession she has. She really needs to do this, and as hard as it was, this is what was needed to happen.

[minervacasterly]

History behind the Spanish Princess: Arthur Tudor - The King that was Promised but Never Was Part 2 In the novel "The Constant Princess", Prince Arthur and the Spanish Infanta, Catalina de Aragon share a passionate relationship. While the miniseries isn't likely to show this less konwn aspect of their relationship to instead focus on the turbulent years of the aftermath of his death, which placed Catherine in a political limbo; this fictional representation isn't off the mark given the surviving correspondence between the two of them. A few years prior to their actual wedding, the two pre-teens had been to write to one another, expressing their eagerness to meet. In the novel, Arthur is shown quite arrogant, seeing Catherine as a spoiled brat while she in turn, chides him for what she considers reckless boasting. Little did she know at the time, that his recklessness would have terrible consequences for her marriage to his mother and the future of her daughter, Mary I. But as it has been stated, none of them could have foreseen these things. The novel does have supernatural elements and takes a big leap of faith by going to the opposite end of the spectrum regarding their alleged consummation. To answer what might have happened (a big emphasis on the "MIGHT-HAVE" here) Amy Licence gives a great explanation in her respective biographies on Catherine of Aragon and the other wives of Henry VIII. I won't spoil it, as I think you need to read both books in order to understand the full context of "the Great Matter"; but I will say as a mild spoiler that out of all the books that have addressed this topic, no one does it better than her. If Catherine and Arthur did face some marital problems in the beginning, these might have easily been resolved given their main objective: to strengthen the alliance betwen their respective kingdoms. Unlike other young royal newlyweds, Catherine and Arthur had a rigorous upbringing, with a strong emphasis placed on their education. Isabella I had the typical education that other Princesses had, but she always lamented that she wasn't taught the same subjects that her brother and half-brother were. Not wanting her daughters, who had bright futures ahead of them, to miss on these opportunities, she hired the best tutors for them. Catherine was taught by the best that Spain had to offer. One of them happened to be Beatriz de Galindo, a Spanish Humanist who was one of two women, who led the Spanish Humanist movement. Similarly, Arthur was taught not only to take pride in the medieval romances and other folklore that formed part of English identity, but to also acknowledge the contributions of classica Greek and Roman philosophers which had influenced Christian doctrine. While Arthur's reign belongs in the realm of alternative history, it can be inferred that had he lived, the first years of his reign would have been imbued with the same kind of intellectual and artistic patronage that characterized Henry VIII's. Additionally, if Henry VII died in 1509 as he did historically, he and Catherine would have been married for over seven years which would have given Arthur plenty of time to sire children. With the Tudor dynasty and her position secure, Catherine would have enjoyed the eternal position of Queen of Hearts, ruling by his side not as a passive consort like his mother, but an active one. Despite the ill reputation that Margaret Beaufort has acquired over the years, at the time of Arthur’s marriage, Margaret Beaufort was seen as another ideal role model for young women. As the years progressed, Arthur would have seen in Catherine, the merge of these two feminine ideals, which would in turn, place her in a position of power and influence by the time the two became King and Queen. The series will premiere today and some who have Starz on demand might have already seen it. If they have, I hope they can entreat us so we can know what to expect in future episodes. As it’s been stated before, Henry was the handsome, athletic, intelligent young man we saw in the clips but his brother wasn’t far behind. If there was ever any proof that these would have been the likely outcomes of Arthur’s reign, it’s in the wedding pageantry. And since this was the wedding of the century, Catherine dazzled the spectators by being the first royal bride to wear white. Before Queen Victorian made this a popular fashion choice for brides, Catherine and Arthur astounded the crowds by wearing matching colors of white and gold. And they weren’t the only ones. Henry VIII, who was ten at the time, was also clothed in similar attire. The young couple were cheered by hundreds of spectators gathered outside St. Paul’s Cathedral. Catherine’s reception two days before and the endless celebrations that followed during and after their wedding, were meant to be seen as a sign of things to come. Several plays showed Arthur as the epitome of knightly and saintly virtue and Catherine, as a saint and chaste maiden who upon his coronation would become his most trusted guide. Arthur wasn’t only a scholar and king in the making, he was also a sport enthusiast. Sure, there is still the issue of his boasting about how he had spent his night in Spain to all of his friends but can you blame him? He was the crown heir after all. Since it would be years before he could prove his worth in the political arena, he had to settle for proving his manliness in the marriage bed. As you can expect from a teenage boy with a reputation to uphold and eager to impress his friends, he talked bombastically about his wedding night. This unexplored aspect of Arthur is probably not going to be explored in the miniseries. If it is, then good for them. Arthur deserves more than just to be a foil for his younger brother. Sources: Lost Kings, Catherine of Aragon & Six Wives and the Many Mistresses of Henry VIII by Amy Licence; Henry VII by SB Chrimes; The Story of the Tudor Queens by Ronald Hui and Prince Arthur by Sean Cunningham.

[michelles-garden-of-evil]

Episode 1 Review, Part II: Jacques’ Vintage 1630s Wedding Party

I meant to post this on Halloween, but this post took much longer than expected and I was too tired from work yesterday to write. So happy belated Halloween to anyone who is reading this and I hope that you find it interesting.

In my review of Episode 1, I wrote that I wanted to analyze the flashback from the episode in a separate post “because, despite being only a minute and a half long, there is a lot to unpack and I want to critique the costumes in addition to analyzing the content.” I am publishing this a little later than I originally intended (as the first part of this review took longer than I expected to write), but I don’t think that anyone minds.

Unlike the more famous Gothic soap opera Dark Shadows, which ran extended flashback arcs that lasted months, the flashbacks on Strange Paradise all lasted only a scene each and were infrequent. Maljardin had only three (although Ian Martin had planned at least one more (spoilers)), and the first half of Desmond Hall had none. Desmond Hall Part II had a lot, but none of them were costumed if the screencap slideshows I’ve seen from them are any indication. (I haven’t seen any episodes from 131 onward yet save some short clips, because I don’t currently have access to them. I have, however, read the synopses of 131 through 160 on this website and 161 through 195 on this old Yahoo! Group and looked at all the screencaps I could find, so I’m at least familiar with what happens and what the characters look like in the final arc.)

So let’s look at the first flashback, shall we?

Flashback

The flashback opens at a ball on Maljardin at some point in the late 1680s, with Jacques drinking from a huge red goblet while cheesy fake harpsichord music plays in the background. “Zounds, mon cher Jacques des Mondes,” a man in a beard and very obvious wig teases, “you are a poor chevalier! You marry a young beauty like this, but stand off in a corner drinking by yourself. That’s damned unchivalrous!” (I was about to write, “He might have said ‘monsieur‘ and probably meant to, but the guy’s French pronunciation is so bad that he honestly could have said either one.” However, I just pulled up the script to this scene* and discovered that he does indeed say “mon cher.” So I was right the first time.)

Madame Huaco des Mondes and Bad Wig Guy.

“And unromantic,” Madame des Mondes (Patricia Collins) adds, fluttering the feather fan she is holding despite Jacques obviously not paying attention to her. According to Episode 6, her first name is Huaco and the original draft of the script that I linked to in the last paragraph indicates that she “might be an Inca princess.” (The first two Paperback Library novels confirm this. while the third mistakenly calls her an Aztec princess.) Presumably, this means that she is of Inca royal blood and would have been a princess had the Spanish not defeated the Inca Empire in 1572, more than a century earlier. Or, alternatively, it could mean that Chevalier of Worlds Jacques traveled back in time to marry her, perhaps using the des Mondes family’s magical clock that is mentioned in a later episode.** There is also the possibility of a critical research failure on the writer’s part, but I love this show in spite of all its glaring flaws and so I want to try to justify this blatant anachronism.

Jacques--who is still clearly uninterested--approaches her and kisses her hand. “You do me wrong, my pigeon,” he says, comparing her to the likes of Speckled Jim. “To question your husband’s devotion?”

The newlyweds. Huaco looks really pretty in this shot, and Jacques is dashing as always.

“How could I not, when my eyes see your eyes on every woman in the room?” I’m not sure who talks like this. Presumably it sounds more natural in Huaco’s mother tongue. Either way, this is the first indication that Jacques is a womanizer.

“To compare, my dove,” he responds insincerely. “Your loveliness. So far above theirs.”

“Is it then my turn to bed?” she asks, grinning widely in a questionable acting decision that pushes this flashback to David Wells levels of so-bad-it’s-goodness. How many women has he bedded already on what is presumably their wedding night? Or before, to her knowledge?

Jacques, however, has other ideas: “First, let me show you the cliff heights at sunset,” he says, leading her outside. “And then my undying love.” This is followed by Bad Wig Guy laughing about the bed being in the other direction (when Jacques clearly said that he was going to show her the cliffs first), then the close-up of his smouldering face from the last entry, which seems to imply that he at least was contemplating pushing her from the cliff. I, however, doubt that he pushed her that day, considering that Bad Wig Guy’s dialogue implies that he just got married and that this is his wedding ball, and, by the time of the next flashback, Huaco (who is still alive then) has given birth to Jacques’ heir.

Costumes

Ever since I watched this show for the first time, I have wanted to take the flashbacks from Episodes 1, 6, and 20 and give them the Frock Flicks treatment. I’ve even thought about requesting a real Frock Flicks review of the flashbacks, but I fear that they’d judge the show too harshly, especially given the complete absence of the late 17th-century full-bottomed wigs they love so much. I, on the other hand, find full-bottomed wigs ugly, so I don’t mind their absence. In fact, I don’t really mind the absence of anything even remotely resembling what a French nobleman like Jacques Eloi des Mondes would have actually worn in the 1680s, because I’m not fond of most men’s fashions from the Louis XIV period.*** (If you are fond of them, good for you! There’s nothing wrong with liking periwigs or anything else that was fashionable in the Louis XIV era; they’re just not my taste. I prefer men’s styles with no/more naturalistic wigs and a broad-shouldered/narrow-waisted silhouette.) Nevertheless, I shall try to review the costumes as objectively as possible--and I shall try to keep it brief, because the amount of time I have already spent writing about Episode 1 alone has gotten me seriously questioning my life choices.

In late 17th-century France, fashionable dress for men consisted of a long coat called the justaucorps which reached to around knee length, a vest of equal length underneath, silk stockings, a lace cravat tied at the throat (sometimes with a ribbon to hold it in place), and an enormous long, curled periwig which, from 1675 until the 1690s, increasingly featured curls piled high on the crown of the head. Judging by this series of engravings of Louis XIV, who set the fashions of the era, noblemen’s justaucorps cuffs were often huge with voluminous shirt sleeves underneath. If you want more images of real 1680s men’s fashion, see this gallery on Kipar.org or this category and its subcategories on Wikimedia Commons.

