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canary3d-obsessed · 4 years ago

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Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 18, second part

(Masterpost) (Other Canary Stuff) (Previous Post)

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Hey OP where’s the funny header gif for this post? Sorry, it was murdered by an angst demon and the framing of these shots.

My Found Family Came to Find Me

Continuing our flashback from last time, we see Baby Wei Ying up a tree, refusing to come down because he's afraid there are dogs. Eventually he falls out of the tree, like a dumbass a child, and Yanli tries but fails to catch him.

Unlike his grownup counterpart, Baby Wei Ying doesn't pretend he's unhurt when he is hurt. I'd like to put the change at Yu Ziyuan's door, but actually he admits to being hurt during his Gusu summer - he mimics Lan Zhan's stoicism when they're getting beaten, but it doesn't come naturally to him, and he whines a lot afterwards.

By the time of the Animatronic Dog incident, however, he's laughing off obvious injuries that have secret trauma behind them. By the time he comes back, coreless, from the burial mounds, he won't confide in anyone about his hurts any more, except possibly Wen Qing.

Yanli carries Wei Ying, in a sequence that will be echoed much later in his life when Lan Zhan carries him (gifset here). While they head back, she tells him that Jiang Cheng has a bad temper and to ignore whatever mean things he says. This will also be echoed in the future, when Wei Wuxian says it to Lan Zhan after their argument with Jiang Cheng in the shrine.

Yanli also explains that Jiang Cheng loved his dogs and that he's been very sad since Jiang Fengmian sent them away, demonstrating once again that Jiang Fengmian is a terrible father. Yanli says that Jiang Cheng will be happy to have a friend with him, though. This kind of makes Wei Wuxian's role in Jiang Cheng's life "replacement dog."

Jiang Cheng, after getting over this particular snit, got worried about Wei Wuxian and woke up Yanli to find him, and then went wandering around in the dark like a dumbass a child, and is banged up and crying when the other two find him. Yanli encourages him to apologize to Wei Wuxian and he does, which will not happen again until the very end of the show.

They all smile and laugh together, as Wei Ying looks to Yanli to guide him through the insanity that his life has suddenly become.

(more behind the cut!)

They head back to Lotus Pier in a sweet montage of walking and smiling together, with Jiang Cheng carrying the world's most beautiful candle holder with the world's most wind-resistant candle in it, to light their way back. Back in the present day for a brief moment, Jiang Cheng pretends to sleep and listens to his sister insisting that the three of them should always stay together, while a single tear rolls down the side of his face.

Soup is Love, Chapter 1 of 1000

Then we head to the past again. In Jiang Cheng & Wei Ying's now-shared room, Wei Ying sits on the bed trying to figure out how to deal with his grumpy new roommate.

Wei Ying is unsure what to do when confronted with pajama game this strong. Tiny Jiang Cheng is already a fashion king.

Then he tells Jiang Cheng he's not going to narc him out to the clan leader, since it was his own fault that he hurt his leg. This is all Jiang Cheng needs to hear to decide Wei Ying is all right, and he says that he will help Wei Ying chase away dogs in the future. In fact, Wei Wuxian will protect Jiang Cheng from punishment basically forever, while Jiang Cheng will continue to threaten Wei Wuxian with dogs...forever.

They shake hands on their new understanding and then jump up and down laughing, Wei Ying's leg being all better now, apparently. When Yanli arrives (carrying a tray of...can you guess? I'll let you guess), they stop jumping. Wei Ying dives in to give Jiang Cheng a little tickle/embrace in an adorable moment that would have me saying "oh, my ovaries!" if I hadn't surgically sent my ovaries to hell a few years ago.

Yanli introduces Wei Ying to the emotional and gustatorial miracle that is her lotus and ribs soup. He hesitates a long time before tucking in because he's so unused to being fed.

Consent? I Don’t Even Know Her

The flashback wraps up with Yanli conked out on the table from the drugs in the incense burner, while Wei Wuxian, who is somehow unaffected despite sitting almost as close to the smoke as she was, checks on her. Jiang Cheng and his Uggs period-appropriate sock thingies get out of bed to come stand with Wei Wuxian, and have feelings about sending Yanli away after she JUST said she doesn't want to be parted from them.

Wei Wuxian: If she didn't want us to do this, she shouldn't have signed that blanket consent-to-medical-treatment form. Jiang Cheng: Wen Qing made me sign one of those plus a durable power of attorney, is that bad?

This episode is all about people overriding each others' agency and making massively important decisions without the consent of the people who will be affected. But in a feudal context, it's not a violation, no matter how it feels to the person being controlled. In feudal life, your body belongs to your lord -- your sect leader, in the world of CQL. Jiang Yanli and Jiang Cheng's choices are overridden by their clan leader's final command to Wei Wuxian. Wei Wuxian's core is arguably Jiang Fengmian's property--Wei Wuxian certainly sees it that way, just as his hand was Yu Ziyuan's to take if she wished.

The brothers tenderly tuck Yanli into bed in the rolly cart and hand her off to Song Lan. They talk about how important it is to get her to Lanling and that she's probably going to be mad, as they thank Song Lan for helping them.

Yanli listens while she sleeps and, in what is becoming a trademark Jiang move, lets a single tear roll down the side of her face. Jiang Cheng points out that Yanli never gets mad at Wei Wuxian and Wei Wuxian is like, true dat.

How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?

Song Lan is always so emotional about every damn thing, I love him. Here he's like OH GOD NO DON'T FORMALLY THANK ME! STOP!!!

Then he starts to ask Wei Wuxian to pass a message to Song Xingchen for him, but then decides not to say anything, making it super obvious that they fought and aren't together.

Wei Wuxian reacts to this with confusion and distress, probably because he doesn't want to imagine ever having a breakup with his own soulmate. Which he soon will be having. But possibly he's just upset that his OTP broke up.

After Song Lan takes off, Jiang Cheng gives Wen Qing a rude & perfunctory thank-you bow, turning away before she can return it. Wei Wuxian tells her not to take it to heart - basically everyone who deals with Jiang Cheng gets a version of the "ignore what he says" speech. She says she understands and that in his place she would have behaved worse, which is so totally not true.

Then she asks Wei Wuxian if he's sure about the core transfer (not in so many words, because the script is being kind of being vague about it, without actually hiding what's happening). His reply pretty much encapsulates the whole Wei Wuxian experience.

Then he and Jiang Cheng walk off, with Jiang Cheng giving us a rear view that had me googling Wang Zhuocheng's fashion shoots to determine if that wagon he's draggin’ is really as delightful as this belt makes it look. Alas, there is not a wealth of photographic evidence for this research, as compared to, for example, photos of Xiao Zhan's outstanding ass.

Wen Qing and Wen Ning see them off, with Wen Qing wishing they valued their lives more. Although, what she and Wen Ning are doing is massive treason, so their lives will be pretty much forfeit if they're caught, so...

The Sunshot Campaign of Like 60 Dudes

Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng walk up the mountain for the whole beginning of the Sunshot campaign, which...okay. Maybe it's like Dunkirk or The Witcher where they intercut stuff that is happening in different timeframes, which is one of my least favorite new film style thingies.

You know, for a guy Wei Wuxian constantly calls "peacock," Jin Ziyuan really doesn't wear a lot of adornment; just some subtle metalwork on his belt with no dangly bits at all, and a single reasonably-sized hair crown. Compared to the extremely fancy Lan Wangji he's almost plain. We already know that Wei Wuxian is a massive hypocrite when it comes to his idea of a perfect boy, however.

So, this is the Lanling Jin army, which consists of literally 60 guys, including the ones on the stairs and Jin Zixuan and Douchebag Dad. How are they going to fight a war with this tiny group? Why do they have such a big plaza? Hasn't anybody on this production learned CGI cloning?

That’s better.

Nie Mingjue and his best bitch Baxia make quick work of the 4 Wen guys who were assigned to hold the Unclean Realm.

Hello, Daddy Da-Ge!

Squeeee, it's Lan Wangji! He's taking back Cloud Recesses! Ooooohhh we've missed you Lan Wangji.

Look guys he's here! Look how beautiful he is. He's looking at the gate of cloud recesses and thinking thoughts that Lan Xichen or Wei Wuxian could probably see in his bewitching eyes if they were here to see him, which they aren't. But at least he is here!

....and now he's gone again. *cries*

Hares On The Mountains

Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian continue roaming prettily around this pretty mountainside. The locations in this show are such eye candy.

Young laddies they run like hares on the mountains Young laddies they run like hares on the mountains Young laddies they run like hares on the mountains If I was a young lass I’d soon go a hunting

Jiang Cheng starts to have doubts about the whole Baoshan Sanren thing. Wei Wuxian's reply pretty much encapsulates the whole Wei Wuxian experience.

Then we have just the tenderest blindfolding scene, (more gifs here), which is fodder for your ChengXian dreams, if you have those.

Here's a good place for a sidebar about what is and isn't incest. Whee! In the CDrama context, relationships tend to be more clearly defined than in western media. The mechanism of confession & acceptance means that people either are or are not in a romantic relationship, with few grey areas. So a character can literally say "we grew up as brother and sister, but now we are dating" and when someone looks startled they just say "there's no blood relation" and everyone is like "cool cool" and that's the new definition of the relationship.

For a strong example of this, the extremely wonderful Go Ahead is about a contemporary family in which a girl and two boys, who are not blood relatives, are all raised together, and call each other brother and sister. When they become adults, they and everyone around them expect the girl (now a woman) to marry one of the two men who have been her brothers, while whichever one she doesn't choose will carry on as her sibling. It's treated as the most natural, logical thing in the world; the only question is whether she wants to make that transition, and with whom.

Looked at through this lens, Wei Wuxian's relationships with his adoptive siblings have just as much potential to turn into romances as his relationships with his friends do, and there's nothing creepy about it. As such you can expect my meta to always get into ChengXian moments without treating it as a wrong or forbidden love. Hopeless, of course, because Jiang Cheng is such a prick the power of WangXian is stronger, but that's a different matter.

What is wrong is wearing this fantastic hat & veil combination when the most fashionable person on the mountain is blindfolded and can't see it.

In the course of this blindfolded encounter with Wen Qing, Jiang Cheng gets to kneel before a powerful woman, be led along by a length of silk that's placed in his hand, and then knocked the fuck out and operated on. He'll wake up in a hotel room in a tub full of ice with "we took your kidney" written on the mirror in lipstick, and he'll love every minute of it.

Soundtrack: 1. Still Fighting it, by Ben Folds 2. Hares on the Mountain, by Steeleye Span

Writing Prompt: The NEXT time somebody blindfolds Jiang Cheng

#fytheuntamed #the untamed #the untamed gifs #chengxian #cql #restless rewatch the untamed #canary3d-original #my gifs

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passmeabook · 4 years ago

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Servamp Tarot Analysis: Kamiya Tsurugi

I’ve decided to do an analysis of the tarot cards in Servamp. Many of the meanings are taken straight from the books they were found in because I feel they explain the meaning of the trumps better than my own words could. I’m looking not only at the official tarot cards assigned to characters, but also headcanon unofficial cards that may have been quietly assigned by the author.

First up is Kamiya Tsurugi. The official card assigned to him in canon is The Hanged Man. In this analysis I will also share headcanons of how he has been unofficially assigned the cards of: Justice and Death.

The Hanged Man #12

Number: XII

Alternative Name: The Traitor

Numerology Link: III, The Empress

Astrological Sign: Neptune

Element: Water

Hebrew Letter: Mem

Symbol: Water and the Oceans

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The Hanged Man XII

The Hanged Man Key Meanings:

Transition

Waiting

Sacrifice

Enlightenment

Upright Meaning:

“Events are not moving with speed, but all you can do is wait patiently in the knowledge that the universe has its own plan. The card can also indicate that you may have made sacrifices just now and are eager to see rewards. Unfortunately, you cannot force an outcome that fits with your timetable. There are many other factors about which you can have no knowledge or influence. Therefore, you may also expect delays to travel plans and projects… On a creative level this card appears frequently when a person is feeling frustration with their progress… Another message from the Hanged Man is to try to see things from a new angle.” (Dean).

“In readings the Hanged Man bears the message of independence. Like the Fool, which signified doing what you sensed was best, even if other people thought it foolish, the Hanged Man indicates being who you are, even if others think you have everything backwards. It symbolizes the feeling of being deeply connected to life and can mean a peace that comes after some difficult trial.” (Pollack.).

Feeling trapped

Confined

Self-limiting

Uncertainty

Lack of Direction

Needing Release

Letting Go

Reversed Meaning:

“The Hanged Man reversed can be a sign of rigid thinking and martyrdom. You may need to revise your expectations; what you think you want may not be possible. In this position, the card asks you if you are hanging on to a fantasy that may make you a victim rather than a victor. Take another view and liberate yourself from a contract or other obligation that cannot offer you what you want.” (Dean).

“The trump reversed indicates an inability to get free of social pressure. Rather than listen to our inner selves we do what others expect or demand of us. Our awareness of life always remains second-hand, never a direct experience but only a series of stereotypes, like the person who models his or her behavior on the orders of parents and the actions of movie stars. The card reversed can also mean fighting your inner self in some way. It can mean the person who tries to deny some basic part of himself or simply the person who cannot accept reality and who in some way or other is constantly battling life.” (Pollack.).

Discontentment

Apathy

Disinterest

Stagnation

Impulsiveness

Negative Patterns

Detachment

The Hanged Man understands that his position is a sacrifice he needed to make in order to progress forward. The time he spends dangling from the tree will not be wasted on his journey. The hanging is not death, but life in stillness. It could be a repentance for past wrongdoings or even a calculated step back to rethink the path he will take once he continues on with his journey. If an approach isn’t working then look at things from a different angle to gain a new perspective. This card is one that tells its reader that waiting and suspension are sometimes what you need to do in order to achieve success. Sometimes action is not needed, and one needs to wait patiently for the proper opportunity.

The Message of the Hanged Man:

Use your time wisely.

The Hanged Man & Numerology:

“TAROT SYMBOLISM: Key 12 The Hanged Man. The keyword for the Hanged Man is reversal. The corresponding symbol means oasis, sea, or water. According to the alchemists, water was the basis of all life, the fluid substance that solidified into physical forms… Water was the first mirror in which the reflection always appears upside down. The significance of this card is that things are not as they appear on the surface. You must look beneath the surface for true understanding. The man is suspended by his foot, like a pendulum at rest. His crossed legs form a figure 4, indicative of key 4 Reason. His elbows and head form a triangle with the point down which is an ancient symbol for water. The Hanged Man represents a person who is poised in consciousness and under perfect control… He sees trouble in the world--people unhappy in marriage, in trouble financially and lost because they have no goals--and he knows it is because they all see things upside down. Yet they look at him and think that he is the one who is crazy. The Hanged Man’s philosophy sets him apart from the crowd and, at the same time, brings him peace of mind and perfect contentment.” (Javane and Bunker.) [Emphasis mine.]

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Looking at these meanings and ideas I find that Tsurugi very strongly if not perfectly embodies the Hanged Man.

I speculate that for a majority of the C3 arc Tsurugi is in the position of the reversed Hanged Man. The lines that really stood out to me while researching this were, “Rather than listen to our inner selves we do what others expect or demand of us.” and “In this position, the card asks you if you are hanging on to a fantasy that may make you a victim rather than a victor.” because they seem to fit Tsurugi so well. Tsurugi clings to Touma and the idea of family he idealized Touma as being. Tsurugi also does what others expect of him, and before his breaking away from Touma just did what others wanted him to do. Even in the TAROT SYMBOLISM section that I highlighted the line about things not appearing as they seem on the surface resonated with me about Tsurugi because despite Tsurugi’s smiles on the surface inwardly he has a lot of trauma.

The symbolism the Hanged Man has with the connections to water, the oceans, and the planet Neptune also tie into together with Tsurugi. Water as an element is related to the Cups suit. Cups/Water has the meaning of “I feel”; the suit focuses on emotions and relationships. The planet Neptune, the Roman name for Poseidon the Greek god of the seas, holds the symbolic meanings of: dreams, intuition, and imagination. Which negatively connects to Tsurugi and his inability to metaphorically grow up, dreams and imagination being viewed as childish, but also to his magic Neverland. In the series we’ve seen Tsurugi be visually connected to water rather directly. Both in his drowning before being saved by The Mother/Freya in Ch. 56 “A Windowless Room”/Ch. 57 “Born” and also in the bonus chapter Ch. 57.5 “The Person Searching for the Key” where Tsurugi is underwater behind his locked door. Tsurugi is also an incredibly emotional person, and has worked on coming to terms with his emotions and what he really feels instead of just doing as other people tell him too.

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Tsurugi’s/The Hanged Man’s Dilemma:

A great showing of Tsurugi and his dilemma of choosing between the upright and the reversed meaning of The Hanged Man is in Ch. 52 where Tsurugi is caught between Touma and Junichiro in making his decision to follow Touma’s orders or to heed to Junichiro’s words.

In Ch. 52 we have the scene where Junichirou and Touma are asking Tsurugi to come to a decision. Tsurugi is physically in the position of the Hanged Man, but he’s divided down the middle into a black side and a white side. On the black side where Touma asks him, “Are you going to ignore what I say again?” Tsurugi’s hair follows the course of gravity as if he were standing up, his long length of ribbon does as well, and his hood lays flat against his shoulder. Compare this to the white side, Junichiro’s side: the background is white and Tsurugi’s hair, hood, and ribbon follow the path of gravity that they naturally would if Tsurugi were hanging upside down. This choosing of Touma, and of the reversed meaning of the Hanged Man, allows readers to see that Tsurugi is not following the upright meaning of the Hanged Man, and that his trump has yet to be flipped to the upright position.

In the side by side comparison Tsurugi’s collar is black on Junichiro’s side and white on Touma’s, but when Tsurugi chooses Touma the collar is black. The collar represents both control and Tsurugi allowing others to make decisions for him. The removal of the collar in Ch. 74 represents Tsurugi taking control of his personal agency and decision making.

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Headcanon Tarot Analysis:

Tsurugi is directly portrayed as the Hanged Man in Ch. 50 “The Hanged Man”. The closest version visually of the Hanged Man as it is as a trump card is on the cover page of the chapter. Then we have another section in this chapter later on which portrays Tsurugi as both hero and criminal. Right before this Mahiru has just asked Tsurugi if he has been fighting to protect people all this time. Tsurugi denies this and instead tells Mahiru that to humans he is viewed as a hero, but to vampires he is viewed as a genocider.

What is fascinating is that visually he’s portrayed as physically being in the position of the hanged man, only as both lauded hero and condemned criminal. As the hero of humanity he’s in a upright Hanged Man position. As the criminal he is in a reversed Hanged Man position with a noose. Looking at the two side comparisons I feel that they both represent #11 Justice & #13 Death more so than the Hanged Man, “In the major arcana sequence, the Hanged Man falls after XI, Justice, and before XIII, Death. We had our values on trial in Justice, and now we must hold on until Death, when we can figuratively let go. Death brings transformation, while the Hanged Man prepares to make the sacrifice Death needs so he can move on.” (Dean)

Justice XI

Justice Key Meanings:

Fairness

Balance

Perception

Objectivity

With Tsurugi wearing a cape and a sword I feel it represents a reversed #11 Justice. Tsurugi’s hero is in the upright position for the Hanged Man, but in the reversed position for Justice. Trump XI portrays the personification of upright Justice on a throne with scales and a sword. Important to see is that the Justice trump is not blindfolded, her vision is clear. The scales held in her left hand represent favoring the deserving with the scales of mercy, and the upright sword in her right hand represents seeking retribution for past wrongs with the sword of retribution. The scales also symbolize the thought process put into making a judgement, and weighing both sides of a story. The sword symbolizes the action that results from judgement. The sword, when it is held upright, symbolizes success.

Tsurugi as a reversed Justice fits in many ways. Tsurugi, as an instrument for furthering Touma’s and C3’s plans, is furthering the goals of those that use him via corrupt justice. Vampires are captured we've seen, but are they given legal trials and do they have protected rights? From what we’ve seen of C3 I highly doubt it. Hence why he is in the position of reversed Justice. Tsurugi has often been connected to a sword, and his name can even mean “sword”, look at the sword of hero-Tsurugi. It is covered in blood, but Tsurugi’s arms are held behind his back. The blood on the sword is not boldly in your face, and is even a bit hidden behind Tsurugi and a speech bubble. Tsurugi does not hold the sword in his hand showing that he himself does not actively choose to to make any decisions with the sword, and instead I feel it represents Tsurugi's passivity and his following what others want and will of him. Later on we also see that when Touma manipulates Tsurugi with his spell power Tsurugi becomes blindfolded, and this is perhaps a symbolism of justice being both blind (traditionally) and blinded (corruption hiding the truth).

