#and this one i like so far and it's a reimagining of later seasons but written during the early seasons you know

[untouchedsoap]

i know this is mostly just my preference and my protective nature of mickey but it's like uncomfortable for me when people write him new oc partners. and it's so weird because usually i'm someone who does like to mix and match and see how different people fit together etc not necessarily with ocs that's less my taste but still with mickey it's like absolutely not. he knows where he wants to be

[dailyadventureprompts]

Monsters Reimagined: Svirfneblin

While not as problematic or desperately in need of an overhaul as some of the other monsters in this series, I thought I'd share my take on the deepgnomes to round out my posts on duergar and drow as well as my overall thoughts on life in the underdark.

To put it simply the Svirfneblin fall prey to the one note lore that d&d even more than their subterranian neighbors, having a backstory that effectively amounts to " they live in caves, like gems, and don't trust outsiders". Picking around some different soruces though I found some interesting tidbits about how the gnomes fled underground leaving behind cities upon which people built new settlements, and talk about how their distrusting natures come from living in such a dangerous place as the underdark. This got me thinking about societies where secrecy was key, and cultural touchstones of fleeing underground to avoid disaster.

TLDR: My take on the deepgnomes has them as a fusion of brits during the blitz, survivalists, and the "preparing for armegeddon" culture of the cold war. Their society is suffused with a deepseated worry that the end is coming soon, whether it be a ruinous diaster, an attack from outside, or simply the end of the world. To brace against this ever-approaching calamity they stockpile, build hidden vault cities, and etch their history onto monuments and time capsuls so that the survivors won't have to rebuild from scratch. They build ramparts and artillery batteries in the tunnels of the underdark to defend against foes they haven't met yet, and dig ever deeper hoping to find a home where nothing can find them.

Imagine the party is traveling through a mistshrouded stretch of the underdark only to stumble across a village of deepgnomes hidden away in a terraced valley of mossfarms and blindfish shoals that you'd absolutely mistake for a naturally bountiful area if you wern't looking for it. The svirfneblin shun the use of fire outside of a sheltered hearth and never talk above a whisper, but after days of interrogation the party are deemed not to be spies of "the enemy" and allowed to move about the village with supervision. It is a quiet and placid existance, cut off from the wider world, and the party bears witness to the season's harvest being brought in. While a portion of it is preserved and placed into the village's larders, a far larger potion is prepared according to a "state standard" and put aside under strict guard. A few days later, a signal sounds and everyone retreats to their hidden dwellings. From the home of their hosts the party watch as caravan of other deepgnomes comes into town and loads up the harvest without a word being exchanged. Later, the villagers reveal that they don't know where the food goes. To a city they suspect, but the name and location of it was not haded down by their forebearers after the village's founding. Their best guess is that the tribute is to support the war effort, though how long the war has lasted, and who it's against is for anyone to say.

I wanted to preserve an element of svirfneblin's simplicity but use it as a front, a mystery for the party to poke at rather than that being all there was to them. The culture of jewlsmiths with a deepset connection to elemental earth is still there, but I want it to smack the audience in the face when they realize that it's not just pretty jewlery that the deepgnomes are adept at building, but arcane/blackpowder artillery.

The element of secrecy and paranoia likewise lets the dm play with what deepgnome society is REALLY like, beyond the rugged survivalist enclaves. Is there some great sage soverign maintaining an archave with knowledge about the coming end of days? A desperate ruin where survivors live off the tribute of other settlements while battling in the shadow of shattered art? A toltalitarian bastion building up their warfooting for a tactical fist strike?

Also, I wanted to pay tribute to the fact that the neblin part of the svirfneblin name has to do with mist, and I just liked the idea that their parts of the underdark were cloaked in constant fog as a means of weaving their gnomish illusions.

[silaskaiser117]

Hello! I am Silas Kaiser, author of the fanfiction series Saga of the Skywalkers on AO3 and Fanfiction. For those just hearing about it, it is a retelling and reimagining of the Star Wars stories in a fantasy setting. Currently, I am working on a chronological retelling of the Clone Wars series.

Normally, I post these State of the Project reports publicly on my Patreon (patreon.com/silaskaiser) but I decided to branch out here. You can expect one of these every other Wednesday along with some other tidbits and ideas that I don't think would require a full post there. I also post the raw finished chapters there as a reward but will be releasing them for free on AO3 and Fanfiction when a season is complete.

The Clone Wars/The Great War Chapter 23 is currently 3400 words and counting. I took a break last week to hammer out a combined Canon/Legends timeline to use to better add to the stories and keep history cohesive. I will be posting it later as a freebie, but I will warn that it is almost 35,000 words.

In other news, even though it is far off I am debating on making the Mandalorian, TBoBF, Ahsoka, and Skeleton Crew a single multi arc series. I was already going to combine the first two of those into "The Book of the Mandalorians" so I don't feel like it would be too much of a stretch. When I've had a little downtime lately I've also been dabbling in adapting the Acolyte, but even with as much as I yearn to let fans of the series sink their teeth into my take I don't want to lose sight of the Clone Wars/The Great War.

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 12/05/2024

Gadget 4

Season 4 Episode 2 Featured on: The SiIvaGunner Spooktacular Halloween Horror Special: Curse of the Fallen Angel

Ripped by Scribble1k

(Audio too big for post) Requested by an Anonymous reader! (Request Form)

It wasn't all too long ago that I covered Scribble1k's ripping on here with How 2 Do Anything, but it was in writing that post that I was reminded of something pretty significant. Out of the 25 excellent rips she contributed to the channel with from Season 2 to Season 4 Episode 2, I'm yet to cover perhaps what she's most known for, a series of rips with one release a year since their very debut. The Minecraft With Gadget Boss series - Go Go Gadget $400 Meme Making Software, That Gadget Arrangement from 2017 2​, Gadget 3, and today's very topic - Gadget 4.

Now, this is far from the first time that Inspector Gadget has been brought up on this blog (and if you're new here, hi! I'm sorry LOL). I've talked about the Inspector Gadget takeover of Season 2 many times and the gravity the event felt like it had, notably Become As Gadget - how the entire channel just morphed into something wholly new overnight and stayed that way for days on end. It clearly left a strong mark on people, Mike Matei's shitty cartoon character impression keeps showing up at irregular intervals on the channel and the takeover itself is a really notable part of the series' lore - and, of course, it was what led Scribble1k to make her first ever rip. The original Go Go Gadget $400 Meme Making Software was a wholly self-made arrangement by the ripper, reimagining the Inspector Gadget theme into an ominous boss battle theme, filled with clips from the aforementioned Mike Matei video and various Season 1 SiIva memes throughout, as if to suggest a battle between Gadget and the very channel itself. Four years later, Gadget 4 feels like a culmination of everything Scribble1k has learned through her time ripping - her magnum opus, if you will.

To that end, then, it absolutely succeeds at its job - and there's something I just find oh-so-befitting about Scribble1k's last-ever Gadget Boss rip dropping during the season all about celebrations. The notes Scribble1k herself has left on the wiki herself are surprisingly detailed in a way I could only hope to be, but the point is the same that I'm aiming to convey here - the rip fucking bangs. It goes for a far more dark electronic sound than the prior installments, a dramatic piano intro paving the way for shit absolutely hitting the fan. I love that even with the Inspector Gadget melody as the central focus, Scribble1k has grown confident enough to be more self-indulgent with Gadget 4 - as described on the Wiki and heard in the rip itself, a whole 2 minutes in the middle serves to play a medley of music from the Touhou series, for instance.

There's tons of cool shit hidden in this rip that I wish I had the time to truly dissect, but I feel that I need to reign myself back a little. It's a super interesting, fun listen regardless - I highly recommend taking a look at all four rips just to see Scribble1k's evolution as a ripper over the years. Having such a clear "checkpoint" for each year of one's ripping journey is a really fun quirk to have, and just one more fun little wrinkle onto SiIva's massive catalogue.

[thepoliticalvulcan]

Early DS9 Garak would not recognize himself as the baddie in this meme.

If you post stuff about the Paradox of (In)Tolerance or memes like this in order to inform the vulnerable that you see them and consider their concerns to be your concerns, this does not really pertain to you. Different people have different understandings of the function of a meme or a pithy saying and that is part of what makes communication in this medium so bedeviling.

However, there is a sort of "In this house we..." type of poster who I believe understands themselves as doing an act of communication with the explicit intent to shame bigots and to inform bigotry curious normies that its not okay.

I am extremely pro-discourse with anyone who is acting in goodfaith on an interpersonal level and I am still pro-discourse with people who are acting in badfaith if done with the express purpose to try to provide a better representation of the ideas the badfaith actor routinely strawmans. Meme wars ain't that. Or at least shallow memes.

And this? This is a shallow meme. I'm sorry, but it is. Its a weak form of engagement that feels good to share, may reassure some allies, but if reassurance isn't the point, then its almost entirely a waste of bandwidth. And let me state again: reassurance is a valid use of bandwidth, I just don't think most people sharing this stuff have that as their primary motive.

Let me unpack this using Garak as a case study.

Among the majority of Star Trek fans whose complaints about Discovery don't begin or end with "identity politics" it ought not to be controversial to call early DS9 Garak a fascist. Heck, depending on your feelings about his actions in "In the Pale Moonlight" Garak may very well still be a fascist, albeit one who is questioning, until late into DS9.

He's not a fascist in the sense that he checks every silly little box that would describe a German who has bought into an Aryan fantastical reimagining of malignant Italian nostalgia for the "good old days" of the Roman Empire. Rather Garak appears to be believe in the innate desirability of a strong paternalistic state that advances the interests of its people, as defined by its oligarchy, through expansionary violence abroad while using hefty amounts of coercion backed by threat of violence to ensure order at home.

This is fascism not as a specific historic belief system, but rather the colloquial fascism. A thermostatic measurement of how fast the average citizen can be exposed to state violence, how narrow their civil liberties are, and how fast those liberties can be suspended if authorities within the state deem it necessary. Rights are far from inalienable in the face of the collective good, as dictated by a narrow elite whose only accountability is censure or murder by a peer.

Colonization, assassination, and disinformation are tools without intrinsic moral weight detached from their aims. Murder isn't wrong because murder is wrong in Garak's world, murder is either an effective means to an end or it isn't. In Garak's moral universe, if murder is useful then murder is good. There's really never any sense from Garak that he is burning his decency to build a paradise he will never see - ala Andor's Luthen Rael or The Operative from Serenity. Garak lives easily with the things he's done, even enjoying throwing the way that Sisko benefited from the way that Garak did what Sisko himself understood was necessary but could not morally bring himself to do when it came to the murder of the Romulan Ambassador.