Obviously, this style bears little resemblance to the clothes that Jacques and Bad Wig Guy wear, which are clearly patterned after styles from their grandparents’ generation. They most closely resemble the clothing popular in France in the 1630s, particularly post-1633 when Cardinal Richelieu passed an edict outlawing excessive decoration. (Source: Tom Tierney, Jacobean and Early Bourbon Fashions, p. 31.) Compare their outfits to that of Henri II de Guise (the grandson of that Duc de Guise) or this unnamed courtier. Obviously, there are some differences, most notably the higher waistline and the sleeve openings on Jacques’ doublet being on the outside of the sleeves instead of the inner seams like they are in every painting I’ve seen from this era. Jacques also has a massive baldric (the belt over his shoulder, which noblemen of the era used to hold their swords) compared to the men in the period images linked to above. But the aesthetic overall is very 1630s-esque, and it may be that Jacques and his friends are into 1630s vintage. ;)

From Episode 20, carefully cropped to avoid spoilers. Jacques’ baldric is much wider and his waistline a few inches lower than that of Henri II de Guise or the courtier in the Bosse engraving. For some reason, he wears a baldric but not a sword, which is weird.

As for their hairstyles, they are not historically accurate. Jacques’ hairstyle is just a messier version of Jean Paul’s 1960s combover and not 17th century at all. Bad Wig Guy’s bad wig is about the right length for the 1620s (see here and here), but not curly enough. It goes without saying that neither one resembles a late 17th century periwig in the least. (Thank the Great Serpent! *makes wavy hand motions in air*)  Bad Wig Guy’s beard is a very early 17th century style that I associate with King Henri IV of France, who died in 1610. It is also very much not the aesthetic of the Louis XIV period, when most men either shaved or wore a small mustache.

The best screencap I could get of Huaco’s dress.

Huaco’s outfit also bears little resemblance to 1680s French women’s dresses. In that period, fashionable French noblewomen wore dresses called manteaux that were cut in one piece (as opposed to as a separate bodice and skirt) over petticoats and conical corsets designed to push up their breasts. Necklines were low-cut and did not have collars, in contrast to styles in the first half of the century. (Source) In the late 1670s, Louis XIV’s mistress the Duchesse de Fontanges invented the fontange, a style that consisted of curls piled on top of the forehead and topped with a distinctive ruffled headdress. Here is a good engraving showing the style. See also this gallery on Kipar.org and this one on WIkimedia Commons.

The most noticeable differences between Huaco’s dress and the actual fashions of 1689 are (1) the lace collar and (2) the separate bodice and skirt, with tabs on the bodice. Both of these are more characteristic of English styles from earlier in the century, particularly circa 1630-1640. Compare the screencap of her dress above to this 1632 painting of Queen Henrietta Maria of England and her daughter Mary’s dress in this 1640 portrait (no tabs, but otherwise very similar). Also, I don’t think that she is wearing a 17th-century-style corset underneath, because her torso is not a rigid conical shape and her breasts are in their natural position. So, in short, more vintage 1630s for Madame des Mondes.

Her hairstyle is...fascinating, to say the least. It appears to consist of a bouffant decorated with large faux pearls and white ribbons and/or strings of more faux pearls, with tight curls around her face, pigtails resting on her shoulders and some loose hair hanging from the back of the bouffant. The decoration may have been inspired by images of early fontange hairstyles like the one from 1682-83 in the center of the first row on this page, but it does not resemble the more common fontange look. While there are some examples of beehive-like hairstyles in 17th century paintings with a similar shape (take Anne of Denmark for example, or the Spanish lady in this Velázquez painting), they are from much earlier in the century and don’t involve pigtails. Her makeup is definitely 1960s and not even close to any authentic 17th-century European looks, which rarely used noticeable eye makeup.

The best view that I could get of her hairstyle.

I think that Huaco’s bouffant may have been intended to imitate a head shape created by artificial cranial deformation, which the Incas practiced at least until the Spanish outlawed the practice in 1585. (More evidence, perhaps, for my “Jacques traveled back in time to marry Huaco” theory?) Alternatively, she could just have a bouffant because the pilot was filmed in the 1960s and TV shows and movies back then tended to put bouffants on characters in inappropriate historical periods. But I like my theory better, so I’m sticking with it.

In conclusion, the costumes in the flashback are a loose hodgepodge of styles from the early to mid-17th century, with some elements that are not from the period such as Jacques’ and Huaco’s hairstyles and Huaco’s makeup. I’m not certain whether the costume designer knew or cared that the styles weren’t even remotely accurate to the 1680s. Even so, I am only slightly ashamed to admit that I prefer this loose adaptation of 1630s men’s fashion to the styles that Jacques would more likely have actually worn were he a real person in 1689.

With this post, I am done writing about Episode 1, save perhaps to post more screencaps. My post about Episode 2 should be up sometime next week.

Notes

* This link is part of a series of webpages comparing the original draft of the pilot script to the final screenplay for Episode 1. Bryan Gruszka, the author of StrangeParadise.net, has some interesting commentary about it.

** Episode 60, to be exact (which was written by Cornelius Crane). Why the writers never did anything with the magical clock idea is beyond me.

***Now I feel like a hypocrite for making fun of the men’s “Elizabethan” costumes on A Discovery of Witches on my other blog for the lack of ruffs and trunk hose, when I have less of a problem with the historically inaccurate costuming on Strange Paradise. (Still, there is a huge difference between a modern high-budget drama based on novels written by a professional historian and a low-budget soap from the 1960s hastily thrown together to compete with Dark Shadows. One expects historical accuracy from the former but not the latter.) While Colin Fox probably would have still looked cute in a full-bottomed wig and 1680s justaucorps, I prefer his vintage 1630s(-esque) outfit.

{ <-- Previous: Episode 1, Part I   ||   Next: Episode 2 --> }

[skammovistarplus]

Culture and Translation - S01E09

SKAM+ Clip 4 will get its own post because it’s a fairly long clip and also really dense in terms of content. For now, let’s all marvel as Eva’s life goes fantastically off the rails. 

CLIP 1: “Now I have really shit the bed,” Eva says. But that bed will be further soiled soon.

Yo soy Lara y le parto la cara, pero mucho más. Se ha quedado corta (“If I was Lara I’d smash her face harder. I mean, that wasn’t enough”): “Partir la cara” literally means to “break Eva’s face in half,” like you would with a cinder block if you were a martial artist. “Quedarse corta” means that, in the speaker’s opinion, Lara didn’t go far enough and further violence would’ve been socially appropriate in order to make things even between Lara and Eva.

La sueltita (“the trollop”): “Sueltita” literally means “loose,” but the suffix “-ita” makes it a diminutive. So the speaker is calling Eva “loosey,” if that were something you’d say in English.

Ahora sí que la he cagado bien (“now I have really shit the bed”): The literal translation would be something like, “Now I have really shat it out but good.” Don’t mind me, I just enjoy every instance of poop-related language.

El mierda seca que lo ha soltado todo (“the shitstain who ran their mouth”): “Mierdaseca” is literally dry turd, lol. So the literal translation is, “The dry turd who let it all out.”

CLIP 2: Shitting the bed, pt. II

It’s really hard to make out what the boys are saying in this scene. Lucas does say that they (presumably his parents) “están hasta los cojones.” As I’ve mentioned before, “cojones” is the rudest way you could talk about somebody’s balls. It is a lot ruder than saying “balls” in English, but there’s no real good equivalent in American English.

¿Te crees que soy gilipollas? (“Do you think I’m a moron?”): “Gilipollas” is a dual purpose swear word in Spanish. It can either mean “asshole” or someone so dumb that it’s a wonder they can walk and breathe at the same time. It is not ableist language, it has never been a scientific term for people with intellectual disabilities.  

¡Yo no he dicho una puta mierda! (“I haven’t said shit!”): More specifically, Lucas says he hasn’t said “fucking shit.” 😂

Es que me parece flipante (“I’m tweaking out”): Again, Eva uses “flipante,” which is the adjective form of “flipar” (to trip, in a drug sense). Since Eva is having all these (completely wrong) epiphanies right now, I thought I’d do her one better and phrased it as “tweaking out.”

¡Es que me la suda! (“I don’t give a shit!”): Okay, so when Spaniards really, really don’t care about something, we say that whatever it is we don’t care about “me suda la polla” or “me suda el coño.” This literally means that thing you don’t care about is… sweat dripping down your dick, or your pussy, depending. So. Yeah. That’s how little Lucas now cares about Eva’s opinion of him. Sweat off his dick. For the record, yes, this is a fairly rude thing to say, but as you might’ve gathered from these posts, and just from watching Skam España… We use this idiom on the daily. It’s shocking coming from Lucas, but only because he uses it as a Precision F-Strike, not because it’s any stronger than the way the characters usually speak.

CLIP 3: Squad no longer

¿Esto no sera verdad? (“This can’t be true?”): So, right away, Viri has a belligerent tone, and also asks Eva this question. The literal translation is, “This isn’t going to be true?” As in, “this had better not be true, sis.” So Viri puts Eva on the spot with her opening line.

I think the Skam España crew should’ve waited a little longer before shooting this scene, lol. Unless Viri was tagged on one of the pics, there is no fucking way she’d have seen the hate ig unless she was present when it was created. It’s only been three minutes since the pictures were posted.

Ya son ganas de meter mierda (“You really have to be a shit stirrer to pull this”): A more literal translation would be, “You gotta be eager to shit stir.” I reworked it so the meaning came across more clearly.

So I guess a good question is, is what the girls did and said in this clip true to Spanish teens? I think that’s a very complicated question, but worth asking. Obviously, it depends on the person. Viri has her own character arc that we’ll deal with through subsequent posts. When it comes to Amira and Cris, though, my take is this. Spaniards will go hard for a friend. Amira and Cris have needed to be held back from telling Inés what’s what, if not outright fighting her. But, if you go so hard for a friend, you expect reciprocity. You don’t expect to have the rug pulled from under your feet, which is the way Amira and Cris feel. If Eva had told them about her history with Inés beforehand, there’s a chance they’d have told Inés to get over it and fuck off. Eva just didn’t give them the chance to process the info and then make the choice to defend her.

CLIP 4: We’ve reached peak Youth’s Daughter

It took me a while to decide whether I wanted to use “copying” or “cheating,” and it was a total waste of time, because I clearly should’ve gone for “cheating” and not “copying.”

How many remakes have used Youth’s Daughter at this point? It’s even on the soundtrack of the movie Lisa Teige starred in, Battle. Hopefully the remakes avoid song fatigue in the future, although some artists, such as Billie Eilish, Troye Sivan or Mona Haydar, seem almost compulsory.