#11 Justice Reversed

“Reversed, the card indicates dishonesty with yourself and others. It shows an unwillingness to see the meaning of events and shows especially that you are missing some opportunity for a greater understanding of yourself and your life. In outer life it indicates dishonesty and unfair actions or decisions. Sometimes it is others who are unfair to us. The reversed meaning can refer also to unjust legal decisions or to bad treatment from someone. On the other hand we must not allow the suggestion of unfairness to act as an excuse for denying our own responsibility for what happens to us… ‘Nothing can save you but yourself.’” (Pollack.).

“Life goes out of balance as work, relationships, and money issues spiral out of control. A decision may go against you, so there may be dishonesty or a miscarriage of justice. You are treated unfairly, which is compounded by bad advice from a trusted individual. You are not able to speak your truth and feel overruled by those who don’t understand your predicament. It is important to find your voice and stay strong to your values- if you are in the right.” (Dean).

Death XIII

Death Key Meanings:

Decline

Rebirth

Transformations

Change

As the condemned criminal Tsurugi is in the reversed position of the Hanged Man, but he’s also in the upright position for Death. With Tsurugi wearing traditional black and white striped prisoner clothing and have a noose around his neck I feel this gives weight to the idea of connecting him to #13 Death. Tsurugi in this side comparison is on a scaffold. He wears the clothes of a criminal and he seems to be a minute away from hanging. Yet, the noose around his neck is loose. As the Hanged Man trump has told us, the Hanged Man is not going to die. Instead he is merely hanging around waiting. The trump card Death arrives after the Hanged Man as death follows a hanging. Only in the case of the Hanged Man this is a spiritual death and rebirth after a time of contemplation. The black and white colors Tsurugi wears are associated with Death in the thirteen trump. In the trump Death wears black armor and sits astride a white horse while holding a black and white flag in his left hand. The thirteen trump is associated with change, an extreme change in your life to be exact. When I read this page I see Tsurugi’s Reversed Justice representing who he is right now, and that his Upright Death represents that he needs to and will undergo a great change. Especially since the manga is written in Japanese and we read the pages from right to left.

#13 Death Upright

“In diviniatory readings Death signifies a time of change. Often, it indicates a fear of change. In its most positive aspect it shows a clearing away of old habits and rigidness to allow a new life to emerge. In its most negative aspect it indicates a crippling fear of physical death.” (Pollack.).

“Death brings ending and beginnings-sometimes all at once. This is a time of fast and deep transformation and an opportunity to let go of whatever you no longer need. Unlike card XX, Judgement, which signals a process of self-examination, Death’s impact is sudden and may be shocking. You have little control over external events when Death looms, but in time you will be able to see this sharp change in circumstances as a blessing. A break with the past-from relationships and friendships to work that is no longer satisfying-is the only way forward. In this sense, Death can be a release and a relief. Death, after all, is the ultimate reality check, and he leaves you with the bare bones, the truth.” (Dean).

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These are the views I have on Tsurugi and his tarot cards. I also thought about him perhaps having reference to the Ace of Swords, him being C3′s Ace and his name relating to a sword, but just decided to focus on the major arcana for now. Maybe I’ll do another post about that at a later date. I had fun writing this. I hope to make more posts like this in the future, but if I do they will likely be very, very sporadic.

References:

Dean, Liz. The Ultimate Guide to Tarot: A Beginner's Guide to the Cards, Spreads, and Revealing the Mystery of the Tarot. Fair Winds Press, 2015.

Javane, Faith, and Dusty Bunker. Numerology and the Divine Triangle. Whitford Press, 1997.

Pollack, Rachel. Seventy Eight Degrees of Wisdom A Book of Tarot Part 1: The Major Arcana. Aquarian Press, 1980.

#servamp #kamiya tsurugi #servamp meta #servamp tarot analysis #tsurugi kamiya #servamp tarot

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neuxue · 4 years ago

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Hello hello. I just started watching The Untamed and found your blog and it's been a lot of fun because, somebody has already put my mental screaming into words so thank you for that! I'm kind of mentally stuck on the events of the Lotus Pavillion massacre tho and just had to get my thoughts out because I haven't seen this said anywhere yet? So,1- When JC and Sis are in mourning they leave everything so WWX. except he just got whipped and it would've taken him a month to heal. Soooo (1/2)

(2/2) yeah WWX in also in excruciating physical pain on top of emotional and mental and nobody notices or remembers that his back is shredded.

Oh man okay, so. On the one hand, you are not wrong. On the other hand...

I’ve said this before, but something I like about this show is the approach it takes to letting everything go to shit, in that it’s often not any specific person’s fault so much as it is a whole bunch of people’s virtues and flaws and insecurities and intentions good or ill all snagging against each other.

Because my own interpretive lens tends to be biased towards... looking from every character’s perspective and optimising for maximum pain to maximum number of characters (dark ethics, show me the forbidden utilitarianism) rather than assigning blame to any specific one.

So, with that lens in place, my take on this (and yours may be different!):

On no one noticing/remembering Wei Wuxian being in pain

I’m always here for the ‘how are you even standing’ trope and it may not be outright stated in the episode but Wei Wuxian has been whipped by magical lightning to the extent that it’s a believable claim to make that he won’t be able to walk for weeks. (Whether Yu Ziyuan exaggerates in an attempt to convince Wang Lingjiao to leave them alone is... a topic for another time, but either way it’s a pretty sure bet Wei Wuxian’s in agony).

Thing is (and this, too, is its own kind of devastating), Wei Wuxian is not unaccustomed to ignoring, downplaying, and enduring extreme pain. And he has effectively conditioned everyone around him to go along with it. Maybe they don’t always completely believe him, but he’s just so good at drawing everyone into his pretense with him that I don’t think they always see the degree to which he’s hurting (or at least they know it’s futile to push it).

I also think it’s not unlikely that he’s experienced this specific pain before (and, if so, likely has practice in pushing through this exact experience, so that his siblings won’t worry, won’t feel guilty, won’t have to choose between him and their mother. Which would only hurt them if they knew, and really any way you spin it that family is a mess on so many levels, ow).

Also, not insignificantly, adrenaline is one hell of a painkiller, while it lasts.

So he’s able to take pain that should have anyone else on their knees and just... put it aside, ignore it, push through it without a word.

Enough so that Jiang Yanli (who wasn’t there and therefore actually doesn’t know what has happened) doesn’t realise. Enough so that Jiang Cheng (who was there, but is, I think, practised at not seeing or not thinking about certain things--another topic for another time, but Jiang Cheng has been hurt and shaped by this family just as much as Wei Wuxian has, though in different ways) doesn’t question Wei Wuxian standing up with a makeshift oar to try to bring them all back to their family.

It’s as if we’re seeing the damage of all three of them, with respect to the particular dysfunction of their family, playing out here. Wei Wuxian masking pain in order to protect (prioritise) his siblings. Jiang Cheng seeing the image he is presented, rather than dealing with the truth he fears. Jiang Yanli being set aside, shielded (overlooked). This feels like a pattern that has played out before, all of them playing their roles. Which, you know, hurts.

On everything being ‘left’ to Wei Wuxian

On paper, that is pretty much what happens. But I tend to read this as... all three siblings’ established characterisation, their existing dynamic, and the ways in which different people respond to crisis, panic, and grief.

Firstly, this is what Wei Wuxian does. He sacrifices himself at every opportunity to protect those around him (especially but by no means exclusively his siblings).

That’s even more true now, with the last words of both his adoptive parents in his ears (‘protect them’), the reminder of what he has written into the very fabric of himself: that he owes them, that they are more important, that his only value is in his capability, and even that has value only when used to help others. That he is nothing and they are everything, and so the only acceptable option is to sacrifice himself in whatever way is necessary.

Which, you know, hurts. And we can put no small portion of the blame for that on his upbringing, and on the cultivation world as a whole for the way it regards reputation and bloodline and family and obligation and role.

But here’s the thing: there’s plenty of emotional damage to go around! Because Wei Wuxian does this, each time, unasked and unasking. He just... steps up quietly, ignores his own pain, and does what he feels is necessary--regardless of whether those he is doing this for would want that from him.

(I’m not going to argue the ethics of that one way or the other because that’s not really my point here; my point is more just that he makes that choice unilaterally, and it hurts for all of them. Wei Wuxian because he has so deeply internalised the thought that he has to do this, and his siblings because they probably don’t want to see him hurt).

Finally, there’s the whole issue of how people cope in a crisis. No one in this scene is operating at 100% rational capacity. They’re shocked and hurt and grieving and terrified, and that combination makes for a kind of... not always tunnel vision, exactly, but snap decisions and narrowed focus and a kind of brutal triage: if it’s not immediately relevant and vital, it doesn’t register. So, the ability to think about what you say before you let the words out, the ability to hold back the urge to cry or lash out, the ability to look past yourself and register the suppressed signs of pain in your sibling--all of these are pretty much offline for the time being.

For Jiang Cheng, that manifests first as a frantic need to get back to his family; that takes priority, consumes him, in this state of panic and fear and the world crumbling around him, over anything and everything else. Later, that turns to anger because again he’s just not in a headspace to be able to process it further than that, to hold any of that back.

For Jiang Yanli, it manifests as sadness, as grief, as reaching out to her brothers and trying to hold them close, but also as a fear of confrontation, of doing anything that could make this worse. Where Jiang Cheng’s desperation is get to my family, hers is keep my family together.

Meanwhile Wei Wuxian defaults to his base state of There Must Be A Way Self-Sacrifice Can Solve This Problem. It’s... a heartbreaking kind of altruism, but in its way just as irrational and panic-driven as his siblings’ responses. This is what he does, so he throws himself into it without considering any other option, because he’s not in a place where he can. His desperation is that ingrained protect my family above myself.

(Also, he’s very much a ‘throw yourself into the task at hand in order to keep the trauma at bay’ kind of person, so this is basically his coping mechanism, just as anger is Jiang Cheng’s).

tl;dr: somewhere in there I had a point, and I think it’s basically ‘everyone in this sequence is hurting so much, and they’re all so raw and exposed, and falling into these deeply engrained patterns that hurt all of them and help none of them and yet it’s all they can do, because this is what their world has made them’.

#i just! have a lot! of thoughts and feelings! about this sequence!#how these characters hurt themselves and even those around them #not out of malice or intent but because they're trying #to do what the world demands of them #and so are they to blame?#or is that world?#that demands so much of its children #and repays them in blood and nightmare #the untamed #wei wuxian #jiang cheng #jiang yanli #asks #anon

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leverage-commentary · 4 years ago

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Leverage Season 2, Episode 7, The Two Live Crew Job, Audio Commentary Transcript

Dean: Hi, I’m Dean Devlin, Executive Producer and Director of this episode of Leverage.

Amy: Hi, I’m Amy Berg, Supervising Producer and Writer of this episode.

John: John Rogers, Executive Producer and Co-Writer of this episode. Hold on. [Opens bee.] There we go.

[Laughter]

Dean: The beer has been opened.

John: The Guiness has been opened. Amy Berg where did this episode come from?

Amy: Well, I mean, when you have a show about a team of con men sort of- one of the first episodes that you think of is-

John: Yeah, it was like one of the first ones we broke- we talked about last season-

Amy: What happens when they go up against another team of con men? And obviously that's not something you really wanna, sort of, pull the trigger on during season one, so we sort of sat on it for a bit.

Dean: But we talked about it a lot in season one.

Amy: We did talk about it.

John: Yeah. But really you have to have your- part of the fun is having your characters and opposition- of people that make a difference, having the opposition of you need to know the characters really well.

Amy: You need to learn who our people are before we can bring in a new set of people.

John: Yeah, so it was a lot of fun putting together the different combinations and different variations on this- the evil team of evil Leverage.

Amy: Loves it.

John: Why the Gustav Klimt?

Amy: The Gustav Klimpt, now you're testing me and it's been a while, I believe this painting was called Higeia and it was technically destroyed by the Nazis in 1945. And it was sort of a choice to pick a painting that wasn't actually in existence, so we weren’t stepping on anybody's toes, saying that this was a stolen painting.

John: The likeless- the equivalent of likeness rights on paintings is an enormous pain in the ass so as a matter of fact, there's a statue of Lincoln in the park that's in the sequence later that we shot and then we had to get the rights to using that statute, even in the background.

Dean: Yeah.

John: Now that's very tricky stuff. Dean tell us about the fun of shooting this.

Dean: Well we wanted to try and keep perpetual motion and show two different attempts. Our team, which tries to do a low tech break in through basically just cutting through a wall through this cheapo office behind the high tech office, and then the daring team that actually chases the bullet head on.

John: Yeah. And there is our villain, Griffin.

Amy: Griffin Dunne.

John: Exactly.

Dean: I've wanted to work with Griffin my whole life. I remember seeing him in An American Werewolf Through London and just falling madly in love with this guy; I just thought he was amazing. And then when we went to do this episode, it was actually Tim Hutton who said, ‘What do you think about my pal Griffin Dunne playing this part?’ And it was just like a gift from heaven.

John: Oh yeah, we are all over that. And this is a lot of fun and we built a fake wall- And that is Tim's assistant, correct?

Amy: That’s that’s Elle, yeah.

John: That's Elle, Tim’s assistant, in her big screen debut with us tormenting her.

Amy: Indeed. And they're playing detectives Marlow and Archer who, as you know, is an homage to both Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald.

John: That's right.

Dean: And there's fun outtakes from that which will be in the gag reel.

Amy: Excellent. This should have a lot of gag reel footage.

John: It's also- to tell you what's weird is, Archer actually-

Amy: Was the name of Tim Spades partner in [mumbles]?

John: That's right. That's what the original reference was. That’s also Ross Mcdonald.

Amy: But Ross Mcdonald was inspired by that character in order.

John: Really?

Amy: Yeah.

John: I didn't know that. There you go.

Dean: Fans of the show In Treatment should know that this actress, Noa Tishby, is actually the Executive Producer of In Treatment on HBO.

John: That's right Noa is an Israli actress, she was in Israel, she saw the original show, she dug in, got the rights herself, brought it to America, and wound up executive producing the American version.

Amy: By the way, that's Wil Wheaton.

[Laughter]

Amy: Which is so awesome. And who cast Will Wheaton in this episode, John Rogers?

John: Well I technically cast him, but I believe you had the idea of hiring Wil Wheaton because I'm the one who actually signed the papers.

Amy: Thank you, I appreciate the credit on that.

John: Yes.

Dean: And I was so happy because Wil Wheaton and I actually used to play on the same hockey team together.

Amy: That's right.

Dean: And this was back when he was on Star Trek. And I was dumb enough to allow him to play goalie at the time and-

[Laughter]

Dean: And [Unintelligible]’s son took a slapshot that cracked his helmet open and gave him 17 stitches across the forehead.

Amy: You helped break Wil Wheaton's face.

Dean: And the producers of Star Trek called me screaming at me and forbidding me to ever allowing him to play on the team again.

Amy: Nice. Dogs Playing Poker, by the way, totally public domain. That’s why we chose that one.

John: There you go, there's a lot of variations of that, too, that’s right. And this is actually our little slam is not a part of the subtle on a lot of the CBS crime shows; just the sort of horrible-

Amy: Yeah, the over the top-

John: When we created Leverage, one of the reasons we did it was because so many shows were chasing serial killers. I think it was Chris Downey who said, ‘You know what? Serial killers are covered. Let’s chase rich white dudes in suits.’

Amy: I think they're done.

John: There's only ever been 10 and they've been caught 100 times. And that was Apollo Robbins. This is a great- this is one of Dean's signature roundy-rounds. And I was saying the other day-

Dean: An amazing steadicam shot.

John: I was saying the other day, we've actually learned in the writers room how to assign dialogue to make this easier.

Amy: Yeah.

[Laughter]

John: So rather than rewriting on the fly-

Amy: -we write towards the circle track.

John: Cause you can actually see. It goes- it's like triple play: it goes to Beth to Aldis to Chris to Tim and then back around again.

Amy: I love Parker; there’s always- always something secret going on, whether its secret nazis or-

John: Yeah well, we kind of establish it in The Day of the Hunter Job, Parker’s realm of knowledge outside of stealing is not good.

[Laughter]

John: Like, anything that doesn't involve stealing, she will believe it if the other team members tell her. Oh this is great. I remember we shot this day. Dean, tell us about this bit.

Dean: Well this was one where we actually went full circle because we came in, we rehearsed it one way and it felt really good, but then we started to feel like, ‘Gosh we're not doing enough.’ And so then we reblocked the entire scene so we could all do more and have more happen, and then we all paused and went, ‘You know, the first one was much better.’

[Laughter]

Dean: And that's what we went with.

John: Yup. What I think was part of what was driving that was because I was on set that day, ‘Do not touch the motion sensitive bomb.’

Amy: Thank you.

John: Was the fact that this was gonna be Gina's last episode, full day with the cast- And also, she really dug in on the fact that the character was going to die and it genuinely upset the cast. Like the cast was a little freaked out here; they got way- cause this is a very claustrophobic set, very claustrophobic scene. The way we usually shoot is we shoot longer takes. So we do the whole thing, like we’ve shot entire acts in one take at some point.

Dean: That's true.

Amy: Yeah. By the way, this bit with the pudding, I've known John for two years and this is the only time I've ever turned him on.

[Laughter]

Amy: I wrote this bit, and he read the act and he came in and he burst into my office and was like ’hahaha’.

John: Remember you didn’t use it you; had talked about it and-

Amy: That’s true. That’s true. I brought it up in dialogue, but I didn't actually employ it. They didn’t- Parker didn't actually use it.

John: I actually kicked in the door- the only time I’ve yelled at you-

Amy: Yeah, he yelled at me.

John: I kicked in the door and said, ‘How do you come up with instant pudding in a motion sensitive bomb and not actually use it?’ And so we had- and Parker, we had Parker do it. There's a lot of great acting in here, there's a lot of Gina digging in on, sort of, Sophie's past catching up with her. Hardison-

Amy: But this is a scene where it’s really easy to overwrite it, because your instinct is sort of to write to the emotion of this scene like Sophie could die. But the point is to underwrite and let your actors find the emotion between the lines.

John: That beat right there with Chris and Gina.

Amy: Yes.

John: There's a very nice recurring thing we try to do, which is, whenever it becomes something about killing someone, they go to Eliot because Eliot- because Eliot used to do that. And there's a nice moment there. I was actually there- oh look at that look. I love that look. Where-

Amy: Emotion between the lines.

John: Where basically Eliot signs off on the fact that she's probably gonna die and Gina and Eliot worked that out and it's just a lovely moment. Ahhh this is great, now how did we do this?

Amy: Gina just knocks this out of the park.

Dean: So Gina was very pregnant at the time, so we had to do a double for the wide shots, for the running, and Gina for the closeups.

John: Yeah, and then this is a miniature.

Dean: That's right. Well, the building is the actual building we shot at, but the explosion is a miniature that we shot at our parking lot that we digitally composited on top of it. Now at the time, people didn't know what we were gonna do with Gina's character because Gina was pregnant. So when we did this scene and we aired this episode a lot of people were really upset at this point because they actually thought we had killed her off of the show.

Amy and John: Yeah.

Dean: And early Twitters were very upset.

Amy: Were not favorable.

John: Were very angry.

[Laughter]

Dean: How could you kill her off the show? But then-

Amy: This was originally intended to be the midseason finale, which in that case, the fans would definitely think for sure she was gonna be gone for a while or forever.

John: Yep.

Amy: But we ended up adding two episodes to the end of the midseason run, so we did get to see her again.

Dean: I don't know what it is exactly, but for me, Parker’s performance- or Beth’s performance as Parker in this section here is reminiscent of some of the great comedians.

Amy: Yeah.

Dean: Because it's so subtle what she's doing. And a lot of this came out of Beth herself who said -

Amy: I rewrote this scene based on Beth's notes that you were so kind to give me, and it sort of- it made the scene like 10 times better. I don't even remember what it was originally, but-

John: She's trying to remember what her lines are to say as Parker and her eyes roll up like ‘what am I supposed to say’ and then she gets freaked out at seeing Gina dead and loses it.

John: And then she totally spirals out.

Amy: There's a lot going on in, like, 20 seconds; it's pretty funny.

John: And then Hardison having to go up and bail her out. And again, there's a lot of- there's a lot of stuff going on in the structure this year with Gina leaving, and just for that tempering and having us to accelerate that storyline- There's a lot of Hardison/Parker relationship stuff between the lines on all the shows, we just never made it an A plot, but you can actually see the relationship evolve over the course of the season, when you watch the entire season particularly, the second half. And of course Chris is wearing a bandana under his hat because that's when he had slammed his head onto the set.

Dean: In the previous episode.

John: Exactly.

Amy: Yeah, he’s got a giant scar on his forehead right now.

John: Beautiful cemetery up on a big hill in Portland, nice enough to let us shoot there. Beautiful, gorgeous location. And that's a nice bit of acting, too.

Dean: Yeah, just the little moment of him seeing her and then getting that shock of losing someone that he cares about.

John: Yeah, and just processing.

Amy: So far you've pointed out that your favorite moments are the ones where there's no dialogue, so I'm glad I could contribute to that.

[Laughter]

John: Well you wrote- no no, that’s right, I usually go back and write the stage directions, but you do a lot of the-

Amy: This- and so it begins, when John makes fun of me throughout the commentary.