It might register on some level to Garak, especially later, that he's been conditioned by his society broadly and by his Obsidian Order training specifically to be far from unbiased when considering violence as a tool and thus he gives less weight than he probably ought to the downsides like blowback, unintended consequences, or just the risks of becoming too reliant on violence relative to other options. But ultimately it takes several seasons of exposure to Federation moral and practical arguments about the plurality and nonviolence to wear Garak down.

One could even argue he doesn't truly become a convert to something resembling Federation secular humanism until he is forced to watch proud Cardassia become a barely tolerated vassal to the Dominion and its these people that he, Quark and others have sneered at as soft, too trusting rubes who are willing to die to protect Garak from his own people. To be sure, its the Dominion that bombs Cardassia, but I think we can safely say that Garak understands by the end that its generations of self serving Legates, Obsidian Order directors including his own father, and their ruinous ideology with its unchecked ambition and stifling of imagination that set that particular historical Rube Goldberg machine in motion.

But for early Garak, his ruthless cultural chauvinism wasn't bigotry as he would understand it. The system produced unequal results by design but to him it wouldn't appear to be personal. Garak lived inside a zero sum ideology and thus it was necessary for his people to sabotage and loot other peoples. It was necessary for Garak personally to lie, torture, assassinate, and massacre. He didn't hate other races and cultures, he just preferred Cardassians be the ones to be the masters in a universe of dominator and dominated.

This is the archetypal reader who I most imagine as needing to see themselves as targeted in this meme but instead would gloss over it and find nothing controversial. At best, the reader who needs to see themselves in this meme would be irked by the meta signaling that their lib friends think they're racist and tolerate overt racism in their midst.

Still, they don't see themselves as the baddie because most of them are not Nick Fuentes or Nick Fuentes adjacent. There's only ever been a few thousand Proud Boys and that's according to the Proud Boys who have every reason to exaggerate. Instead what the average reader of concern is is comfortable with unequal outcomes, comfortable with social orders ordered by the stick rather than the carrot because they assume it creates meritocracy and even if it doesn't, a system that is more likely to issue a loan to people like themselves and less likely to gun them down in a routine traffic stop ensures their status and comfort are unlikely to be challenged in a world of scarcity.

Garak probably even thought Cardassians are biologically more intelligent than Klingons or Nausicaans because he thought the cultural products of Cardassia were intrinsically superior to those of the Klingons and the power and prosperity of the Cardassians relative to the Nausicaans were evidence of innate superiority. As for the Federation's dominance, most of the Federation's enemies rationalize it as a house of cards that will fall apart if enough pressure is applied to a pain point, while Garak and Quark would come to have a more nuanced view. They saw the Federation as a Human Empire hiding within a web of co-dependency, acquired favors, and cultural exports like root beer that erode out the foundations of enemies and result in assimilation if they're not careful to police their cultures.

It's not a stretch to think that the secular Cardassians told themselves they were civilizing the religiously stringent Bajorans and liberating them from their rigid caste structure by replacing it with a new, meritocratic hierarchy in which merit was defined as loyal and effective service to the Cardassians. Meanwhile slavery was a natural condition of those who could not be trusted to serve directly below the Cardassian overseers who were "reparenting" the Bajorans and redirecting natural resources back to Cardassia as payment for "services rendered."

The occupation of Bajor through Garak's eyes would not be an act of hate, far from it, but rather because the Cardassians were empirically superior so how could that be bigotry? The Bajorans could complain and kill all they wanted in the mistaken belief they deserved sovereignty but facts don't care about your feelings.

Gul Dukat on the other hand knows he's your villain and while he would prefer you recognize his superiority and love him for his magnanimity in being a less harsh master than some or the "supreme act of generosity" that is granting the Bajorans their freedom; a part of him would be tickled to know he lives rent free on your Promenade.

So what does this have to do with non-fiction? Think carefully about whether you think there are more Gul Dukats or Elim Garaks in the world and communicate appropriately. Communicate effectively.

Damned if I know what effectively even is, we've had ten years to figure this out and have demonstrably and spectacularly failed. I suspect a lot of it has to do with communicating better offline or 1:1 with people who already know us as more than just a witty handle and an avatar and thus can see as more fully human with hopes, dreams, fears, and feelings. I'm not unaware of the irony of this message coming at the end of a lengthy social media diatribe.

[magyctale-official]

hi I just found this au today and it is choking me alive

you art is amazing and the au looks stunning and when I found out this is gonna be a series I screamed!!!

I just wanted to ask if you had like a character list or a description of what the au is about?

I really would love to jump on this hype train and all this has got me so excited!

AA THAT MAKES ME SO HAPPY OMG TYY <3<3<3

I do have a google sheet with a buncha characters written down but it has some spoilers in it so... 👀

But I can absolutely give a rundown!! Magyctale doesn't exactly have a solid "gimmick" (like Underswap or Underfell) but it's more like a rewrite of sorts? The characters act somewhat differentlyto their original counterparts and the main meat of the story is how their journey affects them and their relationships. :3

So for instance: Season 1 is for the most part a reimagining of Undertale, with a few original characters sprinkled alongside the AU cast. One of the biggest changes is that Frisk is older (they're about 17) so they have a lot more to say and there's a lot more room for them to express themself. Also I just prefer writing characters who aren't small childen XDD

After Season 1 is when it starts going into more stuff from my own noggin as opposed to being a retelling. So S1 is kinda like introducing all the characters and their dynamics before adding more stuff :3

By far my favorite arc is the one that incorperates elements from Deltarune- that's where my favorite boys come in and also is the arc with the most OCs!! Especially Mave- that's my horrible horrible son whom I adore with my entire heart and soul <3<3<3

I do have some character refs I can share!!

These are all from S1 (since that's what I'm focusing on planning right now) but I will take a short detour to talk about my awful little son just because I can <3

This is my vile little lad Mave :3

He started off as just my interpretation of The Knight from DR but now he is one of my most multi-faceted characters of all time I think. Funny how that worked out-

He is by far one of my favorite OCs of All Time and he's such a lil weirdo hehehe

I'm so sad he doesn't come in until much later in the story,,, I want him to be Real already XDD

I don't wanna give too too much away about him because,,,yknow,,,spoilers,,, but I've posted vaguely about his lore on this blog and my main (@bonetrix-arts) as well as over on my YouTube and TikTok accounts if you're curious!!! I simply love to vaguepost about my lore <3

If you have any more questions absolutely feel free to ask!!!! Also if you wanna ask something specific about a character- though I haven't posted about it in a while -I do have character asks open :3

I was posting em on my TikTok as well as here and I think Insta for a while n then I got side-tracked HNGSVDHCJ

I think I still had more art to finish up for the last one n that's why I never posted it,,

But anyways- feel free to do that if there's anything else you wanna know!!!! I need to draw these lil weirdos again n that'd be a nice way to kickstart my brain LMAO

Also I need to make a section for my AU in my Discord server,,, why haven't I done that yet?? RAHH I'm rambling!! Sory I just get so excited when people ask about my babies hehehe

I HOPE YOU HAVE AN AWESOME DAY!!! YOU ABSOLUTELY MADE MINE <3<3<3

[kolbisneat]

MONTHLY MEDIA: December 2023

And so the year draws to a close! Big movie month and hoping to carry that over into the new year.

……….FILM……….

Turning Red (2022) Late to the game on this but it’s so great! When they talk about the ritual and that the words to the music don’t matter, I knew it was gonna lead to 4*Town playing a key role, but what they did on top of that was a genuine surprise and what takes this to the next level: they embrace the obvious setups but add an extra twist to the payoffs. So great.

The Fate of the Furious (2017) Okay I really love the idea of evil Dom so this movie moooooostly works. I’m still getting caught up on the series but even knowing that Han is alive, it’s still baffling that Shaw is embraced by the crew. He killed that whole hospital wing! 

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (2001) These are of course Christmas films and I’ve noticed a transition in myself having not seen them for many years. I once liked the earlier movies for how faithful they were to recreating the books, but I now see how that the accuracy is at the expense of the movie’s pacing. Still really impressed with how well cast the core trio is even at this age.

The Santa Clause (1994) Nostalgia overwhelms my perspective on this but, as far as I can tell, this holds up pretty well. Starting Scott off as just...kinda the worst makes his transition all the better and I think is where Tim Allen is at his best. Plus a lot of really great sight gags which I don’t really see anymore (like the Denny’s full of sad dads).

Confess, Fletch (2022) Fun and the sort of movie I wish got made more often. Not all of the humour really landed but the characters were engaging and the mystery lead to a lot of fun. Perfectly decent rainy day watch.

The Night Before (2015) A lot of ups and downs with this one. At it’s best it’s very funny but when it slows down it really grinds to a halt. I wonder if the hangover movies have the same challenge. Also 100% thought the steroid injection was insulin.

Frosty the Snowman (1969) and Santa Claus is Comin' to Town (1970) Two Rankin Bass classics that really highlight the best that this production company could do.

No Hard Feelings (2023) and Easy A (2010) The former was a pretty fun comedy that didn’t have a lot of comedy and the later was a comedy that I remember loving when it came out but not really connecting upon rewatch. Would I still recommend both? I think so, but only lightly.

……….TELEVISION……….

Blue Eye Samurai (Episode 1.01 to 1.04) A good chunk into the season and really digging it. The characters are rich and layered and the show is doing a good job of exploring those layers in an engaging story. Plus the setting/time period allows for a lot of really great visuals. Definitely making the most out of the premise and stoked for the rest of the season.

Poker Face (Episode 1.08 to 1.10) Such a satisfying series. The majority of the episodes stand on their own but the bigger picture occasionally pops up, until the end of the season where it becomes the main focus. Just like TV used to be! Really beautiful wardrobe and set design, all the actors seem to be having a great time, and each episode feels thoroughly realized. Big fan can’t recommend enough. 

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off (Episode 1.07 to 1.08) Came into it expecting something else and it’s gonna take some time to adjust to what it was. Gotta rewatch but really no complaints! 

……….YOUTUBE……….

Plagiarism and You(Tube) by hbomberguy Yes I did watch a 4 hour video on plagiarism and you should too. VIDEO

when the director is overqualified for the job by CinemaStix I never really considered how similar the early Harry Potter movies but it all makes sense. VIDEO

Stop Taking ANY Advice From TikTok by Extranet Shaquille A quick and light reminder that social media isn’t worried about truth or accuracy in any way. VIDEO

The Marvelization of Cinema by Stories of Old This succinctly explains (to me, at least) why some modern remakes/sequels/reimaginings land and some don’t. In short you gotta ask if it’s purpose is to tell a story or maintain a brand. VIDEO

……….READING……….

There is a Tide aka Taken at the Flood by Agatha Christie (Page 122 of 224) Picked up a bunch of old Agatha Christie books at a thrift store (partly because of the cool covers, partly cause I like mystery as a genre but never read it). Turns out this is EXACTLY what I needed right now. It’s been a while since I was this stoked to keep going with a story and this specific story feels like a great influence on the first Knives Out movie in that it’s centred around a lot of family drama vying for control of a deceased benefactor’s money. So stoked and gonna grab more of these when I can. Hey do you have old DELL copies of Christie novels you don’t want? Lemme know.