CLIP 5: Puns are a translator’s nightmare

After squinting at Eva’s exam for a good while, I feel pretty confident about saying that the high school is named after Margarita Manso. Margarita Manso was a painter and general eschewer of rules. It’s worth noting that she was close friends with Federico García Lorca, who was killed by fascists during the Spanish civil war. García Lorca stood accused of being a socialist, a freemason and a homosexual, and was executed. His body has never been found. However, Margarita Manso also married a fascist, Alfonso Ponce de León, who was himself executed by the faction supporting the government. Here’s a pic of Margarita:

No, that’s not the actual name of the high school where they shoot the show. As mentioned elsewhere, Spanish fans can be very intense and it’s in the cast’s best interests to avoid a Nissen situation.

Lucas was not done with that exam, lol. And Eva wasn’t even close to finished, yikes.

Nora sings Lo Malo to Eva. Lo Malo was written by Brisa Fenoy and performed by Aitana (again!) and Ana Guerra. Since the lyrics are a key element of the scene, they’re included in the subs. I just want to explain some of the puns in the lyrics.

Tira porque te toca a ti perder (“Roll because it’s your turn to lose”): “Tira,” in this context, would mean “get out of my face,” but also, “roll the dice.” So, roll the dice because now it’s your turn to lose, but also, get out of my face, I’m over your shit. I hope “roll” helped convey both meanings.

Tiro porque me toca a mí otra vez (“I roll because it’s my turn again”): Another pun about rolling dice. I’m rolling the dice, because I got a second roll of the dice, but also, I’m leaving because I got rid of you, and this time it’s about me.

Pero si me toca, toca, tócame (“But if it’s my turn, touch-a, touch me”): “Toca” can also have several meanings. In this case, it can either mean that it’s my turn (“me toca”) or begging to be touched/stroked/caressed (“tócame”).

As for whether Lo Malo fits the role Baby played in the original… First off, I have to say that William, in that scene, is styled to look like Baby-era Justin Bieber, what with the hood pulled up. Julie Andem is making a connection between the music Noora is embarrassed to listen to, and the boy Noora is ashamed to find hot. There’s nothing embarrassing about liking Aitana and Ana Guerra as artists, per se, other than they got their start at a talent show and dueted on this song because they were contractually obligated to do so. That said, the lyrics fit Nora and Alejandro thematically and, on top of that, the song was really. Seriously. Incredibly. Overplayed in Spain in the summer of 2018, much like Baby was in its time.

Lo llevo muy jodido (“I have a fucking F in it”): I fought with this line so hard, and even as the episode was rendering, I knew I would regret my choice. Alejandro is also making a pun. He says he’s been consistently getting bad grades in English, but he also means that all his efforts to hook up with Nora have failed. There isn’t really a good translation for his line, but if we ever fix our subs, I’d go with, “I’m fucked, if I keep this up.” Or something akin to that!

CLIP 6: Queen Lara

“Hey, dude, give me a sip.” Why did I sub this line? Because it was oddly clear, and it just… seemed like I should… 😬

Tú sabrás el rollo que te llevas con tu novio (“Whatever deal you have with your boyfriend, that’s up to you”): This is one of those lines that took me a while to settle on a translation for. I’m happy with the line, but I’ll expand on what Lara means. She means to say that Eva’s relationship with Jorge is not Lara’s business. When it comes to the part that affects Lara, she doesn’t blame Eva, and fully blames Cristian. Whatever led Eva to kiss Cristian, and whether that’s something Jorge is cool with or isn’t, Lara thinks it’s not her place to judge or speak about.

I think it’s kinda funny that the fandom is chill with Lara reading Cristian’s texts and not regretting doing so, despite the show making it clear that’s not kosher, but thinks Viri is an asshole for posting the Cristian/rando pic (which the show also looked down on when it was the hate ig doing it, to be clear).

CLIP 7: Kicking Eva when she’s down

You don’t know how much I want to know where those stairs are.

Y habíamos quedado (“And you were supposed to come to the party”): Eva says she and Jorge “habían quedado,” which as I explained last post, means they had arranged to meet. In this case, they had arranged that both Eva and Jorge would party at Nora’s. So, not the exact translation, but the best option, given how vague the original sentence is.

Si Quieres Volver by El Imperio del Perro is the song which closes the clip and plays over the credits. I translated the lyrics that are used on the show:

You should understand That I’m in deep shit Any decision Smells bad where I stand

And now I’ll carry The shame on my back And I’ll be yet another person Who’ll apologize wordlessly

Tell me if you want to get back together (5x)

It’s so simple To ruin everything And watch as it burns

Something forces me to go on and Enjoy when it leaves I felt the need To jump in the well There was something else, I couldn’t see it

Tell me if you want to get back together (10x)

Social media:

Some people watch Skam and the remakes without keeping up with the social media aspect of the show. In general, I feel like you can watch Skam without the social media, and not miss anything of importance. But if you watch Skam España season 1 without the social media, you’ll miss a couple important details.

First, while the show was airing, the hate account felt inescapable. It updated very often and at random times, so that the real-time viewer first felt shocked, then tired, then massively over it. Someone who comes into the show late, needs to know that we would sometimes get excited because there was an update, but oh. It was yet more abuse.

Second, a viewer who watches the season without the social media, misses the actual chain of events, which is as follows:

Viri shares the following pic with Inés privately at some point during the week:

Clip 7 drops at 20:40.

Inés uploads the pic to her insta stories at 20:43.

By 20:45, the instagram profile @eva_la_z0rra or @eva_the s1ut, has taken the picture from Inés’ ig stories and cropped it, so that Eva and Cristian are the focus of the pic.

As a sidenote, Inés captions the pic like so: “wow, alex and alba came out cute… 🙊” Álex and Alba are Lucas’ and Eva’s actors’ real names.        

[killingthebuddha]

During my sophomore year of high school, I underwent a brief yet sudden transfiguration from an awkward and demurring nerd into an absurdist rodent deity. Initially an episode of youthful silliness, my stumble into pseudo-religion was unknowingly my crash into a permanent state of religious crisis, becoming painfully cognizant of the stark tensions between the Human and the Divine. Only now, over two decades later, do I dare tell the strange tale of how I became the god of the lemmings and embarked upon my path of Christianity and existentialism.

My abrupt incarnation and haphazard revelation was neither a moment of blasphemy nor a plea for help. What my peers saw as silly or merely eccentric was for me a major shift in my self-understanding and my relationship with greater things, with what Paul Tillich calls “ultimate concern.” Here was a mechanism of catharsis that sustained me through some of the most pivotal moments of my adolescence. Becoming the Lemming God provided both a persona through which I learned how to push back against my world’s evangelical Christianity, and also a persona behind which I could begin to work out my own salvation in fear and trembling. Ultimately, my Christianity took on an absurdist edge, and this absurd Christianity would become the only Christianity that I could ever be a part of. But as a young teenager in a small high school who felt scant control over my life, briefly disturbing the waters of my social scene was insurgency enough.

In North Central Texas, high school football, barbecue, and cowboys complement the myriad Baptist, Pentecostal, and “non-denominational” storefronts and steeples manifesting Christendom’s reign. Radiating beyond the capillaried organism of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, suburbia scatters into cow country, full of provincial towns with oversized pickups and fierce independence. In that world, the message is clear and simple: God is in control; everything happens for a reason; everyone needs Jesus. Liberal–even moderate–churches resemble rare and distant foxholes, their congregants maintaining low profiles and their neighbors judging silently their orthodoxy and authenticity. Life in Texas is about where you go to church, not if. The Son of God is so all-encompassing that one breathes the spirit of evangelicalism just by living there.

I happened to just be living there, growing up west of Fort Worth in a three-Dairy-Queen town with an annual international rodeo. The high school mascot was and remains an enraged blue kangaroo. Imagine Friday Night Lights in miniature, without the decent football team and compelling characters. The year was 1989, during the AIDS epidemic and the nation’s Satanic Panic. An anxious time to be a budding sophomore, to be sure. I was afraid most of the time: afraid of my parents, of getting bad grades, of sex, of everything, basically. My only security was in books. Learning functioned as a kind of narcotic against the ravages of high school life.

Living detached and nervous in this rural Texas world did something to me, I admit that.  I have never considered myself a Texan, having moved from New England when I was nine. Speaking at a Northeasterner’s clip, I absorbed neither the drawl nor patois. Perhaps, the initial shock of moving to a landscape of heavy summer air and toxic sun, that endless horizon of rolling plains with only occasional scattered trees instilled a deep attitude of resistance. Regardless, I assumed the defensive stance of a trapped interloper, ever-adapting to the foreign way of life, memorizing the necessary codes to pass accordingly.

In Texas, some codes are for the religious panopticon: 1) Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain; 2) Remark how God awesomely shapes history and science; 3) Casually suggest prayer for life events, and especially before meals. Even though religion was not firmly pressed upon me at home, it surrounded me almost everywhere else. As if the prying eyes of parents weren’t enough, Jesus was an omnipresent, omniscient, and salvific judge. Each thought and action was recorded and suspect, waiting to be rewound and played back before everyone on The Day of Judgment. I was mortified every time I thought of it. Even as an outsider, I was still shame-adjacent to this well-structured world. All these procedures and proscriptions were self-policing for a species at constant risk, a people not to be trusted. People who were, in a word, fallen. Only immersive baptism, that hallowed, expected rite into adulthood, could increase your odds.

Immersed in that world, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t talk to anyone about religion, because I didn’t know how to talk about religion. Religious knowledge didn’t come from within my family, where it served a nominally ethical purpose. It didn’t come from my immediate circle of friends, which seemed to coalesce possibly, in part, to escape it. And yet, Jesus permeated even the conventional treacheries of adolescence, contributing to the stressful morass of hormones, internal shame, and pop quizzes. It was all so overwhelming.

My inability to process and understand the role of evangelicalism in this world set it in bas-relief. Increasingly, I grew concerned about the looming cultural expectation that God was central in my life–a God who was painfully ever-present, who just wouldn’t go away. Jesus was boldly proclaimed through the posters in our school hallways announcing various Bible studies as well as the “GOD’S GYM” T-shirts shouting “HIS PAIN, YOUR GAIN.” Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith, and Steven Curtis Chapman filled the headphones of so many Walkmen.

My panic attacks would come later, gasping in that toxic Evangelical air. Until then, my psyche sought to not just resist, but outsmart that religious world, something tectonic and rippling. Satire is, by its nature, a language of resistance.  In ninth grade, my English teacher had introduced to us the weapons of Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope. I understood A Modest Proposal and The Rape of the Lock to be works of caustic genius, cool and exciting. There remained, however, for me a fundamental disconnection. The English remained archaic, the British context distant and historical. Yet I brandished the literary firearm of a genre as only a tenth-grader can, lashing out against my surroundings, critiquing and mocking whatever sacred cows I could find.