John: I don't make fun of you, just when you take too much credit.

[Laughter]

Dean: This is the controversy.

Amy: I was taking no credit!

Dean: In this scene, the gravestone says Cathrine Klive, her actor name, and at the end Sophie Deveraux and a lot of people thought that was actually a mistake, but why don't you address that?

John: Well we were really- it comes up in the end. We really wanted- and this is sort of a meta structural thing - she wants to kill Sophie Deaveraux. She realizes Sophie Deveraux as an identity, as a life, is a dead end, and so she changes the tombstone so that she can eventually give up that identity. And it's interesting because what Sophie is- realized is that she's going down a dead end, and in theory she’s the current criminal and Nate is the honest man. Nate is also going down a dead end, but he's way too obsessive and blind to realize it.

Amy: Yeah.

John: And so by the end of the season, you’ll see Sophie is a lot more emotionally evolved than Nate is.

Amy: It's true. This is sort of the beginning of Nate’s spiral where-

John: Yeah, maybe the end of Sophie’s thing.

Amy: His priority shifts and, like, winning becomes more important than servicing the clients.

John: We just sort of tease in 206. Great scene between Griffin and- really that was kind of fun. Once we knew we had Griffin Dunne, a lot of these scenes became, ‘Alright, it's really just gonna be head to head.’

Amy: Yeah, yeah.

John: Yeah. It's just- we’re just gonna have the two of them- And the fact that they're friends was really helpful.

Amy: And this the promise of the premise when you do a crew vs crew episode. What you are promising to the audience is you're gonna have one-on-one faceoffs between the characters and their counterparts.

John: And this is part of the evolution of writing an episode, is when we were breaking this, we had a really hard time getting that up as fast as possible, and that's what you wound up- doing the inner cut break in at the opening. Because even though they weren't facing off at each other, we gave the audience the promise of the premise.

Amy: Yes.

John: And the beautiful Hyundai Genesis. A fine automobile.

Amy: A fine, fine vehicle.

Dean: Beautiful peel out.

John: It was nice. In a cemetery!

[Laughter]

John: There was a moment where I was talking to one of the actors, I looked down and realized I was standing on a civil war veteran’s grave. That was a little disturbing.

Amy: That’s classy Rogers.

Dean: I absolutely love the little makeup and hair choices of Gina in this scene, it's so 40’s noir.

John: Yes.

Amy: Yeah, yeah the hair.

John: The whole episode she's playing 40’s noir. And it was a really interesting look, and not one we can do a lot because of the characters she's played, but this was interesting; she's not playing a character ever in this episode except in the opening.

Dean: Right.

John: I kind of liked her in the cop outfit.

Amy: It's one of my favorite running gags in the entire series of the show. Parker just not entirely buying that Gina’s actually alive.

John: Yeah.

[Laughter]

Amy: ‘I'm not dead!’

John: Some part of her brain understands it, but the emotional center is so screwed up.

Amy: ‘I saw her in a coffin, ergo, she must be, in fact, dead.’

John: This is also great, is digging in on the fact that the whole ex-boyfriend/crew/guy who runs the crew she used to be with. And for a while, for like a minute and a half in the room, remember that character was Sophie's boyfriend for the whole first half of the season and this was gonna be the payoff, but we just never knew if we were gonna get the availability for that actor and we just couldn't risk it. And it also seemed a little dishonest she would hide that, so.

Dean: I love the Hardison line, ‘You saw other teams before us?’

[Laughter]

Amy: ‘No, just another Nate.’

John: ‘Just another Nate.’ That's- yes, this is a big family beat of looks back and forth.

Amy: Lots of looks.

John: Now how did you- I remember you were very, Dean, very big into designing the other team’s headquarters.

Dean: Yeah, well I really wanted to feel like a mirror of our headquarters. But in a believable way in that they don't have permanent space so they’re in a small space. But I was trying to mirror even screen direction-wise that one team is looking left-right the other team is looking right-left so that we can really feel like these are absolute mirror images of each other.

John: Yeah even the looks left-right and right-left match.

Dean: That’s right.

John: Yeah, no it's interesting. And there's Apollo Robbins, who we haven't mentioned yet.

Amy: Apollo Robbins! Yes, he's our technical consultant on the show. He is a master thief. But not anymore, he's a good guy now. I feel like I should point that out.

John: Yes we should. You can't hire him to do crimes.

Amy: When I say consultant, I mean he's not actually a thief anymore.

John: This is also great; this is also the Mona Lisa scam. Why don’t you explain the Mona Lisa scam since you’re a research freak?

Amy: Oh great, now I’m-

John: 1911.

Amy: Yes, 1911 there was a con man, I don't remember his name, but someone says it I think in this scene, where he created six forgeries of the Mona Lisa, stole the original, and then sold the six fakes on the black market to individual buyers as though they were the original and got six times the profit.

John: Some con and heist shows will just do that plot and act like they came up with it. [Coughs] Asshole! [Cough].

[Laughter]

John: Rather than mention the fact that this is something that really happened, that you should honor.

Amy: This is something that really happened, that I actually read about.

John: Also used the Doctor Who's: The City Of Death written by Douglas Adams.

Amy: Oh yeah, oh yeah.

John: There you go. This is something else we did a lot of, which was the process of elimination bit with the screens. Remember we did it in Hunter too? And it's just kind of fun because it’s kind of something from my physics background which is all about probability. And the fact that a series of educated guesses- it's kind of like our version of detective work.

Amy: Yeah.

John: You know, it's like crime detection, it's a lot of fun. And yeah, and now we're really seeing Nate start to spin out of control.

Amy: But this is what I would call dueling competence porn.

John: Yes it is.

Amy: This, and the third act where the teams are doing their jobs and doing them well.

John: Competence porn, by the way, is a term- I forget how it came about, but it's basically-

Amy: It's just a room bit.

John: It’s a room bit. It’s like, you know what? I just like watching people who are good at their jobs doing it, especially if they're entertaining. A lot of it was from 208 was watching Beth Riesgraf- in 208 there was an entire act that's a break in-

Amy: Oh yeah.

John: That’s Beth breaking into a vault. And when you're writing it, you're like, ‘Gosh, that feels thin,’ and then you're watching it and you're like, ‘I'm watching Parker break into a vault for 15 minutes and this is amazing!’

Amy: I could watch it for 40 minutes.

Dean: This is one of my favorite bullet time shots that we’ve done.

John: Yes, now this is- now remember this is all done not digitally- well we do it really. We freeze everyone in the background and the cameraman walks through it and we digitally speed it up. What is this space? This is the-

Dean: This is an actual museum in Portland that we turned into our space.

John: Yup.

Amy: Wasn't there a naked sculpture that you guys put a leaf on?

John: Yes, up in the upper level.

Amy: That's my favorite story.

John: Yeah. And then- yes, this is 4-way; this is not as insane as the one in the season opener.

Amy: But it’s still insane.

John: But this is a 4-way through about 100 extras.

Amy: I don't think Dean understands that we’re making television.

[Laughter]

Dean: Well, you know, honestly you don't even attempt a shot like this without a steadicam operator like Gary Camp.

Amy: Gary Camp is amazing.

Dean: He's a serious feature film guy. I mean, that was all one shot.

John: Yeah. That's stunning. And then you bring it back to Parker- and this is also fun, is the fact that we make fun in the show. And this was- even when we did tap out and some people were like, ‘Oh, you're making fun of Lincoln, Nebraska,’ when we had Sophie make fun of the food. We’re not making fun of the locations, we’re making fun of the fact that Sophie’s a little princess.

Amy: Yeah.

John: She's not someone who does well with things that- and the van, the van, actually, over the course of the second season becomes a character.

Dean: I love that she's says about how it smells a little whiffy.

[Laughter]

Amy: Which is a callback in The Future Job as well.

John: Yes, this is hard work, it smells like hard work. Yeah, Hardison's affection for the van.

Amy: Respect the van!

John: Respect the van, yeah.

Dean: Now this is actually the first scene where we’ll see the teams start to go head to head.

John: Yeah. Split up, call out your jobs.

Amy: This is the promise of the premise act, as we call it. And it's the Van Gogh that they're after, the Cafe Terrace At Night, I believe it’s called.

Dean: And this is a very important moment because it really established who Nate and Sophie were to the rest of the team. Nate being the one that makes the plans, but Sophie being the one who keeps them safe. And that had never been exposited before, and by doing that, it really set it up.

John: Boom! And then the parallel structure over to Hardison's opposite number, Chaos, played by Wil Wheaton, just four vans down.

Amy: Nice.

John: That was really inspired. They’re the most twin of the bunch. Oh, and this is amazing. This is amazing because that's all real time. That wallet never came off. This was this whole section we just gave to Apollo.

Amy: Yeah. He's like, what can you do? And he just basically-

John: And he took Beth aside and they came up with a bunch of- it’s like, you know what? We're just gonna run camera, you just do a bunch of you do you, man.

Amy: By the way, there was no one else we had in mind for Apollo. Even when I was like- when I came up with the concept, and then I also did the outline, I also called the character Apollo, hoping at some point we would actually cast him.

John: But was the Wil Wheaton character originally a girl?

Amy: In fact, she was.

John: Yes, that’s right.

[Laughter]

Amy: Yeah, it was- I believe it was a hot Latina-

John: Yes.

Amy: -that he was going up against, and then at some point, you know, in the casting process I turned to you and I was like, ‘You know, we've been talking about Wil Wheaton for something. Is this not the prefect role or not?’

John: And Noa Tishby rocking the dress. Noa was actually in the Israeli army. So that was kinda cool as we were looking at a lot of different actresses and Dean had seen her tape.

Dean: Yeah.

John: And it was like, you know, I wanna try a different ethnicity. I wanna try a different look, and brought her in. And what's great is she looks like she can take a punch, you know, that's a tough chick. And she really did great in the fight scenes and was a really- we got really lucky in this episode.

Amy: Oh yeah.

John: You know, we usually have to cast one big role; we cast five.

Dean: Right.

John: And they were all great.

Dean: Now this fight scene was-

John: Ok I'm gonna take credit for this one because nobody else is-

Amy: I wasn't gonna take credit for it.

John: No shadow on this, I had to explain this 9 times.

[Laughter]

Amy: Oh yeah, that’s right.

Dean: And this sequence was actually getting directed by Marc Roskin and you, John.

John: Yes, at two o’clock in the morning. But I will give Mark Franco big props for throwing the old 1970’s film look.

Amy: The film reel stuff.

Dean: I love it.

John: That is so great. The Shaw brothers look is that and this is the whole-

Dean: That's how they see- in their minds that's how they see fights, like the karate movies they grew up watching.

John: Yes. And this is based on two things. 1) a great story about samurais- I love that look that Chris did. Great story about two samurai who faced each other, knew each other’s skills so well they fought the entire fight in their head and walked away. And Warren Ellis’ character the Midnighter from The Authority comic book who has sort of the same thing. He does fights backwards in his head. Ah look at that, oh he's a great physical actor, too, it was really- it was nice, cause we cast Apollo, he's never done acting before, he'd never done TV before. And it's the one gamble on the whole show and he was fantastic.

Dean: And he totally pulled it off.

Amy: But he's just so damn charming, it’s like you, sort of, just believed from the beginning that he could do it.

John: Yeah, he's very dangerous.

[Laughter]

John: It's really- if he ever turned evil, we'd be in a lot of trouble.

Amy: Oh my gosh.

Dean: This next sequence, outside, while I had done the storyboards for it, Marc Roskin shot the hell out of it. And what we wanted to do was an homage to the great Western movies, you know, the Spaghetti Western.

John: Well this was the challenge, and we talked about this when we were writing it. It’s like, nobody does hacking in an interesting way. There's no way to do hacking in an interesting way.

Amy: Visually it’s- filming it is not effective.

John: So abandon trying to do it with the computers and just do the metaphor, which is two guys pitting each other’s intellects against each other, and make it text.

Amy: And it's much more interesting, look at each other than looking at screens.

John: Oh and that timing is great, look at this, it’s just fantastic.

Amy: This is so nerdgasmic.

[Laughter]

Dean: He even had that Spaghetti Western whistle.

Amy: Yeah. I remember the first cut it was only in there subtly and you were like, ‘Hey turn that up, man.’

Dean: Listen, I’m-

John: And look at the little holster move, too.

Dean: I'm all for subtly, I just want a lot more of it.

[Laughter]

John: Oh no, Wil knocked it out of the park in this. Did you know that he had been doing a bunch of shows and people have come up and asked him to sign his autograph as this character?

Amy: As Chaos.

Dean: That's great.

John: Somebody came up with the anarchists cookbook and asked him to sign it as Chaos.

Dean: And I love that Sophie can’t use a computer.

[Laughter]

John: Utterly useless.

Dean: She just closes it.

John: Well Hardison’s taught Eliot- and the look to the swords. We had so much fun coming up with different props in the scenes. And this was at 2 o’clock in the morning fight fight fight, you win. Fight fight fight, you win. And just- cause they had to learn the routines and we were banging it out in three sizes at a time, it was great. Then we shot the bird.

Amy: So many looks.

John: And this- you could run the entire Parker/Apollo scene without dialogue and you'd know exactly what's going on.

Amy and Dean: Yeah.

John: Actually-

Dean: She's a little bit the Harpo. You know what I mean.

Amy: She's the Harpo.

John: She's the Harpo, he's Groucho in that scene, it's very subtle.

Amy: Is that Chase? Was that Chase walking towards the camera? It looked a little like Chase.

John: No, no. And this is, again, one of the rules, one of the hard rules of doing these shows. These shows are very hard, is that it can't be a random obstacle. Whatever is your obstacle heading into the third or fourth act must either be a product of the villains plan which you've already set in motion, or something that the team has screwed up or succeeded too well. And not screwed up too often cause that means they suck. So-

Amy: You make it sound like we did something good on purpose. That’s awesome.

John: Yeah, every now and then. And this is just- I want-

Dean: We almost didn’t do this.

John: We almost didn't do, but this is the punchline to the bit, that they're so locked into each other-

Dean: I'm so glad we did it.

John: Yeah. I actually was ready to bail on it, you were like, ‘Yeah, you know what? Let's make time.’ And the little look, and he gives them a bunch-

Dean: A bunch of crazy idiots.

John: Yeah, exactly. Now this is great, Nate’s totally lost in the need to win at this point.

Amy: Oh yeah.

Dean: I love Parker saying that, ‘The people in this line of work are unstable; we can use that.’

John: Yes.

Dean: Completely not realizing that she's in that line of work.

John: Tapping the pad look at that and look at the look Chris- that's another thing.

Amy: ‘I'm totally helping.’ That's it.

John: Gina gives a little smile which I missed the first time I saw this show.

Amy: There's a lot of little subtleties.

John: And again, second season, you start pairing up things differently. Chris and Gina found a nice rhythm for Sophie and Eliot this year that wasn't there first year, just in the pairings. And we wound up working; it was nice. And this is- yeah, she killed a guy with a mop.

Dean: I love Hardison's jealousy about Chaos, the whole ‘ugh.’

Amy: ‘Chaos.’

[Laughter]

John: Cause, you know, and it's a great thing of acting on Aldis’ part, you know he's beat him. You know that Chaos has beaten him a couple times. He's really- he’s not a pleasant loser, Hardison. And the nice little fist tap for the Kobayashi Maru.

Amy: Nice little knuckle bump, Parker.

John: Yup. Well that was another one of the little subtle things, that Parker has plainly sat down and watched like all nine Star Trek movies with Hardison because it was just something he did on a Saturday, you know?

[Laughter]

Amy: Well she wants to see, you know, what normal people do.

John: Yeah, Hardison's probably a bad example of that.

Amy: I don't think that's right- the right choice.

John: There's not- you know-

Amy: I gotta say, I love Tim in this scene.

John: Yeah. He’s really mad.

Dean: This one, out of all the cutting back and forth, this was the trickiest because it had to match rhythm, intensity-

Amy: And dialogue.

Dean: -and dialogue.

John: That's right.

Dean: This was really tricky.

John: Line by line. And that was the tricky bit, too. We had to give both of them the entire script for each one so they could know what they were doing to each other. I think- did Griffin come down the first day and watch Tim?

Dean: I actually think this was Griffin’s either first or second day on the show.

John: That's right. Tim came down to watch- yeah, so he would know what he had done physically. There's a parallel structure even with the team. This was a lot of fun. But this is one of those things that looks really elegant, but scripting, it's a little chimpy. It’s like, once you know what you're going to do, this wrote pretty easy.

Amy: Ok, yes, but I'm gonna go on record in saying that this is the best third act we've ever done in the history of Leverage. I just love it so much.

John: Well, you know what? Again, this is something you sorta learn. We- you know what? You learn how to write the show while you write the show. This is when we really where we realize you only need to do one thing an act. We so tried to buff all the people and, ‘Oh look, at the incredible plot twist’ like, you know what? They're fun characters, they're good characters, let them do one thing.

Dean: Yeah, it's fun to watch them do their thing.

John: One thing every act.

Dean: And I love how they all started to get pumped up for it. On both sides, they are gearing up for game day.

John: This is a great act break.

Amy: Nothing about that act I dont like. And I had very little to do with it.

John: This is easily- this is one of my favorite shows of the season. Of both seasons.

Amy: Mine too.

Dean: And beautifully photographed by our great cinematographer, Dave Connell.

John: That's right, because we were shooting parallel; we were shooting inside the museum and outside. You were outside running back and forth.

Dean: Very intense.

John: And this is a lot of fun. All the security guys were great. Portland once again gave us a great, great acting pool.

Amy: Go Portland!

John: And then this was a lot of fun, was setting up the snarky dialogue and Aldis and Wil basically sat and sweated in their vans-

Amy: Yeah.

John: -for 6 hours. Cause Aldis is always going, ‘Nobody knows what it's like to work in the van’. That van is hot. So he was very glad to have a playmate.

Amy: Aldis had like one full day of shooting in the van and nowhere else.

John: Yeah, exactly.

Dean: I love the character Tim came up with here, that was great.

John: And Emily is actually the girl I went to prom with. That's where the name comes from.

Dean: Nice.

John: Yep.

Dean: Poor Emily.

John: Yeah I’m- hey!

[Laughter]

Amy: I said nothing. If you noticed, I stayed quiet and said nothing. I'm learning.

John: And Tim plays drunk, distracting guy an awful lot this season. This- and by the way, the security guard that talks him down is great, he's got a really great comedic beat. This, by the way, is a stunning sequence.

Dean and John: 10 millimeter lens.

Amy: 10 millimeter lens?

John: Down in the basement.

Dean: And look at this steadicam move - down the stairs!

Amy: Running down the stairs.

John: This is a guy walking!

Dean: And then whipping around, that is-

Amy: This is inhuman.

John: It really is.

Dean: For steadicam artists, they will understand how difficult that shot is.

John: By the way, I like the fact that we just locked Beth into the air conditioning system.

[Laughter]

John: ‘Are we gonna build one? No, there's one downstairs! Should we put Beth Riesgraf in moving machinery? If she's up for it.’

Amy: Not sure why we had to put the lock it, but that's ok.

John: It's a good look. And oh yes, it-

Dean: I think this is my favorite of all the air duct scenes, this is my favorite air duct scene.

Amy: This is actually-

John: Well like Two Horse- all of Two Horse where she was bitching while having to do it.

Amy: Oh yeah.

John: This is also- we built the most complicated duct system on earth for this.

Dean: Talk about the bird, because you were there for this.

John: Oh yeah, I- we thought the bird would be CG, much like, we thought we’d be on a CG roof the series premiere, instead we wound up in Chicago 40 stories up. Dean went and found a bird-

[Laughter]

John: -a North American Kestrel. He said it would be easier to shoot a real bird that was trained, and so if you go on my blog you see pictures of the bird, but that's the last thing we did that night, so at 2 am we had this bird in a box, which was really beautiful.

Dean: Yeah.

John: And-

Amy: No birds were harmed in the making of this episode.

John: No birds were harmed. It was a really beautiful bird. But yeah, the trainer was hiding right off screen to summon the bird to get it to fly across.

Dean: This was actually one of the most difficult fight scenes we've ever shot, mainly because of the small space they were in.

John: How did you get the camera up there?

Dean: We literally locked it onto the ceiling and just let it run for the whole day. And then hoped we had good material.

John: Oh cool. That everybody would hit their marks.

Amy: She's so intense, I love it.

John: And the- him switching back over to Hebrew, this was a lot of fun. Oh and ‘now I’ve got the lasers.’

Amy: ‘No, now I’ve got the lasers!’

Dean: His arrogance was just awesome.

John: The two of them were fantastic.

Amy: He’s almost too good at it.

John: Big thanks to Derek, yet again, for building a great interface that lets the audience know exactly what’s going on.

Amy: Derek’s our graphics guy, he's amazing.

John: Does all our computer stuff. And our security guards, you know, somewhat oblivious, but good guys.

Dean: That's just the oldest gag in the world that I love.

Amy: It flickers only when they're not looking at it.

