#but like for a 6 season ongoing show the fact that the pilot is such a solid episode is just so sick u know? like it still holds up

[pxrxmoore]

oops i’m a bit late to this but here’s my 911 bingo 😅 thank u @lucydonato for putting this together and @sweetrevelation for the cute template 🥰

oh. my god this took me all morning 😭 i’m posting it now before i change my mind for the 150th time 😌 damn i fuckin love this show 🫶 also im sorry for putting tsunami arc as 1 square i couldn’t pick between them and to me it’s just one long ep so like if u have either of them just count it or whatever 😌🫶

[masonic-critical]

x - Double Toasted Interview Pre-Helluva Boss Prouction

Seeing vivzie flub her numbers and mouth over her """team""" within this video is very telling.

"40 or 50 people or so I think i would have to check and make sure on discord--we have sorta 10-ish people in my core team with my animators. I'm a main compositor with my friend while my background artist and cleanup team of 15 or so is just so-big it's so Huge its so large! We have so many people working on this project and just handling with so many key components over backgrounds and key framing the lip syncs, my background artists doing so much work. I feel like and hope people will really stay on"

Interviewee Joke: 'Oh how many animators do I have [again], no-oh god no!!!'

It's insane to think Helluva Boss has over 80+ animation credits which is definitely not a good thing. It's one thing in industry to have a large studio but it's another thing of collaborating artists coming and going to work on an ongoing series is not a good thing to flaunt. Even if your show has won two independent animation awards you should take pride over producing to actually make something good instead of flaunting the fact that you acknowledge the bare minimum of abuse, rape, misogyny, supremacy, classism, sexism, or gender critical writing fails face first in every episode.

Her favorite movies being Cat's Don't Dance/Who Framed Roger Rabbit and referencing BoJack Horseman even referencing that they anthropomorphize their themes being prejudice and STORYTELLING DEVICES, so what story is Helluva Boss even telling right now???? She claimed to even want to write about dark themes and mature adult topics about prejudice and yet has nothing to show for it after 6 years of nothing burger that is Helluva Boss and Hazbin Production :/

She fully admits that patreon and merch hauls fund hazbin/helluva production and that she fully handles the patreon money herself she budgets to push towards 'Hazbin' to 'Pay her small team'. She wanted to try to promote a Kickstarter over the pilot pre-A24 pickup before she made it big-time which is weird to hear when she didn't even have hazbin finished while boarding out 4 episodes of helluva bosses' first season. Even if it was supposed to allegedly be a 1 season show only. It's weird to try to discern which show she's trying to elaborate/talk about which one.

X - Evidence of the promotional videos for Helluva Boss/Hazbin. Strangely enough it has always been together instead of separated meaning she was attempting to garner hype for her series through Helluva Boss Merchandising and attempting to cyphen even more money over small Hazbin merchandising.

X - Here is Vivs' patreon promo earlier before the Hazbin pilot. Discussing how much she wanted to have a bigger budget at the time to fund her animation. Talks about Zoophobia Reboot and there has never been discussion since. Originally charged 10$ for private qna's. 50$ for discord access calls, unsure if this is still a Patreon feature. Also unsure over the 100$/500$ speeddraw commissions she promo'd... There is another production patreon she teases that holds nothing beside the Vivziepop name.

The show being placed upon rehabilitation and redemption despite the focus only being towards 'A Disney/Tim Burton Princess in Hell' goes to show that she had no direction of where she wanted to take Angel or Charlie. Charlie always being based on a porcelain doll? Greek/Religious Context/Egyptian mythology where???

"The best animation in it, is not done by me"

Within full admission of her nervous attitude without naming anyone within her team and just referred to everyone as 'My team/Crew' is very telling of how humbling she really even is.

Thr 'Yotta' she refers to is in reference to Studio Yotta, Helluva Boss is funded and produced alongside Horseless Cowboy with Horvitz towards the Casting Direction, meaning she's been funded with a major video game industry since day 1 of Helluva Bosses' production ergo, Vivziepop/Spindlehorse/Vivienne Medranno has never been independent in her entire production malpractice. She stated to be aware and know of wanting to work under SAG is very intriguing given that since Moxxie has been absent for half of season 2 its probably due to Richard striking as my best guess to the messy writing of broken railroad tracks that was supposed to be Helluva Boss production.

While it is one thing to have connections in industry to connect and come together and credit within your artists and studios, Vivzie does not have a studio. The merch sales/Patreon/YouTube QnA's directly go towards paying her animators, voice actors, and production management but not at all a 'Studio' she promotes herself as. All animation work and shots are handled through Discord and emails online this has been proven time and time again.

The fact that the pilot has been pushed aside so much over Helluva Boss and not a genuine interest to have redemption or care and love within the disguised nightmare that is Helluva Bosses' writing. She loves to flaunt demonology and love towards hell of aesthetics with demons/monsters she fails to actually represent the actual Demons of folklore/hell world building in HB leaves me to be worried... That she discredits actual Demon culture by stating

'I don't know have you seen one? They don't exist its just been human mysticism, Demons can be anything. Have you been to Hell?' Without realizinf she will fail to depict the Lord of the Flies as Gluttony....

"--It might not ever happen to work together with [Ke$ha] professionally would be a dream honestly. --The next Ke$ha song I want to animate is either is going to be official or is something that she wrote for one of MY projects or something"

She did and she made her state 'There's like, a rainbow inside my vagina.' Wooow so professional, "Cotton Candy" so originally produced to be so professionally Disney-Grade. The fact that she halted and couldn't release season 1's full finale due to having Ke$ha break her contract with legal battles and corporate music industry bindings during the Dr. Luke 2016 trial, waiting until 2020 to finally release it within this year and have Lukewarm perception because Rose cannot even sing within the episode its a replacement actor to sing for her! She just wrote the bare minimum draft of a song to submit for you to animate! Time and time again viv just flaunts herself to throw herself out there over 'Look at my projects aren't they neat!" And then be a monster during production of hoarding artists to herself and trash talking/harboring a group of bullies within her 'Core Crew'.

"Zoophobia is my Childhood project, it had everything and it was a mess. It was the magic of a childhood story told by an adult because I was in college while working on it at the time. It's the incubation chamber for all of my projects now. When I go back to it, it will be a complete reboot but for now it's on the shelf.... I lost all passion for it but I love my characters in it."

... And yet she hasn't talked about the comic since Bad-Luck Jacks' animation release nearly 4 years ago? All merchandising she promotes is about Helluva Boss and barely anything towards Hazbin or Zoophobia which is supposedly 'In-Production' while these merchandising of stickers, pins, skateboards, switch cases, posters, sketchbooks covers of Demonic stickers, sexualized hornybait, racist and transphobic enamel pins that can't keep character skin colors correct, and puzzles because of course! All of which, is merchandising of HELLUVA BOSS!

Vivziepop only views her characters as dollar signs. She still features her old Zoophobia designs within her Redbubble account goes to show how much profit she loves to make with other peoples' character designs.

X X Evidence of the Above Statement with the character KiKi/Christine [Cherry Bomb] originally being from Zoophobia before redesigned into Hazbin

X

Zoophobia concepts of what we lost rambling from Viv herself....

X

An interview of 7 years I didn't get to discuss over

X - A Season 1 Helluva Boss poor promotional trailer trying to garner hype for the series acting as if it was telling a cohesive story with actual plot happening with little Stolas screen time. It makes me wonder if season 1 was an entirely different drive of writing thoughts and artist drafts compared to season 2's production.

X - Helluva Boss Season 2 promotional storyboard conception, Two years ahead of time and finally all the boards make sense for season 2 and there still is no eventual plot besides setting up Fizz and Ozzy over Belzebub and Tex or any returning season 1 villain akin to D.H.O.R.K. or Cherub/Verrosika and especially no sight of Moxxie and Millie development besides fight scenes.

It makes me think of however much season 3 will suffer to spiral into production.

[pencil-peach]

G Witch Onscreen Text: Episode 9

We have now reached part TEN of my ongoing project to transcribe and discuss all of the onscreen text in G Witch! Because I like writing!!! We have reached Episode 9, "If I Could Take One More Step Towards You."

<<Click Here to go back to Episode 8 (That post actually goes rather in depth into Duel Statistics. You should check it out if you happen to be interested in. Duel Statistics.)

The Beginning of the End. (Of the season.)

In the opening flashback, we see Guel winning yet another Duel, and at that point in time, he now has 8 wins. Ireesha says that he's probably done about 5 duels that month. With this information it's like. Utterly Impossible to determine how long ago before the story proper this scene takes place in, but here:

The Holder is required to do at least one duel every two weeks if there are available challengers. Guel had 28 wins by the time the show starts, so if we assume that Guel did that bare minimum, (which he definitely did not do) 20 duels would take about 40 weeks, or around 9 and so months. So that's the absolute MAXIMUM amount of time possible between this flashback and the show proper.

This doesn't really tell us anything at all, but yknow. I had fun. And isn't that what it's all about?

TEXT: BUSINESS TRANSFER AGREEMENT GRASSELEY M&D COMPANY REPRESENTATIVE SHADDIQ ZENELLI AGREEMENT

THIS BUSINESS TRANSFER AGREEMENT [the 'Agreement'] shall be governed by space front customary law and inter-front commercial treaties.

The agreement is entered into as of this date written below, by and between GUND-ARM, Inc ["Seller"] and Grassley Research and Development ["Buyer"]

WHEREAS, Seller desires to sell, and Buye* desires to purchase, substantially, all of Seller's assets and WHEREAS, the parties desire to enter into this Agreement for the purpose of setting forth their mutual rights and obligations with respect to the foregoing.

Shaddiq Zenelli

Grassley M&D Company Representative SHADDIQ ZENELLI

____________________ GUND-ARM, Inc Company Representative MIORINE REMBRAN ____________________ DATE

*(The word here is supposed to be Buyer, but it's actually misspelled like that on that agreement. Oopsie!)

Lots of LEGAL stuff....hochi mama....

One day I will make a post examining how Belmeria is meant to be a dark reflection of Nika. Just you wait.

And I COULD say SOMETHING about how the last time Guel sees Suletta before he runs away she's running ahead of him down the LIGHTED PATH and he CAN'T FOLLOW but I have to save that for the GUEL ANALYSIS SERIES!!! (Which I will return to...wait for me md-guel....wait for me...)

Anyway, back to a relevant detail, in the scene where Shaddiq talks to Miorine to convince her to call off the duel, Miorine has gathered a bunch of tomatoes and laid them out like this.

She's actually using them to plan out a battle strategy for the Grassley duel. The 2 tomatoes on the bottom are Suletta and Chuchu, and the 6 tomatoes at the top are the Grassley Pilots.

Shaddiq's Michaelis (Left) and the Grassley Girls' Beguir - Pente's (Middle) are actually both successors built from the Beguir Beu (Right) used in the prologue. (That's why they can use Anti-GUND Format Equipment such as the 'Antidote')

When you look at them side by side, it's pretty clear, but if this fact slips by you, you really miss out on the sharp difference in Prospera's behavior watching this duel compared to all the previous duels. Before, she showed unwavering confidence and faith that Suletta and Aerial could stop any opponent, but in this duel, when we see her, she's silent. She's not smiling. In a very real way, she's looking at the Mobile Suit that took her husband away from her.

And when Aerial overcomes the power of the Antidote, she sheds a tear

This was probably the biggest obstacle standing between the completion of Quiet Zero, and now that it's been overcome, the path has never been clearer.

Anyway, during the Role Call of all the Grassley girls, Sabina is shown to specifically be incredibly popular with women. Which I mean....can't blame em..

During this scene, we can see that the Team Battle title card has a slightly different UI, adding the respective Team Name of the Commander. Miorine never officially joins Earth House, but since all the members currently in the fight are, they probably just chose that.

We also see that the official color coding of Earth House is Cyan.

Here we see that in a Team Duel, the "Team Leader" and the "Commander" are two different positions, and can be held by two different people. The Team Leader fights in the duel, while the Commander is who will be awarded the victory or defeat depending on the outcome of the battle.

We also see in this shot that Chuchu's Demi Trainer is registered in Asticassia as "CHUCHU'S DEMI TRAINER"

When Aerial first goes offline due to the Antidote, this warning flashes across Suletta's helmet at first. It's [???] MODE but I can't read the first part. Gomen :( My best guess is that it's an Error message for a sort of Assisted Piloting Mode that Suletta had been using up to this point.

Then the warning switches to MANUAL MODE, which is what Suletta interprets as Aerial saying she needs to continue the fight by herself.

We can't see it fully, but Miorine's name appears on the winner's screen. So only the Team's Commander receives the victory in a Team Battle.

TEXT: AGREEMENT No. 2030-23 GUND ARM INC. Grassley M&D

Each party submits to the exclusive jurisdiction of the BENERIT enterprise entrusted court, and agrees not to commence any legal action regarding or related to the subject matter of this agreement in any other court.

This seems like the end of the agreement.

Any way here's a comparison of Miorine and Delling's cursive. If Father Daughter Cursive Comparisons is something you're interested in. Miorine has cute handwriting.

That's all for this episode!! Woohooo!! For your final gift...

FUCK you. I'm symbolizing you as an unripe green tomato to represent the potential love we could have shared that never blossomed due to our respective personal ambitions being at odds with each other. Yeah and its permanent. BITCH.

Click here to go to episode TEN. FUCKER. >>

OR click here to go to the MASTERPOST.

[nba-history]

NBA history

The NBA is a 70-year-old organization born from innovation. It was June 1946 in New York City when Boston Garden owner Walter Brown realized that major ice hockey arenas, which were vacant most nights, could be used to host basketball games.

“Never say never, because limits, like fears, are often just an illusion”, “It’s not about any one person”, “You always have to be on edge”, these lines are some of the famous NBA Michael Jordan. In fact there is ongoing season in NBA the 2022  - 2023 is the 76th season of National Basketball Association, begaon on October 18, 2022 and is scheduled to end on April 9, 2023. The 2023 NBA All-Star Game was played on February 19, 2023 at the Vivint Arena in Salt Lake City. Lists of   best NBA player of all season in NBA is Michael Jordan Team: Chicago Bulls (1984-1993, 1995-1998) and Washington Wizards (2001-2003).Michael Jordan is the man who led the Chicago Bulls to 6 series of NBA Finals. Michael Jordan was a 6-time NBA champion. He also “carried” 6-time Finals MVP awards. Michael Jordan also gained the Defensive Player of the Year in 1988. In addition, during the regular season, “Mr. Air” has five more MVP awards, and he deserves to be an icon both on and off the basketball court. Jordan averaged 20 points per game in 2-year Washington’s jersey. Besides impressive titles and achievements, the leader of best NBA players of all time is also a model of competitive spirit. He excelled in attack and was passionate in defense. Whether training or competing, Michael Jordan does his best to help himself and his teammates reach the top. Thanks to the above achievement, Michael Jordan has become a measure of success in NBA history. Every NBA player wants to become like Michael Jordan. But so far, no one has passed the level of MJ. Second on the line is LeBron James has won 2 NBA Championship rings and an NBA Finals MVP award. Both times played for the Miami Heat team in 2012 and 2013. LeBron is one of the most leading NBA players in basketball history, with his ability to score goals is undeniable. From the very beginning, Lebron James stunned fans and encouraged everyone to follow their dreams. Lebron James helped both the Heat and the Cavaliers to win several championships. LeBron James is often “compared” to Michael Jordan – the greatest basketball player ever.