In Monty Python, I found comic relief, if not salvation. Here was a release valve for the deadly-serious matters of Jesus Christ As Lord And Savior Of The World. The anarchic British troupe provided not only a vocabulary, but a grammar of transgressive language and performance. Sketches like “The Bishop” and “The Spanish Inquisition,” ever-unexpected, provided a space and vehicle for considering and attacking God and the Church from a vantage point previously unoccupied. In their madcap world, the legacies of the literary satirists became tangible and vicious. I could experiment with cultural taboos, explore absurdism, and challenge my status quo, and yet maintain an air of conformity in the midst of it all. Nothing was off limits.

I learned all the lines to Monty Python and the Holy Grail–especially Brother Maynard’s Scriptural recitation for the appropriate and effective employment of the Holy Hand Grenade. It was only a matter of time until something exploded. The grenade would eventually detonate in Algebra II.

I was exhausted. It was still so early in the fall semester and I had studied all night for this math test that I was now bombing. My body felt surreal, punchy and disoriented. Anxiety struck. The broader concerns of life and family and school and existence began to cascade upon me. Decorum and taboo evaporated in the dizzy swirl of youthful panic. And there in that room and in myself was something unimaginable growing inside me, snapping open its eyes and shaking itself awake. Numbers and symbols, an unbreakable code, stared nonsensically up at me. I rose from my seat and wobbled up to place the exam face down upon my teacher’s desk. Turning, my eyes absorbed everything before me, the classroom’s bland carpet and walls, my shoulder-hunched classmates, my glazed-eyed teacher. Through the windows, the afternoon light shone ochre, the color of mathematics. I felt my soft palate burn sick. I stumbled back to my seat. I was dizzy and nauseated at myself, and at the sunlight, and at solving for ‘x’.

And in that moment, I did something previously unimaginable, something very unlike me that had become very, very like me. Like a Dead Poets Society schoolboy, I stepped boldly, firmly up onto my desk, planted both sneakers upon my chair, outstretched my arms in a crucified pose, head cocked and defiant toward the room’s scribbling masses, and proclaimed in a bold and clarion voice, “I am the lemming! I died for your sins!” Those unchecked words flowed up through my throat and into the heavy air of the classroom. This got attention. I wasn’t sure I  wanted attention now. But there I was, standing above my classmates, all of them. Silence and startled stares shot back at me. Then, I heard my teacher’s commanding voice. “Burke. Sit down.” I sat down. Slouching deeper into my chair, a strange and new-found energy quivered through me. I blinked and gripped my desk. Something had happened.

My brain buzzed. I felt like I had blown a hole in my foundation. But what was pouring into the crater? I sensed that unobtrusive and anxious me had broken through myself into that which I feared: the failing of so many expectations. It wasn’t about this math class, but something greater. Sophomorically, I had lashed out at logic and order with rhetoric and absurdity. I had done something audacious, but I couldn’t figure out exactly what. The adrenaline of panic began to dissipate. For the rest of class, nothing more was said. I simply didn’t matter enough, and I enjoyed that safety of indifference. I’d never been a disruption before, so I got a pass. I was good at passing, even if I was only barely passing Algebra II.

When the period’s dismissal bell finally rang, we all shuffled out, relieved of our collective ordeal. That ochre room souring behind me, I felt I’d crossed a threshold. I had failed expectations in that class. Incomprehensibly, I had broadly paired my failure at math with failure and religion. But why? Furthermore, I had discovered a new kind of freedom for myself in speaking aloud, in saying aloud something very strange and abrupt. Something unimaginable had been imagined. In an awkward teenage way, my existential battle with religion was made manifest. And it would never again be silent. I had never been the class clown. But now, if only to myself, I was the class heretic.

The lemming is a small, inoffensive creature resembling a squat hamster, its coat a furry black, brown, and tan. It has a soft, round body, fat cheeks, and beady, black eyes. They are social animals that live in arctic burrows, serving as low-rung fodder, primarily for snowy owls and foxes. They have an affable Disney or tortured Watership Down quality, whichever you prefer. When I stood on my chair, I cared little about any of this. I primarily understood lemmings, like most people, as tiny mammals seemingly seasonally-driven to mass suicide. I hadn’t been looking for attention, but there I was on my chair mimicking an apex of divine suffering, making it my own for my sin of not having properly prepared for my exam. I hadn’t proclaimed myself a martyred revolutionary, but a sacrificial vehicle of atonement. Upon my desk, I had put on the mantle of a god–and not just any god, either! I was now the divinity of an mostly-unobtrusive rodent. And I was strangely compelled to share that. Who does that?

High school hallways are natural conduits of self-reflection and dread. They are brutal, revelatory, and downright embarrassing. I could have chalked up what happened to exhaustion and left it at that. But I couldn’t let it go. Making my way through the throngs of students, I began to parse the moment. Why the fuck did I say I was a lemming, of all things?

And that was how satire had come to save the day. From bloodthirsty rabbits to Twentieth Century Vole, Monty Python routinely elevated ordinary fauna from their humble status to something frightfully transgressive. Human virtues often employ traditional animals as archetypes. The fox is clever. The dove is peaceful. The dog is loyal. The lemming is… suicidal? At least, that’s the conventional wisdom. I was the deity of these seemingly nihilistic creatures, and for what? To be the embodiment of this creaturely absurdity? To metaphorically turn my lemming-like classmates from their mindless dash toward the sea of conformity? Even that was a muddle.

I had, perhaps, gotten slightly ahead of myself. By abruptly and absurdly proclaiming myself the Lemming God, what I had unknowingly done was deftly manifest my own existential crisis. A playful act to handle high school stress had unwittingly initiated a kind of dire self-reflection. I had proclaimed a persona, but I soon understood that mask to be ultimately meaningless. This somehow led me to consider the meaning of my actual self. Who was I in this little town and what was I doing here? Was I just going through life, serving someone else’s purpose? The silence was stark. In truth, I had acted before I was. And in acting, I became. C’est l’existentialisme.

Before me among the lockers gathered my friends, my fellow eccentric academics. In those hurried minutes after my math class, something beyond the veneer of the episode’s silliness had begun to take shape. I discerned a truth underneath it all. If anything, I knew I could entrust my revelation to my circle and I would not be mocked. We were not just nerds, but weird nerds, that subspecies of nerds, abhorred then, but who now create the geek culture voraciously consumed around the globe. As my friends turned to greet me, I outstretched my hands, like newfound paws, and grinned. “Lo! I am the Lemming God!” I announced. “I died for your sins!” They paused and stared quizzically. I had touched the third rail of religion. I had gone there. I had broken taboo.There was a kind of disclosure, a quality of “coming out” to it.  This was now my thing. And then they laughed. They laughed welcomingly, even if they didn’t know how to accept it. Among the many rows of blue lockers, this was my moment, my transfiguration. It was good to be there.

With a wry smile, I did next what seemed almost natural. I turned to my friend beside me, looked deeply into her wide eyes with newfound Dionysian zeal, and asked her in a lofty accent, “Wouldst thou like to become a lemming?” “Yes!” she beamed, shrugging her shoulders. I grew solemn, dead-panning a missionary’s tempered sobriety. Standing tall and lifting my chin, I concentrated on her face. “Close your eyes,” I commanded. She did. I cupped my left hand upon her cheek with the gentleness of a loving savior and proclaimed, “I baptize you…”. I touched her other cheek with the back of my hand and continued, “…as a…,” and in Pentecostal fashion lightly tapped her forehead with the meat of palm: “Lemming!” I shouted. Her eyes fluttered open and she tipped back, her mouth slightly open in shock.

“And there was much rejoicing!” I cheered, stealing a line from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Everyone marveled, perhaps a bit nervously. “Eek! Eek!” I squeaked, clenching my raised left hand into a paw. “Eek! Eek! Eek!” responded my friends, paws raised with enthusiasm. And that was it. No water. No spirit. Four people were saved that day. From what, though, I am still not sure. But our church had been birthed and the gospel, whatever it was, had to be proclaimed.

News spread poorly. In actuality, evangelism was merely a side effect of our group just stating we were lemmings. In fact, I was probably the only one saying anything. Among our immediate classmates, the reaction was tepid: “Oh, you’re a lemming? Then you’re one of Burke’s friends. Weirdo.” And as this mock religion slowly became known among my peers, I continued to wrestle with what the whole thing was actually all about. even if it meant nothing to anyone else but me. This semi-alter ego was clearly my catharsis. Something inside me was hurting deeply and I was doing some heavy lifting. I understood that much, at least.

In retrospect, my antics probably could have qualified as a kind of performance art. But performance art was something far away in New York City; we small-town kids would see only sanitized and neatly-packaged versions of it through MTV, if at all. If I had known about performance art then, I probably would have played my role more fiercely, caring less about what painful ramifications I could experience: I was weird and said weird things. I was a rural Diogenes ranting to his own barrel’s echo. High school weirdness, as any weird kid knows, creates a particular kind of reactive threshold. Either people decide to dismiss it entirely or to punish it. The most common reaction to what I said and did was confusion. And this bafflement led to swift disinterest, which probably saved me from getting my ass kicked.

Some of the evangelicals, however, felt otherwise. I had created my own Life of Brian situation, where there was outrage simply because I was playing with faith and sacred cows. I was a messiah in a town where there clearly was only room for one. I hadn’t attacked or openly derided Christianity. Instead, I had created something juxtaposed to it, if only as a kind of mirror, and this was enough to freak my classmates the fuck out.

This is how raw Texas religion can be. The very existence of Another God is tantamount to an existential threat. I knew students whose Jesus was so strong and so powerful that he could not endure anything that smacked of mockery. One well-established Christian stared at me hard after I had recounted a list of maxims uneasily similar to the Beatitudes. “Blessed are the stoats,” I suggested. “For they will frolic in green pastures.” Her tone was sharp and unforgiving. “Burke, you can’t do that. You can’t say that!” As The First Commandment clearly states, monotheism abhors competition. And here I was, threatening this girl’s orthodoxy simply by claiming turf. All I could do was to grin and shrug.

There is something so high school about the whole thing, about the powerlessness and seeming futility during that formative period of American life. A teenager has only so many ways to express anxiety. And I seemed to have manifested that adolescent suppression into an icon of absurdity and meaninglessness. Indeed, what is more meaningless in north central Texas than a god of lemmings? In that math class, I had located myself in one of those high school critical moments and had shuddered to my core. I had no power, no authority, not within my family, not within my life. I was desperate for liberation, but had not yet encountered Kierkegaard’s observation that “anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.” I had only recently discovered Albert Camus, and was still terrified to read The Stranger, but not too scared to listen to The Cure’s “Killing an Arab” on the sly. “Whichever I chose, it amounts to the same: absolutely nothing.” I was painfully ripe.