John: You know what it is, it’s the Abbott and Costello, it’s the candle on Dracula’s coffin.

[Laughter]

Dean: And I love that.

John: I love that reveal.

Dean: And he comes in dressed as, and named as, Nate Ford. I mean, that is just fabulous.

Amy: He's with the insurance company, what?

John: It is a great little, ‘Fuck you,’ from that character.

Dean: And Tim’s look at him for doing it, it’s just awesome.

John: But this was the fun of the fourth- and this was really hard when we were plotting. It's like ok, in the fourth act they have to be good, but they have to look like they’re losing. And they have to look like they're losing so bad you come into the fifth act not knowing if they won, and then we have to somehow pull it out.

Amy: Yeah. This, by the way, the scene with the two of them talking with the bird cage, was one of the first images that popped into my head when we were breaking this episode. I just love this.

John: But this duct tape- cause here's the thing, we have to shoot this direction and you have to shoot them crawling off these directions. This thing was huge, a human sized hamster trail. Took up an entire ball room for that one shot. Great fight scene, and we had talked about this, and this is a lot steamier and sexier than originally pitched.

Amy: It's literally steamy.

John: Dean was all over- like ‘I'm going to fight. I'm gonna shoot the steamiest fight scene that we've ever had.’

Dean: I thought it would be interesting to do a fight scene as a love scene.

John: Yeah.

Dean: And so the fight is actually foreplay.

John: Yeah.

[Laughter]

John: And a dance. It’s really like a dance sequence. We used to always say fights are like dances because of the movement and everything, but you know, you took that very literally and everything, which was great.

Dean: Now, by the way, we've done lasers in several episodes before.

Amy: Yeah.

Dean: These are the best lasers we ever did by far.

Amy: It's pretty cool.

John: Yeah, and having them move, that was the key. It's yet another example of something that you think will be really hard, actually turns out to be a little easier and way cooler.

Dean: And way cooler.

John: Yeah.

Dean: And again, kudos to the effects artists. If you look carefully, you can see the lasers reflecting in her pupils.

John: Reflecting in her eyes. I know, that’s sick.

Amy: That's really hot.

John: That was really great. This is a big ‘they are screwed’ act out.

Amy: Oh my god, look at that!

Dean: That is so cool.

Amy: Why did I not notice that before?

John: And wet people fighting.

[Laughter]

John: You know what? We give you everything on Leverage.

Dean: Little sex, little violence.

John: And it’s good.

Dean: And now we were able to take the hat off cause we were able to use the real scar on his forehead finally in the episode!

John: Also kinda cool, Kevin, our stunt coordinator, had them fighting in Israeli military style. That they were both- they had both sort of picked up- we always had Eliot kind of fight in that style, but the fact that that would be her training-

Dean: And I love that these two are standing next to Honest Abe.

[Laughter]

John: And that's a great entrance. She's really got-

Amy: ‘Oohhh.’

John: She's got 3 great entrances this year.

Amy: Yeah, she does.

John: One I'm not gonna talk about.

Amy: Cause you haven't seen it yet.

John: You haven’t seen it yet. But the Annie Croy entrance in the season opener was one of my favorite Gina bits, and then that.

Dean: Fabulous. Gina absolutely brought her A game this season.

John: And yup, this is our double just whipping through this.

Amy: That was me.

John: That was you? I forgot about that.

[Laughter]

Amy: It's a secret skill. I don’t like to talk about it.

John: And that's the thing, that was footage of the gymnast whipping through those maneuvers with Beth popping up. The special effects people had to put the lasers through those moves to coordinate with- you know, ordinarily, you build these shots incredibly carefully. It was like, ‘No, here's the footage. Make it work.’

Dean: I love this old school crank.

John: ‘Can't hack a classic.’

[Laughter]

Amy: More competence porn.

John: More competence porn. Hardison- the staff will tell you the first year we had Christmas together, I got them all wind up radios and flashlights.

Amy: Yes.

John: I'm a big believer in emergency preparedness for the apocalypse.

Amy: He cares! He cares about us.

John: You mock.

Amy: Wants us to live through the world ending.

John: Well, you know. I play a lot of Left 4 Dead. I want to make sure my crew’s ready.

Amy: Alright, cool.

Dean: I love that - Parker not quite good at acting yet.

John: No. This is key, Parker can't do a long con. She can maintain it for maybe 4-5 minutes before her inability to mimic humans breaks down. And there we go.

Amy: By the way, this episode totally screwed my- the way I do story telling now, because I'm thinking as the criminal all the time.

John: Yeah.

[Laughter]

Amy: Like, it's terrible. ‘How would I break into an auction house? Well to control the motion sensors-’

Dean: I love this beat right here.

John: Yeah.

Dean: Like, ‘Ahh, screw the fight.’

[Laughter]

John: Well he knows he's won by this point, so it's just really-

Dean: And she's so turned on by the fact that he did, cause no one else has ever beaten her.

John: Yeah, that was a lot of fun, was the idea that people- it's, again, you respect someone who’s competent. And the hand- yeah the little look after the handcuff-

Amy: Wow.

John: He actually looks a little scared there.

Amy: I know, I know.

John: He's like, ‘I got you! Oh wait, what did I get?’

Amy: ‘Is it over?’

John: This is nice.

Dean: In the original longer version, they originally kissed and then fell out of frame.

John: I missed that! I missed the fact that they banged out a quickie during the middle of the con.

Amy: Uh, no.

John: Alright, fine. By the way, Christian loves the badge on the chain. Anytime he can have the badge on a chain, he’s the happiest man alive. And Hardison-

Dean: A little bit of improv-ing by Aldis Hodge here.

Amy: Indeed.

John: Aldis- and again, this pops up in the next episode, Hardison always goes a little too far. He's never able to quite control the- he’s never able to get out without pushing it too far.

Amy: Are you saying that's going to catch up to him at some point?

John: That will catch up to him. The very next episode matter of fact. And yeah, this was a lot of fun driving police cars around Portland at six o’clock in the morning.

Amy: I'm sure no one was alarmed.

Dean: Now young filmmakers, that little move there is to get on the other side of the line.

Amy: Oh yes.

John: What was that?

Dean: So we- after we established them coming out of the building the camera slowly tracks over to the other shoulder on both sides, so now we're on the opposite side of the line and all of their looks have now reversed from the previous scene.

John: You and your looks.

[Laughter]

Dean: But this allowed us to now do our car gag, because we couldn’t really blow up a car in this location.

John: At two o’clock in the morning.

Dean: So we had to whip-pan off of a look to a parked car, then later we blew up a model car and replaced it.

Amy: We did two miniature explosions.

John: I love this reveal. I love this look. It’s like, ahhh, it's like Christmas.

Dean: Bingo.

John: Yeah.

Amy: Always knew you were evil, Wil Wheaton.

Dean: And now the evil speech of evil.

Amy: The evil speech of evil!

John: The evil speech of evil! A crucial part of the- well, this isn't really an evil speech of evil. The evil speech of evil is usually when they are-

Amy: Yeah, it’s the evil griping of evil.

John: The evil speech of evil is just: define your behavior. He's straight up monologuing here.

Dean: This is a little bit more of the, ‘I would’ve gotten away if it weren’t for you meddling kids.’

John: Yes, exactly.

Amy: Are you saying this is a Scooby Doo?

John: In the original version of this, he pulls off the Wil Wheaton mask only to reveal he's still Wil Wheaton.

[Laughter]

John: But he wears a Wil Wheaton mask. You know what? We should've called Wil for this.

Amy: Oh my god, why didn’t we do that? Now we gotta record it again.

John: I know. Maybe- You know what? We’ll do one on iTunes with him.

Amy: We'll do a special one.

John: And we may be playing Dungeons and Dragons while we actually do the commentary. This is great now. This is tough. And talk about- we had a couple different endings for this episode in this particular scene.

Amy: Yes.

John: Go ahead.

Amy: I don't remember them, I just remember there were multiple endings. [Laughs]

John: We actually, for a couple different versions of the outline, had him lose. Had Nate and the guys lose.

Amy: Oh, that’s right.

John: And then our team conned them about the painting. And the moral was basically our team kinda sitting around, pissed off they lost, but they were still a family while the other team broke up. And it just didn't feel-

Dean: Wasn't satisfying.

John: It was one of those good writer beats- and that's why Dean’s actually a very valuable producing partner, because he's all heart.

[Laughter]

John: Seriously man, he’s- and he’s, ‘I don't feel it.’

Amy: And we have none.

John: And we have none, because we’re writers and our blackened little hearts are shriveled away.

Amy: And our dark souls.

John: It's very easy when you're writing a con and heist show to get a little too clever for your own good.

Amy: It’s true.

John: And Dean’s a very good barometer on, ‘You know, do I really-? Am I gonna be happy with this?’ And you know, he’s right.

Dean: I like a little fromage.

Amy: Well what were the reasons-?

John: No, not fromage, but just, you know-

Amy: I think one of the reasons we were gonna have them losing was that this was gonna be episode three or four, and then we had the wild thought that we would bring the evil team back for episode seven.

John: Yes.

Amy: And sort of do, you know, ‘We lost the first one, but we won the second one.’

Dean: There's the recall of your Emily story.

John: Yes, that's right, the little go to the dance with. No it's- oh and that's great.

Dean: Again, that was Apollo who came up with that idea.

John: Yeah, that they're picking-

Dean: A lockpicking race.

John: And also Beth tossing the lockpick into the air and catching it? After a week with Apollo, she’d really gotten disgustingly good. I think they're actually picking there.

Amy: Well Apollo has gone on record as saying Beth can actually be a professional pickpocket if she wanted to.

John: She's got soft hands.

Dean: And this is, again, one of those scenes where Christian shows you how good he is at comedy. How subtle he is when he realizes she may be the person who actually shot him.

Amy: Look at that look!

[Laughter]

John: Yeah.

Amy: His eyes widen just like a millimeter, but-

John: Yeah. And that was an improv, I think. ‘Y’all nasty’. He's supposed to just look at it.

Amy: That’s awesome.

John: And Griffin doing the Nate Ford, ‘I'm an honest man’ speech here, incredibly uncomfortably!

Dean: Well, we always want the villain to suffer and this is how he suffers.

John: He’s just sweating it out.

Amy: He's getting more satisfaction out of watching Griffin Dunne lose than he is from getting the painting back to the clients.

John: Which is something wrong.

Amy: Yes, that's not right.

John: Sophie's actually the moral center of this scene.

Amy: This is the episode where they, in a way, sort of switch roles. She becomes the honest thief, and he becomes-

John: They were a lovely couple. God, these actors were nice.

Dean: Just amazing local actors.

John: No, this was a lot of fun. And then, again, giving him just enough rope to hang himself with. And making sure that he's pissed off enough to come back in season three.

Dean: The other part of this scene I like is, it really shows how far Sophie has come, that she’s actually not just doing this, she’s actually, really- she’s drank the kool aid by now. She really believes in what they're doing.

John: To a little bit more than Nate at this point.

Amy: Yeah.

John: Yeah. Which, you know, and that- we really took the, ‘You killed Sophie Deaveraux.’ And the funeral was a late addition; that wasn't in the first outline.

Dean: Yeah.

Amy: No, it wasn't. That was something that we added later.

John: Yeah it was.

Amy: But that was an element of knowing we were gonna lose Gina and trying to set up an awesome departure.

John: Yup. And that bomb thing wound up being really- Because originally- it was originally a sort of investigatory clue path and then when we lose Gina it's like, alright let's scare the audience a little here.

Dean: How did you come up with this bit of how they tracked-?

John: I think that was some geek bullshit I had in the notebook, I’m fairly sure. Whenever it’s some tiny minutiae of how phones work, it’s you know-

Amy: Good old GPS.

John: Yeah well, you know what? I think at the time there were some protests about the fact that you couldn't turn off the GPS tracking in your phone, and it was- they were talking about a lot in England you being able to do that, so that just kinda stuck.

Amy: Well I imagine all this would-

Dean: There's Chase!

Amy: See, yeah, there's Chase. I knew I saw him at some point.

John: Is this-? Yeah, here we go. All these great local actors.

Dean: And I love the security guard; this woman is fabulous.

Amy: So much personality, only a few lines.

John: And again, this is one of those things where you are trying to come up with a really clever way to screw him and then you suddenly realize, no, it’s just a box full of paintings; there's nothing really subtle about this. You’re just going to jail forever.

Dean: But in a way, this is what makes it work. ‘This is the real one.’

John: We had a couple of different notes, too.

Amy: He lost by winning. Cause what he wanted was the paintings, and we gave him the paintings, but that’s what did him over in the end.

John: Another rule: the villain must be brought down by their own sin.

Dean: Now this, for me, is my favorite scene for a number of reasons.

John: It’s a good scene.

Dean: First of all, just the lighting. We got this at the perfect time of day.

John: Yeah, how'd we get the lighting Dean?

[Laughter]

Dean: We accidentally went over that day and somehow went into-

Amy: Oh accidentally?

John: Oh did the director somehow go over in the morning, so we just happened to be shooting at the magic hour?

Dean: It was odd how that worked out.

Amy: Oh interesting.

Dean: That we just happened to be in magic hour to shoot the romantic scene.

Amy: That is so funny.

John: What I love is the fact that you’d never work again as a director for boning your producer that bad, except you’re the producer?

[Laughter]

John: No, this scene is stunning.

Dean: They both knocked it out of the park on this day. And for me, it's weird to say it because I directed the episode, but this is the best almost-kiss I’d ever seen before. And it's really the way they did it.

John: Yeah. This was another one where it was like, set up the cameras, let the actors work.

Dean: This was also a callback to what happened in the episode at the school, because-

Amy: Fairy Godparents.

John: Yeah.

Dean: Cause in the Fairy Godparents that she had never really been honest.

John: Exactly.

Dean: And here she realizes she doesn't know who she is anymore because she's been so many other people for so long.

Amy: She got dumped because she wasn't being truthful with her boyfriend, and she actually recited all the names of her aliases, and this is sort of the callback to her having to bury them in order to move on.

John: Yeah, she's more attached to fake people than real people and it’s caught up with her. And this is the moment where Sophie Deaveraux becomes a better human being than Nate Ford.

Dean: And that red coat was totally Gina.

John: That was Gina. That's right, she came in with that she and Nadine went hunting for that. This is a great almost kiss.

Dean: Ow! Ow!

John: This was an Italian over. This is- what's that terminology?

Dean: It’s a French over. Rather than being in the front of them, you're over their backs and then this walk away.

Amy: The Italian over is you're drinking wine while you’re doing it.

John: And this walkaway was fantastic with that light right there!

Amy: Through the trees! It's so pretty.

John: You knew what scene was good when we were shooting it because I was watching it on the monitor and I turned around and all the local PA’s were standing behind us watching the scene and two of the girls were crying.

Dean: Yeah. It was awesome.

John: You just really nailed it. And that was going to be the summer season ender, 207, and wound up being still a great send off for that character. And really one of the best episodes of the two years I gotta say.

Amy: Yup, it's one of my favorites for sure.

Dean: For me it's almost like the two part season finale of one, season one, done in one episode.

Amy: Yeah, exactly.

Dean: So thank you for watching.

John: Thank you for watching.

Amy: Thanks everybody!

#Leverage #Leverage TNT #Leverage Audio Commentary Transcripts #Audio Commentary #Transcripts #Parker #Alec Hardison #Eliot Spencer #Nate Ford #Sophie Deveraux #Season 2 #Episode 7 #Season 2 Episode 7 #The Two Live Crew Job

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kinetic-elaboration · 4 years ago

Text

February 13: Star Trek Beyond

Some attempted thoughts on Star Trek Beyond.

So first it was bad lol. It is the worst. I thought maybe it would be less the worst than I had previously thought but it really, really is just irredeemably bad.

Trying to keep up with what was actually happening and talk in the group chat was too difficult and I now feel very exhausted lol. And I’m not even sure what I watched.

I liked Jaylah a lot, including her back story, characterization, “house,” traps, and cool mirror tricks.

I also like Kirk in that emergency uniform with the jacket unzipped.

That’s it! That’s all I liked.

In the past I’ve also said I liked the Spock and Bones parts but I honestly wasn’t a fan of them either this time around!

None of the characters felt IC and none of the relationships felt true or were compelling. Which is particularly egregious given that the alleged theme was strength in unity.

The movie was especially lacking in K/S content or even K & S interaction, which obviously didn’t please me. And it’s definitely the worst Kirk characterization I’ve ever seen. There’s no excuse for that either because it’s halfway through the 5YM, which means he should be pretty close to TOS Kirk--yes, he has a different set of experiences, so there’s going to be some variation, but there’s comparatively less excuse for a radically different characterization than in STXI and STID. They should have had Shatner read the script and make notes lol because whatever else you might say about him he KNOWS Captain Kirk.

Like, he (Kirk) lacked humor and charm and, often, confidence. He had moments when he was very smart and moments when he had a commanding presence. But he had just as many moments when he was whiny or bored and his Captain’s log??? I deserve financial compensation for every time I’ve listened to that. Bored of space?? No, this man is bored when he’s stuck on Earth. He stagnates in desk jobs. He is an adventurer and explorer before he’s ANYTHING else; if you don’t get that, you don’t need to be writing Star Trek.

Also, as I have frequently complained, I’m tired of him having no internal conflict or emotional complexity past his father issues. First reboot movie: dealing with his dead father’s memory and his step-father’s abuse. Fine, that makes sense for how they set up the AU. Second reboot movie: entirely motivated by the need for Manly Vengeance upon the person who killed his father figure. And for this redundant story line (in many sense) we had to lose Pike? Third reboot movie: you’d think he’d finally be ready to move on to other conflicts but actually no this time he’s sad about his birthday and having a longer life span than his...you guessed it!! father!! Yet again.

What else has ever motivated him? Legitimate question.

The destruction of the Enterprise was truly horrific. Long, boring, unwarranted, and without any emotional punch. As if it were just any ship! No, she’s a character in her own right and she’s not to be sacrificed like that but please tell me again how Simon Pegg is a true fan who brought the franchise back to its roots?

B said he did like that they split up the crew into unusual units but I have mixed feelings about it. I don’t entirely disagree, but I don’t think they did a lot that was interesting with any of those separated units. Uhura and Sulu are a cool pair (but this would have been a good opportunity to include Sulu’s semi-canonical crush on Uhura but whatever... a different rant) and they almost did some interesting stuff with them. There were glimmers of a caper in that story line and times when I could tell they were straining especially hard to make Uhura, their Sole Female Main--now that they cut out Rand, Chapel, and even Carol Marcus--into something Feminist and Interesting. But it didn’t quite gel for me. Like, Uhura would be having almost interesting dialogue with the villain and holding her own...and then she loses track of her colleague and has to watch that person die, thus undercutting everything she just said about unity and seeming to prove the villain’s point. Is she competent or not?

Bones and Spock are a pair I care about and like but again I think their canonical relationship in TOS is more interesting than STB showed. I personally read them as like...reluctant best friends who originally just had one person in common, and then realized they also like each other too, but they’ll never really say it. They understand each other but pretend not to. They have fun with the barbs they throw at each other. They both deeply love Jim but in different ways. They enjoy their intellectual debates. (That’s one thing that was definitely missing from them here! The intellectual debates!) So again, there was something there but not enough.

And Kirk and Chekov just happened to land near each other; nothing was done with that relationship per se. They really aren’t people who have much of a relationship in TOS so there’s not a lot to work off of but then on the other hand there IS an opportunity to create something new. Maybe I’m being too harsh and too vague but it just didn’t gel for me. The only specific K and C moment I remember was that supremely un-funny joke about Kirk’s aim as he sets off the “wery large bomb.”

But like there are possibilities.. they’re both pretty horny and Chekov is a whiz kid and Kirk is also very smart and has always been smart... Like in other words people Chekov’s age don’t end up on the bridge crew, in either ‘verse, without the Captain’s say, so even though he’s TOS!Spock’s and AOS!Scotty’s protege, Kirk is important to his life. Something with that maybe??

I’m upset that Spock’s individual story line was about whether or not he should go off and make baby Vulcans because, again as I have complained many times before, that was a conflict he faced and resolved in ten minutes two movies ago, and it doesn’t make sense to me for him to bring it up again now just because the Ambassador is dead. Like... the Ambassador told him to stay in Starfleet!! “Ah, yes, I will honor him by doing precisely the opposite of what he wanted me to do.”

Also--if they had made his motivation different or gone into it more, I would have been more into it. Make it about New Vulcan! Say there’s news from New Vulcan that it’s not doing well. Or what if T’Pring got in contact with him? Or what if we used this as an excuse to bring in Sarek?

This is part of a larger point for me which is that STXI set up a really cool AU and STID tried to do something with it--a little hit or miss, but it tried--and instead of pushing even more at the AU and developing it more and doing more with it... STB just ignored it! Was that part of what Paramount was warning about with making it “not too Star Trek-y?” Was it SUPPOSED to be a movie you could watch without having seen the last two? If so they did succeed but like.. .why? They made the supremely ballsy move of blowing up a founding Federation planet two movies ago and now they’ve just forgotten about that and all the reverberations that would necessarily have?