In addition to his wealth and ability to play football, Lebron James is also active in charity activities. It has made James one of the legendary basketball players in NBA history, both on and off the court. Number 3 is areem Abdul-Jabbar, number 4 is Magic Johnson and number 5 Kobe Bryant.  https://www.scottfujita.com/best-nba-players-of-all-time/#:~:text=baseball%20team%20names-,1.,basketball%20players%20of%20all%20time

 On January 26, 2020, a Sikorsky S-76B helicopter crashed in the city of Calabasas, California, around 30 mi (48 km) northwest of Downtown Los Angeles, while en route from John Wayne Airport to Camarillo Airport. All nine people on board were killed: retired professional basketball player Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna; baseball coach John Altobelli, his wife Keri and daughter Alyssa; Payton Chester and her mother Sara; basketball coach Christina Mauser; and the pilot, Ara Zobayan. The accident was investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) which concluded that it was caused by continued VFR into IMC: the helicopter entered low cloud cover, which caused the pilot to lose his sense of orientation, and thence lose control.[2] A number of video recordings of the crash area were available, and although none showed the crash itself, the sound of the helicopter and the crash was recorded. In particular, surveillance cameras installed at the Agoura Pony Baseball Fields provided overlapping coverage of the final parts of the flight path. The FAA conducted a visibility study which used frequency analysis to determine when the aircraft made the closest approach to each camera, ground-speed, engine RPM and determine likely inflight visibility by comparing video recorded during the accident period to clear-sky imageryThe report concluded that, at the moment of the accident, the estimated. The world has silenced because of the death of one of the legendary player of NBA. And If you are a fan of Simpson there’s a theory that simpson predict the death of Kobe Bryant and how he died. Here's a look at the offensive masterpieces that make up the NBA's top individual scoring games. 1. Wilt Chamberlain, 100 points - March 2, 1962. We've all seen the photo of Wilt Chamberlain holding up the piece of paper with a "100" written on it. That's about the only visual that exists from that triple-digit, record-setting performance. Chamberlain shot 36-for-63 from the field, setting the record for most shots made and attempted in a single game, and went 28-for-32 from the free throw line in the Philadelphia Warriors' 169-147 win over the New York Knicks. He scored 59 points in the second half, which remains a record for points in a half, en route to setting a record that is unlikely to be broken. 2. Kobe Bryant, 81 points - Jan. 22, 2006

Only one other NBA player has surpassed the 80-point milestone: Kobe Bryant. He scored 81 points in the Los Angeles Lakers' 122-104 win over the Toronto Raptors, at the time becoming just the fourth player not named Wilt Chamberlain, and the second guard, to score more than 70 in a game. Bryant shot 28-for-46 from the field, including 7 of 13 from three, and went 18-for-20 from the free throw line, knocking down his final two attempts with 43.4 seconds remaining. Bryant scored 27 points in the third quarter and 28 in the fourth, accounting for all but 18 of the Lakers' second-half points. 3. Wilt Chamberlain, 78 points - Dec. 8, 1961 - When Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points in a game, he broke the previous scoring record held by...Wilt Chamberlain. He first set the record in 1961 by scoring 78 points in the Warriors' 151-147 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers. Chamberlain shot 31-for-62 and went 16 of 31 from the stripe to top the single-game scoring record of 71 points held by Elgin Baylor. Chamberlain also grabbed 43 rebounds in the loss.  4. David Thompson, 73 points - April 9, 1978 - Alongside Wilt Chamberlain and Kobe Bryant in the 73-point club is David Thompson of the Denver Nuggets. The Hall of Famer got the green light during a 139-137 loss to the Detroit Pistons in the final game of the regular season while in a scoring race with George Gervin of the San Antonio Spurs. Thompson, who averaged 22.7 points per game during his career, went 28 of 38 from the field and 17 of 20 from the line for what at the time was the NBA's second non-Chamberlain 70-plus point game. Thompson and Gervin both finished at 27.2 per game, with the scoring title tiebreaker of total points going to Gervin. https://www.nbcsports.com/chicago/bulls/looking-back-highest-scoring-games-nba-history#:~:text=Wilt%20Chamberlain%2C%20100%20points%20%2D%20March%202%2C%201962&text=Chamberlain%20shot%2036%2Dfor%2D63,over%20the%20New%20York%20Knicks

Those are the historical NBA information for now, and just to let you know here in the Philippines they organize a PBA which is Philippine Basketballl Association The Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) is a men's professional basketball league in the Philippines composed of twelve company-branded franchised teams. Founded in 1975, it is the first professional basketball league in Asia and is the second oldest continuously professional basketball league existing in the world after the NBA,[1] established before the "open era" of basketball in 1990 where FIBA allowed longstanding domestic leagues, which mostly had predated the PBA, to become professional. The league's regulations are a hybrid of rules from the NBA and FIBA.The league played its first game at the Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City on April 9, 1975. Its main office is located along Eulogio Rodriguez Jr. Avenue (C-5 road), Eastwood City, Bagumbayan, Quezon City.The San Miguel Beermen have the most PBA championships with 28 titles. After the 2022–23 Commissioner's Cup, the Barangay Ginebra San Miguel, who defeated guest team Bay Area Dragons 4–3 in the 2022–23 Commissioner's Cup Finals, are thedefending Commissioner's Cup champions.

[carmenxjulia]

Another Duane interview transcript, coming at you! This one was from a smaller Carmen Sandiego chatroom. There were several interviewers, so that’s why the name of the question asker changes. Get the details below the break! Stay tuned, more interview transcripts coming soon.

Duane Capizzi:

HI EVERYONE! I'M IN!

Sorry I'm late, I got lost on the way haha. Then got lost trying to change my PFP

Thanks for gathering! Shall we get started? Let's do some Q&A!

(as long as they are not geography questions haha)

Fuel:

What characters or plot points were cut from the final product?

Duane Capizzi:

Ooo, starting with a right hook to the jaw!

Let me think about that for a moment: I'm hesitant to give too much away because I'm really hoping we can tell more stories in this world at some point

Which is to say, we tend not to waste anything: if we don't use it when we originally planned, we usually find a way to use something later - and there's usually a "karmic" reason that we waited.

I'll also preface by saying this: I know season 3 was more of a mini-drop and some felt season 4 was rushed. But I wish EVERY season were longer. Season 1: ideally, i wanted the Pilot to be its own event and 10 more episodes after that (but we had to tell the post-Pilot story in 7. At the end of the day, that had its benefits: we got to the Shadowsan turn earlier and I think that's when a lot of viewers realized the ride they were truly in for). Season 2: we initially figured we'd need 5 episodes to have Carmen doing the ACME dance with Chief, and wound up doing it in 3 - mostly because it quickly became clear that Rio needed to be a 2 parter, and the Zack and Ivy backstory a rough 2 parter. So we squeezed 3 episodes worth of plot into 209. It was exhilarating!

So, we had hoped to have more episodes for Season 4 of course. We had a ton of ideas and had to compress things a bit. But honestly in many ways it was for the better. I know we all wanted to live in this world longer, but I think sometimes the flip side is true - when you have big ongoing storylines, it can get frustrating when some things drag out too long. But, we got all the "story" we wanted to tell in Season 4 - we just lost some "incident" if that makes sense. We would have taken longer to get there.

So, all that preface to answer the question: we wanted to do more musical numbers! We had a Bollywood dance sequence in a return to India caper with Paperstar. We wanted to do a famous Elvis suit theft in Las Vegas during an Elvis impersonator convention (Shadowsan's an early elvis guy; Brunt likes the Vegas "jumpsuit" era). We also wanted to do a thread where Gunnar gets captured by ACME so that Julia could interrogate him and he could play mind games with her a la Hannibal Lector and Clarice. CAVEAT TO ALL THIS: these were some ideas that were bouncing around, that may not have seen the light of day if we couldn't get them to work. But they were on our wish list.

re: "other stories" - I could live with these characters for another 32 episodes easily and there have of course been discussions. But alas, that is up to the powers that be. Let's keep fingers crossed - and keep the Carmen love alive online so that someone up there takes note

There is more of course, but those are some things that spring to mind.

Fuel:

Were there any scenes cut for time that were your favorite?

Duane Capizzi:

Not much springs to mind: our directors were amazing at getting everything in the scripts to fit naturally (and in fact, I was the one who was usually suggesting trims to let other things breathe, etc). We were limited to 22 minutes of episode time, NOT counting front and end credits so a little longer than the average show. We have a pretty good idea when the SCRIPT is too long, so the cutting usually happens at script stage before it gets to the board crew so that they don't waste efforts over-boarding material that won't be used.

We had hoped to build out Chase and Carmen teaming up for the first time, meeting at Carmen's hotel lobby etc for more scenes of them together; but had to reduce that to get that all to fit in the VERY packed episode 406. But again, tighter was fine considering. That's one area that leaps to mind. (note that when I say packed, I don't mean that in a bad way: we spend a lot of time pouring over details in editing to make sure everything gets its due).

If I think of anything, I'll circle back at a later point. But the simple answer is that scenes were usually trimmed or compressed at script rather than board or animatic. So nothing comes to mind. I know it's hard to believe, but "shorter is usually better."

except for my answers to fan questions of course

Fuel:

We saw that in s4 episode 6 that Julia's mother(?) is wearing a necklace remarkably similar to the one Julia wears all the time. Is this the same necklace and if so, why was it given to Julia?

Duane Capizzi:

Just when I thought I was detail oriented! Wow! You guys blow me away

I can't take credit for that: it was either the board artist or director who added that. They do slip things in! As I've said before, EVERYONE on the crew really brought their A-game and were as deep thinking and as passionate as I was/am about the show.

It's a nice detail and I would say your interpretation works!

It took me three or four reviews before noticing that the team had slipped in baby Carmen near the play set in Mom's front yard at the end of 408. When I caught it, I was like: bravo!

Fuel:

When they first met, Zack and Ivy said to Carmen that they were the only family they had, do you know what happened to the rest of Zack and Ivy's family?

Duane Capizzi:

I don't. At least, I don't yet until such a time that I might have the opportunity to explore that. It was important to their relationship with Carmen that they be orphans, so they had that common bond (aside from being "thieves who steal from bad guys" - even if it was only gonna be one time for Zack and Ivy).

I know there are writers out there who like to do entire bio's for characters up front but i'm not one of them. It could be a trap in many ways. I like to have a general idea but be open to the demands of the ongoing storyline. You discover things along the way - it's like you're taking a journey with the characters by writing them, and the longer you spend, the better you get to know them (that was not a prepared statement by the way - I just made that up but I'll have to use it again :). So in Z/I's case it wasn't important to the story or Carmen's relationship, we felt. Conversely, we STARTED with Shadowsan's family backstory with 203, but more important to me was that we use it as a platform to explain why he stays with Carmen and crew. He really has no home at that point, so it was relevant to the present ongoing story. Which is what made that especially powerful to me.

Also, there's always a push-pull between telling character back stories while balancing them with ongoing episodic plots. You have to service both. If you just tell back story, then you're writing a biography

Arden:

What was the biggest challenge when designing these characters, especially the pre-existing characters from the series in the 90's?

Duane Capizzi:

This is probably more of a question for Chromosphere, re: challenges. But from my standpoint overseeing that process, the first thing I'll say is that we weren't necessarily trying to be "true" to those characters since we reinvented nearly every one from the ground up. (with the exception of Carmen of course - her trademark red hat/coat weren't going anywhere! But mostly the update with Carmen was in the styling of her "outerwear"

ALTHOUGH: I will admit that I was pushing for Carmen to have shorter hair as Carmen. I thought it would be a cool update. Chromosphere were really passionate about giving her long full hair and I have to see that they were right. The short tomboy cut worked so well for Black Sheep anyway. We had a different hair style for each of her ages.

So about the reinventions: Gunnar is in spirit a similar character to the original (old colleague in Vile and an early mentor if I remember), but his presentation completely different. We weren't trying to be "in canon" with the original. The beauty of CSD is that every incarnation has been its own entity so that freed us to reimagine the characters. THE CLEANERS, for instance: gimme some Cleaner love! There were a pair of janitors from the original game named RICK AND NICK ICK. They were literally janitors, it was too silly for our purposes. But, it's one small step to make them "Cleaners" (in the sinister hit men sense) - and lo, our reinvention.

So to summarize the answer to your question, they weren't really challenges to me so much as FUN to creatively reinvent the original characters (many of which were from the game, so not really "characters" per se with dialogue and inner lives). Whenever we could, we tried to use character names from the originals and update their looks and personalities. Where we couldn't find an equivalent for what we needed, we created characters from whole cloth. For instance, it seemed a miss to do a heist show without a tunnel guy and a high rise climber guy. Hence, LC & ET, everyone's favorite taco truck vendors!

(yes, i've seen some short hair carmen fan art on Twitter - someone did a great one recently!)

Arden:

Are there plans to give us more of the characters in, say, novel/graphic novel form?

Duane Capizzi:

I know HMH has done a bunch and no doubt have more in works. There's currently a novelization of the Pilot with some additional material if anyone's interested. I consulted on the second one, Clue for Clue, because it falls in the timeline while Chase was still Interpol/pre-Acme so was tricky.

And depending on whether another series in this canon makes it to air, I may just approach them about writing one or two myself to get some "further adventures" our there. Anything is possible!

Arden:

If you could go back and change anything about the series, what would it be?

Duane Capizzi:

File under anecdote, but there was what I felt was an important expression on Gray that kept me awake at nights, from his graduation ceremony at Vile. When we revisited those flashbacks in the Gray arc in Season 4, I had them change his expression there (to be more evil less innocent). We had it corrected in 404 so was able to get permission to have Netflix "fix" the Pilot by adding that shot in. I am tenacious!

We really poured over everything, it's the series that I have virtually zero complaints with the end product to be honest. But the simple answer is: I would have gone back to 106 and "un-greek'd" Gray's nametag. It's sort of a rule for international that we scramble signage (which is weird for a show that takes place in many countries/languages, I know I know). It's mostly for localization/translation reasons. And I'm sure there are some countries where Gray's name might be spoken differently. But as a proper name, I think we could have made an exception and seen "Gray" on his name tag. See? Details! But that's about the worst of it

there's also like one small line from Chief in 208 where she indicates she knows Carmen is a good guy (something to that effect) which I felt was too absolute and would have tweaked the line to temper it a bit. It's tiny, but looking back it sort of bugs me and I kick myself for not catching it. But this is absolutely the series I wanted and couldn't be happier.

Carmen:

How did Carmen know she could trust Julia? As far as we know, she has not seen or heard Julia defending her, and in the Fashionista Caper, Julia even held up her gas gun to her, saying she was under arrest. Do you have any opinions on this? Was it just intuition?

Duane Capizzi:

I'm gonna go with intuition

Carmen was raised on an island with some hardened criminal types. I think she's a pretty good judge of character. Poor Julia, trying to be tough with Carmen didn't suit her.

But, great observation! I'd have to mentally step through everything to see if Carmen had any earlier indication but i think you're right there.

Yes, sometimes you just gotta follow your heart

Carmen:

Are there any characters that didn't actually interact that you think would get along well?

Duane Capizzi:

Amazing question! First, I'd have to think more about who DIDN'T meet - you're asking the hard questions haha. But "get along well" is very specific! Hmmm, care to volley anyone?

I'll also add that so many smaller moments get lost in the "binge" of it all, but I am surprised how few fans have noted the first meeting between Player and Julia. THAT was a good one IMO! Very sweet!

Before getting back to your question, I also want to add that we were originally going to find a way for Carmen to lose her earring in Stockholm so that Julia could pick it up and be communicating with Player. BUT, I cut it at treatment stage because I knew we didn't have room in that episode to service it. Circling back to questions 1 & 2, another case where it turned out better saved for later IMO (saving Player meeting Julia, not to mention the earring business in 402 with Ivy).

Oh of course, Julia and any of the other Vile members. It would have been Gunnar for my vote, as mentioned earlier. We probably would not have had Julia meet anyone else and mixed it up more. I like that Cleo sort of became J's personal nemesis.

YES, SONIA & XIFENG (and LUPE PELIGRO, if I can add). The intent was (and is, if we ever get to revisit) to see them again in Carmen's travels. We started to expand Carmen's world but when we finally learned the finite number of episodes we had to finish the story, we drilled back down into the essentials. Would love to see them some day!

I'm hesitant to share too many things I have in mind in this forum for hope that they will see the light of day one day. You know, "spoilers"

Julia:

Do you have any opinions on Zari? Just in general? Some thoughts on her backstory would be nice if possible

Duane Capizzi:

I love Zari! I really don't have any back story on her at this point. She was originally just "Agent B" but when the need arose to give story points to another agent, we chose her because she looked so awesome! And Sharon Muthu gave voice to her so wonderfully.

I love when we finally teamed her with Chase. Hopefully the anticipation was that she would give him a hard time. I love that we defied expectation (organically, of course) and had her respect him by the end of that episode (for believing that he foiled Carmen!)

Julia:

Do you have any thoughts on small facts about any character, major or minor, that you think are fun/interesting to think about, but don't necessarily add to the plot itself?

Duane Capizzi:

Bellum, like myself, likes cats. But you knew that!

I try to put everything pertinent on screen, doing double duty to service any given episode's story but also the overarching story. That "journey" thing I mentioned earlier - we had no idea Chase falling on his own car would be a thing when I first came up with it. But as other characters refer to the incident, it took on a life of its own and made the characters feel more real.

Sorta kinda related to this question and some earlier ones, I will say that I DO think there's more to learn about Shadowsan's past vis a vis Lady Dokuso: it's clear to me that they have a history together, and it's something I hope to explore someday soon (maybe in a book if not another series

Julia:

Are the Carmen Sandiego books a part of canon?

Duane Capizzi:

I only consulted on the first two or three (too busy with series!) and have not read them, so hard for me to answer in a definite way. They are definitely in the universe we've created, but not in the timeline that I know of (which would have been too hard to pull off with our script development running concurrently). But do know that the book team at HMH pays close attention to the series and world so they should be perfectly compatible. Look no further to their clever social media on the series for example.

Kenz:

We saw in season 4 that Julia and Carmen helped each other mid to long term; would there ever be a possibility that Julia would permanently or semi-permanently join team Red?

Duane Capizzi:

Of course there's a possibility. But in a sense, with ACME now finally on Carmen's side, in a sense if Carmen were back in the game Julia, Chase, Zack and Ivy would ALL be an extension of Carmen's crew. But, would J remain with ACME or literally come to Carmen's team at her HQ? As they said in an old radio show: "Only The Duane Capizzi knows ..."

Kenz:

Where do you see Carmen in her retirement (if she retires)? Do you think she would still travel the world or settle down somewhere? Similarly, do you have any thoughts on what some other characters could be doing years down the line?

Duane Capizzi:

That is a big question, and one difficult to answer without some potential future spoilers (and yes, I really want to tell more Carmen stories if you can't tell But I'll answer by giving you one "read" on our open-ended ending as seen in 408 (read no further if you haven't seen it - yeah, right haha). The ending suggests to me that Carmen settled down for a spell to forge that relationship with her mother, to make up for lost time. But, if that is indeed Carmen that we see on the rooftop, I think the ending suggests that Carmen doesn't stay still for very long. If Vile is back, there is work to be done! Carmen has a life mission - she's one determined lady.

But of course, it's deliberately ambiguous: "anyone with your heart, wisdom and courage can be Carmen Sandiego." Is it Carmen? Sonia? Someone we haven't met? I think both endings resonate: Caroline and I always said "Carmen is bigger than a person, Carmen is a movement" would be a great message to end the series on. And I think our ending resolves this chapter of Carmen's journey as a person, but also elevates her to mythic status. Which is why I love it!