My persona was not God, but a god–and a very small and ineffectual god at that. A mortal god if there ever was one. A god revolting, if only for himself, against the mob-boss God who owned this dirt town, who ran and still runs this state. I was no messiah. I had no miracles, no Scripture, no nothing. Merely giving religion the finger wasn’t interesting or seemed to take much effort. Instead, I was running my hands across a long wall, feeling my way across it. Texas religion has a shape, a structure, a texture. And here was its wall. Shaking up my world was my exploration to understand it better. It was pure teenager.

My pseudo-religion, founded upon the silliness of the innocuous and suicidal lemming, betrayed deeper and unsettling matters of identity and purpose. I found myself outlining internally so many structures, so many forces pushing against me and so much for me to push against. I was shining a light on what I understood as religion’s absurdity and the danger of its cultural codes, and I found a strange confidence in doing so. It was a confidence for understanding that mortality is real, life is absurd, and that existence is troubling. Only in college would I really understand that the only way I could tackle Christianity for myself would be to comprehend it as ultimately absurd, and to understand its societal trappings as a lethal Kierkegaardian Christendom.

By the spring, the Church of the Lemming had mostly run its course, and our collective attentions chased after new, 1990 interests like Twin Peaks, Depeche Mode’s Violator, and making stupid movies with my parents’ VHS camera. For me, the catharsis of becoming the Lemming God helped ease something within me, if only the entry point of turning sixteen. Rebellion requires consistent energy, and I just didn’t possess the internal resources to sustain either the internal angst and rage or the external performance art  against the machine of Texas Evangelicalism. I had classes to pass. I was still the Lemming God, but a tired one. The problem with punk is that its strenuous, frenetic exertion of self leaves you exhausted and vulnerable to what you were resisting in the first place.

“I met a girl” are the famous last words of many boys catching their breaths in the agonizing throes of rebellion. And, indeed, in the fall of that new school year I suddenly noticed a girl in my class. I don’t know why I fell for her, because she wasn’t the kind of girl I wasn’t brave enough to ask out. She wasn’t an artist, or alternateen, or even part of my inner cadre of eccentric friends. But she had an intensity about her that kept my interest and that proved my undoing. I didn’t realize until it was too late that that intensity was for her Lord And Savior Jesus Christ. Still, I remained smitten.

One night in my parents’ Subaru, when I thought we were about to make out, she stared hard at me and asked me about my relationship with Jesus, catching me entirely off guard. Flush with hormones and derailed expectations, I had no good, immediate answer. I knew she was a Christian, but that hadn’t really been a significant aspect of our relationship up to that point. I left the date dazed, pondering the truth that though I had parodied some of its basic tenets, I still did not really know much about Christianity. The Lemming God absconded, easily felled. For the next four years, I tried to be present in that Christianity that I had worked so hard to resist. It wasn’t that I liked it or believed it, though I gave it a shot. It was more that I just stayed there, because my world’s ecclesiological wasteland was so expansive that I didn’t know of any other option.

Attending the University of Texas at Austin during George W. Bush’s gubernatorial tenure, I witnessed the galvanization of the Religious Right’s student wing. Improbably, as a sophomore, I was offered the student presidency of the Baptist Student Union, and I did not have the courage to decline. In my passing, I remained tacitly complicit in the gathering storm that is now part of history. I winced at the religious right’s homophobia, complementarian sexism, and overarching patriarchal suburban whiteness. I saw the ascendance of Intelligent Design, Christian apologetics, and the idolatry of the Bible. Progressive Christianity seemed wholly marginalized on campus.

For those four years, I was pummeled by the orthodoxy of evangelicalism’s overzealous joy–not happiness, but joy. That indescribable sense of security and reassurance, that well-grounded faith in God. And the more I became aware of that joy, the more I discerned I did not have it. It was not part of my experience as a human being. This “joy of the Lord” all seemed like so much methadone. I tried and failed to “pass” during my bout of Evangelicalism. But ultimately, I flamed out and flamed out hard, for so many reasons.

In the rushing return of my existential angst and frustration, that crater within me reeopened. But in the place of the Lemming God appeared something daunting and apophatic. I discovered an improbable kinship with the writings of Søren Kierkegaard, especially Fear and Trembling. It affirmed Angst, the Absurd, the Absolute, and the Leap of Faith. I turned and embraced fully the anxiety and melancholia of the Gospel that tells of the God-man cast into the Wilderness to later suffer abandonment by both God and Man. To prepare myself for formal academic theology, I changed my major from psychology to classical civilization to translate Greek and Latin, learning the New Testament and its socio-historical context for myself, not what had been preached to me. I found solace among the Episcopalians, who deftly bridge ancient and contemporary worlds.

In all of this, a blunt, reactive atheism never came. Instead, I ventured forth into the world of deconstruction and the death of God. After UT, I studied philosophical theology at Yale Divinity School, learning and honing my theological utensils, delving ever deeper into existentialism and postmodernism, tracing God’s shadow as I hoped to find it. What developed was a bleak theology that discerns and preaches lamentation toward action, anxiety of freedom, and, indeed, a post-punk counterweight to joy. It is a stark theology of Lent and the Triduum. It is where I find relief, solace, and strength–and it is mine.

Origin stories are often dubious and spectacular, my lemming-god story being no exception. For a long time afterward, I considered my sophomore years of high school and college to be the worst of my life. I was dreadfully unhappy and stuck in so many ways. But I remember that Kierkegaard wrote that “life must be lived forward, but understood backward,” and I understand that they were two of my most formative years. It was in those years that I began to understand the value of my anxiety, that it had a force–in the guise of an absurd rodent deity and a nascent theologian.

I also eventually learned the truth about lemmings. The entire idea in the American consciousness about their mass suicide is a lie. In Disney’s vivdly told, Oscar-winning 1958 documentary “White Wilderness,” lemmings are filmed plummeting off rocky cliffs into far-below waters, where they ultimate drown. In fact, they were shoved. Disney’s film crew force-marched the creatures to their deaths to support their constructed narrative. This myth of suicide, which persists to this day, was debunked in a 1983 Canadian TV exposé on Hollywood’s cruelty to animals. Such are origin stories.

As humans, stress and sorrow shape who we become and color how we perceive ourselves, our pasts, and our futures. Too often, we treat these pressures, these gravities, as illnesses to be avoided or cured. We fashion narratives and theodicies to explain their origin, direction, and impact. The Lemming God was birthed in stress. My Christianity was formed in a crucible of unhappiness. I would not be the person I am today without the circumstances that taught me the importance of existential anxiety, cultural critique, and theological inquiry. I would like to think that, as I live my life, I have better questions now than before, about God and myself and the tensions between. Perhaps, in some way, there is that to rejoice about. Eek! Eek!

[matchbox-fighting-furies]

The end of the Matchbox Fighting Furies (with full chronology)

Shipwrecked:

After the product line’s initially encouraging but relatively modest success its fighting fury future soon withered and after only five years – in total, worldwide - the figures and accessories were banished to bargain basements and clearance shelves where they lived on for a while and some even languished in their original warehouse packing cases for decades (only to be eagerly consumed by 21st century toy collectors). Those that loved them, loved them, but the pace of sales didn’t justify further expansion, with the original strategy of investing in cost-efficient but large initial stocks serving only to exacerbate the limited range and compromise any potential progress.

Ultimately the products failed to accrue the popularity and volumes originally expected and one anonymous but enterprising U.S toy distributor - where lingering stocks of the Adventure packs were increasingly irrelevant without the matching figures – even slid a deplorably poor-quality pirate figure (“inspired” by the Captain Patch figure of Mego’s Super Pirates product line – with this “knockoff” version placing the eye patch over his right eye instead) into the window packs in an attempt to help sell through the last of the outfits. The ‘patch’ figure was poor and wasn’t even the correct size - being noticeably smaller - but some toy collectors have contemptuously included this unofficial imposter within their Matchbox Fighting Furies collection!??

After Crazy Horse’s tomahawk formally came down on the entire Fighting Furies product line at the close of 1978 it seems happily fortuitous, as the era of Star Wars had arrived and cowboys and pirates – of the earthbound variety - felt particularly dated. But were our pirates, and their Errol Flynn swashbuckling “heroics”, extraordinarily progressive for their time with their obvious ethnicities, male makeup, prostheses, lessons in coastal geography, cultural ceremonies and an embracing of cultural dress? Probably not – and possibly the exact opposite along with fictional clichés stolen from the silver screen of a previous era - but for a short glorious moment these British toys flexed their jib climbing muscles and blithely went head to head with already entrenched and recognisable brands while being prepared to compete across all of the world’s seven seas and all from the humble address of Lee Conservancy Road in landlocked Hackney, East London. The figures had a superior specification, were better crafted and they boasted exceptional outfit accessory packs, but as confused late entries into a crowded market, already dominated by established players, the Fighting Furies have ultimately only become a footnote in the toy history of modern 20th century action figures; but unjustifiably so. Such was the audacious desire of Lesney Products to muscle their way into this lucrative market from a complete standing start, with no franchise tie-ins and relying only upon the claustrophobically generic world of period pirates and old-school westerns, the range was destined to remain small and would always struggle. Quality doesn’t always win out and on imperial seas you only ever got rough justice. But a rare honour is bestowed upon this long-ago toy episode, as Peg-leg, Hook, the original Sea Fury playset and all eight of their disguises now form part of the eminent collection of Britain’s Victoria and Albert museum; the world’s leading museum of art and design.

No self-respecting vintage ‘action figure’ collector can conceivably ignore these beautifully fashioned and exceptional examples which are surely destined to be afforded more and more retrospective attention.

Matchbox Fighting Furies blogs written and researched by Cap’n Blood Lust. (Aye-aye, me hearties).

                                     -----------------------------------

Across the internet, the years and lifespan associated with Fighting Furies products are consistently reported incorrect – here is a breakdown of their availability timeline:

Published product history (USA/UK):

The first two Pirates and six Adventure packs first launched in the U.S.A and were then quickly followed in the U.K in 1975. They were publicly promoted by Lesney Products in the U.S for only two years while in the U.K (and Europe) the products continued, and an additional Wild West series was released in 1976. All Fighting Furies products would eventually end with remaining stocks making a final formal appearance as part of the official Matchbox product range in the U.K/Europe 1978 collector���s catalogue.  (It is thought that Lesney Products – aka Matchbox - in the U.K may also have attempted to relaunch the Wild West series – serviced with legacy stocks – to the trade in 1980).