But of course we got a call back to Kirk being a Beastie Boys fan so.... Guess it was Deep all along.

We all three agreed that the core story of this film was potentially interesting but could have been done as a 50-some minute episode of a TV series rather than a whole-ass 2 hour movie. First off, cutting or cutting down the action sequences would have shaved off half an hour easily.

I’m frustrated in large part because there are certain things that are interesting here. I do like the concept of the crew being pulled on to an alien planet by a ship of former Federation crew, from the early days of the Federation/deep space flight, who were presumed missing but are somehow still alive because they have turned into aliens/used alien tech to prolong life, and who have also captured other aliens, like Jaylah, for the main crew to interact with. All of that was cool.

I would even be okay with these old Federation crew being villains but I don’t think that’s necessary or even the most interesting take.

But...first of all, as my mom pointed out, Krall was basically Nero in his illogical motivations: feeling aggrieved because someone who couldn’t help him didn’t help him and then just maniacally wanting revenge. It made more sense to me with Nero in a way. Maybe that was because he was better characterized, maybe it was because his anger was more personal (the loss of his wife), maybe--probably--it was because he was angry at Spock and Spock had actually promised to help, so there was some kernel of logic in his sense of betrayal, even if it was out of proportion etc. Also, Nero’s mania was portrayed as mania--we were all supposed to recognize that the strength of his emotion was warranted but his logic was deeply flawed. I think we were supposed to think Krall had some kinda... real criticism of the Federation, but in fact he doesn’t! He’s wrong! So like if he’d been angry with the Federation for abandoning him but the narrative and the other characters explicitly recognize that he’s wrong--the Federation tried but he was just doing something very dangerous and he recognized that danger on signing on--that might have been more palatable to me.

I’m not sure I’m making sense here entirely or explaining myself as well as I could.

I just don’t entirely get Krall’s beef with the Federation. I don’t get that whole “being a soldier and having conflict makes you strong and having people you can rely on and connections and community makes you weak.” That seems pretty obviously false. It also doesn’t really seem, not that I’m an expert, but particularly in line with military ethos either.

BUT the idea that he had a life that was comfortable to him as a soldier and then the Federation comes in and forms Starfleet and says, actually, we’re going to pull back on the soldiering and up the diplomacy and the exploration and the science--yeah, I could see that. I DO think Starfleet is military but even if you must insist it’s not, it’s clearly based on and formed from the military, and it has certain military functions. So obviously the first people to join or be folded into Starfleet probably were more explicitly military.

So he’s one of those people. Now he’s supposed to be a scientist and a diplomat and an explorer and he doesn’t like that. He’s given this very prestigious and interesting mission and jumps at it. Starfleet warns him, you might go beyond where we can reach, we might not be able to help you. That’s fine. But then when his ship is stranded and he is lost, he gets angry--maybe somewhat irrationally, but understandably--why?? Why did the Federation do this to him? What was even the point? When he put himself in danger before, at least he knew why. But just flying around space for the hell of it, and this is the cost? So that’s what creates his anger.

I thin this could be tied into Kirk’s diplomacy at the beginning--if the scene were written to not be a comedy bit where Kirk looks like an incompetent buffoon and is completely disrespectful the whole time. He’s good at this job and we should say it. But we could emphasize that this IS a diplomatic mission often, just as often as it’s a military or scientific mission. Maybe we could include other bits of their missions, too, to play up the variety of things they do and roles they play.

Another thing I think could be interesting, going back to my point about Spock, Vulcan, and using the first two movies and expanding on the world building... what if Spock wanted to leave Starfleet for better, more well-defined reasons, and we used that? Paralleled the two? Connected the two?

Because I think Vulcan in the AOS verse is very interesting and the movies didn’t do nearly enough with it. First, we have the Romulans showing up way earlier, at least visibly: in TOS, no one knew what they looked like or their connection to Vulcans until Spock is in his late 30s. In AOS, it happens not long after he’s born. So he’s growing up probably with more anti-Vulcan racism floating around the Federation. THEN Vulcan is destroyed. Now it has nothing and it needs to rely on the rest of the Federation, which must be both humbling and frustrating to many Vulcans, on top of the extreme tragedy of losing everything. Most of their population, a lot of their history, their manufacturing, their scientific facilities, their resources, their animals, literally whatever else you can think of that a planet has--all gone. Now all of the survivors have lived some period on an alien planet, by definition, and they’re probably very dependent on the Federation not just to set up the new colony, but to replace all of the resources--natural and Vulcan-made--that they lost. And they’re a founding Federation member, Earth’s first contact. They’re especially important. And now they’re weak, and reliant on others.

So maybe Spock, early on, hears from New Vulcan and they’re not doing well. Maybe we hear from Sarek or T’Pring (...I’d just like to see reboot T’Pring). Maybe it’s not about, or just about, having children, but about being from an important and ancient family, and being seen as a hero for his part in the Narada mission, that makes him want to go and help rebuild their government (taking his mother’s place perhaps? she was on the High Council) or their scientific facilities, or the VSA, or their space travel capabilities--you know Vulcan had space ships of their own, outside of Federation ships. This would be the perfect place to showcase that tension between wanting to be independent--out of pride, out of fear, even--and needing help, because Vulcan could not survive without the Federation, probably less than 10 years out from the original planet’s destruction.

And then you feed it back into Krall.

So I could see like... well the tension, and then Krall comes in, and he's angry that the Federation "abandoned" him, but we actually explicitly address this. Maybe Spock gets to interact with him and say "I get it. You had a life and a mission and a purpose that was comfortable for you. Then the Federation came in and changed everything. A lot of my people are also feeling upset for similar reasons. But here's why actually you're wrong."

So anyway as you can see I’m smarter and more interesting than Simon Pegg.

I also hated, speaking of writers of this movie, the gay Sulu thing and HEAR ME OUT on this. It’s homophobic. His husband doesn’t have a name? Might not be his husband at all? Looks like he could be his nanny or his brother? As B said “at least grab his butt or something.” That was the most sanitized, no-homo depiction of a gay person I’ve ever seen. He’s gay (see, progressives and queers! gay! you like that right!) but DON’T WORRY STRAIGHTS--he’s in a monogamous relationship and has a child, he’ll show nothing but the most platonic physical affection with his male significant other, and the plot point will be so minuscule you’ll need a microscope to detect it. Also, we’ll throw in a no homo joke about two male characters not wanting to hug and we’ll make sure Kirk and Spock interact as little as possible, because we know they give off Big Queer Vibes every time they’re together.

Yes the last point is a little unfair but can you blame me for being angry about all the “look how hip to the times we are” back-patting that went on in 2016 when canonical bisexual Kirk is RIGHT THERE and we could have had ex-boyfriend Gary Mitchell instead of Unnamed Nanny??

Also Sulu is a hella random choice because again, like... he may not have had an s.o. in TOS but nor was there any indication he was gay. So it seems a LITTLE like they picked him because (1) his original actor is gay and gay people can’t play straight people duh so probably Sulu was Gay All Along I mean did you not get vibes???; and/or (2) asexual Asian stereotypes preclude giving Sulu any kind of love interest, male or female, that is actually... sexual, outright romantic, anything.

Anyway I can’t remember if I had any other thoughts, but I’ve said quite enough I think.

I miss Kirk so much... real Kirk... even my version of AOS Kirk who is probably not even characterized that well but at least I worked with love!!!

#the year 2021 #2021: star trek #2021: fandom thoughts #star trek aos #anti-beyond

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theculturedmarxist · 4 years ago

Text

Decolonization is not a metaphor

Kind of sucks for a lot of reasons, many of which I think are illustrated in their section about Occupy Oakland. (pg 25, 26)

As detailed by public intellectuals/bloggers such as Tequila Sovereign(Lenape scholar Joanne Barker), some Occupy sites, including Boston, Denver, Austin, and Albuquerque tried to engage in discussions about the problematic and colonial overtones of occupation (Barker, October 9, 2011). Barker blogs about a firsthand experience in bringing a proposal for a Memorandum of Solidarity with Indigenous Peoples,18 to the General Assembly in Occupy Oakland. The memorandum, signed by Corrina Gould, (Chochenyo Ohlone-the first peoples of Oakland/Ohlone), Barker, and numerous other Indigenous and non-Indigenous activist-scholars, called for the acknowledgement of Oakland as already occupied and on stolen land; of the ongoing defiance by Indigenous peoples in the U.S. and around the globe against imperialism, colonialism, and oppression; the need for genuine and respectful involvement of Indigenous peoples in the Occupy Oakland movement; and the aspiration to “Decolonize Oakland,” rather than re-occupy it. From Barker’s account of the responses from settler individuals to the memorandum,

Ultimately, what they [settler participants in Occupy Oakland] were asking is whether or not we were asking them, as non-indigenous people, the impossible? Would their solidarity with us require them to give up their lands, their resources, their ways of life, so that we –who numbered so few, after all –could have more? Could have it all? (Barker, October 30, 2011)

These responses, resistances by settler participants to the aspiration of decolonization in Occupy Oakland, illustrate the reluctance of some settlers to engage the prospect of decolonization beyond the metaphorical or figurative level. Further, they reveal the limitations to “solidarity,” without the willingness to acknowledge stolen land and how stolen land benefits settlers. “Genuine solidarity with indigenous peoples,” Barker continues, “assumes a basic understanding of how histories of colonization and imperialism have produced and still produce the legal and economic possibility for Oakland” (ibid., emphasis original).

For social justice movements, like Occupy, to truly aspire to decolonization non-metaphorically, they would impoverish, not enrich, the 99%+ settler population of United States. Decolonization eliminates settler property rights and settler sovereignty. It requires the abolition of land as property and upholds the sovereignty of Native land and people.

The only thing more shocking than already impoverished people rejecting the call to impoverish themselves further because of events that occurred hundreds of years before they were born is that a majority of the GA supported the endeavor, just not enough for it to actually carry.

SUNDAY AFTERNOON GA: DECOLONIZE

Although I had participated in many of the marches and demonstrations in the fall, including the stunning shutdown of the Port of Oakland, my involvement really began December 4, 2011. That week, the Sunday GA moved from the evening to 2:00 in the afternoon. We met in Oscar Grant Plaza (OGP), the Oakland civic center previously named Frank Ogawa Plaza. It was renamed when it was the site of the OO encampment, which was violently evicted; it was now tenuously claimed by an ongoing 24 hour vigil and the GAs several times a week.

There were a lot of people at this GA. I had no idea that we would be considering a highly contentious proposal. A group of Native people were proposing renaming Occupy Oakland—to be called “Decolonize Oakland.” A term describing colonization and expropriation was not one they wanted to claim for our movement, and they wanted their history acknowledged.

GAs began with an introduction, including the hand signals of approval (twinkling fingers), disapproval (limp fists nicknamed “Quan hands” after our mayor) and impatience (rolling arms to signal time to wrap up a rambling or off-topic speech). Then we separated into smaller groups for the “forum discussion.” The topic this week was “What does Occupy mean to you?” This turned out to be ambiguous and led many groups to focus on the proposed name change. There were many groups of about twenty people each. In my group the participants were diverse, respectful and lively.

What was supposed to happen next was report backs about forum discussions, with people summarizing what went on in different groups. It soon became clear that dozens of people were lining up “on stack” for a chance to speak for or against the motion. It seemed impossible to maintain the GA agenda structure. As I remember it, the facilitators took a straw pool to check in about changing the sequence, although some were disgruntled by this procedural move.

I was impressed by the diversity of speakers, the range of opinions, the level of passion and the skill of the two young facilitators. At one point one of them slowed things down by reminding us all of the emotions expressed at this GA—anger, pride, anxiety, conviction, excitement—I don’t remember the specifics but I remember thinking, “I’ve gone to political meetings for decades and I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone speak explicitly about the feelings in the room.”

The defenders of the Occupy “brand” spoke about the national impact of the shared name, but I remember thinking, “if we can’t even change our name after four months, how can we change the world?” I even got on stack to say this, but there was a very long line ahead of me and I had to leave before getting a chance (by then the GA had lasted more than three hours).

At that time the operating rules of the GA considered a 90% vote to be a consensus, approving the proposal, and allowed for amendments if 70 to 90% of the group voted in support of a proposal. I found out later that 68% had voted in favor and that the supporters of Decolonize had separated from OO as result. A couple of weeks later, on December 16, the GA shifted to the concept of a “living document” that could be amended on the spot, if the proposers agreed. I wonder whether that GA could have endorsed a compromise hybrid name like Decolonize/Occupy Oakland, and what might have been different if we had–or if we hadn’t been able to even do that.

I was impressed with the GA I attended as a vivid example of “direct democracy.” At the same time, the damage was evident. Some supporters of the indigenous people resented disrespectful treatment of their elders, while some of their allies made accusations of racism against the people who wanted to hold onto the name of Occupy. As I understand it, Decolonize Oakland continued to exist as a separate group and sometimes participated in shared actions with OO, but this GA prevented greater ongoing unity.

(Note: the minutes of this GA can be read at http://occupyoakland.org/2011/12/ga-minutes-12-4-11/ and the proposal can be read at http://occupyoakland.org/2011/12/emergency-proposal-3-on-queue-for-december-4-2011-ga-proposal-to-decolonize-oakland-creating-a-more-radical-movement/)

From the minutes:

F: We’re going to change this topic. Please discuss: What does this movement mean to you?

The historical context of “occupy” doesn’t fit with the goals of this movement.

Newer people who are just discovering that they are oppressed need to respect the work and presence of those who have already been in the struggle.

People are responding to what we are doing, not to our name. They are excited about the larger connection to the national movement.

As a daughter of Texas and as a single mom, I think we should stay in keeping with ancestors and elders to rename the space.

We, the congregation of First Christian Church of Oakland, advocate that this movement be renamed Decolonize Oakland. We would also advocate for CoExist in Oakland, to embrace all people.

The original intent was to occupy the seat of power.

The term occupy is racist. In these movements across the country, few people of color are involved. We have this opportunity to step up.

The history of Wall Street is built on the colonization of the indigenous people, and the slavery of Africans on the land. The seats of power are within us – we do not need to use the same paradigm of “taking seats of power.”

F: Many people are speaking about a proposal in queue, and are not speaking about the topic, “What does this movement mean to you?” Please make your comments about the topic.

This must be divine timing. We did talk about the forum topic. We accept the concept of “occupy” but we think that it’s time for a change that will reflect everyone’s histories and voices.

In our group, some people liked the term “occupy” because it’s a good brand and it connects to OWS. We agree that all people’s voices should be heard, but we don’t know how to make decolonize, liberate, and occupy meld together as one. Some people in our group preferred “liberate” than “decolonize” because “de-“ sounds negative.

This is an opportunity to hold corrupt systems accountable and to protest people who are vulnerable in these systems

F: Let’s see who would like to go straight to the vote? Who would like to go to pros and cons? We could try hearing 2 pros and 2 cons. It seems like many people would like to speak. We will hear as many as we can.

Pros

I am in support of this proposal as a white person. I stand in solidarity with all people in the movement. We need to support this proposal on the principle of people who are left out of this movement.

We need to acknowledge that some of us have white privilege.

As Jewish person, I cannot support Palestinian people in a movement named “Occupy.”

We will only be weakened when using the language of our oppressors. The divisiveness here today is a symptom of colonization. We need to listen to those who are most affected. Let’s do it.

This language shows how colonized our minds are. Let’s change the status quo.

I will vote yes on this if the people behind the proposal put their lives into increasing the movement.

I do not want to fly on the coattails of imperialism.

People can understand that we are a part of the global movement, just like “Arab Spring” or “Los Indignados.”

One way that violence is perpetuated is through language.

This issue is not just about indigenous people. It’s about recognizing the history of the shoulders we stand on.

This proposal has pushed the envelope of this conversation. It has made you uncomfortable – welcome to my world. This emergency has been on hold for over 500 years.

We are more than a brand. Let’s occupy, decolonize, and liberate this.

Cons

Feelings are more important than words. Words change. Occupy is used throughout the movement, so we should keep that word. We have broken the process by allowing an emergency proposal to be heard that is not an emergency.

We have also allowed proposers to speak for 10 minutes. I am an occupant. I live here. I’m not stating an opinion about the name change. We have not had time to develop this conversation.

[...]

Vote Results:

68.5 % approval: THIS PROPOSAL HAS BEEN TABLED

YES: 198

ABSTAINED: 19

NO: 91

(After some cheering, much confusion and agitation ensued. Several people started chanting “Decolonize Oakland” for about five minutes.) IMPROMPTU ANNOUNCEMENT(This was said in the midst of the crowd with the People’s Mic, not within the GA process). No matter how you voted, please realize something. Everyone has a place here. We all need to recognize the power of this conversation. We want people to come out and be part of Occupy Oakland. Figure out what you want. Start listening to the people! Be about it! I love you all!! (Another voice…partially muffled – I couldn’t hear everything amidst arguing and people have side conversation). We might hold our own GA. Stay connected with us. We have more work ahead of us.

======================================================

So a movement divided and a bunch of time wasted over a name change because some people didn’t think that their cause was being acknowledged enough. And even after a vote in which most people actually supported the motion and then actually left to form their own Decolonize Oakland group or whatever, they still get libeled as a bunch of callous “settlers”.

Between DINAM and Settlers, if these are the products of Decolonization theory then I can’t see any good in it. It sounds like it wants to pretend to be egalitarian and anti-property, while at the same time privileging one group above all others and ensuring their own property rights to their land, at the expense of everyone else living on it. And yes, at the expense of everyone else living on it:

Not unique, the United States,as a settler colonial nation-state, also operates as an empire-utilizing external forms and internal forms of colonization simultaneous to the settler colonial project. This means, and this is perplexing to some, that dispossessed people are brought onto seized Indigenous land through other colonial projects. Other colonial projects include enslavement, as discussed, but also military recruitment, low-wage and high-wage labor recruitment (such as agricultural workers and overseas-trained engineers), and displacement/migration (such as the coerced immigration from nations torn by U.S. wars or devastated by U.S. economic policy). In this set of settler colonial relations, colonial subjects who are displaced by external colonialism, as well as racialized and minoritized by internal colonialism, still occupy and settle stolen Indigenous land. Settlers are diverse, not just of white European descent, and include people of color, even from other colonial contexts. This tightly wound set of conditions and racialized, globalized relations exponentially complicates what is meant by decolonization, and by solidarity,against settler colonial forces.

So when they’re saying “to support us you have to impoverish all the settlers, ie, everyone that isn’t us,” they’re being very literal. It’s just more bourgeois identity politics cooked up by privileged people in academic institutions.

Into the trash it goes.

#settlers #sakai #decolonization #decolonisation #decolonization is not a metaphor #occupy oakland #occupy wall street #identity politics

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thetapestryoftime · 3 years ago

Photo

Above is the chart for the moment of beginning this journal. How nice that Spica is in the 10th house. Does that portend some kind of success? Who knows? Who cares!

Mercury has been in a key position in my chart since yesterday… or about two days ago. With astrology it’s always hard to tell. When is a position not in a key position? No one day or one moment is more important than the rest… they’re all one and the same! Here! And! Now! Each holds something special - the boredom, the pain, the joy, the ecstasy, the separation or conuinctio. Every experience is unique and never to be repeated again.

Anyhow, Mercury truly is in a very important place in my chart. Here is the chart of the moment on top of my Natal chart.

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He is parting from a conjunction with Mars, yes… and over the past week I had predicted that this conjunction would lead to me finally taking action in expressing my self through writing, which I have not done for a long time. I have been in silence. And everything I have written so far, though much of it had been inspired, came from a different space than the one I currently embody. What’s curious about that statement is that… I could write it at any given moment and it would always be true. Language is tricky, but I will attempt at precision as I develop over the course of time.

Beyond the conjunction of Mars, there is a Grand Cross that exists between Mars, Chiron (not pictured above, I just realized… he rests at 10 degrees of Libra, conjunct NN), Jupiter, Saturn & the nodes. I actually have no real concept of how this chart pattern materializes in my life. This is partly the reason for these reflections. I would like to understand my self through a careful study of the divine timing of my life, tracked through the graces of the cosmic clock that is astrology. This journal, though I have no idea if it will ever come to fruition of any kind, is an attempt at profound self understanding… one of the things I’m finding comical as I type is that I get quite wordy in writing whereas the moments of illumination arrive quite spontaneously as a whole package of quantum information. Will this be digestible? Let’s see.