Tiger in the Stars by Zach Hughes (Complete) Okay so I picked this up while thrifting. There were DOZENS of these Laser Books and figured I’d try one and see what they were like. Turns out...not that great. Some fun ideas but moved at a snail’s pace and felt like there was a lot of padding. Something like this feels like a Goosebumps book (short, quick output, somewhat formulaic) but in comparison, I think I’d prefer R. L. Stein.

Delicious in Dungeon Vol. 2 by Ryoko Kui (Complete) Again rereading as the series draws to a close and it’s still such a joy. These characters are fully formed right from the beginning and it’s such a good study in dramatic escalation as right now it still feels light and fun and I love it.

The Michael Moorcock Library: The Chronicles of Corum Vol. 1: The Knight of Swords by Mike Baron, Mike Mignola, Rick Burchett, & Kelly Jones (Complete) Love these illustrated retellings of the old pulp fantasy novels. Sometimes the limited page count leads to pacing that feels rushed and a scale that feels smaller than the grandiosity of the subject matter, but every adaptation requires sacrifice. Gonna keep going with this series and also try to find the original books!

……….AUDIO……….

Cold & Blue All Over (Demo) by Blue Freezie (2023) A little punk, a little surf rock, a little rockabilly, and all a good time. Big fan of this album and hoping there’s more to come.

……….GAMING……….

Neverland: A Fantasy Role-Playing Setting (Andrews McMeel Publishing) The Tuesday D&D crew is back in Neverland and sorting out this Elf problem! They’ve killed one and are on their way to killing some more. It’s more nuanced than that and you can read all about it here.

Oz: A Fantasy Role-Playing Setting (Andrews McMeel Publishing) The Mof1 D&D crew just robbed a funeral and started a riot! Who knows what’s gonna happen next.

And that’s it. See you in January!

[faerywhimsy]

Vamptember Day 24 -FREE DAY

I am a huge fan of book to TV adaptations, so much so that a portion of my Honours thesis was actually dedicated to that particular portion of media.

The Hunger Games books and movies offer a perfect example of so much of what I love about it; a series of books that are from a limited 1st person perspective, then expanded out into a series of not just three but four movies to make room for perspectives that are hinted at within the books, yet given no explicit voice given the nature of the perspective choice.

But even a faithful adaptations can turn sour is when enough of the central themes of a story get overturned over the course of a longer running series. I’m thinking Game of Thrones here. That first season was almost a play by play of the first novel. Things like the Red- and Purple Weddings later occurred more or less as expected, though timelines of surrounding events were fudged. There were some really cool graphics made on this topic back in the day.

And then... well, we got the last 3 seasons, didn't we? What a disappointment (sorry Jacob, you're an actor capable of doing things that are very subtle, but that show let you down).

Reimaginings can likewise be good or bad, but they have built into them a bit more leeway. Where these usually turn sour is around the time they fully abandon the source material. This is mostly your ‘loosely inspired by’ stuff. It’s putting a name on the door that’s generated to sell tickets. I’m trying to think of a good example of this, but the stuff I haven’t liked doesn’t tend to stick in my head because I’ve usually moved on by then. At their strongest, reimaginings bring well thought out and updated content to a fandom.

BBC's reimagining in Sherlock was innovative when they brought Conan Doyal's characters into the modern day. They succeeded in doing that because what they kept sacred, at least to begin with, was the relationships between the characters and the overarching themes that came from that. By doing only those two things, they were able to reinvent satisfying ways to touch on the main plot points of the original stories.

That team also, sadly, offered a cautionary tale of what happens when such a project deviates too far from its source material.

The reimagining in AMC's Interview with the Vampire is far more ambitious and therefore complex in what it proposes, with an equal half of its story existing in a space that will be close to what was written in the books. I genuinely hope they end up succeeding with their ambition. Part of that is that it's not pretending to be any sort of directly faithful adaptation.

The first hint? The entire premise of S1: It’s 2022 and Louis invites Daniel for a second interview. That just didn't occur in the books.

This one change brings the story straight into the modern day, which is easily arguable as something needed for a series that released its first book in 1976. While I love a nostalgic- or period piece as much as the next person, I’m not disappointed by this.

This is the kind of change that’s a deal breaker. It stands to give new watchers the introduction they need into the world at the same time as giving something entirely unexpected to old fans. In other words, it’s narrative gold to someone like me.

The reasons I love it are completely different to what draws me to a straight like for like with added scenes adaptation as outlined above in Hunger Games. By changing the timeline and beginning straight out of the gate, it means that you can change everything.

And, god, they do.

Okay, obviously not everything. Character names, places, even dates on their own aren’t enough to hold the narrative cohesion of a reimagining if it doesn’t hold tight enough to the central themes of the source material to maintain that the original plot points still make sense to come to pass. WHICH S1 DOES.

I have so much interest in dissecting how they’ve so far kept hold of (most of) the themes and yet, in only 7 episodes, have already told a story with so many different details. And, if I’m gonna be totally honest, TVC is perfectly primed for exactly this kind of adaptation simply because, as a collection, these books have never been consistent (thank you, Anne for this dubious and ongoing gift).

There has been a single possible inconsistency with themes that did give me some cause for concern, but it’s also not the one that most people seem concerned by. So, let’s get into the analysis!

Armand:

I’m beginning with this character, because a supercut on YouTube I finally got around to watching made me realise we got a total of 15 minutes of Assad on screen in the 7 episodes of S1, and less than 5 of those are of him in the named character. So it’s an easy place to start.

Obviously, there is little difference that can be pointed to in those fewer than 5 minutes other than the differences in physical appearance than described (17 y/o, red hair, brown eyes) in the books, and that’s what I’ve seen a lot of discourse on thus far. That, and what on earth this Louis had on him to convince him it was a great play to pretend to be Rashid in front of Daniel. (He is a theatre kid, I guess…)

There is however a short detail in The Vampire Armand after Armand goes into the sun, however, that briefly describes his eyes as being orange (maybe amber?) as he starts to heal, and therefore the choice on making Assad’s eyes this colour in the series becomes an interesting detail to me.

Also, let’s be honest – if you’re gonna make the creative choice to have both Sam and Jacob in these luminescent contacts, but leave Assad’s natural throughout… well, I mean, what is being said on that side of the coin if that’s the choice being made?

On the side of details they kept AND CHANGED at the same time, my favourite for this character continues to be the below image that shows the physical resemblance between one Assad Zaman and, yes, a different Botticelli painting than any referenced in the books, but ultimately a Botticelli painting all the same. We're good to go!

Louis:

I don’t really want to focus too long on the obvious differences between Louis the slave owner (books) and Louis the pimp (series) except to say they are there. As are Louis’ signature green eyes.

However, that is where the resemblance ends. And I’m not just talking about physical.

In Louis’ case, the biggest difference I clocked and remarked in DMs up till now that—as a fanfic writer of both books and series fandom—Louis’ was the voice that consistently gave me most trouble to move between. I literally could not convincingly write him in any series fic at the same time as I was writing my mammoth long fic How They Get to Trinity Gate.

And it was not the fact that Louis was white in the books that tripped me up.

Another big thing is the change to when Louis and Lestat meet. This changes things for Lestat's character a bit as well, but I think it's more clear at this point the ways in which Lestat being set up as that much stronger and older than Louis on first meeting has had an impact on their story. Armand will be that much older than Louis as well, but what's a difference of a handful of decades when Armand already was that much older than Louis canonically?

As a linguist, I remain most fascinated by the dialogue changes that have been given to Louis’ character, particularly in historic New Orleans scenes. When reading Interview With the Vampire, there’s not a great deal of difference to the voice of Louis in the present vs the past that he gives to the boy interviewer. In the series, however? The difference in character from past to present is as unavoidable as it is riveting. To me, that alone offers so many details about who Louis is as a person, the disparity between Louis and a Lestat who obviously still gets to keep his book canon French accent.

In terms of how these changes effected the story as Louis relates it to Daniel, however? I mean, for the most part, the Louis I watched was equally convincing as he hit the main plot points his character needed to hit to stay true to the source material. That makes it a successful update to me!

Daniel:

Daniel is a laugh, both in the books and in the series. But, though the series has held on to the aspect of his sense of humour from the books, that humour is depicted in a completely different way.

Self deprecating, for the most part, or actually laugh out loud funny is what we see of Daniel in the books. Occasionally his anger gets the better of him, but for the most part he’s more docile—or possibly just as drunk—as many of us would be in similar circumstances. Apart from, say, when he’s calling Armand an immortal idiot.

The humour we get from Daniel in the series, though? That’s cutting. Yes, aimed to slice others up, especially when he’s deflecting from himself, but also the stuff that's made to cut through bullshit.

He’s had another 50 years to hone it, and none of them were lost to madness or absence from himself. No, this Daniel has been present every year of the 69 that have been given to him, and it shows. His wit has grown up with him, because he has grown up in a way he never got to in the books.

Something else to consider, however, is the fact that this Daniel is half David.

Actually, it's more than half. We got less of Daniel in S1 than we got of Armand. When I say this, I mean the only parts from the book canon we've got were in a couple of flashback scenes and the recording Eric listens to, then plays in Dubai in Episode 1. Only Luke Brandon Field has so far shown me anything close to a faithful version of Daniel, and I've no doubt this actor is destined to continue to follow that trajectory throughout future seasons.

That leaves me with wondering who we've got in the present from Eric? And that's David Talbot who, it turns out, is another canonical interviewer within The Vampire Chronicles. You may remember him as the guy who interviewed Armand, a version of which we're also set to see in S2.

David, when we first see him in Queen of the Damned, is someone interested in vampires not as puff portraiture but as a reality. He’s an older man coming to acceptance he’s near the end of his life and career. And he does not want to be made into a vampire.

Louis: A still hand, time to watch your daughters marry. Daniel: And divorce. And die.

Sound familiar?

Let me explain something of what I suspect went into this decision behind the scenes: The character of Daniel is underdeveloped in the books to say the least, something I’ve written about already during Vamptember. There was never going to be enough of the book character of Daniel in AMC's version to satisfy every book reader. Anne simply didn't give us enough of him, and fandom remains wildly divided in how to interpret him.

By contrast, David was a character readers got far too much of because of Anne's attempt to shoe horn us into a different romantic interest for Lestat. He's just not as popular. Imagine for a second the reception if the early promotional material had named Eric as playing 'David' instead of 'Daniel'? It's a marketing mislead, and one that's paid off.