1974 U.S.A: The pirates and adventure packs appear in a public brochure for the first time in the 1974 U.S.A edition of the Matchbox Collectors Catalogue.

(The first two pirates, 6x adventures and the Sea Fury carry case also first appear in the U.S.A trade catalogue for 1974).

1974 U.K: Matchbox Collectors Catalogue; No Fighting Furies products.

------------------------

1975 U.S.A:  As previously/1974.

(Elsewhere, U.S.A national retailer Sears introduces the ‘full ship version’ Sea Fury carry case to their product line).

1975 U.K: The two pirates and 6x adventures are introduced in the 1975 U.K public Collectors Catalogue.

(Ghost of Cap’n Kidd, 2x adventure packs, 2x Disguise packs, the Wild West series – of 3x figures and 2x adventure packs - are presented in the U.K trade catalogue).

------------------------

1976 U.S.A: All Fighting Furies products disappear from the 1976 U.S.A Matchbox Collectors Catalogue.

(Elsewhere, the U.S.A retailer Sears introduces “Capt. Kidd” – the ghost of - to their range and continue selling stocks of Pirates, adventure packs, and playsets).

1976 U.K: The 2x pirates, plus the introduction of the Ghost of Cap’n Kidd are shown (with their “disguises and accessories” - 6x adventures + 2x disguises - mentioned in the text). The three Wild West figures are shown and described as a “brand new series”. (A “magnificent horse” is also shown, labelled as Sundance. Their own action sets and disguises are also mentioned, while Kid Cortez is labelled as Pecos Kid [sic]).

-----------------------

1977 U.S.A: Again - No Fighting Furies products.

1977 U.K: 2x pirates + Ghost of Cap’n Kidd, 2x action packs explicitly named and shown for the first time (Stockade Assault & Captain Kidd’s Treasure), 2x Disguises explicitly named and shown for the first time (Buccaneer Captain & Spanish Officer), 6x adventures (listed only), 3x Wild West figures and 2x Wild West adventure packs (Cattle Rustler & War Dance; listed only), are all featured in the public’s Collectors Catalogue.  

-----------------------

1978 U.S.A: Again - No Fighting Furies products.

1978 UK: Only the 3x Pirate figures and the 3x Wild West figures are shown. (No reference to any accessories, adventures or disguises). No Fighting Furies appear in the 1979 edition.

Products

1974:

Pirate series:

Figures:

Peg-Leg: (Capt./Cap’n). (U.S code: 10 00 01, U.K code: FF-100). 

(Supplied with hidden map, sabre, knife, peg-leg plug/stopper, grey breeches, one boot, white shirt, brown waistcoat, orange sash and ‘gold’ ring).

Hook: (Hook/Cap’n). (U.S code: 10 00 03, U.K code: FF-101).

(Supplied with a black wrist band, sabre, knife, purple breeches, shoes, socks, purple waistcoat, yellow sash and ‘gold’ ring).

Both figures released in corner window packaging with minor design variations and differing titles:

U.S versions. “Hook” & “Capt. Peg-Leg”: exclusive U.S release boxes. (With Matchbox logo at top of box).

European versions “Cap’n Hook” & “Cap’n Peg Leg”: exclusive European release boxes. (With Matchbox logo at bottom) *. (U.K codes: FF-101 & FF-100, respectively).

Both figures were also available in the U.S via retailer Sears in plain Sears branded packaging, as ‘Hook’ and ‘Captain Peg Leg’ [sic].

*Some boxes featured small “specification” statement at bottom rear. Some of which also used flat-bottomed inner inlay cards. Some boxes included the “specification” statement and a black key line around the lettering of the main promotional text on box front.

Not including the Sears packaging and including the U.S.A versions (and counting both figures as one) there are technically four versions with differing external details, but predominantly the USA, the European and European with key-line text versions.

Adventure accessories packs. (Each a mixture of clothing and general accessories):

The Captain Blood Adventure

The One-Eyed Sailor Adventure

The Hooded Falcon Adventure

The Spanish Main Adventure

The Redcoat Adventure

The Kung Fu Warrior Adventure

All 6 adventures were released in packs with design variants:

U.S exclusive standard packaging

European exclusive standard packaging (with language translations)

U.S exclusive ‘de lux set’ labelled standard packaging

All 6 adventures were also available in the U.S via retailer Sears in plain Sears branded packaging.

Playsets:

Sea Fury - Play set and carry case (standard Poop Deck design)

Contains: Vinyl foldout case with attached handle, Anchor with rope, Helm (wheel), 2x deck railings (often confused as one when stacked together), Chart Table, Chair, Decorative Decals (sticker sheet) and Instruction leaflet. Sea Fury retail packaging was a printed open-ended cardboard sleeve with a colour “photo-litho” on one side.

1975:

Pirate series:

Playsets:

Sea Fury - Pirate Ship Play Case (full ship version): U.S exclusive, available only via U.S retailer Sears

Contains: 3x red clips, mast connector, mast sail rubber O-ring (for assembly*); The vinyl foldout case/playset with attached handle, Anchor with rope, Prow section, Helm (wheel), wooden Mast (supplied in two parts, with skull and crossbones Jolly Roger fitted to one), suspended hammock, gangplank, ladders, white square sail and wooden Spar, ropes for securing Spar to stern and instruction leaflet. Sea Fury retail packaging was a printed cardboard open ended sleeve with a colour “photo-litho” on one side.

(*Clips trimmed and bridged together top sections of the front edge balustrades. Connector tube joined the two wooden masts together. O-ring on mast is double looped to slide spar through).

1976 – second wave releases:

Pirate series:

Figures:

The Ghost of Cap’n Kidd (Exclusively supplied in Europe in full colour “coffin” packaging. Codes: FF.102)

Capt. Kidd [sic] (as per The Ghost of Cap’n Kidd, above: exclusively available in the U.S via mail-order from retailer Sears and supplied in Sears branded plain packaging)

Disguise packs – Europe only product. (Clothing only):

Buccaneer Captain

(Contained: Tricorn Hat, Ruff, Blue Coat, Black Boots and White Breeches)

Spanish Officer

(Contained: Cloak, Helmet, Breastplate, Ruff, Brown Boots and Striped Breeches)

Accessory action packs – Europe only product. (Accessories only):

Cap’n Kidd’s Treasure

(Contained assorted accessories concurrently available in The Captain Blood and Spanish Main Adventure packs and the white belt and pouch from the Redcoat Adventure. Contents: Compass, Treasure Chest with Treasure, Telescope, Pistol, Shovel, Belt and Pouch, Tankard, Set of Keys and Treasure Map)

Stockade assault

(Contained assorted accessories concurrently available in The One-Eyed Sailor and Redcoat Adventure packs. Contents: 2x Belaying Pins, Rifle, Pouch, Pistol, Swivel cannon on gun barrel, 3x rammers, Axe, Grapple with rope, Powder horn)

Western Series:

Figures – Europe only product:

Black McCoy

(Included body-armour, black cattleman Stetson - with decorative red hat band, chin strap/cord and toggle - and a revolver handgun. Packaged with a brown handled knife – as like the other figures – but is omitted from box illustrations and Matchbox catalogues).

Kid Cortez

(Included body-armour, yellow sombrero with chin strap/cord and toggle, revolver handgun, brown handled knife and green cord for closing his waistcoat).

Crazy Horse

(Included two patterned hair bands, two head feathers, tomahawk and knife. There is a colour variant of his trousers: yellow or darker yellow/orange).

Sundance – the Wonder Horse (featured in promotional literature and series packaging, but not believed to have entered into production).

Accessory action packs – Europe only product:

Cattle rustler (Content: Rifle, Water Bottle with and Strap and Stopper, Camp Fire, Unrolling Blanket with straps, Pair of Initialled Branding Irons, Steers Skull, Pair of Chaps, Mug and Coffee Pot with Lid)

War dance (Content: “Peace Pipe”, Lance, Working Rattle, Drum with Drum Stick, Shield, Mask Headdress and Camp Fire)

 Inexplicably some Peg-Legs and some Black McCoys have the same black wrist band as Hook.

[lotrewrite]

8/19 Chat Recap

Same as the previous recap - I'm mostly keeping the comments intact! Putting the more fun/general stuff above the cut:

SNEAK PEEK of the COLORED tarot cards: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/jq1lm3nd64sx9d3/AAC5qUDB6EvTK28tqE1zffExa?dl=0

Playlist: I think we really need an official playlist for this? There's no depression in new zealand, yo ho, come on eileen, istanbul not constantinople...POC crossed with AC Black Flag music...XD Backstreet boys in the 90s! ep. 13 playlist has to be mercedes sosa; argentinian singer who had to go into exile during the dictatorship. I’m Henry the Eight I Am for the Tudor episode, plus Pastime With Good Company someone should make a playlist for all the episodes maybe when we're posting the episodes I'll make a music suggestion post each day :) that way people can suggest songs based on the final version

INTROS:

We should try to split them up semi-evenly, but also depending on who the episode focuses on.

1 – Mick?

2 – [Ray] [proposed]

3 – [Nate] [proposed]

4 – Sara

5 – Jax

6 – Lisa

7 – [Stein] [proposed]

8 – Rip

9 – Mick

10 – Amaya

11 – Jax

12 – Gideon

13 – Len

14 – Sara

15 – Stein

16 – Hosts

17 – [Ray] [proposed]

18 – Amaya

19 – Mick

20 – [Legion] [proposed]

21 – [Legion OR Sara]

22 - Len

Thoughts? There's only one Ray one so far, despite him having several Ray-centric episodes. Not sure what we would switch, though!

General Points:

can O!Len change his clothes? He had a beer from somewhere in ep6 I think, so can he have objects? i think it'd make more sense if he's 'full ghost' so to speak; I think he can't change his clothes or interact with objects until later in the season. As much as I'd love for more dress-up for Len, I think he works best as a ghost

Interesting consistency note: Because Anne gave away the spear piece, her life went to hell. That is a terrifying but wonderful thought. we have something similar with Ching and her history, because she also suffers defeats after her spear piece is gone And technichally the ship in new zealand sinks after they take the piece, too They could have had a chance to change their fates but they lost/gave away the spear pieces and thus couldn't

Stephanie Fisher - we should at the very least give her a shout-out for all her wonderful comments. I vote we give Stephanie some kind of award, not just for the comments, but for ALWAYS catching Damien Darhk's name and correcting it!!!!!

just generally, I really love the snarky Gideon we have. And Jax. I love Jax so much this season. and I even like Stein again! I wasn't a big fan of Ray, but I think we've managed to redeem him as well and Sara is actually the badass captain we wanted her to be

Sara's journey is soooo good. Ray here is isolated, but not so terribly self centered like he was on the show. Like, as the season goes, he goes from being traumatized and lonely, to struggling with his identity, to accepting his identity and...I guess, growing more comfortable with himself and others??