And, that seems to me a pretty perfect question and answer to end our chat on. Thanks everyone! Again, I cannot tell you how moved I am to see that we have such a passionate, intelligent and talented fan base. THANK YOU.

Take care guys, thanks again for having me! 'night!

[myhahnestopinion]

THE AARONS 2020 - Best TV Show

It was prime time for TV in 2020, with many more free hours to fill. I managed to get through a lot of my backlog in fact, finally getting around to watching shows like The Strain. It’s a show about a deadly disease that tears society apart because a lot of arrogant people think they are exempt from quarantining. The disease turns people into vampires, so it’s technically escapism. Here are the Aarons for Best TV Show: 

#10. The Plot Against America (Miniseries) - HBO

It’s not TV, it’s not HBO, it’s real life. The Wire-creator David Simon’s penchant for illustrating the human fallout of institutional failures made him a perfect collaborator for HBO’s Plot Against America, an adaptation of Phillip Roth’s alternate-history novel. Following a Jewish family in New Jersey navigating the increasingly-fascist America of a hypothetical Charles Lindbergh administration, the show is a terrifying warning of what happens when hatred and conspiracy theories are allowed to accumulate political force. Notably, while the book ends with history back on the right track, the closing moments here are left ambiguous. The show was a limited series, but in many ways, The Plot Against America is ongoing.

#9. Mrs. America (Miniseries) - FX

Its interests are married to The Plot Against America, but Mrs. America traces the country’s rising extremism from a more historically accurate perspective. The miniseries centers on political activists in the 1970s on opposing sides of the proposed Equal Rights Amendment, but its dialogue isn’t a strict dichotomy. The episodic format is expertly utilized to build out intersectional ideas from the likes of Rose Byrne’s Gloria Steinem, Uzo Aduba’s Shirley Crisholm, and Margo Martindale’s Bella Abzug, detailing the difficulties in building a diverse coalition, and the dangers of a single-minded one. Drawing parallels to current debates, its compelling centerpiece is how conservative Phylis Shafley (Cate Blanchett) successfully defeats the Amendment; voting against your own self-interests, Mrs. America says, is as American as apple pie.

#8. The Outsider (Miniseries) - HBO

Societal collapse comes from within in the two shows mentioned above, but the threat in HBO’s adaptation of Stephen King’s 2018 novel is decidedly an “other.” King clearly had his mind on modern manipulations of truth when crafting the ingenious premise: a man is arrested for the murder of two young boys due to irrefutable DNA evidence, only to provide an air-tight alibi for the crime. To match King’s procedural prose, HBO brought on The Night Of’s David Price, who layers the original work with meticulous mysteries. The Outsider has all the pulpy jolts expected of the author, but the show’s true horror lies in its overbearing grief, best brought to life by Ben Mendelsohn’s Detective Anderson. To say more would be to spoil its secrets; you’ll want to be on the inside.

#7. Perry Mason (Season 1) - HBO

Just like the famous fictional attorney, HBO can’t seem to lose, with Perry Mason marking its third entry on this list. The reimagining of the long running court drama actually takes place before the character’s illustrious law career; here he’s a down-on-his-luck private eye caught up in a scandalous child kidnapping case. The result’s a gangbusters production of old-fashioned moody noir: political corruption, femme fatales, and a more morally-complicated Mason, as played by The Americans’ Matthew Rhys. The lavish period details and character-actor cast, including Shea Whigham, John Lithgow, and Tatiana Maslany, will help draw viewers in, but, I’ll confess, I was already hooked by the season’s chilling opening moments.

#6. Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist (Season 1) - NBC

Dour seasons have dominated this list thus far, but Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist sings a different tune. It’s a lovably oddball premise: an accident during an MRI causes a young woman, played by Jane Levy, to hear other people’s thoughts in the form of popular music. It’s all karaoke, but, emphasized by the presence of Skylar Astin, a worthy inheritor to Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’s musical-comedy crown. The tracklist, workplace antics, and love-triangle drama all exist in a comfortingly familiar network TV realm, but the show takes additional steps for inclusion with stories highlighting Zoey’s genderfluid neighbor (Alex Newell) and an American Sign Language performance of Rachel Platten’s “Fight Song.” During a year in need of shuffling off stress, there was no better time to queue up Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist.

#5. What We Do in The Shadows (Season 2) - FX

FX’s expansion of the mockumentary feature film of the same name lit up some of the darker corners of its universe in the show’s second season, transforming mundane-seeming material into something completely, uniquely batty. Each creature of Shadows took their turn in the spotlight this season, from a middle-management promotion gifting energy-vampire Colin Robinson unlimited supernatural power, to undead Nadja befriending a doll possessed by her own ghost, to Matt Berry’s Lazlo forging a small-town persona as a bartender/volleyball coach to escape a vengeful Mark Hamill. As always, it was the sympathetic Guillermo (Harvey Guillén), a Van Helsing descendent desperate to become a vampire, who gave the show its emotional stakes, and the vampires within a different kind altogether.

#4. Stargirl (Season 1) - DC Universe

Shadows was lit, but few things burned brighter this year than Stargirl (perhaps too brightly for the flamed-out DC Universe). The superhero drama is one of several that will outlive its original streaming service - fitting, given its obsession with legacy. Based on a character created by DC Comics stalwart Geoff Johns after the tragic loss of his sister, the show finds a young girl taking on the mantle of a fallen hero after moving to a town run in secret by supervillains. With sprightly fight choreography and an unabashed embrace of its comic book lore, Stargirl outshines the overabundance of small-screen superheroes out there. Its highlight is the bright performance of lead Brec Bassinger; put simply, she’s a star, girl.

#3. BoJack Horseman (Season 6b) - Netflix

Throughout its run, BoJack Horseman garnered acclaim for routinely delivering unexpected pathos, and the final season kept it on that track until the end. ...Get it, because horses run on tracks? The unexpected porter of television’s legacy of antiheroes ended in much the same vein as its sister shows - with consequences finally catching up with its protagonist. No amount of fanciful animal puns could soften that painful catharsis, as the show finally trampled its tricky web of abuse through bittersweet means. The series closed out with an especially thoughtful scene, the kind viewers who looked past the wonky pilot years ago were regularly blessed with; to the very end, BoJack, you were a gift, horse.

#2. Better Call Saul (Season 5) - AMC

As good as Bad ever was and better than ever before, the fifth season of AMC’s spin-off completely upended the world of its eponymous lawyer while bringing Vince Gilligan’s universe one step away from full-circle. Saul Goodman found himself in way over his head, and viewers found themselves way on the edge of their seats, as his first foray into “criminal” lawyering swiftly dovetailed with an escalating drug war. Despite the emotional distress of watching fan-favorite character Kim Wexler placed in perilous situations, there are no objections to be had with the drama’s continued masterful storytelling. Ramping up the slow-burn storytelling, season five saw Kim and Saul’s relationship develop in rich and unexpected ways, while still keeping their final fates unresolved. Fans are thus waiting with bated breath for the show’s final call next year. 

#1. The Great (Season 1) - Hulu

Who could be the best but The Great? There was a minor television controversy this year over Netflix marketing The Crown as a historical drama despite its fictional interpretation of events; The Great has no such pretentions. An asterix adorns every title card of the show, letting viewers know that its take on Catherine the Great’s coup against Emperor Peter III of Russia is only “an occasionally true story.” The show indeed is not great for education, but it’s the most entertaining television of the year, locking stars Elle Fanning and Nicholas Hoult in a battle of wits and a fight for the country’s soul under the watch of The Favourite co-writer Tony McNamara. The uproarious comedy slyly collates leadership based in cruelty with leadership based in goodwill in the background of its quite bawdy escapades, a subtle bit of relevant political maneuvering that lets it successfully claim the crown this year.

NEXT UP: THE 2020 AARONS FOR BEST TV EPISODE!

[stranger-who-writes-fiction]

I had a whole list of stuff I liked about Supergirl Ep. 6x07 “Fear Knot” typed out and then accidentally hit the keyboard command for ‘select all’ and THEN accidentally hit ‘b’ so.

A list! That will...be much shorter than the original! Because I’m very tired and don’t wanna type it up all over again! XD

Spoilers!

Okay, rapid fire highlights, HERE WE GO!

Space Dad was the true MVP here! Just wonderful J’onn content throughout.

The Danvers Sisters hug! I wanted exactly one thing from this episode and that was it. 

Interesting BTS info revealed about the hug: Originally, it was supposed to be the main trio (Kara, J’onn, Alex) but they trimmed it down for time so it ended up being just a Danvers Sisters moment AND, AND! Chyler’s ‘I got you,’ such a LOVELY callback to the Pilot, was ad-libbed!

Fine. Just. Make me feel feelings, show. Geez.

The Tower is a MARTIAN SPACESHIP!

Alex, re: the Tower reveal - “I love Martian technology.”

Same, Alex. Same.

 The ENTIRE* GANG OF SUPERFRIENDS got meaty character bits that build on all of the stuff introduced in earlier episodes! 

*Save for M’gann, but I appreciated they at least had a line about how she was staying behind to hold down the fort. 

Anyways, back to character stuff, in particular! We see Kelly grapple with feeling out of her depth as the lone ‘normal’ one in a group of heroes/vigilantes, introduced in...was it 6x03? AND we see the set-up for GUARDIAN, WOO!

The thing I love about the Guardian mantle, for James and as we’ll no doubt see for Kelly, is that it’s about protecting people; their weapon of choice isn’t really a weapon at all, but a shield.

:D

J’onn and Alex’s stuff more directly ties into how they’ve been handling the ‘save Kara’ mission

Obviously Alex’s fears in particular speak to the larger, ongoing stuff about how so much of Alex’s identity is wrapped up in protecting Kara, but this mini-arc of seven episodes has sort of...laser focused that? A little?

This made a lot more sense in the first draft I swear. XD

And J’onn gets to come full circle with successfully completing the mission by being both a dad AND a strategic leader.

And then poor Nia is still struggling with insecurities regarding her dreaming powers, a thread that looks like it’ll carry over into the next set of episodes.

BRAINY AND THE BALLOONS????

J’onn:

The Lena portion...occurred!

Not really gonna comment on it beyond the very good sci-fi references they packed in there. Of course, we have the Alien 3 reference (which I've opted not to include b/c it’s a pretty gross image that could be upsetting if you’re not expecting it? Also I’m sure it’s all over twitter.)

But the Kelpie also had an Abyss vibe, IMO:

J’onn’s Space Dad montage was EXCELLENT.

J’onn: “NOT TODAY SATAN”

Oh, also, the red Phantom eyes and in-synch talking in Kelly’s fear vision was very creepy.

The different pairings of various characters was cool! I really liked Brainy and Kelly chatting.

And then poor Kara! 

AT HER LOWEST!

WITHOUT HOPE!

FEELING LIKE A DANGER AND A BURDEN TO HER LOVED ONES!

Oh, that meaty character work, we LOVE. TO. SEE. IT.

And shock of all shocks, it is PAPA ZOR?!?!?! WHO SNAPS HER OUT OF IT!??!?!?!

BUT! Papa Zor-El is only able to snap Kara out of it because HE HIMSELF was snapped out of his funk by Kara!

And like. I’ve seen the complaint that this relationship has not been built up enough for us to really care but...IDK. I’m a sucker for the moment where he like, gently touches her face and delivers that hope speech and

GUH! FEEEEEELINGS!!!!

And you know what? I’m glad. That Kara’s dad is not The Worst in this particular adaptation.

I mean. He’s done some incredibly sketchy things still, but. Not quite ‘experimenting on your own child, sending her to a foreign planet WITHOUT ANY CLOTHES and brainwashing her into murdering her cousin’ levels, you know?

“That’s my family. They’re really here.”

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!

And then the hug! THE HUG! It’s so quick but it’s so good and I can’t WAIT. UNTIL AUGUST 24th! 

I also love that we got a teaser of the next episode?! That was awesome and wholly unexpected.

(OFFICE SHENANIGANS! AAHHHH LOOKS SO GOOD!)

Oh, also, Nyxly (Nixly??) lives! And catches a ride to Earth Prime, which I’m sure will go over well. XD

As always, some OVERALL THOUGHTS!

ROUND OF APPLAUSE FOR DAVID! An interesting but no doubt tricky episode to direct! It came together so nicely, though, and had some genuinely neat set-ups in terms of how they used the cast and set.

(Also round of applause for Chyler’s episode last week, totally forgot to give her props in my list. FOR SHAME. For shame.)

In terms of season 6 thus far as a whole...I’ve just really liked this front half, here.

The Supergirl folks have had to work around some incredibly challenging extenuating circumstances during the final season of their show--I mean. They didn’t have their LEAD ACTRESS until several months into filming! DURING A PANDEMIC!

And while...yeah, I’ll admit I found some of the exposition in various episodes to be. Trying? And still pretty packed because they’re juggling so many characters...that they’ve managed to have such nice character bits throughout is just. GOOD. IT’S VERY GOOD. I LIKE IT A LOT.

As I mentioned above, this mini-arc of seven episodes has done such a solid job of setting up and developing internal conflicts for the characters that are exacerbated by the external conflict that is Kara’s absence. Like, everything is pretty tight! And connected! There’s such a good through-line EVEN WITH the two time travel episodes!

(And, okay, I’ll indulge in one targeted bit of ‘c’mon fandom, really?’ - I’ve already seen complaints of, ‘I thought this show was about SUPERGIRL’ re: this particular episode and like...did you miss? The whole previous episode? That was such a nice Kara showcase? And I say again: LEAD ACTRESS. WAS UNAVAILABLE. AND HAD TO PLAY CATCH-UP. ALSO, PANDEMIC.)  

(And in fact, the whole Phantom Zone plot has been a BRILLIANT bit of efficient storytelling--you not only have an in-universe reason for your lack of a lead, but also, it creates this space for the other characters to really miss Kara.

I guess the way I would describe it is like...going back to Kara’s original death in Crisis--yeah, it sucked that she died, but the entire DC Universe came together to talk about how heroic and great she was. And in a final season? Of a show called Supergirl? If you can’t have your lead on screen, the NEXT BEST THING is to have the character’s presence really felt via the OTHER characters.

With stuff like, having her inspire them! And reflecting on what she means to them, as a friend and family member!

...Again, this made more sense in the original draft? XD)

...Anyways.

My only nitpicks: I miss Will! But understand why he hasn’t been around, from a story standpoint. Also, the dialogue in some of the earliest episodes didn’t always...gel? But these last three in particular have been much improved in that regard.

IDK if I’ll keep these li’l positivity lists going throughout the remainder of the last batch of episodes--the move to Tuesday night has been tough. XD But either way, SUPER (ha, ha) excited for the back half!

[a-student-out-of-time]

Rambling about V3 Again

Today I saw a really interesting quote from author Brandon Sanderson and it honestly got me thinking. He talked about what he considers the single worst thing you can do with critique in writing, and that’s if a critic “tries to make your story into one they would write, rather a better version of one you want to write.”

That got me thinking about V3.

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that V3 is a very polarizing game, and I’ve seen many people talk about how they would’ve preferred to see the story play out, from character arcs to deaths to story conclusions. And while I do honestly enjoy seeing alternative perspectives and takes and AU’s, I feel like a lot about the game, what it’s trying to say and be, is skewed by those ideals.

I’m not saying that the critiques about the game are invalid, because there are a fair share of flaws with the game. What I am saying is that we end up talking so much about what we wish V3 could’ve been that what V3 was trying to be often ends up lost in that, and I want to talk about it.

It wasn’t until I really saw this quote that I was able to articulate all my likes and dislikes about the game and the reactions to it into a cohesive whole, which is what I’d like to do here.

So let’s ask this: what was V3 really trying to be?

Let’s start from the game’s theme: the relationship between truth and lies. This is best exemplified by the fact that you have the option to lie during trials, that you can use deception to find the truth. That’s a very different take from the previous games, where hope was associated with finding and confronting the truth.

Kokichi is another example, as he’s a self-admitted liar who claims to lead a criminal organization and it’s hard to tell exactly what he’s thinking or saying. Yet Kokichi actually helps bring the group to several truths: he helps find the culprit in trials, he reveals Maki’s identity as the Ultimate Assassin, tells the truth about Gonta murdering Miu and it’s thanks to his actions that the group later discovers the reality of their situation.

Throughout their journey, the group is confronted by numerous truths they don’t want to acknowledge, even refusing to do so and attacking people who continue to push them through. And with every revelation, there’s always those lingering details that don’t really make a lot of sense.

Let’s look at the game’s main narrative. At the start of the game, Kaede remembers she was kidnapped in broad daylight, thrown into a van, and brought to some abandoned school with a bunch of other people. She doesn’t act like a particularly nice person and is dressed differently, at least until the Monokubs arrive and give everyone their new clothes and memories. From that point, the narrative shifts considerably.

Kaede is suddenly an outgoing, optimistic leader and Shuichi is a sullen, withdrawn detective who serves as her deuteragonist for Chapter 1. She’s resolved to escape the Killing Game and tries to rally the group together. However, when her methods don’t prove successful and they start drifting away from her, she considers saving them by any means necessary and goes so far as to attempt murder against the mastermind. When that happens, she’s found guilty and executed, leaving Shuichi to take up her role as protagonist.

As you go through the game, using devices called flashback lights that apparently reawaken lost memories, you learn more and more about the reason that the group was brought here: the Gofer Project. When meteors began raining down on earth, all seemed lost until they established this project to send a group of survivors into space to colonize a new planet. A group of Ultimates.