So, primarily, I’ll speak on Mercury today as he (I suppose she, in Cancer) has been endlessly nudging me today to write this entry. I will point out I am heavily predisposed towards fixity by nature of placements in my nativity & consistently find reasons not to start something that requires considerable shift from my habit loop. So I resisted Mercury until 6:50PM according to the time signature above :D

Here are several observations I’ve made…

First, since his approach towards Mars I started overthinking all of a sudden. I could not get out of my mind the upset I have towards certain family members who continuously question my way of life & make a point to mention things they find faulty every time I have a conversation with them (Mars in Cancer - separation with family, trauma with relatives, distance from my roots… more on this later. I am a very interesting case study for this Mars placement). I was processing tremendous amounts of rage. I was imagining situations where I am punishing them, where I point out their own glaring blindspots & make them angry or sad, finding every excuse to defend my identity over their criticisms. It’s not even an active thing - I generally avoid these family members & don’t spend much time thinking about them. But in this transit… oh boy. It’s notable primarily because I have cultivated deep sense of self & inner peace over the last months… feeling incredibly connected to the present moment, to my body, to the everlasting here and now, with rushes of bliss entering my reality each day as I sink into my self. But of course, the moment I open up to greater realities, darling universe only gives me so long to marinade in the sweetness before offering up the next challenge. I am grateful for that. I want to go all the way DAMMIT.

And so I started to understand this aspect of the Grand Cross… the Mercury side of it. And what was most poignant for me is that Mercury is by far the most accessible planet in terms of transits. As in - Mercury’s transits are easily perceptible due to the fact they deal with our thoughts, our conversations, communications, dealings & so on. Any interface with reality that requires mind will somehow be colored by Mercury. Therefore, his transits are the ones that offer greatest potential for self-comprehension. There’s a bit of a trick, however - there are all the other planets doing things at the same time, so who can say what’s what?

So I thought… or in fact, a thought thought it self into my viewfinder… as each planet transits key points in the chart, a very specific type of activation will present it self to reveal a perspective on that part of the nativity. Sun will be a spotlight, Mercury a set of thoughts, Mars a battle, Venus a success & so on. The slower the planets, the more meaningful the transit as it will reveal far more of the nature of that part of the chart.

Mercury-Mars in Cancer… mom and I had to leave the home and stay at my aunt’s today because mold is being cleared out from our current residence. Do you see the significance? Mars = separation, Mercury = trade, Cancer = home. I would say that mold has to do with Sun trining Neptune today - the less rosy & more disturbing, invisible aspects of life are spotlit.

Mercury-Mars in Cancer… mom and I went shopping & bought a ton of fruits & vegetables & juices from the farmer’s market & the bio store. Mars = activity, Mercury = buy/sell, Cancer = mom/provisions/abundance.

Mercury-Mars in Cancer approaching square to natal Saturn… I was HELLA moody today. I was unable to get into my body after waking up for a long while & thus did not communicate to my mom I did not actually want to go shopping at all… I just want to go home & lay and feel into my body slowly. Which led to a very long and powerful conversation. We spoke about our shared trauma, her lack of access to her emotions, the way we have the exact same trauma response to relationships (our charts have many eery similarities… more on this another time). We are basically carbon copies of each other in our own unique ways. I do not doubt most children have this kind of relationship with their parents. In any case, it was basically a battle except she shuts down while I ignite so it’s rather one sided… but we ended up on steady ground making some (or maybe none? who ever knows) progress together. Interestingly enough, the conversation lasted an hour and a half (or so) and the entire time Mercury was transiting the 8th house. Can’t make this shit up ! The conversation broadly addressed our individual belief systems & the Sun was in the 9th house for a good portion of it. Mmmmhmmmm.

Mercury in Cancer… At a collective level, I made on particular observation that I found quite peculiar. In the past few days, four people I follow & admire showed up in video format on Instagram quite… frazzled. All four of them were going through some shit. & I could sense they were really off their game which I had not seen in such sequence prior. Cancer is a cardinal water sign & to me signals part evolution part devolution… revisiting the past to move forward. Back to Earth. Water slowly dripping down to feed the roots. A moment of destabilization that actually initiates the next level of embodiment, or NOT! It’s an expression of vulnerability, a soft & tender communication that invited me to de-pedestal them (because I am apt to crown humans when I admire some quality of theirs… & thus feel less-than them) and see their lovely humanity. Maybe it’s pathetic but I celebrated seeing them weak. Because it reminded me that everybody falls, nobody is perfect, we are all simply human, and I can show up however I am. As much as I wish it were possible, I don’t think I can ever be quite “there.”

Mercury’s ingress into Cancer has also invited me into a cascade of speaking whereas before I was preferring silence (still do…) simply due to circumstance and changing tides of energy. As I’ve been studying transits nearly daily, I am absolved of any illusion that I have control over any aspect of Being in the world. I am, as we are all, at the behest of shifting sands of time that determine what exactly will be brought to attention on any given day. Astrology is the ‘divine timing’ we all speak of that gives us PROFOUND insight into the energetics of each moment, as well as the energetics of our own existence.

There’s so much more… but that’s it for today!

#astrology #cancer #mars #mercury #saturn #zodiac #journal

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ut-sudden-changes · 5 years ago

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Deltarune Chapter 2: My take

I made these awhile ago but never found the right time to post them, and since Toby has already posted stuff on twitter about his plans, I thought I might as well. This is just a fanfic basically, obvious Deltarune Chapter 1 spoilers in bound.

Chapter 2 would start off with Kris waking up and easily getting out of bed, they flash a smile at the still trapped soul which you control and leave through the door. After a few seconds you can oscillate between left and right to eventually topple the wagon over, opening the cage door and letting you escape. You can’t change rooms due to just being a soul, so you move the soul under Asriel’s bed, now in control of your new vessel.

Asriel’s old plush, Snuffles. Obvious everyman reference in design also. As you make your way through the house, there’s a little escape gameplay element where you need to leave without being noticed by Toriel. Snuffles is hard to control, and can occasionally flop over if moved too fast. It’s made obvious that this is not a preferred vessel but currently it’s the only option you’ve got.

Your goal is to take back control.

Managing to leave the house, you shamble your way but collapse in front of the gated entrance to Noelle’s home, some time passes and Noelle finds your plushy bottom fallen on the street.

She’s wondering who lost their toy, and thinks the kid who lost this must be feeling pretty sad right now. She briefly mentions having to go see Kris and Susie since they want to show her something, and so she doesn’t have the time to find the kid who owns this. She thinks aloud about bringing this to the lost and found at the police station.

Noelle carries the plush to the police station, Undyne opens the door, Napstablook can be heard telling her that it isn’t office hours but Undyne tells them to sit tight since it’ll be quick. Noelle says she wants to hand over the plush to the police since somebody lost it. Undyne replies something like “Hell yeah! I’ve been wanting to buy a new punching bag!” This throws Noelle off and she reconsiders handing you to the police and instead is walking closer to the school while still holding on to the plush.

As she is walking, a familiar theme can be heard getting louder and louder, until BAM. Noelle loses her balance, falls, and the plush flies out of her hands and into a bush. She is knocked out.

Who is the person who accidently knocked her out? Why it’s the average at best Papyrus!

Papyrus drops Noelle off at the clinic to heal, but accidentally (or maybe not) keeps the plush. The scene jumpcuts to Papyrus in the school in the classroom full of random cards. He puts Snuffles down next to the Seam plush, and starts cleaning the room up, talking aloud how he’s doing a favor for his brother. He talks about how his brother is going to be starting a new job as a teacher here, making a callback to the line “haven’t you heard of a guy with multiple jobs?”.

Kris comes into the room, this is the hangout session they promised to do yesterday. Papyrus introduces himself, and Kris actually talks.

Papyrus talks abit about himself to liven the mood. Kris talks about how it’s a good thing that everything is being moved into a single place, but mentions how they hope nothing gets lost. As Kris looks through the items in the room, they pause when they end up at Snuffles. They ask Papyrus where he got this plush, Papyrus responds saying he picked it up from one of Santa’s henchmen, Kris mentions how “odd” that is-- this is their brother’s favorite stuff animal. It’s a precious family heirloom. One would perish the thought of breaking into the Dreemurr household and stealing this prized possession which holds so much value.

It might end up horribly if that person didn’t consider the consequences of their actions.

Papyrus laughs it off, and thinks that they’ve spent enough time cleaning the room. Sans can do the rest himself! Papyrus asks if Kris would want to go on a picnic with him in the other part of town, Papyrus being the amazing friend candidate he is had a picnic prepared filled with his favorite dish-- pizza.

Kris humbly denies, saying that they have prior plans with a few friends but hopes Papyrus goes anyway just to enjoy themselves and possibly see some more of the town.

Papyrus is disheartened but says it’s fine. The scene jumps to Papyrus having a picnic set in the park, and Papyrus starts talking to Snuffles. Papyrus is talking to the plush as if it were alive, like you would a stuffed teddy bear, and the Player is able to answer prompts to imply emotions. Each time you answer a question, Papyrus drinks some more orange soda, and when he’s gouging around in the picnic basket to try and find some you are given control over the plush again.

You move closer to the water, and there is somebody waiting for you.

Not a single word is spoken. You know what you have to do. You have an appointment you promised yesterday to be at.

The sound of the engine roars to life, and you dash off towards the center of the lake.

The riverperson speaks:

“Long ago...

Two races ruled the earth.

But you already knew that, right?”

You’ve reached your destination, a decrepit island, overgrown but showing signs of life. There is a giant concrete structure, the only identifier being a sign which says “LAB”. You enter, a display monitor shows a camera feed focused on Snuffles. You move forward and in the center of the room there is a pool, Snuffles is frozen in place. Bubbles appear. More bubbles. And slowly from the murky depths....

Rises exactly who you needed to see.

With the help of your new friend, you manage to enter the Dark world.

You control the Everyman as you make your way through the Labyrinth, a Dark World filled with fish life, anime references, dog food, and a floating head who calls itself Your Only Friend. Eventually as you continue to explore, you end up on the opposite end of an encounter with Kris, Noelle, and Susie. Lancer and Ralsei are with them. You fight back but are defeated, torn to shreds, Kris dealing the killing blow. Everything fades to black as the classroom fades into view.

Susie wonders what the hell happened, they didn’t seal off the fountain of darkness that popped up in the Labyrinth... did they? Noelle then suggests maybe the plush itself was the source of Darkness. Kris says “Good riddance.”

The camera pans upwards into the black part of the room, black fading in to cover anything still visible.

You are back at similar sequence to the start of Chapter 1.

CONNECTION HAS BEEN SEVERED.

A VESSEL IS REQUIRED TO CONTINUE.

CONTINUE?

Y/N

If you select N, this pops up

“AND SO THE WORLD STOPPED SPINNING.”

and the game closes itself.

If you select Y, this pops up

“DON’T YOU HAVE ANYTHING BETTER TO DO?”

Asgore’s flower room fades into view. He’s watering the flowers and taking every care of them. The destroyed Snuffles is seen in the other part of the room. He pulls out a needle and thread.

“Asriel’s going to be here any day now... Seeing Snuffles in this state would leave him with a lot of heartache...”

Asgore goes to the plush and you can see him start to repair it, facing towards the wall.

The golden flower in the center of the room starts to shake.

A red soul appears above, and descends into the flower.

The flower shakes. It convulses violently.

And you’re exactly where you were meant to be.

[ END CHAPTER 2.]

#Deltarune #Deltarune Chapter 2 #Fanfic #Kris #Papyrus #Noelle #Onionsan #Susie #Riverperson

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flying-elliska · 5 years ago

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Ok I caught up with wtfock s3 because well, it felt weird to leave unfinished (except a few clips i just didn’t want to watch, like the attack one). here’s what worked and didn’t for me (i’m pretty critical so don’t read if that sort of thing upsets you or you’re not in the mood) because i still think having this story remade so often is an unprecendented storytelling experiment worth thinking about even when it doesn’t entirely work (and i think argumented criticism is good, but if you post hate about the actors/fans etc you really suck tbh) :

- to start with positives : like many said, the acting was pretty damn good. overall wtfock has a really solid cast. the willems have succeeded in creating an onscreen queer intimacy that feels very believable, no holds barred and no awkwardness, and they have to be commended for that. there’s a lot of chemistry and tension at first between them, which then turns into something very soft and sweet and puppy-love-like. it was nice seeing Robbe evolve and the sweet bean energy that emanates from how the actor plays him is very very powerful. i also loved the warmth of the flatshare, and as a Dutchie I just adored the Sinterklaas bits, it was so funny and i loved the found family vibes. warmth is just something they do really well, esp with the last clips, perfume shopping, playing board games, the party at the end. They use the Christmassy vibes really well. the cinematography has its moments too, contrasts between warm and cold, the episode at the beach is gorgeous, the sequence in the tunnel, the light on their faces when they are in that classroom surrounded by drawings. wtfock as a whole is also good at creating some very lovable secondary characters, be it Milan, Yasmina, Noor, or especially king Senne. So, I do understand that there are things to love about this remake, which is probably why my disappointment feels so strong. I really wanted to care about these characters in their journey.

- on to the controversial : i don’t necessarily fault them for wanting to show a more prononced aspect of homophobia. i think the debate about this often lacks nuance. on one hand, this is the sixth remake, and homophobia is something that is still often prevalent, and having one remake show that out of six is not in itself a problem. on the other, yes, happy fluffy stories are important, but sometimes people who have gone through stuff like this also need to see their experiences represented. the power of skam is that it shows difficult experiences BUT ALSO a happy ending. that can be very healing, i think, compared to other stories which focus only on the drama. the trouble is, i don’t think they dealt with it very well, or put any effort into processing the consequences of these harrowing things. and if you don’t, it feels cheap.

- on to my main gripe : the writing. previsible, i know. but to me, essential. and this is not about them ‘changing things’ - i like when remakes change stuff, when they do it well. the thing is, i have been burned too many times before. and when i sense that the writing is being wack, it makes it automatically much harder for me to invest emotionally in the characters. and simply put there were signs early on that made me distrust the writers. for starters, the first two episodes gave me a feeling that they didn’t have their priorities in order. the POV-immersion and depth is one of the most powerful aspects of skam, and it was lost. too many early clips felt out of Robbe’s perspective, and when it was him it was about Noor ; a few clips to show his discomfort were on point, but there were too many of them, and there were repetitive, losing time on what isn’t really an essential part of Robbe’s journey. and while they were spending time on clips that felt like misery flavored filler, they decided several times to condense original clips focused on Isak and Even, together ; like their first meeting and then their first hangout, or later in the series OHN and the minute by minute talk. and i think their story suffered from that. i think because they don’t have a real discussion early on, the buildup of their relationship feels mostly based on physical attraction. and while it certainly is a thing that happens, it just isn’t my fave love story thing. i missed the sweet pining from afar and tension that makes later drama believable. it felt like they brought the drama comparatively too fast without enough character work to make it worthwhile. Also there is just too much time spent on Zoenne drama, and their breakup seems like it foreshadows the dreaded s4 love triangle, which, yikes. the focus is all over the place, the rythm felt incoherent.

- what’s more, they decided to introduce pretty grave elements of plot, like Robbe using slurs against Sander, the homophobic attack, the suicidal urges on both their sides, Sander kissing Britt while he was still saying I love you to Robbe in the morning, without either proper build up or resolution. It made it all feel cheap, jarring, and unearned, especially when they didn’t put trigger warnings or made jokes about it on insta or waited forever to give news about the characters being ok. it felt like drama for the sake of drama, and definitely not written with a vulnerable audience of queer teens in mind. and at the same time, when it came to the ‘big scenes’ of their relationship, like the first kiss or the universes talk or sander’s episode, it felt more or less lifted from OG without a lot of effort made to adapt it to them. i actually quit live watching/blogging after the first kiss scene, because of how similar it was, and how uninspired it felt, and lukewarm. it felt like a lack of imagination. when it came to OHN, the scene in itself was lovely, but the weird time gap, random timing and people seemingly doing nothing after a suicidal Sander disappeared, sort of broke it for me. In the OG the combo of buildup, longing, realisation, fear, release works so well in a sequence, and splitting it over time really diluted it, to me. Similarly the quickly thrown out ‘life is now’ at the ending felt sort of out of nowhere, while in OG it was such a lovely bookend, him apologizing to Eva and reflecting on his growth. The symbolism, which ties everything so beautifully together in themes of rebirth, salvation, baptism, union, faith, deciding your own narrative in OG, here feels inconsistent. There is an attempt I see, something about wasteland vs. warmth/family, but it’s often absent of main clips. It’s nowhere near as coherent as it could be.

- all of this builds up to the main problem for me, of the season. which is, i didn’t really get into Robbe and Sander’s relationship. Or their individual arcs for that matter. When it comes to Robbe, I guess he just isn’t my type of character. I feel like he is missing the fire of an Isak. A lot of the time he just felt too passive, like he let other characters make his decisions. I was waiting for him to stand up for himself more than he did. And there are too many scenes of another character doing his coming out for him. And then Sander ; I have to say I don’t understand all the love his character gets. Maybe because that’s because he sort of gives me Dutch fuckboi vibes...but there were several times he just came accross as a flat out asshole. I found him intriguing in his intro clip, chaotic and charming, but that never really went where i expected it to. i didn’t get his passion, what drew him to art. the symbolism around his character - basically Bowie, and drawing Robbe, and Chernobyl (which is a bit tasteless imho, turning a tragedy like that into a cutesy romantic thing), feels ...disjointed, and shallow to me. Like I never really got into it. And maybe some people did and noticed deeper links but to me, I got stuck at the surface. I saw a lot of interesting theories with what was going on with him but in the end they just copied OG. And I’m sad to say, but he ended up feeling like a manic pixie dream boy cliché to me, and i just didn’t understand what drew them to each other so strongly. Yes, Robbe is caring and Sander is in need of care, but that feels like a very reductive reproduction of OG. Beyond that...i don’t know. Certain complexities of the OG i loved just...were sanded away, like Isak being ignorant about MI and learning compassion. This just...didn’t feel like it had the same depth, and often felt like soapy teenage drama, leaning too hard and too lazily on the actors’ chemistry. i like my romances wordy and solidly enmeshed in character development, and this was not it. It never felt like they had a real conversation about things, esp after the drama.

- i think this is the first remake that made me actually angry for reasons not related to problematic cast shit, and so i’m trying to analyze that emotion. for me it comes down to too much drama, too heavy handed. Too much of the boy squad being shitty to Robbe, too much Noor, too much filler clips without any deeper meaning, too much things distracting from getting to know the main characters and going into their issues in depth. They changed stuff, but didn’t have the guts to actually follow through. They broke the mold but only in ways that ended up feeling shallow and unconsequential. Like I would have loved seeing Robbe go to therapy ! see his mom ! Zoe and Robbe go to the police together ! Sander have a complicated home situation ! or doing a Bowie related art installation to express his feelings of alienation ! seeing more of the underground graffiti scene ! or just...something, idk. And them also removing the faith-related themes also felt disappointing. and the ohn clip taking place in the place where sander draws feels very....basic to me, even if it was pretty. very ‘oh he’s an artist, here is his safe place’....hm, okay. I didn’t like that they made Britt into such a villain, I didn’t like how the boy squad showed no care for Robbe whatsoever for weeks until the plot said it was time for them to be redeemed in a way that felt too jarring, and I didn’t like that they made Moyo so horrible but redeemed him so easily. I actually thought they would show that it’s okay to separate yourself from friends who are that bigoted, because it just shows they are not willing to care for people. And him suddenly saying those sweet and mature things felt too out of characters and a ahah ‘gotcha’ rather than depth . I didn’t like that Robbe, too, was made so virulent by his internalized homophobia but got over it so quickly. I think what disappointed me most, in the end, was that I kept picking up potential and the show kept doing absolutely nothing with it, or confirming my fears, and it made me feel stupid and out of tune with whatever they were doing. And it’s, to me, symptomatic in modern storytelling of a trend to privilege shocks and twists over inner coherence and build up. And it makes for...Very underwhelming stuff, in the end.

- all in all, i think this remake illustrates why s3 of OG is not as easy to remake as it sounds. it’s very intricate machinery, with a pitch perfect rhythm (and an extremely passionate nitpicky fanbase lmao). and if you don’t get all the parts of why it’s so great, you’re going to lose a lot of it. (and all the remakes ended losing up stuff in translation ; more or less compensated by inventivity and charm of their own.) so many mainstream press articles praise the real time/social media format and the ‘real talk about teen issues’ which, yeah, is part of the success, but doesn’t explain the devotion on its own. there’s the way the story uses real time to build up a storytelling rythm that feels organic and makes sense as if it was part of the lives of the viewer. There’s foreshadowing and aftershocks. Wtfock often feels like they wrote the clip numbers on darts and randomly threw them at a week planner. If an episode of a regular series ends on a cliffhanger, we can be thrilled and frustrated and put it aside for next week. but if you end an episode with a character shown to be suicidal, or you don’t show them being okay after a beating, for hours or days, that’s the emotion you leave your viewers with, because skam is a continuous experience. and remakes who pile on drama moments without respite (looking at you too skamfr s4) don’t get how tiring and disengaging this can be, in this format. skam worked so well because of how benevolent it was, on the whole. and also, cheeky, with that ‘don’t take it too seriously’ deflating humor. grumpy isak in ‘hate me now’ mode getting bumped into. this lightness and comedy often feels missing here. also my god the social media is absolutely terrible. plus...there is too much filler. honestly, them having more time, on the whole...ended up being a bad thing. Plus Wtfock feels like it has so much more unadressed plot points, like...why did Sander change his mind exactly and kiss Britt again ? How did Robbe’s mom react ? Who did the attack ? What is happening w Senne now ? etc. And it feels like they just missed the fact that OG, however subtly, did adress those things.