When setting up the core "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf"-esque central cast, the creative team over at AMC did something very clever, I think. They pulled over characteristics of another underdeveloped character from the same canon in order to flesh their version of Daniel out. We'll almost certainly see a body swap, and that's where the David, and Eric's, part of the story will end.

In conclusion, I will absolutely eat my hat if we see someone called David Talbot walking around in this series ever ever. And, when it comes to the eventual plot line of making Daniel a vampire, they've set up three good options in front of them (and another example where we old fans have no way to expect WHICH WAY IT WILL GO):

He'll be coerced into it (David, canonically by Lestat, but in this universe almost certainly Armand)

He'll change his mind and demand it again (Daniel in true Devil's Minion style)

He'll almost die and someone will have to turn him (Daniel, yes, but also Jesse)

Two of these methods of becoming a vampire from the early books canonically turn a Talamasca character, and I definitely have some on-a-tangent theories there, given the presence of Talamasca characters already in Mayfair Witches.

The only thing they’ll need to change from the books here is Armand being Daniel/David’s foil, instead of Lestat. And, look, they’ve already positioned Louis right there as the love of his life in the face of the love triangle that’s sure to follow in the series, as in the books.

Fareed (bonus):

This is further to my passing body swap comment in the last section, but I really wanted to add:

Why include this minor character front and centre as early as S1? Why then have him explicitly say he is not there not once but three separate times as part of his only dialogue?

Fareed: That is not my voice. And I'm not here. [...] I am not here. [...] I'm not here. [...] Pleasure never meeting you, Mr. Molloy.

Is this not explicitly designed to have the same effect as telling a person not to imagine a pink elephant? Not to mention, it's as meta as fuck. That's Schrödinger's Vampire right here.

So why do these things if not to bring to the front of people's minds not only that the entire of Anne Rice's canon is free game in this reimagining? But that Fareed in particular is a character who's the first of his kind in the Chronicles; a scientist who can and does invent a clone?

A clone that might just end up looking very much like Luke Brandon Field?

Why, also, spend so much time and promotional material on another actor we see for about the same short space of time within S1? Minute for minute, I reckon we get about the same amount of screen time here with Gopal Divan as we do with Luke.

That, and they both happen to appear for the first time in Episode 6. Just saying.

In terms of canon deviation, if there was a physical description of Fareed in the books, I honestly don't remember it. He was just one of Anne's many, many characters that were a) created to function as a plot point, and b) forgotten beyond the original purpose he was created for.

As long as they manage to keep Fareed interested in the vampiric sciences, I honestly don't see there being any problems.

Lestat:

Saving the best till last, am I right?

Lestat is Lestat is Lestat, isn’t he? The blond hair. The blue eyes. The arrogant swagger. Both the father’s anger matched with the uncontrollable laughter raging within him at all times. Completely out of control. Hedonistic, definitely to a fault. A Byronic hero in the package of an immoral vampire.

I hated Lestat and, when I read the books as a teenager, it was despite him.

I was ready to go into the series doing the same. The stories, the themes, the history, the characters (minus Lestat). There is so much richness to love in the world of the books, despite so much of it being told by Lestat. And there was no doubt we were gonna get less of The Lestat Show in a show that’s not told from his PoV and has three other main characters vying equally for that attention.

I will amend this statement now to acknowledge he does get less obnoxious by the time we hit the final trilogy, which were obviously not out when I’d made the judgement call of despising him. (Hell, Tales of the Body Thief wasn’t yet out…)

In Lestat's case, the changes that have been made aren't so much of appearance or characterisation, so much as moments. And I understand why. Lestat is iconic and, in many ways, impossible to change in any meaningful way because of it. So the choice of changing moments here and there becomes the perfect way to cast a new spin on Lestat's character.

ESPECIALLY when you have Armand right there behind Louis the whole time, almost certainly controlling the narrative.

Obviously, there was That Scene in Episode 5. That particular scene is one that never happened in any of the books. But Lestat’s aggressions, micro and otherwise, are a well known particularly in early canon, and Louis is certainly not exempt from them.

Nor is Claudia. And who among us haven’t put up with less when it’s aimed towards a person we love than what we’ll put up with aimed to ourselves?

Despite it not following an actual canon event, it held intact location, characters and central themes all together – the summation of most important aspects when we have an adaptation and hope it will continue to hit the major canon plot points in its reimagining.

We saw Lestat, Louis and Claudia all moving towards an event we all knew was coming, and what ended up being the climax of S1.

What I don't see being talked about anywhere near so much is the beginning of Episode 3, as Louis begins to commit himself to becoming a nuisance to the feline life of New Orleans.

Lestat: Say we come upon a murderer planting a flowerbed, thinking only of flowers. How long do we wait before his bloody deeds reveal themselves? Louis: As long as it takes. Lestat: You haven’t thought this through, Louis.

The charitable view, of course, is that Lestat is just not wanting, in this moment, to encourage anything Louis wants to say. If so, it would hardly be the only time Lestat shuts Louis down. Louis says he doesn’t want to feed on humans anymore so Lestat’s immediate response is to push as hard in the opposite direction. I would be satisfied with that.

Equally, I would be satisfied if, come S3, Lestat is revealed to remember this conversation completely differently. It would make sense. Of COURSE Lestat wants to feed on the evil doer and only the evil doer. What else are monsters like them supposed do? This would speak perfectly to their being many things in The Vampire Lestat that are different once Lestat takes the reigns of the books and supposed pen name.

The more I think about it, the more I won't be terribly surprised if they decide on one of these—or even a secret third option (Armand, I'm looking at you)—being the way this moment washes out later. The repercussions of deviating from Lestat only feeding from the evil doer are far too detrimental to the canon they seem intent to create.

Basically, their Lestat holding fast to this opinion for any longer than this scene would leave them struggling to hit more than one major plot point in future seasons.

Anyone who's read the books knows Lestat has already come across Marius before he meets Louis. He's heard Marius’ treatise on only eating the evil doer, and understands why his mentor holds to that tenant. Likewise, Lestat has prior to that come across Armand—something that has all but been confirmed for the series, again in the S2 trailer—and, after meeting both fledgling and maker, Lestat is able to pull together for himself an ethical stance he will take into the rest of his immortal life.

Lestat doesn't have to figure out what his code is gonna be, or whether he's gonna have one, like he way that's depicted for Louis in Episodes 2-3. This ethical stance informs him and carries through from there to the time in the future where Lestat’s made Prince of all vampires.

We'd have a very different looking future seasons ahead of us if Lestat were to abandon that code. It would make Episode 5 look tame.

But Sam knows those books. Rolin knows those books.

I love these monsters. As unreliable as Anne was with her famous lack of editing, this was something even she never flipped back and forth on. And a bunch of monsters with a code is still what we are seeing in S1 just from the fact that Daniel has survived this far into the interview in 2022.

They were and continue to be monsters, her characters, but they aren't that monstrous. There's a line for these serial murders. Honour among the thieves of mortal life.

That’s what makes them so enduringly interesting in all the variations we see for them.

@vamptember

[docexe-mx]

So, for the final arc of the first season of X-Men ‘97, they indeed adapted “Operation Zero Tolerance” mixed with some elements from Bastion’s later appearances, which is what I expected. However, they also combined that with a condensed adaptation of the final part of “Fatal Attractions”, something that I wasn’t expecting, but that was thematically fitting considering Magneto’s character arc during the season.

Honestly, the final episode was fantastic, and the show overall was excellent, easily among the best X-Men media ever produced. I’m definitely looking forward to the next season, especially considering all the hints and teases they planted regarding what’s coming next.

The thing that surprised the most of the show, however, was how they managed to make you feel so much empathy for most of the characters, even when they were doing things that could be considered ethically or morally questionable. It’s something that, frankly speaking, the comics have often failed to do.

This was evident early in the show’s run, with how they handled the whole kerfuffle involving Scott Summers, Jean Grey and Madelyne Pryor in the third episode. In marked contrast to the comics (where Madelyne was turned into a recurring villain while Scott was honestly a scumbag), the episode actually ends with all three characters coming across as extremely sympathetic and the tragedy that befalls them ends feeling even more devastating and heart wrenching as a result.

Then there was Magneto’s overall arc, showing that he genuinely wanted to honor Xavier’s dream of co-existence with humanity, only for Bastion’s actions and the attack on Genosha to push him into the path of vengeance, being effectively “the straw that broke the camel’s back”. While the show still showed that he was going too far and doing extremely destructive things that endangered the entire planet, it was still possible to understand where he was coming from and to empathize with his anger and grief.

In addition, once Magneto crosses the final line by ripping off Wolverine’s adamantium, almost killing him in the process, Xavier doesn’t just wipes his mind in retaliation like he did in “Fatal Attractions”. Xavier makes one final plea to his former friend to stop his rampage, only uses his powers forcibly after Magneto refuses, and afterwards proceeds to repair the damage caused to his psyche even at risk to his own personal integrity.

Honestly, the versions of Magneto and Charles Xavier depicted in this show might be the most sympathetic iterations yet of both characters in any X-Men media, and I frankly welcome that.

Hell, even Bastion, the central Big Bad of the season and a thoroughly irredeemable piece of work in the comics, gets reimagined as a more tragic figure here, even having a couple of sympathetic scenes in spite of all the carnage and pain that he causes.

It all feeds into one of the central themes of the season: How empathy is necessary to combat fear and bigotry, and to prevent anger and grief (even the ones that could be considered righteous) from becoming thoroughly destructive and senseless.

[sageandred]

In depth wtFOCK Season Three Thoughts (Part 2 Through the Seasons Review)

The other girl (Noor) storyline was questionable. (Having it take 3 episodes before Sander is introduced was a choice).

-and it's not like I'm closed off to changes, but I feel like they still could've introduced Sander in a different way without taking a 3rd of the season to do so (but I do like the little Where's Waldo of Sander in background scenes)

-I really thought there would be more significance/fallout to the Robbe-Noor graffiti. (I get it shows she's artistic like Sander, but) I thought that scene would contribute more to the entire storyline rather than just Robbe/Sander (first sighting).

I get the intended Robbe internalized homophobia. I don't hate it; should be interesting what changes it brings in the story. This is a much darker feel than the other evaks where "Isak" is concerned.

-the little things like the music he listens to as he walks up to his friends gives me the perception that he's always performing;

-and how his voice changes from when he's talking with the boys to when he answers a call from his mom

I'm a bit upset we didn't see more Robbe-Yasmina moments (he didn't leave the weed with her in this version, which is fine). [I know they spent some time during summer doing retakes, but I needed to see the friendship development or some bigger moments between them].

A change I like is that the season doesn't start off with "Isak" automatically living with "Eskild" (Milan).

Forgot to say this with the other seasons-this Skam might have the best cinematography and clear direction-but this season it's heightened

Love, love the apartment crew with Milan, Zoe, Senne, and Robbe!