Oh, question: Does Gideon still call Rip Captain Hunter and Sara Ms Lance? Or Mr Hunter and Captain Lance now? I think I went with both of them being called Captain

MaryWisdom might just do a German translation; DaughterOfScotland can help

just checking, we're all having Queen Bee use the amulet for her powers, right? Yes

Episode 9 Turncoat was my favorite canon ep and I feel like it only got better Jax and Amaya were so much better here than canon's "cuddle for warmth pwp" I feel like the rat sequence in ep 9 is actually a really great lead-up to episode 10 btw since we're talking about Ray, I really hope somebody makes one of those little things that fly across your screen with Ray and his rocket boot, and maybe the poor rat too XD

Episode 10 Because ep 10 was /also/ AMAZING that intro sequence was gold from start to finish There was so much world-building, character-building, and humor I really liked the villain sequences too There's some great exchanges there! The interactions were really in character! Oh, and the Amaya sequences with the British? PERFECT I love how Amaya continues to question her own knowledge and keeps evolving it was just such a fun ride honestly I think the lead up to Ray using the cold gun worked too? Oculus!Len giving it the tacit OK was such a balm Len is SO BORED he just wants to see Ray totally fail and laugh and Ray screwing up just worked so well as symbolism for his identity struggles also, I am so sad this isn't actually visual/audio because now I want someone to put together a short clip with the Waverider flying away, then pan down to a ship and you hear the "yo ho" song

Episode 11 I'm a bit bummed we haven't been able to fit in Stein singing, but I'll look over it again and maybe we can find a spot Maybe we could get that into episode 11? I've had there's no depression in new zealand stuck in my head for almost two days now btw episode 11, any more comments, or should we go back to it next week once people have had a chance to look it over? prob the best to look at it again tbh

Episode 12 OH MY GOD 12!!! THE TERROR! it was so good KAKO YOU MADE ME SCREAM literally, my phone rang during the Mick scene and I legit screamed the way you worked in the movie references so organically was genius THE LEN REVEAL WAS PERFECT was the ending scene of 12 okay? the scene with Mick and Sara I liked it a lot that was beautiful I knew I was gonna love this episode the moment it was pitched, but you exceeded all my expectations <3 so well done it's perfect That episode is definitely going to turn heads. It is very different compared to the rest and will stand out! perfect for the mid-season finale Is there a way we can make it a real mid-season finale? aka not post for aday or two afterwards? Well, if we start posting on the 1st and it's 22 episodes, with a month of 30 days... if we started on Sept 4 and posted every day, I think we'd end up with it falling on a weekend Sept 4, posting every day, would make 12 fall on a Friday We could then restart the next Monday

Episode 13 I LOVE THE INTRO I like the "did you learn that in school?" mention. Because the history classes suck yes that is a GREAT cold open the episode was really powerful also, the umbrella scenes were hilarious it really was, the tension followed throughout and was quite perfectly cut through with the UTTERLY FLAWLESS umbrella scenes Also, bitching Legion. This is great, seeing as we want them to implode also: the Len and Gideon scene <3 basically everything was fantastic i know we need to add the rip intro scene, but is there anything else you think we should work on? there were a few suggestions, but those are already in the google doc - overall I think it was an incredible episode, and you guys should be proud - you dealt with a really heavy topic really well Quick question to eisode 13... the Spanish they all got the pill, but we kind of wanted to show the other side of it, like what it sounded like to the woman at the bakery Like the Legends go into the bakery - then we see the woman working inside and it's from HER perspective, and there's spanish dialogue and then it switches to english and we're back to the Legends POV If you wanted it from the woman's POV, maybe start the scene with the woman? as in, she's working inside the register, and then some guys come in and buy stuff and then stay with her a second as they walk out and she's kinda wondering what's up, then shrugs and goes back to work then we jump back to the Legends talking in English she picks up on Mick being distracted by something that's not there i keep craving churros every time I look at this episode I loved how you guys mixed in the light-hearted scenes in with all the heavy stuff yeah it was really well balanced RIP EXITS, PURSUED BY MICK!!!

Episode 14 Sara saves the timeline with a threesome XD nuff said LOVED the bit where Amaya realises that Sara is dancing with the King! So fitting, too, because of my episode following with all the Shakespeare :D I think... I think I didn't actually mentioned an abberation? Just the spear piece rip found there Alternatively Rip is using his Time Master skills to find a piece before it ever causes an abberation That was what I was going for. He finds it, or thinks he did ooh. i like that. but if it is that then i don't think you should mention the witchcraft rumors The rumors that she bewitched Henry had been around for a long time already. Thy say that tht's the reason he left his wife and Rip thinks it's related to the spear piece but it's just generally people being shit can I just say, I really loved all the scenes with Amaya and Jax? seconded My only thing to add is, and I think I mentioned that in the comments, that it would be great if you could fit the Legion in somewhere Yeah, I agree with you. I'll put it in that they arrive late and Len is like "I got this", I think Before I forget: can I suggest Sara to narrate the intro? the last one she did was ep4

Episode 15 basically Kendra's Old West incarnation and the New York Riots incarnaton exist at the same time OW!Kendra doesn't have a name, so she *could* be Josephine from the NYR 8 years prior and that would make that Carter Hannibal  but then her Carter should be named Hannibal, not Shay :( his name could be Hannibal and then he goes by Shay Or he could've changed his name when they moved out west due to being wanted under his old name Just... don't explain it. Leave it for the reader to figure out. And wonder :P (for what it's worth, I thought 15 was delightful and SO GOOD at actually USING history the way a time travel story should) More next week

Episode 19 I could knight Ystina! that would be AWESOME!

[evakteket]

Watchlist update!

Halla, lovely evak shippers ♥  We hope you’re all enjoying season 4 so far, and are being kind to yourselves and each other. Alt er love.

It’s about a week since the last WIP watchlist update, so here we go again!

We’re always on the lookout for new fics, so let us know in our ask box if you have any suggestions--there’s a lot out there to get through and we don’t want to miss the best of it!

Update summary:

Completed: 2 Added: 5 Removed: 0

News:

i guess that’s destiny doing it right by allyasavedtheday (@littlespooneven) NEW

Rating: mature. In this AU Even and Isak didn’t get together while they’re in school, but they meet in Barcelona the summer before Isak goes to uni. It’s a sweet and gorgeously detailed and extremely satisfying reunion fic so far, with the guys’ interaction being every bit as lovely and natural as in canon. We love the more confident Isak in this, and the Spanish summertime vibe. Don’t forget to get your Ed Sheeran on while reading. - kit and immy

Vi trenger ikke verden by Kudzibisa (Norwegian) NEW

Wrong number AU, coffee shop AU, Norwegian fic that flows like the show itself with beautiful interaction, hilarious turns of phrases and the clipped slang-y language of SKAM; this is a fic that hits pretty much all my buttons. If you can read Norwegian, don’t miss out on this. - immy

Straight Up (series) by @nofeartina NEW

From the second work in the series, this is rated explicit… and rightfully so, omg. It’s nearly impossible to say anything useful about this because we’re (hopefully temporarily) not very capable of expressing ourselves beyond vague rambling about “fluffy smut” and “hot” and “holy shit this is hot” and “have we mentioned yet that this is hot”.  We’ll let you know when we pick our jaws up off the floor.- kit and immy

Checking from Behind by DickAnderton (@wecanjustbreathe) NEW

A slight disclaimer is probably in order here, because I (Kit) am betaing this fic, but I’m too obsessed with it not to rec it. This is a hate-to-love AU, set in my absolute favourite of AU universes–college ice hockey! You don’t need to know anything about the sport to be intrigued by this fic, which definitely isn’t your standard Evak storyline. Warning: Isak and Even both explore relationships with women in this one, so see the author’s notes. -kit

Head Over Heels by LostInAdmiration (@call-this-a-mask) NEW

I’ll confess I have a soft spot for skateboarding AU. In this Jonas is the skateboarder, Isak is his friend filming and taking pictures. Of course, there’s also the handsome rival skateboarder… There’s attention to details and the guys feel real, it’s charming and angsty and well worth subscribing to. - immy

How In My Silence I Adored You by @dahlstrom COMPLETE

Completed, rec here.

Lost Boys (Not Ready To Be Found) by kittpurrson (@towonderland72) COMPLETE

Completed, rec here.

Still on the watchlist from last update:

Life Is Now. (and now, and now) by @flybynightgirl

This is an incredibly intense fic, written by an author who is intimately familiar with bipolar disorder. It’s hands down one of the best portrayals of an episode and its buildup/aftermath in the fandom so far. It’s post season 3, and has timestamps just like the show does – basically it’s a continuation of the season, and the conflict is far from over. Although there are a couple of moments when supporting characters make choices that seem ooc, the massive emotional pull of this fic is not to be underestimated. Not to mention that this fic also has humour and very lovely portrayal of friendships in abundance. - kit and immy

Falling (The World is Yours) by chips2

This is basically “what if Even was the main character of season 3?” It’s first person, present tense, so beware if that’s not your thing, but I love how it fleshes out Even’s backstory and thoughts and imagines a world for him beyond his relationship with Isak. An obligatory warning for people with experience of BPD–this fic does portray therapy sessions, and ymmv on how realistic they are. - kit

A Collection of Even & Isak’s First Kiss AU Shorts by @fandomlimb

Just what it says on the tin: first kisses, a different AU in each chapter. Adorable and fluffy so far. - immy

Spacewalker by evenvaltersen

How the hell you can make a Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo AU work with SKAM characters is beyond me, but evenvaltersen manages just that, in my opinion. This may be my obsession with Christiane F talking, but give it a go. Be warned: it’s every bit as gritty and sad as you can expect something based on a mostly true story about teen drug addicts in Berlin in the 70s to be, no fluff here. - immy

making new clichés by strangetowns (@douchenuts)

This is in its early days, but oh-so promising! It’s another Evak as best friends AU, but it’s incredibly well-written thus far and it has a very realistic, nuanced portrayal of their relationship, which is already just close enough that it has us absolutely stoked for the moment it tips over into feelings too big to ignore. - kit and immy

Those, who could not hear the music by UniversalParadox_13

This is also pretty new, but again shows a lot of potential to be one of the fandom’s most interesting AUs–this one has Even and Isak as ballet dancers. Although it can go a little overboard with the italics, this fic is already super interesting, has a well-done portrayal of the ballet world, and promises to eventually venture into *drumroll* smut territory. Yep. That got your attention, didn’t it? - kit

it comes in waves by @moonlitbird

Also known as the mermaid AU. Yes, you read that right: MERMAID AU. This mermaid tale (!) is beautifully written, and is probably the best fantasy AU this fandom has, with a perfect twist on Even’s disorder and how it wreaks havoc on the relationship. The entire premise is fascinating, and flawlessly executed, and Kit is basically obsessed with this right now, so you should check it out and head on over to fangirl it with her literally ASAP. OMG. - kit

with love, from anonymous by cosetties (@adamparishe) and iriswests (@westiris)

Fuck yeah well-written slow burn coffee shop AU! It’s also a secret admirer fic, and to be honest that sets off my skepticism, but this is such great fun and the fuckups and misunderstandings and coffee spills abound. It’s not entirely light-hearted; it comes with a dose of angst and frustration and the problems you can expect from life as well. - immy

Are You Lost? by @noorasevas

This Amsterdam AU is clearly written by someone who knows and loves their city, and we are so hooked on touristy Isak and urbane Even in this, as they manage to miss each other and lose each other and find each other. Of course Isak isn’t on his own here: the entire Boy Squad is on holiday together, and you can probably imagine how that rowdy group comports themselves in Amsterdam.