They had established early on that Ultimates have even greater rights in this world: they’re the only ones allowed to vote and hold office. As the meteors came down and the news of this project got out, some people formed a cult that believed it was divine judgement and that mankind should be destroyed. That’s when they began the Ultimate Hunt, pursuing the candidates for the Gofer Project across the world. The Ultimates, with no other way out, decided to erase their memories of talent and live their last days as normal people.

To protect them, the people in charge spread a false story that the Ultimates had died, even holding a fake funeral for them and sent them into space secretly. However, while everyone was in cold sleep, one member of the cult- Kokichi- had sneaked aboard and piloted the ship back to the ruined and now inhospitable earth. They have no way back and no way to survive outside, and thanks to Kokichi’s claims to be the mastermind, they’ve been killing each for nothing. The group ultimately loses hope.

However, they’re resolved to continue on in their fight against the mastermind when they find a flashback light that reveals they weren’t just any ultimates: they were the next generation of ultimates from Hope’s Peak Academy. It wasn’t really the meteorites that got everyone, it was an alien virus that pushed mankind to the brink of extinction. That the cult that rose in the wake of this was Ultimate Despair.

That seems like a definitive way to link this game with its predecessors...until you really begin to stop and pick it apart. If this was about saving mankind, why did nobody have their memories right away? Why would you only bring 16 people? Why students who don’t make them suited to colonization? Why people like a death row inmate, a serial killer, a self-proclaimed liar and criminal, and an assassin?

Furthermore, going through many Fte’s highlights how much of the characters’ backstories seem very out there. Gonta wasn’t raised by wolves but a race of dinosaur people living in the woods, Kirumi is so hyper-competent that she became prime minister during the meteor crisis, Korekiyo’s killed almost 100 women and yet has never been caught, Maki can attend high school despite Japanese orphanages being too underfunded for kids to usually attend, Tenko’s neo-aikido breaks all the rules of traditional aikido and she's impulsive, has low pain tolerance, and disregards fair rules, none of which are very befitting of a martial artist.

And to conclude, even I thought that the reveal of their connection to Hope’s Peak felt very fanficy and out there, especially when the game had made no references or implications of it beforehand. But the reason for all of this is simple and effective:

None of this is real. It’s all staged.

Chapter 6 reveals that everything from their identities to the outside world they thought they knew was all just a fabrication. In truth, Tsumugi shows herself as the mastermind and that they’re actually in the 53rd season of an in-universe show called Danganronpa. Something alluded to even in the beginning of the game with the Team Danganronpa logo. This moment was very make or break for a lot of people, but let’s treat it fairly.

According to Tsumugi, the outside world has become a peaceful, boring place and Danganronpa is the only source of real entertainment the people have. A place where people literally come to have their identities replaced with those of Ultimates and then made to kill each other. This, as it turns out, was an outgrowth of the actual series we’d played before. A game that’s gone over 53 times.

This revelation is devastating for the characters. The lives and memories they’d known were all fabrications, which Tsumugi claims to have intentionally written. The Flashback lights were designed to implant fake memories to manipulate them, which is why that Hope’s Peak connection was set up after everyone gave up following the reveal of the outside world. A truth that could lead the world to despair, a lie that could lead the world to hope.

She even goes so far as to show everyone’s audition tapes, claiming that Kaede, Kaito, and Shuichi himself were willing to participate in the killings out of sheer misanthropy, popularity, and morbid excitement 

Kiibo is also revealed to be the audience’s means of interacting with the game, able to carry out their wishes and can even be hijacked and used as a way to fight against the characters’ decisions.

In the end, Tsumugi claims that the ongoing battle of hope vs despair needs to continue in perpetuity and that the survivors need to sacrifice someone, since only two people can survive Danganronpa. Shuichi, however, convinces Maki and Himiko not to vote for anyone and actually convinces the in-universe audience to give up on the series. Kiibo then blows the set to hell and allows Shuichi, Maki, and Himiko the chance to escape and see the world outside and what sort of influence they could have.

Now, let’s this break this down piece by piece here, because I feel like this part of the game is often conflated. Often I’ve seen people say that Chapter 6 is a giant middle finger to fans of the series, that nothing about the series really mattered, or that the flaws of the game can simply be attributed to bad writing on the creator’s part.

I honestly used to be in that camp myself, but the more I’ve thought about it, the more I feel those statements don’t hold up to scrutiny. We often conflate writing and narrative decisions we don’t like with bad writing. However, if the creator deliberately wants the narrative to move in that direction and has made intentional foreshadowing, references, and motivations that match it, we can’t simply equate that with it being “badly written.”

It’s not bad simply because we would’ve preferred they do something different. There’s a lot of very acclaimed books out there that I’ll admit I don’t care for because of their narrative decisions, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say they’re badly-written.

Furthermore, if something intentionally doesn’t make sense in-story, that is not bad writing. That is purposeful on the part of the creator, not a plot hole. The Gofer Project is not supposed to be a logical narrative, it’s meant to serve V3′s role: deconstruction of the nature of the series. It does this in many different ways:

Sequelization: 53 is a ridiculous amount of entries in a franchise and as I’m sure we’re all aware, as the number of entries goes up, the writing quality tends to go down. The Gofer Project story was purposefully meant to be nonsensical because it’s a story in an in-universe franchise that jumped the shark long ago.

A lot of people found it confusing or ridiculous that Shuichi and Kaede would have a romantic connection despite knowing each other barely a few days. That’s also the point; quick romances are a convenient narrative device to establish a means for character growth, followed by fridging her, a bad narrative trope designed to propel Shuichi toward development. Tsumugi even said as much during Chapter 6.

Similarly, Maki’s role in the story and her feelings for Kaito were reminiscent of that as well, with him helping her come out of her shell. 

When you go back, you can see Danganronpa is loaded with references to other series. Tsumugi is an obsessive otaku and went so far as to fill the entire story with deliberate references and callbacks to things she enjoys.

The Monokubs are deliberate references to executive decisions to add more marketable and merchandisable characters as the series drags on.

The fact that there are (supposedly) people willing to sign up for a killing game deconstructs the idea that some in the fandom may have had. That is, actually being in a killing game would not be fun or exciting, but horrific and traumatizing. Most of us wouldn’t be badass detectives or heroes, we’d be scared out of our minds, afraid, and want to find a way out.

Furthermore, Shuichi being repeatedly told that he’s just a fictional character and that his role is to be the protagonist, to go through hardships and come out stronger for the audience’s entertainment pisses him off so much that he wants no part of it. 

The climax is ultimately a deconstruction of what the series is famous for: the battle of hope vs. despair. In-universe, this has been reduced down to a simple narrative where the audience wants the same thing again and again: to see hope win in the end. Because hope keeps winning, the audience keeps wanting more. It’s become so formulaic that the audience doesn’t want to break out of its shell and just wants to see it over and over.

The final PTA against Kiibo is not meant to be an insult to the audience, but a representation of fighting against toxicity and entitlement in the fanbase, especially the ones that don’t want change. It’s not saying “you’re stupid for liking this series,” it’s saying “don’t be like these people.”

And how does the game? An unsatisfying ending that’s so bad that it drives the audience to give up on the show, finally allowing the killing to stop. Tsumugi decides she can’t live in a world without her favorite show and decides to die.

And that brings me to what I think is the ultimate thing that people conflate about the ending: that it’s all fiction, so nothing about it matters. That the entire franchise was fake, so it’s not worth your time.

That’s exactly the opposite of what V3 is trying to say.

First, Tsumugi is a completely unreliable narrator. The kind of person who let fiction consume her entire life, yet she believes it can’t change reality. She’s a liar and a hypocrite, and there’s no way of knowing if anything she says about the outside world is even true. It could be like she says or it might not be.

The fact that they have technology that can remove memories and add fake ones adds an entire dimension of ambiguity to everything she says, especially when you consider how the beginning of the game does not match up with what she says. We have no idea what the kids were really like before the killing game, so why should we believe anything she says?

And how can we be certain of her claims that she just wrote everything as planned? Kokichi and Kaito managed to put together a plan that completely threw her and Monokuma for a loop

Shuichi, Maki, and Himiko ultimately choosing to take the words of Kaede, Kaito, and Tenko to heart, even if they were part of a fictional narrative, is proof that they still had an influence on the trio. They choose to take something meaningful from their experiences regardless of the reality of their situation. And that’s something we all do.

The media we consume has an influence over who we are as people, and it’s part of why so many of us have such strong attachments to works we love. They were often influential in help shape who we are as people now, for good and for ill, and it’s important to take that into account.

V3′s message is that yes, that is important, and that you should read and enjoy stories and fiction, just as long as you don’t let it consume your life. They can influence you and even the world at large, and so it’s our responsibility as writers, artists, and creators to use that influence positively, to use the medium as a way to change the world for the better. That the only way for stale franchises that we’re tired of seeing over and over is to demand change, even if that means walking out on them. That the only way for things to change is for us to take action and demand change.

And by the end, we may not see immediate results, but we can at least work hard at trying to bring them about. V3 ends with Shuichi, Maki, and Himiko facing an uncertain future in a world they really know nothing about, but hopeful that their actions can and will change the world for the better. Real life doesn’t have solid, satisfying conclusions and it always doesn’t play out like a story, but that doesn’t mean you should give up on ever finding something satisfying or hopeful out there.

This, by no means, is me saying that V3 is a flawless story. I can point to numerous critiques that I still think hold water. However, Sanderson’s point is that we shouldn’t criticize a work based on what we wish it was rather than how it is and what it was trying to do.

I know there’s a lot about the story that bothers people, I know there’s a lot that wasn’t polished and a lot that feels uncomfortable and hard to swallow. Like Shuichi, coming out feeling confused, lost, unsure of what to do, but choosing to see merit and things to take to heart even in a story that turned out to be full of lies and uncomfortable truths.

If you didn’t enjoy V3, I wouldn’t force you to enjoy it. If you did love it, then you should love it. These are all just my thoughts on a story that, as time goes on, honestly feels more and more relevant to me.

[davidmann95]

Comics this week (3/10/2021)?

cheerfullynihilistic said: Comics this week (03/10/21)??

adudewholikescomicsandotherstuff said: This week’s comics?

Anonymous said: Comics?

Anonymous said: 3/10 NCBD?

Non-Stop Spider-Man #1: The lead story was fun, the backup was dopey, I’ll give it another issue or two to see where it goes.

The Immortal Hulk #44: While it was too late for this week I’ve taken Hulk off my pull list, so the store won’t order any copies specifically for me and therefore my future purchase of the book won’t support Joe Bennett’s presence, just the store. This issue is typical of some of the books’ weaker installments of the last year or so - feels like well-done regular superhero comics instead of Immortal Hulk - but those last couple pages bring it back around.

Daredevil #28: Holy cow, those King In Black issues actually mattered. God this book is still so fuckin’ good in so many ways, everything every dumbass street-level superhero ‘deconstruction’ wants to be when it grows up.

Children of the Atom #1: Sucks real bad! This weird combo of ‘hip new young Marvel heroes!’ trappings and soulless X-Men lifer comics execution that feels certain to appeal to neither group.

Eternals #3: Of the listed Deviants I imagine I’d relate most to Annoyed Veug.

Commanders in Crisis #6: While I remain without the ability to weigh in on this objectively, this is the issue that to date most feels like it lives up to the promises of the series premiere.

The Wrong Earth: Night & Day #3: Little disappointed personally with the reveal of what the third world is - I assumed it was going to be more of a straight take ‘modern’ version to the other two’s flavors of throwbacks - but this series still rules. And that ending.

Home Sick Pilots #4: Okay, I think I can follow what’s happening at this point, still enjoying it.

Proctor Valley Road #1: I review these books in the order I present them to my dad since he likes DC/Marvel/Other to each be lumped together, but make no mistake: this is the last of the three Morrison books to read this week, because this is what comes next for them. A return to their roots - 70s kids way into music and dealing with the weird, girls adventure stories of the kind they apparently grew up reading - this feels like a refinement of their mid/late-00s Vertigo work in the same way they’ve been iterating on their superhero material for decades. The horror is sold excellently, whether by their own efforts or thanks to cowriter Alex Child this is their most fluid, ‘real’-sounding dialogue perhaps ever, and Franquiz with Bonvillain are instantly among their all-time best collaborators, perfectly capturing the shifting tone and character acting necessary to best put Morrison’s big ideas over in a way a number of their collaborators haven’t lived up to over the years (and speaking of the visuals, Jim Campbell does the lord’s work with that lettering trick near the end). Ritesh Babu and Sean Dillon have a lot more to say about the book and how it already acts as a darker, more honest take on your Stranger Things and the like as a commentary on its times, but I’m already loving to see this particular return down to Earth for Morrison and company and I’m glad to hear this is selling really well compared to their previous indie work.

Dead Dog’s Bite #1: This actually came out last week, but Ritesh recommended it so I figured it might be worth a look. A so far intensely low-key missing persons mystery with a touch of surreality around its edges, this already looks to be the best “look! A nine-panel grid! Fancy!” comic since Mister Miracle, really lived-in and emotional for as little happens in this debut. Very curious where it’s going.

Rorschach #6: I continue to like it.

Batman: Urban Legends #1: Glory be, a good Jason Todd comic - at last, you noble stubborn weirdoes living off of like six nonconsecutive panels all these years, you may lay down your burden. Not all you’d necessarily hope from Zdarsky tackling Gotham after what he’s been doing with Daredevil but rock-solid work regardless; the Harley story is fine, Outsiders is a letdown after Thomas’s shockingly good showing for them in Future State but it’s still fine, and the Grifter stuff is fun.

The Joker #1: I thought the advertised ‘a Joker story from Gordon’s POV’ angle was an interesting one even if I was concerned this book would in practice be pure editorial mandate, but in reality? Tynion has managed to pull the wool over DC’s eyes and do a full-on Jim Gordon book (one predicated with him being off the force to make it reasonably comfortable read in 2021) with Joker as the barest of pretexts to get it out the door and selling for as long as he wants to continue it. He even said in interviews that when the book was first pitched to him that his response was that a Joker solo book was a dumb unworkable idea until he had an idea for a ‘different way to approach it’, he knows exactly what he’s doing and I salute him. And it’s a darn good Gordon book even if the Punchline backup is predictably tepid, I’m in the tank for Gotham’s perpetual whipping boy dealing with weird noir international crime with Joker sort of hanging around in the background menacingly to justify the nominal premise.

Anonymous said: Hey, so I figure one random anon won’t change your mind, but like you I was disappointed by New Frontier’s immortal Wonder Woman, but I still got the new issue of Wonder Woman cause Wonder Woman at Valhalla still sounds great and I actually liked it! I think I’m gonna get at least the next issue, so there’s at least one recommendation for it

Wonder Woman #770: This combined with the store still putting it in my pile prompted me to give it a try after all, and whether because something here clicks better or if they’re simply not trying so hard without the pressure of doing a ‘final’ story for Diana, Cloonan and Conrad do in fact do substantially better on the main book than they did with Immortal Wonder Woman. Some fun, some fights, some mythology and intrigue, gorgeous landscapes and generous servings of beefcake from Travis Moore - this isn’t going to be sweeping the Eisners, but this is as enjoyable as a Wonder Woman comic has been in a good long time. My only concern is that the joyousness on display here might dissipate somewhat once Diana fully returns to herself, but in the meantime this was a very pleasant surprise (especially with the the Young Diana backup by Bellaire, Ganucheau, Goode, and Carey).

Superman #29: PKJ’s Superman thus far has been a story of overcoming initial worries of mine - in this case, my concern that he’d have a bad Scott Snyder-ey case of “if you’ve read the interviews you’ve pretty much already heard the dialogue of the comic verbatim”. In practice here most of what he’s had to say about these issues are distilled down really succinctly and poignantly in the midst of a fun little upper-atmosphere adventure portending something grimmer, and while I know it didn’t click with everyone I thought Phil Hester’s work here was a perfect accompaniment. The Tales of Metropolis backup wasn’t nearly as enjoyable, but hints at some interesting worldbuilding I’m hopeful will pay off in the main run.

The Green Lantern Season Two #12: The final Grant Morrison DC comic. One of two anyway, but if the next story I discuss is their broader final (non-Klaus, hopefully) statement on the superhero subgenre and a bridge to what they’re doing next, this is the one that’s about being The Final Grant Morrison DC Comic. A mélange of pretty much all their other DC finales into a shamelessly self-reflective meditation on the limits of what they can accomplish in shared universe storytelling where Green Lantern saves the universe through collective action and then fucks off to do his own thing elsewhere while the kids take over the ongoings. Weird and kinda perfect, and if nothing else this series took Liam Sharp from “really? This dude is drawing the last ever Morrison DC ongoing?” to “HOLY FUCKING SHIT LIAM SHARP”.

(The panel folks blew up over I think can be read multiple ways, but not in a ‘it’s open to interpretation!’ way so much as the storytelling/framing being unclear. I personally read it as ‘this is what neighbor versus neighbor looks like now’ rather than ‘calling someone a TERF or a Nazi is as bad as anything the other side does’, because oldster and out of touch though they may be I can’t see Morrison seriously saying that, especially after coming out.)

Wonder Woman Earth One Volume 3: At long last, after a hideous misfire kicking the series off and a second installment best described as ‘well, at least it wasn’t the first one’, this while not without elements I want to see femme and nonbinary critics discuss critically lives up to what you want to see out of ‘Grant Morrison’s Wonder Woman’. Big utopian fiction breaking the typical boundaries of superhero stories with aplomb in implicit conversation with a ton of their previous work, a bridge from what they’ve done to what they’re doing next, it’s an imperfect (especially with Paquette’s art, which while gorgeous and majestic in the way this story demands really doesn’t living up to the ‘acting’ necessary here in a way thrown into sharp contrast by Franquiz in PVR) but shockingly passionate statement of intent - if the last two volumes felt like Morrison struggling to have something to say with Wonder Woman in the same way they did with Superman and Batman, this feels at the close like them at last finding in her a way to do everything left with the cape and tights crowd they wanted to but couldn’t manage anywhere else under the Big Two umbrella. Odd and lovely, a fine sendoff.