Top tier first meet scene

-also grocery shopping was a nice change (plus music choices are great this version)

This "Isak" has some guilt immediately after during what would be the morning after the pool kiss scene; also it's kind of a change I like due to the obvious direction with the music suddenly coming to a halt as he blocks Sander.

Actually the use of Bowie in scenes is chilling (and RUDE-the Robbe-Noor sex scene); it's a good storytelling choice.

I like the changes, but the pacing and lack of a resolution with talking things out/really addressing things make them generally unimpactful so far [Robbe internalized homophobia (& projected homophobia)]

-I actually feel like Noor could've been used more strategically to display the intensified shutting out of his sexuality had they taken the time to properly flesh them out (it definitely showed), but again the pacing, because in some ways I think they needed deeper scenes to develop them, but I wouldn't want too much time dedicated to them that would ultimately take away from the actual love story of the season.

The reimagined convo with Milan worked, because their relationship is different here and it would've been unrealistic had they copied the og dialogue verbatim; also I'm glad they didn't have a copy and paste of "Isak" talking about how he couldn't be "gay" in the world while offending "Eskild"-the advice was a nice change and good the convo didn't end on a bad note.

-edit: I spoke too soon on the offending part. hurts (every time). [also: Milan's "maybe you should look at yourself" and then the clip ends with Robbe looking in the mirror. ok wtFOCK direction]

Glad Robbe broke up with Noor before things got even more complicated and it was actually a pretty well received exchange [up until her obvious shouting in the club scene] compared to other versions in which she gets immediately angry and the "Isaks" don't really break up with her properly face-to-face.

Again with the lack of resolution-srry, but there was no point to the attack in the street on Robbe & Sander. On one hand, it could be useful to be informative, having a purpose in the plot of the season, but it was barely talked about in the aftermath or hinted at being deeper addressed later. I kind of feel like they are just trying to tackle too much with this and there's just not enough time to really address it in an already storyline heavy season. The only good thing that came from it was how caring the apartment crew showed to be w/Zoe, Senne, & Milan (but that's not a shock).

(Skam season with the most trigger warnings award goes to).

I do think the coming out scene to Jens was cute. Very different version with the best friend having a non-reaction that just makes sense with him

May I shove Robbe's friends (minus Jens) into the pool that Robbe & Sander made out in. (God, they are painful to watch)

I like how Sander's manic episode was filmed. It was very pov heavy from Robbe's perspective with flashes of Sander and I feel like the characteristics were a bit different to what you normally see in tv all the time, even by Skam standards, which I found refreshing.

I really don't get why the change of Sander and his gf only dating 6 months if they were still going to have her overstep and be so controlling. It feels unbelievable that his mom and Robbe's friends (Zoe, Jana..) are so receptive to her knowledge on Sander and his illness. And I hate that they're all being so dramatic about Sander's abilities.

They actually resolved things pretty nicely in the last ep-his friends, Sander, Noor (and the additions with his dad the whole season were really sweet; minor note: his poor dad tho when Robbe suddenly left the restaurant with no explanation).

All in all: this season is great in terms of acting, chemistry, production, and direction. However the writing is pretty awful; aside from the obvious missteps, the season messes up when they make changes and fail to follow through (almost undoing the change in the first place) by rerouting back to the original and doing the same just at a different timestamp (It's frustrating to watch and I do really wish they would just commit to those choices, while handling topics with care; I think I would have a very different opinion on the overall season and how it fares next to other remakes in the long run). I suppose, overall that wtFOCK is fun, even with some wrong choices, though the story suffers with a lack of cohesiveness, development sometimes, or focus on what's important (that sounds like everything that matters, lol, but it was enjoyable).

[schrodingers-bisexual]

So I watched the Hazbin Hotel show and I have some thoughts…

So here are my live written thoughts/critiques of the first for eps

And before you get your pitchforks these criticisms have no malice behind them these are just my honest opinions (some good, some bad)

(Long post incoming)

Ep 1:

Plot-

* Interesting opening

* I enjoyed the reimagining of the Adam and Eve story

* they set up Charlie’s mom being MIA at the moment so that’s cool ig

* the b plot is boring, like idc about them making a commercial

* Charlie is so earnest it’s very endearing

* the angels are moving up the next extermination by 6 months which creates a sense of urgency that I enjoy (the deadline they have to meet gives me something to root for)

* Adam kinda dismissed Charlie’s hotel idea so I’m wondering if she’ll find a way to change his mind or if she’ll just do it behind his back, I’m thinking it’ll be the latter

* ohhhhh one of the demons managed to kill an angel so that’s why they moved extermination up

* I wonder when they’ll reveal who killed the angel or if they’ll even reveal it all, I’m thinking like mid-season finale type of reveal, or maybe they’ll just never say

Characters-

* Charlie is a very charming mc

* vaggie is fine ig (she doesn’t really do much)

* Alastor is just kinda there (they set up his beef with tv/modern stuff which was good)

* angeldust is annoying me ever so slightly but ig i see what they’re trying to do

* husk is my favorite so far (he’s had some pretty good one liners)

* nifty is also pretty great

* Adam is also annoying (i hate that they have him swear like a sailor when he’s supposed to be the head angel)

* i can already tell im not gonna like the characterization of the angels

* i liked Lute at first but she kinda falls into the same problems i have with Adam just a tad

Jokes-

* A lot of unfunny sex jokes from angeldust

* when nifty said something really weird husk said “Keep that to yourself, Niff.” And it got a good chuckle out of me

* a lot of unfunny dick jokes from Adam

* there was a silly gag with nifty that I enjoyed (every time they would try to get her to say her line she would stare blankly into the camera and then be “was that good?” in a cheery voice I thought it was silly

* Husk had some pretty good one-liners

* most of the jokes didn’t land for me tho

Songs-

* Happy day in hell- Erika’s voice is really good (to be expected from a broadway star), strange bridge with overlapping verses that didn’t flow well against each other and sounded kinda disconcerting (which is a shame cause overlapping verses are usually my favorite), the camera movements are giving me a headache, 5/10

* Hell is forever- I actually kinda liked that, Alex Brightman is a silly guy w/ a great singing voice, lyricism is pretty good, I enjoyed the rock-esc vibe, pretty catchy, 6/10

Overall-

It wasn’t as bad as I feared it would be but it wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be, so far I’m pretty neutral on it, the potential is definitely there but it leaves a few things to be desired, 5/10

Ep 2:

Plot-

* Hell is freaking out abt the news rightfully so I’d gather

* this seems to be a good thing cause maybe they’ll be open to the hotel idea

* it’s implied that angeldust isn’t open abt the extent of his sex work like they know he’s a porn star but that’s abt it so I’m guessing they don’t know abt his SA yet

* Val is showing some textbook manipulation signs so A for effort on that front

* the vees make for intriguing foils to the MCs

* why is Vox like obsessed with Alastor what’s the beef there

* okay so I guess there was a fight of some kind (Alastor almost beat Vox but didn’t succeed it seems like)

* revealed that Alastor has been gone for 7 years so there’s that

* okayyyy so the true beef is that Vox asked Alastor to join his team but Al said no

* Alastor is the big dog even after his absence

* vees send a spy, spy is implied to be egg guy but I think that’s a misdirect, either that or he’ll end up caring abt the MCs later (great angst material when it’s revealed he’s the spy)

* ep starts to drag a bit after we get back to the hotel

* more manipulation from Val via voicemail (is he bipolar?)

* never mind egg guy is just a regular spy and it got revealed to the MCs instantly (missed opportunity)

* THE GIRLS ARE FIGHTING

* istg if they blame angel for this without asking questions

* damn egg guy folded really quick, like that took nothing at all, and ofc Charlie is instantly forgiving

* so looks like egg guy is apart of the main cast now which I’m not mad at, I just wished they’d done something more with that spy plot point, like that was pointless

Characters-

* Egg guy (sir pentious) makes an appearance and he’s great

* Vox is a business mogul???

* i like Vox so far

* BRITISH?! (Velvet lol)

* the Vees are interesting

* Valentino is annoying

* I’m really enjoying the electricity motif they’re doing with Vox’s movements and voice

* I like whenever Vox glitches/buffers I think that’s a really cool animation thing

* I need Val to stop talking

* so far I’m enjoying the dynamic between the vees

* I wish they gave velvet a little more to do cause she seems like she has potential (makes you wonder if she’s sidelined because she’s the only woman amongst the vees/it’s not out of the ordinary for a vivziepop show to heavily sideline its female characters)

* angeldust is insecure after Charlie implied that he didn’t care abt the hotel which shows a little incite into his deeper character traits and reveals that he actually does care so another A for effort there

* I’m really enjoying the rivalry between Vox and Alastor

Jokes-

* “Since when do we manufacture that.” “Since thirty minutes ago.” That exchange got a smile out of me

* egg guy is really funny (not laugh out loud funny tho)

* more unfunny sex jokes from angeldust

* I chuckled when egg guy was like “you’ve left yourself an opening” and then all he ended up doing was ripping alastor’s jacket, that was silly

* I liked how during the it starts with sorry song Vaggie and Angeldust are like bro let’s kill this guy while Charlie is trying to forgive him

* were there any other jokes lmao

Songs-

* Stayed gone- Christian Borle can do no wrong, but this song kinda sucks lmao, I didn’t like that little talking with rhythm segment, like they probably wanted that part to be a rap (which would’ve been way worse), lyrics have clever word play, the beat is infectious I’ll give it that but it was kinda all over the place, 4/10

* It starts with sorry- painfully mediocre and instantly forgettable, like there’s nothing memorable or standout about this song, I’m forgetting the melody as I type this, 2/10

Overall-

It was fine, nothing too standout, the introduction of the vees was really good, I’m excited to learn more about them, but overall a pretty meh ep, 4/10

Ep 3:

Plot-

* Egg guy is adjusting about as well as you’d think (not well at all)

* he kinda reminds me of dr doofensmirtz with all his inventions

* I like that all of egg guy’s eggs are just running around

* this seems like it’s gearing up to be a boring ep

* I wish there was a little more urgency abt the six month extermination push (like I get they wanna focus more on characters rn but they could sprinkle it in a little)

* b plot is Alastor taking the eggs on a little field trip and then he runs into some guy (zestial)

* I’m guessing this was like an old friend from way back when and they’re in a part of town he used to frequent before his absence

* oh ok so this is like a demon overlord meeting (guess I wasn’t really paying attention if they said that’s where he was going)

* ok ok things are getting good

* velvet found the head of that dead angel, vees want to lead assault on heaven but zestial disagrees, he makes some good points abt the attack leading to more bad than good

* vees don’t respect council, council doesn’t like vees

* so its seeming like the vees wanna throw a wrench in the order of things and take over for themselves, that’ll probably be a main conflict later on, and I don’t think it’d be too hard for them to garner support considering all the followers/supporters of their multi-level business, I’m intrigued

* was implied that Carmilla might know more abt the decapitated angel than she’s letting on hmmm

* zestial and carmilla went off together

* secret love tryst???