Scene Three, Take Two by @folerdetdufoler

This is a future-ish fic that deals with Even and Isak meeting and discovering their feelings again when they’re a bit older, post-breakup and Isak is a vet student. There’s a slight non-Norwegian issue here, and I’m not quite sure I buy Isak’s reasoning for their breakup, but this fic is very promising nonetheless–and all the more exciting for being the writer’s first in the fandom. Go show them some love.- kit

A Transference of Feeling by @rumpelsnorcack

This is a very well-written what if AU, with the premise that Isak transferred to Bakka instead of Even going to Nissen. Even is repeating his third year and Isak’s a transfer who knows nobody there. This fic has a few issues in terms of getting Norway right, but makes up for those problems with very intriguing relationship-building between Isak and Even. Switching up the setting really highlights how much the two of them actually needed to find each other. We’re definitely liking it so far. - kit and immy

The Weight of Us by verlore_poplap (@mimi-fics)

This is a very interesting fic, in part because it’s so different to a lot of the stuff in the fandom so far. Isak and Even meet when they’re older, and in serious relationships with Emma and Sonja–in case alarm bells are ringing, yes, Isak and Emma are together, but the author uses the context of their relationship to explore what would have happened if he’d repressed his sexuality, which I think is very cool. The author also treats Emma very fairly. The fic has a few minor niggles–Isak, for example, at one point performs a super rare kind of heart surgery–but overall this fic has me really intrigued, and I can’t wait to read the rest. - kit

hot like fire, take you higher by birthmarks (@fyfaenjonas)

Rating: mature. This is kink exploration. The author takes it slowly and gently up from Isak finding out what a kink is, through Isak and Even finding out what their kinks are, and well. Hot. There’s also well-written dialogue, there’s the boy squad and fluff and stressing the importance of communication with your partner, so it’s not just a PWP (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Get your cold flannel and go read. - immy

[sarahthecoat]

Rewind Promo

REWIND PROMO

promo for review of s1-3, using lots of rewind shots.

http://inevitably-johnlocked.tumblr.com/post/154242572550/fuckwitjulite-marcespot#notes

This has the discussion including the whole video, there are over 1500 notes, I have not tried to run them down.

http://isitandwonder.tumblr.com/post/154239932196/the-7-percent-solution-londoncallingsigh

This has just the gif of Mary letting go of John’s hand, a little bit of discussion, and 1700 notes.

Those are the two links I grabbed on Dec 9th and dropped in a document to return to later, if anyone has more stuff they posted, or saw posted, I’d be interested.

9 December 2016

BBC promo in spanish, encouraging people to re-watch the existing episodes, with an out-of-order montage of clips. I don’t speak spanish, so I can’t transcribe or comment on that part.

What I found particularly interesting is, most of the clips are shown in REWIND rather than normal forwards mode! In keeping with arr the “back” tweets from the beginning of filming, and T6T maybe revisiting S2 time period.

I took notes on all the bits, and marked which ones were rewinds; also whether the shots used showed the character from the front or back.

I was a little surprised to see no analysis of this, since it was pretty juicy.

The music is not from Sherlock soundtrack at all, and the clip is 50 seconds.

R=a rewind shot

TGG? Tail end of a shot of Sherlock looking out the window dressed in tshirt and blue robe, I think this is him watching John walk away. Too little to tell if it’s forward or backward.

TEH R Sherlock entering the Daffodil restaurant, front and back

TEH R Sherlock stopping the motorbike, front and side

TEH R Sherlock going out of 221B door to meet the press in the hat, front and back

TRF R Sherlock coming onto Barts roof, back only

TSOT R Wedding party exiting church, aerial shot

TGG ?? Sherlock as museum guard, turning toward the painting, the “it’s a fake, but I don’t know how” moment, but I don’t know if it’s in reverse or not. From the back, ish

HLV R John on the steps of the flophouse, a red/green brick wall (I think, again I don’t know this episode well at all!), from the front-ish

ASIB R the boobytrapped safe shooting the CIA goon and Irene ducking (the shot of Irene is bracketed between two shots of the safe wall, nicely centered)

ASIP “The game, Mrs Hudson, is on!” Sherlock in front of John & Mrs Hudson, front

ASIB Moriarty texting Mycroft about the plane in front of the Big Ben tower

Mycroft’s voice “Moriarty is obsessed”

TRF Mycroft at Diogenes, cont “he’s sworn to destroy his only rival”

HLV Sherlock running in the hallway of his MP to the door where he will find Redbeard, this shot is diagonal and from the back

Moriarty’s voice “every fairy tale needs a good old fashioned villain” over

TRF Moriarty having tea at Baker St, shot is a bit above and to the side of him.

TGG Sherlock at NSY saying “Boom!”

TGG R windows at Baker St blowing in and Sherlock falling, from the front (only, it’s in reverse so he’s UN FALLING)

ASIP Mycroft: “he does love to be dramatic” to John at their first meeting (front of Mycroft, back of John)

TRF R Sherlock just beginning to tip off the roof of Barts, from the back (and again this is reverse so he is UN FALLING)

TAB “from the beginning then” match strike/ gun barrel transition

TEH R Mary and John at Sherlock’s gravestone, from the back (and because it’s reverse it looks like she is letting go of his hand instead of taking it as originally)

TGG Sherlock plucking violin (at Mycroft), from the front

(tiles with words)

ASIP “that’s enough to be going on with, don’t you think?” Sherlock in the lab at Barts, from the front.

(more tiles with words)

Things I noticed: there was nothing from TBB or THOB, and only one each from TSOT or TAB.

All the Moriarty and Mycroft bits are forwards, but all the Mary bits are rewinds, and there are only two Mary bits, no Molly, and just one background glimpse of Mrs Hudson. Lestrade is not shown in the bit from NSY.

I wondered if the “un-shooting” of the random CIA goon from ASIB was an oblique reference to the shooting of CAM, which was also “self defense in advance”, and also possibly a kind of booby trap, if indeed Moriarty manipulated Sherlock into doing it.

Guessing that the forward-running shots were in a way affirming what was shown, and the rewind shots were suggesting un-doing those things in some way, I looked at it episode by episode:

ASIP: affirming the John and Sherlock meeting in the lab, the John and Mycroft meeting, and “the game is on” at 221B

TGG: knowing the painting is a fake, but not knowing HOW he knows. Plucking the violin, maybe affirming the prickly relationship with Mycroft. Un-bombing Baker St? (setlock people saw extras on NGS ducking as if flinching from an explosion). “Boom!” at NSY suggests we expect another explosion. Watching John walk away, suggests the “estrangement” but there wasn’t enough of it to tell if it was rewind or not. (in any case the “estrangement” didn’t last long, so it happened, it was undone)

ASIB: un-shooting the CIA goon (possible reference to CAM)

TRF: rewinding going up to the roof alone and falling off Barts, suggested revisiting this situation, either a different perspective on it, or another chance to make a different choice? (maybe actually telling us what really happened? Picking up on the “you fell” “no” lines from TEH?) Affirming that Moriarty is still obsessed with Sherlock and with Mycroft, a “good old fashioned villain”. (Who is his “only rival”? I always wondered about that line. The surface reading suggests Sherlock, I think it may be John, M Theory suggests Mycroft?)

TEH un-doing the botched reunion, the motorbike BS, and the stoopid hat, as well as Mary.

TSOT un-doing the wedding (yay)

HLV un-doing the flophouse? That would be great! But, not un-doing Sherlock getting shot and looking for Redbeard in his Mind Palace that looks like Roland Kerr college.

TAB “from the beginning/BANG” so, was the original trauma a gun shot? Or something suggested by The Seven Percent Solution? (family drama)

Other thoughts: Moriarty texting Mycroft in front of Big Ben, suggesting the revisiting of the flight of the dead which was indicated in setlock. Big Ben features in other adaptations, and there’s all this “timey-wimey” stuff being suggested, going back in time or looking at earlier events or whatever it turns out to be.

Mind Palace indications - the running in the hall shot from HLV, which is also a callback to the end of ASIP, the college where John shot the cabbie. That’s a “from the beginning” moment as suggested by the TAB clip, and THAT clip is a transition deeper into Mind Palace. So I’m thinking this suggests more of that kind of multi-layered dream state or mind palace or running scenarios or whatever we want to call it.

By character appearance

Sherlock, 15, 7 of which are rewind

John, 5, 3 of which are rewind

Mary, 2, both rewind

Moriarty, 2

Mycroft, 2

Irene, 1, rewind

Mrs Hudson, 1

CIA goons, 1, rewind

That’s as far as I got with it.

Having now seen S4, I’d say the oblique reference to CAM’s shooting was correct, as that “doctored footage” scene opened T6T. And we definitely saw the Watson marriage “unravel” and Mary “depart”.  We did see an explosion at Baker St, but it also got “undone” remarkably easily. The glimpse of the violin did presage a lot more music (yay, but hey buddy, play for JOHN next time, ok?) Going back to the beginning apparently meant seeing kid-Sherlock and family.

We didn’t get an “answer” to TRF though, and the stoopid hat did come back (boo!). They did not back off the drug use either, oh well. The Moriarty shots in the promo suggested a lot more meaningful engagement with him than what we got.

But that moment in TGG of KNOWING THE PAINTING IS A FAKE, IT HAS TO BE, I JUST DON’T KNOW HOW really sticks out in a way that I didn’t have any way of expecting before these three FAKE episodes aired. Wow.

ok, now how do I flag someone, and who was it that wanted to be flagged...

@monikakrasnorada