[rizahawkais]

I LOVED season 1 and 2 of the crown but found season 3 quite dull and difficult to get through. I'm enjoying season 4 (still havent finished bc I watch with my family and we're rarely all together) but I think that the earlier seasons were a lot better in my opinion

hi! i completely agree w you!

I AM SO SORRY FOR THE LATE REPLY! I replied to this the day you sent it but my laptop crashed and I lost everything I wrote so I put off till now!

All in all, the writing for the first two seasons were WAY better. My ranking is s2 > s1 > s4 >>>>> s3. In my opinion, season three was kind of terrible.

hahaha this is so so long.

In the first two seasons each episode’s mini story for the day was actually INTERESTING. Like, I loved where one episode was about the Mountbatten name and then the next was about the Great Smog! But, there was always an overarching plot and it always added up in the end. S1, S2 and S4 all had an overarching plot that worked! S1 was balancing family and the crown. S2 was balancing prime ministers and her husband. S4 was the downfall of Margaret Thatcher and Charles/Diana. S3 LITERALLY HAD NO PLOT! It was just a bunch of stories put together. The finale for season 3 was about the end of Margaret’s marriage! And although, it is an important event in the family’s history the fact that it was the finale episode????

Anyways, Season 3 genuinely just sucks. Season 4 is REALLY good. Yet, it still doesn’t leave as much of an affect on me like the earlier seasons. AND LIKE I KNOW BECAUSE I’VE REWATCHED THE FIRST THREE SEASONS SO MANY TIMES. I’ve only seen the fourth once because I’m too busy and it’s also too early for me to rewatch it. So, maybe my opinion of season 4 will change!

Now, because I am extra 😈😈 and crazy I will talk about every single episode IN ORDER. hehehehehehe. feel free to hate me

SEASON ONE

101 Wolferton Splash - 10/10 this episodes just sets everything up! we see how happy the marriage is and how loving king george is and we also see the FORSHADOWING!! we see lilibet and phillip making their life thinking they had time when we know they don’t and it’s just :( AN AMAZING PILOT EPISODE WITH AMAZING QUOTES!

102 Hyde Park Corner - 1000/10 this episode needs no explanation. the suspense and DRAMA right before lilibet finds out about her dad ALWAYS gets me!!

103 Windsor - 10/10 I hated this episode the first time I watched it! I didn’t understand the importance of her uncle and I didn’t understand the complexity behind the episode. I was 14 when I saw this episode for the first time! So, mind you I was quite ignorant. but, david basically represents the audience in the show for those who hate the monarchy and call them out on their hypocrisy. BUT DAVID IS A TERRIBLE PERSON! FUCK DAVID! i understand hating the monarchy and for him i know it was personal but the way he talks about his family in the letters UGHUGHGUHGUHGUHGUH this man is evil! there’s also the other story in the episode about the mountbatten name which is so brilliant!

104 Act of God - 15/10 this episode was boring on first watch but I WAS FOURTEEN! this episode took a break from the monarchy and concentrated on a british national horrific event THAT WAS IMPORTANT and i liked how it connected throughout the episode and all that and the CINEMATOGRAPHY OMGGGGG! anyways, something that pisses me off about this episode is that the crown kind of has the same kind of audience as euphoria! they only care about a hot actor or iconic character or the aesthetics AND THAT MAKES ME ANGRY! bc those are the ppl who call this episode the boring fog episode and the latest episode of euphoria a waste of time! they don’t understand the importance of what their watching. an event that killed hundreds by something that could have been avoided bc of science and for euphoria an ongoing pandemic of an ugly world and its affect on ppl not wanting to go on! IM SORRY THIS TURNED INTO A RANT but this episode is important in reminding audiences that disasters can be avoided but also once they happen anything can happen THIS WAS A SAD EPISODE OKAY AND I LOVED VENETIA SCOTT!

105 Smoke and Mirrors - 100/10 THE CORONATION EPISODE! Phillip tries to bring it to the common public and all the fighting between them just makes the coronation even more impactful when we watch it!

106 Gelignite - 8/10 I DESPISED MARGARET IN THE FIRST SEASON i saw her as a spoiled brat who wanted to marry her dad’s assistant! AND ALSO HOW DID SHE NOT REALIZE THERE WAS DEFINITE GROOMING INVOLVED! this episode is generally very good but margaret just pisses me off a lot! however, her not being able to marry peter boresend shouldn’t have been because of his divorcee status but bc he simply was a predator in anyone’s clear eyes IM SORRY IF YOU DISAGREE BUT SHE MET HIM SO YOUNG NO WAY THERE WAS NO GROOMING good episode but pissed off at margaret’s lack of critical thinking besides but I WANT HIMMMMM LIKE I WANT EVERYTHING

107 Scientia Potentia Est - 11/10 hated this when i first watched it! but now one of my favorites! lilibet feels dumb and needs a tutor! prime minister and wannabe prime minister have health problems and keep it from her! lilibet finds out by accident and they all get yelled at! I LOVE WHEN SHE YELLS AT MEN!

108 Pride & Joy - 10/10 this episode is just adds on to the overarching plot of the season: balancing the crown and family. margaret says disrespectful things to ppl who don’t deserve it in place of lilibet while she’s on the commonwealth tour fighting with her husband! then lilibet scorns margaret and we see an ugly papa loved me more argument! absolutely brilliant!

109 Assassins - 1000/10 hated it the first time but now I LOVE THIS EPISODE! it’s the painting and porchey episode and churchill leaving episode. It’s so so so good! i honestly have no words to describe the brilliance of this episode besides the acting done by almost the entire main cast CLAIRE WOW! MATT WOW! STEPHEN (THE PAINTER) WOW! JOHN WOW! HARRIET WOW! when we see the painting getting burned coincided w the downing st dinner GETS ME EVERYTIME I LOVE IT SO SO MUCH!

110 Gloriana - 100/10 the climactic fight between the crown and family! which will lilibet choose?? and the foreshadowing to suez MWAH!

SEASON TWO

201 Misadventure - 100/10 LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS EPISODE the cutesy lilibet and phillip until it all goes down WOW! and the suez stuff i love it all

202 A Company of Men - 100/10 this is where i think mike’s wife starts snooping or it’s the next episode BUT THIS IS WHERE SOMETHING BEGINS FOR SURE first of all it foreshadows the episode later in the season about philip’s childhood AND MATT’S ACTING!! it’s too good for words!

203 Lisbon - 100/10 i like it when they fight lol that’s the only way i know how to describe why i love it LILIBET WAS EXCITED TO SEE HIM AND SO WAS HE but then mike ruined it by being a disgraceful and dishonest man RUINING EVERYTHING

204 Beryl - 10/10 i start to like margaret bc i feel bad for her! she’s suffering she’s sad that her lil predator boyfriend is no longer w her but look who it is MATTHEW GOODE! he not suspicious at all but the writers are like here take 20 minutes of perfect chemistry between the actors!

205 Marionettes - 100/10 I LOVE THIS EPISODE basically someone who loves the monarchy insults the monarchy and lilibet actually goes to listen to them! w resistance of course but she still took everything he said to fix the monarchy !

206 Vergangenheit - 1000/10 one of my favorites! i didn’t know about david’s nazi past so when i watched this episode for the first time i was completely baffled! another episode where she yells at a man!!!! i’m always annoyed in this episode tho by all the talk from the priest about forgiveness bc im like why would u want to forgive david for being a nazi?? but i think it was intentional by the writers to show the importance of understanding forgiveness and the grounds for it! THIS EPISODE IS JUST PERFECT IM ANNOYED BC I DON’T WANT TO FORGIVE HIM

207 Matrimonium - 9/10 this episode is amazing BEFORE you’ve seen season three bc you root for margaret and tony! but, also throughout the episode there’s all that tony and family and his gf and bf stuff that you think is going to lead somewhere but doesn’t??? like what was the point of introducing his mother and his relationships if it was going nowhere and not even mentioned in season 3??? LIKE WHAT WAS THE POINT WHAT WAS THE REASON? but, also there’s lilibet and phillip fluff in this episode I LOVE

208 Dear Mrs. Kennedy - 10/10 this episode is fun as an american bc i think jackie kennedy and jfk are so idolized here in america it was so interesting to see this other pov! BUT I ALSO REALLY LOVED LILIBET DANCING W NKRUMAH! I THOUGHT IT WAS SO CUTE AND THE MARTIN CHARTERIS STUFF LEADING UP TO IT WAS SO FUNNY!

209 Paterfamilias - 100000/10 no words. IT WAS SO SMART TO PARALLEL PHILIP AND CHARLES this has a lower rating than the previous episode which makes no sense but only goes to prove the idolization of jackie and jfk

210 Mystery Man - 100/10 EVERYTHING FROM THE FIRST EPISODE IS ADDRESSED IN THIS EPISODE THE SEASON COMES FULL CIRCLE JUST LIKE SEASON ONE DID AND SEASON THREE DID NOT DO THAT AND SEASON FOUR DID IT TOO BUT NO WHERE AS GREATLY

every single episode of seasons two has a 9+ rating from me!

SEASON THREE (worst season)

301 Olding - 5/10 weak starter but good for introducing olivia as lilibet and harold wilson and departing churchill BUT THAT’S IT! like the whole spy thing just went bleh LIKE IT HAD POTENTIAL but it needed early seasons writing not third season writing techniques TOBIAS DID A GREAT JOB THO IN THIS EPISODE HE WAS A GREAT RECAST FOR PHILIP

302 Margaretology - 6/10 okay. just okay. margaret kind of bratty but you actually feel bad for her then she gets bratty again and then you feel bad for her again and the scenarios in the episode just didn’t feel real like the whole lyndon b johnson was so jealous of jfk that he was rude to the queen so they sent margaret JUST DIDN’T MAKE SENSE like i know this show is fictional but the fiction tends to be believable until i research the episode afterwards BUT FOR THIS it just didn’t make sense

303 Aberfan - 1000/10 ONE OF THE GOOD EPISODES OF THE SEASON! those first fifteenish minutes??? TEARS! i never knew about aberfan until this episode and seeing this episode made me cry!

304 Bubbikins - 10000/10 THIS EPISODE IS TECHNICALLY NOT AS GOOD AS THE ABERFAN EPISODE BUT THIS IS A PERSONAL PREFERENCE we meet anne and alice in this episode AND I LOVE BOTH OF THEM (erinsdoherty is my current url!) this episode is so sad and sweet at the same time and loving bc i’m a sucker for philip’s back story!

305 Coup - 8/10 this had potential I FEEL LIKE IF THEY WROTE THIS EPISODE DIFFERENTLY LIKE HOW THEY WROTE ONE OF THE SUEZ EPISODE IT WOULD HAVE BEEN SO MUCH BETTER the fact that it all went to nothing and nothing basically happened WHAT WAS THE POINT

306 Tywysog Cymru - 1000/10 this episode made me like charles! what a horrendous statement! but, like i thought his relationship w his tutor was so heartwarming and he actually seemed to care and all that and it just all in all MADE ME HAPPY like this episode isn’t sad it’s a happy episode until the last scene w lilibet BUT YEA they gave us this one good episode until we hate him which i appreciate makes the story telling better

307 Moondust - -100/10 hate this episode LIKE GENUINELY HATE IT HATE HATE HATE and tbh im generally very very nice w my opinions ANYWAYS I WAS SO EXCITED FOR THIS EPISODE BUT IT WAS SO STUPID LIKE THE ASTRONAUTS BEING ASSHOLES WAS STUPID PHILIP BEING AN ASSHOLE TO THE PRIESTS WAS STUPID LIKE PHILIP IS AN ASSHOLE BUT IT’S BEHIND PEOPLE’S BACKS AND THEN THEY KILLED ALICE OFF SCREEN I HATE THIS EPISODE

308 Dangling Man - -1000/10 HATE THIS ONE TOO this episode convinced me that the writers for the first two seasons to this season has changed all of a sudden we forget that david was basically a nazi and the charles we met two episodes ago sees him as exactly like this uncle who he swore he would be nothing like to the people of wales??? LIKE WHO WROTE THIS THEY WERE DOING CRACK WHILE WRITING THIS EPISODE and i felt NOTHING during the lilibet and david goodbye WHACK EPISODE TERRIBLE JUST BAD TERRIBLE

309 Imbroglio - 5/10 episode started off good but then just went a lil too crazy by making it seem like a whole secret spy mission going behind lilibet’s back

310 Cri de Cour - 4/10 bad just bad HBC GOOD ACTRESS AMAZING ACTRESS given bad material like NONE OF THIS FEELS CONNECTED THIS STORY IS ALL RANDOM AND WE HAD A WHOLE EPISODE ABOUT MARGARET AND TONY AND WE DON’T EVEN MENTION ANY OF THE CRAZY STUFF FROM THE LAST SEASON BUT WE CONCENTRATE ON MARGARET BEING A SUGAR MAMA MAKES SENSE YALL

once again i hate season three

SEASON FOUR

401 Gold Stick- 8/10 written weirdly but had GOOD SCENES such as meeting thatcher and diana! BUT THE SCENE STEALER WAS OBVIOUSLY MOUNTBATTEN’S DEATH AND PHILIP TELLING CHARLES THAT HE BECAME DICKIE’S SON INSTEAD OF HIM SAD STUFF so like the death was sad and dramatic and I FELT BAD but like i shouldn’t bc im south asian and mountbatten did bad stuff to us BUT IT DOESN’T CHANGE THE RIPPLE WE FELT

402 The Balmoral Test - 9/10 funny episode but needed early seasons’ writing

403 Fairytale - 9/10 good episode but needed early seasons’ writing BUT ALSO THAT SCENE BETWEEN CAMILA AND DIANA MWAH CHEF’S KISS THEY BOTH DESERVE ALL THE AWARDS but needed early seasons’ writing

404 Favourites - 7/10 this episode is good but frustrating bc u finally realize how terrible of a mother lilibet is BUT THE ANDREW STUFF WAS GOOD I AM GLAD THEY PUT THAT IN! i liked seeing thatcher’s non-existent relationship w her daughter NEEDED EARLY SEASONS’ WRITING

405 Fagan - 10/10 GOOD EPISODE I LIKE HOW WE WERE EMERSED IN FAGAN’S LIFE AND I LOVE THE ACTOR FOR FAGAN TOO AND I LIKE HOW IT WAS CONNECTED TO THATCHER AND FUELED THE OVERARCHING PLOT OF THE STORY!

406 Terra Nullius - 100/10 GOOD EPISODE CLOSEST TO EARLY SEASONS WRITING THAT’S WHAT MADE IT GOOD seeing them not get along and then get along and then not get along again through a series of montages made the episode brilliant!

407 The Hereditary Principle - 6/10 this episode. how do i explain? the material for this episode was absolutely perfect for the writers of the early seasons! POOR EXECUTION

408 48:1 - 100/10 i like the political episodes more than the family episodes SO THIS EPISODE IS SO BRILLIANT BC OF THE BACK AND FORTH AND I GOT TO SEE CLAIRE!!

409 Avalanche - 7/10 early season writers would have shown the arguing before the avalanche and diana’s reaction JUST SAYING

410 War - 9/10 THIS EPISODE HAD THE YELLING AT EACH OTHER SCENE THAT WAS SO GOOD BUT ANYWAYS THE PROBLEM W THIS EPISODE WAS THAT IT DRAGGED I FEEL LIKE THIS EPISODE AND THE ONE BEFORE SHOULD HAVE BEEN ONE EPISODE TOGETHER

ALAS, what i would like to say is that i feel that season 4 shouldn’t have been so diana centric! it was diana from the beginning of the season to the end! not, that i don’t love the whole diana story but it was dragged and i think she should have been introduced around the third/fourth episode of this season the same way tony was in season two! camilla should have arrived at the beginning of season 4 so that the intensity between camilla, charles and diana was more believable! if we season three wasn’t so spread out they could have had more brilliant episode.

OK HAHA I AM SO SORRY FOR THIS VERY LONG RANT ABOUT THE CROWN PLZ FORGIVE ME! AND IF U READ ALL THIS WOW! IDK WHAT TO SAY I THINK I TALK TOO MUCH HONESTLY :( anyways thank you for talking to me :)

[fatalerror404666]

Just so some posts with

"Your favourite season in Ninjago, your least favourite and etc."

And desided just to write my thoughts about all Ninjago seasons.

So, let's go.

Pilot season

I don't know how someone couldn't love the pilot season. It's the begining of a story. Far far from away in 2011 I really loved it and watch several times, before season one was released. I watched all extra-epesodes and was really enjoyed. I just fall in love with this japanish atmosphere and all ninja stuff (I was really ninja dude). And gosh! There where my love for Garmadon aplears. I was relly the guy who always fall for bad gus charm and all this evil stuff. And now, seeing this brothers' war and the evil one is the oldest, I just can't help but in some way comprehend him to myself, as I am the oldest one among my siblings (or in 2011 I was the oldest among us two, with my sister). Sometimes I felt not understood, strange to my family. So, yeah, I just found a peace of myself in Garmadon

Oh, and his word just get me

"You.... You always was his favourite!"

Did you even here with how much emotions he said it? Like, he is jelous of younger brother was having more love! And the pain! I just can't stop listening this word and feel so much sorrow!