* ok wait did i get which plot was the b plot wrong, or am i just more interested in alastor’s shenanigans

* like tbh whenever it cuts back to the hotel i could care less

* carmilla killed that angel but is keeping it a secret cause she knows it’ll cause war and not a lot of sinners would survive that which is admirable of her ig

* one of the eggs overhear carmilla’s secret and tells Alastor, some mischief is sure to be afoot

* the MCs are getting along better

Characters-

* Vaggie still remains kinda dull

* she’s really just there, like she acts as the “level-headed” one but doesn’t really have a personality beyond that

* that being said Vaggie and Charlie are really cute together

* Husk remains my favorite

* the eggs are silly

* Zestial is introduced (I like his design)

* so far I really like the one in charge of the demon overlord council (Carmilla)

* and I also really like zestial

* they both seem very redoubtable and deserving of respect, I enjoy that

* I knew velvet had the potential to be a compelling character, I just hope they keep her at a forefront (and I also hope she won’t get overlooked by the fandom),

* CARMILLA HAS A DAUGHTER???

* nifty is a character that I don’t know how to feel about

* finally some character development for vaggie

* SHE HAS TWO DAUGHTERS???

* Alastor is here for the chaos

* there was a nice bonding moment between vaggie and Charlie

Jokes-

* So many unfunny sex jokes from angledust

* get other jokes I’m begging you

* “oh look, frank is up there.” “We have names?” that got a smile out of me

* Alastor going “that was a productive meeting” after they literally got nothing done was silly

* husk has some good one liners

Songs-

* Respectless- oh wow, I really like this, bro how did they manage to get so many broadway singers to be in this show, it was short and sweet, didn’t overstay its welcome and I enjoyed its company, 8/10

* Whatever it takes- I really liked zestial’s voice its kinda heavenly, Carmilla also has a good voice, vaggie’s voice is also pretty, the vocals are really nice, the song itself is just okay tho, 5/10

Overall-

Better than the last ep, some interesting new characters, some development for characters I was afraid would get sidelined, I had a pretty good time, 5/10

Ep 4:

Plot-

* What is going on??? Why are they watching angeldust’s porn videos???

* oh I guess it’s show and tell day

* oop husk just dragged everyone through the mud

* more seeds of Val’s manipulation have been planted

* I think this ep is gonna be abt angeldust so I’ve gotta prepare myself for that

* okay so Charlie wants to get Angel some time off, Angel seems very terrified at the notion of Charlie meeting his boss (rightfully so)

* Charlie just fucking sets the whole porn studio on fire by accident which was really silly

* Val’s about to fuck some shit up

* oh shit he’s beating Angel up

* Angeldust’s real name is Anthony (which is also my brother’s name and that makes me a little uncomfy)

* that was an effective abuse scene very uncomfortable very impactful

* the visuals of the poison song are making me really uncomfortable which I guess is the point but idk

* okay so I’ve seen mixed opinions on how they feel abt the way the depictions of the SA in this ep were handled, and I get that they didn’t want to sugarcoat it or downplay the horrors of it but I also think that there were so many better ways they could’ve gone abt it, like you did not need to show on screen SA/rape like that was entirely unneeded, they could have alluded to it (like fading to black) and then show the emotional toll/repercussions of it and it would’ve had the same effect, if they wrote it well enough it may have even been more impactful, Moral Orel and Bojack horsemen did a good job at that, I just feel like it could have been handled better (also I hear that there’s a rape fetishizer on the crew who storyboarded this ep which is very icky)

* angeldust is having a mental breakdown

* angel ran away after getting into an argument with husk and husk went after him

* i sense a bonding moment coming on

* oh shit someone’s about to roofie Angeldust’s drink

* oh shit husk just beat that guy up

* and now angel’s crying

* ok wait that wasn’t that bad of writing, it was actually kind of heartbreaking, whoever wrote this section of the episode needs to write everything else too cause that was a very effective emotional breakdown which is like insane whiplash from the start of the ep

* HUSK WAS AN OVERLORD???

* ok ok so husk made a deal with Alastor to keep a bit of his overlord power after gambling a little too hard so now he owes Alastor like infinite favors

* that was a pretty cool fight scene ig

* now angeldust is being more real and upfront about things so that’s nice

Characters-

* Husk seems to be very observant, I enjoy that character trait

* I’m also liking Husk and Angeldust’s dynamic, it both is and isn’t what I thought it’d be if that makes sense

* okay so some major character development for angel is happening in this ep

* I like the new perspective we get to see of angeldust, and unlike other characters this development feels deserved because they’ve been alluding to this since the beginning, it’s a nice payoff and a nice insight into angeldust as a character

* ok so angeldust is constantly putting on an act to pretend everything’s fine (which explains all the unfunny sex jokes i still hate them though)

* husk seems like the therapist friend

* angeldust had a really impactful emotional breakdown scene, I didn’t hate the way it was handled

* husk and angel have a bonding moment and sing a duet,

* it was actually really sweet

* ok now that they’ve had their little bonding moment hopefully all the unfunny sex jokes directed at husk will stop

Jokes-

* Surprisingly there aren’t as many unfunny sex jokes (which is a good thing considering this ep is highlighting the horrors of SA/rape)

* during the loser song husk makes the L hand motion at Angel and I audibly laughed

Songs-

* Poison- welp that song was… it sure was, ignoring the tactless portrayal of the SA it just wasn’t a good song, like the verses themselves are fine but the chorus is absolute dogshit which is bad cause that’s the whole hook of the song, and there’s a lot of forced rhymes and the lyrics feel like they’re shoving in too many words so the singer has to rush to fit them in, 1/10

* Loser, baby- I really like this, Keith David’s voice is absolutely ethereal, the melody is infectious, and the lyricism isn’t half bad, I Iike it a lot actually, it’s a cute little duet, 8/10

Overall-

My favorite ep so far, even though the quality of writing was kinda inconsistent it was still an entertaining watch, and for all the scenes and themes that were handled very poorly there was another scene that actually did a pretty good job, it was a mixed pot, but the character development surprised me, 7/10

So that’s my little two cents

TLDR; it’s not as bad as some people will make it out to be, but it’s not outstanding either. I’m gonna keep watching and if you’re curious I’d say to at least watch the first ep and formulate your own opinion

[anotheruserwithnoname]

Thoughts on Wednesday ep. 1

I don’t have time or energy to binge anymore but I did watch the first episode of Tim Burton’s Addams Family update series, Wednesday, and I have some thoughts.

Spoiler break ahead, but the tl;dr is I bloody loved it.

Thing gives somebody the finger. That pretty much is Exhibit A that this is a far cry from the John Astin/Carolyn Jones TV classic of the 1960s, or for that matter, Tim Burton’s own 1990s reimagining with Raul Julia that made Christina Ricci a star with her own version of the sociopathic Wednesday.

As can be expected from an updating, there are a number of ... updates to be had. Wednesday at times shifts from being pure evil (did she really kill 2 fellow students or is she just playing up? That’s left unclear but one bully does get his private parts chewed on by a piranha after he makes the mistake of bullying her brother, Pugsley) to being simply disturbed, in part due to an incident when she was a young child that is as close to an origin story as we’re likely to get. At the same time, Wednesday’s relationship with her parents (Catherine Zeta Zones as Morticia, revisiting her accent from The Mark of Zorro, and Luis Guzman, whose casting was a bit controversial, as the first-ever comic strip-accurate live-action Gomez) is strained, to put it mildly. So after the aforementioned piranha incident, she is sent to a boarding school called Nevermore, which is basically Hogwarts with the training wheels taken off.

At Hogwarts, she remains a bit of an outcast though in the episode she does begin to form friendships (or, at least, aliiances) with some of her classmates including Enid, a werewolf who is upset that she can’t actually change into one, and a guy who tends a coffee shop in the town, who bonds with her.

Jenna Ortega is absolutely amazing as Wednesday. Her unblinking performance as the troubled Wednesday (the series makes no attempt to hide the fact she’s messed up, though the question is left open whether Wednesday likes it that way or not), who in this more supernatural-tinged series has begun developing psychic powers, is absolutely amazing and if she isn’t nominated for an Emmy I’ll be surprised. Even in the first episode there are some moments that may come to be considered iconic in the future: her fencing (dressed in black), the piranha pool scene, and an absolutely incredible cello performance of Paint it Black. 

There are also some surprises. After being omitted from all the promos, we actually get to see Lurch again (at least in the first episode there’s no indication of him being any more than a background character, though) - Uncle Fester arrives later in the season according to the “coming soon” trailer that ends the episode. Gwendoline Christie is enigmatic as the headmistress, who might be more than she appears. Christina Ricci - the original Tim Burton Wednesday - is also in the series, playing another administrator at the school who, while clearly not meant to be a riff on Wednesday, still shares some of the traits of Ortega’s version (she’s last seen feeding venus fly-traps). 

There are some nice touches - details the original series and even the movies never went into - like having Thing apparently communicate at one point by what appears to be a form of (or maybe the actual) sign language. Which makes perfect sense, though the only thing I wasn’t a big fan of in the episode was how Wednesday treats Thing. That felt a little off to me.

The first season of eight episodes dropped all at once (I hate that - kills a show’s momentum and results in spoiler reviews coming out before the show has even been online for 8 hours), so whether it maintains the strengths of the pilot remain to be seen (I have seen a clip from an amazing dance routine Ortega does later in the season). Right now the show also has a bit of a early Riverdale feel to it, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing since that show in its early days was the closest TV got to replicating the Twin Peaks esthetic I’ve seen. 

I’ve written before about how remakes and updatings of old shows generally suck. Either they get bogged down in present-day politics (in order to “make things right”) or they forget what made the show popular in the first place (Ving Rhames, you’re amazing, but Kojak can only be made with Telly Savalas) or they approach the original with some level of distain. Burton we know respects the source material, and he has chosen well in casting Jenna Ortega, who (with all respect to Christina Ricci and Lisa Loring) is already the best Wednesday Addams ever based on a single episode.

And we get to see Thing give somebody the finger. It’s a win for everybody!

[coraniaid]

Buffy Summers for the Character Ask Game!

Favorite thing about them

Wait, I can only pick one thing?

I guess the best thing about Buffy is that, as heavy on subtext and metaphor as the show is, she could easily feel more like a parody or an archetype than an individual.  But SMG just does such a great job of making her feel like a real person: someone who’s being increasingly worn down by all of the obstacles life throws at her, but who keeps fighting anyway because the alternatives are worse.  Whether that means dying to save her friends, or giving up any semblance of a normal life, or running a sword through her boyfriend’s heart.  