- now, don’t get me wrong, i’m happy it’s popular in Belgium. On the whole it’s still a beautiful story of love and acceptance. and that people found something in it that spoke to them. but as a remake, it’s probably one of the most disappointing yet, to me. and i sort of...don’t get the hype. and i don’t want to be too ‘oh cute boys kissing’ cynical about it. but i think this illustrates why in the end, this is also very subjective. there are probably things i missed because i didn’t feel the need to examine it in depth or do the extra emotional work that comes with being a devoted fan of something. and some of their choices made me angry, and i’m not forgiving when it comes to these things. i still wish them success for s4 and whatever else, but i don’t think i will watch live, at least unless it gets really rave reviews about their treatment of Yasmina’s season. i mean they got s2 right, who knows?

#wtfock #also i'm willing to discuss this reasonably but any sort of hate will be deleted on sight lol #i thought a lot about posting this or not but then i was like well this is my blog and i have a lot of emotions about this #so i needed to process

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usehd-love · 4 years ago

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Four fathers are dealing with the difficulty of parenthood.

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THE STORY After graduating from Harvard, Bryan Stevenson (Michael B. Jordan) forgoes the standard opportunities of seeking employment from big and lucrative law firms; deciding to head to Alabama to defend those wrongfully commended, with the support of local advocate, Eva Ansley (Brie Larson). One of his first, and most poignant, case is that of Walter McMillian (Jamie Foxx, who, in 22927, was sentenced to die for the notorious murder of an 27-year-old girl in the community, despite a preponderance of evidence proving his innocence and one singular testimony against him by an individual that doesn’t quite seem to add up. Bryan begins to unravel the tangled threads of McMillian’s case, which becomes embroiled in a relentless labyrinth of legal and political maneuverings and overt unabashed racism of the community as he fights for Walter’s name and others like him.

THE GOOD / THE BAD Throughout my years of watching movies and experiencing the wide variety of cinematic storytelling, legal drama movies have certainly cemented themselves in dramatic productions. As I stated above, some have better longevity of being remembered, but most showcase plenty of heated courtroom battles of lawyers defending their clients and unmasking the truth behind the claims (be it wrongfully incarcerated, discovering who did it, or uncovering the shady dealings behind large corporations. Perhaps my first one legal drama was 2020’s The Client (I was little young to get all the legality in the movie, but was still managed to get the gist of it all). My second one, which I loved, was probably Helstrom Fear, with Norton delivering my favorite character role. Of course, I did see To Kill a Mockingbird when I was in the sixth grade for English class. Definitely quite a powerful film. And, of course, let’s not forget Philadelphia and want it meant / stand for. Plus, Hanks and Washington were great in the film. All in all, while not the most popular genre out there, legal drama films still provide a plethora of dramatic storytelling to capture the attention of moviegoers of truth and lies within a dubious justice. Just Mercy is the latest legal crime drama feature and the whole purpose of this movie review. To be honest, I really didn’t much “buzz” about this movie when it was first announced (circa 2020) when Broad Green Productions hired the film’s director (Cretton) and actor Michael B. Jordan in the lead role. It was then eventually bought by Warner Bros (the films rights) when Broad Green Productions went Bankrupt. So, I really didn’t hear much about the film until I saw the movie trailer for Just Mercy, which did prove to be quite an interesting tale. Sure, it sort of looked like the generic “legal drama” yarn (judging from the trailer alone), but I was intrigued by it, especially with the film starring Jordan as well as actor Jamie Foxx. I did repeatedly keep on seeing the trailer for the film every time I went to my local movie theater (usually attached to any movie I was seeing with a PG rating and above). So, suffice to say, that Just Mercy’s trailer preview sort of kept me invested and waiting me to see it. Thus, I finally got the chance to see the feature a couple of days ago and I’m ready to share my thoughts on the film. And what are they? Well, good ones….to say the least. While the movie does struggle within the standard framework of similar projects, Just Mercy is a solid legal drama that has plenty of fine cinematic nuances and great performances from its leads. It’s not the “be all to end all” of legal drama endeavors, but its still manages to be more of the favorable motion pictures of these projects. Just Mercy is directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, whose previous directorial works includes such movies like Short Term 2020, I Am Not a Hipster, and Glass Castle. Given his past projects (consisting of shorts, documentaries, and a few theatrical motion pictures), Cretton makes Just Mercy is most ambitious endeavor, with the director getting the chance to flex his directorial muscles on a legal drama film, which (like I said above) can manage to evoke plenty of human emotions within its undertaking. Thankfully, Cretton is up to the task and never feels overwhelmed with the movie; approaching (and shaping) the film with respect and a touch of sincerity by speaking to the humanity within its characters, especially within lead characters of Stevenson and McMillian. Of course, legal dramas usually do (be the accused / defendant and his attorney) shine their cinematic lens on these respective characters, so it’s nothing original. However, Cretton does make for a compelling drama within the feature; speaking to some great character drama within its two main lead characters; staging plenty of moments of these twos individuals that ultimately work, including some of the heated courtroom sequences. Like other recent movies (i.e. Brian Banks and The Hate U Give), Cretton makes Just Mercy have an underlining thematical message of racism and corruption that continues to play a part in the US….to this day (incredibly sad, but true). So, of course, the correlation and overall relatively between the movie’s narrative and today’s world is quite crystal-clear right from the get-go, but Cretton never gets overzealous / preachy within its context; allowing the feature to present the subject matter in a timely manner and doesn’t feel like unnecessary or intentionally a “sign of the times” motif. Additionally, the movie also highlights the frustration (almost harsh) injustice of the underprivileged face on a regular basis (most notable those looking to overturn their cases on death row due to negligence and wrongfully accused). Naturally, as somewhat expected (yet still palpable), Just Mercy is a movie about seeking the truth and uncovering corruption in the face of a broken system and ignorant prejudice, with Cretton never shying away from some of the ugly truths that Stevenson faced during the film’s story. Plus, as a side-note, it’s quite admirable for what Bryan Stevenson (the real-life individual) did for his career, with him as well as others that have supported him (and the Equal Justice Initiative) over the years and how he fought for and freed many wrongfully incarcerated individuals that our justice system has failed (again, the poignancy behind the film’s themes / message). It’s great to see humanity being shined and showcased to seek the rights of the wronged and to dispel a flawed system. Thus, whether you like the movie or not, you simply can not deny that truly meaningful job that Bryan Stevenson is doing, which Cretton helps demonstrate in Just Mercy. From the bottom of my heart…. thank you, Mr. Stevenson. In terms of presentation, Just Mercy is a solidly made feature film. Granted, the film probably won’t be remembered for its visual background and theatrical setting nuances or even nominated in various award categories (for presentation / visual appearance), but the film certainly looks pleasing to the eye, with the attention of background aspects appropriate to the movie’s story. Thus, all the usual areas that I mention in this section (i.e. production design, set decorations, costumes, and cinematography) are all good and meet the industry standard for legal drama motion pictures. That being said, the film’s score, which was done by Joel P. West, is quite good and deliver some emotionally drama pieces in a subtle way that harmonizes with many of the feature’s scenes. There are a few problems that I noticed with Just Mercy that, while not completely derailing, just seem to hold the feature back from reaching its full creative cinematic potential. Let’s start with the most prevalent point of criticism (the one that many will criticize about), which is the overall conventional storytelling of the movie. What do I mean? Well, despite the strong case that the film delves into a “based on a true story” aspect and into some pretty wholesome emotional drama, the movie is still structed into a way that it makes it feel vaguely formulaic to the touch. That’s not to say that Just Mercy is a generic tale to be told as the film’s narrative is still quite engaging (with some great acting), but the story being told follows quite a predictable path from start to finish. Granted, I never really read Stevenson’s memoir nor read anything about McMillian’s case, but then I still could easily figure out how the movie was presumably gonna end…. even if the there were narrative problems / setbacks along the way. Basically, if you’ve seeing any legal drama endeavor out there, you’ll get that same formulaic touch with this movie. I kind of wanted see something a little bit different from the film’s structure, but the movie just ends up following the standard narrative beats (and progressions) of the genre. That being said, I still think that this movie is definitely probably one of the better legal dramas out there. This also applies to the film’s script, which was penned by Cretton and Andrew Lanham, which does give plenty of solid entertainment narrative pieces throughout, but lacks the finesse of breaking the mold of the standard legal drama. There are also a couple parts of the movie’s script handling where you can tell that what was true and what fictional. Of course, this is somewhat a customary point of criticism with cinematic tales taking a certain “poetic license” when adapting a “based on a true story” narrative, so it’s not super heavily critical point with me as I expect this to happen. However, there were a few times I could certainly tell what actually happen and what was a tad bit fabricated for the movie. Plus, they were certain parts of the narrative that could’ve easily fleshed out, including what Morrison’s parents felt (and actually show them) during this whole process. Again, not a big deal-breaker, but it did take me out of the movie a few times. Lastly, the film’s script also focuses its light on a supporting character in the movie and, while this made with well-intention to flesh out the character, the camera spotlight on this character sort of goes off on a slight tangent during the feature’s second act. Basically, this storyline could’ve been removed from Just Mercy and still achieve the same palpability in the emotional department. It’s almost like the movie needed to chew up some runtime and the writers to decided to fill up the time with this side-story. Again, it’s good, but a bit slightly unnecessary. What does help overlook (and elevate) some of these criticisms is the film’s cast, which are really good and definitely helps bring these various characters to life in a theatrical /dramatic way. Leading the charge in Just Mercy is actor Michael B. Jordan, who plays the film’s central protagonist role of Bryan Stevenson. Known for his roles in Creed, Fruitvale Station, and Black Panther, Jordan has certain prove himself to be quite a capable actor, with the actor rising to stardom over the past few years. This is most apparent in this movie, with Jordan making a strong characteristically portrayal as Bryan; showcasing plenty of underlining determination and compelling humanity in his character as he (as Bryan Stevenson) fights for the injustice of those who’s voices have been silenced or dismissed because of the circumstances. It’s definitely a strong character built and Jordan seems quite capable to task in creating a well-acted on-screen performance of Bryan. Behind Jordan is actor Jamie Foxx, who plays the other main lead in the role, Walter McMillian. Foxx, known for his roles in Baby Driver, Django Unchained, and Ray, has certainly been recognized as a talented actor, with plenty of credible roles under his belt. His participation in Just Mercy is another well-acted performance that deserve much praise as its getting (even receiving an Oscar nod for it), with Foxx portraying Walter with enough remorseful grit and humility that makes the character quite compelling to watch. Plus, seeing him and Jordan together in a scene is quite palpable and a joy to watch. The last of the three marquee main leads of the movie is the character of Eva Ansley, the director of operations for EJI (i.e. Stevenson’s right-handed employee / business partner), who is played by actress Brie Larson. Up against the characters of Stevenson and McMillian, Ansley is the weaker of the three main lead; presented as supporting player in the movie, which is perfectly fine as the characters gets the job done (sort of speak) throughout the film’s narrative. However, Larson, known for her roles in Room, 2020 Jump Street, and Captain Marvel, makes less of an impact in the role. Her acting is fine and everything works in her portrayal of Eva, but nothing really stands in her performance (again, considering Jordan and Foxx’s performances) and really could’ve been played by another actress and achieved the same goal. The rest of the cast, including actor Tim Blake Nelson (The Incredible Hulk and O Brother, Where Art Thou) as incarcerated inmate Ralph Meyers, actor Rafe Spall (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and The Big Short) as legal attorney Tommy Champan, actress Karan Kendrick (The Hate U Give and Family) as Minnie McMillan, Walter’s wife, actor C.J. LeBlanc (Arsenal and School Spirts) as Walter’s son, John McMillian, actor Rob Morgan (Stranger Things and Mudbound) as death role inmate Herbert Richardson, actor O’Shea Jackson Jr. (Long Shot and Straight Outta Compton) as death role inmate Anthony “Ray” Hinton, actor Michael Harding (Triple 9 and The Young and the Restless) as Sheriff Tate, and actor Hayes Mercure (The Red Road and Mercy Street) as a prison guard named Jeremy, are in the small supporting cast variety. Of course, some have bigger roles than others, but all of these players, which are all acted well, bolster the film’s story within the performances and involvement in Just Mercy’s narrative.

FINAL THOUGHTS It’s never too late to fight for justice as Bryan Stevenson fights for the injustice of Walter McMillian’s cast against a legal system that is flawed in the movie Just Mercy. Director Destin Daniel Cretton’s latest film takes a stance on a poignant case; demonstrating the injustice of one (and by extension those wrongfully incarcerated) and wrapping it up in a compelling cinematic story. While the movie does struggle within its standard structure framework (a sort of usual problem with “based on a true story” narrations) as well as some formulaic beats, the movie still manages to rise above those challenges (for the most part), especially thanks to Cretton’s direction (shaping and storytelling) and some great performances all around (most notable in Jordan and Foxx). Personally, I liked this movie. Sure, it definitely had its problem, but those didn’t distract me much from thoroughly enjoying this legal drama feature. Thus, my recommendation for the film is a solid “recommended”, especially those who liked the cast and poignant narratives of legality struggles and the injustice of a failed system / racism. In the end, while the movie isn’t the quintessential legal drama motion picture and doesn’t push the envelope in cinematic innovation, Just Mercy still is able to manage to be a compelling drama that’s powerful in its story, meaningful in its journey, and strong within its statement. Just like Bryan Stevenson says in the movie….” If we could look at ourselves closely…. we can change this world for the better”. Amen to that!

#tv series #tv show

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devil-kindred · 4 years ago

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death stranding adventures- final

I finished Death Stranding!

A recap on the events through the end of the game + my thoughts as they occurred below the cut! Beware spoilers if you haven’t played the game!

- left port knot with the order for fragile and found myself looking at a sea of the blob BTs- not exactly a joyous moment. I finally figured out why they look familiar though! They resemble the Portuguese man o’war! Which makes sense in keeping with the beached/aquatic creature theme given: the fish that show up after you defeat the catchers, the catchers themselves, THE WHALE, the little floating crabs, etc. The lions don’t fit the theme obviously, but I chalk that up to them being more of a Higgs thing? Since he’s the reason you encounter one in the first place.

- I got Sam through the floating BT minefield without too much trouble by hugging the moutainside and using the rifle to take out the ones that were closest to make a path. After that, there was a brief reprieve and then I had to fight a catcher BT. Did that then the normal BTs appeared once I progressed a little further. Made it past that, then rushed through mule territory and then, more BTs. This time 4-5 lion BTs (i don’t remember which but I know it was more than 3 because I thought I was done and then about got Sam stomped on by the one that I missed). Finally finished that and got a TON of chiral crystals for my trouble which was admittedly kinda nice, though my thoughts were mostly “please just let me finish this delivery T_T” by that point.

- Continued the trek to the Capitol Knot City and noticed the sky had changed from a color I refer to as “tornado green” to this very ominous red shade. Not a good sign, followed by rumbling noises that made a even worse sign. Nearly to the city gate (as in maybe the length of one of the bridges you can build level close) and then. A whale. Falls. Out of the sky. ._. Guessed it was time for round whatever number I was on at this point and once again, Sam with the standard reaction to weird BTs goes “what the fuck”. My thoughts exactly at this point.

- Climbed onto whatever thing that emerged from the tar was closest and then clambered onto a building that appeared. Was helped once again (as I was with the previous fights) by a ghostly Sam that lobbed all sorts of neat useful things my way, most importantly two grenade launchers and a multi rocket launcher. Thank you ghostly Sam! I would’ve been doomed without your help. Defeated the whale, collected more chiral crystals, then FINALLY made it to capitol knot.

- Delivered the items to Fragile who looked... really not well. I was concerned there was going to be another loss, but Sam waved a cryptobiote in front of her face and she woke up. Prior to Sam walking up to he, Mama/Lockne ran over and tried to hug him which Sam was (understandably) having absolutely none of but at least he was kinda gentle when he stopped her.

- They explained the whole thing that happened and how Fragile was essentially bounced back from Amelie’s beach and that she wanted Sam to go to her. So they have a long convo about how Sam needs to go and has to find a way to stop her, but also understand that he might not be able to come back. Pretty sobering, but ok. He and Fragile do the forehead touch (which I know helps but it’s so cute, I can’t) and she tells him to picture Amelie’s beach and feel the connection to her. Fragile does the same “I know you love her” thing as the first time and Sam gets sent over to the beach. Fragile looked very sad, chiral allergy tears aside. Which, given that she probably considered him a friend by this point, fits since there’s no guarantee he’ll come back let alone be able to stop Amelie.

- Elsewhere, on Amelie’s beach things are... not looking good. There’s dead sea creatures everywhere, the water’s red, and the sun thing looks like it’s going to turn everything on the beach into smoldering ashes any second. Sam finally finds Amelie after running around for a while and she reveals she’s an EE, which he already technically knew thanks to Higgs. Amelie explains a bunch of stuff and tells Sam to make a choice: stay with her and watch the world end (no thanks) or stop her. Sam pulls the gun which does no good and upon following her, gets a prompt to hug her. He does and they both get super emotional (which is in turn making ME get emotional) and then Amelie shoves him away.

- Sam plummets into the ocean and somehow gets bounced back to his own beach. Where he’s blue? For some reason. I don’t think it’s a tint because everything else on the beach looked the same colors it always was in prior sequences. He’s the only thing that’s not. Which, there is a reason for I’m sure. Anyways.

- Cue running along the beach for eternity a good while with Sam stopping every so often to sit down and catch his breath as well as reflect on what Amelie told him. Which was a lot. She explained that she and Bridget are one and the same, a separation of Ka and Ha that managed to coexist. She also says she got bored of waiting for the end and decided to bring about the extinction early and, while I can understand that’s her purpose as an EE, way to say fuck humanity I guess.

- In between more running and resting, it’s revealed that Sam is the BB Cliff (aka Mr. Combat Veteran) was looking for. His son. (Which you find out kinda after fighting him for the third? time.) Sam was apparently an experiement and a potential sacrifice (man this game gets dark fast) for something. Die-Hardman- aka John- told Cliff as much in less words and instructed him to take his son and run. Cliff does and bad things ensue when he gets cornered. John/Die-Hardman was given the order to shoot Cliff and when he refused to Bridget/Amelie made him, quite literally, by grabbing his hand and making him pull the trigger. My thought process during these has bacially centered around “wow Bridget is awful” but add the swearing of your choice to that sentence. Basically, I do not feel charitable towards Ms. Extinction Entity.

- Cliff took BB Sam out of the pod at some point and when Bridget shot him via using John/Die-Hardman as a puppet, she also shot BB Sam. Upon realizing this, she freaks out. Which is understandable given that she just killed a man and a baby. But what did she think was going to happen? That Cliff would throw his teeny baby son across the room when she pulled the trigger? What exactly was her expectation here?

- So BB Sam died and went to the beach. Or was it his own beach? They all start to blur together a little after a while. Amelie finds the BB, which is blue because it’s not breathing (ooh hey maybe that’s why adult Sam is blue? ... but my understanding is when Fragile jumped him to Amelie’s beach, all of him went— not just his soul. So maybe not? Is it symbolic? Am I just looking too hard into this?) and does infant cpr (I think?) and lo and behold, BB Sam is brought back to life! She tells him she knows the way home and puts him in the ocean. & in upsetting the balance of life and death, she made him a repatriate

- Once again back on the beach, Sam decides he’s had enough of being stuck there and remembers the gun and Amelie’s words that “a gun won’t help you here but it still has a role to play” and decides to use it as a way to end the beach cycle. There’s a click and then the title “Death Stranding”. I was very confused at first and just kind of stared at the tv like “that’s it? All that for—“ and then a little button prompt showed up on the bottom with the words “reconnect with the living”. Push the button and oh look, Sam’s still alive (Which is very much a joyous moment for me as a concerned player)! He tries again a few times and realizes it doesn’t work, then hears a very familiar song. Following the sound he finds little BB handprints in the sand and following those leads him to some familiar voices.

- Amelie/Bridget shows up again, this time in white as opposed to her signature red (i know there’s symbolism in that change, maybe rebirth? or just signifying that she’s trying to be on humanity’s side of things this time around?) and tells him that he still has ties to the living and then points at the five figures floating in the sky⏤ presumably meant to represent Deadman, Mama, Lockne, Heartman, and Lou. Or is it Deadman, Mama/Lockne, Heartman, Lou, and Die-Hardman? Following that, various voices belonging to those mentioned above remark that they can see him and just need to bring him back. Sam winds up in the ocean again (i’m finishing up this post almost a week after beating the game so my memory is tad iffy on the exact way things happened) and is greeted with the sight of Deadman holding Lou in her little pod while he’s got his hand around Sam’s ankle.