Goooosh! I love this season! And rewatching it as adult is so cool!

Like, yeah! I still love it!

First season

I just remeber one day my brother presented me a CD-disc with the first episode of the first season. Aaaand

I fall in love with lil bean Lloyd. Not because he is cute, more because he was son of Lord Garmadon. And I was really obsessed with Garmadon (still obsessed). So, I just was really waiting for the new series and watch them ongoing. I really really REALLY love first season. I was very glad to see Garm again (and gosh I falled in love with him for the second time, when saw he has four arms). And this series where Garm was rescuing Lloyd with ninjas. I rewatched them really many times. And then when Garmadon destroyed the Great Devouver. I was happy for much Garm time in the season. And all this family stuff :3

Oh, and Zane a robot. It was shock for me and my siblings. I was in love with Zane from the first seasin. And then. Gooosh, I fall in love more. I really like all this robot stuff and was just really happy

Oh! And I remember, how me and my brother were argueing about, who will be the green ninja. As he loved Kai, he said that it would be him. I wss sure, it would be Zane, 'cause he us the smartest, a nindroid and first unlocked his true potential

So, we both were suprised, when it came to be Lloyd. But I wasn't mad. I was excited! Now it means, that he needed to fight his own father! And I saw how both didn't want it to do! And I was already a huge fan of Star Wars, so this battle between good son and evil dad is gets me!

I am still excited of this season and love to rewatch it.

So, Second season

No need to say, I was in love with it like with first seasin. Much Garmatime on screen. Many my presious bean Lloyd. And then they show us Lloyd's mom -- Misako. Here I fall in love with my OTP Garsako.

And I loved that she was finaly with the ninjas and again family stuff!

There were so much of ninjas development and I just love the meaning of some episodes (like the one with leviathan with the meaning, that sometimes monsters not an evil one. They just want to be free. And you can fight evil witjout fighting (again this meaning)). And yeah! The dad and son stuff again, with both don't want to fight, but it's destiny!

Oooh, and my favourite episode now is "The last hope". Just, I love the scene with Garmadon and Misako! And this dialoge

Misako: Then you are not the man I married. I should go...

Garmadon: *panicing* No! *with so much complexed feelings" Don't...

Just that moment is killing me. Even being evik, Garmadon still loves very much his wife. It tells as the scene where Misako enters Garmadon's room (or the place where he was) and he is just suprised and nervous, trying to be confident, but he become nervous, panicing. Gosj, I just love this scene!

And I love the ending, though! I love how Garmadon was trying to fight Overlord from posessing his bode, and how he was cheering up Lloyd for not giving up!

And yhe final battle was really epic!

And I love the scene, after defiting Overlord and Ninjas' reunited. But I don't really like that Garmadon become human and not four-armed.... 'Cause... you know, I just love his evil look (and then I just thought, that it was not very right for him to become human). But I still love the ending anyway.

And of course, I love to rewatch the season!

So, a small conclusion, 'cause that was my first period as NinjaGo fan.

I still love first three seasons and tgey are one of the best for me. I can rewatch them, like all time! Yes, I can see some details, that is not so serious, just due to the fact, that it is kids show. But still the show is great! The story is awesome!

That was my first fandom, my first obsession. And still it is

For a long time, I stopoed watching ninjago and didn't no that it was continueing. I stopped kinda... For three years, I think. And then in 206-2017, I continued watching them, from the beginning till season 6. But I will talk about it in another post, 'cause right now, I am rewatching season 3 and wanna just write my comprehends from what I thought in 2016/17 about it and my thoughts right now. They are chaged a bit :D

[sometimesrosy]

I think madi will survive purely because I don’t think Clarke would ever be okay if she didn’t. She wouldn’t be the same after losing her kid

Well I mean every death has altered her. She hasn’t been the same after each one. Even with Bellamy. You saw who she became when she thought he had died. Was she okay? No. It doesn’t matter. She still continues on.

It’s not about having death and trauma not change her, the entire show is more about coming THROUGH the changes that death wreaks on her character. So I’m not sure that’s enough of a rationalization to put Madi on the safe list. 

That said, Madi’s still one of the safer ones on my deathwatch list. 

YOU KNOW WHAT?

YOU KNOW WHAT???

A thought has just occurred to me. It happened like this: I was thinking about who was safer, and I’ve got Raven and Murphy on my deathwatch list pretty high, but then I thought, oh hey wouldn’t it be a kicker if Miller (and Jackson) survived everything against all odds to be the last delinquent?

And I was like well that could happen. 

And then I was like, well wait a minute. In my first serious Bellarke meta after Hakeldama, I made the prediction that endgame would have Bellarke together. Because this was the main symbolism and represented unity in this universe, which is how they survive. Right? So then I thought:

Well what if the entire series is really about bringing Clarke and Bellamy (symbolically the light and dark of humanity, self and other, head and heart,) together in order to create a new world where all can live in peace and productivity.  And I thought, well yes. That fits. But what if that means to END The 100, we END the story of Clarke and Bellamy. 

What if everyone lives but Clarke and Bellamy? But they die, TOGETHER (they would already be romantically together, so the canon that everyone is searching for.) And I thought, Yes that could happen. 

Did JR not once say how he loved the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet? I believe he did but someone’s going to have to fact check me on that one. Anyone remember?

BUT. And please, this is the part that is freaking amazing, if it happens and there are some hints that it might, both in canon and from JR’s commentary over the years. BUT I am saying that if this is the case and Bellarke die in season 7, they won’t actually be dead.

No. I’ve been saying this for a while, at least all hiatus. Maybe longer. Because I think I first imagined an ending something like this back in the middle of s5. 

I think they’ll be lost in the anomaly saving humanity. I don’t know how or why or in what capacity, but, I’m saying that our heroes, the delinquents, will believe that Clarke and Bellamy are dead, in their final sacrifice for their people. They have NEVER stopped doing that. 

Then, as the delinquents pick up the pieces, sooner or later, they decide to head back to earth to fix the planet or because Sanctum isn’t working for them or whatever Idk. I believe that if the Earth is ignored and discarded in the end of this show, that that will be the biggest hanging narrative thread, because it’s ALWAYS been about getting back to earth and the rebirth of the planet and being responsible for what you’ve done. SO I think we’ll end back on earth.

So Raven packs up all of Earthkru and whoever comes with, and Diyoza leads the prisoners and Gabriel leads the Sanctumites and Octavia leads wonkru, and maybe if Madi is old enough she is the chancellor IDK. MAYBE only 100 people will come with them. That’s a nice round number and in circular storytellling would have us ending The 100, on episode 100 with a new 100 group stepping foot on Earth for the first time. We’re back bitches.

And then. 

AND THEN.

They land on the planet, and find... they are not the last people on earth.

NO! There’s a beautiful society there, just like Kane imagine, and when they meet the people they find out that Bellarke did NOT die in the Anomaly, but were instead portaled back to Earth, where they began a new life, together, taking care of The Earth and tending her recovery. And they either had their own children, or the other survivors on the desert planet collected around them.

Now this would be a hundred or so years in the future about 200 years after the left. Which was the original Pilot stated length of time before the Earth was supposed to be habitable again. So Bellarke would no longer be alive. They would still be dead to earthkru BUT they would have lived a happy peaceful life, just like Monty asked them to do, just like Marper. Perhaps become heroes and famous and even worshipped in their new society (another easter egg, my friends, when they first find Sanctum and saw Becca’s infinity symbol being worshipped, Bellamy said, “well, you can destroy the planet and still be worshipped after you’re gone.” he elbowed Clarke and said, “There’s still hope for us yet.” BITCH THAT IS FORESHADOWING omg. ok breathe.)

You see, JR deliberately told us there would be a happy ever after, the 100 style, for one couple in season 5, and that was Marper. DEATH, but after a full life lived on their terms. JR ALSO told us that the ending of the series would be a happy ending, the 100 style. Which means, we can expect something parallel to what we already got. AND with the blatant mirroring of Bellarke and Marper in the last episode of season 5, to me, that’s clear foreshadowing that the happy ever after ending, The 100 style, will be for Bellarke.

I think that after we lose Bellarke in, maybe the episode before the last, maybe the first half of the last episode, and spend the rest of the first half with Raven getting the new 100 to safety on earth (maybe the revolution on sanctum meant they turn on the freedom bringers, and they can’t stay there, they are back to wandering, a new exodus.) BUT MAYBE the last half of the finale, after the revelation of Bellarke’s Eden village, then flips to Bellarke who has been lost in the Anomaly and ends up on earth.

See from THEIR perspective, while they sacrificed their lives to keep their people alive, they’re the ones how survived, and they’ve lost their family, INCLUDING Madi. To them, it’s their people who died. And we have only BELLLARKE surviving the end of the series. So they create their new society, happy ever after, as a memorial to The 100 and all the people they lost. Never expecting them to even find out that they survived. 

So, like Marper, maybe we get a montage idk, maybe we just end with them starting on their society, having a baby, maybe the first earth survivors stumbling into their haven, or maybe just ending with the two of them, together, standing on the ridge, looking over the valley as the sunflare of a rising dawn flashes around them.

LISTEN. I know no one is going to buy my theory. No one thinks that JR will write a good ending because they’re bitter and disillusioned and listen to people who misinterpreted the show all the way along and don’t like to be proven wrong. 

But I got a hint of an ending like this a long time ago. He SAID he likes bittersweet. He SAID he didn’t know if he was going to give our heroes hope for a better future, or if everyone else was going to get hope but not them. I think he meant Bellarke as his dual protagonists. THIS ending that I laid out first gives us the first one. No hope for Bellarke but salvation for their people. BUT THEN in a twist worthy of Clarke showing up 6 years later happy and healthy after watching her die, we find out Bellarke did survive and got their happy ending, but lost their family (like Marper.) 

There are SO MANY narrative threads that this ending would tie together. Lincoln’s “you’re responsible for your monster when you let it out.” Kane’s dream of a peaceful society. Marper’s instructions for them to do better and live a happy life. The head and the heart. The circular nature of the storytelling. And then there are easter eggs and foreshadowing, like with Raven saying she wanted to take off of a planet just once without it being on fire. Or the Marper/Bellarke parallels. Or that comment of “there’s still hope for us.” Even JR saying it’s not time travel, but saying that it is a portal. And there’s something about Interstellar’s (one of the movies on his viewing/reading list he gave us before s6) weird time/space shenanigans. 

I just. I’ve been thinking about an ending like this for a long time, and while my theories have CHANGED in the details, as they should while the narrative is ongoing, in essence the themes and symbolism and structure has remained the same. I actually thought we’d see something like this at the end of last season, but it’s clear now that 6 and 7 are one story, not two. And there is still movement towards my original theory, although not in the way I thought. I am instead getting new details (like the earth lodges in the background of that shot, and eligius posts about how time is a circle) that help me refine the speculation, but don’t actually make me think I’m wrong.  

[gra-sonas]

Before the Coronavirus, an ongoing quarantine, and the recent economic fallout became front-page news, and a daily worry at the forefront of everyone’s mind, one of the biggest topics causing debate was women’s health, and more specifically the right to have an abortion. The word abortion is seldom ever heard on television, especially not on a major network, and especially not on popular TV. Still, the CW’s Roswell, New Mexico not only says the word, but they also show the main character make the decision and go through with it without regret, and with the support of her family and friends.

Roswell, New Mexico is that type of show. They treat significant subjects like race relations, xenophobia, women’s rights, and sexuality with intelligence and courage in a time when all of those topics are under fire from the highest power in the government. The fact that they do it under the backdrop of a story about literal aliens is just a bonus. On a show with so many deeply complex characters, there is one character whose story has had a significant impact on an entire community. That is the proudly bisexual alien cowboy Michael Guerin, played with nuance and depth by Michael Vlamis.

When it comes to the character of Michael Guerin, it would be so easy to get it wrong. Play him too cavalierly, he would come across as insufferable, too much melodrama, and he would come across as false. But although Michael Vlamis is pretty far from Guerin (they are two different species after all), it’s his willingness to find solidarity, and absorb this character to his very core that allows Guerin to come alive.

The heartbreak permeating Guerin’s story this season just happened to coincide with one painful experience of Michael’s own, and he wasn’t afraid to use that in his character. That’s what makes this performance so unique. As Michael said when chatting with me over the phone while we were both quarantined in our homes, “He has cracks in his armor, and I have always been someone who has cracks in my armor too. I just have to take those cracks and let them show.”

Michael is a surprisingly complex character. When you first see him in the first season, he has this kind of sexy outlaw thing going on, where he’s focused on only looking out for number one. But as the season progresses, he’s sort of stripped of all of his armor. Now in season 2, he’s in a more vulnerable position than ever. Did you know where this character was going to go when you first got it or were you just as surprised as the viewers were? I had no idea, and that was the most fun. I’m the type of actor who enjoys not talking about where my character is going with the writers. I trust the writers, and I know there will be growth, but there is something interesting about reading a script and acting out a scene from just what you already know has happened. Once you know what happens in the future, It’s hard not to play that. It comes across as more believable if you don’t know, and it’s fun to surprise yourself every week and surprise yourself in the moment. Plus, often, when you have that surprising moment, it can sometimes influence where the writers decide to bring the character.

I think a lot of the flashback in Season 1 Episode 6, and how interesting it was to know that Guerin wasn’t always this armored person. He was excited and living for love and planning on going off to college. When we did that episode, the writers did have to communicate what they wanted and tell me to play this character way differently than I had been. It’s been an exciting transition for him, he went from no armor to armor, to no armor and now in Season 2 he’s back in prison and fighting and he’s got the armor back on again.

It’s interesting because, in a way, the relationship drama that Michael is dealing with in season 2 seems like it shouldn’t be as relevant as a lot of the other plot points going on. Still, I think that the way that Michael is portrayed as an openly bisexual character is so unique on television these days, even though it shouldn’t be. It also allows the viewers to see a lot of his vulnerability. Did you feel a responsibility in portraying this aspect of Michael? Yes. When I got into it, I didn’t know a lot about the bi community. I knew about heartbreak and love and loss. In the pilot, I was coming out of heartbreak and channeling that. I just thought of Alex Manes as someone I was in love with and honoring what a strongly committed love that is. I brought that in, and when we did it that way, that was when the LGBT community started reaching out and saying how much I was affecting them with my work. They would dm me and say that my relationship with Alex gave them the confidence to come out. I didn’t realize that responsibility until we started affecting people. I think Tyler Blackburn (who plays Alex Manes) being bi, he knew more of what was going to happen. I hadn’t been on tv before or portrayed anyone who wasn’t straight, so I wasn’t expecting this. Now I know how important it is to continue to take this seriously, and that motivates me.

Tyler is so empathetic, and he has such empathetic eyes, everything I do is just playing off him, the strength of the characters comes from the relationship between the two of us. Without him, I don’t know where I would be. I don’t know if these characters would be as compelling without him.

Roswell is a really special show in the way that it weaves these real-world conflicts of xenophobia and the fear of otherness into a fantastic story about aliens living on earth. Your character represents so many of the difficulties inherent in being someone different. Can you talk about where the show is taking these sorts of conflicts this season, and maybe where they might affect the direction of your character? I think the way they’re taking the show is with the idea that even though we are different, we are also human. Our morals and what we believe in and how we affect others and how we want to be loved is special. Even though we are from another planet, we have the same values. We are so vilified in the flashbacks with the military but, none of the aliens wanted to hurt anyone until they had to defend themselves. What’s important with our show is that we are all one, no matter what your origin is. We can continue to grow to adapt and be better. We shouldn’t be vilified for what someone distantly related to us did.

We are the outcasts, but because of our skin color, no one questions us. Now all of a sudden we are the bad guys because people have found out about this big secret. The most vilified characters are the Ortechas, somewhat because of what happened with Rosa, but also because of race. The racial tension has protected the white people in the community who are also the people that the military is trying to hunt.

What are the ways that you relate to this character? Do you ever take anything from your life and put it into the role? On the same note, does his story ever bleed into yours? That’s all I do in my work. It gets me in trouble, especially now that people are reading my writing. People will be like, “you stole what I said to you.” If it wasn’t said, it wouldn’t matter enough to be shared. The truth is so important. I always find ways to pull from my life. Unlike Michael, I come from a great family. I come from a family who loved me and supported me. My dad was always leaving work early and coming to my games, but he was hard on me, and I felt like perfection was something I was always trying to achieve. As I get older, I realize perfection doesn’t exist. Achieving greatness through your values and being the best you can be, is what matters. When I was a kid, I was overweight, and for a while, I was always getting hurt and going through all these surgeries. Adversity would arise in my life, and then I would have to learn how to deal with it.

With Michael, he feels like things are working so well with Maria, but then Maria finds out he’s an alien, and he’s pushed aside. All of those ebbs and flows of what life throws at you go into the show. I was the fat kid in school, and now I am on the CW, but I remember what it was to be 12 in love, and no one sees you. All of those moments pushed me to be funny as a kid, as a defense mechanism. That’s in me, no matter who the character is, the cracks in the armor are there. I put that into Michael.

One specific thing this year in the show is that I lose Max. in the offseason, I lost a childhood friend while I was with him in person. It was this horrible experience, and it was so weird, and I was sitting there trying to make sense of things, but what made sense was that this guy supported me so much. So I took the feeling of loss and put that into what Guerin feels when Max is gone. In tonight’s episode, I channeled my buddy and made it real. I was haunted this season and maybe even a little too hard on myself, but I wanted to honor my friend. That is a tragic way I incorporate real life into my work. But I’m tipping my hat to my friend. Hopefully, he’s watching and proud.