That’s why I like Prophecy Girl so much, I think. Buffy doesn’t just face the prospect of her death with an irreverent quip or a funny one-liner: she seems genuinely, heartbreakingly terrified by it.  And then she goes to fight the Master anyway, because nobody else can do it.  (And then she pulls out the funny one-liner.)

On the surface it feels a bit silly that, over the course of the show, quite so many different people fall madly in love with her within minutes of meeting her, but on the other hand … no, I get it.

Least favorite thing about them

Least favorite thing about Buffy as a person?  Well, I have some sympathy for Living Conditions' Kathy -- soul stealing and Cher aside -- because I do think Buffy would probably be a terrible roommate.  (Even if she wasn't sneaking out every night to fight vampires.)

Least favorite thing about how Buffy is written?  I hate the retcon that was established in Normal Again around when exactly Buffy first told her mother about being a Slayer and I refuse to take it seriously.  

Favorite line

"You don't have a good choice, but you have a choice."

brOTP

Willow.

That said, I do think it's slightly implausible just how quickly they become such close friends (and the way Willow talks about their friendship in later seasons sometimes makes me wonder if the writers forgot Buffy only met Willow for the first time when she was sixteen).

The show implies (via Cordelia's role as Buffy's shadow self) that this is because although Buffy was superficially popular in her old school in LA the people she was surrounded by didn't know the real her, which ... okay, I guess it would take me a bit off topic to discuss that much further, but suffice to say it feels a little off to me.

(Though it is kind of amusing that, although Buffy is meant to have been the popular one in her old high school and Willow the social outcast, Buffy has -- by my reckoning -- a total of zero platonic friends she didn't meet directly or indirectly through Willow.  I mean, there's Willow's childhood friend, Willow's high school boyfriend, Willow's girlfriend ... I guess maybe you could count Cordelia, who she does know independently of Willow, but I think the show is very inconsistent about whether they are friends at all.)

OTP

You know, I don't really have any strong feelings either way about ... no, wait, hang on, that's a lie.

(The thing is that, as far as I can remember, I really didn't have any opinions about this until my lockdown-inspired rewatch of the show.)

But yeah, it's Faith.

nOTP

Not really a fan of Riley (more specifically, not a fan of the S6 reimagination of Riley as the One That Got Away).  Wish the show had leaned a bit harder into just how odd Riley could be (for example: how enthusiastically he brings up the idea of locking the duplicate Xanders in separate rooms and experimenting on them in The Replacement), because that honestly makes me like him (and his relationship with fellow weirdo Buffy) a lot more.

Also, it's always struck me as slightly odd that Riley is so similar to Angel.  I mean, narratively he's meant to have been the 'normal' boyfriend that Angel couldn't be, and the show has Buffy herself compare them and conclude that they're very different,  and yet he's ... a suspiciously older man whose relationship with Buffy starts and ends with lies and secrets, who has enhanced strength allowing him to fight alongside her on patrol and who has mysterious links to the Big Bad of the season he appears in.  That doesn't exactly feel like a radical departure from Angel to me.

Random headcanon

Think I'm borrowing this from somebody on tumblr, but I really like the idea that Buffy goes back to college after the show ends and actually gets her degree.

(Still not read the comics, but the notion that Buffy heads off to live in a castle with all the other Slayers and continues to have epic world-saving adventures instead of having something approaching a normal life just seems so antithetical to what Chosen was about.)

Unpopular opinion

Not really sure what counts as unpopular.  I have very carefully curated my internet bubble so that I almost never see incorrect opinions about Buffy.

(Except when I post them.)

Song I associate with them

"So Tired" by Slowdive (specifically late S5 or mid S6 Buffy).

Favorite picture of them

I'm generally not hugely persuaded by readings of Buffy (the show) as being particularly left-wing, as opposed to just generically suspicious of adult authority. (Which I think a show about a teenage superhero pretty much has to be if you want there to be a plot).  If anything, I'd say that -- like other superhero fiction -- the idea that there's a secret handful of Chosen Ones with a Destiny who are just inherently better equipped at solving the world's problems than anybody else is quite the opposite of left-wing.

But then there's this:

That's a nice hammer and weapon-that-looks-a-lot-like-a-sickle you're holding there, Miss Summers.  And you're fighting to liberate the workers in an industrial-looking sweatshop, huh.  Interesting.

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 03/03/2024

Super Mario Odyssey Reimagined (Jazz Arrange)

Season 2 Featured on: The Voice's Highest Quality Video Game Rips Also on: Now That's What I Call Quality!

Ripped by Can of Nothing

Requested by Demopan! (Discord)

Man...can you believe it's been seven whole years since the Nintendo Switch launched? After 2016 felt like one of Nintendo's most quiet, underwhelming years, the hype and release of the Switch was absolutely incredible to see unfold - it felt like a shot in the arm for the entire community at the time, in a way I haven't really seen for any other console launch in my lifetime. Seven year on, a lot of that excitement has obviously petered out - but I still hold a lot of fond memories of it all, not least of which being how it was expressed through SiIvaGunner itself.

There's no real joke, bit, or subversion to Super Mario Odyssey Reimagined (Jazz Arrange) - it is, like snow halation but it shreds and numerous other rips on the channel, exactly as sincere of an arrangement as it says on the tin. Really, the quirkiest part about the rip in this instance is the time it was released in: several months before Super Mario Odyssey itself, and a mere four days after the game and its single known piece of music were revealed. Before we even knew that this would be the theme to Fossil Falls (and the rip itself was originally just titled "Theme of Super Mario Odyssey"), ripper Mellorine had whipped up a full-on arrangement of it in an infectiously fun, breezy, jazz style.

It's a great arrangement all around, a sound not too dissimilar to the jazziness found in games like Super Mario 3D World already, and turns the otherwise grand and dramatic Fossil Falls theme into something far more...celebratory, I suppose! That was at least always the vibe the rip gave me, given its context - as an early Season 2 rip, it felt just as much like a celebration over Super Mario Odyssey's reveal as it did a celebration of SiIvaGunner itself having made it past its one-year anniversary. You'll recall I noted this in Patched Plains Fusion Collab too, there was just something so infectiously FUN about tons of the rips made during this time period, and starting the year off with a look at this brand-new Mario game only made those feelings even more electric. For being made in such a short timeframe, Super Mario Odyssey Reimagined (Jazz Arrange) sounds remarkably official: a wide span of jazz instruments, clever use of percussion and leads in tandem with one another, a lounge-y synth leading the song's trumpet lead along a laid back feel...

It sounds SO official, in fact, that Nintendo themselves fell for it, in an incident which has kept this rip eternally relevant in SiIvaGunner discussion - it may perhaps be the main reason some people know of it to begin with. In a video by Nintendo of Italy covering Super Mario Odyssey's appearance at the in-person event of "Milan Games Week" in late 2017, the company - seemingly by accident - used Super Mario Odyssey Reimagined (Jazz Arrange) as the backing music for the entire video. The video remains up to this day, with no comments section to correct them - meaning SiIvaGunner, through the most bizarre way possible, has now made an official appearance in Nintendo media. And hey, if it's good enough to trick Nintendo into thinking its an official arrangement - then it's good enough for you to give it a listen, seven years later.

Happy birthday, Nintendo Switch!

[tarysande]

S6 Thoughts: A Tale of Two Brothers

But wait! There’s more. Thoughts on the overall arc of the series, Heaven and Hell edition:

In S1, Lucifer is “vacationing” on Earth but doesn’t plan to return to Hell. Amenadiel spends that season trying so hard to force Lucifer back to Hell, where he “belongs,” that he himself Falls. We’ve got this role reversal of an angel doing evil things to return the devil (doing ... good things, like solving crimes) to Hell. It’s all very “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” 

In S2, Lucifer still has no plans to return permanently to Hell, but he’s willing to face it to save Chloe. Of course, this then leads to him experiencing his own forced hell-loop. Amenadiel is also conflicted. Though he’s changed enough that he no longer wants to force Lucifer back to Hell, he’s still uncertain where that leaves either of them. In fact, even when Lucifer pleads with Amenadiel to return him to Hell, Amenadiel refuses. However, when Mum plants the idea of returning to Heaven as a family, Amenadiel clings to that. He’s looking for a purpose. Lucifer, on the other hand, is still very much aboard the Heaven nope train. Here, we also get the foreshadowing of celestial war, and Lucifer’s rejection of Mum’s plan because “In war, there are always casualties.” He would rather sacrifice one--Mum, Uriel--for the many. But it hurts him. If he belongs anywhere, he thinks, it’s Earth ... but, ultimately, that’s shortsighted because we know he doesn’t actually want to be on an Earth that doesn’t have the people he’s coming to care about on it.

S3 is, as we all know, a bit of a mess. But, hey, it’s actually thematically appropriate! Lucifer’s having an identity crisis (wings) that just keeps giving (or taking), and even though subconsciously (we later realize) he gave himself the wings because he was, in fact, making progress reconciling his past and present, his conscious is backsliding like (pun not intended) hell. Much as he wants Earth to be home, he’s got these non-stop reminders of both Heaven and Hell. It makes complete narrative sense that this season reaches the point where he can no longer hide from himself--or from Chloe. 

In this season, we also see Amenadiel really start to settle into the idea of staying on Earth, of embracing humanity. He’s shedding the aloofness he once had. He’s learning (we later realize) how to be the kind of God who sheds mysterious ways in favor of boots on the ground. I mean, he doesn’t realize this. But Dad ... well, he has a Plan. Lucifer begins the season with sudden wings. Amenadiel ends it with his wings’ very deliberate return. 

In many ways, this season is about Hell on Earth and torture at the hands of an entity far more intentionally and deliberately evil than the actual devil. This is why the catalyst of Cain is so important. He is all the things Lucifer has been accused of being, only he embraces it in ways we’ve seen Lucifer reject and recoil from again and again. This season is torture (lol). It’s Hell. It’s every ugly thing lies beget. And much as we love Lucifer, we’re given an extreme close-up of how his omission of truth is very nearly as devastating as Cain’s outright lies. Of course, this nearly results in Chloe’s death (in more ways than one; you can’t tell me that godforsaken marriage wouldn’t have been like dying), and the devil’s vengeance results in the removal of Lucifer’s choice about the where and when to reveal his true nature to Chloe. 

Which brings us to S4, aka The Season of Angst. For Lucifer (and Chloe), anyway. Not so much for Amenadiel, who is set on the path of fatherhood, of responsibility, of partnership and not just commands he expects to be followed. In case we’ve forgotten how much Amenadiel has changed, Remiel “mini-Amen” shows up to remind us. In Linda’s “When angels fall, they also rise” of it, Amenadiel is rising again. He’s not the same as he was, no, but ... we didn’t like old Amenadiel very much, did we? Like Lucifer, Amenadiel is on a journey of learning who he is, the good and the ugly, so he can choose the parts he wants to keep with both eyes open. 