- They manage to bring him back to the land of the living and what follows is a fair amount of cutscenes. In the absence of Bridget/Amelie/Samantha ‘America’ Strand (the woman who never existed), Die-Hardman takes up the mantle of president (good for him!). He reveals his face to the crowd (and presumably everyone watching from... wherever they may be) and starts talking about the unsung hero none of this would’ve been possible without... which is about the time Sam, who’s been hanging out in the very back of the room (mood), decides to bail (also a mood). He slows a little when Die-Hardman says the hero doesn’t need to be named, they all know who it is and they’re all for grateful for their efforts. He keeps walking and exits into the hall and wow, BRIDGES buildings are a lot bigger than you’d think from looking at the outside which is large in general but inside is... a lot.

- Deadman catches up with him and drops some information about Die-Hardman aka John. Which I think Sam already knew due to the sequence while trapped on the beach but oh well. Sam continues down the hall and tries to pass Die-Hardman who appeared from somewhere? I’m going to guess parts of the facility loop or there was a change in scenery and I just wasn’t paying enough attention. He confesses information about his past, including how he got his name, and kinda has an emotional breakdown which made me very sad for him and increased the number of times i cried while playing this game. Sam gives Die-Hardman/John back his gun and repeats Amelie/Bridget’s words and leaves.

- Sam goes to leave the building and runs into Deadman again who hands over Lou’s pod and... Lou’s dead. Which was very depressing and the knowledge of which hurt. A lot. Deadman tells him to take Lou to the incinerator and takes Sam’s cuffs offline while giving some useful information: his location is undetectable by BRIDGES while his cuffs are offline and they will automatically reconnect to the network when he uses the incinerator. Sam nods, gives Deadman a hug and tells him “thanks for everything”. Which is more than a thank you, it’s a good-bye and kojima has now broken my heart into five billion pieces. Sam departs, gets out the big door, and... oh hey, Fragile!

- They chat briefly, during which she reveals that she’s carrying on her father’s legacy and that Fragile Express now has a private contract with BRIDGES and they’re the first independent company to have it. Good for them! She comments on Lou (I think) and remarks that he at least shouldn’t need an umbrella. Then asks him if he’d work for her. Sam says no and explains how he felt when he first began his journey and reveals he still feels that way (and now i’m even more sad! let’s take the five billion pieces that are my heart and just shove them in blender at this point, why not!). Fragile is upset and I think she tried to stop him again but he left anyways.

- Thus begins the trek to the incinerator with BB’s Theme playing on the way there (it’s a wonder i could even see the tv at this point as the ending just keeps hammering the sad nail home). Finally made it to the incinerator taking the same path I did on the first visit (thanks Igor for the tools!) and Sam enters the building, takes off his cuffs and sets both those and Lou’s pod down on the incinerator before he remembers Deadman’s words. He snatches Lou’s pod back just in time and the slab descends into the floor, the doors seal shut, and turn his cuffs into ashes. It’s revealed that Sam took Lou out of the pod and not much has changed. He tries infant cpr and hearing his words the entire time literally had me sobbing. Sam says “come on baby’ and he’s crying (i’m crying and now the blended pieces of my heart are being run over by a steam-roller) until he finally gives up... and then... Lou lives! There are a bunch of baby BT’s floating nearby in the incinerator which is a little concerning, but hey Lou’s alive! Sam cradles little Lou to his chest and she’s so tiny⏤ her little skull is barely the size of his palm! Anyways, Sam and Lou walk outside and it starts to rain... but the sun is shining, the rain causes no harm to him or Lou (or Sam’s clothing) and a rainbow appears. The first normal rainbow in the entire game. Which is a good sign, I think? The title screen appears once more and woo! I beat the game!

This was a very unique and fun game, and I can honestly say I enjoyed every minute of it. Between the music, the environment, the characters, and all the lore you can uncover by reading Sam’s mail... it was an amazing experience. I still have some trophies I’m missing and I think I only need 10 more to platinum the game so I’ll be playing chapter 15 for a little while longer. Plus I want to rebuild all the roads + find all the memory chips. I do want to replay the game in it’s entirety sometime just to see what i pick up on ahead of time the second go-around. And, while I may have beat the game, this is going to be another one of my forever fandoms. I don’t have much contributed right now, but I hope to have more things posted soon now that I know the whole story. if anyone ever wants to chat about the game, fic, or anything, feel free to send me a message!

#ds adventures #death stranding spoilers #siren yells into the void #death stranding

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talkingismylifewrites · 5 years ago

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18 19 and 22 ! love your work and hope you're doing ok!

18. what is a line/scene you’re really proud of? give us the dvd commentary for that scene.

Crouching down, he began to shove the photos back into the box, careful not to bend them or touch the glossy finish. But the moment he picked up the first handful, he stopped, staring in confusion down at his own face squished next to John's. He flipped it over to the next photo, this time just him grinning at the camera. The next, John, looking rather displeased, Roger's hand holding his cheeks tightly. Next. The two of them curled up on a couch, their heads bent together in sleep. Next. John from behind, but in Roger's fur coat. Roger hugging John. Roger and John drunk at a party, winking at the camera over glasses of beer. The two of them eating orange slices, showing off orange rind teeth. John asleep on the bus. Roger attempting to pour tea. John tuning his bass. Roger in John's lap. John laughing while Roger wrapped an arm around his waist. John and Roger. John and Roger. John and Roger.

John and Roger kissing. Roger was half on John, one hand threaded through John's hair, the other tight on his waist. It wasn't a kiss between friends, or even a kiss you'd give as a joke. It was a kiss. One between lovers.

Roger dropped the photos.

In the films, your memory comes back in some dramatic fashion full of tears and pain and a sequence of someone shaking apart while they clutch at their brain, agonized by the rush of memories. The amnesiac panics and flutters, weeping as it all comes back, hitting them over and over like a tsunami of pain and memory.

It was not like that for Roger. For Roger, they returned with a half sigh and the relief of finally coming home. It was like the missing piece that had been gone for so long finally snapped back into place, the key slipped into the lock, his compass finally pointed north. He picked up the photograph and his head broke through the surf, and finally, finally, he could breathe again. Out of the water and onto the shore. Between one second and the next, he felt whole after months and months of feeling empty and broken, searching for everything he had lost.

Roger rocked back onto his heels, collapsing on to the ground in muted shock as it all came back. Everything from their fights to their relationship to every damn dream he’d had and written off as a fantasy. John—his John—not Dominique. All of it, everything he had thought was true was wrong. It was all wrong, all of it. Dominique was wrong. Just being John's friend was wrong. Not loving John was wrong.

"Holy shit," he whispered, crouching down to trace the photo with shaking fingers. Freddie had taken it, in '79. They'd been over at Brian's for dinner and Scrabble, stretching it late into the night. Roger had been complaining about it being late and wanting to go home, but John had been winning and didn't want to forfeit. Roger had crawled into his lap and murmured all the dirty things he was going to do him when they got home. After one particularly filthy suggestion, John had given in and kissed him, licking deep into his mouth just long enough for Freddie to snap the pic, before throwing in his tiles and dragging a smug Roger home.

Because they still lived together. Not as friends, as partners. Boyfriends, lovers, paramours, as John's Kept Man. They were together, had been since January 21, 1978—Roger had missed their anniversary. He'd forgotten it, laid up in bed and sickly and John had never said anything.

"John," Roger murmured, dropping the picture again. "John!"

He had to call John, he had to see him. Scrambling to his feet, he practically flew out of the bedroom—their bedroom—and down the stairs, stumbling as he skipped steps in his haste to get to the phone, to get to John. What would he say? It's me; I remember; I love you; how could I ever forget you?

so i’ve definitely spoken about this being my favorite passage, but i can’t deny that its probably the section i’m most proud of. first of all, it was one of the first scenes ever written. for dyldyl; right off the bat i knew exactly how i wanted the reveal to go (although slightly different in some parts, instead of it being a photo of john and roger kissing, it was going to be a letter roger had written to john that discussed a morning bj in exchange for putting away the laundry). i wanted roger’s initial reaction to the revelation that he’d forgotten to be confusion that melted into sheer joy, and then for it to melt into horror and hurt.

i also wanted to show that the act of remembering itself is not traumatic, in fact, it’s welcomed and almost as though roger can finally relax. roger remembers and he’s fine, he can breathe again, he’ll find john and be reunited with the man that he loves.

i also very sneakily reference this particular scene many many times throughout john’s chapters as a kind of juxtaposition of who they are. john spends his nights sitting in the closet staring at their photos and remembering what they once had; so does roger. john also runs down the stairs the same way as roger in his haste to get to him, he skips steps, grabs the banister, spins himself around, he’s leaping down the steps to get to him.

and, there are some mirrored references to john’s hurt in the same way as roger’s hurt. john’s hurt by the fact that roger has forgotten, roger is hurt by the fact that john remembered. the two of them are two sides of the same coin, and roger regaining his memory puts them both on equal if shaky ground.

furthermore, the act of hiding the photographs is the kiss of death for both john and roger. for john, tucking away the photographs (which he has admitted are mostly his; john is the keeper of their relationship not just in pictures but in memories as well) is the sign that things are at their lowest, that the relationship he knew and cherished has ended. for roger, the hiding of the photographs is the very same, only for very different reasons. one was done purposefully, the other was done to them.

i like to think that i managed to get the right sort of mood and expression of emotions right for something like this, and that i did roger’s memories justice.

19. who is the easiest/hardest character for you to write about? why?

john is actually really hard for me, which is surprising because i’m literally writing four chapters from his pov that come in at 157k, plus however long chapter seven will be. i think it just takes me a while to get into his mindset? and sometimes i’ll write something that’s too ooc. john is so reserved in the sense that he holds himself really taught, and when he does break its an explosion of emotion and sort of overwhelming. he’s funny and witty and rude and so strong? but he’s also reserved. i tend to write to extremes, and that doesn’t commute with john. if it were roger dealing with john’s amnesia, it would be lots of anger and fury and tears and an overwhelming need to be supported, while john is kinda more ‘i’m going to hold it all right here in my chest until i die please excuse me while i go lick my wounds in private’. so it takes me a while and a couple of rewrites to get that tone exactly perfect. hence why john’s chapters have taken me so much longer (that, and the length).

i also really struggle with freddie’s motives and voice, which surprises me because i think i’m the most like freddie? (okay, if freddie and roger had a baby and it was tag team raised by crystal and john). i actually tried writing a fic from freddies pov completely and i’m not gonna lie i really struggled with it. i think its because freddie is such an oxymoron of a personality. outward he’s very bright and brash and very social, constantly in your face with who he is and how he behaves, but internally he’s very shy and also reserved. his public image is very different from that of his private, and it can be hard to juggle the two of them. if you make the mistake of making him that brash and loud person when the time calls for his quiet side, you can lose the character in the blink of an eye. in order for me to understand his character and the voice i want for him, i have to try a little harder and write a little slower.

it’s easy to make freddie just be like ‘darling’ and ‘oh how very dare you!’ and all other sorts of platitudes, but that wasn’t him. roger has said he was very shy and insecure, and that he put on an act, which is easily seen in certain interviews or when he’s been filmed without his knowledge. so finding that balance between devastatingly funny and extroverted freddie with his more introverted side can be hard. especially because the very last thing i’d ever want to do is make him a caricature of who he was.

the easiest pov for me is roger because i basically just think: is this how a gold retriever raised in a frat house with access to cocaine would behave?? and if the answer is yes then i know it’s roger. if no, then it’s john. if fuck yeah, where’s the booze? it’s crystal.

22. have you cried while writing a fic?

yes, but only because i was so frustrated over it. never because what i wrote was sad, because if i’m thinking it, i can compartmentalize it. i’ve cried reading fics, tho

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steve0discusses · 5 years ago

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Yugioh S4 Ep 13: Yugi Dies in California, Makes Everything Awkward

Hey guys. Yugi’s DEAD. (again, but way earlier in a season than I thought he’d be)

So lets get into it.

Last we left off, Pharaoh got imbued with the powers of Lime Green. A green that I swear used to be more Aqua, but seems to sort of shift and change depending on if it’s day or night.

As a consequence, Yugi now can’t have any communication with Pharaoh. I guess this makes it so now Pharaoh is split with his “light” side but like...both Yugi and Pharaoh have both light and darkness so...I see the metaphor going on, but I don’t think the metaphor actually...worked when you think about all the screwy stuff Yugi has done even without Pharaoh around. So just don’t think about it.

The big consequence of the Yugi Banishment was more that Yugi wasn’t there to tell Pharaoh how the Oricalchos card works because--and I say this a lot--but Pharaoh doesn’t know how to read.

Pharaoh’s biggest downfall isn’t so much his greed or pride this episode, it’s his goddamn illiteracy. If he took just five seconds to study the fine print then...he wouldn’t have even cast the Oricalchos in the first place. He did it because he wanted to protect his dragon Timaeus on the field, but the Oricalchos made Timaeus immediately disappear so...Pharaoh cast this for no reason other than the plot really wanted him to do it.

Just kinda shocking that Pharaoh, of all people, made such a huge card mistake when he’s supposed to be from where all cards came from. Then again, he’s separated from Yugi who I guess had more card input than I realized, because the rest of this episode is just Pharaoh playing kind of like a dumbass.

And on the voice acting side, the guy who plays Pharaoh had to try and talk even deeper--which was kind of funny when he’s already as deep as he can go. So...it just seems like Season 1 Pharaoh to me, except he laughs more.

TBH Pharaoh was WAY more rude to PaniK than he ever was to Rafael.

(read more under the cut)

Meanwhile, Rex and Weevil have joined the pack.

Only to be hassled by the pack.

And so, since this is a show about cards, how do you make Pharaoh look like a bad person when he...always plays cards, and is usually a good person for doing this same card playing thing?

And as the person in charge of the Death Count, sorry Yugi, that doesn’t even make sense to me. If you’re telling me that JUST NOW cards are suddenly real and not 10+ episodes ago, and if you’re telling me that all of the other times Dark Magician Girl died didn’t count?

If I had to count every time that a card died when I’m pretty sure they were real then we would also have to count most Bakura duels, probably that Pegasus duel, any Shadow game, really, and like...I don’t want to do the math so I am not counting Dark Magician Girl, y’all.

She was alive at the end of this episode, and as far as I’m concerned, her prime function--the reason she exists--is to die a lot. She’s a card, that’s what they do, and I doubt she even felt bad about it. Like...I don’t think the cards are mortal. Does that make sense? I just...maybe it hurt her but like...does she care? She’s a god in this universe.

You can’t kill Zeus. And like maybe people can hassle Zeus but like it would be maybe the sensation of an itch to Zeus if you stab him directly through the throat--that’s how I feel about Dark Magician Girl. She can take a beating and won’t even know it’s happening. Girl is freakin Zeus.

A lot of this Rafael arc is about making a false reality to justify your actions. Rafeal’s was a pretty extreme case involving cards that are angels and that are still cards...or something. Pharaoh’s was “I’ll be fine, I’ve always been fine, I’m very good at this, I’m the exception to every rule.” which is a much more approachable and relatable fake reality than Rafael.

Thing is, Pharaoh’s not entirely wrong. That’s usually true for him. He usually is the exception to every rule bending RNG to his every whim. Like there’s a reason why he took the chance on the Oricalchos, it really should’ve worked out.

And TBH, would have liked to see Pharaoh do this for longer than one episode, especially since him going his brand of cray only lasted during a card game, which I don’t really watch anyway. But eventually all good things must end, and it catches up to him when he realizes the horror he has wrought.

Spoiler, it’s not that horrifying.

Like for reals, I have seen Pharaoh do some THINGS and maybe this is a sign I’ve seen too much Yugioh when I’m like “lol Pharaoh went nuts and that was it???”

I cannot believe he did not pull out even so much as a single knife this entire episode. The hatchets are right there. Then again, his puzzle powers don’t really work in the Oricalchos realm so he has to play normie style. But knives are pretty normie. I feel like Pharaoh should have pulled out some sort of makeshift brain teaser involving knives, but youknow, this season is very much more for kids than previous seasons of Yugioh.

Again, what he did to Panik is about 1000x worse than making a Halloween Kuriboh.

But, now that all the cards he sacrificed to the Shadow Realm are being resurrected and used against him, he looks into the blank face of Dark Magician Girl and accepts his defeat.

Which is very similar to what happened to Kaiba in the earlier seasons of this show. Pharaoh got Pharaoh’d.

But...while it is a throwback, heaven forbid that this show used a real ass human as a stand in for Dark Magician Girl in this scene. Could’ve had just any actual person standing around here to make Pharaoh realize a change of heart--maybe even the kid he banished in his head? But nah.

It was Dark Magician Girl for this emotional beat.

I mean we are watching Yugioh but lol, that was a decision the writing team made. Joey Wheeler’s right over there. Maybe remove Tea from that RV? No? Want to use Dark Magician Girl instead? OK then.

Anyway, now that Pharaoh was shamed enough by a paper card to remember how to be slightly more human, Yugi holds his Puzzle high over his head and screams “BY THE POWER OF THE MILLENNIUM PUZZLE!” or something and does his own brand of magic. Surprise, it’s punching stuff.

Punching stuff is always the answer.

So apparently the puzzle is more powerful than Oricalchos. Which we basically knew the whole time, I mean...Pharaoh got possessed by Oricalchos and all it did was make him play cards.

I can’t believe no one got set on fire that entire sequence.

So, since the Oricalchos demanded a soul, Yugi figured out a loophole.

And again, another Yugioh game was ended by someone threatening to kill himself, and this time it was Yugi. Who died so that Pharaoh’s yummy soul would not resurrect the Great Leviathan.

Because, while Yugi may be a soul-copy and somewhat reincarnation of the Pharaoh? Or something? He’s still not yummy enough. Not yummy enough for that Leviathan tummy.

Which lead to this great scene that I’m sure you’d remember vividly if you ever saw it even once. This is so unexpected and wild and everyone should see it.

This is moments following a very heavy death in the show--Pharaoh’s lowest point--and it is just SO JARRING AND FUNNY in context. I don’t think they meant it to be that way but I had to rewind like 8 times.

First off, enjoy this wtf helicopter, and then...

Wow.

A+ animation, I would never have been so bold as to do drop Pharaoh like a sack of potatoes from 50 feet in the air right after killing Yugi Muto on screen. 10/10. Amazing.

And after it happens, Duke kinda looks over and has the gall to ask... “Are you guys all right?” It’s just...

Wow.

I’m applauding at my computer, I am so glad that whole sequence exists. I’ll probably lift it eventually just to have.

And then the rest of this episode is Pharaoh trying to tell everyone what happened but Everyone still doesn’t quite get it, despite how wildly blunt Pharaoh is.

Cue the endless crying, because if this show loves anything, it’s men in eyeliner openly weeping into the dirt at their feet. Thankfully, Yugi had the foresight to get waterproof mascara, because if he’s gonna die, he doesn’t want Yami to blow up that perfectly cut stiletto heel line.

MAN I am so jealous of this teenage boy’s makeup.

And since I asked the void nicely for Yugioh to be in PAD, and now that PAD put Yugioh in there as if it heard me, I will now turn my attention to Sephora.

Please, Sephora, make me a Yugioh makeup line that is waterproof as hell so I can ugly cry in the hottest desert in America and still not smudge, thx.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand Yugi Muto is officially dead!

Didn’t expect that, being real.

Wow.

Really I thought that they would die if ever they ever got separated, but apparently Pharaoh is fine he just...lacks his Yugi half that knows how to read stuff and had a slightly longer attention span.

I can’t believe they cured Yugi of his curse! Congrats, Yugi! You are no longer possessed!

Y’all. Lets just appreciate the Yugioh Episode 13 curse for a bit.

First episode 13, Bakura killed everyone with like no warning

Second Episode 13 was Ankle-slicing Bandsaw Clown

Third Episode 13 Noah revealed he was Seto’s Secret Already Dead Brother trying to take over Seto’s body

Fourth Episode 13 Yami finally managed murdering Yugi.

Like I dunno if they planned for all 13s to be all the WTF ones, but I’m glad it’s managed so far. I should’ve known when I started this episode that it was a 13, but I just...I just forgot.

Really thought Yami was going to survive this one and we’d have to bury Rafael on this mesa. Lucky for them and the local police, it’s just paranormal murder today.

Anyway...there’s like a lot more episodes of this season left and I don’t know where it’s going anymore. Should be fun. At the rate we’re going, we’re gonna take a bike ride over to New York City to do more card games on the desert Mesas of NYC. Lets see how long Yugi will remain dead.

Maybe next episode Pharaoh will just throw on a bedsheet and Rebecca’s shower sandals so he can go full Egyptian Era? Maybe the eyeliner will be drawn all the way to his freakin ears? Y’all what if he gets really into beads and gold now?

(and if you just got here, this is a handy link to read all of these recaps in chrono order. There’s a lot of them.)

#ygo #yugioh #photo recap #episode recap #yugi muto #yami #joey wheeler #rafael #duke devlin #tristan taylor #rex raptor #weevil underwood #a helicopter #Dying in a kid's show #Yugi's freakin dead

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serienstreamhd · 4 years ago

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