So, apart from your work as an actor, you are also a producer and a writer. Are you working on anything right now? Does having that diversity of experience make acting easier and vice versa? Definitely. You understand a set, and if I’m producing my own film, I know what goes into that, and if I’m writing for a kid character, I know that they need chaperones and tutors. Being on set shaped me as a writer and producer. Last year, I wrote a film with Kyle [Anderson] about the late rapper Mac Miller called Blue Side Park, And it made the 2019 blacklist of best un-produced scripts. Once that happened, it opened the door for me to do more work. I have a script at McFarlane’s company and another tv show, where Dan Lagana is the showrunner. Having these projects moving has been keeping me busy. We’re getting close. Now I’m writing my next movie, which was initially going to be a thriller, but during the quarantine, it’s been hard to write this dark story, so we (my writing partner and I) made it into a comedy. I produced my first film last year that won the best ensemble cast at the LA indie film fest, called 5 Years Apart. My roommate co-wrote and directed that, and we’re getting distribution. I’m staying busy.

~ Euphoria

[popculturebuffet]

Reviewcaps: Mega Man: Fully Charged (BOOM!) #1

After 5 long years the Blue Bomber returns to comics and to the Fully Charged Universe! Things get a lot more grim as Aki grapples with a new robot army under actual robots, his buried past, and the fact Mega Mini is still around for some reason. Cracked skulls and dead cells under the cut. 

So i’m a huge mega man fan. I haven’t really talked about video games here because this is my first video game adaptation, but yeah, I love em and Capcom’s vast and awesome franchise of robots and humanoids in blue, and in one case red, is one of my faviorites. From children blowing up tons of robots from a balding man who dosen’t get the hint already, to the pacifist soldier forced to fight in a war against robot whales, buffalo, mammoths, and other bizzare robot animals, to his best friend who has amnesia for some reason fighting more robot animals because capcom ran out, to his human sucessors wearing him like a hat, to some guy who turns out to be a war machine I haven’t played yet because I haven’t gotten the chance to and is the only part of the franchise I haven’t, to another universe where he’s the ai versoin of a dead child whose now a teenager mentally, to that ai’s sucessor a shy child whose dad was kidnapped by a space monster and fuses reguarly with a much cooler space monster. What i’m saying Is I deeply love this franchise, this franchise is complicated iwth all the branches, and it’s also full of lovely nonsense. 

So naturally with that many versions and a decades long history Mega Man’s had a healthy life in one of my other faviorite meddieums: Comics. Over in his home country of Japan Mega Man’s had tons of Manga: The biggest and one of the few to make it here is Mega Man Megamix, a bunch of stories that, after the first two adapted the first two games in their own rough way, took place after each of the various games, and is pretty damn good. Others off the top of my head include a Mega Man x adaptation where X dates a mermaid, a weird mega man zero adaptation, and a longrunning adaptation of Mega Man Battle Network, all ones I need to read. 

Even Brazil had a Mega Man Manga... which I need to cover too.. less because it’s actually good or notable, and more because it’s BATSHIT INSANE, and you can read about it here. But the cliffs notes: Roll is an adult woman who goes around naked half hte time and is the most importnat character, X is master roshi with all the restraint and panty snatching that implies, and ther’es a character that one writer tried to have kill everyone and take over the comic.. yes really. I go most of this .l from that page but it’s documented on various wikis that this did actually happen. Just.. why. All of it.  Meanwhile in the US.. we didn’t get that many. No nintendo power adaptations despite being a huge franchise, no horrible malibu comics like street fighter got. There was one attempt by Dreamwave comics in the early 2000′s a series that only lasted 5 issues, and had mega man trying to go to school and some intresting if loose takes ont he franchise.. but the company bottomed out due to horirble mismanagment soon after and mega man sat ont he shelf for a while until the early 2010′s. At a time when Capcom had given up on the franchise, which has thankfully changed dramatically with the release of 11 and the various mega collections, they still gave the liscence to Archie comics, who, wanting some more of that sweet money they were getting off of sonic, gladly took the lisence and gave it to  Sonic Scribe and easily the best one the comic had during it’s long run, Ian Flynn, who set about adapting mega man from day 1, while incorperating nods and call forwards to the various other versions of the blue bomber, and adding his own nice touches. What i’ve read is really damn good and it’s a shame it got cut off right before the adaptation for mega man 4. I’m only being so brief as .. I intend to cover it like i’ve been saying. I love the character, Flynn’s comic was one of the best versions of him bar none, and I could use more comics content on here too. It’s a win win, smiles all around.  But yeah sadly Archie lost intrest in doing non-Archie stuff, with the Archie Horror Line proving a sucess and a reboot on the horizon. While I do LOVE Archie Comics, this edotiral decision still leaves a bad taste in my mouth and left fans without any mega man till 11 came out and any comics till this year, when the rights apparently lapsed and Boom! Studios, home of such great comics as the mighty morphing power rangers ongoing and JOhn Allison’s wonderful Giant Days, swept it up. Hopefully Boom! will reprint the archie comics eventually, but until then they decided to do a softish reboot of another version of the franchise, another one that like Archie had been given a raw deal.. but unlike Archie had issues: Mega Man; Fully Charged

While most of you probably know this as a refrsher Mega Man: Fully Charged was a cartoon from a few years back, a CGI adatpation of the games in an attempt to get in on that market by Ben 10 and Generator Rex maestro’s Man of Action. Like the Dreamwave comics it followed Mega Man, now Aki LIght as he went to school, did school stuff, and also fought rouge robots after school with secret powers he unlocked before the pilot and were never elaborated on in show.  The show kept Dr. Light, Mega Man’s creator and dad, and his dog Rush who while at first looking nothing like the games was later upgraded to resemble his game counterpart more from what i’ve heard and what’s present in this comic. Replacing Mega’s sister Roll, as his real name was Rock because the Mega Man staff loved musical puns, was Suna.. whos basically the same character but human and with an entirely diffrent design.  The show also, for whatever fucking reason, added... Mega Mini.. a tiny robot with a brooklyn accent who lived inside Aki, Mega Man’s regular name in this series which i’m fine with as while I do lik ehim going by Rock, I get that’s not really a name. Mini also manages his powers, makes stupid jokes and makes me pray for death but death won’t come. As you can tell I hate the little bugger from the handful of episodes i’ve watched. Rounding out our main heroes is Aki’s best friend Bert Wily, whose likely related to the canon wily and is your standard dorky best friend, but his roll as an inventor does come in handy since Mega hasn’t told his dad he’s a superhero, though it’s revealed in the end that he knows.. I did do my homework, even if i’ve only seen a handful of the series. More on that in a minute.  Opposing Mega Man were various robots from the games, adapted with varying degrees of design, from the good. 

To the okay if a bit weird. 

To the how the fuck is this airman. This is airman

Really good basic design. This is what fully charged calls airman, 

Why.. why not just make him Wind Man. He looks more like Wind Man.. why did ... I can bitch about this later when I cover the series, which, yes AGAIN I intend to. BUt seriously he has an awesome looking fan for a face. How do you screw that up. 

Behind the robot masters was Sgt. Night. See in a nice twist, and one of the things I like about the series, the world of Fully Charaged already had the kind of robot on human war that would plauge the main mega man timeline for centuries in the backstory, with LIght and Night being vetrans. Night being a racisit moron, wanted to keep robots apart and set up a false flag operation do do so as Commander Night. He however.. wasn’t a compelling vilian and apparnetly dosen’t really get better, not having any depth to his operations or actoins and his basic plan turns out to be, thank you research, to wipe all robots minds to be subservient.. he’s just.. bland compared to wily who while not complex in his motives, he just wants to take over the world, still has style and in some cases,real thought to his plans. Sure the vast majority are “blame it on someone else” but in a LOT of those cases, there’s still thorught and effort put into who he’s blaming to take doubt away from him. IN universe at least.  Helping night, is Namagem... yes Mega Man..spelled backwards and this series protoman, but hte character suprisingly DOES sound intresting... he just has one of the worst names in human history. Like my god, in god we trust why not just use proto man. the Character is basically proto man, with the interesting backstory of night kidnapping him, and apparently the series gets loads better once he arrives, so i’m not going to be too hard on the name, as the writers were likely stuck with it.    But as i’ve made apparent.. I haven’t watched much of the series. I do want to watch it all and i’m aware the second half is much better, but when trying to binge watch it at a friends house I only got about halfway through season 1, and then just forgot to keep going. And the series does have good pieces: a compelling background of a brutal war, mysteries to unlock, and a steady supply of new villians via the games long history and the series own original, and honestly intresting sounding and looking, robot masters... but it stapled all this to a “cocky hero fights vilians” every week setup we’ve seen a million times and didn’t grab me, but the intresting worldbuildnig and original bits do have me wanting to give it another try so look forward to that.  And with all the intresting bits i was truly invested to see a comic make more out of this part of the franchise,a nd was utterly excited, as it could be what the series could’ve been with less hampering by the various parties involved, as fully charged felt like it had a lot of executive madates slapped on. So free of those and free to be whatever it wants with Joe Kelly advising, what has fully charged become? let’s take a look. 

We Open 6 months after the series with the comic helpfully catching us via news broadcast.. and the art being moody with washed out colors the tone having done a 180. Seriously it is kind of weird for this unvierse to go from early generator rex, a dark backstory with a bizzarely cheery tone to full on Blade Runner or to put it in mega man terms, The Megas. Seriously the breif bit of silicon city we see , the constant rain as a mysteroius figure whose revealed at the end of the next page to be Namagem.. I expect that a pretty hologram in a raincoat is going to pop up next to him any moment... what I can pick which blade runner I want to refrence. Shoo. 

Anyways a broadcast debate between a human reporter and her robot coanchor , ron roburgundy as I will call him, fills us in on exposition, while Mega Man himself narrators like this is a noir.. again i’m half expecting harrison ford to show up. Aki muses about how the city, HIS CITY, almost fell.. oh god is frank miller writing this? Are we going to get a middle schooler talking about how much he wants to make love to a city because no one wants that.  Anyways, we get expostion, both for anyone who hadn’t watched the series to give us the cliff notes, and to also catch up returning fans on what they missed. I like it, despite not having watched fully charged to the end, or known exactly what happened until research, this fills it in nicely: At the end of season 1, as I explained earlier Night was arrested, and is thankfully not a part of it nor is his foghorn leghorn attempt at a southren accent. However the remaning Robot Masters are still rioting and a new army of them has started a legit revolution, vandalizing the good guild, which still has that name for some reason despite the tone shift, who are about as compitent as the name implies. Here’s file footage of them fighting Pharoah Man. 

Anyways Dr. Light is going to negotiate peace and as I mentoned earlier nams is watching with a glare on his face. And yeah I .. I can’t keep calling him Namagem. That name is just bad and whoever came up with it is one of the biggest morons in marketing history as is whoever decided to force the poor creative team to use it. However while he is Protoman in ways.. it just dosen’t fit. The two were made together in this unvierse, maybe we’ll see as this comic fills in the blanks, and furthermore he’s a bit of protoman and bass.. and since protobass sounds stupid, and blues dosen’t work without the theme naming.. i’m going with Breakman, protoman’s disgusie from 3. With the heavy scaring, broken past and general state of him it just.. fits and HOPEFULLY the comic will give him a full on rename. If it does i’ll go with that but for now I just want to keep from slamming my head into a keyboard every time I have to type out NAMAGEM... excuse me. 

hgfjnhnghbjnh

That’s better. Okay so moving on from my new headache, we cut to the desert where the good guild, which is somehow even worse than Breakman’s actual name, are escorting light to a bunker in the desert, where the robots outside tell light to leave the good guild inside. Just as well he’d be better protected with a paper mache sword anda  note telling them to go away. 

Naturally, not long inside the robot masters leader forces light to bow and handcuffs him, before revealing himself. 

Skull Man. Who looks really badass in this thought, the skulls themed scrap throne, his regal posture and his speeches about how he feels that the only way things will be right, and settled is not by the fragile peace silicon city has but by humans beneath his rather sizable boots. And honestly.. he was a good choice for the main robot antagonist: Skull Man’s always had a cool look to him and most versions of him have been pretty cool, and the Megas gave him one hell of a theme song. If you haven’t heard of htem the Megas are an indie rock band that do reworkings of the various songs from mega man games, at the time of this recording a full album for 2, two full albums for 3, an ep for 1, and scattered other songs since the second 3 album, with plans to do their next full album on mega man x. Each of the stage themes for the robot masters is from the prosepctive of one of them and are really damn good and I’d recommend thema nd skullman’s.. really fits him here. take a listen. 

But yeah Skull Man feels like a good choice for a menacing revolutionary, as well as a former combat robot as he himself was apparently in the hard wars. He honestly reminds me a lot of more than meets the eye megatron in flashbacks.. just good stuff. But being in the wars, he’s naturally not too fond of repetant vetran light and plans to kill him as an example. Light however.. isn’t an idiot.. a good man who seeks to do his best, who came in good faith.. but just in case he put some sort of device under his skin and presses it, signaling his son to come save his ass. And thus he does come ...

And one of skullman’s minons mistakes him for a bomb.. which light clarifies i’ts a BLUE BOMBER. To skullman’s credit his response is to just order them to go full throttle showing no panic as Mega Man makes his entrance. 

Light thanks him by.. asking what took him so long.. when his son, whose a middle schooler mind you, had to fight through a bunch of armed assholes to get in here most likely. Mini shows up to my annoyance.. though credit where it’s do his zinger of what took so long “some birds, a plane, some guy in a cape” is actually.. really funny. I question why they kept him at ALL, but hey, at least he’s less grating and isn’t around long.. more on that in a minute. 

A really well drawn action scene insues.. while the expressions vary for this comic, I will give the fight scnee, I will give the artist credit for having fluid motion and nice pops of color, most things are kind of blendy into the background other than major character but the color pops where it should.. not exactly my style but it works okay. In a nice change of his character though, Aki offers to spare the various robots there of a fight and possible death, as while he already attacked them it was in self defense.  And while it is a 180 from the show.. it’s not only a welcome change as it’s closer to the games canon and a more intersting personality.. it also still works. Aki went through a LOT at the end of season 1: while he did win, he found out he had a brother, his dad knew who he was but was never honest with him about it and also likely knows where his power came from but hasn’t told him, and has had to deal with 6 months worth of rioting where he’s unsure what side he’s on, machine like he is or man like his family. He’s trying to find the right ballance; be the hero his city needs.. but be the man he needs to be, one who will spare his enemies and won’t fight unless he needs to, for the good fo everyone, His friends, his family, everyone in the city who deserves to sleep soundly. And he’s also starting to wonder, via narration of course, if he’s a hero.. or even a kid.. or a weapon> Which again while a bit of a shift from the series again makes sense: he’s a middle school aged boy who started this jsut fighting random assholes and some idiot racist who was transparently evil and had selfish goals.. now he’s fighting against a revolution who MIGHT have a point. While Silcion city seemd fine and equal.. there wer eplenty of idiot swilling to listen to night. As the real world has proven over the last few months, just because things have gotten better, dosen’t mean that things are 100% or that prejudice is just gone. He’s a 12 year old asked to take a stand in a messy conflict that lead to war in the past with his father offering no answers and growing colder. While I thought his angst was  bit overblown on first reading the more I think about it the more it fits. 

Anyways Mega makes short work of the skull squad after they refuse to back down, but while Mega Man’s ready to ghost.. Skull Man’s not done and drills into mega man’s head... and reveals something. Flashbacks. 

But yeah, Skull Man’s either implanted or restored some memory of Aki fighting in the hard wars.. right alongside dr. light.. with a drill because science. DR. Light then gets REALLY badass, breaking out of the robot restraining him’s grip before fucking UPERCUTTING Skull Man.. jesus christ, Dr.Light clearly traded his empathy for miraclo pills holy balls.  Rush helps him escape and take Aki with him but skull man’s confident, he lost the battle but won Mega’s mind.  On the way home Mega Man tells dr.light what he saw and isn’t sure if it’s the past the future or something else but Dr.Light assures him..

Even though his eyes give away he’s clearly hiding something. Also I haven’t mentioned it yet but Dr.Light looks like santa in this sisue, red shirt, blue pants, big white beard. Just.. why though. Just put him in a suit or something. Also Mini crawls out of Mega’s head and passes out due to the memory restoration.. a nice way to write him out while still giving it weight since while the audience is presumibly cheering his long overdue demise, he is aki’s friend.. why I have no idea but he is.  Back at the lighthouse, the light’s home and home base, which is admitely a really good alternate name for light labs and a better one in my opinon. Light brushes off Suna, telling her to go to bed and avoiding telling her anything. Yeahhh.. while it could be the pressure of the situation I really dont’ like dr.light’s characterization before. Fully Charged, outside of the whole secret identity thing which at least was expalined as Aki not knowing if his dad would let him continue as mega man if he knew, though it extended clearly past the point he was clearly supporting mega man’s actions so I dunno. But he was a compationste scientest, deeply ashamed of his past in the war and wanting to make peace, he was done really well and peformed well by gary chalk. Here? He’s a dick who clearly did something terrible in the past and treats his kids like crap. It’s okay to be suspcious of him given the flashback but he’s given us no reason to like him or want to hear his side eventually, and hopefully that changes. 