Of course, while Amenadiel is rising, Lucifer is falling. In having to deal with Chloe’s reaction to his devil face, Lucifer is put in the uncomfortable position of either growing enough to face his own darkness and self-loathing or retreating, very literally, into who he used to be because it’s comfortable and less frightening than the prospect of change and the unknown. Until it isn’t, right? The more he becomes the devil Eve remembers, the more uncomfortable he becomes. And the more frightening he becomes. Not to Chloe, as he fears, but to himself--though it takes a while to recognize it. If nothing else, we have to hand this to Lucifer’s subconscious: when it wants him to PAY ATTENTION DUMMY, it’s pretty good at getting its point across. If S3 was Hell on Earth starring Cain as the devil, S4 is Hell on Earth starring, well, the devil as the devil with bonus demons. It’s Lucifer’s earthbound iteration of a guilt-induced hell-loop. And at the tragic end, he chooses to return to the place he swore he’d never return, losing everything good in the process, but doing it for selfless reasons. So, that’s new. And it’s why there was still a sliver of hope even when things looked impossibly dark.

S5 begins with Lucifer in Hell--farther from the things he cares about than he has ever been, but also closer to his true calling. Not that he realizes it; this is Lucifer we’re talking about. So, of course it makes sense that as the season goes on, he’ll end up confused by suddenly having everything he always thought he wanted within his grasp. The Lucifer who led a rebellion against his father because he thought he could do better than God? Of course that part of him wants to be handed the job now. No--he wants to earn it. And while some of his reasons are not great, others are. His heartbreak about the injustice and unfairness of life, well ... who hasn’t felt that way? Who hasn’t wanted the power to unilaterally make things better? But that’s not how free will works. That’s not how choice works. While Lucifer wrestles with the necessity of becoming God, Amenadiel recoils from what his S1 self would have seen as his right and his calling. S1 Amenadiel would have made a terrifying and inflexible and absolute and judgmental God. Perhaps even a God closer to our imaginings of Evil than Good.

S6 is about how sometimes personal growth means we grow out of old dreams and acquire new ones. Sometimes, it’s about reimagining those old dreams, rebuilding them with new information. For Amenadiel, that means recognizing that the person he is now is the best man for the Big Job. It means recognizing that Heaven can be (a place) on Earth if he wants it to be. It means he sets aside the pride of “If God wants something done, he sends ME” in favor of delegation and accepting help--and in doing so, helping others (his siblings) discover their callings too. He learns to lead by example, tempered with love and humility.

In Paradise Lost, Milton’s Lucifer famously declares that it is better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven. But our Lucifer ... his calling isn’t ruling in Heaven. That’s the old dream of a person who no longer exists. Ironically, Lucifer’s calling is to serve in Hell. Not to serve a distant, ineffable, unfathomable being’s mysterious ways, mind you, but to tangibly serve the humans he has come to love, and who have taught him so much about himself. Who have taught him about love and sacrifice and light and darkness and second chances and hope and faith. When Lucifer chooses to return to Hell, he does so with his eyes open, just as Chloe returns to the LAPD with her eyes open. It’s a lesson that revisits the first episode of the season: Truth and wonder don’t have to be at odds. They can go hand in hand. The mysteries at the heart of pain and suffering and trauma--those are the ones Lucifer wants to solve. Because solving them isn’t about trusting to a higher power (aka the justice system, which is flawed) or designing the perfect torture. It’s about quite literally helping others set themselves free. Finding release. It’s about being a guide, not a judge. And it’s about fulfilling not the temporary desire that merely scratches the itch, but offering the tools necessary to help others determine--choose--their path to the desire they may not even realize is buried beneath the layers of scar tissue within them. And what could be more wonderous than that? Especially when you have a partner who makes you better at your calling, even as you make them better at theirs.

In the end, Heaven and Hell are what we make of them. One person’s Heaven is another person’s Hell. Love is what matters. In all its many, many forms.

[fabqng]

invisible strings || fabang au

here goes nothing i guess! a small au because i’ve realized the two one shots i have in mind could be merged into one small au :)

first person pov,season 5/6 fabang reimagined.

•eyes remet ; first chapter

Quinn’s POV

-months after their glee club reunion-

“Wooow I can’t believe you’re choosing someone else over me again. I can’t believe you’ve put me in the same position TWICE!” Mike yelled to me as tears fell down my cheeks

“I am not choosing puck over you! I’ve never chose puck or biff or anyone over you,ever! It’s just that he’s my baby’s father! Wha-“ I tried to mouth those words while i can barely see him with my eyes full of tears.

“No, that’s okay! I get it. You had to choose and you choose him. I’m not stupid i get it,Quinn. I do”

“No!” I tried to reach his arm but failed when he walked out of the room where we were talking.

Mike’s POV

-months after-

“I don’t know how you can still go to Yale and into a different program after what? A year?” Mom questioned me

“Well now, i’m a little left behind since i’m basically restarting with medicine” i simply replied

“I know. But son, what made you changed your mind? I know choosing medicine won’t make you stop pursuing dancing but while change all of sudden?”

“I just think it’s a smart move to pursue medicine nowadays. I got plan in mind mom but that doesn’t include giving up dancing” I firmly said. I’m nervous about switching course AND universities but i’m excited to fulfill my dad’s dream of me and gain a lot more experience.

Yale emailed me my acceptance letter last month exactly the day after i finished my first year of my program in Joffrey. Joffrey was fun and I know dancing, it’s what i want to do for the rest of my life. But when i got into an accident months before, it made me rethink life. I thought I could always dance and pursue dancing in anyway and that I shouldn’t limit myself into my comfort zone. And what’s more of the opposite of being in my comfort zone than pursuing of becoming a doctor right? So I wrote in my letter and got in.

Hundred goodbyes from my family after I took off and board. I’m flying to Connecticut….again. It’s not gonna be my first time since Quinn and I got into an online fling, I used to flew there and visit her on our semestral breaks. That was our set up before, i would fly to her place, she would visit me, we would visit our friends everywhere around the globe. Not until we had to “break up” when she dated Biff and later on Puck. It was my fault for falling for her and not demanding a label to what we are then, but I also have every right to be mad at her now because maybe I saw her relationship with Biff ( or what she used to call “prince charming IRL”) coming but with Puck? I don’t know if it’s the ego that is taking over me saying I am indeed better than Puck but I got annoyed when they got together again after her relationship with the narcissistic Prince Charming.

Many hours that feels like forever later, I am now officially enrolled and temporarily residing in Yale’s. I am in huge dormitory that I would be sharing with an old student, i don’t know who, but right now I see no one so I fix my stuff, my closet, and my table and took a nap.

Quinn’s POV

It’s now my second year of college. I went back home in ohio for our break and had the best time. I visited my mom and brother, my friends, puck convinced shelby once again to allow him [or us] “borrow” beth until they officially had to go back to whichever state they moved to. I was hoping to talk to Mike to clear the air between us but I didn’t see him. I know he purposely went away, i think, to ignore my existence. The last time we talked, we got into a massive argument that I sure did not enjoy. Mike is one of my very best friends and I know we were more than best friends ever since we got out of college but we never made it official. I know he wasn’t satisfied with me dating Biff but both of us moved on with our separated, far from each other lives. And then the reunion happened, Puck and I reconcile and as much as he was [trying to be] happy for us, I know deep inside he wanted to be with me. At last, drunk Mike confessed to me. He felt like I was only using him, I wasn’t. He felt like i am choosing everyone but him,im not. He had every right to be mad at me, because we may not have the label but we were something. Both of us know it. No “best friends” would promise the world to each other, give each other kisses and go on dates even worlds apart, that’s not what best friends do. We know what we are, we were just scared to put the words into it or maybe I AM SCARED OF COMMITTING TO HIM.

~

Furious. I AM F.U.R.I.O.U.S! the people on yale changed my dormitory room number, switched me with someone else or something so now I have to “live” with a new student that who knows who!

I knocked on the door out of respect and to confirm I wouldn’t be seeing naked people on my room but no response so i keyed open the door and got in.

“Hello?” Still no response so i head to my room and fixed my stuff.

When i got out of my room, I noticed the other room’s door slightly open. There’s no way someone came in while I was fixing my stuff so I peeked through the door and saw a topless guy sleeping. I can’t really see him. I can only see his flawless,sweaty back. So i just ignore it and headed to the kitchen to organize the groceries i bought on my way here.

Suddenly the door behind me shuts, I turned around to see what’s up but there was nothing to see. The guy that was sleeping just shuts it and didn’t even say a thing.

Mike’s POV

It’s first day of college once again. My supposed short power nap turned into a long deep sleep. I can remember getting up to shut my door’s room but I went back to bed and accidentally falls back to sleep. I didn’t notice if there was already someone else in my dorm but going by the organized kitchen that wasn’t really organized when i first came,i can tell there’s already someone else here.

I went to my first class which is anatomy and physiology and it’s surprisingly interesting but mind draining. I was about to go to the cafeteria to grab a lunch when a group of folks’ laugh came out in one room on my way, I follow the sound with my eyes and I saw a familiar face.

It’s Quinn Fabray!……but brunette?

I take a double look if I’m actually seeing right. And I can’t be wrong it really is Quinn. Next to a guy. They’re sitting far back side of the room, just them. And when I caught myself paying too much attention, I walked away.

Quinn’s POV

I left the dorm without meeting my new roommate. I guess that would be our set up now? If he’s not sleeping, I am. It’s weird but I was really looking forward to meeting him but when I woke up today he already left. I know that because he left me a note on the fridge.

“Hello! I’m your roommate,Mike! Looking forward to meeting you today.”

That was cheesy and sweet. And that proves he’s new. People at Yale are nice but not this nice.

I missed my first class on my first day,amazing right? So i headed straight to my second one. I sat last row of the chair and Christopher sat next to me.

Christopher is the last person i would want to sit next to me but here we are. He’s nice and actually the “class clown” which is why I don’t wanna sit next to him.

“Brunette Fabrayyyy coming thruu baby” he randomly yelled and everyone laughed……including me.

“Hahahaha what was that” I asked hitting his arm jokingly

The room was filled with laugher ever since. And while I’m busy trying Chris to stop teasing me about newly dyed hair, I saw a familiar face by the door.

It’s Mike! I can’t be wrong I know everything about that man. By the back of his neck to his little toe! I’m sure it was him. So i immediately stood up and chase the man that was once standing by the door.

By the time I reached the door he’s already so far from our room but I still ran for him. I grab his arm and accidentally surprised him.

Gasping for air, I muttered “Mi- Mike” and so he turned around and our eyes remet.

Admin’s Note

This became longer than expected. I don’t know if the timeline would make sense but i hope you enjoy this!