Suna talks to Aki who tells her what happened and both side give out good arguments; Suna points out she reallyc an’t trust what some creepy asshole put in his head, as Skull Man could just want to brainwash him.. but Aki counters easily and quietly: How’s he supposed to know what’s real if his dad won’t tell him anything? He took months to tell Aki he knew about his alter ego, and even before his id came out avoided talking about the hard war, which hasn’t changed. He vows to find out though, and Suna naturally is helpful, pointing out there’s more people to ask and since she actually pays attention in school she knwos just who.. Dr. Wily. Yup he’s finally here. dun dun dun. We then close as Breakman watches and tells his brother he can’t stop what’s started. And we’re out.  Mega Final Thoughts: This was a decent issue, doing a fair job of bringing in new readers, and the art was decent and matched the tone.. which If elt was a bit too bleak at times. Better than say a Zack Snyder film at least, but still a bit too close to that form of edgelord for my case. That said it opens up some intresting mysteries and has me at least willing to give it another shot next month and was a solid opener, which while not having the best charcterzation for dr light, vastly improved Aki and Suna’s while giving us a far more intersting villian in Skull Man. If this holds, we’ll see. But until then I plan to cover more mega man comics, as well as my continued weekly coverage of amphibia. Until I see you again, stay safe, wear a mask and later days

[hopefulfestivaltastemaker]

September 13, 2020

My weekly roundup of things I am working on. Topics include wildfires, exotic energy sources, speculative energy sources, the Biden housing plan, and creative outlets.

Wildfires in Oregon

Oregon, along with the rest of the West Coast, has been in the news for devastating wildfires that are still ongoing. This is certainly the worst I have experienced, much worse that the 2017 fires in California. Both Oregon and California are having their worst seasons on record.

In Oregon, it started last Monday, when a strong (and unseasonably early) east wind came over an already dry state, drying the air further and spreading fires rapidly. The Portland metro area experienced sporadic bad air quality on Monday and Tuesday, and it has been consistently bad since Wednesday. Today is no noticeable improvement. The weather forecast is for clouds on Monday and some rain on Tuesday, which should finally bring about some improvement.

So far there have been dozens of deaths in the West and several dozen more people unaccounted for and significant property damage. My guess is that most of the damage will be harder to see: the impact of the poor air quality on people who are already vulnerable. These events bring about yet more disruption in a region that has already been reeling from the pandemic, economic hardship, and civil unrest.

I made a facetious remark on Twitter about solar radiation management, but I really have been struck at how much the weather has cooled down. The temperature is at least 20 degrees (F) cooler than it should have been, due to soot particles reflecting sunlight. In my neighborhood, the light-sensitive streetlights are on during the day. I can look directly at the Sun without hurting my eyes. Needless to say, I will need to be convinced that any solar radiation management scheme will not significantly harm air quality before I will believe it’s a good idea.

If anyone is actually reading this, I would implore you not to use the fires merely as a talking point for your pet climate policy. This is something that irritates me greatly. In the immediate term, we need relief and a stronger firefighting force. In the medium term, we need better forest management practices. Greenhouse gas mitigation helps only marginally in the long term. Don’t try to tell me that building a bike lane in New York City is the solution we in the West are looking for. Once the fires are extinguished, most climate activists will lose interest in our land use needs and move on to the next disaster.

Exotic Energy Sources

This week I added an Exotic Energy section to Urban Cruise Ship. I had been considering this for a long time, and I went ahead and did it mainly because I have been stuck on some harder projects and wanted to do something relatively easy. There are no graphics planned, as I don’t see the topic as important enough to justify assigning more work to our graphics guy, but there are a few interesting things.

One recurring scheme is various ways to capture piezoelectricity, which is generated through pressure on a surface, such as when people walk over a plate or cars drive over it. One study in Australia found that with more advanced generators, an educational building at Macquarie University might recover 0.5% of its electricity usage by installing generators at high traffic points. With technology that was current at the time of the study, it’s probably more like 0.06%.

As for roadways, I cited several studies that report levelized costs of electricity in the range of multiple dollars per kilowatt-hour (wholesale prices tend to be in the range of 3-6 cents/kWh and retail on the order of 10 cents). The exception was a California study that reported 8-20 cents/kWh, which as far as I can tell is just an uncritical repetition of claims from the vendor. Also not discussed is the fact the source of energy is kinetic energy from cars, so unless the car is braking, the generators are stealing energy from motorists. We might as well be using diesel generators then.

If I were to make a guess, the pilot project is little more than California burning several million dollars on a patently unworkable scheme because of some marketing by a shady vendor. I’m all for trying bold ideas that are not guaranteed to succeed, but one must draw the line at ideas that clearly won’t succeed or where basic feasibility questions haven’t even been asked.

Biomechanical energy harvesting is an idea that got a bit of hype a few years ago, but now few people seem to still be interested. Making some extremely generous assumptions, I estimated that it would have a theoretical of about 1 exajoule per year, or about 0.2% of primary energy supply. More medium-case assumptions would cut that by at least a factor of five. Plus that doesn’t account for extra exertion required by the person or embodied energy in the devices.

There are probably some niche use cases for piezoelectric generators and biomechanical systems, such as low power distributed sensors and personal electronics respectively.

I even commented on the power from rainfall paper earlier in the year, an idea too silly to take seriously.

Speculative Energy Sources

But even with the above we’re not done. I decided to venture into the realm of speculative physics.

In quantum physics, even a system with zero temperature must have some latent energy due to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. This has been termed the zero point. So naturally that leads people to speculate that zero point energy could be harvested for useful purposes. The near-consensus seems to be that this is impossible, that it must violate thermodynamics somehow, though I found it surprisingly difficult to find a rigorous explanation of why this is the case. This paper from 2019 is all I found, and even then, it only rules out two of three proposed ZPE extraction methods based on thermodynamic principles. Incidentally, the authors hold a patent on the third method and claim there is inconclusive evidence that it works.

Additionally, there is the NASA Eagleworks project to use the quantum vacuum to develop a spacecraft that can operate without onboard propellant.

There is a lot of interesting physics here that I don’t understand. I was expecting to write a short, dismissive comment for the website, but it would seem that ZPE is a legitimate area of scientific research. Maybe this will actually work for energy production someday. But there is no solid evidence yet, and any claims of a currently working ZPE device can be safely rejected.

Some other ideas that pop up, based in speculative physics, including hydrinos, neutrinos, quark fusion, and the ever popular perpetual motion machine. At least neutrinos and quark fusion are legitimate physics, but as far as useful energy production goes, these are all pathological ideas. I’ll add more as I see them. I briefly covered cold fusion a while ago on the Fusion page.

I expect that when the site is finally done, of the many things people could fairly accuse me of, not being comprehensive will not be one of them.

The Biden Housing Plan

Evidently I am a few weeks late, but the Biden-Harris campaign has a housing plan. The tl;dr is that there might be a few good things here, but I’m not too impressed.

When it comes to housing affordability, the principle I’ve tried to reiterate over and over again is that it comes down to supply. If there are 1,000,000 people who want to live in a city with a zoned capacity for 800,000, then 200,000 people will not be able to live there. It doesn’t matter if you impose rent control, eviction moratoria, inclusionary zoning rules, offer Section 8 or other subsidies, or whatever. As long as the supply is fixed, all these do is change the rationing mechanism from price to something else. Which, it must be acknowledged, is often the intent.

Traditionally, the federal government has a limited role in zoning. That could change of course; the federal government today has major roles in many areas where it previously had a limited or no role. As it is now, I see two plausible hooks for federal involvement in the near term. The first is the Fair Housing Act, where it can be argued fairly convincingly that zoning rules have disparate impact on protected groups, and in some cases intentional impact; and the second is to tie zoning reform to federal Community Development Block Grants or transportation funding, where reform is a matter of insuring that federal spending is actually used effectively.

The Biden plan calls for reinstatement of the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule, which while imperfect, I think is better than what the Trump Administration decided to go with, which is nothing. As for the second, I momentarily got my hopes up when I saw that they were promoting legislation to do just that. But upon reading the details of the HOME Act (which was introduced last year but I was unfamiliar with until now), I see that the list of measures the bill calls for to promote “inclusive land use” are wide-ranging, and only some of them can reasonably be expected to increase the housing supply. It could be a good piece of legislation, but much rides on the implementation. Zoning reform advocates at the state level routinely underestimate the creativity that municipalities will show in evading the intent of their laws.

Anyway, there is a lot of other stuff here on racial discrimination, energy efficiency, and the Davis-Bacon Act (which probably makes housing less affordable by running up construction costs), but I won’t belabor the issues. All in all, it’s a plan that reflects the set Democratic interests pretty well, has a lot of stuff in it, and would do little to achieve broad-based housing affordability.

Creative Outlets

Like many people, I have been continuing to struggle with a variety of stressful circumstances. I took more time than usual this week on some creative projects, which has helped.

The newest one I am calling Project Epsilon, which for now is a maze generator. I’ve long had a fascination with generative content, and I would like to see how far the concept can be taken, but for now it is really just for fun. It is not deployed, but someone knowledgeable with Python and Flask in particular can download and run it fairly easily. Not that there is much to see yet. All it does it let the user input a few parameters and make a maze.

The other is Repair the Cosmos, which is deployed but hasn’t been updated publicly in a long time, despite considerable local activity. This is an incremental game that is meant to tell the story of humanity from the Paleolithic to the far future. I started it in January and have been working very intermittently since then, but I finally have a burst of creativity going for the first time in months. I still expect at least a few weeks before the next update, and I can only go for so long before I start feeling guilty about not doing real work.

[bibhabmishra]

10 Movies to Watch with Your Daughter and Teach Her She Can Change the World

These movies send motivational messages to young ladies all over the place.

With Netflix, Hulu and everything in the middle of, there's an abundance of motion pictures for families to watch with each other—yet there are a chosen few that guardians should assuredly plunk down to see with their girls.

Some are works of art and some are later, yet the one thing the 10 motion pictures on this rundown all share for all intents and purpose is that they instruct young ladies that, with steadiness and regard for both themselves as well as other people, they can change the world.

1. Moana

In addition to the fact that Moana boasts the most karaoke-commendable soundtrack, but on the other hand it's apparently one of the most women's activist Disney films in Disney history. It's the narrative of a bold 16-year-old who is acutely inquisitive about the world past the reef, much not at all like those on her island who've become careless. At the point when the island starts to gradually pass on, she heads out on an intense crucial secure her kin while wrangling mythical being Maui (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, no less) to direct her on an activity pressed journey to cross the untamed sea and return a stone he'd taken that would spare mankind. Moana offers rest from the customary Disney account in light of the fact that at its middle is a valiant lady of shading whose story has nothing to do with finding a sovereign yet, rather, a ton to do with insubordination and autonomy. It's intersectional third-wave woman's rights in a child's motion picture.

Maui and Moana Meeting

Moana

There's no sovereign or romantic tale right now—and that is reviving.

R/R

2. Marvel Woman

Lady Gadot's interpretation of Wonder Woman tells the story of Diana, an Amazonian warrior who understands her maximum capacity when she embarks to battle for what she has confidence in, notwithstanding that leaving her island is verboten. A lot to her mom's consternation, she begins preparing youthful—and she develops into the most proficient warrior of her property. In the wake of sparing a pilot who crashes close by and discovering that the outside world is racked by struggle, Diana escapes home to battle for the individuals. Persevering in her quest for harmony, she is persuaded she can discover Ares, the God of War, and spare the world. It's an engaging story of one lady's responsibility to a reason, her perseverance and her inward and external quality that, at last, changes the world.

Miracle Woman

Miracle Woman

The Amazons were genuine! Subsequent to watching this motion picture everybody feels like a superhuman.

R/R

3. Recollect the Titans

Recollect the Titans may be one of the most particularly American movies out there—it's about interracial cooperation during a period of exacerbated racial strain. What's more, it depends on the genuine story of the 1971 Virginia state football champions from T.C. Williams High School. The neighborhood educational committee had to coordinate an all-dark school with an all-white school, and the very establishment of football's convention was put to a definitive test when clogged pore mentor, Herman Boone, was contracted to lead the group. Highly contrasting colleagues much of the time conflicted in racially spurred clashes, however after thorough rushes to the Gettysburg burial ground and an inspirational discourse on regard, the group accomplishes racial amicability and, together, an undefeated season as well. Their encounters demonstrate that achievement comes when we regard each other and work together, reasonably.

Recall the Titans

Recall the Titans

Two words: Interracial cooperation.

R/R

4. Solidified

Solidified is the story of a women's activist, Anna, whose realm is caught in an unending winter when her sister, Elsa, throws a frigid spell. Anna collaborates with mountain dweller Kristoff and his reindeer to discover Elsa, break the spell and spare the realm, doing combating mysterious trolls and unforgiving conditions en route. In any case, when Elsa inadvertently freezes Anna's heart, as well, the main fix to spare her is a demonstration of genuine romance. From the outset she thinks a kiss from her smash, Prince Hans, could restore her, yet he ends up being both manipulative and deadly. In trust plot-contort design, the demonstration of adoration that at last spares Anna is bouncing before Hans' sword when he attempts to kill Elsa. Anna needn't bother with a sovereign; it's the genuine romance between sisters that spares them both and the realm.

Solidified

Solidified

This film pick is especially charming in the event that you have two young ladies.

R/R

5. Wild

This true to life experience dramatization depends on Cheryl Strayed's 2012 journal Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail. Reese Witherspoon, who plays Strayed, leaves Minneapolis, MN to climb 1,100 miles of the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail on an excursion of self-revelation and mending following an ongoing separation. She has no climbing experience, so the 94-day excursion to the Bridge of the Gods on the Columbia River among Oregon and Washington is brimming with important experiences, difficulties and triumphs that both truly and genuinely fortify her. It demonstrates that a lady can make it all alone, without relying upon any other individual.

Wild

Wild

She does everything all alone.

R/R

6. Matilda

This 1996 adjustment of a Roald Dahl work is about a talented young lady compelled to endure unrefined guardians and a domineering jerk of a school head, Agatha Trunchbull. Be that as it may, Matilda Wormwood is a wonder with the intensity of supernatural power and, when she understands her forces, she guards herself and her companions from the rage of Trunchbull. Matilda's name alone is a Germanic Gothic inference of the words quality and fight, and she's evidence that "battling like a young lady" signifies battling like a virtuoso.

Matilda

Matilda

She wants to peruse, confronts menaces and can make things fly.

R/R

7. The Bad News Bears

The Bad News Bears, a 1976 American games satire film, is to a great extent about how one young lady takes a young men's baseball crew from sad to stopless. Morris Buttermaker, a profane previous small time baseball player and a heavy drinker, is placed responsible for the Bears baseball crew at the command of legal advisor councilman Bob Whitewood, who has a feud against the class for barring his possibly skilled child. Be that as it may, the Bears is made out of a lot of mavericks who can't dominate a match ... until Buttermaker enrolls pitcher Amanda Whurlitzer, who has a serious arm. Out of nowhere, the group begins turning their losing streak around and everybody understands that anything young men can do, young ladies can do as well (and frequently far superior).

The Bad News Bears

The Bad News Bears

They all ought to figure out how to "play like a young lady."

R/R

8. Rudy

Rudy is a 1993 American true to life sports film about the life of Daniel "Rudy" Ruettiger, who harbors fantasies about playing football at the University of Notre Dame yet has neither the cash nor the evaluations to get in. He additionally isn't certain that he has the ability or the physical stature to play for a significant intercollegiate program in any case, after his closest companion who constantly upheld his fantasy is slaughtered in a blast at the factory where they worked, Rudy chooses to pull out all the stops. He enlists at Holy Cross College, a close by junior school, and, following two years and three dismissals, he is at last admitted to Notre Dame during his last semester of move qualification. His commitment to his fantasy at last grounds him a spot on the training squad and, later, the dress program. He's guaranteed to play in one home game his senior year to show his family he made it at the same time, after his mentor is supplanted by another one, he faces difficulties. He needs to stop however wins in any case and, at the film's end, is carted away the field on his colleagues' shoulders. Rudy shows the exercise that anybody can do anything to which they set their psyches, in any event, when it appears to be incomprehensible.

Rudy

Rudy

Sports films have such huge numbers of significant exercises.

R/R

9. The Help

The Help is a 2011 American period dramatization film adjusted from Kathryn Stockett's 2009 novel of a similar name. It's set in 1963, Jackson, MS and recounts to the tale of Aibileen Clark, an African-American house cleaner who thinks about socialite Elizabeth Leefolt's dismissed girl, Mae Mobley. Aibileen faces racial shameful acts, which she later offers with a yearning creator, Skeeter, the girl of a white family who claims a cotton ranch outside Jackson. During the social liberties development of the 1960s, Skeeter chooses to compose a book specifying the African-American house cleaners' encounters working for white families—she'd thought about what ever befallen her servant, Constantine, who helped raise her, yet she needs to procure the trust of Aibileen and different house cleaners to get the genuine story. The film is about trust among ladies who originate from very surprising foundations yet are in any case ready to encourage a fellowship and help each other make change.

The Help

The Help

Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer are strict blessed messengers.

R/R

10. Rough

Each young lady should watch the clothes to newfound wealth story of the oppressed, kind nature fighter Rocky Balboa. A common laborers Italian-American obligation authority for a credit shark in the ghettos of Philadelphia, Rocky gets an amazing chance to battle heavyweight boxing best on the planet, Apollo Creed, for $150,000. He prepares for a little while utilizing whatever he can discover—even meat remains as punching packs—until he acknowledges an idea from previous bantamweight warrior Mickey "Forceful Mick" Goldmill. Paving the way to the battle, his certainty begins to diminish, however he turns into the dark horse for whom America wants to root, and his hounded refusal to be taken out acquires him the regard of the whole field. While he doesn't really win the battle, the sportscasters call his presentation "the best display of guts and stamina throughout the entire existence of the ring." And, therefore, Rocky demonstrates that triumphant isn't all that matters—the exertion checks when one gives it their everything.